Yes, that’s right viewer. *Children in West Africa are dying right now* and the *only way we can save them* is to send *qualified white volunteers* to help. It has to be one of the worst examples of this kind of post-colonial “poverty-porn” – where people in developing countries are cast as helpless victims totally reliant on Western aid – that I’ve seen in a while. In the advert the white volunteer doctor works actively to save the sick child; the African doctors (whose faces aren’t even shown until towards the end of the video) either pass her bits of equipment or look on and watch her passively as she imparts her skills to them. They will learn from her so that they can save more lives, we are told – the implication that no African doctors are qualified enough to do their jobs is startlingly strong. And throughout the sequence it is made clear to the viewer that the most important part of this whole process is their donation – if they don’t give money, children will die.

What’s most disappointing about this advert is that VSO themselves published a research paper in 2002 called The Live Aid Legacy, which highlighted the impacts these kinds of negative portrayals of developing countries have had on the way they are perceived by the British public. The document concludes that it is vitally important for NGOs to use their campaign media to rebalance such one-sided, stereotypical portrayals in order to promote greater cross-cultural understanding and wider knowledge of the real issues in aid work (which are far more complex than typical NGO solicitations for funding make out). This means that when VSO created this advert, they must have been only too aware of the way it would reinforce what they themselves term the “false sense of superiority and inferiority” felt by people living in developed over developing countries, casting the relationship between Britain and Africa (and therefore also the British donor and the African recipients) as one of “powerful giver and grateful receiver”. Yet VSO chose to ignore their own advice on the negative impacts of this kind of advert and use it anyway. Why?

Sadly, the reason is almost certainly that VSO aren’t the only people currently using this kind of emotive advertising campaign. It’s a dog-eat-dog world when you’re an NGO and if survival depends on winning donations from the public, then its the most effective images that are going to be used, regardless of any long-term consequences they might have. Images of emaciated African children, helpless African mothers and hero Western doctors went out of fashion for a period in the early 21st century, largely due to a backlash inspired by The Live Aid Legacy and similar reports; however, they have made a return in the past few years. This is partly due to the potential of such crises as the East African famine, the Haitian earthquake and even the Japanese earthquake/tsunami (see Tales From The Hood for a scathing breakdown of the NGO response to that one) for creating a new donor base for NGOs. Unfortunately, the recession is also partly to blame – as belts are tightened and budgets cut, narratives that cast even austerity Britain as the benevolent giver to those in “real need” are likely to become more popular. It helps people in the UK deny that they might be facing anything difficult – a quick cast about for proof of the old adage “there’s always someone worse off than yourself.”

NGOs themselves often defend the kind of advertising they use in these terms – that it is the only thing that is effective, and longer, more complex explanations do not bring them the vital funding they need. The emphasis on the importance of the donor in VSOs advert exists because, to an NGO, the donor really is that important. However this approach, which effectively gives donors – who have themselves been influenced by de-contextualised and dumbed down portrayals of aid issues – power over which projects receive funding and which do not. The result is usually that funding is skewed towards short-term, photogenic projects that have an easy “hook” for the donor – for example, orphanages were found to be significantly over-funded in the wake of the 2004 tsunami – and away from the long-term infrastructure projects (particularly ones that involve local people from the grassroots up rather than hero Westerners) that are more likely to make a beneficial and lasting impact. It’s easy to spot the vicious feedback loop. It’s less easy to close it…

Of course, I’ve only touched on a few important issues in NGO advertising in this short post – if you’re interested in reading further then I suggest heading over to Good Intentions Are Not Enough. In addition to a whole bunch of excellent articles about the aid industry, they also provide advice on making sure you consider the long-term impact of any of your own charitable donations.

At least, it is according to renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who believes the discipline hasn’t kept up with modern developments in science to the extent that it has nothing relevant to say about the meaning of life any more. But has science really replaced philosophy as the means that people use of interpreting their experiences and answering the “big questions”? Is philosophy really defunct?

Of course, it’s interpretation that’s key here. Philosophy as a concept in and of itself – the very act of pondering the meaning of existence – is unlikely to die anytime soon. Humans are, by nature, a curious bunch and the desire to find answers to questions of life, the universe and everything is a big driving force behind much of modern global culture. By this measure of course, science is itself a kind of philosophy – just one focussed on certain particulars. But it’s more likely Hawking was talking about the academic discipline, which some have argued has bounded itself more rigidly than perhaps its potential scope allows for because of the historical tradition in which it is rooted. This has happened to all social theory to a certain extent and postmodern theory in particular – because while it seeks to address such problems, it has often had the effect of digging itself into a nihilistic and off-putting dead end. However, this background is never rendered irrelevant – the history of thought is vital to understanding how and why we have come to the field of knowledge and understanding in which we are currently situated; what’s ultimately important then is to drive new ideas into philosophical thinking – from as many varied disciplines as possible. That, after all, is what philosophy is meant to be about. In this light, science does not have to be opposed to philosophy – rather science can (and does) inform philosophical thinking on many levels, and the future direction of both disciplines will be largely dependent on the ways in which they interact. Science is certainly not free of the impact of trends in social thinking (although most scientists would attempt to argue otherwise) and subjects such as philosophy and anthropology can offer a vital critique.

But the other key point is public engagement. Neither science nor philosophy can claim to be of any relevance unless they make an effort to establish a dialogue with the very people whose experiences and world they claim to exploring – and this is certainly an area where philosophy lags behind science in contemporary culture. But there are developments – some of you might have noticed my recent Facebook activity has involved rather a lot of shameful plugging of a festival I’ve been working for over the past few weeks – HowTheLightGetsIn – which is the country’s biggest (and, currently, only) philosophy festival. It’s an intriguing concept, building on the proliferation over the last few years of a large number of boutique “alternative” festivals which have sprung up in as a counterpoint to the “mainstream” music festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds. However, rather than focussing (like most) on the musical elements or on pure spectacle, HowTheLightGetsIn has an unashamedly high brow programme that brings together speakers from all sorts of fields – both more traditional philosophical theorists and scientists, politicians, technologists and artists to talk, debate, argue, agree and disagree on all manner of important (or trivial, depending on who you are and how you look at them) subjects. However they have sought and continue to seek to construct themselves academically, it is only with this kind of popular engagement and interaction that science or philosophy, or indeed any other academic discipline that attempts to provide some explanation for the world, will be able to develop without stagnating and maintain relevance in the modern world – and I very much hope we start to see more of it.

HowTheLightGetsIn 2011 runs from 26th May – 5th June in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. You can read more about the festival and the programme here – www.howthelightgetsin.org

Now it’s not often that one gets a glimpse into life in the depths of the uncharted Amazon and as such I think these photos are an amazing cultural artefact. I also understand why (given that accusations have often been made that these tribes don’t exist) the Brazilian government and the NGOs they work in conjunction with feel the need to collect and publish them in order to raise awareness of the potential impact of the encroachment of logging activities into these areas. However, there some issues about the use of photos like this that unnerve me quite a bit at the same time.

Both the Brazilian Government and the agencies that have been appointed responsibility for the protection of this particular group state explicitly that the people concerned have made it obvious that they do not wish to make contact with “wider society” and want to be left alone. Given that this is the case, the very act of recording their images and displaying them to the world seems a bit hypocritical and invasive of their desired privacy. Of course, this is not to assume that these Amazonian people have the same social constructs as us with regards to privacy, etc. – but we just have no way of establishing whether or not they would give their consent to having their photos taken and published, if it were possible to ask. At the same time, the way the photos are used, particularly by the mainstream media in Europe and North America, are to “other” the people who appear in them – we can in fact gain very little understanding of the context of their lives from the photos, but we can marvel at how different their lives appear. This may help sell papers and boost charitable donations, but in my opinion it also gives the photos an uncomfortable zoo-like quality and isn’t likely to help increase anyone’s anthropological understanding in a positive way without a lot of context.

Equally problematic is the use of the term “uncontacted” to describe them. As NGO Survival International readily admits, this does not mean that they live in total isolation from contact with any other group – they exist in a network of relationships with other local tribal groups, and may in the past have had some form of negative contact with colonist society. Because of this, SI’s specific definition of “uncontacted” is “Peoples who have no peaceful contact with anyone in the mainstream or dominant society”. There are two issues here – firstly that even when a specific definition like that is used by one agency, the term “uncontacted” is already loaded and will be open to misinterpretation and sensationalism, particularly when picked up by the mainstream media. But secondly, and most worryingly, the term “uncontacted” sets up a typical “us and them” distinction that, like the photos themselves, encourages the unhelpful perception of such peoples as somehow “exotic” or “other”. “Uncontacted” doesn’t mean uncontaced by anyone, but uncontacted by us or people like us – Westerners, the Global North, EuroAmericans, “mainstream or dominant society”. The contact that “uncontacted peoples” have with other tribes in their area (and there are always complex networks of social exchange) is rendered irrelevant by this definition, even though it’s likely to be most relevant for them. So not only is the most isolated of the tribes othered, but also other tribes in their area – even those whose own networks of contacts may indeed extend into “mainstream society”. Sadly, establishing this binary of difference is rarely helpful for the agency and empowerment of the people involved, particularly when they are on the receiving end of outside intervention; even that intended to protect their way of life.

If you’re interested in reading further on the issues, there’s a great article at Savage Minds. And you should definitely check out the Survival International website – I may have reservations over their choice of language, but they do do very good work promoting the human rights of indigenous peoples.

Photo from http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/brazilphotos

The intersection between skin colour, class identity and ideals of beauty is notable in many countries, not least my own where a golden tan has come to signify all manner of positive identity markers, from wealth to fitness to wanderlust (although a tan that’s too orange has the opposite effect), and it has been remarked on with much amusement by my colleagues here that I desire to become darker while they desire to become lighter. Importantly, in the Philippines, light skin is also associated with wealth, as well as social status and health. This packet from local whitening product Pond’s Black is revealing as to how these associations are created and reinforced – the product offers to reduce “black impurities” for “purer, whiter skin”, suggesting that darker coloured skin is in some way “unnatural” and can be “cleansed” to reveal whiter skin underneath. The entertainment industry is another means of reinforcement – celebrities, who are very much celebrated locally as being a showcase for Philippine talent, all epitomise the white-skinned look and often lighten their hair to match. This is true even of famous male figures, although it is usually women at whom lightening products are targeted and who will avoid going out in the sun in case it darkens their skin, even when they live in more provincial areas.

It would be easy to say that this attitude is some remnant of the Philippines’ colonial past, and indeed I am often told that I am beautiful by virtue of my European features. However, what “beauty” means in this sense is unclear, and ideals of beauty are always subjective and are constantly being negotiated socially – whatever may have been “attractive” in the past is remade now under new circumstances and in new ways. European and American colonisers have long since disappeared (mostly – there are of course the inevitable enclaves of expats, some of whom act like they believe the Americans are still in occupation), but with the prominent rise of the call center industry, high status jobs do seem set to remain out of the way of the sun.

In many places around the globe skin colour has been, and continues to be, used as a bold statement of identity, particularly now that modern technologies and make-up offer the opportunity for people to make themselves darker or lighter to some extent, and it is often bound up in political and social statements about wealth, power and influence. At the same time, ideas of purity, health and beauty get mixed up with these statements, and whether intentionally or not can hide them from view. Yet in the Philippines, as elsewere, old elite families, the emerging young middle class and the urban and provincial poor alike are all aware of the ways in which skin colour can signify the identity they aspire to and are prepared to go to great lengths to alter their skin colour in order to identify themselves with particular social groups or ways of life. It will be interesting to see whether, as the next generation become more aware of these issues and particularly in the face of open attempts to foster a stronger sense of national pride and identity and disillusionment with traditional power structures, there will be a reversal of this trend and an attempt to reclaim a darker look as a standard of Filipino beauty, and therefore also of political and social power.

The campaign has been criticised from many angles – the insensitivity of sexual innuendo as a means of getting people to think about breast cancer, the unrelatedness of places where people prefer to put their handbags (or have sex) to anything to do with breast cancer, the belief that people are already aware of breast cancer and don’t need reminding through annoying status updates and the fact that the whole meme is gender discriminatory (boys get cancer too you know). All of these allegations seem to have some ground, although at the same time, the “haters” have also been criticised for having no sense of humour, and trying to stop women from having a little bit of cheeky fun in the name of a good cause.

Now, I’m all for women having a bit of cheeky fun, and I do think that by using innuendo the creators of this “campaign” have pretty much ensured it’s viral status – very clever. However, I’m also all for breast cancer awareness – in fact, I’m all for cancer awareness in general – and unfortunately I don’t think that the “I like it” campaign capitalises enough on the opportunity to promote what it’s supposed to promote. So the girls have got the boys guessing, and everybody’s very pleased with themselves, but how likely are any of the targeted participants to think beyond “LOL, now I want to confuse my male friends by making dodgy inneundos” to the point of “LOL, now I want to confuse my my male friends by making dodgy innuendos right after I’ve examined my breasts for lumps”? The trouble with the “I like it” campaign is exactly that – there is no relevance to breast cancer, and no information about breast cancer attached. It’s one thing to make a viral meme happen, but quite another to make it have some meaningful impact, and it’s not enough to rely on people going away afterwards and doing their own research – memes are about short, sharp bursts of information and if a meme is to be meaningful in that way it has to do the work for the people. It doesn’t have to be much – just a link would do – but without that the meme goes little beyond being a vacuous double entendre about handbags.

So play the game if you want – memes go viral because they’re fun and people like to participate. But if you do, please think about why it is the game started, and don’t just leave it as an empty statement. Post a link to the Breast Cancer Awareness Month site, or the Cancer Research UK site, or somewhere else that’ll guide people to some real information. And give your own breasts a check (or your testicles if you’re a boy – no need to feel left out) and make sure you do it regularly. Because awareness shouldn’t just be for the duration of a silly Facebook campaign boys and girls, it should be for life.

Of course, I don’t think you’ll find many who will deny that international development should be inclusive of everyone. Nor, I hope, will you find many of the opinion that the Millennium Development Goals can be achieved without including everyone. Of course they can’t, particularly given that people with disabilities (PWDs) make up 20% of the world’s poor. Yet given the intersection of disability with all eight of the issues that concern the MDGs, and the widely cited cyclical relationship between disability and extreme poverty, it seems like a blaring omission that disability is not explicitly discussed. It’s like everybody knows about it, but nobody wants to bring it up – a situation that may seem ironically familiar to anyone who actually has a disability.

But perhaps there’s good reason. If the MDGs are to be truly inclusive, why start singling out disability as an issue? Surely that is, in itself, a form of discrimination? Surely the inclusion of the disability agenda in the MDGs as they exist (for disability issues interact with all of the MDGs) should be taken as a given?

Obviously, this would be a nice ideal, and yes, of course it is important that disability issues are mainstreamed and that people with disabilities are not positioned as an “other” or “less fortunate” group in comparison with “able-bodied” people. After all, most people have what could be termed a disability in some way, it’s just some are easier to correct than others (I would be entirely lost, for example, without corrective lenses of a suitable strength). However, when it actually comes to development as it exists presently, mainstreaming disability is neither an easy nor a common practice. This is because the challenges brought about by disability aren’t just a magnified version of development challenges in general – they are challenges of an entirely different nature that need to be very specifically addressed. For example, MDG 2 is universal education – free primary education for absolutely every child in the world. Programmes that work to address universal education may concentrate on building schools and facilities, training teachers or providing resources. But for children with disabilities the additional challenges of accessibility need to be taken into account if they are to benefit – how will a child who can’t move their legs attend school without a wheelchair? How will the same child attend school in their newly provided wheelchair without ramps? How will a blind child use the textbooks that have been provided, or a deaf child communicate with the teacher? These challenges can be addressed and overcome, but only if time, money and resources are strategically invested – and therein lies the point.

The Millennium Development Goals have been heavily criticised for their idealism, naivety and immeasurability, but regardless of whether or not they are realistic, the impact they have had and will continue to have on funding and program priorities in international development is significant. While disability is left out of the explicit statement of the goals, that vital sector is unlikely to receive the funding or the attention it deserves, and the disabled community will be left even further behind in the terms of progress the MDGs describe (at present the sector is already trailing both ideologically and practically in the world of development). If the development community keeps trying to implement programmes to further the Goals without developing a specific plan of action for how disability issues can be tackled in their work, then they risk widening the gap further between the “able” and “differently-able” and creating a situation in which people with disabilities find it harder rather than easier to break out of the cycle of poverty in which they are so often trapped. But unless someone calls out the elephant and disability is explicitly mentioned in the MDGs, it is unlikely that such specific plans of action will be created. Because whether or not the Goals represent false promises, misplaced good intentions or over-ambitious fantasies, in reality they are used as the bar by which development practice is currently set, and that means that unless disability is included now, the chances of drawing close to them ever, let alone by 2015, is very small indeed.

The Philippines is the only South East Asian country (other than East Timor) to have a predominantly Christian population – 92.5%, of which 81% are Roman Catholic. Of the rest, 5% are reported to be Muslim, 3% Buddhist, 1% “Other” and only 0.5% claim to have no religious belief at all. It is no surprise therefore that religion is heavily present in both public and private life. Images of the Virgin Mary can be seen all over the country – in shrines built in the street, painted on the sides of jeepneys, hanging from key chains, windows and door handles. In the workplace, meetings, training sessions and seminars are always begun with a prayer, graces are uttered before meals in popular fast food chains and users of public transport will be careful to cross themselves whenever a church is passed. Christmas and Easter are celebrated with mass participation and fervour, as are Saint’s days, and in the provinces large devotional festivals that centre on the veneration of particular Catholic icons draw pilgrims from far and wide.

“What religion are you?” is an almost inevitable question I get asked when I meet new people, and it is one I have come to anticipate with a kind of steely dread, mostly because of the similarly inevitable awkward response my answer always elicits. As I am English, and religious belief is so prevalent in their local experience, most Filipinos tend to assume that I am Anglican; my actual response, that I don’t have a religion, tends to be an answer that they genuinely hadn’t considered as a possibility. This nearly always leads to a familiar pattern of questions that continues until we get to what seems to be the fundamental point – “but you do believe in God, right?” It is the “no” that really tends to shock – it seems that holding any non-Catholic religious viewpoint would be acceptable as long as belief in God remained, but without that I become suspect (a reason that I tend to avoid the word “Atheist” which in the local context tends to imply an “amoral” and “militant” standpoint against religion). But what is really revealing is that my status as a volunteer worker for a charity is often used to call my “no” response into question. In fact it has even been put to me once or twice in so many words – if I don’t believe in God, why do I want to “do good”? In other words, the shock comes not from the fact that I don’t believe in God (after all, Filipinos are well aware of the existence of Atheists), but from the fact that despite my professed non-belief in God I am recognised to share with them familiar moral values.

This idea of the absolute connection between belief in God and morality is similarly expressed in the tone of the Pope’s visit to the UK. The Pontiff’s statements on the moral dangers of “the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life” and “aggressive secularism” have been treated as a direct attack on the morals of those who don’t share the Pope’s belief in God. It’s not surprising therefore that the large secular population of the UK feel wronged by the Pope’s stance and are eager to call it to question – as I try to explain to my Filipino friends, it is perfectly possible to have moral values that are recognisable to and shared by Catholics, but that don’t stem from a belief in God. However, I also hold moral values that might not be recognisable to a Catholic (although, of course, “Catholics” are by no means a homogenous group, no matter what the Pope might like to think) and that’s where the conversation becomes more difficult. If I don’t follow a religion, and base my morality on a belief in God, from where do I draw my ideas about what is right and what is wrong? That is also the question the Pope is raising, but the very act of doing so creates a situation in which, I believe, the Pope’s mission to encourage more people in England to turn to God as their moral compass will ultimately fail – because the secular standpoint and the Catholic standpoint on morality are so different that the Pope is really talking straight past the secularists. He has not considered (or has chosen to ignore) two important factors: firstly that some people may not agree with what “God (via the Church)” says is right and wrong (which, given the rigid, historical stand the Catholic Church takes on many controversial issues, is often the case in this day and age), or secondly that they may not even desire to hold right and wrong as moral absolutes.

Like many Atheists and Agnostics (and I understand also many followers of organised religions), I do not believe that morality is a simple case of black and white. However, clearly this doesn’t mean I don’t believe it is possible to develop a set of shared moral values – after all, moral values are ultimately an expression of how we feel that as humans we should live together in society, and they are vital for society to exist at all. For example, the Human Rights project is the most well known attempt to establish a secular system of shared moral values for all people on the planet, and while obviously it has it’s inevitable problems and contradictions, I think it is a fascinating and very important experiment in trying to develop a shared morality based on a balance between moral absolutes and moral relativity.

As with right and wrong, absolutes and relativity represent a well known dichotomy, but they aren’t the only two conceivable options available, even though it may seem that way at first glance. The Pope preaches moral absolutes, and in doing so rejects moral relativity, but his critics recognise that this approach will inevitably lead to undesirable intolerance. However, from the Pope’s point of view the only alternative to moral absolutes is a similarly undesirable extreme moral relativity, perhaps even “ethical idiocy”, where it is impossible to establish any moral standpoint at all. This is a variation on the classic universalism/relativism debate, which was, I think, very sensibly responded to by anthropologist Clifford Geertz who presented a third possible standpoint – that of “anti anti-relativism”. Both relativism and anti-relativism are, he explains, extreme points of view that cannot be applied usefully to any real situation without running into massive contradictions. Anti anti-relativism recognises these contradictions will always exist at the logical extremes, and therefore posits that a middle ground should be sought in spite of them. This is the position that the secularist morality of human rights could be seen to begin from – moral differences across cultures are recognised, but a set of shared values is sought in spite of this, and most importantly for me personally, this is achieved through a process of debate until a consensus is agreed upon.

The Pope himself has drawn clearly the line between these two starting points for constructing morality – in his first public speech during his UK visit he stated “If moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy.” The Pope posits God as the “solid” alternative, yet social consensus achieved through tolerant and respectful debate is itself the very principle that secular morality seeks to create and uphold as its foundation, and it is “rationality” (rather than “belief” in God or otherwise) that will typically be cited as their “solid” basis for this position. Put simply, as with many of the ideals expressed by the Catholic Church, there are a growing number of people whose ideas about morality are fundamentally incompatible with the Pope’s standpoint. By attacking their views, the Pope not only reveals the huge gaps in understanding between the two positions but is likely only to further alienate those whose opinions he is trying to sway. If the Catholic Church wishes to remain relevant to the increasingly secular society in modern Britain, (and religion can have a lot of relevance for secular morality) this kind of preaching will need to give way to a willingness to engage publicly in the debate. But then, given the grounding of Catholic morality in absolutes, that might defeat the point.

Of course, its no revelation to say that popular news and media focus disproportionately on the “bad” – after all, this is what sells; it’s what people consider to be “news” and therefore want to hear about. But it’s worth considering while we read our papers or watch our TV bulletins the impact this disproportionate focus has on the countries (particularly “developing” countries) that inevitably end up with bad press. The photojournalist who led the street photography class I took early on in my placement explained that she left journalism because the major newspapers and magazines were only interested in photos of disasters and poverty in her country. She wanted the opportunity to show the world that there was much more than that to the Philippines, however, this is a hard task given the strength of stereotypes created by global media. For the Philippines if a positive picture is painted it’s invariably one of the cheery outlook of the population in the face of the huge problems they face – which isn’t really much better than the negative picture. It’s not just news media that’s the culprit either – the advocacy and funding campaigns of charitable organisations, academic books that discuss international development issues and even well-meaning travel bloggers all have a tendency to overplay difficulties, disasters and exoticism in the “developing world” in a way that can have a large impact not only on the way people from the outside see a country, but also on the way it’s own citizens do as well. I’m sure I’m guilty of this myself – after all, I spend a lot of time on this blog writing with a focus on cultural differences and development issues.

“Responsible” is a bit of a buzz word these days, applied to all sorts of things from tourism to banking to consumerism to pie. But while overuse brings a bit of a danger of diluting its meaning, I still think the need for responsible journalism has never been more apparent than in our current, “postmodern”, increasingly interconnected world. And this isn’t just about ethical guidelines for stalking David Beckham, or whether or not people should be exposed to distressing images of old ladies throwing innocent cats in rubbish bins. It’s about having some consideration for and understanding of the way that global coverage of international issues can impact on those issues, on development and on a country’s capacity to empower its citizens. The Philippines has its problems, of course, and its important to be honest about what they are. However, it’s also important to be clear that the Philippines is not just a “land of typhoons and shootings”, just as Africa, a continent that has suffered a huge amount of misrepresentation and stereotyping in popular media, is not (to coin a term from Wronging Rights) a “land of rape and lions”.

For those who are interested, this video – How Not To Write About Africa – makes the point far better than me.

Livelihood

In rural areas, farming for sale or subsistence is the main and often the only livelihood option for families. While the farming industry in the Philippines is still a large sector of the economy, it has retracted recently with many rural families adversely affected. Unsustainable farming practices have also impacted the productivity of farming, typhoon damage can ruin whole crops, and there are few other options for people to turn to for support. Education is also more difficult to access and illiteracy is much higher than in the cities.

In urban areas it would be easy to be fooled into thinking that employment is easier to come by. The shining skyscrapers and upmarket malls of business district Makati seem to suggest a thriving economy, however good jobs are concentrated in the hands of very few, and the “familial” nature of local culture means that access to these jobs is very much based on an “old boys network” of family connections. Many Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies have begun to move their operations to the Philippines to take advantage of the large number of English-speaking unemployed, and the Philippines is now second only to India in terms of the size of this market, however jobs here are limited to those with a strong educational background and are unlikely to be accessible to those who have moved to the cities from rural areas. Most of the urban poor are engaged in the large informal economy, meaning they still can’t access government benefits or social security, with those who can’t make ends meet here reduced to scavenging through rubbish heaps for things to eat or sell. But even this “market” has become competitive because of the continually growing urban population, and scavengers now have to fight with others who wish to exploit the same “patch”.

Housing

In rural areas, many buildings are still constructed from traditional materials – bamboo, coconut palm leaves etc. – using traditional methods. These are more vulnerable to degradation and typhoon damage, but easier and cheaper to repair than those made from concrete bricks and corrugated iron sheets. Space is a commodity far more readily available in the countryside, and the air is free of the pollution rife in large cities like Metro Manila.

In the cities, those who cannot afford their own homes (approximately 50% of the population of Manila) live in slums scattered all over the city, called locally “squats”. Squatter areas are notorious for their crowded, cramped conditions, with poorly constructed shelters made from corrugated iron sheets and plastic tarpaulins piled up on top of each other. Crime, fires and vandelism are all well known ills in the city squats, but forcible evictions organised by the government (usually for cosmetic rather than social or developmental reasons) often do more harm than good as they are rarely accompanied by adequate relocation programmes. Many families end up living and sleeping on the streets because they have nowhere else to go.

Health and Sanitation

In the rural areas, any kind of healthcare is difficult to access because of the remoteness of many communities and the distances needed to travel to reach medical facilities. Particularly in the rainy season, roads become impassable and whole communities can become stranded.

In the cities, there are hospitals and doctors close at hand, however the cost of accessing these services put them out of the league of the vast majority of the urban poor, who must instead rely upon charitable aid where it is available. This is deeply problematic as the urban poor suffer massively from health and sanitation problems linked to the intense overcrowding and pollution in squatter areas. Disease is common and spreads quickly through communities – a lot of the disabled I work with are childhood polio sufferers who could not access healthcare because of the costs involved.

Natural Disaster

The Philippines, like most of the Asia-Pacific countries, suffers greatly from natural disasters like typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. These affect all areas of the country, and recovery can take many months, if not longer. In rural areas there is little or no support infrastructure to deal with the damage caused by typhoons and floods and many families cannot afford to rebuild homes that have been destroyed, or to supplement lost income and food from crops that have been ruined. Electricity brownouts resulting from large storms can last for days and the many unpaved roads will often be unusable for the whole of the rainy season, making aid access difficult.

In the cities, the infrastructure is also inadequate to support the needs of those affected by natural disasters, and the dangers, particularly of flooding, are augmented by the cramped, overcrowded squats and the lack of any adequate means for rubbish disposal. Streets quickly become impassable even in a light rainstorm because of blocked drainage systems. Electricity brownouts are also common. These can have a greater impact because of the increased reliance on electricity in urban areas, but are generally not as lengthy and many of the larger malls have back-up generators, although heading to the mall for some temporary relief is an option really restricted to those on the richer end of the poverty spectrum.

Town Mouse, Country Mouse?

Life in the cities is markedly different to life in rural areas, but while the standard of living might not ultimately be higher, the idea of accessing waged employment and the trappings of modern life more readily available in the cities are a big draw for many rural Filipinos from a cultural point of view. As more and more people migrate to the cities, the problems of overcrowding, sanitation and unemployment will continue to worsen, but the idea of returning to the countryside again is unlikely to appeal in part because of these cultural associations and the different lifestyles associated with different areas. The challenge for development projects in the Philippines then, like in so many other developing countries, is not to focus solely on standards of subsistence and economic capital, although these are obviously vital, but to give consideration simultaneously on how to provide the poor with the social and cultural capital they need and desire in order to feel a part of their rapidly changing society, whether or not they choose to live in the town or in the country.

Yes, its yet another slightly twisted Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated) clone (albeit slightly less ridiculously demanding as you get to set your own goal as long as it’s vaguely web series related). There are a lot of them about these days – you may have just missed JulNoWriMo (July Novel Writing Month), but have no fear because *every* month is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), and… well.. you get the idea. Some people will no doubt question the “authenticity” of this proliferation of pretenders that aren’t managed by the excellent people at the Office of Letters and Light (the peeps behind Nano); others will no also doubt question the sheer point of setting oneself such a challenge when its only likely to lead to an explosion of unedited draft material full of plot holes getting posted all over the Internet.

The answer to both lines of questioning is, of course, to lighten up. It doesn’t matter if its National Novel Writing Month, or Scribbling Out Stories in the Bath at Midnight Month – the point of it all is it’s an excuse. A kick up the arse. A reason to get something out of one’s head and down on some paper, no matter how convoluted it may be to begin with. A highway salute to one’s inner editor – that worried little perfectionist who always tries to get in the way of what Nano founder Chris Baty refers to as “ambitious acts of the imagination”. Nanowrimo did it first, and they do it best, but the appearance of so many tributes is a testimony to just how much demand there is for this kind of project. Will Wesewrimo cause tonnes of rushed, bizarre, hole-ridden stories to hit the Internet? Probably, but chances are there’ll be gems as well. And really, who cares anyway? The Internet’s a big place, and it’s through endeavours like these that the Web’s potential for encouraging creativity really begins to be unearthed. And as far as I’m concerned ++creativity = big potential for awesome, and most importantly bucketloads of fun.

I never show my Nano-novels to anyone, because they’re rough and crazy and that’s not the point. But with Wesewrimo, posting is my goal and so posting I shall do. So here it is – my contribution to this month’s explosion of dodgy plots and hare-brained scribblings. I certainly shan’t apologise in advance for any incoherence, lack of plot structure or the fact that it is set in some generic approximation of “the past”. I can’t promise I have more than a vague idea of where it’s going. But I can promise I shall update it every week this month (perhaps more), because otherwise I’ll lose, and that would be far worse even than the terror of having people read the damn thing. May the experiment begin…

The Sigh of the Wind and the Foam on the Sea – Part One