Sir, - I was outraged by Kevin Myers's crass and facile explanation of Third World poverty and debt in "An Irishman's Diary" of February 25th. To say that the Third World is a code name for Africa displays an inability or unwillingness to grasp the realities of global politics and wealth distribution. The Third World is a euphemism for the two-thirds of the world's population who lack the basic necessities for life. It is comprised of most of the southern hemisphere, whose people every day pay the rich North $700 million in debt repayment. According to Mr Myers these people are poor because they have resorted to "philosophical inertia and feckless improvidence". Does not the fact that 18 per cent of the world's population use 75 per cent of its resources disturb his complacency just a little? Has he ever had cause to reflect that poverty may have something to do with capitalism, greed and political interest?
Take the example of Guatemala, a non-African country, which until very recently was "misgoverned by slovenly despots or serial killers" (to quote Kevin Myers). How did it come to be so governed? In 1952 a CIA-backed coup forced the democratically elected Arbenz government from power. Why? A modest programme of land reform threatened the interests of the United Fruit Company of North America which owned most of the unused fertile land while poor campesinos scraped a living on barren mountainsides.
Thus began a 35-year reign of terror and genocide under brutal military dictatorships which were armed, trained and financed by the US government protecting its own financial and political interests in the region. Many Mayan communities were wiped out, people fled the country or hid in the mountains fearful for their lives.
Does Mr Myers expect that, having seen their loved ones massacred and being deprived of their land, they should have worked hard and saved for the future. What future? The war is over but the land shortage persists because most of the fertile land is given over to huge plantations which grow coffee and bananas for multinational corporations. With no land of their own, people eke out an existence doing seasonal work on these plantations in appalling conditions and for very little money.
A teacher told me that he closes his school in January and February because children work alongside their parents on the plantations. So, while children in the Western world miss school to have a holiday in the sun, children in the developing world miss school to work for Western multinationals! The story is the same the world over. "Slovenly despots" supported and financed by Western governments; the world's resources monopolised by a few while the many starve.
We in the West have accumulated our wealth on the backs of people who courageously struggle for life in the face of death. Many developing countries have repaid their monetary debt to us many times over but interest rates have spiralled out of control. In order to service their debts, 37 of the world's poorest countries have cut health spending by 50 per cent and education by 25 per cent, so children die and those who survive to adulthood are deprived of the chance to break out of the poverty cycle.
The cost of cancelling the debt is equivalent to the yearly amount spent on cinema-going in the US. Is the life of a child not worth the price of a cinema ticket? Debt cancellation, with suitable conditions attached, is morally imperative because the poor are repaying the loan with their lives. - Yours, etc., Barbara Hughes,
Voluntary Missionary Movement, Gracepark Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.