The past month I've spent a lot of time talking about Africa and Africans. I lived there, and like pal Martijn van Engelen (Netherlands) found people in Africa to be - follow me here - happier than Americans and Europeans, on average.
Some speculate that "Stuff" and "Belongings" make people unhappy. Many religions teach or preach happiness with sacrifice (which has been depicted, cynically by Marxists, as "opium of the people"). But capitalists marketing that "stuff" will make you happy have even less credibility, in my humble opinion. Happiness is not related very directly to possessions.
As I describe in my Facebook status yesterday (bottom), I think that defining your happiness according to what someone else has that you are taught (through marketing and advertising) to covet is a major mistake. Happiness is a skill. When babies laugh and giggle, their brains are wired to smile for the rest of their lives.
Africa's secret to happiness, perhaps, is people. Commonly it's a culture of smiles. People in harsh situations tend to be polite, and friendly, and to help out. In Cameroon, no matter HOW poor a family was, they fed me (even if I wasn't hungry, they insisted).
I don't think that it is the "stuff" that makes people unhappy. I think it starts out with how we are raised, with a sense of humor. And I'm not saying every African has the same sense of humor, or smiles the same. But the preponderance of unhappy, unsmiling, pouty faces from Africa in BAN's Pieter Hugo poster child campaign is unnatural.
Many development professionals speculate that the problem in Africa is the resource curse (and perhaps also the status of women, though my Ghana staffer Eric swears that has changed since I lived there in the 80s).
When the economy is run by a diamond contract, or a metal mine contract, or oil contract, then the "rewarded" are people in government positions, who keep competitors away from the lucrative contract with sharp elbows. If we Peace Corps volunteers wanted to return in 15 years and see our schoolkids materially well off, the best hope was a government or military job - but the problem was, you were less likely to LIKE the student. The competition for corruption corrupts.
Children in Africa were pretty happy, as happy or happier than American kids, without a lot of possessions at home or school. I enjoyed being optimistic with them. How exactly do we mesh the optimism with the level of corruption pandemic in African government?
The majority of Africans know, more than anyone else, how to forgive. They forgive with laughter. I've seen people who were seriously cheated laugh away their losses and forgive their oppressor. Not always, not universally, but much faster than people forgive and forget here in the USA. I learned to get out of many a tight spot by smiling at the person who was unhappy with me, and the group dynamic, the peer pressure, to forgive was enormous.
Sometimes I thought they forgive too much, that it was holding back the economy. Maybe that is true, and it can be an unstable place to invest. But I wouldn't trade serious business for happy culture. It's a tricky business, toying with the recipe for happiness. Two studies, two years apart, put Nigeria at either #1, or #100, in the world for "happiness". I guess the questions you ask matter... (90% waste turned out to be wrong). According to the article covering the more pessimistic #100 study (The Nation), it depends how you weigh optimism.
Perhaps the resource is African mothers. Traditionally locked out of many workplaces, not interested in competing in the "sharp elbow" economy of bullyboy resource contract regulation, maybe they spend more time making their children laugh.
If so, they are doing the best thing I ever did as a person... make my own babies laugh.
Africa's best economic hope, perhaps, is to follow Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, into a "Tinkerer Blessing" economy. The happiest African man I met, Aaron, fixed the parts of coffee hulling machines. The replacement parts that wore out cost $67 when imported from France. He scavenged them, repaired them with scrap cans, and resold them for $40 something. He had a Mercedes and a television and a VCR, and employed his brothers, sending my housemate (his brother Christophe) through Cameroon university.
Today it's not coffee husk replacement parts. Today it's TVs, computers, laptops and cell phones. Africans are repairing them and setting up entire city infrastructures with "stuff" we throw away. I don't want to idealize it, or to idealize Africa for that matter. There are really serious problems.
But the best way forward, for Africans, is the tinkerer blessing, and laughter. I'm certain, deadly certain, that BAN and Pieter Hugo edited out all the smiles, edited out the laughter of the Scrap Boys. They did it because they aren't really interested in the Scrap Boys happiness. Not a dime they raise from E-Stewards, not a bloody penny, goes to the kids they photograph. It's as if they are not interested in them as people. Puckett did not even recognize Joseph Benson's name!
Africans are a resource for Basel Action Network. BAN earns money from white guilt and exoticized problems, portraying itself as some kind of caring savior. We've seen it in Big Church, missionaries, and resource plunderers. What they need to do is share Africans smiles. Taking away jobs like repair, recycling, and reuse will not make Africans happier than they are now.
Africans are moving to cities not just for access to "Stuff", but also, fundamentally, because they smile and get along with other people. Like happy Humans of New York, the Humans of Accra and Humans of Lagos have some really interesting music, and their babies dance in their living rooms.
And babies dancing on porches and living rooms is what made my days and nights in Africa. And I learned from my time there to make my own babies laugh and smile in the USA. I had little else to distract me, and watching babies dance filled so many of my hours. Dancez, Dancez, Yeah.
Thanks for that, Yadji Moussa, Augustin Chu Kum, Mbaku Aaron, Mbaku Christophe, and Auntie Suzanne. It has been a long time, and many of you have passed away. But I won't let Americans profile you as frowning people, and damn, won't let them boycott your kids best Tinkerer Blessing, if I can possibly help it. The "Good Enough Market" is an excellent place to be, an excellent place to live, and a resource of laughter and forgiveness. Lick the dust fro
m your child's eye, and forgive the do-gooders, the parasites of the poor, better than I can.
I'm invited to open a "Retroworks de Mexico" in Ghana. Several of the photos above are from the Ghana Tech who is excited to do it. He brought back photos (too many to post) and official paperwork to start the business, it's on my desk. I'm not naive enough, perhaps, to idealize the investment. But now that my kids have grown up almost, and learned to smile, I think it would be a lot of fun to travel there, and to raise money, Kickstarter style, around tinkerers whose babies dance on the porches, dance in the living rooms, and remind me to forgive instead of brood. One hand no fit tie bundle.
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| Mon frere |
As I describe in my Facebook status yesterday (bottom), I think that defining your happiness according to what someone else has that you are taught (through marketing and advertising) to covet is a major mistake. Happiness is a skill. When babies laugh and giggle, their brains are wired to smile for the rest of their lives.
Africa's secret to happiness, perhaps, is people. Commonly it's a culture of smiles. People in harsh situations tend to be polite, and friendly, and to help out. In Cameroon, no matter HOW poor a family was, they fed me (even if I wasn't hungry, they insisted).
I don't think that it is the "stuff" that makes people unhappy. I think it starts out with how we are raised, with a sense of humor. And I'm not saying every African has the same sense of humor, or smiles the same. But the preponderance of unhappy, unsmiling, pouty faces from Africa in BAN's Pieter Hugo poster child campaign is unnatural.
 |
| Who's Aiding Whom? |
Many development professionals speculate that the problem in Africa is the resource curse (and perhaps also the status of women, though my Ghana staffer Eric swears that has changed since I lived there in the 80s). When the economy is run by a diamond contract, or a metal mine contract, or oil contract, then the "rewarded" are people in government positions, who keep competitors away from the lucrative contract with sharp elbows. If we Peace Corps volunteers wanted to return in 15 years and see our schoolkids materially well off, the best hope was a government or military job - but the problem was, you were less likely to LIKE the student. The competition for corruption corrupts.
Children in Africa were pretty happy, as happy or happier than American kids, without a lot of possessions at home or school. I enjoyed being optimistic with them. How exactly do we mesh the optimism with the level of corruption pandemic in African government?
Sometimes I thought they forgive too much, that it was holding back the economy. Maybe that is true, and it can be an unstable place to invest. But I wouldn't trade serious business for happy culture. It's a tricky business, toying with the recipe for happiness. Two studies, two years apart, put Nigeria at either #1, or #100, in the world for "happiness". I guess the questions you ask matter... (90% waste turned out to be wrong). According to the article covering the more pessimistic #100 study (The Nation), it depends how you weigh optimism.
"The 53-country Gallup poll rated Nigerians at 70 points for optimism. Britain scored a deeply pessimistic -44. The poll of 64,000 people from 53 countries around the world found Nigerians to be the most optimistic in the world in their outlook for 2011. It also found that the most optimistic people mostly live in low income countries, such as Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Peru and Bangladesh. Twenty countries scored low on per capita income and hope for 2011, including Russia and a number of eastern and central Asian states, plus Colombia and Ecuador. Four countries – Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Switzerland – were high on both income and optimism."Optimism is not really the same as happiness. But there is some value in optimism, smiles and happiness. What's Africa's secret?
Perhaps the resource is African mothers. Traditionally locked out of many workplaces, not interested in competing in the "sharp elbow" economy of bullyboy resource contract regulation, maybe they spend more time making their children laugh.If so, they are doing the best thing I ever did as a person... make my own babies laugh.
Africa's best economic hope, perhaps, is to follow Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, into a "Tinkerer Blessing" economy. The happiest African man I met, Aaron, fixed the parts of coffee hulling machines. The replacement parts that wore out cost $67 when imported from France. He scavenged them, repaired them with scrap cans, and resold them for $40 something. He had a Mercedes and a television and a VCR, and employed his brothers, sending my housemate (his brother Christophe) through Cameroon university.
Today it's not coffee husk replacement parts. Today it's TVs, computers, laptops and cell phones. Africans are repairing them and setting up entire city infrastructures with "stuff" we throw away. I don't want to idealize it, or to idealize Africa for that matter. There are really serious problems.
But the best way forward, for Africans, is the tinkerer blessing, and laughter. I'm certain, deadly certain, that BAN and Pieter Hugo edited out all the smiles, edited out the laughter of the Scrap Boys. They did it because they aren't really interested in the Scrap Boys happiness. Not a dime they raise from E-Stewards, not a bloody penny, goes to the kids they photograph. It's as if they are not interested in them as people. Puckett did not even recognize Joseph Benson's name!Africans are a resource for Basel Action Network. BAN earns money from white guilt and exoticized problems, portraying itself as some kind of caring savior. We've seen it in Big Church, missionaries, and resource plunderers. What they need to do is share Africans smiles. Taking away jobs like repair, recycling, and reuse will not make Africans happier than they are now.
Africans are moving to cities not just for access to "Stuff", but also, fundamentally, because they smile and get along with other people. Like happy Humans of New York, the Humans of Accra and Humans of Lagos have some really interesting music, and their babies dance in their living rooms.
And babies dancing on porches and living rooms is what made my days and nights in Africa. And I learned from my time there to make my own babies laugh and smile in the USA. I had little else to distract me, and watching babies dance filled so many of my hours. Dancez, Dancez, Yeah.
Thanks for that, Yadji Moussa, Augustin Chu Kum, Mbaku Aaron, Mbaku Christophe, and Auntie Suzanne. It has been a long time, and many of you have passed away. But I won't let Americans profile you as frowning people, and damn, won't let them boycott your kids best Tinkerer Blessing, if I can possibly help it. The "Good Enough Market" is an excellent place to be, an excellent place to live, and a resource of laughter and forgiveness. Lick the dust fro
m your child's eye, and forgive the do-gooders, the parasites of the poor, better than I can.
I'm invited to open a "Retroworks de Mexico" in Ghana. Several of the photos above are from the Ghana Tech who is excited to do it. He brought back photos (too many to post) and official paperwork to start the business, it's on my desk. I'm not naive enough, perhaps, to idealize the investment. But now that my kids have grown up almost, and learned to smile, I think it would be a lot of fun to travel there, and to raise money, Kickstarter style, around tinkerers whose babies dance on the porches, dance in the living rooms, and remind me to forgive instead of brood. One hand no fit tie bundle.
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