The Two Worlds We Live In and the Imperative of Justice

Last week was quite a disturbing one. It had something to do with three scenes that I came across on the street.

The first happened when I was on my way home, sitting in a parked jeepney that was waiting to fill up with passengers before leaving. Three little urchins came up – the oldest couldn’t have been more than ten – and started calling out to passers-by to ride the jeepney. “Sakay na!” (“Ride now!”) This is usually done by men called “barkers” who help the jeepney drivers to call for passengers, and get some coins in return. These boys, it turned out, had no money to pay the fare and so were doing this in the hopes of getting a free ride. When the jeepney was full, they clung onto the back of it and rode along. They were in high spirits and joking among themselves. I was amused by their carefree manner even as I felt guilty to be sitting comfortably in the jeepney, having paid the fare, with them hanging onto it from the outside. They looked confident and resourceful in their poverty, but I wondered what kind of future they would have.

The next day I went to the bakery to buy some bread, and there was a little girl of about ten sitting beside the door. She was thin and dirty, and looked quite listless – but every time a customer came to the door she would jump up and open it, and stick her hand out in hopes of a coin. I gave her a few. I could not in good conscience buy bread for us and leave her without.

Just down the street from that bakery lives a homeless family with a baby. Sometimes when I walk by, we smile at or wave to each other. I have always been impressed by the attention and care they seem to lavish on the baby, who despite living on the street looks well and is always in someone’s arms. On this particular day, I heard an odd wailing noise as I approached their corner. To my horror it was not coming from some animal but from the mother, who was stalking about in distress, wailing loudly and waving her arms wildly, seemingly oblivious to everyone else, while her husband followed her carrying the baby, trying to talk to her. The raw pain in her voice tore at me. In my shock I wondered if she had gone mad.

Thankfully, when I saw her in the next few days she seemed to have gone back to her normal smiling self. But what I had seen had made me incredibly sad and troubled. The phrase “dehumanising poverty” suddenly had a new face for me.

With this image still fresh in my memory, I felt a bewildering sense of dislocation the next day while reading an article in the Singapore newspapers about a former prime minister calling for an increase in ministerial salaries. How can we expect to attract capable people to serve in government if our salaries are not comparable to the private sector? He asked. In support of his argument he cited the example of a member of parliament who had recently given up a SGD 2 million (USD 1.5 million) annual salary to work as a Senior Minister for State for only SGD 500,000 (USD 365,000) a year. Reportedly, in deciding whether to give up his previous job, he had struggled with having to accept this reduction in salary as he still had to support his parents and parents-in-law. That he did it in the end, the former prime minister pointed out, was an example of self-sacrifice for the nation.

Source: http://www.writeopinions.com/poverty-in-bangladesh

I don’t think I was the only person reading that article to wonder which world the former prime minister was living in, that he would cite living on SGD 500,000 a year as an example of financial hardship. What about the vast majority of people in Singapore and elsewhere who have to support their families on much less than that? What about those boys I saw clinging onto the back of the jeepney; the girl opening doors for coins? The hardworking women from the squatter area near us who come exhausted at the end of a day spent selling things, cleaning, or working for their families, to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet in our monthly prayer sessions? That homeless mother ground down by dehumanising poverty, wailing in the street? Are they worth less?

How can it be that the gulf between the haves and have-nots in our world is so vast that they might as well be on different planets?

I say this with a sense of deep shame, because I am – as we all are – also complicit in the social structures that have created this terrible reality, and have benefited from them at the expense of other people who are equally deserving of life and the shared resources of our planet. Those of us who call ourselves Christian, and who profess to follow the Christ who was poor and who said, “blessed are the poor”, bear an added burden of hypocrisy in the way we sometimes emasculate his radical message by spiritualising it.  We often seem to forget that inconvenient fact that Pope Francis has been trying to hammer through: that “the poor are at the center of the Gospel, are at the heart of the Gospel, [and] if we take away the poor from the Gospel we can’t understand the whole message of Jesus Christ” (at a mass on 16 January 2015).

Actually, you might be surprised to know that Catholic social teaching – sometimes called “the Church’s best-kept secret” – is in fact full of statements that, if taken seriously, would shock us out of our apathy:

“You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.”

- St Ambrose, as quoted in the papal encyclical Populorum Progressio

 [T]o care for the poor and the excluded does not only call for acts of “charity”, but also by making social and economic opportunities be accessible to them. To counter social exclusion is to make society’s playing field level for all. “It is not merely a matter of ‘giving from one’s surplus’, but of helping entire peoples which are presently excluded or marginalized to enter into the sphere of economic and human development.” (Centesimus Annus, 58)

- Excerpt from Faith in Action by Daniel Pilario

Perhaps what these quotes make clear is the unfortunate reality that taking the Gospel seriously will require of us real sacrifices. “Changes in social structure” might sound abstract… but what it means practically is that, to make life better for others who are dispossessed, we who have much will have to make do with less; to change our comfortable lifestyles. 

Of course it doesn’t mean that we make ourselves destitute – that is not what anyone should have to experience. But Pope Francis has spoken eloquently in Laudato Si about the need for personal conversion: to know what is truly important in our lives so that we will not try again and again, vainly, to fill the bottomless pit of our insecurities by accumulating to ourselves the resources of the world that are justly due to other people, to future generations, and to the community of life.


To live simply so that others may simply live: that would be a small but solid start.

And, paradoxically, we might even find ourselves happier and more grateful for the simple blessings that come our way: a smile, a sunset, nourishing food on the table, the presence of loved ones. Is it not these that matter, at the end of the day?

May the divine compassion disturb each one of us out of our indifferent self-sufficiency, to realise that living with integrity requires a commitment to bringing about justice for all, most especially the poor.

Food for Thought:
How am I being invited to listen to the voices of the poor; to respond to the imperative of justice?
How can we promote a commitment to social justice in our communities and churches?

P.S. As a first step you could also consider sharing this post and getting more people into the conversation!