Subscribe to RSS feedLast week Joel Devonshire, a member of ICPJ’s Latin America Task Force, had the following “Other Voices” piece published in the Ann Arbor News.
Lifestyle of U.S. consumers rooted in poverty, violence
Wednesday, March 14, 2007, Printed in Ann Arbor News
BY JOEL DEVONSHIRE
During many long bus rides through the Mexican countryside, passing through both major cities and vast expanses of poverty, I finished reading “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,” by Tracy Kidder. This is the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads selection, and reading it, I was deeply inspired by the story of Dr. Farmer and his colleagues in Partners In Health.
While Dr. Farmer’s story is certainly notable for his passionate commitment to the poor, his success in fighting infectious diseases in countries with very few resources and his ability to bring accessible and effective health care to those in dire need, the aspect of Dr. Farmer’s work that I find most important and relevant to me as a citizen of the United States revolves around the concept of structural violence.
“Structural violence” is a concept that Farmer has used in much of his writings, and it refers to the way in which human social activities, habits and policies that are firmly entrenched (i.e., “structures”) can be a form of violence to others. In “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” Farmer is observed to comment more than once on “the massive accumulation of wealth in one part of the world and abject misery in another.” When Farmer compares the economic conditions of Haiti and the United States, he is not just emphasizing the extreme difference between the two, he is also hinting at a possible causal connection. Perhaps the massive wealth in the United States is more deeply connected to Haiti’s poverty than we know or would like to admit. As Farmer observes in a 2006 article in Notre Dame Magazine, “In Haiti, Rwanda, and even Boston, service to the destitute sick reveals the sharp limitations of what can be done to allay misery without a broad understanding of why some people have so little while others enjoy a peculiarly modern surfeit.”
Most of us go through the daily grind of living without much regard for our lifestyles. We take for granted that at any time we can buy bananas in winter, cheap clothing and plush carpeting for every room in the house. Structural violence, however, forces us to ask the difficult questions about this comfortable and privileged standard of living we’re so accustomed to. What responsibility do we have to the children and adults - enslaved, paid minimal wages, abused, sickened by pesticides, etc. - who pick our produce, sew our clothes and weave our carpets? Why are we so fortunate to live such comfortable lives while they suffer? Is there a connection between our wealth and privileged status in the world and their poverty and ill-health? Does the United States play any role in the violence that occurs in so many poor countries?
One might consider how we first meet Paul Farmer in “Mountains Beyond Mountains”: He is chastising an American colonel about the U.S. Army School of the Americas, or SOA (renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” in 2001). This combat training facility is an example of structural violence at work. Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred or driven from their homes by graduates of the school. And this is but one example.
Through my own research on this topic, and through my involvement in the Latin American Task Force with the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice in Ann Arbor, I’ve come to understand how the United States has a long and rich history of meddling in the affairs of Latin American countries (and elsewhere). This has included openly supporting ruthless dictators such as Augusto Pinochet in Chile and the Somoza family in Nicaragua, and supporting coups to overthrow democratically elected governments (such as against Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala, 1954). When the U.S. cannot directly invade a country (as in Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.), it often does the next best thing: supply weapons, money or training to its military. To cite only three examples: “Plan Columbia,” started under the Clinton administration ostensibly to fight the drug trade; ongoing military training in El Salvador in the 1980s; and military support for General Suharto when he invaded East Timor in 1975.
There is a connection here between structural violence and military violence. It is an important connection to see, and Dr. Farmer’s story helps us to see it. His analysis of structural violence challenges us to explore why so many of the world’s population are poor, and why our country has been so consistently militant around the world. Moreover, Farmer’s example of selfless service challenges us to follow his lead to do more in our own lives. When Farmer spoke in Ann Arbor, he reminded the audience that one doesn’t need to be a doctor to do great things. What about “Architects Without Borders,” he asked. The Beehive Collective is a group of artists who have taken Dr. Farmer’s advice to heart and use their art to educate the community about structural violence in Latin America. They’ll be visiting Ann Arbor in April, so check them out if you can - more details are online at www.icpj.net.
When we look at the world through the lens of structural violence, we are confronted with the connections between long-standing American policies, corporate mindsets and American consumerism on the one hand and the suffering, violence, poverty and poor health of developing countries on the other. What’s more, once we have viewed the world in this way, blissful ignorance is no longer an option, and moral outrage and an urgent need to do something to change these systematic inequalities takes over.