A Mixed Editorial on Solutions

Megan McArdle, over at The Atlantic has a brilliant article on what low income communities need. You have to read this treatise to see how remarkably similar a poor Haitian is to an American in the same bedlam. But even more importantly, McArdle illustrates and instructs on the ills associated with prescribing African and Caribbean societal problems. Thus, although it behooves us to address endemic corruption in these poor societies, we might be better served to delve into what, ostensibly, lies at the root of it all.

First, a short story with a sad ending: In 1997, the Government of Uganda launched Universal Primary Education (UPE) – a program so sweeping that more than 5 million elementary school age children enrolled into schools. 7 years later, only 22 percent of the original UPE children graduated from this level. People wondered why kids just could not stay in school; and there was a collective despondency amongst the education cognoscenti. The answer was simple: While many kids had been sent to school a little too young, there were more compelling reasons for kids to stay at home. Some parents did not see the value as the kids were no longer available to help with chores around the homestead; and the kids could not contend with the fact that there were just too many other kids in a class; that many of them were hungry and could not concentrate; and that there was no support structure [logistically in terms of books, pencils; and many could not do homework or revise if they had to do chores when they got home or competed for light, space and attention in cramped quarters].

To this, our McArdle calls such things ‘collective problems.’ It is easy to be outraged at kids for dropping out of school from the comfort of your middle class life. You might even say that the kids are not applying themselves or that the parents are numbskulls for pulling their kids away from what could, potentially, be a gold mine in the future. The reality is that ‘poor people are people who make decisions [and are] not a combination of circumstances that can be tweaked to make them stop acting like poor people.’ This is a most profound part of the aforementioned column; and the author implies that although they may be in need, poor people are part of the fabric of society – different, yes – but people just the same. And poor people, evidently, do not want to be poor. They have eyes enough to see the richer neighbor or The One who made it to the big city and now drives the shiny car! They tell their children to work hard so they can succeed like THAT person. But just like you choose between a salad or sandwich for lunch, the impoverished are also compelled to make the strategic choice between having someone look after an infant while they scrounge for food; or sending an able bodied human being to a school they cannot garner immediate benefit from. Just like we cannot understand why someone would choose a green healthy salad over a juicy burger with blue cheese and bacon, people on the outside just do not have the insight or the appreciation for the things that conspire to keep poor people poor.

At this juncture, we might need to ask: What happens to those poor people who grow up to go through school and then make it to the city and the shiny car with a job? What should be the appropriate punishment for someone caught trying to make their lives better – propelled by the need to compensate for their former life of paucity? The immediate answer is jail just like we prescribe for deviants, thieves and rapists. But are the corrupt the deviants in poor society or are they the main grain? Should we say that the formerly poor should have known better once they were in positions of responsibility and access to resources? While this is a slippery slope towards apparent indemnification of crime, we need to also need to remember that a great many Africans in the civil service were from poor families. And yes … The vast majority are the exceptional and the outliers who beat the odds to make it to their current middle class lives. Maybe we should not be as harsh to the corrupt until the society from whence they emerge is given a good reason not to aspire to a better life in the shortest time possible. And here, we may have the trappings of a solution: McArdle suggests that the Middle Class actually fights to keep what they have. Thus, if we want to end corruption, maybe we should ensure that as many people leave poverty and enter the middle class where they will frown upon the ‘nouveau riche’ who came into their wealth through less than scrupulous means. Seminally, sanctimonious as this editorial may sound or even excusing of those accused of unaccountability and graft, we should never forget that poor people are products of everything that has happened to them. Alas, albeit its middle class origins, the solution goes thus:

It should be mandatory for kids below the age of 12 to attend primary (elementary) school. Governments should enforce this policy instead of using policemen to harass political opponents. Schools should provide children with morning porridge and lunch. This strategy has been tried before and it worked to keep Ugandan and Kenyan children in school. This meal might, actually, be the most a poor child will eat for the day.

Conversely, while its tempting to toss out recommendations from this Ivory Plaza, we need to remember what was said earlier about solutions without insight. But food for the brain within the confines of an educational policy has worked around the world and is a great way for children to stay at school. It is great in the USA and also great in Poland. Parents will send their children to school if they know that the youngsters will be fed. Outlandish as it might seem, poor people love their children just as much as we love ours. In the gray area of horror and judgment that comes with learning that a family has married their 13 or 14 year old daughter off to the village tycoon, we may not see the love of the father or mother in looking out for their child’s best interest. Paradoxically, this parental decision is exactly the same, in McArdle terms, as the one a middle class parent makes to keep their child in the best school they can afford. In either case, its what the parent knows best. This editorial nods its collective head at the sad wisdom of this.

In a round about way, we can return to accountability. Why should we even discuss it now in the middle of a bare bones discourse? Maybe, we cannot demand that countries end corruption if a whole host of people think that its right and fitting to steal from work. If you follow the essence of this editorial back to its beginning, you will find that the corrupt man and the child that drops out of school do what they do under the exact same circumstances; for the very same reasons and especially, with the very same consequences.

Dennis Matanda,
Editor | [email protected]