#26 – July 18th 2007

“Ugandans are stupid and lazy.”

Someone said that to me today. A muzungu, obviously. To say that it “made my blood boil” does not even begin to describe my reaction to such a statement. At this point its not even racism. Its pure ignorance, naivety. In the first instance generalizing in any situation is generally hazardous and often highly inaccurate. Second, have people come nowhere since slavery, since inequality, since Martin Luther King had a dream and Rosa Parks changed her seat on the bus? Have we not realized that skin colour does not determine intelligence or work ethic? When did we revert back to the conclusion that nature won out over nurture and that a people’s history fails to factor into their current situation? When did the political and the socio-economic take a backseat to genetics? When did “race” become the answer to Who? What? Why? and How?

Let me make something perfectly clear, as there seems to be some confusion. There are poor people in Africa. There are poor people in Canada. There are unintelligent people in Africa. There are unintelligent people in Canada. There are idle people in Africa. There are idle people in Canada. To put it bluntly: whites are just as capable of being stupid and lazy as blacks. The person who made the aforementioned statement, who will remain nameless, claimed that he was “beginning to understand why some think these people have pea-sized brains.” I apologize if you find that sentence extremely offensive. At least you didn’t have to continue speaking with him after he had said it and feign some semblance of deference. I felt like I was in some sort of crazy dream, dropped off in the middle of a KKK meeting in the deep South. I was ‘informed’ that the ‘tribalistic’ and ‘backward’ way of doing things here was beyond comprehension and that the only way forward was ‘modern’ development via Western impositions. That the ‘languid’ Ugandan work-ethic needed to be replaced by the frenzied pace in North America if there is going to be any hope of achieving the capitalist dream of limitless wealth and power. I attempted to interject with the notion that perhaps that “capitalist dream” was not universal in its admiration, achievability, or sustainability and that other cultures, other societies may have more environmentally-friendly, sustainable ways of ‘developing’ that lead to a greater amount of happiness. This, however, was rebutted with, “North America did it and look how they are flourishing!”

But my friend, you are forgetting the torrid history of our continent; of the millions of deaths necessary to procure this ‘success’, of the Indigenous cultures ruined, the degraded environments, the wars fought in other lands, the exploitation and manipulation. The politics of deceit, of force, of power-wrangling. And are we happy? Are we satisfied? Are we living life the way it ‘ought’ to be lived? Have we, as my friend stated, ‘got it right’? I am not suggesting we forgo all our modern conveniences, that our medical advances haven’t been miracle-workers, that we should go back to the days of huts and hunting and nature. I was simply trying to suggest that for a system that is supposedly so wonderful, it is leaving 98% of the population high and dry and failing to satisfy those who are purportedly benefiting. The rich are getting richer, more unhappy, and are quickly killing our planet, while the poor are labeled “stupid and lazy” and heck, why don’t we blame it on the colour of their skin while we’re at it.

I am feeling a little overwhelmed, and a little under-whelmed. Overwhelmed by the daily struggles the majority of Ugandans face, the majority of Africans face, the majority of the southern hemisphere faces. Under-whelmed by the majority of the world’s attempts to do anything about it. I see the suffering; the hunger and thirst, the sickness, the helplessness. In the same frame I see the unutilized potential for a reversal of fortunes. I see the unnecessary and abhorrently wicked conduct the vast majority of the ‘developed’ world unleashes on the ‘undeveloped’ world and wonder how it is that the world became so desperately divided in the first place. When did the West, in all its hubris, decide it had found a superior route and subsequently choose to use any means necessary to travel along it, regardless of whose backs they had to break to do so?

Equality, peace, freedom, environmental sustainability; are these things unachievable? Think about each of those words, so common to our ears they’ve taken on a bland quality. Equality: that each and every human being on this planet has equal worth, that none should be considered more or less anything than the next. Sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, social status, power, and wealth should not prevent a single member of this planet from obtaining the basic necessities of survival. Peace: does such a state exist? Does it have the potential to exist? A condition in which there is no motivation to fight, where the foundations of equality have been laid, basic needs have been met, where we’ve found a way to survive without exploiting one another. Freedom: the ability to do what you wish, within reason, without restraint – I’m mainly speaking about freedom to live your life in any fashion you choose as long as it doesn’t impact the lives of others negatively. Freedom to speak, think, write, and dream as you please. Freedom that allows the movement of peoples across borders, that allows access to basic necessities such as water, sustenance, shelter, and knowledge. Environmental sustainability: can we put aside our greed and our luxuries and our short-term mentalities in order to make this planet livable for the next fifty years? More specifically, I question whether the small percentage of wealthy and powerful, and those that are governed by them, can alter their current course; a course that is inherently self-mutilating and ruinous for the entire planet, a course that regards the vast majority of the world as unequal. Can this army of Presidents and CEOs, of bureaucracy and corportocracy, of the powerful, the influential, and their sheep, the consumer, stop waging wars to sustain their gluttonous lifestyles, stop relegating the rest of the globe to poverty and hardship in order that their pursuits remain limitless? Can the West stop pretending their actions don’t effect each and every member of the human race? Can the West stop fabricating lies about people being “stupid and lazy” in order to exonerate themselves of any responsibility for these people’s current predicaments?

~Nicole