The Companion's Burden

Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" is a beautifully written poem urging the United States to take over the Philippines, to assume their duty and bring the Philippines into the modern world. Although a racist poem, Kipling elegantly instills feelings of pride and honor about taking up a noble yet unrewarding task.

It's a poem used in history and politics classes to illustrate the mood and view of Europeans about colonization, which is essentially that the non-European peoples were not civilized and were incapable of existing in a modern world and it was Europe's moral obligation to help them along. We discussed it in our human rights class at the University of The Gambia.

"The White Man's Burden" was written in a different time for a very specific situation, but it has not lost its relevance even today. Today we speak in more politically correct terms, eschewing terms like "first world" and "third world" for the less egocentric "developed nations" and "developing nations." And we no longer assume that the reason for a country's developing or developed status is the color of its people's skin. But read through the poem again, replacing "White Man" with "Westerner," and the poem could speak for any number of aid efforts.

The IMF and the World Bank, various human rights groups, aid efforts like Live8 and an innumerable amount of NGO's, all \ are attempts by the West to develop Africa, to save it, to help its people progress enough to fully and fairly participate in today's modern globalized economy and world system. These efforts are sincere and earnest. We must help them not for our own gain, but because it is the right thing to do. However, sincere and earnest the efforts may be, there is still a sense that we, the West, must help poor Africa because they cannot help themselves.

Without a doubt, there are things that the West can offer Africa. But any help or assistance, be it in the form of monetary aid, equipment, training, human rights work or whatever, needs to be offered not from a benevolent giver, not from a wise mentor, not from a self-sacrificing teacher, but from an equal to an equal.

This is not an easy thing to do. It's easy to assume the role of the wise mentor, imparting wisdom and gently guiding Africa toward civil peace and economic prosperity. It's also easy to take on the role of admiring sycophant, extolling the virtues of communal living and extended-family based society.

What is difficult to do is to strike a balance. There are values the West can offer to Africa and there are values Africa can offer to the West. The trick is to appreciate and criticize each other's cultures as colleagues, rather than inferiors and superiors.

I can and should criticize the subordinate status of women in African society, and my Gambian peers can and should criticize the harsh individualism of American society which allows so many people to fall through the cracks. The value of any cross-cultural experience is being to view your own culture with new eyes, cherishing its strengths and working to improve its flaws.

I'll end this post with a slightly edited stanza of Kipling's poem. Viewed in the context of equality, it strikes an even more poignant note.

Take up the companion's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!