(Reflection of philosophy)
Martinho do Nascimento Obe “Tsutai Neno”
Unfortunately, poverty is not new things for us but a social reality that has always been real in the journey of life as a human being or the history of humanity. This has become a reality in the life of a human being and will not be cut off or escape, except we would figure out and reduce it slowly. From time immemorial until now poverty has become a polemics and common concern for all nations across the world, whether highly developed or developing nations.
The concern for this perfect reality is not just happening among civil society but has been happening with Godly people; for instance, Jesus Christ himself was born in poverty.
“In his mission of salvation, Jesus had been chosen for poverty as a principle for him. to interpret and find out the meaning of destitution and who are the poor. And I hereby want to make a reflection with you about destitution according to the perspective of philosophy and sociology.
Poverty is general scarcity or death or the state of one who clacks a certain amount of material possession or money. It is a multifaceted concept, which includes the social, economic, and political elements. Therefore poverty seems to be chronic or temporary and most of the time it is closely related to inequality.
A philosophy from Aristotle, stated “man is a social animal (animalae social) by the way the men needed to live together in the community. It means that man did not perfect yet and with his imperfection has been depending upon other people to survive.
However, the existentialist Martin Heidegger said “human beings are gregarious”. Nobody lives alone in this world as the saying goes “no man is an island”. Naturally, our community originates from a family which is called the wider society. Therefore we need to live together sharing what we have. May it be material things, equality in social status, talents; so that poverty will be lessened.
Furthermore a phylosophy of Karl Marx focuses attention on poverty on the part of externs such as physic and material reality. It means that the poor who got poor in the part of physic-materials necessities. For instance, for those (proletariat class) who got deprivation of resident, intake, refreshment, money, unemployment, employers who are got depression, health care, sanitation, etc.
By means that the proletariat class must emancipate itself without the help of the government. This is absolutely poverty or destitution because refers to the deprivation of basic human needs.
Hence destitution occurred because of the consequence of injustice in society and corruption.
I thought that we can research destitution life closely in our reality or our latest situation. Particularly, the poor’s and the voiceless who are yet to receive the attention or not being equality treated.
the consequence of the Social injustice creates conditions that adversely affect the health of individuals and communities. It denies individuals and groups equal opportunity to have their basic human needs met. It violates fundamental human rights. It represents a lack of fairness or equity.
A concrete situation of Social injustice within Timor-Leste, is when someone who wants to apply for any job vacancy in any State or Government Institution, firstly, you must have someone who you recognize or recognized you working in the institutions, “Padrino ou madrinha” in order for you to access for the selection process or you will be eligible. Otherwise, you can not dream on midday to apply. Therefore, through this unfortunate situation, we can state that those who do not have someone who you recognizes inside the institution, will be foreigners in your own country.
Likewise this example shows lack of fairness and equality, and led to the poverty,many unemployed in the country, and many people are still suffering in Timor-Leste.
And I thought that destitution is real and it will always be a public issue which will never be settled down.
looking to the real situation in Timor-Leste, it requires the contribution from everyone of us including the the stakes holders to work together with the Government and the State to reduce the poverty through promotion of social justice for all people in all aspects of life. With the efforts from all of us, one day we will reduce the destitution in our community and nation.
Because, naturally, man is a social animal that is not an architect or master-craftsman but needs one another to share and to live together in one community. Extremely, Erich Fromm said
“We are called to the life of solidarity in the society in which we belong, so that man’s social nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it”.
