The world is changing and the countries which really care about their people are leading the change.
Earlier this week, an Italian court ruled that when a person is hungry and he steals food to eat, the action is not a crime.
The highest court of appeal in Italy said, just stealing small amounts of food to stave off hunger should not be a crime—and that the right to ‘survival prevails over property.’
John Locke perhaps wouldn’t agree with this but times have changed and life ought to mean more to any reasonable person than property.
In this case, Roman Ostriakov stole cheese and sausages worth €4.07 (£3; $4.50) from a supermarket, and judges overturned a theft conviction against him.
This is ‘humanism’—placing the required value on human life. The Italian court knows that about 615 people are added to the ranks of the poor in Italy every day and as such the law must care for their basic needs too, food.
Assuming that was the law in Ghana, it would be chaotic—because, almost half of the population are starved.
We need a government that cares about its people and basic decency like food, water and shelter should not be a problem. The conversation shouldn’t even be about things like these—they are basic necessities.
“An intelligent civilization that can’t feed all its people is not intelligent at all”-Chris-Vincent Agyapong.
Would our courts in Ghana begin to care about the ordinary people by forcing the bourgeoisies in our midst that control capital to start thinking about the millions of poor below the chain?
I find it difficult to understand how any rich person lives so beautifully in Ghana without guilt or shame when surrounded by so many poor people.
Of course, it’s a case of each one for himself, God for us all—but then, God doesn’t seem to care and the government doesn’t care either.
We are looking at anarchy on top of the mountain. If the gross social injustice in Ghana does not take the front seat of the conversation, one day, the poor will rise against the rich—snatching whatever they can lay their hands on.