Dignity - by Adriano Miguel Tejada - Diario Libre Fri 25.1.2008
The country has problems with hunger, but we're not going to solve them with handouts. There is a strong temptation when it tries to turn our country into a country of beggars.
The news is that the "Solidarity" card is going to be extended to millions more people. A man or woman who gets used to begging is never going to work again. They become parasites and will breed parasites, in the same way as illiterates will breed illiterates.
From the political point of view, this news is a triumph, but for a nation that wishes to enter into modernity, it is shameful, because what this basically means is that the authorities, the social planners, have thrown in the towel and have ditched the basic principles of development - education, employment, health and personal dignity - for the politics of handouts, that are repaid at the polls every four years.
The tragedy is that all the candidates are offering the same thing. None of them is capable of telling poor people to pick up their machetes and work in the city or the countryside and get paid for it. So that each individual feels that s/he is contributing to the common task of improving the country, instead of degrading them to pathetic figures with their hands extended.
In this country everything still remains to be done. Let's allow people to contribute, to clean their barrios, to clear their gullies, to repair roads, to collect garbage - whatever they can do according to their strength and ability, but let's not give them handouts.
On the eve of the day dedicated to our founding father, let's make an extra call for people to work and make the most of their time.