GLARING INEQUITIES IN WEALTH

Recently a group of 20 countries met in London for a summit meeting to consider how to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I was shocked to read in Nicholas Kristoff’s New York Times Op-Ed piece (4-3-09) that in 2009, an additional 22 children throughout the world will die every hour because of the growing global economic crisis.

I was further shocked and angered to learn from Kristoff’s article that the 500 richest people in the world earned more than the 416 million poorest people. If that is not a sign of a coming revolution, I do not know what is.

About a week after Kristof’s article appeared in the New York Times, I watched with trepidation the unfolding of events off the coast of Africa when pirates from Somalia seized an American merchant ship on the high seas. I was thrilled to read about that heroic captain who was willing to give up his life for his crew and delighted that expert marksmen – US Navy Seals – in a dangerous and daring operation rescued him by taking out three of his captors who were holding him in a life boat.

But I was also reading reports that pirates off the east coast of Africa have seized many ships and released their crews only after high ransoms were paid. Civilized nations such as those of the G 20 are holding summits to deal with rogue nations and their thugs. And they are taking steps to insure that these nations do not get nuclear arms. Should we all breathe easier because they are doing that?

I wonder. Perhaps we should be more concerned that these rogues and ruffians have the technology to see the opulence we have and the abject poverty under which they live. Can the group of 20 nations make the world safer for peace loving nations without attacking the problem of glaring inequities in wealth? Does this 20-nation group have a more limited objective in mind, namely, to make sure that the 500 richest people in the world will continue to make more money than the 416 million poorest people?

A tough question, to be sure. But the answer will determine whether we live with all people in peace and harmony or whether we live with hijackings in the air, on the streets, and on the seas beneath an occasional but deadly mushroom cloud.

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