What the world does not need right now, is more American Presidents swooping into their worlds uninvited and telling them how to live.
I know that Sheila's probably disappointed in my reaction, and most (all?) my readers will be also. But there is a very real difference between a commitment to spend time with the people of Ghana, or any other country for that matter, and work through change, then to ride in on a white horse, line the people up for a photo op, and then move on smug in the assertion that you've shown the world a better way to live.
If Mr. Carter wanted to raise awareness of the Guinea worm because there was something we in the West could do to help, I could see his actions. But from what I can read, the solution to the problem is very simple and there's nothing we can do to help. Rather it is the people of the country themselves that will have to make changes in their lifestyle to meet this problem and a former American President coming in for one day, lecturing the leaders on how to do things better, and then leaving with the almighty smug feeling that things will now be better because of his benevolent, but stern, sermon -- isn't going to make a bit of difference.
There is a very real hypocrisy by our actions such as these. We have become very good at telling other people how to live, a trait shared equally between conservatives and liberals in the United States. Frankly, in the Western world.
We demand change in others, but we can't even effect humanitarian change in our own countries -- how can we possibly think to impose our standards on others, when we are noticeably lacking in same ourselves?
| Continue Burningbird's "We Don't Need No Stinken' White Knights" on ex-President Jimmy Carter's weblog about his travels to West Africa
posted in weblogs on February 9, 2004 4:19 AM | t (0)
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