Poverty can affect anyone

Poverty – what is it actually? Is poverty a disgrace? Does poverty deprive you of your human dignity? Why do so many of us look the other way when it comes to poverty, until perhaps a stroke of fate suddenly affects us? No one here has to go hungry, nor does our welfare state function here. And yet, even here, fewer and fewer people can afford to buy healthy food in a regular supermarket. Due to questionable political decisions, etc., the cost of living is becoming increasingly expensive and unaffordable for many. Overpriced rents and energy costs are plunging many people into debt. Companies are having to close down, and many people are losing their jobs as a result. The proportion of people in our country who are classified as part of the so-called lower class is growing. Even if we in Germany are currently doing well – internationally speaking – compared to most countries in the world. But here, too, the social classes have long been segregated. I remember my time at a grammar school in the 1970s. The school was almost exclusively for the children of rich people. I was the only working-class child. My friends invited me to their birthdays, but they always asked me: Please don't tell my parents that your father is just a worker, otherwise I won't be allowed to invite you over anymore. – Basically, that hasn't changed to this day. We point the finger at countries like India with its caste system, but fundamentally, it's not that different here either. Upper, middle, lower class, and the underclass are our "poor" who live in socially disadvantaged areas, live in tiny, run-down apartments in areas that people would rather avoid, or who don't even have a home anymore. A good Syrian friend once said to me: "You Germans are strange. Your first question is always: What do you do for a living? You treat you accordingly. Here in Syria, profession and income are not important. We ask others: What's your name? Are you and your family doing well? Can I invite you and your family to our place?" - So what is poverty? How exactly do we determine it? Or isn't poverty also a real opportunity for the "upper class" to look beyond their own ideal world and see what exactly makes people poor? A class that doesn't even offer most people the opportunity to ever escape the class they were born into? Who among us is really prepared to support such a person by forgoing our own luxuries and instead helping those in need so that they too can live a life with dignity? Let us never forget: poverty can strike anyone. One stroke of fate is enough.