Charity and change
By Emma Murphy
I recently spent six weeks in India. I stayed at a Sisters of Charity convent in the south with my aunty who has been a missionary for 60 years. Her days are spent trying to help the vast numbers of people struggling to stay alive in the face of environmental and social crisis.
In India's rural areas, the caste system dictates that the shadow of a lower caste person may not fall on anybody from a higher caste. The unofficial (but extremely prevalent) private army of the landlords instils fear into the peasants and ensures their continued exploitation.
The dowry system — still very much part of Indian life — forces desperate parents to sell their final plot of precious land in the hope that they can buy their daughter a slightly better future via marriage into a slightly better-off family.
What is charity in such a country but the perpetuation of lives of suffering. While the charity I saw was undoubtedly saving lives, is that really enough? Is it enough to for those of us in the wealthy countries to give a couple of hundred dollars to an overseas aid program?
You can't travel a kilometre in India without being shocked by the systemic poverty and desperation, the brutal effects of capitalism. But you don't have to travel to be convinced of the need for fundamental social change. In Australia, the so-called "lucky country", too many Aboriginal people still live in Third World conditions.
It's easy to be overwhelmed when confronted first-hand with the social and environmental crises in Third World countries. For some it is a reminder of just how "lucky" we are. "Sure", they say, "others are not so well off, but this is life as we know it. If you want to 'do something' about it, plant some trees or donate to charity."
But life — for the vast majority — could and should be a lot better than it is. The world has the technology and the resources to provide for everyone's basic needs. Isn't the fact that most in the Third World go without clean water testament alone to the fact that the system, global capitalism, has failed?
Capitalism, rather than being a pinnacle of human achievement, means highly stressful and unhealthy lives, alienation, debt and exploitation for the majority of people.
Just imagine how healthy and happy people would be if they weren't forced to work — in India virtually non-stop — just to survive. Capitalism enslaves those with nothing but their labour power to sell. In India, this reality is very stark.
We can only imagine how different life would be if we all had time and energy to do the creative and enjoyable things we dream of. And it isn't hard to image how a more humane system could be organised based on cooperation, not competition.
Those of us who say, "I'll not be free until all my brothers and sisters are free" know there's a lot of work ahead. Charity isn't a solution; it's a band-aid, and an increasingly ineffective one.
Committing oneself to a life of striving to change the world, to a life of activism with socialism as the end goal, means taking the hard path. In this country, it means giving up some personal and material comforts. But those who choose this are not alone. Young people around the world are drawing the same conclusion about the need for fundamental social change.
As Che Guevara once said: "If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you're a comrade of mine."