Featured Journal Entries from Class 1

Reflections on the Introduction to William Easterly's book, 'The White Man's Burden' (pg 1 - 33).

Rebecca Wilkening

After reading this article I realized I was ignorant about this issue of the planners and the searchers, as William Easterly put it in The White Man’s Burden. I don’t feel that it was negative thing that I was ignorant about certain issues on foreign aid and still am ignorant on certain aspects. Yet now I can better understand this idea of “The Big Plan” that us Westerners come up with and that as a future, hopefully, searcher I can steer clear of these unsuccessful and expensive ideas of big plans. It’s not that we should point the fingers at planners and shame them, because planners have high hopes of helping other people. But just like myself, once educated on the subject of planning versus searching I can understand how the planners are falling short of the reality of helping those in need.

When reading about foreign aid and countries around the world, about the need of searching for solutions instead of just throwing a bunch of money in their general direction I immediately thought of Hurricane Katrina. I spent 8 months in the golf coast a year ago in a volunteer group called Americorps*NCCC, I spent a lot of time gutting homes, hearing the stories of people still suffering from the tragedy, rebuilding homes, planning future evacuations for people without transportation and all the while wondering where did the money went. One of the most memorable things about Katrina was the call to donate, every where you went someone was collecting money to help those on television that the U.S. watched as they were stranded and starving. Yet when I went to places such as New Orleans or Mississippi a year after the hurricane came you would think that you were in a third world country. The planners took over for Hurricane Katrina so that while tons of money was donated to the relief efforts, the money seemed not to make it to those most in need and then people felt as though they had done enough through donations and therefore forgot about the cause. New Orleans reminds me of third world countries that Easterly speaks of and how this planning has just been a band aide on a broken arm.

Easterly also speaks about planners needing to feel like heroes of the poor, as if they are children to watch over and therefore missing the point of helping people. This reminds me of a non-profit I volunteered for in the New Orleans schools that were very devastated from the storm. My group of volunteers was called to help rebuild the schools, but because this particular weekend was a special volunteer weekend where reporters and big speakers came much of the efforts of helping were exhausted through patting each other on the back and buying tee shirts for everyone. We started the day splitting up and going to various schools to make the schools better for the students starting school within a few weeks. Our jobs were to paint the interior of the classrooms, any other rooms, hallways and stairways. The only problem was that we were painting over an existing horrible paint job, which while we were painting was chipping off. We painted over things that needed to be properly fixed yet we band-aided it. The point was to give kids a better school, but because of the needed to congratulate ourselves on heroism we missed the target. Not that volunteering isn’t a great thing to do and feel great about, but when the focus becomes you instead of others in need, the point of the action is lost.

I also really enjoyed the part where Easterly expresses the need for people in need to be involved in the plan such as the bed nets in Tanzania. Those who bought the nets at a small price used the nets more than those who got them for free. As a human being I can relate to this because while it is great to sometimes receive things for free to feel human and to have a feeling of worthiness even those in need, such as the extreme poor, want to feel as though they have a part in helping themselves. I noticed this while working with Habitat for Humanity. People receiving a home had to help build other peoples homes, to be a part of bettering themselves and others. I feel there is a real need for us as human beings to feel as though we can better ourselves and the world around us through contributing something.

I found Easterly’s ideas about the connection of planners and the historical domination through imperialism. That goes along with the idea of people such as Jean-Claude Shanda Tonme where he feels that the planners see him and other third world citizens as children needed to be saved through the West’s more “civilized” ways. I have never realized how connected the whole planners are to the old way of thinking civilized us versus not civilized “them”. I never realized the historical tie made between imperialism and organizations such as the World Bank and IMF trying to tell those nations how to govern and be. The most interesting thing to me that Easterly explained is how that imposition of how to govern comes from a desire to further better the West’s economic interests such as the growth of capitalism where the puppet masters are the Westerners.

I am very glad I have read this and hope to read the rest of the book because now that I am informed I feel I can be more of aware of myself, especially because I would like to start a non-profit. I hope to be a searcher and follow through with plans and take responsibility for myself as well as taking responsibility when working on the issues with others and for others. I also hope that I can be a searcher by helping people help themselves and not trying to be their hero.

Dan Schneider

The ideas expressed by William Easterly are similar to the methods used by professionals in my academic field of study, Anthropology. The idea is that one goes to an area and becomes amerced in the lives of the people. The Anthropologist becomes a participant-observer. The main objective of the Anthropologist is to essentially become as close to being an insider within that particular group as possible. From that perspective, one comes to understand a group of people with clarity that is certainly obscured from an outsider’s perspective. The people that are most able to understand a situation are the people that are directly involved with it. In essence, the Anthropologist must become a searcher. He or she must understand a group and from there he or she must evaluate the situation to find strengths and weaknesses within the group. After they are identified, the Anthropologist utilizes local as well as international resources to provide solutions for any problems discovered. The solution must be tailored to fit the cultural ideals and practices of the people It is a grassroots approach, from the bottom to the top.

This leads me to my question, if a person from another culture can never gain a completely insider point of view, then can the outsider ever confidently offer solutions to problems identified by him or her? My initial answer to this question is yes. Firstly, I will begin by emphasizing the grassroots approach to the solution. I think the easiest way to get a true bearing on the effectiveness of a solution is simply to involve the people who are benefited by this solution. They are the true insiders and they can foresee the possible benefits and the drawbacks to one’s solution. One cannot simply come into a community and decide what is best for it. The people must decide. The outsider may be able to offer a new perspective on a problem and knowledge that may not be available to the insiders; however, if the insiders come into conflict with a solution, it is unlikely that they will see the necessity to utilize it. It is unlikely then that the solution will in fact be a solution. The outsider becomes a tool that the insiders can utilize for information and ideas. Furthermore, the outsider hopefully is able to provide a link that did not exist in the community before, a link between a community and the resources that can be utilized to obtain what the community needs. He may be a bridge between the people and foreign aid, the people and the knowledge to create a change, or a link to any other resource. No matter what the outside links a community to, the change needs to come from a collaborative effort that continually involves the people being affected by the change. On the other hand, there is a possibility the presence of an outsider can cause more damage to the community than was present before the outsider’s arrival. Anthropologists have a rule to protect against this, “Do no harm.” However, there is always a chance of doing harm. No solution can ever be easy and without negative consequences. The outsider will never understand a culture completely. His intervention has high chances of bringing negative consequences to a group of people. Are these risks worth it? Or should the outsider simply stay home and not meddle in other people’s lives. This is no easy question to answer and it should not be. I am having difficulty coming up with reasons why one should just not bother and leave people alone.

Leaving people alone seems like a good decision, but the truth is that it is impossible to “leave people alone.” The actions of every person today affect others indirectly. It is the duty of an Anthropologist to understand how one’s actions affect others and minimize the negative consequences. In a globalized world, we are all linked, and our decisions have unforeseen consequences on people. I look around and see many examples of my actions affecting other people. My own curiosity leads me to want to know more about these situations, and with that knowledge comes power and responsibility. One is given the power to create change, and the responsibility to protect the people one hopes to help.

One of the greatest risks to a community comes by opposing one’s own solution on other people. To reiterate, a person can never truly know everything about a group of people if he is not a member himself. This is an extremely ethnocentric and selfish viewpoint to believe that one knows more than a group people because they are different. Many aid agencies believe that they have all the answers to the problems of the world. They are the Planners who impose simple solutions on complex problems, but they never seem to come any closer to solving any of the problems. They never even seem to make any headway on helping people. They also make no analysis about the consequences of their decisions. For example, you cannot tell Muslims in Africa that female circumcision is dangerous and has no real benefits and expect them to change their practices. You have to understand why the people practice female circumcision and work to change the beliefs that cause this practice. Simply scolding the people for their “dangerous practices” will negatively impact one’s relationship with the people, making any current or future change impossible.

To conclude this somewhat random assemblage of thoughts, I believe that if one becomes as close to and insider in a group as possible, he or she can offer solutions to problems. The solutions must be filtered through actual insiders to be utilized. Solutions cannot be imposed on other people. If the people are involved in every step of the process, the chances of causing harm are greatly reduced. However, one must be vigilant to recognize faults and constantly adapt to minimize the harmful consequences of them. We all do our part to impact other people; it is up to us to decide if it is a positive or negative contribution.