3 Responses

1. Heather i agree with you on every note you have struck in your post. I also admire your bravery in standing up to your illness and wish you well for continued progress in your treatment regimen. I hope we will all be posting on Monsieur Blattman’s blog in many,many years to come. To the point about the contrasting pictures….a striking note could also be drawn in the “Great” United States of America by depicting the Bill Gates and Matt Zuckerberg’s of this world on one side of the divide, and the GREAT professors who taught them on the other side of the billboard who still trudge to class each day in fading jackets and depleted retirement funds to carry on what is mostly thankless jobs. Another billboard could similarly depict life in the Auburn Hills of Detroit, or the Pacific Pallisades of “Lost” Angeles versus life in Southside Chicago or the housing projects in Cleveland. You see, what irks most people from the African continent is the constant portrayal of what is mostly a beautiful, vibrant continent as the epicenter of misery when there are comparable and even worse pictures of misery in so-called western societies, India, China, Latin America, everywhere! The bigger questions in life should arguably be about “what makes individuals happy?” Is happiness a comparable emotional expression? Why are some people happier than others? Etc. The old adage says “Charity begins at home.” The West should concentrate first on alleviating chronic poverty at home…while they are busy doing it, who knows, they might just lift their heads from what will be a challenging task to see that Africa has finally made some progress when someone left it alone…

2. @ Liberia Monrovia – I sort of agree, but still think that these ads are important. I am white and grew up in the rich West. As I have come increasingly to understand what that means in a global context I become increasingly frustrated with those of my contemporaries who believe that all the wealth and opportunities they have are purely as a result of their own hard work. It is your responsibility to make what you can of the life you are given but, as someone who has lived for 8 years with a serious illness that would be fatal within months in the majority world, I am also acutely aware how significant which ‘lot’ you get can be. It doesn’t determine your happiness, but it can easily determine whether or not you are alive.

3. There is an unstated assumption here that the right side of the pictures have the better luck of the life lottery draw…they are happier etc. It’s an unexamined assumption. Who is to say that those living in refugee camps are not happier on a “happiness index?” I grew up in a time of war in my country.With violence and death all around me i still found time to do meaningful things with my friends even as some of my age-counterparts in affluent societies, supposedly right side of the pictures of life, were jumping off high rise buildings, overdosing on pills or checking out of life in everyway imaginable in obvious senses of anomie at increasingly decadent western civilization—think Ron Inglehart here. Life is not about what you have people…it’s about what you make it.