I'm new here at Progressive U, and I thought, What better way to start my presence here than with a bit of news that got swept under the rug in favor of the apparently more crucial details of the Britney Spears crisis?
That even is an overstatement. This news was not swept under the rug. It never came out from the rug to begin with.
In Mozambique, millions of overworked underpaid citizens depend daily on the use of Chapas. Chapa is another word for a special type of minibus, manufactured to seat about twelve people, but which usually actually contains about thirty at a time, with a couple hanging out the windows. These chapas previously costed 5-7 meticais per ride(about a quarter in U.S. currency), and as many Mozambicans working in the capital of Maputo live outside the city, several connecting rides would be necessary daily. When you're making the equivalent of less than eight U.S. dollars a day(200 Mozambican meticais), this is a big deal. Cabs are not an option, as they would quickly eat up one's entire daily pay, nor is walking, since this would take hours.(In fact, a Mozambican woman I know recently had to walk home from the city while chapas weren't running, and she found it took nearly four hours to make the journey.)
One thing I'm sure you all are familiar with is the recent growing prices in petrol. It's affecting more than just the price Americans pay at the fuel pump each week, however. Last month, the Mozambican government announced that with the rising gas prices, it would be necessary to almost double the price per ride for chapas. At the same time, despite gross chapa shortages, the ministry of transportation used available funds to purchase less than ten new "luxury" buses to be used for tourism.
This decision had been thought out and analyzed by the country's top politicians and economist, but nobody seems to have quite taken into account the Mozambican people's reactions.
Shortly after the announcement was made, the revolts began. Throughout the city, roads became nearly vacant of cars as chapas(Maputo's main traffic) refused to run. Poor citizens ranging from teenage boys to strong, working men roamed the streets burning tires, throwing stones, and breaking windows. Armed guards of compounds and personal homes, whether in fear or in concurrence with the rioters, shot off their weapons sporadically Businesses throughout the city closed down, embassies put out the alert and kept diplomats hidden for shelter inside, and shops were continuously looted. My own school was closed for safety, despite being sheltered and separate from the effected area. My friends and I spent the early afternoon in a constant stream of beeps and rings. Our phones went off with calls from concerned parents and friends from outside school, and with anonymous text messages in Portuguese explaining the message behind the riots and warning that we should stay off the city streets. "If you're not with us, you're against us," the messages explained. They went on to explain that "the sons of the ministry" don't ride chapas, and that the decisions should be made for Mozambicans, not the rich. One popular message rewrote the country's national anthem in a satire of the situation.
After a couple days of rioting and protesting, in which the normal workings of the whole city were on stand-still, the government agreed to hold meetings to discuss other possible solutions that would not burden the people financially. Several had been killed and even more injured during the event, though an accurate exact number is impossible to give due to limited resources on the issue.
Now the government is debating and analyzing once again, trying to find the funds and discern an effective method to subsidize the chapas, something sure to cost the government millions of dollars a year. And the worst part is, with gas prices still rising, the situation will only repeat itself, with similar situations already forming with the increase in prices for bread and for 2M(the local brand of beer).
How can we really solve this problem? More subsidies? Shall the government take out loans? Further aid from developed countries, to deepen aid dependency?
We need instead to go to the deeper issues behind this problem. We are too dependent on oil, for one. But, more importantly is the ridiculously low incomes of Mozambicans. Even on minimum wage in the U.S., spending about a dollar a day on transportation is seen as nothing.
Just something to think about next time you're filling up your gas-gurgling Suburbans, Cherokees, and Xterras at the local BP station, complaining to have to pay $3 a gallon for gas.
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First off I'd like to say thanks for posting about this. I really wouldn't have known about this otherwise.
We need instead to go to the deeper issues behind this problem. We are too dependent on oil, for one...Even on minimum wage in the U.S., spending about a dollar a day on transportation is seen as nothing. Just something to think about next time you're filling up your gas-gurgling Suburbans, Cherokees, and Xterras at the local BP station, complaining to have to pay $3 a gallon for gas.
This is SO true. I mean, I know gas prices are going out of control in the U.S., but seriously we're not the only ones with this problem. Gas prices are getting out of control everywhere -- in Mozambique and even in Iraq, and probably in a lot of other countries. It's a growing problem and people need to realize that American aren't the only ones that have to worry about the rising gas prices.
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"No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it." -- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Well duh, the gas prices will influx around the globe.
It's a natural resource people.
+mspin
I realize the gas prices will influx. That wasn't exactly the issue I was concerned with here.
It was the exploitation of the poor Mozambican people by a corrupt government. It was the issue that these people can barely afford the previous transportation price on the scant wages they receive. It's the fact that these incredibly rich men are already forgetting that these are the people they struggled alongside these people thirty years ago, that they were equals, and now they're treating them the way they themselves used to be treated by the Portuguese.
And it was also the fact that the rest of the world is just so blissfully oblivious of these types of occurrence.
Italian by birth, American by citizenship, Moçambicana pelo escolhe