Two Little Thoughts: Labour Lost & Merchants of Charity
Since I’m in Indonesia right now, I’ve been reading the papers here. The Jakarta Post reports an interesting case today:
Subarkah said it was unfair to make a smoking haram on the basis that it could be bad for some people. In fact, he said, forbidding smoking would only cause pain and suffering to tobacco farmers and their families.
"There are 1,367 tobacco factories in East Java, employing thousands of workers," Subarkah said.
According to the association, tobacco farmers in East Java supply 53 percent of the country’s total tobacco consumption with a total investment value worth Rp 682 billion.
Full story here.
I’m guessing that this might be a more general theme although I’ve not researched it much. But with more and more people quitting plastic bags and other packaging, a similar effect might be hitting the people who produce them. Is this necessary? Of course, I’m speculating a little right now.
Here’s an unrelated article that’s very pertinent too, and which might be a tad sensitive especially for bodies on the receiving end. Is corporate philanthropy CSR? Is it an important question at all? Coming from a student population with so many societies getting funds from corporates, I can’t quite tell if corporate money is a good thing. Our own CSR Student Movement does research sponsors a little and have rejected sponsorship offers for various reasons before, but we were always keenly aware of how much good we could potentially do with that money. Painful sometimes.
