When you sit under somebody’s tutelage in formal education, you often end up talking like them. And sometimes, you find yourself thinking like them as well. I hate the term ‘Third World’, a pejorative designation that development scientists have used for poor countries, because my lecturer at Ghana’s School of Communication studies hated it with a vengeance. If we find it racist to designate some people as first-lass human beings, because they live in rich countries, then it must be inhuman to relegate the poor in developing countries to a third grade, where their very humanity becomes negotiable.
So, why are we still referred to as the Third World? Maybe it is because most of our actions and inactions are third grade. We beg the OECD for nearly everything. We leave our universities and go to Oxford and Yale to get quality education. We travel ‘third class’ when we can afford, and when we cannot, we stowaway to the seashores of the West for a better life. Even when we immigrate legally to rich countries, we are given third-rate treatment. We do third-rate jobs and live in third-rate neighbourhoods. Are we ever going to be first in anything, apart from poverty and depravation? Actually, we risk going down to a fourth if things do not change for the better in the developing world.
Perhaps, one area that our third-rate existence is most noticeable is in illegal immigration. The Daily Mail newspaper in the UK published the sorry story of some poor people from the developing world, who are using various means to enter Britain. The traditional stowaway, where determined young men stole themselves in poorly-ventilated compartments in ships, travelling for months with only a bottle of water and gari, is now a very archaic mode of travelling. These days, dashboards, car engines and car seats are the new stowaway instruments. Immigrants who manage to travel to less endowed countries in Eastern Europe pay thousands of dollars to stowaway cartels, to smuggle them into Britain. The methods are incredibly deadly: A small saloon car pulls up at the borders of a rich country. The driver is the vehicles’ only occupant, but the car could actually be carrying three more passengers hidden in the engine, the dashboard and in the driver’s seat. It sounds unbelievable until you see how it is done.
This is real ingenuity at work. The cushy substance in the dashboard is removed to create space for a human soul with flesh to hide in it. Another is made to fold himself like a snake, so it can meander around the engine of a heated automobile. The third passenger sits in place of the diver’s seat, dressed in familiar decorative seat covers. The seat is taken out of the car, so the driver sits on top of the hidden passenger, driving comfortably, while the passenger in the engine suffers until the ordeal is over. These passengers sometimes include women, most of whom are desperate to feed their young.
If ten cars manage to cross the border, thirty more illegal immigrants end up on the streets of Britain. So, what forces the national of a country to undertake such ventures? Just before he ended his premiership, Prime Minister Blair declared that Africa has been going back in development in the last forty years. Even where we seem to be doing well, we only appear to be travelling hopefully; it will take years before we arrive. It is urgent that leaders on the continent do more to accelerate our development. It is Time; it is Now.
Quesi Ntsiful-Benjamin Ottawa, Canada
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