A rather facetious quote from page 130 to introduce Sharman Apt Russel's book on hunger. When I saw Hunger: An Unnatural History on the shelves at Bukit Merah Library, I was curious. Is this a book about widespread famine or voluntary fasting? Science or anthropology? Religion or United Nations?
Surprisingly, this book is about all the above. It is about what humans achieve through hunger and what we descend to when deprived of food. It is about the Minnesota Experiment and the fasting maids of Europe. It is both how I feel when my lunch is an hour late and about the child with the bloated stomach in Somalia. This book is both science and art.
I was inspired by the re-telling of Gandhi's "fasts to the death". He says, "I fasted to reform those who loved me... You cannot fast against a tyrant" (81). Then the world must have loved this Great Soul because powerful governments and stubborn religious bodies acceded to his will when he fasted. He changed the face of India when he fasted for Hindu-Moslem friendship, protesting the creation of a separate Hindu, Moslem, and Untouchable electorate. When he fasted, he broke the century-old chains that linked India to her caste system. India, the huge sprawling millions of people groups who are as diverse as possibly all the peoples of the world, changed because of one man and his vision.
But hunger has its dark side. Reading about Colin Turnbull's study of the Ik people and what living on the edge of starvation did to them horrified me. The Ik people live near the northern border of Uganda and Kenya. They are forbidden to hunt and forage at the National Park, leaving them confined to a small patch of infertile land. They are intimate with starvation. At three years old, children are thrown out of the house to fend for themselves. They form gangs to steal from the adults. The weak are tortured and left to die. The young steal from the old. The old, i.e. those over 30, crawl into abandoned huts to die when they can no longer look for food. They have relinquished all familial relations. How to live like this generation after generation?
It makes a person want to do something. There are too many people starving all over the world. 505 million in East and South Asia, 41 million in North Africa and the Near East, 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 198 million in Sub-Saharan Africa: the greatest percentage of hungry people in relation to population. Russel proposes three ways to help: first to mobilise political action to end hunger; second, to put in place polices that reduce hunger; and third, to start or enhance regional grassroots programmes. Or you could give money to Concern Worldwide and others.
Russel writes with art. The book ends with this paragraph.
One day, according to legend, Saint Patrick wanted something from God, a favor for himself or his people. For reasons unknown, God was reluctant to grant the saint's request. So Patrick went on a hunger strike, a troscad unto death. Repeatedly, angelic messengers begged him to break his fast. They implored. They sang. They remonstrated. But Patrick was steadfast. Patrick would not eat. Against this hunger, even God gave in.
8 comments:
Interesting essay. Complicated problem.
It even puts the global warming debate into a different perspective, with the prospect of taking billions of tons of corn out of the food supply to turn into methanol to fuel our hungry cars and trucks.
I'm always flattered when you take the time to read the long posts.
You mean our bodies right, when you say "our hungry cars and trucks"? Somehow methanol always reminds me of cows.
Apart from the global warming, how else is this problem complicated?
There are too many people starving all over the world. 505 million in East and South Asia, 41 million in North Africa and the Near East, 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 198 million in Sub-Saharan Africa: the greatest percentage of hungry people in relation to population.
How about 10,000 to 100,000 in S'pore: perhaps not starving but hungry most times; undernourished and sick? Think abt it. Do something closer home, rather than be like Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House, worrying abt the heathen natives in foreign shores, when her own children were wholly neglected in front of her own eyes.
From L
Whenever I've thought about problems like this, as large and as serious as they are, I always come to the conclusion that people are self-absorbed by nature and nothing will ever change except perhaps because of the teensy-tiny minority who care about whatever their particular cause is. Not that I blame anyone for it (goodness knows I'm just as self-absorbed myself): I think it's in our genes. Another form of survival of the fittest.
Yes I agree that the majority of us are self-absorbed. But there is a minority who aren't, and perhaps they can motivate the rest of us to change something...
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the number of "good causes" out there.
How true. You know, I recently organised a quasi-charity event for friends and friends of friends.. several hundred people were invited, about 70 turned up and of those, I'm not sure more than a dozen really got the message and the solution. And this was about something that could endanger all life on earth, not just people, within a matter of decades. Can't get more serious than that (and it's not hyperbole :p) and yet the majority were apathetic. As I would be about something else, I suppose. So my conclusion is that we're just built that way and it is up to the minority like you point out!
Hmm... what is this cause?
Long answer but actually pretty simple. Depletion of the world's oxygen supply because of destabilisation of oceanic ecosystems (the world's largest source of oxygen) because of destructive and illegal fishing, or rather, finning of sharks.
Finning: landing a shark, cutting off its fins while alive and dumping the body back in the water where it sinks and drowns
Not only is it cruel, illegal and ecologically destructive, it's also completely pointless because shark fins themselves are tasteless.
P'raps you watched the film Sharkwater?
Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now. Not a rabid tree-hugger :p Just interested in still being able to breathe in a few decades.
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