The Poor and Hungry

The photograph showing a starving Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture won Kevin Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.

The photo depicts a famine stricken girl collapsing on the way to a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so it can eat it. This picture shocked the world. No one knows what happened to the child.

Three months later Kevin Carter committed suicide due to depression.

My friends, let this not come to you as a surprise. This is the reality we are living in where it is 'estimated that one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. That's roughly 100 times as many as those who actually die from these causes each year. About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger related causes... Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.'

How you can help:

Don't waste natural resources. Be thankful to God for His gifts and blessings. Be mindful of your responsibility toward other human beings. Think about what the Prophet (saws) would do. Have mercy and compassion toward all humankind. Next time you spend money on those unnecessary luxuries of your life, think for a moment about the plight of the poor and oppressed children around the world. Be aware of the materialistic forces and the contradictions of the dominant economic systems that are at the roots of global inequality (here). Don't become a part of this system. Don't become a slave of consumerism and endless materialistic competition.

Among other things, join a local organization that is working against subtle forms of oppression, like hunger, poverty, illiteracy, domestic violence, anorexia and bulimia, perfect body images, and endless materialistic competition. If there isn't any, start one today! Check out matteela's following production for ideas about how to create social awareness: Ye Bacha (a poem by Ibn Insha, on the wretched conditions of the poor children and class disparities, illustrated in the context of Pakistan. Urdu with English subtitles).

You can also look into doing online activism. Check out moveon.org’s work for ideas. Some online organizations also invite web surfers to click on their sites regularly. They say every click earns them revenue to support their causes. The Hunger Site is an example. Some may also invite you to buy their T-shirts and other souvenirs. I guess, you can buy these items if you think they can help spread the word and encourage people to join a good cause. Otherwise, in general, more shopping and more consumption cannot be a solution to human suffering. And I don’t like the idea of selling consumers to products through clicks or ads. That feeds into the same loop of consumerism. My suggestion: Donate directly! And, encourage others to do the same!

Lastly, remember the advice Imam Ali gave in his Last Will:

"My advice to you is to be conscious of Allah and steadfast in your religion. Do not yearn for the world, and do not be seduced by it. Do not resent anything you have missed in it. Proclaim the truth; work for the next world. Oppose the oppressor and support the oppressed."

Become a friend and supporter of the oppressed people and an enemy of the oppressors and all forms of oppression.