This is a response to this post ( http://blogs.unicef.org.uk/authentic_voices/archive/2013/01/23/tom-hiddleston-guinea-diary-.aspx ) because I found the topic interesting and, having discussed this recently, decided to write about it. Check out the blog, by the way, as well as the rest of Unicef’s website.
This is interesting, because I got into a conversation about developing countries with my mother (who’s from Ecuador) about why these countries struggle so much with their development. And we spend a lot of time throwing money at them or, better, building schools and providing food, water, and shelter, as well as setting up places where people can get proper healthcare. But the real problem is the actual governmental infrastructure, and, well, what do people do about that?
I don’t know as much about African countries, but the post about Guinea put it in an interesting perspective—no one knows what they want. And governments tend to be corrupt, and corrupt governments can take advantage of a populace that doesn’t know what it wants out of their country. Disorganization can ruin even the best of ideas. Certain South American countries suffer similar corruption and issues of the general population rebelling, re-electing, failing, and trying all over again.
But what do you do about it? Some would approve of first world countries sending people (the military, probably) into third world countries and overthrowing the government is also a viable solution. But we’ve seen that doesn’t work. People are bitter towards their colonizers and for good reason—when have imperialistic countries ever treated their colonies fairly? Hell, the United States was born from people being angry at England’s unfair treatment of them. (I’m from the US, so that’s why I bring that up.)
Besides, it probably would benefit these countries to be able to set up a system that works themselves, because then they don’t become dependent on anyone else. Education is the best bet—last semester I studied China’s rise from a third world country to nearly a first world power (they have a lot of work to do, but they’re miles from where they were in the 1970’s) and a lot of it had to do with openness and education. Students learned more—more students went to school, students learned the economic ways of other countries (and governmental, but China kind of ignored that a bit) that were successful, and the sciences and technologies of first world countries. They took that back to China, used it, and flourished. This was on their own terms, and so far it’s been working. It’s been slow, China still isn’t perfect some thirty years later, but it’s getting better.
The same principal applies, and I think this blog post rightly addresses that education is extremely important, among other things. If children and young adults, even adult-adults (hey, you’re never too old to learn anything) can become educated and learn not only about what makes up their country and their people, but also what makes the world around them work, then those countries can have a group of people who will know what they want, who will be able to use the knowledge they’ve gained to help their country grow.
It’s slow. My mom sounded a bit hopeless when talking about Ecuador, saying that the corruption has been ingrained into the culture of Ecuador’s government. And looking at a lot of these countries, who have been struggling for decades, it does seem a bit hopeless. But education is not an instantaneous thing. It takes time. Like I said, it took China decades, but there is a noticeable difference. And I think that if there’s more access to education in other third world countries, then they have a better chance at success.
That was very long and I’m not a historian or even very experienced in the world, but I do firmly believe that education works. If you take anything away from this at all, just take away that education is important and if you can, help educate those who don’t have access to good education (through donating to organizations that do, by teaching, by going through a program like Teach for America if you’re in the states (they also have an international branch, ect.)
*Note: I am not a history expert. I just find it helpful sometimes.
Time Traveling Shakespeare 