As a matter of routine, our world exclusive editorial each December has always devoted itself to highlighting the plight of children caught up in the world’s various war zones.

However, this Christmas, in addition to the aforementioned cause, The Bridge Magazine is also going to focus on the plights of other  disadvantaged infants worldwide, such as missing children, street children, children from broken families, child victims of malnutrition, famine, disease and extreme poverty –in short, TBM is to put its microscope to any issue today that is directly or indirectly detrimental to children’s  rights, or even very survival, in a bid to help in the battle to preserve the human species for the future.

 

As the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently reported, hunger –and health issues related to malnutrition and poor or inadequate diet– is the greatest single threat to the world’s public health.

 

In his 1991 book entitled Deterring Democracy, Noam Chomsky expressed his indignation as to the shocking, most up-to-date statistics on infant mortality:

 

‘560,000 children died as a result of malnutrition and disease caused by the international embargo… …Tens of millions of people are hungry every night, including millions of children who are suffering from third world levels of disease and malnutrition… up to 2 million British children are suffering ill-health and stunted growth because of malnutrition.’

 

And these findings were made seventeen years before the world economic crisis; and nineteen years before the imposition of extreme austerity measures by most Western governments, culminating today in brutal cuts to social infrastructures, public spending and welfare budgets; in turn resulting in the mass pauperisation of tens of millions of ordinary citizens throughout Europe, which, of course, includes millions of children –all forced to pay, through plummeting living standards, for the criminal, yet unpunished, malfeasance of City traders, speculators and hedge-fund managers.

 

In the UK alone, at the end of 2013, Chomsky, among many others, must be truly fulminating with justifiable moral indignation at the latest truly shocking numbers of children living in abject poverty. One figure alone, that of over 80,000 children –in the seventh richest country in the world– currently spending their Christmases in unsafe temporary accommodation as a direct result of the UK Government’s blitzkrieg on the welfare state, through such draconian policies.

 

 

Mike Sivier  ,In his article entitled: Coalition policy success: 80,000 children homeless for Christmas Published on A Shelter site after an investigation on November 4th 2013, that revealed conditions experienced by homeless families, as government figures show that 80,000 children in Britain will be homeless this Christmas.

 

“Tory politicians don’t care and Liberal Democrats don’t have any power that’s why 80,000 children are being housed in temporary accommodation, alongside drug users and enduring threats of violence”

 

Mike Sivier has been a newspaper reporter for 20 years now who switched to freelance work in 2007 in order to become a carer for his girlfriend (who is disabled).  He once said: “I’m interested in politics, with an emphasis on people rather than the movement of money.”

 

For the first time in living memory, the younger generations of the Western World –let alone the world in general– will be poorer than their parents’ generations.

We used to use the phrase “the generation gap” to denote the general lack of communication and/or understanding between the older and younger generations –but today, such a phrase has a very different additional meaning: that of a “gap” in the life chances and material expectations between the generations, which disenfranchises the young by comparison to the better living standards enjoyed by the preceding generation.

 

But it is up to the progressive and compassionate forces of the world to fight against this socio-cultural determinism being promoted today by monetarist governments and plutocratic powers of vested privilege, and begin bridging the gap between the generations.

 

The top priority at this time is to help in the battle against the causes of global child poverty, suffering and mortality, and the shadowy agencies that see only further opportunities in continuing human catastrophes.

We might start on our own doorsteps by campaigning to further highlight the pan-European scandal of escalating child poverty and malnutrition, in the midst of monopolised plenty, artificially created by the extreme austerity measures imposed by so many national governments. 

 

Given the scandalous increase in child poverty in the UK and throughout Europe since austerity measures were imposed by the Troika, Chomsky must be truly chomping at the bit in terms of sheer justifiable moral outrage.

 

Avram Noam Chomsky is a hugely influential Jewish born American linguist and philosopher, and the author of more than 100 books.

He has been ascribed such lofty epithets as “the father of modern linguistics” for his ground breaking works on the subject, and is one of the most academically decorated ‘thinkers’ of his age. So prominent is his standing as an international cultural figure that he was previously been voted the “world’s top public intellectual” in a 2005 poll.

 

Among other controversial –though thoroughly substantiated– opinions, Chomsky came to conclude decades ago that despite US claims of supporting freedom and democracy throughout the world, its actual aim has always been primarily to maintain dominance over global resources and geopolitical power.

 

But it is not only socially conscious intellectuals who should be contemplating the terrible injustices of the

modern world at this festive time of year. Christmas is associated with the events surrounding Jesus’ birth – a fulfilment of the Old Testament messianic prophecy.

But the day is also equally associated with family festivities and, in particular, with children. There is surely no better time, therefore, to reflect on the plight of today’s disadvantaged children around the world.

 

 

On today’s infant mortality in war zones 

 

We are all responsible for the continued suffering of innocent children caught up in the world’s war zones.

 

The sad news is that many world governments have been not only encouraging but also actively participating in arms exports to 15 North African and Arab regimes during the last decade.

 

In September 2012, Save the Children International launched a campaign to stop the war crimes being committed against Syrian children –its mission statement read thus:

 

‘Horrific crimes against children are being committed in Syria’s conflict. Boys and girls are being killed, maimed and tortured. These appalling violations against children must stop, and those carrying them out held to account. All sides fighting in Syria must know crimes against children will be exposed to the world.’

 

On child pornography, and sexual violence and crimes against children:

 

In spite of constant rhetoric, many governments are currently doing very little to preserve and promulgate family values to younger generations. Not nearly enough is being done legislatively to prevent child-sex offenders abducting and abusing, or even killing, children.

Nowadays, pornography, in all its distorted aspects, is viewable at the click of a button by anyone with an internet connection. There are also some shocking facts associated with this mass availability.

According to the most recent available data on internet pornography statistics, ‘There are 116,000 daily requests for child pornography and 100,000 websites offering illegal child pornography’.

 

 

 

On missing children, child abduction and crime

 

According to UNICEF, child trafficking is a global problem affecting a large number of children. Some estimates record as many as 1.2 million children being trafficked every year worldwide.

But even Christmas cannot ensure respite from the horrific realities of war and lawlessness for hundreds of thousands of children worldwide who are being brutally exploited, abducted, abused, raped, murdered, or used as child soldiers, in armed conflicts.

 

On child malnutrition, severe poverty and famine

Remember the Somali crisis, as reported on by the BBC:  “At the height of a vicious civil war, more than 200,000 people died but many more could be threatened this time as aid agencies are today talking about an inevitable declaration of famine in Somalia for the first time since 1992”.

 

 

How deep and genuine is our concern about child welfare?

 

In spite of political rhetoric, there is much more hypocrisy than compassion at work through the auspices of many governments at this time.

 

High infant mortality rates due to poverty and war should not only matter to us because we live in the same country or continent: it is a global crisis, and one we should be tackling far more robustly. We need to rescue the impoverished, malnourished and war-battered children of today if we are to prevent humankind from eventual extinction.

From the coal mines of the 18^th century to nuclear-generated electricity, humans have, through their own ingenuity, achieved huge advances in living standards in recent centuries.

 

Yet at the same time, humankind has yet to successfully prevent the lives of children and adults from being destroyed by poverty, and by war and conflict –much of it waged over the question of who controls natural and economic resources. 

 

The stark and deeply disturbing historical fact that capitalism 

 

–Itself an economic system which depends on the monopoly and exploitation not only of natural and economic resources but also of human labour and wellbeing– has often only been able to jump-start itself out of its cyclic depressions (caused by its own contradictory workings that periodically result in over-production and under-consumption due to disparities between supply and demand, prices and wages etc., leading to stagflation) through manufacturing booms generated by national rearmament programs, demonstrates just how mutually dependent capitalism and armed conflict are.

 

 

In the first Great Depression of the 1930s, both the UK and the US only eventually managed to come out from their respective economic recessions through the ‘necessary’ acceleration of their arms manufacturing industries in the approach towards the Second World War.

 

But war costs incalculable lives, devastates societies, and scars future generations. As a matter of principle, we should not neglect our global offspring:  children from around the world are tomorrow’s adults, and we, as the adults of today, have a collective responsibility to do our utmost to protect them.

 

To help in this fight to ensure the sustainability of the future human species, The Bridge Magazine is pleased to announce the foundation of its own new charity, ‘The Bridge Charity: Preserving the Human Species’, in a bid to promote child wellbeing around the world, and consequently, to preserve the human species. This is how we intend to take action:

 

We no longer focus only on children in war zones but also on missing children, children in need, and children from broken families, street children from around the world, and all child victims of any catastrophe, whether natural or ecological (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis, diseases etc.), or inflicted by humans (e.g. wars, abductions, famines etc.).

 

We focus on children in need in general, as well as supporting families whose children have gone missing and/or been abducted.

 

In early 2014, The Bridge Magazine will also be launching its own new imprint, The Bridge Books, which will kick off with a debut volume of poetry and prose for younger readers by thirteen-year-old Orchidée Wafo.

 

From now on, each time a book under the name The Bridge Books is sold, The Bridge will donate £1.50 out of its initial price to go towards the work of its associated charity, Preserving the Human Species.

 

50p from this will be allocated to children in war zones; another 50p, to help prevent children from going missing or being abducting, and to also help in supporting their families; and the other 50p will go towards helping street children, or children in need from broken and/or impoverished families, or those caught up in the chaos of natural or human-caused catastrophes, such as armed conflicts, earthquakes or floods.

 

Every year thousands of children are used as soldiers: wounded, abducted,   sexually abused, made vulnerable to life-threatening illnesses, and murdered.

 

But even outside of war zones, millions of children still suffer the terrible afflictions of economic stagnation and austerity policies, such as impoverishment and malnutrition. According to UNICEF UK’s Child Nutrition Report 2013:

 

‘As it is well documented in this report, malnutrition is invisible and yet it has massive consequences for survival, health, productivity and intergenerational wellbeing. Malnutrition is irreversible if not caught right at the beginning of a child’s life’.  

 

UNICEF UK is part of the Enough Food for Everyone (IF) campaign, a great movement of individuals and organisations united to tackle global hunger.

 

According to data available to them at Christmas 2012, Experian Marketing Services predicted a rise in Christmas shopping for Christmas 2013, in spite of the continued economic crisis:

 

‘Regardless of how the economy fares throughout 2013, Christmas will once again be bigger than it was this year. December 2013 will set new records for retail visits, with 3.3 billion visits predicted to go to shopping websites’.

 

Preserving our human species will be the most daunting challenge of our era.

Looking at the death toll of children throughout the world’s war zones, as well as at missing children statistics, and those millions of children from impoverished and/or broken families growing up malnourished, or in many cases, physically and psychologically damaged, it is not difficult to see just how vast and all-pervasive is the very real threat today to the future wellbeing, if not long-term survival, of future generations.

 

How many children around the world have died in war zones?

 

How many children around the world have died in famines, from malnutrition or associated diseases?

 

How many children around the world have gone missing?

 

How many children come from broken families?

 

But for outcast children, children in need, street children, children trapped in war-zones, or closer to home,

children from broken families, or with impoverished parents who rely on food banks, or those 80,000 children in the UK alone currently sheltered in unsafe temporary accommodation for indefinite periods of time as a direct result of government welfare cuts and bedroom taxes,  Christmas is not about the latest sophisticated toys, dolls, iPods or video games:

it is about trying to salvage some semblance of wellbeing and safety; it is just about surviving. This is the pitiful state of not just the so-called Third World, but of the Second and First Worlds too, at Christmas 2013.

 

The best present Father Christmas could ever bring to the tens of millions of suffering children throughout the world this Christmastime would be to end their suffering and ensure their survival and wellbeing into the future.

 

It is up to us, the adults of the world, to keep fighting and campaigning towards the eradication of all causes and agents throughout the world which continue to hamper the healthy development, growth and even survival of the most endangered of the world’s children, and, consequently, to prevent humankind from eventual future extinction.

 

Merry Christmas to all children in war zones!

 

Merry Christmas to all missing children!

 

Merry Christmas to children in need, in poverty and from broken families!

 

Merry Christmas to every child around the world!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The editor,

Rachel Tcheungna