Participants in the World Bank’s civil society forum last Friday had the great opportunity to hear Nobel Laureate and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel speak on this subject, as part of the Bank’s broader series of seminars on the global food crisis.
Hunger defies imagination and memory, is utterly devoid of meaning. All human dramas are tied together, Wiesel reminds us, and holocaust survivers share a common bond with the hundreds of millions of hungry people of our day and can bear witness to its horrors.
There were already 850 million (or 900 million – numbers of this magnitude are beyond comprehension in any event) hungry people in the world when times were “good.” And there can be no doubt now that economic hard times are in store, in this country and around the world. An economic slowdown in rich countries almost always means fewer orders for products produced in poor countries, be they garments or off-season fruits and vegetables. Reduced demand for clothing means reduced demand for cotton produced by African farmers. Economic slowdown also means reduced worker remittances that can make all the difference between opportunity and destitution for struggling families. And, last but not least, economic slowdown almost invariably results in reduced levels of aid. What it all means is reduced incomes and, consequently, increased hunger for the world’s poor who already spend over half of their disposable income on food.
The battle against hunger is a global emergency requiring extraordinary measures. If we can rescue Wall Street institutions and investment bankers, we should be able to save human lives.
Hunger, Wiesel reminds us, is the only form of suffering or misfortune linked in the Bible, both linguistically (in Hebrew) and thematically, to shame. The reason is that practically alone among earth’s evils, it’s within human power to eliminate hunger. The choice is ours.
