EIGHTEEN HUNGRY CHILDREN - WHY!

       Every hour of every day 300 children die due to malnutrition, at the very start of their lives they are left so weakened by relentless hunger that they can't fight off illnesses like diarrhoea or pneumonia. Surviving malnutrition doesn't bring a full and healthy life, those children who survive, malnutrition suffer devastating and irreversible damage, stunted growth and bodies and brains that are permanently damaged.

     The problem isn't that the world is short of food, the food is there, but somewhere along the line some people have to make a profit. So the food won't move to the needy until the money changes hands. While a child is dying of malnutrition, we in the rich developed world run around shaking charity cans under the noses of all and sundry hoping that they will drop a few coins in the box and perhaps then we can start the food moving.

      What a barbaric inhuman system, shrink the picture, you know of a child down the road that is dying from malnutrition, what do you do? Run around trying to raise some money to buy some food from the supermarket? Any system that has an abundance of food and yet stands by waiting for the money to change hands before supplying children dying from malnutrition, is not fit for purpose.

         Capitalism is only there to serve the shareholders, the corporate world, everything is a commodity, even the life or death of a child. If companies can make a profit then the child will live, if not, sorry, you don't have enough money. Why do we allow ourselves to be dominated by these corporate fascist? We the ordinary people make everything, we transport and distribute everything, all we have to do is take control of what we make, where we transport it, and to whom we distribute the produce of our labours. We don't need them, they on the other hand do need us. Let's dump this brutal, unjust, inhumane, greed driven system in the dustbin of history. After all it is only a man made system it is not something written in tablets of stone or some immutable force of nature, it is a man made economic system of greed.

          The following is a poem that I penned some 20 years ago, in spite of all the pontification by our expensively suited, hypocritical politicians, the situation is no better today than it was then, probably worse. As long as we keep this system of capitalism dominating our lives the situation will never improve.

EIGHTEEN HUNGRY CHILDREN.

Eighteen hungry children die

every minute of every day

eighteen of tomorrow’s people

cruelly thrown away.

When pandering to a fashion

gratifying our greed,

think, theirs is no desire

but a basic need.

Envisage a familiar face

a child that calls your name,

try to be the parent

try to place the blame.

Eighteen hungry children die

every minute of every day,

eighteen little faces

that never learnt to play.

Walk past your local school

listen to the shrill,

stand and count to sixty

imagine hunger start to kill.

Fingers must be pointed

at decisions made on high,

questions must be asked

loudly asked by you and I.

Eighteen hungry children die

every minute of every day,

eighteen precious lives

the claws of hunger slay.

WHY?

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