THE RICH AND THE CLUELESS

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Extreme poverty and deprivation, it is said, blind one to everything else. When someone is so focused on how to make next month’s rent or worse, where the next meal will come from, everything else becomes blurry.

I’m beginning to think that extreme wealth and privilege have a very similar effect.

The super wealthy exist in a bubble of their own, floating from one opportunity to another, oblivious to the ground reality.

I recall watching a bight-eyed and bushy-tailed young boy, yet to step into his teens, describe his vision to free the children.

We were brand new in Canada and watching Craig Keilburger on television, I knew we had come to a good country. Over the years, we watched him grow as his dream grew. We cheered when our kids supported those charities.

But oh, what a fall from grace. It’s not just about the money that was paid out to celebrity speakers at their mega events, but all of the other stuff that is being unearthed on a daily basis. Real estate worth millions. Multi-star resorts in dream locations around the world.

How does a charity whose mandate is to help poor children explain posh resorts?

I am not one of those who believe that one has to be poor to serve the poor. Bill and Melinda Gates being prime examples of individuals who make a whack load of money and then use gobs of it to do good.

So make the money, I say. Enjoy the perks. But then don’t call yourself a charity. And don’t ask kids to fork up their precious pocket money so you can send your friends on a jaunt.

Don’t lose sight of how millions of others live.

Because when that happens, you are on a very slippery slope. One that had, according to a report by Brian Lilley in Toronto Sun, the US arm of WE Charity paying US$130,000 to a PR firm to discredit Toronto-based media outlet Canadaland that raised concerns about how the Keilburgers functioned.

While the forensics are still being done on who paid how much to whom, the Keilburgers displayed a classic blinded-by-privilege stance while answering the finance committee’s questions. Their performance was described as “Smug. Smarm. Spin.” in an editorial in the Toronto Sun. They said there was no financial gain in it for them and, according to a report in the Toronto Star, had the gall to claim that they were doing a “favour” in order to be “helpful to Canada”.

I read that and almost choked over my morning cup of chai. In which universe do these entitled young men live that they think they were doing their country a favour by taking on a project for which they were given millions of dollars? At a time when millions of Canadians were losing their jobs? Didn’t anyone tell them to act humble in the absence of any real humility?

But it’s not just the Keilburgers, is it?

Prime minister Trudeau’s response to the storm in the WE cup has raised more questions than it has answered. The best that can be said of his role in all this is that it displayed an astonishing lack of judgement in a man who has steered Canada through the turbulent COVID-19 times with a steady hand at the helm.

But then he, too, belongs to the same elite club, and has, in the past, admitted to a blind spot caused by privilege. Remember the jokes Trudeau, Macron, Merkel and Princess Anne made at Trump’s expense at Buckingham Palace while attending a NATO summit when they spoke about him and laughed out loud in a public space? Whatever their personal opinions might be about Trump, was this appropriate behaviour for heads of state?

But again, they are not alone. There are countless members of this club.

There was Nirmala Sitharaman who claimed not to be aware of the soaring prices of onions in India because she, as a South Indian Brahmin, did not use onions in her cooking. If anyone needs reminding, she just happens to be the country’s finance minister. The same one who, very recently, claimed “an act of God” was responsible for India’s current financial crisis. One assumes she was assigning blame to COVID-19 – while absolving her government of all responsibility. But I couldn’t help thinking she came across as the representative of a shady insurance company that was looking for an escape clause while millions were looking to the government for assistance in difficult times. 

Mukesh Ambani thinks nothing of constructing a behemoth of a building for his home in Mumbai, a monstrosity that rears its head over the thousands that eke out an existence in the slums in its shadow.

While stars like Ryan Reynolds support charities and organizations helping those in need, and Indian actor Sonu Sood was out on the streets delivering supplies himself, there are others like Kareena Kapoor-Khan who publish daily updates on Facebook and Instagram.

Their helpful tips show them doing yoga in fabulous settings and getting a makeover at home. This, when millions of migrant labourers have been displaced by the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. They channel their inner let-them-eat-cake Marie Antonette when they post visuals of them enjoying a “healthy” meal of exotic fruits and salads when people are dying of hunger.

So the question is, are they just clueless people, sadly out of touch? Or do they lack not just basic common sense but all decency and any shred of empathy?

Back in Canada, while the new soap, The Rich and the Clueless, holds viewers in thrall, the biggest losers in the WE fiasco of course, are the countless children who were once willing to follow their hero to far-flung corners of the world to help other children.

Disillusioned spectacularly once, will they ever trust again? And how sad is that?