Poverty amidst plenty

May 24, 2024

By Anil Netto
A recent Unicef survey in Kuala Lumpur showed that 95 per cent of children polled were living in relative poverty, with 40 per cent living in households below the poverty line.

Eight out of 10 households were struggling with insufficient incomes to cover basic expenses. Many children in such households, “already facing health challenges, are also eating less, with one of two eating less than three meals a day”.

Yet, we see so many ultra-luxury cars on the roads in Malaysian cities. Poverty amid plenty. What gives?

We live in a world where hidden forces lurk behind the scenes, pursuing vested interests to expand their wealth, power and influence.

You don't have to be a “conspiracy theorist” who believes that the Illuminati or the Rockefellers rule the world to know that there are powerful global forces at work.

These forces are creating a world where wealth and power are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Just look at the annual reports produced by the Christian aid group Oxfam to see how the billionaire class around the world have accumulated more and more wealth in their hands. “Since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer,” Oxfam researchers noted.

In his book Who Rules the World?, Noam Chomsky talks about the masters of the universe, or as Adam Smith referred to them, “the masters of mankind”.

These masters, Chomsky says, refer to “the leading state capitalist powers (the G7 countries) along with the institutions they control in the ‘new imperial age’, such as the International Monetary Fund and the global trade organisations”.

The identities of these masters of the universe evolve over time. In the past, they were the successive territorial empires, such as the Roman Empire of Jesus' time, the aristocrats and the high priestly class in Jerusalem.

Later, it was the merchants and manufacturers, and more recently, the multinational companies and the superpowers.

For instance, when the billionaires gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos, do you think they are genuinely concerned about wiping out global poverty or slashing carbon emissions?

Or are they more interested in hobnobbing with other billionaires and national leaders to pursue big corporate interests?

When political parties capture national power, they may lose touch with the aspirations of the masses and gravitate towards big business interests.

Take the US, for instance. Researchers (Gilens and Page, Cambridge University Press, 2014) have produced compelling evidence that “economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence”.

This is repeated in many other nations that are nominally democratic but in reality, have succumbed to vested interests.

Democracy suffers in the process. No wonder, many people in countries like the UK and the US feel that mainstream political parties no longer represent their interests.

The uprising of university students in the US and Europe against the genocide in Gaza should be seen against this backdrop. The university students want nothing to do with the US government’s complicity in the genocide. Many Jews have joined in the protests as well. Not in their name. In the 1960s, the students had protested against the US war in Vietnam.

In the 1990s, many protested against unfair world trade policies and agreements. They also organised and protested against apartheid in South Africa. Later in 2003, we saw massive protests against the illegal invasion of Iraq.

These student protests have always been on the right side of history.

Today, many ordinary people around the world are disenchanted with mainstream political parties. They sense that these parties are not representing their interests.

Many in Malaysia may feel the same way, as the turnouts in recent by-elections have fallen. For instance, only 53 per cent of those aged 18- 24 reportedly turned out to vote in the recent Kuala Kubu Bharu by-election.

The crisis of confidence may be due to the impact of neoliberal policies across the world since the 1980s. These policies have led to privatisation, deregulation of big business and finance, and the lowering of taxes for the wealthy. Lower tax revenue means less money available for social spending for the poor.

“Through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatising the state and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are driving inequality and acting in the service of delivering evergreater wealth to their rich owners,” Oxfam researchers noted.

“To end extreme inequality, governments must radically redistribute the power of billionaires and corporations back to ordinary people,” the researchers said.

But is this happening? During Jesus’ time, ordinary people suffered under the yoke of oppression and a sharp hike in taxes on the masses.

Jesus identified with the victims of injustice and oppression — the fisherfolk, the farmers and the outcasts. They were increasingly feeling the pinch of “Roman Mediterranean globalisation” (as New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan puts it).

As Christians, we are called to be in solidarity with the victims of economic oppression and even genocide.

“You can’t claim to be a person of faith or a follower of Jesus and not be compassionate about victims of injustice and not be compassionate about the least of these [people], as Jesus described them,” says Rev Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian pastor.

“God — the way I understand the Bible — always sides with the oppressed, with the marginalised, with the poor.”

Indeed, God sent Jesus to be in solidarity with the poor (“I have come to bring the good news to the poor”).

As Munther observes, with the genocide in Gaza in mind: “If God is in solidarity with the oppressed, God’s solidarity must become our solidarity. Neutrality is not an option. Neutrality is siding with the oppressor.” Neither is despair and apathy an option for us.

Apart from the question of “Who rules the world?”, Chomsky says it might be useful to raise another question: “What principles and values rule the world?”

Jesus provides the answer in his “charter” outlined in the Beatitudes. Luke has Jesus saying, “Blessed are the poor” which may be closer to what Jesus said.

But Matthew puts it as, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

So, which is it?

Matthew is probably not trying to soften the Beatitudes to make them more palatable. Perhaps he is aiming at a different target audience — exhorting those who are better off to become “poor in spirit”. This is not a cop-out, but a call for them to express solidarity with the materially poor — in the same way that several of the wealthier followers of Jesus expressed solidarity with the poor and Jesus’ kingdom project.

Only with this sense of solidarity with the poor and the victims of injustice can we, with the Spirit’s help, build a new, more just Creation — from the bottom up and from the periphery.

(Anil Netto is a freelance writer and activist based in Penang. He believes we are all called to build the kingdom of God in this world)