radiofree.asia

Category: poverty

  • The Great Divider: Covid-19 reflects global racism, not equality

    ANALYSIS: By Ramzy Baroud

    The notion that the covid-19 pandemic was “the great equalizer’ should be dead and buried by now. If anything, the lethal disease is another terrible reminder of the deep divisions and inequalities in our societies.

    That said, the treatment of the disease should not be a repeat of the same shameful scenario.

    For an entire year, wealthy celebrities and government officials have been reminding us that “we are in this together”, that “we are on the same boat”, with the likes of US singer, Madonna, speaking from her mansion while submerged in a “milky bath sprinkled with rose petals,” telling us that the pandemic has proved to be the “great equalizer”.

    “Like I used to say at the end of ‘Human Nature’ every night, we are all in the same boat,” she said. “And if the ship goes down, we’re all going down together,” CNN reported at the time.

    Such statements, like that of Madonna, and Ellen DeGeneres as well, have generated much media attention not just because they are both famous people with a massive social media following but also because of the obvious hypocrisy in their empty rhetoric.

    In truth, however, they were only repeating the standard procedure followed by governments, celebrities and wealthy “influencers” worldwide.

    But are we, really, “all in this together”? With unemployment rates skyrocketing across the globe, hundreds of millions scraping by to feed their children, multitudes of nameless and hapless families chugging along without access to proper healthcare, subsisting on hope and a prayer so that they may survive the scourges of poverty – let alone the pandemic – one cannot, with a clear conscience, make such outrageous claims.

    Not only are we not “on the same boat” but, certainly, we have never been. According to World Bank data, nearly half of the world lives on less than US$5.5 a day. This dismal statistic is part of a remarkable trajectory of inequality that has afflicted humanity for a long time.

    The plight of many of the world’s poor is compounded in the case of war refugees, the double victims of state terrorism and violence and the unwillingness of those with the resources to step forward and pay back some of their largely undeserved wealth.

    The boat metaphor is particularly interesting in the case of refugees; millions of them have desperately tried to escape the infernos of war and poverty in rickety boats and dinghies, hoping to get across from their stricken regions to safer places.

    Sadly familiar sight
    This sight has sadly grown familiar in recent years not only throughout the Mediterranean Sea but also in other bodies of water around the world, especially in Burma, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have tried to escape their ongoing genocide. Thousands of them have drowned in the Bay of Bengal.

    The covid-19 pandemic has accentuated and, in fact, accelerated the sharp inequalities that exist in every society individually, and the world at large. According to a June 2020 study conducted in the United States by the Brookings Institute, the number of deaths as a result of the disease reflects a clear racial logic.

    Many indicators included in the study leave no doubt that racism is a central factor in the life cycle of covid.

    For example, among those aged between 45 and 54 years, “Black and Hispanic/Latino death rates are at least six times higher than for whites”. Although whites make up 62 percent of the US population of that specific age group, only 22 percent of the total deaths were white.

    Black and Latino communities were the most devastated.

    According to this and other studies, the main assumption behind the discrepancy of infection and death rates resulting from covid among various racial groups in the US is poverty which is, itself, an expression of racial inequality. The poor have no, or limited, access to proper healthcare. For the rich, this factor is of little relevance.

    Moreover, poor communities tend to work in low-paying jobs in the service sector, where social distancing is nearly impossible. With little government support to help them survive the lockdowns, they do everything within their power to provide for their children, only to be infected by the virus or, worse, die.

    Iniquity expected to continue
    This iniquity is expected to continue even in the way that the vaccines are made available. While several Western nations have either launched or scheduled their vaccination campaigns, the poorest nations on earth are expected to wait for a long time before life-saving vaccines are made available.

    In 67 poor or developing countries located mostly in Africa and the Southern hemisphere, only one out of ten individuals will likely receive the vaccine by the end of 2020, the Fortune Magazine website reported.

    The disturbing report cited a study conducted by a humanitarian and rights coalition, the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), which includes Oxfam and Amnesty International.

    If there is such a thing as a strategy at this point, it is the deplorable “hoarding” of the vaccine by rich nations.

    Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni of the PVA put this realisation into perspective when she said that “rich countries have enough doses to vaccinate everyone nearly three times over, while poor countries don’t even have enough to reach health workers and people at risk”.

    So much for the numerous conferences touting the need for a “global response” to the disease.

    But it does not have to be this way.

    While it is likely that class, race and gender inequalities will continue to ravage human societies after the pandemic, as they did before, it is also possible for governments to use this collective tragedy as an opportunity to bridge the inequality gap, even if just a little, as a starting point to imagine a more equitable future for all of us.

    Poor, dark-skinned people should not be made to die when their lives can be saved by a simple vaccine, which is available in abundance.

    Dr Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). This article is republished with permission. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Connection Between Poverty and Mental Illness

    Image Source: Pixabay

    “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

    This is a saying our country is familiar with. It’s a mentality that built American society the way it is today. Unfortunately, it’s not the only problematic sentiment our society is familiar with either.

    Our society is full of platitudes, bromides all too often used to gloss over and even to excuse the profound economic injustices that continue to plague our modern world. The stark reality is that many people commend America as the land of promise and plenty, yet millions of people are struggling with extreme poverty. Now not only are the impoverished paying the price with their physical health but with their mental health as well.

    But what, exactly, is the connection between poverty and mental illness? And what can be done to break this devastating cycle?

    The First Pandemic

    Long before the outbreak of COVID-19 shattered the national and global economy, the US was plagued by another, more enduring, and more pervasive pandemic: the pandemic of poverty. According to a 2017 article published by the National Institutes of Health, an estimated 1.5 million families in America, including 16 million children, were living in deep or extreme poverty, which is typically defined as living on $2 or less per day.

    But poverty is far more than just a social or economic problem, and its health effects extend far beyond the physical health impacts related to malnutrition or lack of adequate healthcare. The greatest health risks associated with poverty may not be physical at all.

    Research increasingly suggests that, regardless of the physical toll associated with poverty, the mental toll is even greater. Worse, perhaps, is that these impacts may outlast any change in an individual’s or a family’s socioeconomic status.

    Children who grow up in poor homes are at greater risk for adult-onset mental illness, for example, as well as for disruptive behavioral disorders (DHD) during childhood. These disorders, combined with persistent financial struggles, put these children at an increased risk of dropping out of school prematurely. By dropping out and discontinuing the opportunity for a furthered education, the cycle of poverty and mental illness only continues. As this cycle continues to spin, many people below the poverty line end up suffering from mental health issues due to the trauma they’ve experienced.

    Poverty, Mental Illness, and Addiction

    Studies increasingly show that poverty is linked both to behavioral disorders in children and to anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) in adults and children alike. According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, more than 2.5 million adults living below the poverty line in the US have also suffered from some form of serious mental illness (SMI), including psychiatric, emotional, and/or behavioral disorders.

    Studies indicate that the most prevalent of these disorders are substance use disorders (SUD). Those contending with the extreme and persistent financial stress may turn to substances to cope, leading to SUD in those who may be predisposed to addiction. This can be especially problematic for those that also suffer from homelessness.

    Poverty as Mental Illness

    The connection between mental illness and poverty is, perhaps, most apparent in the crisis of homelessness. Studies suggest that a significant proportion of the unhoused also suffer from undiagnosed or insufficiently treated mental illness.

    The question remains, however, of whether homelessness is a symptom of mental illness or a cause. Indeed, for far too many years, homelessness, and poverty in general, has been pathologized. By viewing extreme poverty as a form or a manifestation of illness, we get to lay the “blame” on the supposed illness, and subsequently point the finger at those in whom the “illness” lies, as the source of the suffering.

    In doing so, we individualize poverty and mental illness, rather than looking deeper. This pathologizing of poverty makes it easier to deflect from its true causes. To refuse to acknowledge the problem as a social one but as an individual one instead makes it easier to sustain the economic and social inequities that sustain the dividing lines between the haves and the have nots.

    Although there is still far more work to be done to get at root causes, significant social support services do exist to help those facing food and housing insecurity establish a firmer financial footing. That includes not only financial aid but also vocational, employment, and education resources. In addition, mental health assistance has become more available to those under the poverty line.

    Practicing Self-Care

    As profound as the connection between mental illness and poverty may be, help is out there. If you are suffering from addiction, for example, you can access quality telehealth services, many of which are now covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

    Likewise, if you are experiencing depression or anxiety, you can also access on-demand counseling and other free and low-cost mental health services over the phone and online. In addition to seeking quality healthcare, simply understanding your emotional triggers and creating a plan to manage them can help to prevent a mental health spiral, no matter what your financial situation may be.

    The Takeaway

    The connection between poverty and mental illness is a significant one. All too often, the two link in a vicious cycle that seems almost impossible to escape. The pandemic of poverty is both pervasive and systemic, but that does not mean that the poor are doomed to suffer both financially and psychologically. From housing and education support to mental healthcare and addiction counseling, help is available to help you break the chain.

    Beau Peters is a freelance writer based out of Portland, OR. He has a particular interest in covering workers’ rights, social justice, and workplace issues and solutions. Read other articles by Beau.

    This article was posted on Saturday, December 19th, 2020 at 3:20pm and is filed under Housing/Homelessness, Mental Health, Poverty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Great Divider: Covid-19 Reflects Global Racism, Not Equality

    The notion that the COVID-19 pandemic was ‘the great equalizer’ should be dead and buried by now. If anything, the lethal disease is another terrible reminder of the deep divisions and inequalities in our societies. That said, the treatment of the disease should not be a repeat of the same shameful scenario.

    For an entire year, wealthy celebrities and government officials have been reminding us that “we are in this together”, that “we are on the same boat”, with the likes of US singer, Madonna, speaking from her mansion while submerged in a “milky bath sprinkled with rose petals,” telling us that the pandemic has proved to be the “great equalizer”.

    “Like I used to say at the end of ‘Human Nature’ every night, we are all in the same boat,” she said. “And if the ship goes down, we’re all going down together,” CNN reported at the time.

    Such statements, like that of Madonna, and Ellen DeGeneres as well, have generated much media attention not just because they are both famous people with a massive social media following but also because of the obvious hypocrisy in their empty rhetoric. In truth, however, they were only repeating the standard procedure followed by governments, celebrities and wealthy ‘influencers’ worldwide.

    But are we, really, “all in this together”? With unemployment rates skyrocketing across the globe, hundreds of millions scraping by to feed their children, multitudes of nameless and hapless families chugging along without access to proper healthcare, subsisting on hope and a prayer so that they may survive the scourges of poverty – let alone the pandemic – one cannot, with a clear conscience, make such outrageous claims.

    Not only are we not “on the same boat” but, certainly, we have never been. According to World Bank data, nearly half of the world lives on less than $5.5 a day. This dismal statistic is part of a remarkable trajectory of inequality that has afflicted humanity for a long time.

    The plight of many of the world’s poor is compounded in the case of war refugees, the double victims of state terrorism and violence and the unwillingness of those with the resources to step forward and pay back some of their largely undeserved wealth.

    The boat metaphor is particularly interesting in the case of refugees; millions of them have desperately tried to escape the infernos of war and poverty in rickety boats and dinghies, hoping to get across from their stricken regions to safer places. This sight has sadly grown familiar in recent years not only throughout the Mediterranean Sea but also in other bodies of water around the world, especially in Burma, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have tried to escape their ongoing genocide. Thousands of them have drowned in the Bay of Bengal.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated and, in fact, accelerated the sharp inequalities that exist in every society individually, and the world at large. According to a June 2020 study conducted in the United States by the Brookings Institute, the number of deaths as a result of the disease reflects a clear racial logic. Many indicators included in the study leave no doubt that racism is a central factor in the life cycle of COVID.

    For example, among those aged between 45 and 54 years, “Black and Hispanic/Latino death rates are at least six times higher than for whites”. Although whites make up 62 percent of the US population of that specific age group, only 22 percent of the total deaths were white. Black and Latino communities were the most devastated.

    According to this and other studies, the main assumption behind the discrepancy of infection and death rates resulting from COVID among various racial groups in the US is poverty which is, itself, an expression of racial inequality. The poor have no, or limited, access to proper healthcare. For the rich, this factor is of little relevance.

    Moreover, poor communities tend to work in low-paying jobs in the service sector, where social distancing is nearly impossible. With little government support to help them survive the lockdowns, they do everything within their power to provide for their children, only to be infected by the virus or, worse, die.

    This iniquity is expected to continue even in the way that the vaccines are made available. While several Western nations have either launched or scheduled their vaccination campaigns, the poorest nations on earth are expected to wait for a long time before life-saving vaccines are made available.

    In 67 poor or developing countries located mostly in Africa and the Southern hemisphere, only one out of ten individuals will likely receive the vaccine by the end of 2020, the Fortune Magazine website reported.

    The disturbing report cited a study conducted by a humanitarian and rights coalition, the People’s Vaccine Alliance (PVA), which includes Oxfam and Amnesty International.

    If there is such a thing as a strategy at this point, it is the deplorable “hoarding” of the vaccine by rich nations. Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni of the PVA put this realization into perspective when she said that “rich countries have enough doses to vaccinate everyone nearly three times over, whilst poor countries don’t even have enough to reach health workers and people at risk”. So much for the numerous conferences touting the need for a ‘global response’ to the disease.

    But it does not have to be this way.

    While it is likely that class, race and gender inequalities will continue to ravage human societies after the pandemic, as they did before, it is also possible for governments to use this collective tragedy as an opportunity to bridge the inequality gap, even if just a little, as a starting point to imagine a more equitable future for all of us.

    Poor, dark-skinned people should not be made to die when their lives can be saved by a simple vaccine, which is available in abundance.

    This article was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2020 at 9:08pm and is filed under Africa, Classism, COVID-19, Crimes against Humanity, Discrimination, Economic Inequality, Global Inequality, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Pandemics, Poverty, Propaganda, Racial Justice, United States, Vaccines.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “I spoke to impoverished families in 1975 and little has changed since then”

    A British family from the film Smashing Kids, 1975. Photograph: John Garrett

    John Pilger interviewed Irene Brunsden in Hackney, east London about only being able to feed her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes in 1975. Now he sees nervous women queueing at foodbanks with their children as it’s revealed 600,000 more kids are in poverty now than in 2012.

    *****

    When I first reported on child poverty in Britain, I was struck by the faces of children I spoke to, especially the eyes. They were different: watchful, fearful.

    In Hackney, in 1975, I filmed Irene Brunsden’s family. Irene told me she gave her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes. “She doesn’t tell me she’s hungry, she just moans. When she moans, I know something is wrong.”

    “How much money do you have in the house? I asked.

    “Five pence,” she replied.

    Irene said she might have to take up prostitution, “for the baby’s sake”. Her husband Jim, a truck driver who was unable to work because of illness, was next to her. It was as if they shared a private grief.

    This is what poverty does. In my experience, its damage is like the damage of war; it can last a lifetime, spread to loved ones and contaminate the next generation. It stunts children, brings on a host of diseases and, as unemployed Harry Hopwood in Liverpool told me, “it’s like being in prison”.

    This prison has invisible walls. When I asked Harry’s young daughter if she ever thought that one day she would live a life like better-off children, she said unhesitatingly: “No”.

    What has changed 45 years later?  At least one member of an impoverished family is likely to have a job — a job that denies them a living wage. Incredibly, although poverty is more disguised, countless British children still go to bed hungry and are ruthlessly denied opportunities..

    What has not changed is that poverty is the result of a disease that is still virulent yet rarely spoken about – class.

    Study after study shows that the people who suffer and die early from the diseases of poverty brought on by a poor diet, sub-standard housing and the priorities of the political elite and its hostile “welfare” officials — are working people. In 2020, one in three preschool British children suffers like this.

    In making my recent film, The Dirty War on the NHS, it was clear to me that the savage cutbacks to the NHS and its privatisation by the Blair, Cameron, May and Johnson governments had devastated the vulnerable, including many NHS workers and their families. I interviewed one low-paid NHS worker who could not afford her rent and was forced to sleep in churches or on the streets.

    At a food bank in central London, I watched young mothers looking nervously around as they hurried away with old Tesco bags of food and washing powder and tampons they could no longer afford, their young children holding on to them. It is no exaggeration that at times I felt I was walking in the footprints of Dickens.

    Boris Johnson has claimed that 400,000 fewer children are living in poverty since 2010 when the Conservatives came to power. This is a lie, as the Children’s Commissioner has confirmed. In fact, more than 600,000 children have fallen into poverty since 2012; the total is expected to exceed 5 million. This, few dare say, is a class war on children.

    Old Etonian Johnson is maybe a caricature of the born-to-rule class; but his “elite” is not the only one. All the parties in Parliament, notably if not especially Labour – like much of the bureaucracy and most of the media — have scant if any connection to the “streets”: to the world of the poor: of the “gig economy”: of battling a system of Universal Credit that can leave you without a penny and in despair.

    Last week, the prime minister and his “elite” showed where their priorities lay. In the face of the greatest health crisis in living memory when Britain has the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe and poverty is accelerating as the result of a punitive “austerity” policy, he announced £16.5 billion for “defence”. This makes Britain, whose military bases cover the world as if the empire still existed, the highest military spender in Europe.

    And the enemy? The real one is poverty and those who impose it and perpetuate it.

    • This is an abridged version of an article published by the Daily Mirror, London.
    • John Pilger’s 1975 film, Smashing Kids, can be viewed at Smashing Kids

    This article was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2020 at 11:06am and is filed under Boris Johnson, COVID-19, Housing/Homelessness, Hunger, Poverty, United Kingdom.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • “An indispensable element of my mission”: UN poverty envoy hears stories of poverty and discrimination in East London

    by Kate Garner Continuing his investigation into the impact of austerity in the UK, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on poverty and human rights, heard moving testimonies from local people and organisations in Newham as they described their experiences of poverty and discrimination in the capital. Over the past week, Alston has visited different […]

    This post was originally published on Human Rights Consortium.

  • Across the Desert and the Sea

    African migrants fleeing persecution or seeking opportunity often end up in Libya, where they are tortured and trafficked. Many try to escape to Europe, only to be intercepted at sea and returned to Libya. On this episode of Reveal, we bring you one reporter’s dispatch from a treacherous migrant rescue operation and explore how Europe’s immigration policy is helping Libyan warlords.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Reveal Presents: The View from Room 205

    In 2014, WBEZ Chicago reporter Linda Lutton followed a class of fourth-graders at William Penn Elementary School on Chicago’s West Side. She wanted to explore a big idea that’s at the heart of the American dream: Can public schools be the great equalizer in society, giving everyone a chance to succeed, no matter where they come from or how much money their families have?

    Lutton told the story in a Peabody Award-nominated show, “The View from Room 205.” This week, Reveal presents a condensed version of that documentary.

    Don’t miss the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.