Last week I pointed out that many so-called "Third World s***holes" were perfectly accurately described by that label. They were, and are, s***holes - literally as well as figuratively.
Now a former Peace Corps volunteer adds her perspective.
In plain English: s--- is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country. Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism.
Last time I was in Paris, I saw a beautiful African woman in a grand boubou have her child defecate on the sidewalk next to Notre Dame Cathedral. The French police officer, ten steps from her, turned his head not to see.
I have seen. I am not turning my head and pretending unpleasant things are not true.
Senegal was not a hellhole. Very poor people can lead happy, meaningful lives in their own cultures' terms. But they are not our terms. The excrement is the least of it. Our basic ideas of human relations, right and wrong, are incompatible.
As a twenty-one-year-old starting out in the Peace Corps, I loved Senegal. In fact, I was euphoric. I quickly made friends and had an adopted family. I relished the feeling of the brotherhood of man. People were open, willing to share their lives and, after they knew you, their innermost thoughts.
The longer I lived there, the more I understood: it became blindingly obvious that the Senegalese are not the same as us. The truths we hold to be self-evident are not evident to the Senegalese. How could they be? Their reality is totally different. You can't understand anything in Senegal using American terms.
There's more at the link.
Those of us who've been there, know what such places are like. When President Trump (allegedly) describes them as "s***holes", he's speaking nothing more or less than the truth. They are precisely that. Anyone trying to deny that is living in cloud cuckoo land - or deliberately lying to you.
I stand by what I said last week:
I think President Trump's point may have been unfortunately phrased; but I think it is nevertheless accurate. The USA does not need to be overrun by people who are not capable of becoming Americans. It needs immigrants who are able to make that adjustment. For those who are not, by all means let us help them; but let us do so in their own countries or regions, and help them to improve the quality of life there for everybody. That's the only practical solution that's fair to everyone, IMHO.
Peter
Yep, all true... period, end of statement.
ReplyDeleteI guess when it comes to the African continent it all depends on exactly which country within one is referring to.
ReplyDeleteFor sure the city of Johannesburg, for example, is itself quite progressive and more advanced culturally and technologically than, say, the cities within its other countries like Sudan or any of the other more backwards areas of the continent.
Tal, The situation in South Africa is declining and I'd rate SA as no better than second world these days. A woman who attends my church is from there and any white person that can get out is doing so. She wanted to get her kids into the USA, but was only able to get them to Australia. SA is headed down the same drain Rhodesia went, and for much the same reason.
ReplyDeleteI advocate that everybody who remotely cares take a look at the youtube video from Numbers USA titled something like "gumballs and immigration" to begin to get an idea of the sheer numbers involved and the absolute inability to make a meaningful dent in the world poverty situation by admitting large quantities of people into the United States.
ReplyDelete