No virtue in poverty

I don’t know who we have to blame for this phenomenon. If it was just the British, I would pin it on Dickens’  ‘deserving poor’ and Victorian righteousness. But it’s a genuinely international perception. I don’t know if it’s just ‘developed countries’ or middle-class armchair liberals across the board, but there is a deep form of quasi-paternalism which insists on portraying ‘the poor’ as  virtuous victims of the world’s inequity.

A prime example can be found in the CNN article released yesterday in promotion of a new documentary on Haiti’s children – ‘Rescued’ (the name says it all);  ‘Despite everything, Haiti’s children still dream and laugh’. The article starts with a description of poor children in Haiti, victims struggling to cope amid the devastation. Then it goes on to wax lyrical in depth about how amazing it is to still see the laughing, happy Haitians – at one point it even calls Haitian children ‘diamonds in the rough’, and ‘illuminated beings’. And it doesn’t stop there. Haitian children are respectful of their elders, they say ‘madame’ and ‘monsieur’, orphans are taken in by their neighbours, rainbows end in pots of gold, and at the end you can just about sum the whole thing up with a well known (?) Haitian proverb “Ti moun se richès, says the Haitian proverb. Our children are our treasures”.

If you can’t see anything wrong in the above,  stop.reading.now.

Anyone remember how long and hard people fought to get rid of the deeply racist and paternalist  ‘Happy Negro’ myth? Anyone remember when the Solomon Islands were called the ‘Happy Isles’ because of the ‘happy natives’? Anyone remember the day when the world realised it was never ok to infantilise people who live in extreme poverty and deprivation? Much less those whose country we are guests in, where we should tread with light footsteps, not flags and firearms.

There is no virtue in poverty. There is no correlation between pureness of heart and level of income. The poor do not deserve a response because they are the innocents of this world. The do not deserve a response because all they long for is to plant trees and pay for their children’s school fees. They do not deserve it because they still laugh and smile amid disasters and teach us to confront our materialism. They do not deserve it because we learn so much from them and are humbled by their simple way of life.

They deserve it because they are human and we are human. Because we share only one world. Because it is the same blood in all our veins. Because we all deserve the dignity of being able to make choices, good or bad, about our lives. Because sometimes all of us do right and sometimes all of us do wrong. Because fundamentally there is not one single good reason why the world should go on being the way it is when everyone is equal but there is no equality.

And that’s the base line of what we’re talking about here: equality. The opportunity for each and every human to participate in their own lives.

A colleague of mine, who is usually very very smart, said to me the other day: ‘you know, why don’t we stop giving people tarpaulins and building shelters, and giving them hygiene kits and constructing latrines and showers and mobile clinics. Why don’t we just add us the total cash value of all our interventions per beneficiary and give every Haitian the monetary equivalent instead? Then everyone can just go and build their own house the way they want it’. That, right there, is virtue in poverty.

Because if we did that, we would no more get a collection of beautiful Haitian new-build neighbourhoods than we would get a row of neat white picket semis in the UK, or all-American communities of duplexes in the US if we did the same thing. First of all, not all people would choose to spend the money on housing. Second of all, it’s an entirely market-regulated solution with no safeguards for the vulnerable – the day after you distributed the cash the absolute minimum price of constructing a house would in all likelihood rise to the value of cash distributed. Because one group of people could charge that, and the other group of people would have no choice. Third, there is extortion, corruption, abuse, black markets, and inequality which would get in the way. Just like there is everywhere, to greater or lesser degrees. Because when one group of people realise they have the ability, the power, to do something to another group of people, they start to create reasons to do it.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not advocating tied aid. I’m not saying we need to give people tangible goods because we can’t trust them to make decisions. Quite the opposite. I am a big fan of cash transfers, cash for work and cash programming all in the right context. Many many times it is better to give people money and let them make their own decisions on how to spend it according to their individual needs. But it is dangerous to kid ourselves that they will make the decisions we would make for them. That they will spend that money in virtuous and humble ways as good, happy stewards should do. Situations and systems influence people’s behaviour. And the less control you have over the system, usually the more control it begins to exert over you. No-one makes choices in a vacuum.

What I’m saying is this. There is a balance. People need freedom, but realise that some will take advantage of others. No matter what the country or the context. And relief organisations are there, or damn well should be there, to try and safeguard the vulnerable. To do cash for work schemes which give people choices over their income. But also to recognise that in some contexts, for example, all the evidence might point to the fact that usually it is women who source and cook the food in a household, and make sure that the children are fed. So maybe we should do food distributions targeting women rather than hand out money to heads of households and hope it reaches the right places. For sure sometimes it will. But sometimes it won’t. That’s just life. That’s just humans.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me to learn that in some of my organisation’s child retracing activities, we come across parents who don’t want their children back. Not because they can’t afford it, or because they think their children will have a better life with another family (although there are plenty of cases where this is true), but because of neglect and because of abuse. And yet it did shock me. Why? Because it’s slightly uncomfortable to admit that poor people are just like us. Because that feels like kicking them when they’re down. Because it means recognising that we shouldn’t treat them as children and do things ‘for their own good’ because really we don’t want people making decisions for our ‘own good’.

We want to make our own decisions. And that means making mistakes. And that means letting others make mistakes. And let’s recognise that my mistake and your mistake and a disaster-affected Haitian’s mistake are not the same. That is what it means to have choices and respect people.

So let us recognise that poverty is ugly. It can bring pain and suffering and weariness and despair. And alongside it there is also hope and joy and family and community. But let us not lose sight of the fact that there is no virtue in poverty. Let us not infantilise ‘the poor’.  Let us allow them the dignity of making choices and getting it right and getting it wrong. Let us treat them as equals, and not be surprised when they act as we act. And not be surprised when they don’t. And then we will have a real starting point. And genuine commonality. And we will truly know what we mean when we say that we are all human.

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