“Life in the Dumps”
‘Life in the dumps’ is a figure of speech to describe one who has had a raw deal in life, whose life has turned upside down due to reversals of fortune and/or relationships, who is a victim of the rough and tumble cycles of life.
I was there myself but this is not about me but about those who live in a real dump (shown in the picture). Remnants of a colony of shanties recently ravaged by fire, they either belong to the periphery of the political spectrum to be given help or too helpless to start all over again. It would be easy to have one’s heart bleed for them but slicing through their cross-section can elicit a different feeling far from sympathy.
To start with, there are hundreds or thousands of such colonies in the country today. Typically, they came from the provinces hoping for better lives in the cities. Unschooled and unskilled, they end up working in jobs with salaries that barely keep their noses above water. A lot of them have no viable jobs at all.
Not owning properties, they end up in shanty colonies like these where, in most probability, relatives who came in earlier live. They are prolific, with four, five or even eight children who will ultimately be denied of a proper schooling. These children will grow up like there parents, unschooled and unskilled, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Whatever meager income they have, are spent, aside from food and other scant necessities, on fiesta celebrations, gambling, alcohol, drugs and evenings upon evenings of merrymaking hoping that tomorrow never comes. But it does come only to stare at them as bleakly as the many yesterdays of their lives.
But they have their practical uses.
They are a rich source of votes that can be bought, harassed, intimidated or cheated on during elections. Our politicians never fail to start their campaign speeches with, “We, the poor people …..” After the elections, the only poverty they attend to is the poverty of their values. Our politicians have a way of increasing their net worth a few years after being elected to office. Those who don’t have excellent accountants.
The Church considers them a problem in unequal distribution of wealth. “Blessed are the poor….” has not lost its magic among them, making them a reliable source for second collections and an unwitting horde of those hoping for a front seat in the second coming. Inculcating in them the “will of God” yarn, these people are from being encouraged to have better money management, control their urge to make babies or to work real hard to improve their lives.
The cause-oriented groups, those malcontents who never ran out of reasons to go to the streets to denounce something, find them a rich, albeit, cheap source of rabble-rousers. For a few cents, they will readily take to the streets, carrying placards, chanting slogans they don’t even know the meaning of.
Our medical officers are taxed to the limits of their patience and resources during outbreaks of communal diseases like dengue. Getting to and through them for treatment and prevention is like treading on mud and grime.
They make the work of our police forces easier. Considered a breeding place of criminals and criminality, they offer thousands of potential fall-guys to rub the blame on in high-profile cases.
Our sociologists consider them a social problem, our economists an economic problem, police forces a peach and order problem, our politicians a problem to get more money from the government for their many poverty-alleviating programs, a huge chunk of which will only alleviate their own poverty.
Not one among our technocrats looks at poverty as an attitudinal problem. Why? Because that would entail a revolution of the mind and thinking, not compatible with their long-term political agendas. Besides, there’s no money there.
Meantime, let these people live a lifetime in the dumps.
Tags: crime, poverty, social issues, social problem
