Poverty

Poverty

I write this because of the unawareness of you and me concerning the topic. Topic being, ‘What is poverty?’ the definition of poverty according to Princeton is, “the state of having little money and few or no material possessions.” Another source, Wikipedia, states, “Poverty is the denial of access to those things which makes a life of dignity possible.” In other words it also says that a life of poverty is a life with indignity.

Poverty can also be broken down to: inferiority, hunger, shelter-less, uneducated, unable to read write or go to school, being sick and not being able to get treatment, living life on the edge, powerlessness, not having choices, oppressed and degraded, looked on with disrespect, as a disease, something to stay away from and to be rid off.

Poverty is ugly; an ongoing disaster that continues to go unheeded, unnoticed and ignored. Today’s society sees it as an evil, something contagious—something to be afraid of.

The real sad thing is when the poor begin to judge themselves. This attitude conjures up inferiority complex that leads the mind to come up with negative thoughts such as injustice, unfairness, ridiculed, unloved and discarded. This eventually leads to disparity, anger, assault, crime, and disbelief. Needless to say when a person loses faith in oneself, it can lead to a more disastrous path of life.

Dr Osman guner a professor in a university in Turkey states that, “History shows us that poverty has always existed in lives of people. However it is also a historical fact where the majority of people lived in poverty, the remaining minority lived in luxury. This is also valid in today’s society and nations. Again, while some countries, called first world countries, and lived in a luxurious manner. The remaining countries called the third world countries lived in poverty. This indicates that poverty has been a social phenomenon and a serious problem in the past, present and history.”

On another note, there are also people in the name of spirituality and in the notion of wanting to be totally reliant/ dependant on their gods, choose to look upon poverty as a means to get closer to their gods.

They View working in economic activities as an unnecessary effort, that people are concerned only with temporal life, without value of future and lastly prefer the principle of fakir (absolute poverty in the world). Ultimately this way of thinking have proved to only cause these societies to be backwards and separated. When we consider the effect of this misunderstanding, there is no way such thinking can be accepted in any religion.

Though this has no real relevance to the discussion, I always wanted to write about this; rappers… most rappers who’s songs mainly concern the harshness of their lives and the neighborhood they were growing up in…it almost feels like an out loud cry for sympathy, to let the world know about their misfortunes, their harsh, brutal childhood and the lack of choices they had in life.

However when they have made it big, become millionaires what happens to the little kids growing up in tough neighborhoods? What happens to the cry for sympathy, the outburst of wanting to have a fair, just life? Have they forgotten how it used to be, what it was like? Don’t they see the reflection of their own selves in the faces of the younger generations living in ghettos? I find it funny, their dreams…their dreams are to become the people that they lived to hate…Selfish rich people with no consideration for others living life in shallowness, in artificiality and superfluously.

There are over 1 billion people who live in poverty; thousands die of it everyday. Poverty today is nearly impossible to resolve. If people’s main objective in life is to procure materiality then poverty will sustain and become worse than it is now. Despite that, there are still a few minorities out there who strives on to fight poverty and make life better for those lucky enough to receive help. My admiration and respect goes out to those who are in the fight and kind hearted and considerate enough to do so.

Lastly, I read this quote on a site that is believed to be one of the sayings of the prophet. Upon reading it I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry but I can be sure of my unsure-ness of which Muslim ummah was he referring to…

“The Muslim ummah is a unique ummah, among the whole of mankind: their land is one, their war is one, their honor is one and their trust is one.”