During World War One, 10% of all casualties were civilians.
During World War Two, the number of civilian deaths rose to 50%.
During the Vietnam war, 70% of all casualties were civilians.
In the war in Iraq, civilians account for up to 90% of all deaths.
- John Pilger (The War You Don't See)
This here curation of digitally-etched thoughts has become rather defunct in the last few months. To anyone who, by some curious miracle or other (besides you, Dad), has taken notice of my neglect - sorry! A mixture of revision, school, school ending forever (!), reading, life, work, and general blog-neglecting constitute my excuse. Anyway. I have been thinking lately about the relation between poverty and war, particularly in light of the fact that the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) reach their termination date this year (and it constitutes a large section in my Geography A Level).
Poverty is a multidimensional fact, hard to define and hence hard to address and, frankly, understand. I say 'fact' not cynically in allusion to its ensuing immortality, but with reference to its tenacious presence; there is always, as Thomas Malthus once suggested, inequality of some form, and, hence, relative poverty. He goes on to discuss how poverty is a relatively psychological as well as literal form, but, regardless, some form of poverty, however you like to define it, has always existed. A number of factors have been attributed to its cause including geographical factors of climate and natural disaster, historical implications of colonialism, political influences such as war and mismanagement of resources, and social factors such as inequality... and so the list proceeds. It is this lack of absolute, uniform veracity which makes it hard to address poverty. The MDGs are perhaps the most renowned global response to poverty, constituting 8 time-bound, quantified goals addressing the chief causes of poverty, and their lineal SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) aim to do much the same.
Some interesting ideas:
- The MDGs that address behavioural change are least likely to be met.
- If institution building and conflict resolution do not improve, around 0.5 billion people will remain below the international poverty line (living on less than US$1.25 a day) by 2030.
- According to the 2011 World Development Report, violence is increasingly the primary cause of poverty.
Idea #1:
The suggestion that goals addressing behavioural change are least likely to be met relates to Malthus' aforementioned conclusion that poverty is somewhat psychologically inherent; this is in no way to imply that those suffering poverty are somewhat basely inferior (such a suggestion is complete and utter ignorance). It suggests rather that, for instance, providing sanitation and clean drinking water is far easier than achieving gender equality; the former address largely economic facets of poverty, whilst the latter is a contradiction of something which, in many cultures, remains acceptedly unconventional. Perhaps, therefore, sustainably and effectively addressing poverty is far less economical and quantifiable as media statistics would have it appear. Indeed, though the proportion of absolute poverty has dropped around the world, declining in Sub-Saharan Africa from approximately 58% to 51% (1990-2010), the absolute number of people in poverty has risen due to population growth amongst other factors (in Sub-Saharan Africa by a suggested 80 million people). Is poverty such a pessimistically inherent thing as Malthus would have us believe? Or does it just relate to a rigidity and parameter of culture? Again, it is too complex an issue to neatly rhetorise (my screen is stubbornly insisting upon a red trail beneath this... it ought to be word. Shakespeare made up so many words anyway, right?).
Idea #2 and #3:
War: A state of armed conflict and violence between different countries or different groups within a country. At base value, war is just this: an inconvenience of conflict, tension and ensuing violence. But again, it posits so much more behind the facade of its neat definition and statistical presence. Coming back to Malthus' idea of an immortal poverty, many sources concur that there has never been a year within the span of human existence where some form of war or conflict has not taken place; and the prevalence is growing. The 20th Century is agreed by many to have been the most violent century, with the violent pattern translating into the 21st Century - i.e. now. Might there be a correlation between poverty and conflict?
"Civil war has been identified as one of the main causes for the persistence of poverty in many regions of the world (Collier 2007): war damages infrastructure, institutions and production, destroys assets, breaks up communities and networks and kills and injures people. Although there is a large body of evidence on the destructive effects of war, we are still far from understanding how these effects may or may not persist across time."
As well as the growing prevalence, there is an increasing domesticity of war. According to the statistics of John Pilger (see opening quote), the number of civilian deaths in wars has risen by approximately 80% since World War One, the infamous Armageddon. In light of this, the correlation between poverty and conflict is unsurprising. As Justino notes, war destroys socio-political infrastructure, belittles the population, stagnates and strips economies, and so on; at all levels, it manipulates the destruction of physical and psychological society. At an objective level, the obvious destruction to physical infrastructure clearly implicates poverty, but perhaps it is the psychological, subjective implications of conflict that will have the greatest influence on poverty temporally. Eroded identities, opportunities and cultures are, arguably, the most significant impact of conflict, besides obvious repercussions of death and injury.
How does one address such things systematically, sustainably and effectively?
Is there a way to address such causes of poverty effectively?
Is our definition and understanding of poverty sufficient?
I'll leave you with two recommendations currently filling the sparse moments between revision:
#1 - 'Born Survivors' by Wendy Holden (click here).
#2 - 'Madam Secretary' TV series (click here).
Until next time,
C
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