1 in 6 hungry.

Monday, June 29, 2009. 963 million people on this planet are hungry. The news these days are shocking. What is going on on our planet, what is happening? Why can it be that we all know, but things are not changing? The number of people who have not enough or bad food has increased over the last years. The problem is growing!

As typical causes of hunger we find the same problems usually: natural desasters and climate change, war and military conflicts, the poverty trap and social structures, in particular the agricultural infrastructure. The hunger the world faces today is mainly a social problem. It is a problem of humanity. It is our problem.

Most people who are hungry today live in developing countries, most of them are children and women. They work hard, they do their best, they give large sacrifices to help their children. But they cannot do much. We need to face the truth that the overwhelming majority of those, who are hungry, are innocent and did not contribute to the structures and mechanisms which keep them hungry and let them die finally.

Can't we change the things? Can't we just help them? Yes, it is important to help. It is important to provide food to those who are dying or who are suffering serious damage from malnutrition. It is absolutely necessary! But it will not change hunger. It is not a solution to the causes of hunger. The causes are social. The causes are in the local economic and social systems of many countries and the causes lie in our world economic system. We are part of this, and we share a big chunk of the responsibility!

It is difficult to change social systems. Even if we are gifted and motivated it might be impossible for us to do much in a particular environment. Even the well-developed societies have their mechanisms to keep people in their particular social classes or environment. Money and influence stays with particular social groups. Most possessions today are inherited, not earned. In the struggle for resources we are ignorant to the injustice of our own systems, and to the strong injustice of the global distribution of life options and possibilities.

The hunger in this world is a topic which comes back to me again and again. In fact, it should come back, it should bother me and you and everyone. If we know the suffering, how can we stay calm? But the problem is much deeper than we think, so we need to think deep and we need to act in a systematic and coordinated way. Let us act in the spirit of the Lord, in the spirit of Jesus. He knows the deeper causes of many social catastrophies. And he has a future for us, he knows ways out of the dilemma. In faith we will be able to change what cannot be changed, to make the impossible possible … ... more texts