Hannah Cann tells us why she loves political correctness.
Do you have swine flu? No. Do you know anybody who does have swine flu? Probably not. So what's all the fuss about?
Can't afford ethical clothing but can afford a night out at Ziggy's? Jennifer Heyes discusses where students' priorities should really lie.
Three of The Yorker's blogs team have had a hard think about what general rules they live their lives by and written them down in the form of their own Personal Philosophies.
I'll tell you what I look for in a summer holiday: poor people. I bloody love them. And I'm not talking about the locals down Tang Hall. No, I like my poor to be really poverty-stricken. As far as I'm concerned if you can't see their ribs I'm not even interested.
Hell, for my next break I'm off backpacking in Ethiopia. And over there they're proper poor, I mean you really get your money's worth. I've even bought a shiny new 500-superpixel digital camera to take along with me and capture all the best bits. I suppose I want to go and see the world. Just get away from all those Yuppies in York and experience what Africa is really like. I think it'll open my mind to what's happening. Plus I've done tons of research into all this famine malarkey. Seriously, I've bought all three Band Aid singles...even the shit one with Kylie Minogue. And as for that Bob Geldof, well, he's a bloody hero isn't he?
For my next break I'm off backpacking in Ethiopia. And over there they're proper poor, I mean you really get your money's worth. I've even bought a shiny new digital camera to take along with me and capture all the best bits.
Sound ludicrous? Well at least I'm being honest. But the truth is that it must be what is going through the minds of students that go travelling. They all take their little gap years (hell they need a break after getting 10 A*s in their A Levels) and fly off to Africa to help build some homes or teach English to school kids. And then, having seen how awful it is, they piss off back home a few weeks later. Because you wouldn't want to catch any diseases now, would you?
Now here's a thought for all those of you who have taken such a gap year. Maybe, just maybe, if you used all that money on your expensive flights to actually fund professional projects, it would be a damn site more useful. Africa is not some sort of theme park where you can go on all the rides. Maybe, if you really cared, you wouldn't just gawp at how bad it is and then run back home to start your degrees in Politics and Art History.
And, here's the big irony, ever notice how all the students that go travelling are all the rich kids that are bankrolled by Mummy and Daddy? And there is one place on campus that they all go to live: Alcuin.
Yes, Alcuin is the home of the gap year student. That, of course, is the college with the big en-suite rooms and the newly furnished kitchens. Well at least there the dash to clean water is quicker than before.
The point is that students love a bit of charity. They wallow in the thought that they've made a difference. But what actually happens is that they come back home to their suburban lives and carry on as usual. Probably pissing most of their money away on clothes made in sweatshops, playing Pro Evo on their shiny next generation Playstations and polluting the environment in their flashy cars. But apparently they still really care about what's going on south of the equator. Yeah right. Excuse me but my bullshit-o-meter has just exploded.
The truth is that all the most popular gap year destinations have nothing to do with the poverty of the area or making a difference. In fact none of the five most poverty stricken countries in the world feature in the top five gap year destinations. Incredibly, all the top places feature beautiful landscapes or hot weather. Funny coincidence that.
As for me, Well this year I'm off to Lazarote in July for my holiday. All inclusive, full board and with a massive swimming pool. But at least I'm being honest. Anyways, I can't chat any longer, I'm off to watch my Live 8 DVD box set.
"What the continent could do with is not a few hundred York gap-year students to sort it out, but one or two brigades of the King's African Rifles to create a bit of stability"
what would we have done without more priceless input from dan taylor...
#20: I don't think many people would advocate not to "bother". I think the argument is to whether your cash is better used by amnesty international/UNICEF etc etc instead of by students probably with inferior knowledge of the problems these people face.
There will obviously be some good that comes out of these projects so the debate is ultimately an unanswerable one but I don't think anyone could argue against the fact that anything done should be done so in a tasteful and subtle manner with great respect to the people they are aiding.
Otherwise there will be definite and somewhat justified accusations of a superior attitude leading to people inevitably feeling patronised.
Is all charity money good money or should we bear in mind that we are completely ignorant in terms of poverty and deprivation management and leave it to the experts?
Whether Adam meant what he said in this article or not, this article has prompted debate and debate is a good thing.
Well post #21. You have taken an extract immediately assuming it's just "entirely unnaceptable" to suggest something and I can just picture it when trying to explain why. Lots of screaming, hysteria, words along the lines of "you can't say that". Well actually I can. I wrote my States, Development and Conflict essay on just this matter and winkled out a 68 effectively arguing for increased Western intervention on the African continent to remove despots and provide humanitarian distribution of wealth from the corrupt, to the people.
The decline of Western influence in Africa has made it less prosperous, less stable, more suceptable to famine and of course, genocide. On the contraty, countris that have westernised more and adopted western methods of production and distribution [such as India and China] have prospered and with that, has the humanitarian situation.
Africa doesn't want or indeed need our cash. All uncontrolled aid does is create an even bigger dependancy culture and continually apease those in power without helping the people who need it most. We would be far better trading completely freely with the African continent, removing their leaders by force if necessary and encouraging them to westernise their production and manufacturing tecniques to make them [even more] competitive on the global market. I think you would find the conditions for the poor and starving would rise substantially over a very short space of time.
Dan Taylor
To quote someone more knowledgeable than me:
"The belief that greater Western engagement in Africa is a solution is a staggering conclusion to reach after hundreds of years of Western impoverishment of poor countries."
Such ethical interventionism in Africa would never be committed by the Western countries - major corporations that have the power to influence government decisions are making far too much money from the status quo to allow it to happen without a fight.
Furthermore, (in my opinion) the economic neo-liberalism behind globalisation will only further threaten the strength of African economies and widen the gap between rich and poor.
Anyway, back to the topic.
Do the maths and work out the difference between getting volunteers and paying staff to do the work that would otherwise be done without them (even with a donation by the volunteer). Regardless of the volunteers reasons for doing it, both the charity and the volunteers win.
Every developmental gap year program has at least one interview in which the volunteer's (apparent) enthusiasm and motives can be assessed.
If the person volunteering helps some people, what's the problem even if their heart's not in it? Holidays aren't just meant to be about hedonism (in the modern sense).
well done for getting 68% on a 2nd year essay daniel. maybe you should send it off to kofi annan in time to rescue kenya... if not the world...
It was actually a first-year unassessed essay for the record but heh. My point was that arguing for intervention in Africa is not without academic sources and in other words does not deserve jut to be 'pah pahd' off as if it's an entirely discredited argument.
Why not do as Mitch has done and produce a constructive and credible argument against what I said?
Wow, Dan Taylor called my political argument credible - quite an achievement for an engineer methinks! 
I lived in Alcuin and I didn't go on a gap year!
Credible, but simply not true 
As usual, Adam's column hits some nerves and draws attention to an issue that we would all do well to think about. The gap year situation is a strange one. I took one myself and although I wouldn't say I'm a hypocrite or whatever, it did seem ridiculous to be paying thousands of pounds to 'help people', or however the travel company sold it. That money would have doubtless been better in the hands of an NGO working in a poor area of the world. Having said that, it gave me the desire to work in one of those areas in the future.
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report