People who invent things are either wise
or they are struck by the need to do it. We usually think of science when it
comes to invention, but one of the hottest, most concerned and famous challenge
of the society, poverty, was a wicked invention. The inventor of poverty did
not only have the need to invent it but indeed were very wise about it. This
thorny word we come across today has an interesting history. This was not a
problem, but a very significant factor for the westerners who created it. The
idea did not start from a person being hungry for several days rather countries
especially the decolonizing nations were declared as underdeveloped and poor
who needed help. After World War II, world was divided into three blocs:
Capitalists (First world), Communist (second world) and postcolonial bloc were
named as third world. Philip McMichael says “The third World, the remaining
half of humanity-most of whom were still food-growing rural dwellers-was
represented in economic language as impoverisehd or, in Fanon’s
politico-cultural language, as the “wretched of the earth.” ” (Page 44,
instituting the development project). Poverty was branded only by material
poverty. A question arises that why were the westerners
doing this?
By categorizing decolonizing nations as
third world on the basis of GDP, an issue was created and they looked for ways
to deal with this issue. Countries were judged comparatively; low GDP to higher
GDP and a sense was created among the third world nations that they were
lacking something and they needed to develop. Escobar states: (Page 81, The
problematization of Poverty) “Almost by fiat, two thirds of the world’s people
were transformed into poor subjects in 1948 when the World Bank defined as poor
those countries with an annual per capita income below $100. And if the problem
was one of insufficient income, the solution was clearly economic growth”. Thus
the idea of modernity and development were pitched in to make the process of
economic growth look more serious and formal. Economical growth became the goal
for all so called underdeveloped nations and they even prioritize it before
humans. “In a nutshell, modernization theory posited that the world
was composed of national societies, some of whom are “ahead” on the road of
progress or development, and others who are “behind”.”
Many lives were snatched in the process and
several were kicked out of their lands. The big question then was how to grow
the economy and how to deal with the challenges which Escobar has termed as
“abnormalities”. The answer was pretty obvious that capital investment was the
utmost ingredient for economic growth. The capital coming from domestic saving
was very less, so the only way for becoming capitalist for the new born
countries was by importing machines from the European and other developed
countries to make their own industries, factories etc. This act of import
needed a huge amount of export of raw materials to the capitalist countries as
foreign exchange. Here they were: sucking the resources of the underdeveloped
countries according to their needs and playing it wisely by saying that they
were fighting the poverty. Furthermore, this was not the end; they designed the
issue of poverty in a structural way to make it live forever and thus it has
been a discourse.
In
the name of bringing development in the third world, professionals were
introduced who not only studied the society of the poor but also they had their
control on these nations psychologically. A minor example is the HAG (Harvard
Advisory Group) who was sent to Pakistan telling them how to run our own
country. In this way, they made the countries feel that they definitely are
poor and they should look into themselves with the eyes of the rich nations.
The analogy of whitening creams is a good way to describe how the professionals
affected the third world people, their cultures and their general thinking in
the name of modernizing and developing those nations. “ Indigenous populations
had to be modernized, where modernization meant the adaptation of the” right”
values, namely, those held by white minority or mestizo majority.” (Escobar, Page85, The problematization of
Poverty). Poverty was literally used as
wings to modernity and development and vice versa. Along with
professionalization, the institutionalization of poverty was also necessary to
give it a global look and to not let the issue go any dim. Escobar puts it very
clearly on Page 88 that the work of development institutions has not been an
innocent effort on behalf of the poor, but has been able to control countries
and populations. In conclusion, the philanthropists we see today in the name of
US AID, etc, are not really a support but follow up of the wise invention the
west named as poverty.
“Mera tareeq ameeri
nehi faqeeri hae
Khudi na bhaej, ghareebi mae
naam paida kar!”
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