Blogging task-“The mother of revolution and crime is poverty” Do you agree?

The statement “The mother of revolution and crime is poverty” can be understood as, poverty is the root of crimes or evil deeds such as theft, and is the reason for people to stage a coup.

I do not agree with the above statement that poverty is the main cause of all crimes and rebellion. I feel that poverty contributes to these problems only to a small extend. I believe that there are factors and reasons other then poverty, which leads to people committing certain crimes and staging a rebellion. Some of these factors causing people to go against the authorities or commit crimes would be, to for independence or personal rights, for power, religious reasons lack of education or just plain jealousy.

Many may feel that poverty is the main cause of crimes, such as robberies, theft. However, I believe that what really leads to someone causing these social problems is the lack of education. Without proper education, one would be unable to obtain a job. Without a job and an income, the person would resort to stealing in order to feed himself. A person, who is born poor, will not steal from others to sustain his life if he has proper education. Instead, if he has qualifications, the person would be able to obtain a job easily, and with the monthly income, he would be able to take care of himself, and even his family. There are indeed certain exceptions, whereby the breadwinner of a family only has a low paying job, and thus would be unable to cope with the needs of the family. In this case, the government usually provides aid for these families, and with the aid they will be able to cope with the expenses. Therefore, I believe that the lack of education would be the main cause of crimes.

Next, I also believe that jealousy is another reason for one to commit a crime. When a person is jealous of what another person has, he or she may resort to stealing, in order to get what he or she wants. One example would be mobile phone thefts cases in schools. I believe that, these problems usually arise when a student is jealous of what his peers have. Even if the student has his own personal mobile phone, he may want a similar phone his peer has. Thus he resorts to stealing. Therefore even if a person is not poor, he or she may commit crimes, to satisfy their personal wants.

Also, people may commit crimes because they feel that there is unjust. For example, the 1998 Indonesian riots, whereby the Chinese Indonesians were attacked and their property were robbed. The Indonesian non Chinese attacked the Chinese as they were unhappy and jealous of the Chinese, jealous of what they have and believe that they are taking away things that should be theirs. Thus they started destroying their property and stealing their items. Hence, I believe that crime cases are not due to poverty.

Poverty does contribute to revolution, but only to a small extend.

When there is poverty in the nation, the people would feel that the government is not doing their job, or the policies the authorities implement, are not effective, and useless. Thus when the people are unhappy, they would not adhere to the laws and policies set by the government, and would revolt. One example would be, former president of Indonesia Suharto, was overthrown by the people of Indonesia and during his period of governance, and was taken over by an opposing party led by Megawati. He lost support from the people, as they felt that they were treated poorly under his leadership. Thus poverty does lead to rebellion and revolution in a country.

There are also other factors causing revolution in a country.
Firstly, for power. In the past, China was ruled and government by emperors. At that time, there were different dynasties, for example the Qin dynasty where Qin Shi Huang ruled and government the country. The Qin clan was mighty and strong, and had taken over numerous clans. The remaining clans would fight back, in order to gain new territories or to protect their own. However, in the clans that were taken over by Qin, there may be insurgents who are unhappy with the way the state emperor rules the region, and would rebel and oust the leader to gain power. Hence for power, people would rebel or start a revolution.

Next, people may rebel, to gain independence or to get their own rights. One example of such case whereby the people started fighting against the government would be the civil war in Thailand. The conflict between the insurgents and the governmental army for their rights has been increasing over the period. The people from southern Thailand believe that they are treated unfairly and unequally, thus in order to get what they want, they would have to fight with the government. Hence the people are rebelling to achieve their own rights.

Hence, I believe that poverty is not the main cause of revolution and crimes in a country.