This is one of the most inhuman things I've ever seen (BBC sport relief)

[DavidinSouthampton]

I'm deadly serious, and I'm glad at least a couple of people can see where I'm coming from on this. If you want to see a decent and blanced documentry on how people live and cope in different social and economic conditions to us then watch Kevin McCloud - Slumming it.

The sight of Gary Linekar forcing out a few tears does nothing for me, has he seriously never seen stuff like that before? I find it more offensive that people are watching that and using words like inhuman to describe those peoples lives - Newsflash, this is how much of the world's population lives, living day to day and just trying to survive, it's nothing new. What are we here for? Is it to collect material posessions and buy houses or cars? This is the real world and the majority of it aren't lucky enough to take survival for granted like we do, but it doesn't mean they are any less happy.

To carry on an analogy that someone used earlier, if a member of some royal family was watching a documentary about my life and pitied me because I didn't have what they have I would tell them to go f*** themselves. Like I said, it's highly patronising.

It's the ".... but it doesn't mean they are any less happy" comment that i don't understand. Would Gary Lineker have been "forcing a tear" had they all been singing as they worked and then skipping off to their brand new Audi TT's afterwards - I think not.

And to see - in other parts of the evening - David Walliams comforting a young boy who was in tears - and then elsewhere pictures of funerals of a six month old baby who has died from diarrhoea because she was unlucky enough to live alongside an open sewer.

I guess there is the Norman tebbit school of getting on your bike and finding work, or "I was born in to poverty but I just pulled myself up by my own bootstraps...." For vast numbers of people this is JUST NOT Possible.

I have just realised how angry I am - not necessarily at the original poster, but at a world in which sucjh injustice exists.

 

[Simster]

I don't think [MENTION=3969]Billy the Fish[/MENTION] is saying anything remotely controversial here, and good on him for saying it. All he's saying is that he found it patronising. I happen to disagree, because many kids in the UK find that sort of existence quite alarming and will be reduced to tears by the sight of it. In turn, they coerce their parents into making a small contribution, and sometimes will do so out of their own pocket money. I fail to see that a dose of reality and the subsequent prick of consciousness does anything but good.

I suppose you could argue that we all knows this goes on without seeing the footage, but this is a charity appeal. As such, I don't see the problem once a year.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I don't think [MENTION=3969]Billy the Fish[/MENTION] is saying anything remotely controversial here, and good on him for saying it. All he's saying is that he found it patronising. I happen to disagree, because many kids in the UK find that sort of existence quite alarming and will be reduced to tears by the sight of it. In turn, they coerce their parents into making a small contribution, and sometimes will do so out of their own pocket money. I fail to see that a dose of reality and the subsequent prick of consciousness does anything but good.

I suppose you could argue that we all knows this goes on without seeing the footage, but this is a charity appeal. As such, I don't see the problem once a year.

Spot on.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

A problem with Sport Relief (and the rest of these charity bonanzas) is that nobody is being encouraged to ask WHY these things happen. Poverty doesn't exist in isolation. And it won't be abolished by fundraising.

Having said that, if fundraising can nudge people closer to asking 'WHY?', then it's better than doing nothing.

 

[LamieRobertson]

A problem with Sport Relief (and the rest of these charity bonanzas) is that nobody is being encouraged to ask WHY these things happen. Poverty doesn't exist in isolation. And it won't be abolished by fundraising.

Having said that, if fundraising can nudge people closer to asking 'WHY?', then it's better than doing nothing.

exactly

 

[Deleted member 22389]

A problem with Sport Relief (and the rest of these charity bonanzas) is that nobody is being encouraged to ask WHY these things happen. Poverty doesn't exist in isolation. And it won't be abolished by fundraising.

Having said that, if fundraising can nudge people closer to asking 'WHY?', then it's better than doing nothing.

Exactly. I think most people would agree. Nobody will ever ask the question WHY, because asking WHY would require change. The most obvious reason to me is overpopulation.
If there is not enough food, facilities to go around in the first place then I cannot see the situation getting any better.

 

[Simster]

The reason the question "WHY?" is not asked is probably two-fold:
1) because it is complicated and there are many many reasons for it, and
2) because that doesn't actually help the people shitting and washing in rivers and working on rubbish tips right NOW.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Exactly. I think most people would agree. Nobody will ever ask the question WHY, because asking WHY would require change. The most obvious reason to me is overpopulation.
If there is not enough food, facilities to go around in the first place then I cannot see the situation getting any better.

'Overpopulation' is an explanation that makes sense from the perspective of the rich side of the world. If you are poor, and dependent on your children to sustain you, and there is a high mortality rate, it makes sense to ensure that you have enough children to keep you going.

It's a vicious circle from our point of view, but a virtuous circle from another.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

'Overpopulation' is an explanation that makes sense from the perspective of the rich side of the world. If you are poor, and dependent on your children to sustain you, and there is a high mortality rate, it makes sense to ensure that you have enough children to keep you going.

It's a vicious circle from our point of view, but a virtuous circle from another.

I didn't actually think of it like that. And your right its a vicious circle.

 

[Trufflehound]

A rather fatuous analogy within the context of this thread, but... Buying my annual poppy a few years ago, the middle-aged lady vendor asked me if I also wanted a poppy appeal sticker for my car. When I told her I didn't have a car her voice took on an immediate note of pity. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said. It took several minutes of me explaining to get the point across that I didn't need pity and that it was a lifestyle choice. She couldn't sem to grasp the fact that I wasn't miserable simply because I didn't have wheels...

Yes of course, for these kids being poor isn't a lifestyle choice, and I'm sure they're not all brimming with joy every moment of their lives, and if you offered them all the things we have they wouldn't turn any of it down. I just found it strange that so many people assume you can only be content if you have 'stuff'.

Many years ago in a small village in Indonesia, I saw some young kid, maybe 9 or 10, whose only plaything it seemed was a single caster wheel off the bottom of an old sofa. His entertainment was derived by running this along the side of a concrete culvert making 'motor' noises by blowing raspberries. Yet the picture of bliss on his face was like nothing I have ever seen on any other child, anywhere, ever. I've never seen any miserable ungrateful twunt in the UK look one-tenth as happy with their Wii or iPhone.

I guess my point is... Actually, I don't know what my point is, except that, as mentioned above, rather than pity, perhaps we should focus our emotions on being angry at those in governments and elsewhere who have the means and resources at their fingertips to do something about such massive inequalities, but choose not to act.

 

[00snook]

I'm deadly serious, and I'm glad at least a couple of people can see where I'm coming from on this. If you want to see a decent and blanced documentry on how people live and cope in different social and economic conditions to us then watch Kevin McCloud - Slumming it.

The sight of Gary Linekar forcing out a few tears does nothing for me, has he seriously never seen stuff like that before? I find it more offensive that people are watching that and using words like inhuman to describe those peoples lives - Newsflash, this is how much of the world's population lives, living day to day and just trying to survive, it's nothing new. What are we here for? Is it to collect material posessions and buy houses or cars? This is the real world and the majority of it aren't lucky enough to take survival for granted like we do, but it doesn't mean they are any less happy.

To carry on an analogy that someone used earlier, if a member of some royal family was watching a documentary about my life and pitied me because I didn't have what they have I would tell them to go f*** themselves. Like I said, it's highly patronising.

This, plus your first post are bang on mate.

If anybody really cared something would have been done to help people like these.

The truth is society in general doesn't care. People give a few quid here or there to charity and feel better about themselves, then get back to their western capitalist consumerist lifestyles.

I'm not in my high horse here. I do it too. It's just how the world works.

Good post.

 

[sydney]

seen mcloud's doccos .......they are very good......the one about india (mumbai) is enthralling.........you might not like it said out loud chaps but those little urchins on the streets are probably happier than a lot of us.

 

[Brian Fantana]

A rather fatuous analogy within the context of this thread, but... Buying my annual poppy a few years ago, the middle-aged lady vendor asked me if I also wanted a poppy appeal sticker for my car. When I told her I didn't have a car her voice took on an immediate note of pity. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said. It took several minutes of me explaining to get the point across that I didn't need pity and that it was a lifestyle choice. She couldn't sem to grasp the fact that I wasn't miserable simply because I didn't have wheels...

Yes of course, for these kids being poor isn't a lifestyle choice, and I'm sure they're not all brimming with joy every moment of their lives, and if you offered them all the things we have they wouldn't turn any of it down. I just found it strange that so many people assume you can only be content if you have 'stuff'.

Many years ago in a small village in Indonesia, I saw some young kid, maybe 9 or 10, whose only plaything it seemed was a single caster wheel off the bottom of an old sofa. His entertainment was derived by running this along the side of a concrete culvert making 'motor' noises by blowing raspberries. Yet the picture of bliss on his face was like nothing I have ever seen on any other child, anywhere, ever. I've never seen any miserable ungrateful twunt in the UK look one-tenth as happy with their Wii or iPhone.

I guess my point is... Actually, I don't know what my point is, except that, as mentioned above, rather than pity, perhaps we should focus our emotions on being angry at those in governments and elsewhere who have the means and resources at their fingertips to do something about such massive inequalities, but choose not to act.

I totally agree. I guess it is the natural inclination to judge other people's existence by our own standards and priorities.

 

[BigGully]

It was asking for our money, so I guess it was produced to tug at our compassionate nature and needed to show those children.

But I as others have become a little weary of 'charity' and 'aid'.

I grew up seeing starving African's, my children our now seeing starving African's and I fear that their children will too.

Why not do a follow up, with Lineker and interview their politicians and Industrialists, show them those scavenging children and lets see what they think, maybe even feel a sense of responsibility to their people.

If as we were told it takes only £10.00 to put those children through school for a month, why not track down the manufacturers of those monster trucks shifting the waste, its a massive piece of expensive kit. someone has a very good contract, so get them to go along and see for themselves.

A little bit of self responsibility wouldn't go a miss.

 

[KZNSeagull]

I am afraid that giving 10 pounds a month to send these kids to school will not do any good. They will not go.

Like the many South African kids I see at rubbish dumps, begging in the road etc, I doubt that they are there through choice. They have to be there to scrape out an existance.

A worrying stat from last years SA exam results is that over 1 million school children enrolled in Grade 1, 12 years ago - only 500,000 sat their end of Grade 12 school exams. The rest have disappeared from the school system for a whole host of reasons, one of which will be because they are having to earn money to look after their family.

So I suppose the point I am making is that if a country does not have a welfare system that enables all children to finish their schooling, then giving the children the money to go to school is not, sadly, going to help.