Scan barcode
A review by sonialusiveira
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor by Paul Farmer
4.0
"...let unwelcome truths be told"
Pathologies of Power is a collection of essays about the global epidemic of human suffering that was caused by imbalances of power throughout the world. The author uses anecdotes from his experience witnessing the brutal conditions in Russian prisons to remote communities in Haiti and Chiapas that lack access to proper hygiene. The book is divided into two parts. The first one uses the anecdotes to demonstrate how government corruption and human rights violations cause the structural violence in the society and the suffering of millions of people. The second part discusses how the right to health care should be a birth right to every human being; the author uses the arguments that were based on medical ethics, how the current healthcare system is market driven, the international politics and the foreign policy that tend to be economical in allocating resources, eg. Russian prisoners with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis “were receiving a wholly ineffective treatment on the ground of cost-effectiveness”.
This book was first published in 2003 but eighteen years later, and it is still as relevant as ever. The mainstream media has been saying the same thing over and over that the global pandemic of Covid-19 has brought to the surface all underlying societal issues, including the structural violence. The imbalance of power in society has played a big role in chosen which victims were affected the most by Covid-19. Just in my country Timor-Leste, a couple weeks ago, some police beat up two street sellers saying they violate Covid-19 restrictions but let loose some powerful politician’s family that held a party with approximately more than 50 partygoers. Also, in the first rollout of the covid19 vaccine program that was supposed to target the frontliners, instead we found the politician’s family and people with connections were the ones who were in the line to get the first roll of the vaccines. Anyways, I guess reading the book brought back all these bitter feelings about how the inequality is so embedded in the fabric of our society and the world has a very long way to go to solve it.
Pathologies of Power is a collection of essays about the global epidemic of human suffering that was caused by imbalances of power throughout the world. The author uses anecdotes from his experience witnessing the brutal conditions in Russian prisons to remote communities in Haiti and Chiapas that lack access to proper hygiene. The book is divided into two parts. The first one uses the anecdotes to demonstrate how government corruption and human rights violations cause the structural violence in the society and the suffering of millions of people. The second part discusses how the right to health care should be a birth right to every human being; the author uses the arguments that were based on medical ethics, how the current healthcare system is market driven, the international politics and the foreign policy that tend to be economical in allocating resources, eg. Russian prisoners with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis “were receiving a wholly ineffective treatment on the ground of cost-effectiveness”.
This book was first published in 2003 but eighteen years later, and it is still as relevant as ever. The mainstream media has been saying the same thing over and over that the global pandemic of Covid-19 has brought to the surface all underlying societal issues, including the structural violence. The imbalance of power in society has played a big role in chosen which victims were affected the most by Covid-19. Just in my country Timor-Leste, a couple weeks ago, some police beat up two street sellers saying they violate Covid-19 restrictions but let loose some powerful politician’s family that held a party with approximately more than 50 partygoers. Also, in the first rollout of the covid19 vaccine program that was supposed to target the frontliners, instead we found the politician’s family and people with connections were the ones who were in the line to get the first roll of the vaccines. Anyways, I guess reading the book brought back all these bitter feelings about how the inequality is so embedded in the fabric of our society and the world has a very long way to go to solve it.