But given that ultimately any society is also going to be affected by what happens to those who live in the cracks, that their health and wellbeing is also the health of the nation, maybe it s necessary to commit more resources to being proactive. Strategies that address the individual and collective crises of identity, purpose and belonging will not come from the market, nor even easily from our governments, whether they be Scottish, European or American. They require a reaffirmation of the religious and humanist values of the absolute worth and value of every person, whatever their nationality or ethnic group. The Jubilee 2000 campaign for the cancellation of the debt burden on the world s poorest countries is a creative and biblical attempt to be proactive, to hold before the world the fate of those who fall, or are pushed into the cracks of an international economic system that puts fiscal probity above the health, wellbeing, education and even the lives of poor people. Popular protest has already achieved some measure of success in putting justice and humanitarian considerations for debtor countries, particularly in Africa, firmly on the G8 agenda.
People survive living in the cracks with remarkable resourcefulness.
But they cannot live without hope. At the very least we should set as an absolute priority the modest aspirations of the many above the more extravagant claims of the few.