Class and Culture in the Developing World

Greetings from Kedougou! Hope everyone is well. Today, I'd like to write about something I think about often, and people often talk about here. People ask me about the similarities and differences between South America and Africa all the time. After travelling in parts of both, I feel like I can express my opinion; it's only based on my own experience, but that's the best I can do.

I feel like, overall, people seem to overemphasise the differences in between places, people, and things. There tends to be a view that everywhere is immensely different from every other place. While the "local" is certainly important, I feel like this constant focus on difference, usually cultural difference, tends to understate the similarities in how people actually live. American media, especially television shows and movies, tends to fetishize the "exotic" and "weird" aspects of different cultures, using them as plot devices to make things more interesting. Using "American" or "Western" as the constant for "normal," people of other cultures serve as the foil and are usually boiled down to some "essential" aspect of their being, and portrayed as such: people from the Middle East are crazy Islamist terrorists, Cubans are bizarre communists, Mexicans are drug dealers, Africans are either corrupt or starving to death, and so on. Any group is otherized and portrayed as a bizarre, stereotyped parody of itself.
Actually being in these far-away places that most Americans only experience from bad TV shows and movie villains, however, it's immediately obvious that it isn't that simple. And in that way one begins to see that, for example, Bolivia and Senegal really aren't that different. All the immediate indicators, or stereotypes, or gut-feelings about these two places would seem to be different: Africa vs South America, Christian vs Muslim, Latinos vs Africans, and so on. But if one is in a small village in Bolivia or Senegal, the actual day-to-day of people's lives are very similar. If I were to explain a village where the women are carrying buckets on their heads, men are working in the field all day, it takes atleast four hours to cook a meal, the village acts as a collective, in terms of sharing land, collective responsibility, deferring decisions to village elders, people pull water out of wells, and so on, I could not say if that were Senegal or Bolivia, or Ecuador or Tanzania, or anywhere. I would know if was a poor village, where people are basically grappling for small changes, lack an organised central government, and whose needs are basically peripheral to the international financial system. If you were to compare their gross national products (GDP,) basically the most common indicator for economic success internationally, you would see that Bolivia, ranking 95th, Senegal at 115th, Tanzania, 97th, and Paraguay at 101st, are all basically in the poorest half of nations (there are, of course, many many more poor nations than rich nations.)
Now, if one visits the capital of any of these countries, there are rich people, in nice cars, with air conditioning, who never carry anything on their head, never work in the field, spend 4 hours a day on the computer, and so on, and to an extent, their day-to-day lives are very similar to people's in the United States. In Pulaar, we say these people "eat money." In English, I guess, we say they have "disposable income." It's like that old (I'm sure apocryphal) quote of F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the rich are different than you and I." The interesting thing isn't necessarily disparity of income, as we all know that it's similar in America, where 1% of the population own 70% of all financial assets. The  UN says the richest 1% of the world owns 40% of the world's wealth. So the inequality isn't what is interesting. It's that poor people, be it in Senegal or Tanzania or Paraguay or downtown Atlanta or Paris, share more in common than they do with the rich in their own countries. A peasant in Ecuador, living in a tiny, relatively isolated and (from the viewpoint of the government) unimportant village, lives really a very similar life to someone in a similar position in Guinea, and a life that is not all that different from someone living in the ghetto in Los Angeles. Certainly when compared to a wealthly businessman living in Dakar, a person living in my village shares almost nothing in common, besides superficial cultural similarities.
The question arises, then, why are these cultural differences so focused on, when in the larger picture, they don't affect how people actually live their lives too terribly much? Why, in the popular American imagination, does one think of a poor Mexican and a poor "African" as so different? I would argue that our modern, capitalist mindset, heavily influenced by the rhetoric and reality of "globalization," tends to emphasise culture. Talking about the spreading of markets, technology, and a "global culture," one typically sees that culture is framed as the major impediment to the spread of the global economic system into every nook and cranny of the world. The old "McWorld vs Jihad" viewpoint, that "backwards stone age Arabs" hate modernity, and therefore won't accept capitalism or McDonalds or 'the unstoppable tide of globalisation,' frames culture as the major division between "us" and "them." On a more policy-based level, the "barriers to trade" are usually discussed as cultural ideas-- the importance of efficiency, the fundamentals of property rights, "ease of investment," strength of legal systems-- all of these things arise from perceived cultural differences.
The capitalist mindset, one that views possessions as the basis of life, or society, or whatever the fundamentals of life is chosen to be, will find culture to be the main difference, because it is assumed that consumption and accumulation are truly the basis of all social relations, and culture is what is holding back some of these "fundamentals of human nature" from being expressed fully-- and therefore signing the next trade deal, having a Wal-Mart, or getting rid of collective property rights. These cultural arguments are often used, then, to explain poverty and lack in the developing world, as Africans are viewed as lazy, South Americans as abusing their siestas, or now, the Greek as having a permissive and corrupt culture. There are two main problems with these arguments:
Ha-Joon Chang, a professor of institutional economics at Cambridge, has analysed these cultural arguments, with surprising results: they tend to change drastically over time, choosing to emphasise different aspects of a single people, depending on whether or not this group is currently successful. In analysing the claim that Africans are poor because they are lazy and don't work hard, Chang looks at an American history book from the early 20th Century, describing the Japanese of being “lazy and utterly indifferent to the passage of time, " and Koreans as “sullen, lazy and religionless savages”. He also looks at popular views of other cultures, such as in  Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where a character complains that “the Germans never hurry”. Now, the stereotypes of Germans, Koreans, and Japanese are the total opposite; nobody would accuse these cultures of laziness. Chang argues that people often make assumptions about people they believe are inferior, and quickly blame culture. India is now a booming economy, but not so long ago economists spoke of a ‘Hindu rate of growth’, saying Hindu culture was fatalistic and not conducive to innovation or enterprise. The same is true of Brazil, which not too long ago was written off as a hedonistic culture, more interested in short-term fun than economic growth. “The history of capitalism has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical double standards involved in recommending free trade and the free market to developing countries” says Chang. Instead, they blame culture, saying there are innate differences, which prevent people from gaining an economic foothold.

The second problem with this culturalist viewpoint is raised by Paul Farmer, an anthropologist and physician at Harvard Medical School. A constant theme is his works is what he terms the "misdiagnosing of structural violence for cultural difference." That is, people "taking their time" cooking meals, or carrying water, or eating the same food every day, or what have you, tends to be viewed as a cultural difference, as opposed to situations imposed on people by desperate poverty. In one of his books, Infections and Inequalities, he gives the stark example of snacks made of mud sold in Haiti. Some would say that is part of their "culture," and indeed, that is the gut response many Westerners would have. He argues one can really only understand that by looking at class, that is, extreme poverty.
So then, to answer the question of how similar Africa and South America are-- poor people in both places live in a very very similar way. Class ends of really determining how people live daily-- pulling water from a well and walking three kilometres, or buying bottled water. Although the idea of class isn't very popular in America (although, with the increased focus on "the 1%"," that is changing,) I find it to be a much more useful model for looking at, and understanding, the world. Culture makes better postcards, but the upper middle class around the world lives surprisingly similar lives, and the poor around the world live depressingly similar lives as well, be it in my village in rural Senegal, or San Juan in Paraguay, or Endesac in Tanzania.

Ok, so everyone is always asking for pictures, so here's some!
Here's my little sister, Penda!

 Here's my garden, a few beds, cabbage n leaf plants and onions and stuff..Little banana tree in the backyard.

 Here's my mom, in front of a few more beds. She's Nene Mariama. Nene Hawa is in the back.

 Here's my countainer garden. I've got marigolds in my mortal, moringa on the ground, and mint in the bucket.

And finally, the empty fields-- just waiting for the first rains.

Okay, bigger blog post next week, got one festering-- culture vs class.

A View of “On the Ground Realities” of Clientalism in Senegal

    So, a maybe you all have heard, Senegal just had a much-anticipated election on the 25th of February. Since before I arrived here in August, there has been a constant controversy about the eligibility of Abdoulaye Wade, the current president, to run again. Elected in 2000, he has served two consecutive terms, recently changed the constitution, attempted to form a Vice Presidency office (which currently does not exist) and so on. According to the new constitution, a president can only serve two terms, a condition Wade claims does not apply to him because he has not yet served a complete term under the new constitution. This is a common claim of presidents in many developing countries, one that rang familiar to me due to its overuse by leaders in Latin America over the past few years. In late January, the Constitutional Court agreed that Wade was correct and could run again. His legal team included legal experts from America, who he paid $200 ,000 to help him assemble a “white paper,” a  legal interpretation of the constitution. All of this has been even more controversial because of Wade's age-- officially 85 years old, but widely believed to be older.
    Every step of Wade's recent politicking-- from his attempts to create an office of Vice-Presidency, the formation of a new constitution, Wade's insistence on serving again, and most recently, his campaign tour have been greeted with large, sometimes violent protests, including tire-burning, traffic-stopping demonstrations, molotov cocktails, all of which has led to police attempts to stop the demonstrations, some of which have not had the necessary permits and permissions. This has resulted in several deaths, many injuries, and some very bad publicity for the police, including an incident in which tear gas was thrown into a mosque. A large opposition/protest group has been formed M23, representing the 23 parties opposed to Wade, whose slogan J'en y marre (“I'm fed up” in French) adorns t-shirts across the country. An opposition leader, Amath Donsokho, was recently widely quoted as saying "Abdoulaye Wade has declared war on the people." All of this has been a fascinating time for me, struggling with Pulaar, figuring out what's going on, all from my tiny village in the most rural area of Senegal.
 My village, Thianguey, is reasonably isolated from most of Senegal, and very much isolated from Dakar, where most of the protests have been. Still, the election itself has been very visible on every level, even in my 400-person town. A brief description of the political hierarchy in the vil is necessary first to understand the way the campaign has affected my area.

Each town has what is called a chef de village, who is responsible for mobilizing the town, collecting and paying taxes, and generally dealing with any issues affecting the village as a political whole. Above him is the head of the “rural community,” which is similar to a country, and who is known as the PCR, the “presidante de la communitaie rurale.” It just so happens that the head of the PCR in my area resides in my small village, as opposed to the larger village, Dindefello, next to where I live. It is unusual for a PCR to live in a small town, and as my PCR is responsible for 17 villages, one of which has over 4,000 people, it is somewhat unique that he lives in my tiny town. Besides these two figures of power, most people are equal in my village, politically-- the Imam has some say in issues, but most people are simply part of “the masses,” in the view of the electoral campaigns.

All this said, all three of these groups were targeted by Wade's election campaign. All of the chef de village's were summoned to Kedogou for a meeting: each received 50,000 CFA (about $100.) As the election drew nearer, new plans were announced: the chef de villages of each Community Rurale would now be provided a car, which they will collectively own, for traveling and political participation. This, however, is contingent on Wade's victory.

The PCR was also directly campaigned to. He received 500,000 CFA, ostensibly for purposes of electioneering and helping the campaign effort.  It was up to him to decide on the distribution of the funds within his region, a large part of which he decided to spend on a gigantic party and meal for several villages. Apparently some people did not agree with his choice; there was a small-scale riot in a neighboring town to me, due to the people's unhappiness with not directly receiving money from the campaign and the PCR.

On a village level, the entirety of the voting populous (and their children) were invited to a gigantic meal (with lots of meat, a rare delicacy) on election day, enjoyed shorting after voting by nearly my entire town. Low level campaign workers also came to Thianguey, promising roads, increased money for education in my town (to build another school building,) and just general prosperity and progress, if Wade wins. No other candidates had any reach into my village; they obviously have no access to state funds for campaigning purposes. I saw their posters here and there.

On a country wide level, Wade is most popular with the older people. Many are not offended by his serving of several terms-- the former presidents of Senegal, Senghor and Diouf both ruled for over ten years. They see his insistence to continue serving as confirmation of his competence and dedication, as well as proving that no other of the 13 candidates running against him have the experience of ruling the country as a whole In Thianguey in particular, people like him for extending roads to reach closer to the village, the installation of two forages (deep drill wells) and the ever-closer reach of electricity-- still not to the village, but increasing the the town next to me. They are convinced another term for Wade would mean increasing integration of Kedougou as a whole, and Thianguey in particular, into the Senegalese economy and life.

Those opposed to Wade typically cite his age, accusations of bribery, graft, and shadowy land deals in Dakar (including the multimillion dollar, North Korean-supported “African Renaissance Monument,”) and the necessity of change of rulers for progress. The rolling blackouts in Dakar which always seem to put out the power in neighborhoods where Wade isn't much liked are put forward as as proof of Wade's favoritism and clientelism. Younger people are most likely to oppose him, and, in Thianguey, often dismiss him as a kikilaare, roughly meaning a crazy old man.

So, last Sunday was the election itself. The night before, a car drove up in the middle of the night (one of the maybe 3 or 4 cars I've ever seen in village,) and out came three uniformer soldiers, none of whom could speak Pulaar. I spoke to them (in French) and learned they had come to maintain order and facilitate the voting process the next day, happening in the local elementary school building. The voting process itself was pretty simple. Most of the people of voting age in Thianguey are illiterate, so each voter received 14 sheets of paper-- one for each candidate, with a picture of them, in the name of their party, and some other rudimentary information. They choose which candidate they wanted, inked their finger, pressed in on the sheet representing their candidate of choice, and dropped their slip of paper into the voting box.

This process was widely condemned by international election monitors for facilitating corruption-- if one were paid off to vote, they would simply show the 13 sheets of paper they still had to whoever requested they vote a certain way, thereby proving who had received their vote; reward would then be provided. I was reminded of storied I had heard in Paraguay, during the elections, one would just take a picture of the ballot with your camera phone, then show it at the door of the huge party after the election, proving you had voted for the candidate providing the party.

This process-- the parties, the free food, the money for local political figures, the possibly graft-encouraging voting process-- has been looked upon with skepticism by many people I know here, Senegalese and not. Some people I've spoken to have called it “bribery.” Further examination is this is pertinent to understanding of the political system. 

Linguistically, culturally, ethnically, and so on, Senegal is a fractured country. It has at least six major ethnic groups, hundreds of languages spoken, only very loosely joined by an education system conducted entirely in French (a second language for most of the population.), In addition, the coastal areas and interior areas are very separated, by distance, poor infrastructure, cultural differences, and so on. The ruling political class is almost entirely Wolof, the ethnic group which is primarily on the Dakar-area of the coast, and there is very little minority representation. (Wade for one is a Wolof.) This intensifies the difficulty of ruling the country-- who should benefit from state policies? The Dakarois, who make up the vast majority of the population and economic force of the country? Or the Kedougoube, who make up .15% of the country's population, and have virtually no infrastructure or state presence in their everyday lives. Simply choosing who to help with limited state funds is a major issue with governing Senegal, or most nations. This has become a more difficult issue over the past twenty years, as the political rise of neoliberalism has led to a general gutting of the state; less state money generally is available for state-projects which are not direct related to the integration of Senegal into the world market, and some programs, such as  Senegal's state-funded agriculture extension program, have become political infeasible in an “increasingly globalized world,” where the role of the state is to facilitate economic integration on a world scale, not to provide projects to help the marginalized populations. (Peace Corps and NGOS are filling that gap, but that's another blog post.)

So, political actors and candidates choose who to help, often based on  their clan similarity, or similar economic incentives, or the perception that one should help a more “useful” group. So, is all this any different than politics in America? It seems like the same process of clientalism (“political system at the heart of which is an asymmetric relationship between groups of political actors described as patrons and clients.”) Democrats promise to increase welfare and benefits for the poor, and are accused of “buying” votes by Republicans, saying that Liberal politicians are effectively paying poor people (through additions to the welfare state) to vote for them. Republicans at the same time, make dramatic tax cuts for the richest of the rich, seeing that the mega-rich are politically useful. Meanwhile, both parties are pumped full of money by Wall Street, financial firms, and the largest corporations. Obama, for example, after receiving more donations from Wall Street firms that any other president in history, provided a gigantic bail-out for the same companies whose incompetence  and risk-taking caused the most recent financial crisis. They scratched his back, he scratches there. Still not a single prosecution of a Wall Street mogul.

In America, election promises are used to encourage people to vote (remember Obama promising to end wars, close Guantanamo, and put regulate Wall Street? What about Bush promising a “humble foreign policy,” an end to nation building, and to instill a spirit of bipartisanship?) In Senegal, rather than often empty election promises, people get a hot meal, maybe a little money in their pocket, and some vague promises that maybe change will eventually reach their little town, all while knowing that Dakar will really be the ones to benefit almost always. Either way, its the same-- the politicians have to choose who to help, and the ones they choose are usually the ones they feel can help them out, too.

So, the election ended, Wade got 35% of the vote, the next closest was Mackey Sall, with 26.5%. No candidate received the 50% necessary to win the election straight out, so, for the first time in history, a second round will be taking place. It's taking place the 11th, and I can't wait to hear all about it in village. Word on the street is Wade is going to lose; the power has been out in Kedougou for three straight days, and people argue this shows Wade doesn't care about currying their favor. Next Sunday will be the true test.