1. The main components of food crises equation are levels of consumption, technological development and social inequality. The first component is conditioned by human lifestyles, social structure and income level. In this context, the disparity between developed countries were people not just eat more, but their income and level of life comfort gives them an opportunity to eat more meat and high-caloric food, is meant; while people from developing countries have a vegetarian and low-protein diet. Subsequently, the needed action concerning this component is stabilizing the parity of consumption, discouraging population of developed countries from eating too much meat. Technological development influences on the environment, particularly soils and water population. Thus, either we should live without technologies or invent green ones. Through the elimination of inequality of incomes and food/water access, the balance of human population can be reached. 2. The correlation between rural politics and development is essential for the improvement of life quality. The main reason why, rural politics should become a priority is the process of high urbanization. This means that, as a source of food supply for the growing cities, rural area, with the decreasing population and people eager to work on land, needs assistance from the government and certain preferences. If the poor health and environmental conditions in the rural areas of the developing countries, which are the main exporters of food and agriculture products, would not be improved soon, there would be no one to work on land and food supply would decrease even greater, not to speak of food prices increase. Thus, the third world would be starving even more; therefore, overall development of humanity would be slowed down if not turned into degradation and extinction. 3. One of the approaches to the harmonization of development is an improvement of girls’ education. Having an appropriate education, girls would be able to take care better of their health as future mothers. They would think twice before giving birth to numerous children, as it is common in starving Africa. They would have an opportunity to sustain them independently; thus, they would be able to choose a different surviving strategy than sex industry or war conduct. All his would contribute to mentally and physically healthier humanity, the main target of current global development strategy. 4. One of the biggest contributions to the progress of developmental studies was a research conducted by Moock and Jamison (1986), who suggested that schooling progress depends greatly on the child’s nutrition. Malnutrition and iron-deficit conditions have huge negative impact on children’s cognitive activity and memory. Thus, the efficiency of education is decreased. Those conclusions became the basis of the World Food Progranme’s nutrition projects in the countries suffering from starvation and famine. Jamison’s (1986) findings are the same. In order to show how well-nourishment contributes to the schooling progress, he gave an empirical example of schools in China, where taller pupils (healthy and well-nourished) had better gradates and were more successful in task performance than shorter.
6. Although, in the classical interpretation of religion and democracy development, conducted by Samuel Huntington, Catholicism was seen as the most supportive religion of the democratic development, nowadays, it is not suitable for the liberal democracies. The main reason is that current population of liberal democracies is not homogenous in its religious believes. Under current tension in politics about Islam and Christianity, establishment of a single religion, as a corner stone of democracy, would result in protests from the representatives of another one. The second reason is that, by changing status of Catholicism in the country, liberal democracy might become dependent on another state which would interfere into its internal affairs, meaning the Vatican. Finally, establishment of Catholicism as a corner stone of democracy would conflict with the main civil liberties, like freedom of self-estimation (refers to sexual minorities) and females’ right to decide for themselves (condoms and abortions). 7. In order to keep multiculturalism and diversity, the influence of religion on democracy should be limited. The main rational of such decision is conditioned by the fact that there is no single religion which could be adopted for the benefits of all population in the liberal democracies. The preference of one would result in factual discrimination of all others. On the other hand, if all religions were treated equally and were given the same access to democracies formation, the situation would not get much better. The reason is that not all religions have the same inclinations to the democracy development; some religions put belief in God higher than human life or freedom of choice. It would be enough to mention that even rights of women in each religion are different. Thus, the best way to keep social peace is to keep religion separated from democracy.
8. The main connection between development and disasters is in a harmful influence of disasters on the developmental programmes and strategies. Disasters are one of the reasons why hunger and extreme poverty are not going to be tackled by 2015. First of all, disasters cause numerous immediate human deaths and further spread of diseases, which continue to kill people or deteriorates the population’s health and life expectancy. Secondly, disasters disrupt the balance of food supply both natural (destruction of crops) or artificial (humanitarian food supply) and the quantity of potable water available in the places of disaster, not to speak of clothes, houses and cattle destruction during disasters. Finally, in a long-term perspective, the poverty would only increase due to the disasters. In this sense is meant that lack of essentials, food and clean water, places to live would slow down economic development of the country, and would require additional financial support from government and international community. Subsequently, funds devoted to development would be partly transferred into relief and salvation operations. Thus, the process of development would slow down, as it actually is slowing now. 9. In order to understand how developmental programmes deal with disasters, the distinction between Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) should be made. Those two issues are complementary and describe a specific side of the disaster treatment. The essence of DRM is in the systematic management of the decision-making process of appropriate policies elaboration and their correspondence to the needed skills for the administrative and executive staff of the hazards treatment. On the other hand, DRR refers to systematic development and implementation of the final conclusions conducted by DRM – created theories, policies, plans and strategies, under conditions of individual situation and consequences for the overall sustainable development of population. Therefore, it can be emphasized that DRM is a theoretic-strategic perspective of hazards treatment, while DRR is its practical implementation with the concern of disasters’ individuality and country specifics. 10. Chinese approach to the development of the Third World is of particular interest. Irrespective of the fact that Western and Chinese governments are addressing the same problem, their approaches are entirely different. While the West is using charity approach of food, water and essentials supply, China uses more constructive and systematic approach to the issue. First of all, Chinese conduct reconstruction of the local economies’ infrastructures, involving both Chinese and local labor force; thus, they boost economic development of their own economy and the local ones too. Secondly, the food issue is resolved through mutual programmes of crops development and harvest collection and not only through the humanitarian aid. Finally, China offers humanitarian assistance and disaster relief package outside democracy improvement conditions, like it is conducted by the Western countries. Whether such approach is good for democracy building is arguable, but for the relative improvement of development, it is definitely working. Thus, the main problematic issues are human rights, dependence on China and democracy.
11. In “Good Kurds, Bad Kurds”, ethnic conflict in transition/escalation from enforced hierarchy to systematic violence is discussed. Journalist K. McKiernan discusses the supremacy of one ethnic group over the main spheres of countries’ live. The comparison is made of Kurds minority and its discriminating position in Turkey and Iraq. In both countries, Kurds have no access to the ruling political and economic positions; no attention to education or favoring of minority ethnic rights is provided for them. Subsequently, they are doomed to poverty and performance of the low-paid and unprivileged jobs, which corresponds to enforced hierarchy. On the other hand, at certain points, movement for liberation was getting strength and acts of violence and even civil war, in Iraq, was taking place. This corresponds to the systematic violence of ethnic conflict. 12. While Handelman emphasizes the overall inequality and even submission of female position in the developing countries, he also mentions that, in the recent years, the women empowerment, both political and social, was taking place. Instead of being victims of genital mutilation, rapes, unequal salary and physical exploitation, women begin to take power in their hands. This takes a form of political resistance against the ruling order or war conduct, as it was described in the movie “Pray The Devil Back To Hell”. Liberian women managed to gain authority through their weakness, their femininity and vulnerability. The formation of a live line and striping showed female courage and desire to change the destiny of their country. This act showed that femininity contains greater peacekeeping and influential power than diplomacy and conflicts themselves. Why their action was successful? Because the instinct says that we all are brother and those women embody out mothers, sisters and daughters. This power is universal and natural. 13. Taking into consideration the fact that Indian stratification of society was based on ethnic-professional principle and that the lowest caste of Mlechhas (people conducting the most unfavorable works, dwellers of the slums, nomads, and foreigners), it can be concluded that the movie “A Dollar a Day: Bombay Jungle” reflects Handleman’s ideas of enforced hierarchy and female inequality in the framework of extreme poverty existence. The reason why I think so is that caste system was initially based on the ethnic belonging; subsequently, inability of a certain ethno-social minority groups to gain official status in the society and means for survival indicate that both political and economic sphere are in control of the ethnic majority even if it is represented by various castes. The attitude of al castes to the slum people is relatively the same. Inferior position of women is shown through their exposure to any sort of power (example of Kurshida Bano struggling for her home, though it was slums).
References
Jamison, D.T. (1986). Child Malnutrition and School Performance in China. Journal of
Development Economics, 20(2): 299-310.
Moock, P.R. & Leslie, J. (1986). Childhood Malnutrition and Schooling in the Terai Region
Nepal. Journal of Development Economics, 20(1): 33-52.
