Panel members included Philippines RPCV Ray Woods in Forum to discuss links between poverty and war
Forum discusses links between poverty, war
By NIKKI PATRICK
Lifestyle Editor
Poverty and perceptions of injustice are barriers to peace, both within nations and between nations.
The Interfaith Alliance of Southeast Kansas sponsored a forum Sunday on economic inequalities between rich and poor nations, the second in a series dealing with obstacles to world peace. The first forum dealt with religionism and nationalism.
Panel members were Dr. Stephen Harmon, Pittsburg State University assistant history professor; Dr. Anil Lal, PSU associate economics professor; Anna Powers, PSU assistant director of multicultural affairs; and Ray Woods, Independence, a businessman, former Peace Corps volunteer and world traveler.
Moderator was Dr. Stephen Teller, PSU English professor.
Lal noted that only highly industrialized countries have the technological capability to produce sophisticated weapons systems. Therefore, poor nations are not likely to directly attack rich ones.
"However, during the Cold War, there was war by proxy," Lal said. "There would be problems between two poor nations, and the United States would give arms to one of them, while the Soviet Union would give to the other."
According to statistics, Lal said, 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day, while another 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day.
Poor people are vulnerable to exploitation by persons such as Ossama bin Laden, Lal said.
"Poor people may make wrong decisions because of economic pressure," he said. "Young people are also very impressionable. If I can't get two decent meals a day, and someone tells me that if I blow myself up, they'll give my family $500 and I'll go to heaven, then I might go blow myself up."
Woods, however, said that at least some of the Palestinian suicide bombers are highly educated and wealthy. Other factors are involved, including a desire for justice for the Palestinians.
"I just got back from a 44-day trip to the Muslim part of the world," Woods said. "Time after time, people told me, 'you say the United States wants to bring us democracy, but you don't really have democracy because you support Israel'. I was in Israel, and it's the most frightening place I've ever been in my life."
He is deeply concerned about what he calls "the destruction of the planet. The Amazon rain forest is 26 percent cut down. In Baghdad, the average temperature is 114 or 115 degrees. The rivers in that part of the world are drying up. We are nuts if we don't equate this into the problem."
Promoting democracy in the world may be in the interests of world peace, Zagorski said, in part because democratic nations rarely attack each other.
"The problem is in getting from here to there," he said. "If you live in a society close to the economic margin and there has been very little change over the years, then you tend to take the order of things as a given. You have little spare time or resources to risk on political action. But if you perceive an injustice and you get a leader who can mobilize the discontent, you're likely to see instability."
"When people's basic needs are not met, they may resort to violent means to obtain them," Anna Powers said. She noted that 80 percent of the population of Chad lives in poverty. The figure if 60 percent for Bolivia.
Stephen Harmon spoke of the "resource curse." "Some poor nations are rich in resources," he said. "These resources are exploited by foreigners, and not for the welfare of the nation's people."
Zagorski said that the World Bank has been trying to help with this problem, providing loans for development of resources but requiring that some of the proceeds be put into a special fund for schools, roads and other social projects in the country.
Some companies from industrialized nations build production facilities in Third World countries, taking advantage of a cheap labor force.
However, Zagorski said that this may help workers in those countries secure some labor rights, such as prohibition of child labor and involuntary servitude.
Lal noted that, in Europe, nations seem to be cooperating well and some now share a common currency, the Euro.
"The more we interact, the more we learn how much alike we are, and how it isn't good to fight over stupid things," Lal said. "We make more by joining together."
