Poverty Alleviation : Debt: The First thousand Years

Debt: The First thousand Years

  “ On the experience of Moral Confusion”

 Abstract

David Graeber is an American anthropologist and activist who is currently Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Debt: The First 5000 Years is a book published by him in 2011. In this chapter he analyzes the function of debt in human history and moral confusion related to debt in present age. He presented his argument by discussing his meeting with an anti-poverty activist who was unaware to IMF. He told her that he is against IMF because IMF and institution functioning like IMF are apparently working for poverty alleviation and economic growth of a country but imposes certain type of terms and condition which became harmful and more destructing for third world countries. These 3^rd world countries kept of paying debt and it never get on from them because they increase their interest rate. But the activist ‘s point view was that those third world countries should pay their debts because of this statement that “ One has to pay their debts”. The author argued that that it is a moral statement not an economic one but its implications are not applicable to all.

Analysis 

The author discusses the historical examples of different countries which explains the relationship between debt, morality, powerful and powerless actors. Morality related to debt is defined by the powerful in history, as the one who lends money is always powerful in some way than debtors and some kind of violence is also associated it with the money lending practices. He mentioned example of Madagascar where France after invasion introduces taxes for building bridges and plantations etc and they told Malagasy people that they owed money to France and those people are facing those debts till now.  So debt is always justified as ‘victor’s justice’ but this is not the case in Haiti’s situation because they were unwanted winners when they resisted against France and they won but France put sanctions on them and make them debtors by accusing them for destruction of plantations etc. and international community also sided with France on this. So throughout history, certain sorts of debt, and certain sorts of debtor, have always been treated differently than others.

According to the author, if we look into history debt is always paid by powerless and weak people who are ruled by powerful people. Those powerless and weak people didn’t have say because debt was considered under dimensions of morality that everyone should pay. After reading the chapter  and the closely analyzing the authors standpoint I consider myself very confused concerning debt and the ways it has been defined and linked with the morality. Debt has always been beneficial for lender and not for borrower because more sanctions and interests are imposed on them with debt which makes their condition more miserable than anything which exceeds actual cost amounts sometimes.

Conclusion 

I would conclude this by arguing that one has to pay his debts is not amoral statement but a statement which has different definitions in different context. So paying one’s debt is not issue of morality but it is surrounded by the power structures.

Begging is a social problem in Pakistan Essay

Situational Analysis

Problem identification is a deductive process. This activity identifies the issues and problems that need to be addressed. It seeks to answer several questions.

Choose one social problem and prepare a detailed situation analysis on it. Your analysis should be based on following dimensions.

–          What is the problem?

–          What are the probable causes of the problem?

–          How serious (acute) is the problem? What are its social effects?

–          Who are affected by the problem?

–          How many are they?

–          Where are they located?

–          What are their characteristics?

–          What has been done to solve the problem?

–          What are the recommendations for future course of action?

Begging is one of important growing issues of Pakistan which has not been taken into account seriously. This essay deals with the situation analysis of begging in different areas of Pakistan. I choose this topic because it is one of the growing issues giving birth to different main issues like street crime, theft, robbery, suppression of poor, violence and exploitation. Pakistan is facing street begging at an alarming ratio. 

Begging is requesting for donation in a supplicating manner, also it is one of the oldest professions on earth like prostitution but other nations have taken some serious actions to reduce it whereas in Pakistan this trend of begging increasing day by day. According to research, beggary is an organized crime in Pakistan and according to contemporary estimates, there are somewhere between two and twenty-five million beggars in Pakistan .There are number of causes of begging which indulged people to beg. Horn ad cooke analyzes the begging behavior and say that begging is an income supplement necessary for survival at some level related to the basic necessities like food or drugs. This is complex relationship between poverty, begging, homelessness, substance abuse, mental illness, unemployment and crime. Horn and cooke conclude that all these factors somehow resulted in begging so that they can generate income for survival (Horn, 1998)

Begging is so common is all major cities and almost found on every roundabout, pavement, in front of mosque and main roads asking for alms. It has become profession with a larger industry. Begging is prevailing also because of our societal setup. Two things that drive this industry are ‘shock value’ and religious connotations of assistance. In our society begging has traditionally been tolerated and even encouraged because that people give them money to gain religious merits and earn sawab but we have forgotten that these people are professionals and living idly is a sole purpose of their lives.  Hassan Shahid, a development economist, pointed out that, “In Pakistan, and in other South Asian Countries, people have the tendency to provide alms or charity to poor people.  Due to such trend, begging has become quite rampant because a section of people are more than happy to give money to beggars, particularly children.” However he also mentions that it occurs because state doesn’t have enough resources to provide substantial to poor and needy. This situation of them let them beg to fulfill their survival needs (Murtaza, 2012)

Poverty is the major cause of begging which has force hundreds of people to commit suicide, compelled women to sell out their children and forced youngsters to leave their home and start begging. According to the latest survey, large number of people living below the poverty line earning less than Rs.4000 per month which makes it very difficult for a person to fulfill his needs. On the other side, a street beggar is earning more than a normal person and also it’s an easy source of earning money (Haroon, 2012). They claim that they have to pay an amount to the ring leaders or police in the areas to beg. According to Pakistan law, begging can get you in jail for three years. But, that rarely happens here according to lawyers. Also Parents whose children are found begging can be arrested and put in jail for three years. They can be fined $500. The Lahore High Court in the year 2011 gave a ruling that professional beggary should be discouraged.

Beggars are mostly found in main urban cities ad main areas of these cities. They run markets of beggary in every city called mandi where they gathered around from all over the cities when there is Urs, mela like in Bari Iman, Data Darbar etc. As it is organized crime, they do deals in that mandi and assigned their tasks and areas where they beg. (Khan F. S., 2012)

Begging culture is not as simple as it seems like, now there is a whole mafia and series of crimes is also related to it. They even deceive innocent women and rob them. Also children beggars are mostly those who were kidnapped first by this mafia, and then converted into horrific appearance or disabilities which can be convenient tool for extorting money whatever they can. Even though begging is illegal in Pakistan, according to West Pakistan Vagrancy Ordinance 1958, but this law remains principally unforced as a massive increase in the number of beggars since past decades. According to Child Protection and Welfare Bureau, 39,270 poor and neglected children have been facilitated by the Bureau in six years. No doubt the professional beggars here in Pakistan are begging with their own choice and they are the real culprits but child beggars in the city are not choosers and they beg involuntarily. According to Asian Human Rights commission (AHRC) research in Pakistan, there are 1.2 million children o the streets on Pakistan’s major cities and urban center. This is only the amount of children in begging, other than children there are number of beggars who are mostly disabled or pretend to be disable person. Their lives are being controlled by huge network of beggar mafia who also allots them their territory where they have to beg. They are being trained professionally and tortured inhumanly that if someone just asks about their network or masters, they get scared to death.

 These mafia leaders actually take oath from them to keep their name secret because majority of their heads are well known and influential persons of the society (Khan, 2006)

Iftikhar Mubarak, a child rights activist who is associated with the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) and SAHIL, said: “Children don’t run away just because their families are poor, many of them are physically abused. Many children run away because they witness violence in their homes. NGOs can do only so much, long term sustainability of such interventions depends on the government’s help.” Beggary is no doubt outcome of poverty. Haroon Memorial Welfare researches about different beggars.  Average daily wedges ranges from Rs.400 t0 Rs.500 which they handed over to their masters. Most of these beggars were children who did not even wearing proper cloths and shoes.

In short begging is influencing large number of people in our societies, not only beggars but also who get affected by this beggarization related crimes. This create poor image of the society and the begging mafia is just getting stronger day by day because no one has taken this issue seriously, neither law and enforcement agencies, government and NGOs are doing anything which just focuses on begging. There are some measurements that could be taken to reduce begging.

·         Zakat and Sadqa are two important obligations which should be accessible to poor and needy people. The system of zakat should be transparent and it’s our responsibility to ensure eligibility of a receiver.

·         Government should take some initiatives like to arrange different workshops, training and skills program so that they can really earn their future living.

·   Job opportunities should be provided to the eligible people who really have skills and training.

·         There should be strict enforcement of law, police should have power to punish those who are responsible for bring them on streets.

·         Especially children rights should be ensured ad establish institution mechanism for child protecting issues.

·         Public should discourage this illegal begging instead of encouraging it. There should be awareness programs against this begging mafia, so that only deserving people could get aid.

·         Above few points could be achieved through awareness campaign of electronic and social media which has great influence on our lives.

·         Government should generate funds to deal with vagrancy, beggary ad exploitation which is caused by begging.

Begging is now one of the organized crime and it need to be eliminated by serious policy formulation and planning. It needs to be eliminated from the society because it is producing a dependent person which is something dangerous for development and progress of a country as it assists in different crimes.

Pakistan: POVERTY ALLEVAITION

DEBT

THE FIRST

5,000 YEARS

DAVID GRAEBER

In this chapter author discusses debt and the moral confusion attached to the debt in present age. He started his argument by discussing a meeting with an anti-poverty activist and in conversation with her he told her that he is anti-globalization activist and his achievement is the destruction of IMF but he found out that lady is unaware of role of IMF then he explained her the role of IMF and its operations and history that how this institution is making the conditions of third world worst. He mentioned their role during economic crises of 70’s and how the interest rate has increased over the period of time which is not letting the poor countries to come out of this curse of indebtness. But the activist was of the view that poor nations must pay their debts as it is their responsibility as “one has to pay one’s debts”. The author builds his argument on this phrase and he argued that it is a moral statement not an economic one but its implications are not applicable to all.
Morality related to debt is defined by the powerful in history, as the one who lends money is always powerful in some way than debtors and some kind of violence is also associated it with the moneylending practices. He mentioned example of Madagascar where France after invasion introduces taxes for building bridges and plantations etc and they told Malagasy people that they owed money to France and those people are facing those debts till now. So debt is always justified as ‘victor’s justice’ but this is not the case in Haiti’s situation because they were unwanted winners when they resisted against France and they won but France put sanctions on them and make them debtors by accusing them for destruction of plantations etc. and international community also sided with France on this. So throughout history, certain sorts of debt, and certain sorts of debtor, have always been treated differently than others.
Author stresses on the history of human kind as he argued that in past we see that wars, rebels of slaves were the ways through which the people want to get rid of debt and ensure even distribution of land. Rich always lend money to the people in extreme poverty and on very strict conditions sometimes people owe their lives to the creditors.
If one looks at the history of debt, then, what one discovers first of all is profound moral confusion. There are two arguments related to this i) paying back borrowed money is a matter of morality ii) anybody in the habit of lending money is an evil. Jean-Claude Galey explains the latter opinion by giving example from Himalayas where people living in extreme poverty have to do the menial jobs for those to whom they owe money. And during weddings and funerals on which high amount is needed situations got worse when high caste moneylenders ask for the daughters as security and in some cases the bride herself. It seems immoral, unjust but nobody use to say a word because according to them it was just as things go that way in their areas. So the powerful has its own meaning of justifying things and there is a great moral confusion associated with the debt, debtors and the creditors so according to author global institutions like the IMF designed to protect not debtors, but creditors. After reading the chapter and the closely analyzing the author stance I consider myself very confused regarding debt and the ways it has been defined and linked with the morality. Debt is always for those are suppressed and who have no voice and are weak in one way or the other throughout the history, as we seen the case of Haiti the people there were weaker than France so they remained debtor even after their victory. But France has remained a colonizer and it was a powerful nation throughout the history so it was successful in putting pressure on Haiti people with the help of international community. In my opinion paying one’s debt is not a matter of morality but one is forced to pay the debts otherwise one has to face worst consequences, of moneylenders are not the evil one’s the scenario would be different throughout the history, and it is not only the actual amount which one has to pay but the heavy interest rates are also to be paid which sometimes exceeds the actual or principle amount. IMF is doing the same those nations who owed money to IMF are trapped in a vicious circle and they are not able to come out of it after so many years.
In my opinion rules of the games are set by those who are in power not by the principles of morality or if they are being set by the principles of morality then morality is not universal, it has different implications for poor and rich. History tells us the same story that the rule of might is always right whatever has been told or decided by the powerful ones is always right.
I would conclude this by arguing that one has to pay his debts is not amoral statement but a statement which has different definitions in different context, if the country like Pakistan owed money to America Pakistan HAS to pay its debts but if AMERICA owes something to PAKISTAN then it is not necessary to apply the same statement on them and the difference between two countries is that America is the economically and militarily more stronger than Pakistan. So paying one’s debt is not issue of morality but it is embedded in the power structures.