In every city around the world you can find people begging. How should we react? Should we give them money or walk past?
There are arguments for and against giving them your coins, as the author of this article from the Indonesian Jakarta Post outlines:
'I’m always torn between my head and my heart every time beggars, especially children, women and the elderly, knock on my car window asking for money.
Should I give them anything or not?
My head says “no” because these people are probably just too lazy to work and make a dignified living. Many are so young and seem too healthy to be living on the street and begging.
Some look like talented “actors” as they try to get bystanders’ empathy. Who wouldn’t show empathy to a female beggar with a toddler asleep in her lap?
In his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell wittily wrote, “A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honor; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich”.
Some people choose to not give money to people in the street because there is no way of knowing if they are beggars or not. Instead they opt to donate their funds to a reputable charity.
There have been media reports of people from rural regions becoming “rich” from begging in Jakarta.
Last year, Jakarta sent home Walang bin Kilon, 54, and Sa’aran, 70, to Subang, West Java. They had stashed away Rp 25 million (US$2,085) in cash and were caught in a raid.
My heart says “yes”, we should give beggars our small change or share biscuits with them because giving is a noble act of kindness and compassion, which is a fundamental teaching of any religion.
It’s poverty that drives people to the street, as the system has failed to address the fundamental problems in society, such as the ever-widening gulf between the rich and the poor. Economic policies favor capitalists and then of course we have the corruption.'
What do you think?
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