The poor

There are some who say, “Only the poor themselves can solve the problem of poverty.” This is most likely true. Still others say, “The poor themselves are to blame for their poverty.” This also is most likely true. The two assertions only seem to contradict. They are a paradox. That is true. But not irresolvable. It is all a question of perspective.

The contradiction exists only when the question is seen from the outside instead of from the viewpoint of the poor themselves. But then who ever really looks at poverty from that viewpoint? Not people in power. To be clear: “people in power” does not refer here to political leaders. It refers to us, the people who read this.

We say that if we have a problem of leadership in our country it is because poor people sell their votes and this is how bad political leaders get elected. Poor people are therefore to blame for why we have corrupt political officials. This view is a fallacy. Even if poor people sought to elect good leaders, what choices do they really have? The divide between the poor and the people in power who lead them is a historical divide dating back to the beginning here of colonialism itself. The divide was exacerbated by the feudal society which resulted in due course. Urbanization has served to worsen the problem. It did this by making the consequences of poverty worse than ever.

Colonial feudalism exists to this day. It affects everything from economics to politics and the economy. It affects especially the value system of people in power, meaning: our value system. It affects especially the way the phenomenon of poverty is defined by way of narrative and discourse.

The phenomenon of poverty is described for us in text by media, academics, technocrats, politicians, religious leaders and generally by people who are not poor. Which is why there is more hatred now for “squatters” than ever before. Notwithstanding there are laws against ejecting people without relocation there are people who still look at this purely as a problem of land ownership. Since they do not own a title for their land then it goes to follow they should be ejected. Relocation is supposed to be a privilege stemming from an owner’s largesse. It is not a right. This would seem immediately correct unless one looks from farther away and asks: So if the poor become ever poorer, have nowhere to live, starve, what happens then?

There is never any direct consequence for another person’s poverty. This fact has always defined the story of the poor. This, and the other fact which is that it is not a story written by the poor themselves. Otherwise, one should at least be curious how the story reads. One would be curious how the poor themselves would, if they could, describe their own poverty. When that little waif knocks at the window of our car begging for crumbs, we think we know immediately her story. But the truth is we do not. We only fool ourselves that way. To get at her story, we would have to stop, come down and follow her to where she lives, there to talk to her.

Only “respectable” narratives ever see the light of day in our country. The only instances where poor people’s narratives are heard is when we ask them to describe their own squalid conditions. This is always news. More recently, we read of those unwanted babies they left at a bus stop or elsewhere or buried alive in the madness of their “evil” poverty. But these are old stories. They are narratives which invite from us only concern and pity. Not surprising since these are stories written by people like us. People who know exactly what we expect and sometimes like to hear. They are always stories that “sell.”

Nobody it seems ever asks poor people what they themselves can do to escape their condition. Or if this question is ever asked, it is often framed so that it gets the same old answers: more education, more help, more assistance, more pay or if not that then at least some form of work. And then these answers often get their expected responses: The poor are lazy or if not that it is their ignorance which dooms them. They ask for too much even if they have little capacity for return. And all these lead back always to the true image of poor people’s conditions. They are dirty. They are sick. And worst of all, they steal! They are poor because of all these. The logic is circular. They are all these because they are poor.

But the truth is: Poverty is only a mystery for us, people in power. It is a mystery we can never fully understand unless we were ourselves poor, lived in slum houses we did not own, our children dying from the simplest and most treatable diseases. The poor do have a narrative. They do tell their stories. But only to each other. They never ever come out in the expected ways. To get at them we would have to search for where their stories play out. And it would require not just a bit of courage.