Global Inequality Coursework

Dear Editor

              I am writing to the response of an article called “Life is so hard” which was in your paper on Tuesday last week.  The response in question was written by I. Amok.  I found the letter to be misleading and some of his points and views are not necessarily true or supported by statistical evidence or case studies.

The comment Mr Amok made in the first paragraph about “Poverty isn’t that bad.  Only a few people are really poor” is quite false.  These people in Africa aren’t even getting the bare essentials that we humans need, like clean water and shelter.  This kind of poverty is called absolute poverty.  Another comment that was made “There are lots of people in this country who are poor” this comment is true but it is relative to how poor African people are.  This is called relative poverty.  Also Mr Amok said, “Not everyone in this country can afford a car” it is not essential to own a car and is nothing compared to having dirty clothes and no shelter.

Mr Amok then went on to talk about a safari holiday he had in Tanzania and he didn’t see anyone who was starving and the food in his hotel was excellent. He then went on to say “I am also told that they don’t have enough clean water, yet we had a lovely pool and the water was changed every day” the reason Mr Amok didn’t see anyone starving and didn’t see poverty is probably because he stayed in a posh resort which was far away from the real world in Tanzania.  The reason the hotel was so good was probably because the government funded it so they could attract tourists.  This is not good because they could have used the money for things like healthcare and food, also they could have used their natural resources better instead of making sure tourists get a clean swimming pool every morning.

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The letter then goes on to say about “that its up to the individual to stay healthy” and “they should take the doctors advice and eat healthy food and stop smoking” this is all about the lack of education and bad governments.  If people in LEDC’s were better educated about what to eat and what to stay away from then it would be all right but the government hasn’t got the funds and resources to educate all their country.

He then goes back to the absolute and relative poverty issue by saying their “housing isn’t bad its just different ...

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