http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101104/hl_afp/unhealthsocial_20101104145621
This article is about which countries have the highest (and lowest) qualities of life based on a UN study of wealth, poverty, health and education. The top five listed are: Norway (also #1 on the Human Development Index), Australia, New Zealand, United States, and Ireland. The lowest listed are: Mozambique, Burundi, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, with Zimbabwe coming in dead last with a life expectancy of only 47 years and a per capita income of 176 dollars.
This brings to mind a lot of issues we've been covering in class, especially those brought up by "The End of Poverty." Are these countries in that insurmountable cycle of debt brought on by loans that are impossible to repay? The movie helped give me a new definition and viewpoint of slavery. Who are the slave owners of these nations and individuals and how much are they benefiting from their continual enslavement?
How can these problems be solved? What are some possibilities for the actual end of poverty? Is it realistic to think that things will ever change???
I agree, Leanna – it is all very neo-colonial - a perpetual cycle of disempowerment. I believe the media can sometimes reinforce this stronghold cycle with articles like this one. Two major facets of this article strike me as presumptuous. One is the fact
ReplyDeletethe article uses seemingly Western phrases and ideas like “rich, growth and strides” – assuming these things are what everyone is the world believes would make the happy or content or fulfill whatever life goal they may have for themselves. I have met just as many people living what they consider the “good life” (yes, from Norway) but also from countries this article considers underdeveloped – Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, etc.
As I understand it – there are a great deal of people who do not feel living on life-support or debilitated or in-pain just to live to an older age is considered the “good life.” Nor do I believe all agree that being highly educated or having a high income is an automatic quality of life improvement. Yes, Norway does rank very high on most “happiness scales” (for whatever those measure) but I am pretty sure they are not happy or living the “good life” primarily because they are rich and educated.
The second facet I find difficult to accept is the articles encouragement to country-compare. Norway may sound like the “great life” from this general, 3-point index but this “rich country” is very different – not just from say, Zimbabwe but even the US. (i.e. Norway pays very high taxes Americans would NEVER accept and they have a great deal of socialist-style policies many of us capitalists would be completely against). Either way – country comparison is hardly ever useful. The history, culture and general characteristics of a country like Norway are so starkly different from Zimbabwe’s that country-comparing is entirely unhelpful. I feel like I see this type of country-comparison reporting so often in international news and to me it is defeating and misleading. These types of comparisons imply things like: Norway lives the “good life” because they are rich and they are rich because they have oil (and money for higher education). This rationale makes little sense when we look at so many of the other resource-rich (or resource-cursed) countries in the world who are supposedly not living the “good life” – i.e. DR Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe – those ranking lowest on the HDI scale.
I realize the use in index’s like this one – I guess it’s the translating and reporting on them that seems to disempower and mislead us into wondering “how can our country be more like Norway?” or “thank god I don’t live in Zimbabwe” – which is entirely misguided (in my opinion).
Well said, Brooke! After living in a country that didn't have most of the amenities that I had learned to enjoy in the U.S., my opinion changed about what "quality of life" really meant. If you ask a Capeverdean about the quality of their life they would tell you that they are rich in friends, family, and love. The locals on my island in Cape Verde liked to tell me how glad they were not to be in the busy, stressful U.S. and how sure they were that I would move back to Cape Verde after returning to the U.S. They might not have a lot of "stuff", but they have all the time in the world to be with each other, and they have no bureaucratic hoops to jump through, life runs at a very slow pace, and is based on community. I've never felt so welcome. The community made sure that the people who weren't working still had food for their children. A failure of one was a failure of all. It reflected very badly should someone go without because it meant that the community wasn't fulfilling their duty. Capeverdeans wouldn't trade their flexible lifestyle for a 9-5 desk job in the U.S. That's not their idea of "the good life."
ReplyDeleteYou know Leanna, I'm not sure I have anything else to say but.. this is a great discussion. I'm always so excited to see someone get it, and you just do. Slavery is not a thing of the past, as the movie 'The End of Poverty' so critically stated. Sigh, indeed there is so much more to life then our American safety net of a dream.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the “good life” is not a reflection of how much stuff we own, but I am sure all of us know plenty of people who are aiming for that goal. Extreme poverty still persists with the terrifying notion of an unequal distribution of goods and resources. While I do not think that throwing our money at them will solve the problem entirely, the greed and materialism that characterizes most developed countries is sickening. Poverty cannot be solved without analyzing how we are contributing to the problem, which reminds me of Naomi Klein's book, "No Logo.” In it she investigates how companies create brands and logos to sell not the product, but an idea or an image of the product to consumers. Perhaps that is why marketing has been so successful. Marketers have been selling us the idea of the "good life," but that life may not lead to happiness and it surely affects the underdeveloped countries. This seems to be terribly evident with the privatization of companies, workers get laid off, and jobs that were once located in a developed country becomes outsourced to a developing country so that the company can cheat others while making even bigger profits. Free trade and other factors contribute to this massive problem, which convinces me that “The End of Poverty” seems to be correct in their assessment of how core countries keep the periphery countries dependent on them. Honestly, I am not sure if this problem will be solved unless we take a deep look at how corrupt our capitalist countries are and how we are affecting others. We should respond out of love rather than guilt and avoid thinking that they are not experiencing life because they are not as "rich" as we are.
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