Opinion
20 Mar 01

Worlds Apart

For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people in the world rivals the number of underweight. 1.2 billion, a landmark reached in February. And while the ranks of the hungry are thinning slowly, those of the obese are growing. In America, 55% of adults are classified as overweight. Some 23% are considered obese. There are 400,000 liposuction operations each year.

As an aside, you'd wonder - what do they do with what they suck out? Refine it for use in cars? Burn it? Is this how they produce so much carbon? But I digress.

By contrast, 100 impoverished mash-pickers died when the Promised Land collapsed in the Philippines. Sounds like a property investment or a bank or a cult. But no, it was a rubbish dump. And they were scavenging as a way of life. Believe me, their agenda did not include liposuction.

Can you reconcile these extremes, and if so, how?

I don't know. In every exchange imaginable, the rich North benefits at the expense of the poor South. And it applies across the board. As in sport - this year, Germany was chosen over South Africa for the 2006 World Cup, thanks to the Oceania delegate Charles Dempsey, who abstained. You might ask why. Africans in general were, and remain, very pissed off. Allegations have been made.

But the negative equity is also found in 'Third-World aid', in loans, in economic agreements, the lot.

We need to change. We need new values. We need to understand that actually, it isn't a competition, and that their wealth is our wealth. This year, a generation discovered anger and a new form of politics. The streets were taken. Meetings of the World Bank and the G8 countries were besieged. Activists attacked the fundamentals of capitalism. Naomi Wolf wrote a book called No Logo. Nothing is ever going to be the same again.

Of course, there are levels of engagement. When you got nothin' you got nothin' to lose. The streets are yours. But the contribution of others should not be gainsaid. One must acknowledge the contribution of wealthy and influential individuals, including Bono and Bob Geldof. They are often slagged.

But perhaps the single most unexpected, startling and praiseworthy gesture emerged in the last weeks of the year, when it was announced that Dublin-born entrepreneur Philip Berber has pledged $100 million to a new charity that will try to combat poverty, disease and homelessness in Ethiopia.

Berber was chief executive of CyBerCorp, but sold it for $488 million in March. Now he's the chairman, but he's going to concentrate on the charity. He was quoted in an Irish Times report as saying that he and his wife "want to help relieve some of the pain on the planet". He also spoke of bringing "a business-like approach" to the endeavour.

You never know. Perhaps the pendulum is beginning to move back.