The difference between defining ‘luxury’ in Britain and ‘luxury’ in the world’s poorest countries
Anyone who can think back to the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia back in 1985 (well before I was born) will remember how the powerful use of imagery and video in these concerts helped raise a level of awareness which reached new heights in the western world.
As many of us in Britain take many of our luxuries for granted - having regular, clean water supplies, being able to buy good quality, affordable food in our supermarkets and having excellent access to good medical care, we forget that in other countries many of these luxuries remain just that - a luxury.
In Britain we think of expensive cars, being able to afford rhinoplasty, or holidays in 5 star hotels as being a ’luxury’. In a country like Chad or Sudan, a luxury is being able to find enough water deep in the desert to feed your family for just a day. It is the kind of existence that depends on life or death, whereas in Britain, we have a choice of earning a good living, or living off a minimum wage. In the world’s poorest countries there is simply no money or resources to accommodate their millions of people. In fact, the governments of these countries are more corrupt and shambolic than our country’s most violent criminals. One way to help these impoverished populations is through large charity projects and international campaigns.
Of course, this can help some people, but not others. This is because no matter how much we do to raise money or build hospitals in schools in countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe, we are virtually powerless so long as their government’s own most of the country’s wealth. This is a sad fact of reality and there is little that can be done until such leaders can make an effort to respect the democratic process. In the near future, this is looking unlikely.
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