We discussed this once before. I was reading a book authored by someone
from, I think, Cameroon. If what he described applied to other African
countries it explains a lot. It explains at least a couple of cases I
can point to. I was once acquainted with a woman who was into pen
palling. She was astounded at the requests made by her African pen pals.
They wanted her to send them some very expensive gifts. In my own
experience I remember a certain foreign student when I was in college.
He was from Nigeria. He did not so much ask for material gifts, but he
was always asking for favors, rather outrageous favors. To a lesser
extent other African students tended to ask for gifts and favors that
were a bit extreme too. This particular one, though, was always laughed
at behind his back for his gall. Anyway, I think the book I read
explained what was going on. The author made a trip back to his country
and after having lived in America for years he was taken aback himself
by the requests that were made of him even if he knew that it was
coming and even if he had expected it. According to him there is a
system of patronage woven into the culture. If you want to get anything
done or to acquire anything of value you have to participate whether you
like it or not. For the most part, though, it is not a matter of liking
it or not. It is just the way things are done. So according to him when
people from his country, and presumably from other countries in the
subSaharan region, ask for gifts they are not necessarily asking with
the real expectation that they are going to get them. I doubt that they
would turn it down if you gave them the gift, though. The point is that
they are honoring you by asking you to be their patron. As impolite as
it might sound to American ears in their culture it is like offering a
compliment or otherwise showing you respect and goodwill. And they are
likely to expect that you will ask for gifts from them too. As much as
it is a way to honor you it still remains that when each party asks for
a gift and both are interested enough to follow through that drives the
economy and mutually helps people to get things done.
---
Christopher Hitchens
“ What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
”
― Christopher Hitchens,
On 4/20/2019 4:19 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I seldom get messages begging for funds. I suppose that Blind Democracy
sounds like a good place to beg for money. The message reminded me of when I
traveled with a group from the Ethical Humanist Society and Adelphi School
of Social Work in 1986 to Kenya. All sorts of people were constantly asking
us, as individuals, for money, for aid to travel to the US or to sends them
specific items when we returned home. People had absolutely no embarrassment
about doing this. I remember how uncomfortable I felt because it was clear
that they saw us as wealthy people who owed them whatever they requested
because of who we were in relation to them. It must have been even more
uncomfortable for the African Americans in our group, who had told us that
this trip would be an opportunity for them to form a relationship with the
land of their ancestors. But the Kenyans did not see them as kin. They saw
them as rich American tourists.
Miriam