Begging the Question

Well, what do we do about beggars?

It’s a tough question, but the most common reactions are of the knee-jerk variety: either “Just ignore her, they’re all professionals and you’ll only encourage them” or “How can you be so heartless, there but for the grace of God…”. These opposing viewpoints (often within the same marriage) lead to lively debates on sidewalks all over the world, but don’t really help clarify the issue.

illustration: killapocolypse

There was a time when, depending on your destination, you had a fairly good idea whether you were going to encounter the problem at all. Which at least gave you time to consider your position.

These days, not so much. With a few exceptions (Japan, Monaco and New Zealand spring to mind) you’re likely to be accosted anyplace you go, including where you’d least expect it.

So — do you or don’t you? My considered answer is: absolutely not. Or possibly yes. Or maybe… 

Absolutely Not (on the road in Sri Lanka) 

This wouldn’t be the comfort stop you’d choose, if you had a choice, but we were in the jungle.

The roadside “toilet” was a filthy, dilapidated concrete cubicle under a tree, with a door hanging off its hinges, and — amazingly — a sit-down toilet inside. There was, of course, nothing else: no toilet seat, paper, or running water, and the floor was awash with unidentified fluids.  When I exited, a skinny, scowling man emerged from the trees. He knew one word of English — “money” — which he repeated — “MONEY!” —  as I headed back toward the road.

Money….for what, exactly? If he’d bothered to sluice the place down with a couple of buckets of water, or put the door back on its hinges, or even provide toilet paper at an extortionate price per leaf, he might have had a case. But no. The answer was absolutely, categorically no. At least not in broad daylight, with plenty of people around, and no danger of being physically accosted before I could get back across the road. So…no.

Yes, of Course (on the Mekong, Cambodia)

We’d all been told before we left the cruise boat not to give money to the children, no matter how adorable they were (and they were). The pupils at the tiny school we were visiting — which was partly supported by the cruise company — weren’t destitute; giving them money just for being cute would send all the wrong messages, and encourage begging. Which made perfect sense.

We were standing around outside the school when I noticed a boy sitting on a low stone wall. He was maybe ten or eleven, and he was making flowers from palm fronds, twisting and folding, fingers flying, hardly looking at what he was doing.

When I admired it, he gave it to me. The ribbons of palm were a delicate light green (now faded to a pale straw as it hangs above my desk) and it was about the size of a grapefruit: beautifully made, perfect in every detail.

I smiled; he smiled. The boy indicated that it was a gift; he didn’t want any money. I said it was very pretty, and I would like to buy it, and gave him a handful of notes worth roughly five dollars.

My reasoning was:

Actually, he wasn’t begging. In fact he hadn’t asked for any money at all. (This suggests that he was either a very nice boy or a very clever one, or both — which deserves some kind of encouragement.)

It wasn’t charity, either — I was buying a piece of handicraft, beautifully made with skill and patience, as a souvenir of the trip.

The amount I gave him, which would have been a generous price in a souvenir shop, was easily a week’s wages in that rural area. His mother would have been a very happy woman.         And he’d earned it.

Maybe  (in Mumbai)  

An old and dear friend  —  I’ll call her Madam —  moved from Singapore to Mumbai and realised immediately that she was going to have to find a way of dealing with the beggars. They’re a constant, unrelenting presence there, everywhere you go. Day or night, when her driver stopped at a red light, or even paused in traffic, there were pitiful faces at the car windows: usually a young girl holding a baby, making the fingers-to-mouth gesture signifying hunger.

There’s no doubt at all that they were poor — and hungry, dirty, and probably ill. However, a lot of them are also professional beggars. Most? All? No one can tell. They’re mustered each morning by their bosses, given somebody’s baby to carry and sent off to beg, and not to return until they’ve earned their daily quota…of which they may keep a tiny percentage at best.

There have always been rumours that many of these babies are crippled or blinded in infancy to make them more pathetic and appealing. What’s reasonably certain is that they’re dosed with something to keep them limp and listless during the day.

Madam is a compassionate woman, but she’s nobody’s fool. Giving nothing to anybody wasn’t an acceptable option; neither was being played for a sucker on a daily basis. So how to separate the sheep from the goats?

Madam sat down with her cook, Janet, and they devised a recipe for a high-protein cookie. The result is not particularly attractive: a rather dry, chunky biscuit which has two key qualities — it’s highly nutritious and it keeps well.
Now she keeps a batch of them in the car, in an airtight tin. When there’s a tap-tap-tap on the window, and a fingers-to-mouth pantomime, Madam holds up a biscuit. One of two things happens, and either way the question’s resolved. She gets an eager nod, rolls down the window and hands over a couple of biscuits. Or — more often — she gets the internationally-recognised thumb-and-fingers gesture meaning “money”. And Madam drives on.

In the end, all you can do is decide on a case-by-case basis. Is it extortion? Is it earned? Or is it true charity?