Last night the SMU Service House and SPARC hosted the Hunger Banquet to demonstrate worldwide inequalities of the distribution of wealth.
Upon entering the Service House, guests were randomly divided into three classes of wealth. Those lucky enough to be deemed “high class” were served a filling and nutritious meal. Guests representative of the world’s middle class were given rice and beans, while the poorest group sat on the floor and drank tea.
After the food was served, speakers addressed the severity of hunger and poverty across the globe. Roughly 60 percent of the earth’s population lives in extreme poverty. Many of these poverty-stricken nations rely on farming as a means of income, but are unable to raise enough money to feed their hungry.
The lack of profitable income is mainly due to unfair international trade. Many wealthier nations produce an abundance of grain and over-saturate agricultural markets in foreign countries, and in turn, drive down farmers’ profits.
The banquet also focused on the delicate balance of maintaining a middle-class lifestyle in struggling societies. One crop season may prove fruitful, but the next may leave many citizens hungry. The inconsistencies are more often a result of unstable and unfair trade rather than poor growing conditions.
Sophomore Kate Curnow raises a question to explain the problems facing starving countries: “If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime-but, who controls the river?”
She says most citizens of poverty-stricken nations have the ability to provide for themselves, but international trade laws make it almost impossible to make enough money to rise out of poverty.
Curnow also says many Americans have a jaded perception of what it truly means to be poor. She says, “The class divisions of America are not necessarily reflective of how people live in the rest of the world. What we believe to be extreme poverty in America is considered middle class in other countries.”
America as a whole is a wealthy country and Curnow believes this is due to good government institutions.
Monday night was the first time the Hunger Banquet has taken place in 10 years, but it will occur again next semester.
