The Problem of Poverty and Human Rights Violations - Essay Example

Comparing Sen and Farmer Take on the Poor 0 Introduction It is undeniable that many people in the world today are unable to obtain even the most basic of education due to poverty. This social phenomenon leads to a variety of complications such as being unable to obtain education, medicine and shelter. Many people in the world today suffer from malnutrition and even some die of hunger. Many of them die of infection and other sickness which were treatable in the first place. The world today is witness to the hardships that many of our kind undergo. The causes of poverty have been the subject of various studies but the problem. There are those people who are well aware of the situation and are finding means and methods to address the issue. Two such people are economist Amatya Sen and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer. Their experiences and observations regarding the state of the poor and deprived people today inspired the two authors to write and publish their works that they hope will enlighten the people of the world. Amatya Sen's composition is entitled 'Development as Freedom' while Farmer had 'Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor'. Both works reveal how deep the deterioration of society has reached. In the two compositions, we hear of true life stories that detail how many of our kind are suffering and how some had their life cut short unnecessarily. Sen calls for social development as a way to give the people the freedom to develop their selves and contribute to the development of society in general. He emphasizes the need to pursue enhanced literacy, accessible and affordable health care, the empowerment of women, and the free flow of information because these are the ingredients which will ultimately deliver us the kind of development we envision. In the course of his medical practice, Farmer came to know of the many tragedies afflicting other people. In his book, we come to know of the Haitian girl who gave herself to the whims of a soldier who she hoped would rescue her and her family from poverty. In the end, however, she only acquired AIDS from the soldier. Farmer relates how petty criminals die in Russian prison, how many people die of tuberculosis and how many people could have been saved if only social institutions were willing to give a little more. The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the two works. I will be determining the similarities and differences in their ideas and their treatments of the subject. 2.0 Similarities The most striking similarity between Sen and Farmer is their exposition of the ills of society particularly that of the deprivation of basic necessities. So many people in the world today suffer from ignorance, disease and death because they were not afforded the opportunity to develop themselves. Some of them were even intentionally left in that state due to certain beliefs that actually contain hidden motives. Both authors wanted people to know the affliction that is surreptitiously killing many of our kind. Both authors criticize the existing system of society today due to its complacency towards addressing the plight of millions of people of the world. Sen, for example, attacks the belief system that human rights violation is inherent in Asian culture. According to him, such a system was fabricated to justify authoritarians and totalitarian regimes that hide under the guise of leaders and reformers. In any case, this should not serve as an excuse to deprive the people of the freedom to live their life to the fullest. The main problem in the system that characterize the government and other sectors of society today is that they have become engrossed with "identifying development with the growth of gross national product, or with the rise in personal incomes, or with industrialization, or with technological advance, or with social modernization" when they should have given more importance to "social and economic arrangements (for example, facilities for education and health care) as well as political and civil rights (for example, the liberty to participate in public discussion and scrutiny)". (Sen 2000, p.3-4) Michael Turnage of the Harvard Human Rights Journal (2004) considers Farmer's work as a "tour of the pathologies that characterize our current hierarchy of power, and the hypocrisy and lies that serve to uphold and legitimize it, the reader is left with an overwhelming sense of the injustice that demands to be addressed. (p. 402). Indeed, Farmer criticized institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) who pretended to be concerned when they were unable to extend any help at all. Donor states prevented the WTO from providing funds that could have saved millions in Bolivia. Farmer did not confine the blame to institutions alone, he also included whole professions such as the medical and legal sectors. His work enlightens the reader that the problem of poverty, hunger and human rights violations are existent and graver than previously thought.(p. 36-50) Having enlightened the reader regarding the issue, Farmer and Sen proceed to discuss the necessary mechanism which they see as the proper method of addressing this urgent issue. For Sen, only through the adequate provision of education and economic opportunities can the people be assured of their freedom. Sen challenges the notion that freedom can result from development and insists that development can also result from freedom. The author was actually arguing against the notion that sacrifices should be made so that development can take place. These sacrifices come in the form of repression which maybe political, economic and social in nature. For example, many authoritarian regimes insist that the imprisonment and execution of political opponents are justified since they can no longer incite the people to side against the dominant party of the government. There is also the tendency to disregard the poor people in society as they are deemed to be unproductive. This mentality inhibits the flow of funds resulting to low quality health care, education and other social services which further drown the people into poverty. In short, they were deprived of the opportunity top become economically productive. Social repression includes using the belief systems to justify human rights violation and denying women their rights. Instead of resorting to this, those in power could initiate genuine efforts to develop their social services. This means more books, more support to livelihood, more intensive health campaigns and the like. In principle, providing these opportunities could ensure that the people could contribute to development. (Sen 2000, summary of ideas in Chapter 4-5) The rationale behind Sen's reasoning is that when people are ensured of some kind of social support system, they can now focus more on other endeavors that will make them more productive. For example, providing free basic education could inspire the poor to send their children to school instead of making them work. Education is known to be the passport to bigger opportunities. Providing a more democratic and representative government opens the possibility of genuine reforms and less opportunities for exploiting power. Farmer discusses how those in power fail to abide by their sworn duty to provide humanitarian aid. These people in power, it seems, waddle on their comfortable chairs while many people die from disease. Some medical practitioners even made use of other people as subjects of their AIDS study and did not do anything when their findings were positive. Farmer asserts that the international community has an inherently flawed view of aid especially concerning healthcare primarily due to their orientation towards Western market economy. And it is the duty of the West to correct this. 3.0 Differences Sen's approach to the poverty and other issues surrounding society is much more tempered and a reader could gain the impression that he is nave. Sen's insists on the possibility of equality in all levels of people all over the world and the need for an open, democratic, unfettered conversation among them. What he was proposing can be likened to the Utopian dream. For so long a time now, there have been efforts to achieve this but our world remains the same and his claim in Chapter 6 that adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their own destiny and help each other seem illusory and impossible to achieve. Sen was also concerned with illustrating and defining what he meant by his 'freedom' concept. Farmer's take on the subject is more passionate and more critical. He directly identifies institutions who have been too selfish and too concerned with the cost rather than being genuinely eager able to help. Farmer even comes to the point of criticizing the entire health care profession for prioritizing business first before abiding by their Hippocratic oath. The result was that people were losing their lives needlessly. All those talks about helping other people were superficial. While Sen busies himself with abstract concepts, Farmer resorts to a more practical approach. Sen seems to implore upon the goodness in everyone's heart hoping that everybody would just love each other. Farmer points out what is wrong and what should be changed in the structure himself. He does not rely on everyone having a change of heart; he relies on already existing structure to provide a more comprehensive and a more responsive helping hand. Farmer vehemently criticizes the competition-driven economy which Sen sees as a necessary feature of a developed world. In fact, Sen sees it as one of the reason why people should be afforded the freedom to develop themselves. According to Sen, global markets are necessary and are not necessarily damaging. It is this mechanism which will enable people to gain access to cheaper goods and will provide them with the opportunity to prosper. Of course, for this to work they must be educated and trained with the necessary skills and it is the duty of the government and other able private entities to ensure that this is provided. (Sen 2000, summary chapter 5) Farmer argues that industrialization and the competition-driven market economy that characterizes us today are the main culprits in making people hypocrites, selfish and blind to the sufferings of other people. Due to the desire to gain more money, political and economic forces that result to the further widening of the income gap are employed. The result is that the poor gets pooere while the rich gets richer. As a result, we see more cases of hunger, torture, rape, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other infectious and parasitic diseases. More taxes, for example, result to a further closing of opportunities for people to gain income and provide for their necessities. These forces, in effect, predetermine "who will suffer abuse and who will be shielded from harm." (p.116) Although Farmer can be sometimes passionate and all-inclusive, he is able to make the readers sympathize with him that we should be more concerned with helping others not enriching ourselves. One can not help but agree that each and every one of us has the right to health. References: Farmer, Paul (2003). Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press. Sen, Amatya (1999). Development as Freedom. New York, Anchor Books. Turnage, Michaele (2004). Pathologies of Power. President and Fellows of Harvard College. Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 17, Spring 2004 Read More