The baby marking a world population of seven billion was born today. The Guardian announced that Danica May Camacho, born in Manila, Philippines, was chosen by the UN to represent the crossing of the threshold to seven billion people. It appears to me that this symbolic act on behalf of the UN is not simply a celebration of a growing global population, but it highlights the pressuring burdens on the horizon of the world community.
In order to accommodate the current population, it is necessary to increase food production. However, increased food production damages and eventually erodes the soil. In other words, we are caught in a vicious circle in which our population continues to grow (higher birth rates and higher life expectancy) while the capacity of the Earth is unable to keep up with the population growth.
When Danica May Camacho grows up, she will learn about the symbolic meaning of her birth. That she became the UN symbol of a crowded world and the vast inability of the world to support its population. This is a heavy burden to carry for a young girl. Which leads me to wonder whether the UN has ever thought of the consequences from their symbolic crowning. Just like the permanent seats of the UN Security Council are outdated, perhaps this symbolic marking is too: I understand that it was a global celebration when the first-, second-, third-, fourth-billion person entered the world, however, aware of the world’s inability to sustain a population of six billion, perhaps this symbolic marking targeted on one specific individual, can lead to increased personal problems for the chosen baby when she grows up. The possibility of psychological problems from being the symbol of a population of seven billion is not excluded as the person might feel that her existence was marked by the UN not as a celebration but as an indicator of the inevitable: “the challenges of the world’s growing population.”
In this article, the previous children who marked both the six billion population and the five billion population complain that the UN first chose them as someone special but later simply forgot about them. The parents of Danica May Camacho received some money to cover the initial costs of starting up a small shop as well as an education scholarship for their newborn. It will not come as a surprise that baby Camacho too, in a few years time, will feel ‘abandoned’ by the UN. A realistic outlook, perhaps, presents the best explanation to why the UN ‘forgets’ these children who become global symbols: with so much on their plate, and now more than seven billion people to sustain and support, the UN simply does not have the time to follow up on individual cases.
Collectively, we have been on earth for around three million years, yet in this long time we have been unable to implement a world order in which every individual has access to basic necessities and to human rights. Today, there are still numerous places where women are not treated equally with men, there are lands where women are not allowed to drive, not allowed to leave their homes without a chaperone in the form of a male family member. Today, in the ‘better’ multilateral world compared to the block system which existed until the end of World War II, countries continue to intervene in domestic politics of other countries, killing thousands of innocent civilians for political causes. The seven billionth baby further emphasizes the endless challenges of the world and the unlikely possibility of a harmonious life on Earth.
One of the ways to pinpoint the challenges this growing number presents, is by choosing a baby born in the Philippines. The UN could have chosen from many other babies in different countries born more or less at the exact same time as Danica May Camacho to mark the seven billion population, but no, it had to be a baby in Manila, a country in which 40 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, a nation in which 600, 000 of 1.5 million Filipinos born yearly are born to poor parents (data from 2001). It remains uncertain how much real action this UN effort of marking the baby that represents global population of seven billion will lead to.
We could not provide sufficient lives to our six billion people yesterday, how can we possibly provide sufficient lives to the seven billion population today?
I agree about the psychological effects the child might feel about being born the "7th billion person" or "7th billion mouth to feed". The "celebration" was focused on how turbulent the times were, and how the state of affairs isn't the best to be born into, which isn't much of a thing to celebrate. I hope the state of affairs on her 10th, 20th, 30th etc will be better.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you reference we have been on the Earth 3 million years and have yet to be able to achieve peace, stability, or equality. It puts this situation in an interesting perspective. I hope we get more accomplished in the next 3 million years, if we are all still here.
- Ysabel