HispanicVista Columnists

When I look at the world. Part I

By Erika Robles
 

When I look at the world, I see a divided place. A place where the powerful rule and become greedier and where the powerless become poorer and more frustrated. Several sets of events have taken place in recent months; events which have changed the world and its inhabitants. Selfishness and indifference has become more common than ever before.

It's sad to realize that humanity –with a few exceptions- has chosen to ignore the sufferings of millions of people. Since 9/11, the U.S. has launched a war on terrorism. The U.S. will spend this year $500 billion on the military but only $16 billion (one-thirtieth) to address the plight of the poorest of the poor. The World Bank estimates that 1.1 billion of people live in extreme poverty. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as "getting by on an income of less than $1 a day." Although the situation is worse in Africa, where almost half the continent's population lives in extreme poverty, a great percentage of Central and South America's population also lives in extreme poverty.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, wrote a book called "The end of poverty". In his book, he states "the failure of the Third World to grow as rapidly as the First World is the result of a complex mix of factors, some geographical, some historical and some political. Imperial rule often left the conquered regions bereft of education, health care, indigenous political leadership and adequate physical infrastructure."

Broad improvements in human welfare will not occur unless poor people receive wider access to affordable, better quality services in health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity. While 8 million people die each year because they are too poor to survive, the First World countries keep making decisions that make their situation worse. Take for instance the Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA). This agreement was created in 1974 to set export quotas on textile-manufacturing nations. This legislation limited the number of garments a country could export, preventing a growing number of cheap imports from developing countries, especially China. This agreement provided a large number of developing nations with access to new manufacturing sectors and enabled them to generate large numbers of new jobs without worrying about being displaced by nations which produce cheaper imports. For instance, once a nation hit their quota, the buyer had to go somewhere else to get more, giving every developing nation a fair opportunity to build up their garment industries.

However, on January 1, 2005 the World Trade Organization terminated the Multi-Fiber Agreement's quota system. "With quotas gone, the companies would be able to find the country with the lowest wages to produce there," says Kimi Lee, director of the Los Angeles based Garment Workers Center. She also predicts that around 80,000 jobs from the U.S. textile industry will be lost. The quota system forced large companies to purchase textiles and ready-made garments from a long list of countries. Now, nations such as Bangladesh, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, that rely heavily on clothing and textiles exports is expected to lose nearly a million jobs as a result of the agreement's termination. On the other hand, experts predict that China –with the world's largest work force and with one of lowest wages- will control nearly half of the market within the next ten years, while millions of current workers, some in the most impoverished areas of the world will be permanently thrown out of work.

Sheila McClear, who writes for Labor Notes Magazine, states that "The U.S. International Trade Commission predicts that South Africa, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia will all lose our post-MFA. The International Monetary Fund adds Mexico and Thailand to that list."

The ones who always end up losing are the ones who need it the most.. We don't even need to analyze other countries as we just need to take a look at what's happening right here in the U.S., where real wages have stagnated, the middle class has been shrinking, health care coverage has become a luxury, education has deteriorated, and poverty has increased while the rich are getting richer and more powerful.

Is this the world we want to live in? Where everybody thinks only about oneself? Where millions of people die every year of starvation or poor sanitarian conditions? Are we willing to accept this as part of our everyday life? Or are we going to do something about it, once and for all? The first step is to stop thinking selfishly. Not only should we not forget about those in great need, but also we should start caring more about each other and taking action to let those people in power that we do not agree with the actions so far taken that make their situation worse.
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Erika Robles, a contributing columnist to HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com),  is a writer and translator now living in Eugene, Oregon. She was educated in Mexico City; London, England; and Melbourne, Australia. Contact at: erobleswords@yahoo.com Web page: http://www.geocities.com/oakspublishing