Pessimism
Today I got an email from someone who’ll be living in Kenya this summer, and wanted to know why I had said that “I became far more pessimistic about Western society and international relations through my time in Kenya.”
I realised that the way I see Canada and Western society is obfuscated by being part of it, and that watching how life and politics worked in Kenya showed me patterns in Canadian life and politics that I hadn’t noticed before. I became much better at seeing corruption and self-serving actions for what they are, and as a result, became far more pessimistic about our society.
We often think of the developing world as corrupt, which was accurate in Kenya, but we don’t realise that our country is also very corrupt. Bribery of civil servants happens less here, but allocation of government (and private sector!) funds and jobs are frequently based on “contacts”. That seems almost natural to us, but the reality is that it’s simply another way of making sure that your friends and family get the benefits of your position.
We’re finding out once again, as we did under Mulroney and Trudeau (and likely those who came before, but I haven’t checked) that campaign finance is just another way to bribe politicians. As the joke goes, the difference between a bribe and a gift is only temporal.
We often think of the US as somewhat self-serving in international relations, which is far more true than most people are aware. Canada is as well. We make most of our decisions on the basis of economics, not justice. Watching the tsunami coverage? Remember the earthquake in Bam? Billions of dollars were pledged by the international community. But only $17.5M was actually spent.
This is pretty normal. And once you see it in a cultural context that isn’t familiar, it sticks out, and then you recognise it a lot better in the familiar context.
Everyone that I’ve discussed this with has come back and told me not to be defeatist. I’m not defeatist, just pessimistic. The reality of self-interest trumping justice is pervasive, but that doesn’t mean we need to accept it, only that we need to learn better ways to counter it.
