Poverty

[l.m.fosse at easteur-orient.uio.no]

Sadhunathan Nadesan wrote:

>And perhaps I should have taken more care to differentiate between
>poverty and renunciation, but in any case, the original thought behind
>the posting of the editorial on poverty was to show a difference in
>perspective, East vs West.

I am not quite sure that this is a difference between the East and the
West. It seems far more likely that it is a difference between rich and
poor. In the West you will often find rich people who take the poverty of
others quite lightly and who romanticize it unashamedly. Thus, they don't
have to make any sacrifices in order to alleviate it. You should really ask
those who are poor without choosing to be so if they prefer their present
situation. I'll bet that most of them don't and would rather be rich, or at
least moderatly well-to-do.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse



Lars Martin Fosse
Research Fellow
Department of East European
and Oriental Studies
P. O. Box 1030, Blindern
N-0315 OSLO Norway

Tel: +47 22 85 68 48
Fax: +47 22 85 41 40

E-mail: l.m.fosse at easteur-orient.uio.no