Soft Imperialism

Here at DBTC there are two indoor badminton courts. These courts cannot be used to play badminton because they are being used as a place of storage for a hundred or so large boxes of books.

Long before we arrived here the Salesians received a gift of books from a charity in the USA, on the face of it a very generous gift. However on closer inspection it quickly becomes evident that most of these books are totally useless. There are manuals for outdated computer programmes, books to assist learning French or Spanish (not languages normally studied here), books on fashion design and book on US history. Even among the books which could be useful, such as textbooks for English or Maths, most are at too high a level for the students here. Perhaps about 10% of what was sent is of some use. The rest just sits taking up space and stopping students from playing badminton. These gifts are a clear case of un-though-out charity. They were clearly sent without any prior dialogue and without any real thought as to what might be needed. Eventually most of these useless books, expensively shipped across the ocean, will end up being binned.

Along with all the books came several boxes of T-shirts, these are much more useful and have already been distributed among the students. These T-shirts were, however, all T-shirts promoting the American Military’s Wounded Veterans’ Charity, the USA’s equivalent of ‘The British Legion’ or ‘Help the Heroes’.

The students have no affinity one way or the other for or against the US military, for them it is just another much needed T-shirt, they don’t much care what is printed on the front. I, however, do feel uncomfortable about the spectacle.

Admittedly I have a particular problem with the US military; I disagree with much of what they do and what it stands for as an organisation. However I think there are questions at stake which run deeper than my personal views, I hope I would still feel uncomfortable even if it was an organisation towards which I felt more disposed. The students are unconsciously advertising, and by implication helping to support the US military, they have not made a positive choice to do so, thus it feels as if their poverty and lack of education is being taken advantage of.

This is one example of a very subtle problem which exists here. The influence of the rich world weighs very heavily on the people here. The allure and pressure of North America, Europe and Australia deeply affects people here. However the image of the rich world that they see is not a fair picture, it is the idealised world of film, television and sport. There is virtually no encouragement to critical debate or deconstruction of their assumptions about the rich. The value of Capitalism, Consumerism and Militarism are subtly preached as unquestionable truth to those who benefit least from these systems.

In a context such as this the importance of good education becomes very obvious. Young people here need to be encouraged to think critically. Our students are bombarded with so much western propaganda and as a result it is easy for them to believe that the characters on television are ‘normal’ and they ‘subnormal’ when in reality the opposite is closer to being true.

Such education to think is, of course, dangerous. A people which sees itself as an equal to any other might start demanding equivalent wages, or equivalent working conditions, or an equivalent say in world affairs. Much better to appease our consciences by sending a few crates of useless books!