POVERTY

Poverty

Poverty visited my office at the university the other day. And I am not talking about one particular incident, but once in a while it becomes the all pervasive presence. It is this presence I am going to talk about. Allow yourself to perceive this presence when it comes. But it is devastating. We are talking about academic studies, about research, the need for a new consciousness among the students, but also about the larger picture, about the need for justice in the world. In the meantime I am made aware of how things are without it being said in so many words. Poverty; it is there; it is to many students the all pervasive reality and yet on the surface students look normal, are properly dressed etc.

The same day I am being reminded of a visit to the university in Roma, Lesotho, about twenty years ago. I asked the professor whom I was visiting if we could have a meal, but he was evasive. Only on the way back to Maseru did he tell me two things. After a student boycott the student canteen was closed down and never reopened. Secondly he told me that many students had no means anyway to buy a meal. We hastily bought something at a take-away near Maseru. Now I am struck by the fact that many of our students also do not eat during the day on campus. They simply cannot afford it.

Being in your office with your student and finding that poverty is making its presence felt in a total sense is humbling in the true sense of the word. The value attached to wealth, accumulated wealth, material goods, the independence that affluence brings, etc., all these things actually melt away. They in a way evaporate into insignificance as if to say, “only when there is true sharing, will there be a way of enjoying the welfare and benefits that you now have”. What is many times most significant in your life in a moment falls into insignificance. What you just have enjoyed is no more a joy, but a spit in the face of the one who carries poverty as a defining dress, and a spit in the face of God, one would like to add.

But this is not all. Sharing as such does not solve the whole problem of poverty. A social democrat blanket solution of making sharing compulsory does not go the whole way. However, a country like South Africa would need just that, revenues should be taken from the rich so that some kind of equity could be developed and consistent government policies could gradually eradicate the kind of poverty that we now allow to carry on. But this is only the beginning, even though a necessary beginning. Sharing does not make the trick alone and students are deeply aware of this fact. The aim of the state must be a fair share for all, but those who now are victims of poverty must also do their job. They must organise themselves, not least politically; they must rise up in their own right and make sure that they become empowered. They will have to rise and shake off their victimhood, and they will have to raise their consciousness to a level that creates dignity and self-worth to the extent that it will benefit the whole nation and the whole world.