Obviously many are starving, but the reasons are not as clear as most imagine as hunger is just the most obvious symptom of deeper and more complex issues.
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| Nobel prize winning economist, Amartya Sen, has views about life that would benefit Somalia and probably the U.S. |
Democracy, uninhibited by greed and a lust for power, has rarely, and maybe never, allowed for conditions in which people have wanted for the necessities of life.
In a genuine democracy people have legitimate and ready access to decision makers and so can influence processes ensuring that food is broadly and readily available to all.
That same democracy also ensures individual rights, equality, and justice and within that safeguards access to food, which according to Nobel prize-winning economist, AmartyaSen, is best achieved through freedom, civil rights, economic freedom, social opportunities, transparency in dealing with government and others.
Those critical human civilities have been somewhat absent from Somalia and so the solution is not simply about providing more food, rather it is about helping the Somalians unscramble the workings of a society left emaciated after a few lunged for power and the rest of the world embraced globalization.
The solution for Somalia rests not with the economy, rather with an understanding of what it is that ignites and maintains human happiness and within and beyond that, an individual’s well-being.
The people of Somalia, and the rest of the world for that matter, will only be adequately fed when the focus is on people as opposed to things.
America presently wrestles with its multi-trillion dollar debt and sees the solution in economic terms when in reality the spotlight needs to be turned toward those things that are lamentably missing in Somalia – civil rights, equality, social opportunities, transparency and a return to the root meaning of democracy in which people actively engage with the administration of their lives.
The idea that economic growth can and will continue indefinitely is dead and survival on our finite world is now about building communities that are resilient, sustainable, adaptable and, of course, both happy and content.
A rare few, comparatively, find that ever elusive happiness and contentment through the economy, while most find nought but delusion and discontent.
The Somalian solution will not be easy, straightforward or simple, but it begins through the application of those things such as civil rights, equality and freedom as discussed by Sen.
The American situation is equally complex, for different reasons, but a solution for the U.S. is also to be found with a drive toward civil rights, equality, decency and the abandonment of the idea that a growth-based economy is a cure-all.
