Author: Zhi Sir source: Mr. Zhi (ID: zhixs10)
For a long time, there have always been some disputes around the topic of poverty alleviation.
What impressed me was that at a certain dinner, someone raised a question, which may also represent the common doubts of many people:
At the speed of our country’s economic development, coupled with the process of urbanization and the migration trend of young people, in another 30 or 40 years, or even not so long, those remote villages will be submerged in history without a sound.
In this case, why do we have to spend countless funds and manpower on infrastructure construction to connect those steep mountains and gullies, so that the most remote areas that will not produce much economic benefits can be connected to water and power grids?
Does this really make sense?
Then he talked about the difficulty of carrying out the work of poverty alleviation grassroots cadres.
The state provides policies, local subsidies, and cadres hand-in-hand propaganda and guidance. In our eyes, these measures are certainly a good thing for the poor households, which should have carried out the work of poverty alleviation smoothly.
But the reality is that most of them can understand, but some poor households simply do not understand, or do not want to understand. Some of them, like the nail households in the demolition, refuse to move away, then charge exorbitant prices, and even bind the whole village to blackmail and put forward various harsh conditions.
The villagers were unwilling to move, and they did not violate any laws, let alone any illegal acts. Therefore, the grass-roots personnel could only persuade them repeatedly, break their mouths and preach all kinds of reasons, and break their legs to do ideological work. They were very passive, and they were often angry and cried.
I personally have a deep understanding.
In terms of road construction, my hometown is in a village in a county of Meizhou, Guangdong Province (I won’t talk about it specifically). When I was a child, there was only one muddy road from the village to the county seat, which was very disgusting. It’s ok if it doesn’t rain. Once it rains, the whole wheel will sink directly into it. It takes several people to push it up, and then the whole body will be splashed with yellow mud.
At that time, my family was patching together and planned to build a cement concrete road several kilometers long. We basically paid for all the road construction.
Even so, this road has been built for seven or eight years. Why?
Because some house owners are unwilling to give up some positions in front of the door, especially the key corner turning positions, they must make more space. After all, there are cliffs and rivers next to them, which is very dangerous.
There are also those who are greedy for small and cheap things, hold a few big stones in front of the door, and refuse to move away… Even for such a project that benefits the whole village, there are still some people who do not appreciate it and even obstruct it in every way. They come to our door to criticize us, so we were very wronged at that time.
This is not an example. The biggest difficulty faced by many poverty alleviation cadres is the stubborn thinking of local villagers. For example, the elderly pay attention to returning to their roots after falling leaves. They want to settle down and move back. Coupled with language and cultural barriers, they do not appreciate the poverty alleviation work at all.
If we look at them from the perspective of God, we will of course think that their living environment is poor, they have no prospects for development, and they are always in a circle of poverty.
But as insiders, they don’t think so. They can eat and wear warm clothes at ordinary times. They don’t have many other requirements. They rely on their feet for travel, firewood for heating, shouting for communication, and drinking for entertainment
Therefore, in the eyes of many people, poverty alleviation work is really hard and thankless.
I even saw some comments saying that it is simple and efficient to forcibly move without any reason.
Or these funds originally used for poverty alleviation can be invested in areas with higher output and economic benefits, which will be more beneficial to the development of the country as a whole.
I will not repeat similar remarks one by one. Next, I will make clear the true purpose of poverty alleviation.
First of all, let me talk about relocation.
In the country’s poverty alleviation work, this is called poverty alleviation in other places.
That is to say, in some very harsh areas, such as villages near cliffs, there are geological disasters nearby, such as earthquakes, mudslides and landslides, which directly endanger lives, so villagers can only be relocated and resettled.
This is a policy for special areas, but most poverty alleviation areas will not do so.
Imagine that if we forcibly move into the city regardless of any consequences, we can certainly do it. Then what?
Some villagers may have a high level of education. They have skills and can survive in the city and find their own direction of struggle.
However, most villagers only know farming skills, and do not have this composite survival ability. They can’t even speak Mandarin very well, so it’s difficult to find a job that meets their own needs, and it’s even difficult to live in the city.
Therefore, their housing, life and work, religious habits, including professional skills training, harmony with local residents, and even the allocation of school places for children in the future should all be taken into account.
Do you have a big head?
But what will happen if we leave them alone and let the fittest survive?
It is very likely that there will be a slum in every city, like the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.
Due to unemployment, poverty, disease and other factors, these people have lost the most basic living security, and can only huddle in the containers and iron sheds built in the slums, eventually forming a crime paradise.
So in the end, if we forcibly move, the cost will be very high and far higher than the difficulty of targeted poverty alleviation in the local area.
What we really want to do is not to force them to leave their hometown and let the country support them for life, but to cover their life circle with modern means and make real changes in their lives.
How can we help the poor more effectively?
Simply handing out money and food will not solve any problems, just like what European and American aid organizations are doing in Africa.
In Africa, every year, thousands of volunteers from Europe and the United States build a library for children in orphanages, build a dangerous building structure with bricks and cement, and then teach children to sing the gospel and deliver the Bible in the evening.
In this process, taking photos and clocking in is the most important link. A group of African children act as a human wall. White and black interweave to form an insurmountable gap, which is finally included in the recommendation letters of top universities.
Although some volunteers have a simple heart and want to help African children, what they do can only move them. They can’t tell the difference between the primitive and the original ecology, and they know nothing about human suffering. In European and American media, film and television works, it is always hoped that Africa will keep its natural appearance, so that it can stay away from the noise of cities and satisfy the fantasy of being a “God” to save the world.
We hope so? Certainly not.
For us, the most reasonable way to help the poor is to completely revitalize the local economy, coordinate employment and education, and then improve the quality of villagers, so as to fundamentally change poverty.
But judging from the difficulty of poverty alleviation, we are also a hell of difficulty.
Compared with the endless plains and plateaus of other countries, China’s terrain is not good. Most of the areas are mountains and hills, which are neither suitable for farming nor living. The high mountains and steep slopes lead to the lag of local infrastructure construction.
Villagers in remote mountainous areas rely better on manpower and horses for travel and transportation, while those in poor conditions can only rely on ladders or slings across the river, which is very dangerous.
The same is true of poverty alleviation work, especially the construction of roads in plateau hills with an altitude of several thousand meters. It is really difficult. It is normal for people to lack oxygen, fatigue, sunshine and rain.
Paving workers work in the hot sun all the year round, especially asphalt workers, who have a very high probability of heatstroke; Power workers have to climb the 100 meter high tower to work, and eat and rest on the tower.
When a Sichuan Tibet highway was built, 2000 people died, not to mention all kinds of dangers encountered by the poverty alleviation cadres, such as vehicles falling into the river, cliffs overturning, mudslides, floods and so on. They often encountered dangerous situations, and there were more deaths and injuries.
They devote all their efforts to connecting the people in the most remote areas through power grids, optical cables, railways and highways, so that they can integrate into the world and participate in the country’s social and economic activities.
We must face up to the fact that not all people are content with poverty, nor do all regions want to remain self-contained. If they can see the light, they can never bear the darkness.
The root cause of poverty in many mountain areas is that they are too closed to communicate with the outside world. The cash crops planted and nurtured by farmers can not be transported out, and the external materials can not be transported in. This causes information congestion and poverty generation after generation.
Only when the road is built and opened to traffic can local economic crops such as fruits and local specialties be easily sold, and local tourism and other characteristic resources be successfully revitalized, stimulate economic development, and truly get rid of poverty and become rich.
Some people may calculate whether the costs and benefits of poverty alleviation are reasonable.
However, there is no need to consider this point at all, because poverty alleviation is an absolute loss making business in terms of open funds.
In the nationwide construction of roads, electricity, drinking water, telephone networks, cable TV networks and the Internet, only state-owned enterprises will do what capitalists are unwilling to do regardless of cost. Only in socialist countries will many poverty alleviation measures abandon the theory of market economics.
The essence of poverty alleviation is not to give up anyone, which is the basic bottom line of a country.
Therefore, precise poverty alleviation can become one of the three major battles of the country.
Only in this way can there be bridges across natural grabens, tunnels across high mountains, and signal base stations covering mountainous areas in China’s most remote mountainous areas.
Children don’t have to drag dangerous ropes to climb cliffs, cross steep cliffs and fall on the muddy ground in rainy days.
No matter how bumpy the road is, China Post will be able to drive through and deliver one letter of admission to college students safely.
In the vast rural areas, compulsory education has eliminated most illiteracy, water and electricity network facilities are extremely perfect, and color TV sets, refrigerators and air conditioners have become standard equipment.
Even in the poorest areas, as long as the infrastructure is perfect, the link with modern civilization will not be broken. Only by targeted poverty alleviation can local villagers voluntarily walk out of the mountains, and there is hope for everything.
In the same word, not giving up anyone is the bottom line of a country. On November 23, 2020, all 832 poor counties in the country had been lifted out of poverty.