Leave it to me, to serve you up with a snarky poem by Master Brecht on Christmas Day. The way I see it, if you are feeling elated, grateful, happy or content, then you have the leeway to think about those less fortunate than you (and the promises kept or broken by religion.) If you, on the other hand, feel lousy, there’s always downward comparison – your woes (hopefully) pale compared to those of people dying from exposure to cold.

The real topic for today, though, is not poetic musings about poverty, but how to approach getting rid of it. We might as well start with a quote from social reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, a contemporary of the French Revolution:

“Charity is the drowning of rights in the cesspit of compassion.”

I read this quote in an essay by Thomas Gebauer who is managing director of the socio-medical human rights aid organization “medico international”. He explains that poverty and social exclusion need to be targeted at their roots, which are often of a political nature, rather than having charity, both private and public, simply treat the symptoms.

You can read the long one yourself, but here is the short version: Alleviating the symptoms of poverty and hardship helps people in the short run. Securing the establishment of social and economic human rights will shift things in the long run, no longer relying on individual charitable aid (which can dry up at whim or be unevenly distributed.) A just and guaranteed distribution of social resources will counteract increasing social inequality, unfair trade relations and the absence of social security services. Access to social resources, social security and a decent standard of living should be put on legal footing, guaranteed by public socio-political institutions. For my German readers, here is an interview with him speaking to the same issue in German.

Something to be thought through. I still believe that the direct act of charity from one human to another, the dollar changing hands while the gaze and smile exchanged between eyes, matters enormously for any one individual, giver AND receiver, a reminder that we share this world.

Yes, I know, complicated musings on Christmas morning. So just sit back and let Bertold Brecht’s poem sink in. And save me a cookie – a charity guaranteed to be appreciated and not undermining world peace….. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Legend

1
On Christmas Eve today
All of us poor people stay
Huddled in this chilly stack
The wind blows in through every crack.
Dear Jesus, come to us, now see
How sorely we have need of thee.

2
Here today we huddle tight
As the darkest heathens might
The snow falls chilly on our skin
The snow is forcing its way in.
Hush, snow, come in with us to dwell:
We were thrown out by Heaven as well.

3
The wine we’re mulling is strong and old
It’s good for keeping out the cold
The wine is hot, the door is shut
Some fat beast’s snuffling round the hut.
Then come in, beast, out of the snow
Beasts too have nowhere warm to go.

4
We’ll toss our coats on to the fire
Then we’ll all be warm as flames leap higher
Then the roof will almost catch alight
We shan’t freeze to death till we’re through the night.
Come in, dear wind, and be our guest
You too have neither home nor rest.

(1923)

Here is a different, more academic translation. I think Brecht himself would have preferred the one above I chose instead, even though I could not find who translated it. Sorry for not being able to acknowledge them.

Photographs today are of budding Helebores (called Christ’s Roses in German) and other tidbits from the winter garden.

Music is the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. I think last year I posted the Harnoncourt version – today it’s Fasolis: one of the happiest, most energetic rendition of Bach’s Oratorio that you can find. It’ll counterbalance thinking about hard stuff……..