Radio Australia Today Editorial
Your Water or a Life.
24 February 2010
Here’s a quote from a new book, a quote that might be a wake-up call for anybody living in a land of plenty. It says:
Do you have a bottle of water or a can of soft drink on the table beside you as you read this book? If you are paying for something to drink when safe drinking water comes out of a tap, you have money to spend on things you don’t really need. Around the world a billion people struggle to live each day on less than you paid for that drink.”
That’s the opening paragraph of Peter Singer’s new book: The Life You Can Save. Acting Now to End World Poverty..
It is an argument for humanism and collegiality. He says that after the 1950s, wealthier countries, (and their peoples) seemed to develop a “me” culture, where we became obsessed with gaining as much stuff as we could and spending to make ourselves feel better. Meanwhile, billions of people go hungry, millions of children die or become disabled because of a lack of simple resources like iodine.
Singer says he doesn’t want you to feel guilty. This is not about trying to shock people into feeling bad about themselves. Rather, he wants people with disposable incomes to devote a small amount of that income to helping others. That three dollars for a coffee could keep a family alive; provide medical treatment, help them produce food, feed their animals, help educate them.
Singer says that part of the reason why people have become less giving is that they don’t see the people who need help. A stockbroker probably doesn’t spend much time with a dustbowl family; a legal secretary may not consider a trip to an Australian aboriginal community or a Kenyan village a great idea for a holiday.
Maybe they should. Maybe we should.
I did a broadcast from Cambodia a couple of years ago, and fell in love with a little orphan. We now sponsor that child, and another child in Kenya. I can tell you we don’t miss the small change that these sponsorships cost us.
In fact it could well be the best thing that we spend our hard-earned dosh on every month.
- Phil Kafcaloudes
Isabel Robinson
"...Hi Phil, I agree with Singer’s theory: we can all afford to give more. I think another reason people have become less giving is the reality peer pressure. When it seems like everyone you know has a holiday house and an iPhone, the natural inclination is to work towards these things for yourself. But if you knew that all your friends gave $500 a month to Oxfam, you would probably feel pressured to match or exceed that. This culture of being open and proud about giving is what Singer is advocating in The Life You Can Save. At the end of the book he suggests that if your income is below $154,000AUD a year, you should give 1% of your income to an organisation working to fight world poverty, approaching 5% as you get closer to that threshold. There’s a website, www.thelifeyoucansave.org where you can make this pledge. I’ve always felt that talking about how much you give sounds smug and self-aggrandising, but maybe it’s time we all got over that. My name’s on the list…who wants to join me? On the topic of ethical living and Cambodia: I interviewed a remarkable young woman named Leigh Mathews for my blog, www.nakedaid.blogspot.com. After travelling through Cambodia, Leigh was shocked by the situation of families who'd been focibly evicted from their homes: so shocked that she started her own NGO called Future Cambodia Fund. She is literally in personal debt from her efforts, and last year she was named Young Australian of the Year for Victoria. Her philosophy is completely humbling. ‘When I was in Cambodia and when I was witnessing and experiencing these things,’ she said in the interview, ‘there was just no question that I wouldn’t try to do something. It was very much: well I’m a human, they’re human, so as a human I have a sense of responsibility, you know? I’m by no means a wealthy person, I didn’t grow up wealthy, but to them, whether I have financial wealth or not, I come from this country and therefore I have access to resources that they don’t, and why shouldn’t I try to use that for good and do my best to do it right?’ How amazing is that?..."
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