Race and the Poverty Gap
I have been traveling since last Friday. Internet access has not been a certainty and will continue to be irregular.
Being in new and different places is useful. It shows how different things could be, or how similar they are.
In Jakarta, the tower blocks reach out to the sky with the same ambition of the new projects being developed in Kuala Lumpur. They less successfully block out the squalor and poverty than ours. A small group of elites unthinkingly spend more on one meal out than most families earn in a month. They shop at designer shops that rival, or even beat, those in the best and most prestigious shopping localities in Kuala Lumpur. The elites, like those elsewhere, shape policy through their investments, their influence and support, hold their nation to ransom. The poverty gap widens every day and this is justified in the name of development and progress.
Much like it is in Malaysia.
