According to Mozambican writer Mia Couto, fear can be one of our first teachers, as it explains many of the most worrying issues of our time.

Fear leads us to the old mistake that we are safer in environments we know and that we are more protected if we do not venture beyond the borders of our language, our culture, and our territory. Deep down, there is more fear in this world of bad things than bad things themselves. Hunger is one of them.

To face global threats, we need more armies, more secret services, and a temporary suspension of our citizenship. We all know that the true path has to be another.

Political and military adversaries are now joined by demography and epidemics. A feeling was created that reality is dangerous, nature treacherous, and humanity unpredictable. We live, as citizens and as a species, in a permanent emergency situation.

We also wonder why the financial crisis did not hit the arms industry and why more seminars are held on security than on justice.

But, returning to the central theme, we have to face much more real and urgent threats: There is a weapon of mass destruction that is being used every day, all over the world, without the need for the pretext of war. This weapon is called hunger. This is what we turn to today.

In the 21st century, one in every six people goes hungry. The cost of overcoming world hunger would be only a very small fraction of what is spent on armaments.

However, our indignation is much smaller than our fear. Without realizing it, we were converted into soldiers of an army without a name, and, like soldiers without uniforms, we stopped questioning. We stopped asking questions and discussing the reasons.

Questions of ethics are forgotten because the barbarity of others has been proven and because, when we are at war, we do not have to test coherence, ethics, or legality.

However, today we have. Especially because the more fears, the more walls are built, borders, and limits to our wills and freedoms.

Bodies converted into walls and stones are a metaphor for how fear can imprison us. There are walls that separate nations, that divide the rich from the poor, those who are hungry from those who are not.

But today, in the world, there is no wall that separates those who are afraid from those who are not. We live under the same gray clouds, all of us, from the south and the north, the east and the west.

Quoting Eduardo Galeano about what global fear is, we can say that “those who work are afraid of losing their jobs; those who don't work are afraid of never finding work; when they are not afraid of hunger, they are afraid of food; civilians are afraid of the military; the military is afraid of the lack of weapons; and the weapons are afraid of the lack of wars.”

And, adds Mia Couto, perhaps there are still those who are afraid that the fear will end. Who knows if there will be those who live in fear but who really go in fear?

We fear hunger as an unbearable evil. Those who are hungry have no choice; their spirit does not come from where they would like, but from hunger. There are no adequate words for the suffering caused by hunger.

Nelson Mandela stated that in places where men, women, and children bear the burden of hunger, discourses about democracy and freedom that do not recognize these primary aspects can ring false and undermine the values we seek to promote.

However, we must not give up trying to discuss hunger as such a serious humanitarian threat, which constitutes an ethical issue of our time and has given many people pause.

Hunger is a rare word that means so many different things. Heavy words. However, we continue to repeat it and make it neutral. “Hunger in the world" is a common expression.

It means a need to eat, a scarcity of food, general misery or appetite, or some physical state of burning desire. It is an intimate feeling, a reality shared by many. But it means even more than that.

Hunger is one of the biggest global threats; it is a weapon of mass destruction that is used every day, all over the world, without any pretext.

The causes and consequences of it, as well as the essence of the phenomenon that affects millions of people, give anyone chills. It's a heavy word.

However, there are many who do not give up discussing it and leaving a trail in the search for a resolution to it who consider how close we are to combating it, as well as our position to do so, compared to that of the millions who are in the same situation as us.

We have to go looking for people, because they may be hungry for bread or friendship. All our words that we say to them will be useless if they do not come from the bottom of our hearts. Words that do not give light increase the darkness.

(Mother Teresa of Calcutta)