Equal and More Equal

Most of us, as Americans, are familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s statement in the Declaration of Independence, that all men (all people) are created equal and that all are equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We also remember Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, describing “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” We believe, or want to believe, those words, and we expect our government to move swiftly to remove any inequities. But it troubles me that Jefferson and Lincoln did not say merely, "all Americans", but "all people." In reality, there seems to be a system something like that which existed in the satirical novel, Animal Farm by George Orwell. The pigs who controlled the government on the farm proclaimed, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Not only did our early countrymen face the issue of "equal or more equal," but so does a large percentage of the world's population today. There are many issues: medical care, clean water, education. Let's take just one example: food.

Statistics on world hunger from the World Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN reveal that in 2008, the number of undernourished people in the world rose to 963 million. An estimated thirty-three countries have a critically short food supply. About 65 percent of the underfed live in India, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Just a few days ago, the UN Environment Programme released a new report stating that over half the food produced today is lost, wasted, or discarded as a result of inefficiency in the human-managed food chain. “There is evidence within the report,” executive director Achim Steiner noted, “that the world could feed the entire projected population growth alone by becoming more efficient while also ensuring the survival of wild animals, birds and fish on this planet.”

Pope Benedict XVI gave other UN statistics in his Lenten message: The total food surplus of the United States alone could satisfy every empty stomach in Africa; France's leftovers could feed the hungry in Democratic Republic of Congo and Italy's could feed Ethiopia's undernourished. And it's not just the matter of there not being enough to eat; people are starving. Today 25,000 people will die from hunger. A child dies every six seconds of malnutrition or starvation. Is that equal? Or are we just more equal than others?

We can't very well send the vegetables that American kids want to leave on their plates to the starving somewhere else in the world. That old ploy doesn't help. The Pope said further, “[The spiritual practice of] fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live." And although I do not worship in that particular tradition, I think he may have the right idea.

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

Sources:http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29930&Cr=food+crisis&Cr1=
http://www.un.org/issues/food/taskforce/pdf/Global_Economic.pdf
http://www.uscatholic.org/news/2009/02/un-statistics-reveal-extent-world-hunger

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com