A new story coming out of the West Indies shocked and surprised me as I learned of such horrible events taking place right under the United States' perspective noses. CNN recently reported a story on the subject of the atrocious food supply conditions in Haiti. There seems to be such a food shortage within the nation that a large number of mothers are forced to make the decision of which of their children they should feed. Some mothers are so desperate that apparently, these women do not give their newborns names due to the great potential of them dying from malnourishment, CNN reports.
Personally, I could never think of a worse situation for these people, the mothers specifically. The fact that these Haitian mothers have to actually choose which of their children will live due to their lack of food supply is appalling to me. Being an American middle class citizen obviously makes this seem almost unbelievable but for some, it is an everyday reality. They must struggle and beg for food every single day and even with what they get from begging and other methods, they still must resort to only feeding one child as opposed to feeding both. According to the World Food Program, a child dies of hunger every six seconds due to starvation or malnourishment throughout the world. This is a statistic that desperately is in need of alteration.
Some documented causes for the rise of world hunger are the rise in oil prices. This affects world hunger due to the fact that companies require oil to distribute their harvests and these poor countries cannot afford the shipping costs. This single fact shocks and tells me something about the society we live in as Americans specifically. Americans are the biggest users in oil due to our highly industrialized nation and our gas guzzling vehicles. Our nation burning this natural resource is not exactly helping the oil per barrel price go down. We are further using more and more oil, making it almost seem necessary to drill for oil in places that would hurt our environment even more. In my opinion, America needs to become less dependent of oil and start developing eco-friendly technology or else it seems as if it will not only be the environment hurting in the end.
One more thing also jumps out at me because of this article: why is this the first I've really heard about this topic? American media is heavily reliant on its viewers and the viewers obviously need to be entertained. These days in media, that requires a deep injection of sex, drugs, violence, humor and action into the human psyche – people will not tune in otherwise. When it comes to news, the stories must be dramatic, or celebrity related to even stop the average viewer from immediately changing the channel. If American media as a whole took the initiative to put these types of stories on headline news rather than how much Sarah Palin's Japanese glasses are worth or how great Michelle Obama's fashion sense is, then maybe America would be a better informed nation. Now, don't get me wrong -- nothing interests me more than celebrity gossip, the latest fashion icon and glasses. However, I do think that there are more pressing issues at hand, like, you know. . .anything besides that. What I'm getting at here is that maybe Americans would step up and make a unified attempt to change certain things in this world if they actually knew what was going on.
I feel bad based on my own morals but also on a personal level. I feel bad eating my potato chips and drinking my root beer as I write this with the knowledge of world hunger as one of the more major issues these days. I know that I have these privileges because my parents worked hard for what they have which allows me to live a comfortable life. I know that they could have never gotten to the point they were at if they hadn't been living in a country as comparatively better off than Haiti or other “third world countries.” But it makes me feel bad because I have come to the realization that no matter how they work, it would be almost impossible for the people within that "catagory" of countries to succeed. Impossible due to the economic situation working against them. I know that there is not nearly enough opportunity in Haiti as in America to succeed but I know that if they only had the opportunity, they would take it and be better off. America could potentially be that opportunity. I hope that our foreign policy will one day change to pro humanitarian one and not just an anti-imperialist, anti-terrorist government. I know that we are already in this war with Iraq (justified or not) and are having military issues in Afghanistan with potential problems in Iran but if we were to ever take a stand as a nation and a government, then maybe we could change our ways. Help the cause of world hunger, stop the genocide in Sudan. Fight for morals, fight hunger, fight for the right reasons. Feeling bad to be an American is not uncommon these days. I believe that it doesn't have to be cliché to feel bad about being comfortable; but doesn't that notion say a lot about the condition of our global society? I believe it does.
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