The Pacific Century

This post is an extract of the speech delivered during FAO Regional Conference in Beijing, China on 23rd April 1990.

WIPER

There is a need for an integrated idea for poverty eradication. Each nation has its own success and failures in the effort to alleviate poverty. The successful efforts of every nation should be integrated into an instrument to wipe out poverty. To do so, we need WIPER of the World Institute for Poverty Eradication.

An Independent National Organisation

A WIPER in each nation is a national organisation without an international bureaucratic control. It is in line with the Five Principle of Peaceful Coexistence. Only the idea and purpose should be global. There should be an exchange of information and experience among the WIPERs of the world. A WIPER is a training institute. WIPER students of any age should have experienced poverty and not just read about it.

WIPER in the Ghettos

A national unit of WIPER can open its courses to foreign participants. It is up to the initiative of each individual WIPER. The poor of any country should be trained to help themselves. The staff of the institute can be selected from the international community of nations.

Public and private institutions in any country as well as international organisations concerned for the poor should support WIPER. There is a need for a WIPER in every nation as even in developed nations including the United States where there are 19 million people who are deemed politically insignificant and living in ghettos.

It is imperative not only for poor nations to be assisted by the rich; poor people in rich nations should also be helped by rich people in poor nations for poverty is universal.

Origin of WIPER

The idea to institutionalise WIPER came when one day I visited a rich friend at his house. I saw a beautiful painting on the wall of the luxurious living room. It was a painting of a house in a fishing village. The house was on stilts, four in all and the walls are of bamboo and the roof of atap.

At the back of the house, in the painting, stood two tall and old coconut trees, one of which was fruitless and without leaves. It had probably been hit by lightning. In front of the house was a river with two small boats, one of which was damaged and resting on the bank.

Being an Agriculture Minister, I looked closer at the undamaged boat. It was not licensed.

To the right was a well with a pail tied to a long rope which indicated the well’s depth. Behind the well, to the right of the house, were two poles connected by wire on which hung a torn sarung and an old underwear. At the back of the house was a toilet with a slanting door and broken zinc roof.

My friend suddenly came down the stairs.

Noticing my interest in the painting, my friend explained, “It’s a village”, and he asked, “Beautiful isn’t it?”

I replied, “It is beautiful but poor. How much it cost?”

“RM15,000, ‘he replied. That was about US$6,000.

It struck me then that the rich man was interested in poverty. He saw the scene of poverty as beautiful. The artist was better off by US$6,000 but the values of the house, the boat, the well, the tattered clothing and the latrine in the picture would be worth hardly US$500. There lay the problems of poverty and the interest in it.