How Lucky are we?

[Alex_UK]

Channel 4, now - "Kevin McCloud: Slumming It" - the slums of Dharavi - if any of us have anything to complain about, then watch this... If you still feel you have anything to complain about... :rolleyes:

Of course, you could live in Haiti...

Thank your lucky stars (or your God, if you have one) that all we have to worry about is a few inches of snow...

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Whilst in Kenya this time last year bumbling along on the way to the masi mara in a rickety nissan people carrier a young girl (part of a the other family who were sharing our tour) noticed a masi tribes person walking accross the plains by him self. She later commented at dinner about how sorry she felt for him stuck out there in the middle of nowhere... She said she couldn't imagine a life like that - without all her home comforts etc
I had to bite my toungue... But my thoughts towards this sort of thing are that despite the lack of what they have in the 3rd world, it is a different life they lead, not better or worse!
Now I admit, that there a problems to be faced such as famin - specificaly driven by the long term drout in that part of the world. But I do strongly feel that these people don't need our western pity! The people who live in the worst slums of the world (nirobe has a huge - in the millions - population who do) may have it more difficult on a day to day basis, but I'm sure there outlook on life is very different to ours! I would imagine they have an apreciation for life and a love for the people they share it with way beond what we have! We as part of the first world are spoiled, people of the 3rd world are the oposite.. But I bet you on average, if you could measure average happiness of them in relation to us, it would be no different...
Maybe I'm wrong, but one thing I do know is, to pity them, for me is wrong!

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Ps. We watched the program on more 4 about chaos theory..

[Alex_UK]

Well Hamish, there is defo that angle to it, but the fact remains that they may be happy, happier possibly than some of us, but that is of no consolation if they die of disease due to lack of sanitation - I agree that money doesn't buy happiness, but there is something terribly wrong in our world when even in the outskirts of a relatively civilised city like Mumbai, over one-third of people have no access to clean drinking water.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

There is also something teribly wrong with a world where people don't have the choice to end thier lives instead to living out a life of incredible pain and humiliation even when they and there family are in complete agreement! (my dad my incontinent and completely incoherent through alzhimers before he died... He was an incredibly dignified and moral person before he got the decise- no that I talked to my dad or family about eutheasia... But I can garuntee he wouldn't have wanted I to end like that...)
It's all relative...

[The Vinyl Adventure]

... Sorry to take this tonsuch a personal level... But I'm sure so see what I'm trying to say... There is as much bad as there is good in both situations, it's just our perspective that makes it seem so bad... I'm almost cetain of it!

Just as an example - imagine a person who has lived a perfect life, never experienced any level of pain, no deaths in the family etc... Then thir mom dies of natural causes ... This could just as easily make that person depressed as someone who has had everything go wrong from day one being knocked over the edge by loosinh out ona job as a shopping trolley collector, as anything happening to anyone anytime... ... I'm not sure my examples are the right way round... But im not sure it matters...
....someone who has everything might not be made happy by anything, but someone who has nothing might be made happy by finding a pretty stone on the beach Everything in life is about perspective...

Well that's my perspective at least!

[Themis]

Yes, poor people over there... what a catastrophe... :(

[Covenant]

Of course you can always consider a persons situation relative to another but there is a pretty clear picture in most peoples mind about what is a basic standard below which no one should be allowed to slip. Clean water, a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs every day.
What about beyond this though-education, health care, sanitation etc? You can cross the line into interference very quickly.
I remember watching a programme last year about child labour in India. It made me terribly sad and then angry about the wasted lives of so many children. Then I pondered a bit more. To correct this you need to correct an entire way of life. The exploited child is providing for a family so to take away the income would cause hardship elsewhere.
There is no simple answer.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

What makes me most sad is the plight of sone of the homeless people in this country. These people have little community support and in a lot of cases are completely buggered as far as trying to get back on their feet.
I met a chap outside my shop whilst I was having a cigarete, he asked me for a light to light a butt end I asume he had found, I gave him a fag and we got chatting. Turns out he was in my brothers year at school. Over the following weeks and months I got to know him a little bit, he never really told me why he was homeless but from what I could work out it centere around an ireprable relationship with his mother.
He told me once that he had a hgv licence and that had been his line of work prior to whatever event had ended him on the street.
The problem was, despite a lot of temp work available for hgv drivers he was unable to apply for them as he was of no fixed abode. Now without the money he would have earned he couldn't get a fixed abode. He had no way out! This is aparently a fairly common story. The worst of it was, despite the odd day of aparent happiness, when he got his staffy for eg. His mental state was obviously going down hill, he was more frequently angry, and on occation I could get little more than a hello out of him. Eventually he disapeared for about 3 months, then when I saw him again he seemed very different... He told me he had been inside for having a scrap with a police oficer, the worst of it was he told me it was his intent to get back inside as at least in there he had more of a future and was at least warm dry and had food... I haven't seen him since!
How can it be possible that being in prison can give you more oportunity than freedom? To think this chap had to commit a crime to give him self a future... That, really really makes me sick.

[Alex_UK]

Jerry - absolutely right - I thought that watching the program last night - "Fair Trade" is all very admirable, but in stopping buying things that come from sweat shops you take away an income - no matter how meagre - from a family barely surviving... We don't have the answers, but that doesn't mean we should stop looking...

[Alex_UK]

Hamish - that is a pretty dire state for the poor chap - says just as much about our prison systems though... Don't get me started on that one!