Even the worst of men should not starve

The words are from an op-ed in La Stampa regarding a judgement of a man in Italy accused of stealing food. As the judge ruled, he had a right to survive and that right prevails over the right to property.

This week in England a man sleeping rough had his clothing forcibly removed by a police officer because he believed them to be stolen. He was wrong, they had been bought for the homeless man in an act of kindness.

He still has a right to survive, even if he’s stolen.

Are these men criminals or victims?

As my colleague argued many years ago in his critique of laissez faire capitalism:

“Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.

“By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.”

‘It is only when wealth begins to concentrate in the hands of a relative few at the expense of billions of others who are denied even a small share of finite wealth that trouble starts and physical, human suffering begins. It does not have to be this way. Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable. Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty, and leave us all with something better to worry about. Basic human needs such as food and shelter are fundamental human rights; there are more than enough resources available to go around — if we can just figure out how to share. It cannot be “Me first, mine first”; rather, “Me, too” is more the order of the day.’

He argued his case to US President Bill Clinton.

His own op-ed was published in Kyiv Post in 2003, when dead and half starved children were turning up on doorsteps in Ukraine.

Later that year, back in the USA his fast for US Gov to ratify the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, brought me on board.

In 2006, he followed up with ‘Death Camps , For Children’ which revealed the extent to which children were routinely starved within state care.

His own death in 2011 was marked by a civil rights leader, a friend who’d know of his efforts and discovered his body:

‘The author of breakthru report “Death camps for children” Terry Hallman suddenly died of grave disease on Aug 18 2011. On his death bed he was speaking only of his mission — rescuing of these unlucky kids. His dream was to get them new homes filled with care and love. His quest would be continued as he wished.’

As he’d argued, not long before he died, other people matter:

‘Allowing that some people do not matter, as things are turning out, allows that other people do not matter and those cracks are widening to swallow up more and more people. Social enterprise is the first concerted effort in the Information Age to at least attempt to rectify that problem, if only because letting it get worse and worse threatens more and more of us. Growing numbers of people are coming to understand that “them” might equal “me.” Call it compassion, or call it enlightened and increasingly impassioned self-interest. Either way, we are all in this together, and we will each have to decide for ourselves what it means to ignore someone to death, or not. ‘