Privileges of the Plighted

It is assumed that our lives and the lives of our families could ultimately be at risk without the regulation and authority of our government. The same government which protects us, also damages us, and others from countries around us. It is more than apparent that in our world suffering does exist. However, outlining suffering goes beyond the physical pain. To a degree there is a level of suffering that most of us (U.S. Citizens) can never relate to. There is a suffering unbeknownst to us; because we have never been subjected to it by our governments and institutions. We are a free people, entrusted to ourselves that we have the capacity to take care of ourselves and our own. Others aren’t so lucky.

Violence is in itself brutal. We identify it, we react to it, and it virtually always gets our attention. Structural violence is quite the opposite. It is almost invisible, and impossible to contain. It is rooted in global social structures, long-standing, and frequently puts people at legal, cultural, and economic disadvantages. Nonetheless, both forms of violence produce death and suffering equally. Although through structural violence the damage is more subtle, and a lot more difficult to mend. In cases as drastic as the one Farmer introduced us to about Yolande Jean, who was a Haitian refugee who was detained at our United Stated naval base in Guantanamo Bay for nearly two years because she tested positive for HIV. Yolande, as I’m sure many others have, shown to be a direct victim of structural violence. Whereas our Government held her against her will in a place where she was beaten and neglected simply for testing positive for HIV. What is drastically undeniable though is that at the time of capture herself and other refugees ...

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...ke sufficient changes to our health care system? The answer seems to be more difficult than we could ever anticipate. It is our rights as human beings, to have basic human rights. Those are rights to an adequate life, rights to security, not to be subjected to cruelty, and more importantly the right to a standard of existence suitable for our own health and welfare. On the other hand we risk the safety and lives of people through questionable actions. Yolande should never have been subjected to the cruelty she endured, and Juan should have been given choices.

Works Cited

Crisp, Nigel. Turning the World Upside Down: The Search for Global Health in the Twenty-first Century. London: Royal Society of Medicine, 2010. Print.

Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Right, and the New war on the Poor.

Berkeley: University of California, 2003. Print.