By M.K. George

Rome: ‘Tell me why’ is the title of a song by Declan Galbarith. He sang it in 2002 when he had not reached 11 years of age. But the questions he asked remain so relevant even today.

“In my dream, children sing a song of love for every boy and girl. The sky is blue. And fields are green. And laughter is the language of the world. Then I wake and all I see is a world full of people in need. Tell me why (why) does it have to be like this? Is there something I have missed… cos I don’t understand? When so many need somebody, we don’t give a helping hand…Every day I ask myself, What will I have to do to be a man? Do I have to stand and fight, to prove to everybody who I am? Is this what my life is for, to waste in a world full of war? …”

Questions Galore

“Six to eight million people may have died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic compared to 3.4 million deaths in countries’ official reporting’ reports say. (NYT 23.05.2021).

Why do we not even count our dead properly? Is it not the least respect we can give to our dear departed?

May 28 is celebrated as World Hunger Day. As per the World Vision reports, ‘globally, about 8.9 percent of the world’s population — 690 million people — go to bed on an empty stomach each night. Since 2014, the number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise. If it continues at this rate, it will exceed 840 million by 2030’.

In contrast the U N says, ‘enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet, but hunger is on the rise in some parts of the world, and some 821 million people are considered to be chronically undernourished’ (UN, 3 October 2019).

The World Food Programme has a proposal, which involves five steps: 1. More protection for the most vulnerable 2. Improvement of infrastructure 3. Reduce food wastage. (It is reported that around one third of the food produced each year is lost or wasted, costing the global economy some $1 trillion per year) 4. Grow a wider variety of four crops.5. Focus on child nutrition.

Let us not forget the pandemic period has benefitted the super-rich. ‘A report by Swiss Bank found that billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5 percent) at the height of the crisis from April to July, 2020, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes.’

An Oxfam report revealed that, ‘Indian billionaires increased their wealth by 35 percent during the lockdown to Three trillion rupees, ranking India after U.S. China, Germany, Russia and France. Out of these, the rise in fortunes for the top 100 billionaires since the lockdown in March 2020 is enough to give every one of the 138 million poorest Indian people a cheque for 94,045 rupees each’ (Jagriti Chandra,2021).

‘Tell me why’ the hungry are not fed when there is so much money around?

A war crazy world

As per available data, there are at least 40 ongoing wars or conflicts around the world now. The European Commission reports that ‘the global military expenditure increased 75 percent over the last 20 years, but stands at around 1.7 trillion dollars annually since 2009. In 2018, it was 1.774 trillion dollars. The top five military spenders in 2018 were the USA, China, Saudi Arabia, India and France which together accounted for 60 percent of global military spending’.

Why do we spend so much to kill each other?

Questions like these abound. However, the grownups are refusing to ask them. Will the children and youth wake up?

Youth, wake up. Ask the questions please!

There is a dramatic example of how youth are helping. The whole world will remember how, ‘shortly after 8 pm on May 25, 2020, Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, placed his knee on George Floyd’s neck and kept it there for more than nine minutes. None of the three other officers standing near Chauvin intervened. Soon, Floyd was dead. Initially, the police gave a misleading account of Floyd’s death, and the case might have received relatively little attention but for the video, that Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old, took with her phone. That video led to international outrage and, by some measures, the largest protest marches in U.S. history.’ (NYT 25 May 2021).

Greta Thunberg stands tall in the list of youth asking questions. Malala Yousafzai, Shamma bint Suhail Faris Mazrui, Yara Shahidi, Jamie Margolin, Isra Hirsi, Marley Diaz, and Mari Copeny are names to look out for.

Can we dream of a billion such voices asking the question, ‘Tell me why’?

Remember the old saying, ‘a thousand shouts on the mountain will bring down an avalanche’.
A billion voices asking ‘Tell me why’ will bring in a change.

(Father M K George is Jesuits’ regional assistant for South Asia.)