In Orlando Patterson’s The Children Of Sisyphus, the biggest problem is poverty, destitution, and poor living conditions. The situation is so bad that people eat from the dump site, and there is no access to clean water, food or good housing. Patterson highlights the plight of the slum dwellers in the downtown Jamaica, Sisyphus, showing the inevitability that the residents find themselves in, with grinding poverty that reduces their humanness to the level of scavengers. To Patterson, the slum dwellers represent a collapse of government institutions and the threat of discrimination on race. Noteworthy, it is the racism in Jamaica that favors the white people that have sent the poor people to the conditions that they find themselves into, and the disillusionment that covers their thoughts (Udofia).
About the UN documents on Gathering a Body of Global Agreements, and specifically, Chapter IV (Section C) on Sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world, the Sisyphus problem needs a humanitarian intervention through the creation of employment opportunities to absorb the people living in the streets. While noting the importance of connection to basic services like water and electricity, the need to have a source of income for the dwellers of Sisyphus is more critical. This can be achieved through partnerships and cooperation between the national and local government, as well as the involvement of the not-for government organizations. To start off, the partners can target cleaning up the slum by using local labor, to rid the people of the garbage filth, and offer them a chance to live in an environment that does not create a health hazard (UN Documents).
In Graceland, Chris Abani paints a city of conflicting disruptions, fate, and experience, comparing it with his home town where he grew in, to capture the difference between perception and reality. To a large extend, people moving from the countryside to the city have imaginations of better opportunities, riches and success. However, Lagos has a face that is a complete opposite of the expectations, in the form of Maroko, a part of the city that is characterized by filth, dehumanizing conditions and a lack of basic services and utilities. Through the protagonist, Elvis Oke, the book gives the bloodline of Maroko, and Lagos as a whole, and highlights humanitarian issues that defeat human imagination. The lack of proper housing, proper drainage system and high levels of unemployment create a scene of a tussle between survival and existence (Abani).
The problems in Maroko can be solved by the use of the UN documents guidelines on proper habitation. The actions that should be taken for Maroko include a decision-making process that takes into consideration the need for decent human settlements that are in sync with the environment, not just for the current generation, for the future too. Ideally, planning for population growth and rural-urban migration is a very important part of the decisions that a city council should make. This is because, increased migration to cities, and fast rates of population growth, create a problem of habitation, as lowly paid workers to settle at the periphery of the city where local services like access to clean water are not available (UN Documents)
In the film, Horses of God, three young men, Yachine, Nabil, and Hamid are living in the slums at the edge of Casablanca, in a shanty town called Sidi Moumen. The three men indulge in drug trafficking and pot smoking lifestyle, with Hamid gaining popularity and influence through the sale of drugs. He manages to buy out Pitbull, a corrupt policeman who mans the shanty town where they lived. In one of the drunken incidences, Hamid rapes a drug Nabil in front of his friends (Ayouch). In a report by the UN dubbed ‘The Final Draft of the Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty’, recommendations to solve the problems of poverty and destitution propose a method of upgrading the lives of slum dwellers by ensuring that rehabilitation and social support programs are implemented by the government and the international community to pull people out of poverty. For example, the boys in the film, Horses of God sink into crime and conflict because they do not have alternative ways to make a living (UN Documents).
The strategies discussed above are appropriate to solve the problems highlighted in the three slums as most critical. While appreciating that the challenges to people living in slums cannot be classified as black or white, the interventions would fuel independence and a feeling of responsibility. For instance, creating job opportunities in Sisyphus will provide a way of life for the people, and keep them from eating from the garbage, by offering ways to make income that they can use to buy food. The long-term impact of this approach is an independent community that has access to education and development, through constant enhancements of the living conditions. For Maroko, the bad state of the housing sector is triggered by poor planning and insufficient frameworks on population management. Hence, the development of a city plan that will cater for the habitation of the people and conservation of the environment will guarantee the people of Lagos and Maroko better-living conditions. The problems in the Sidi Moumen shanty town are largely social, and can only be solved through external intervention to reduce drug abuse, delinquency, and crime.
Works Cited
Abani, Chris. GraceLand: A Novel. United States: Picador USA, 2005. Print.
Ayouch, Nabil. “Horses of God Official US Release Trailer (2014) - Drama HD.” 8 May 2014. Web.
"The habitat agenda: Chapter IV: C. Sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world - A/CONF.165/14 Chapter I, Annex II - UN documents: Gathering a body of global agreements." n.d. Web. 7 June 2016.
Udofia, Julia. “Vision I N Orlando Patterson's The Children Of Sisyphus.” British Journal of Arts and Social Science 3.1 (2011): n.pag. Web. 7 June 2016.
