4 ms·

Even with your "Before this gets misinterpreted" sentence, your post is essentially saying: "Oh yes, well, internet in Africa would be nice, but those Africans,

Even with your "Before this gets misinterpreted" sentence, your post is essentially saying: "Oh yes, well, internet in Africa would be nice, but those Africans, you know, they mainly use the internet to try to scam people in the first world". As such it is inaccurate, smug, racist and ignorant, and reflects an implicit assumption that the world should be organized so that it is benign to the interests of affluent westerners.

rattray 13y ago
I think that's a bit harsh; at least, I didn't interpret his anecdote as such. I've spent some time in West Africa, but not much in internet cafes and none in Nigeria (or Ghana, for that matter). I never saw anything like what he described, so I appreciated the anecdote. Basically, I took his observations as more an honest description than a judgement. Your accusations of "inaccurate" and "ignorant" beg the question; are you speaking from a point of superior knowledge on the matter?
- Myrmornis 13y ago
  My comment was certainly aggressive, but intentionally so. That person's response to a discussion of increased internet access for Africans was to talk about the problem of spam email. I think I could have been harsher. > are you speaking from a point of superior knowledge on the matter? That seems to imply that you are in doubt about the truth value of the following proposition: `Africans mainly use the internet to scam people in the first world`.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    The guy even said "most of the Internet users will be of higher education", he did nothing to imply that the majority of the users are scammers. That's all you putting words in his mouth. If he's demonstrating racism, you're demonstrating white guilt. I don't even know either of your races, but I think that statement adequately highlights the absurdness of your claim.
    - Myrmornis 13y ago
      If scamming is not a significant proportion of Ghanaian internet activity then why is it even being mentioned in a discussion about increasing internet access across sub-Saharan Africa? "White guilt"? Would you care to expand? Guilt which causes me to ignore the problem of pesky Africans using the internet to scam honest folk in rich countries?
vanderZwan 13y ago
> As such it is inaccurate, smug, racist and ignorant, and reflects an implicit assumption that the world should be organized so that it is benign to the interests of affluent westerners. I understand why you read it that way, but you couldn't be more wrong about what I think about Africa. As rattray mentioned: I wasn't judging them, just making an observation of how things are there. Your interpretation of my standpoint is kind of ironic: I was born in Ghana, lived there the first four years of my life. I feel more of a connection to Africa than to my supposed roots in China (I'm half Chinese too), and I hated growing up in the Dutch countryside. While I was visiting my birthcountry for the first time in 25 years, it was the visiting Westerners that pissed me off. They were always complaining about being treated disrespectfully, and refused to see how their insistence of interpreting situations through a Western lens plays a huge role in all the misunderstandings. So this is getting very off-topic, but let's talk for a minute about white folks not "getting" Ghana, as I understand and experienced it. There's plenty of things, but I'll focus on the wealth sharing issue. First of all, if you are wealthier, in the local traditional culture it is perfectly acceptable to be asked or expected to share the wealth. Not in the form of money (more on that later), but material wealth, or "spontaneously" paying for something they need. Of course, there's a difference between actually being rich and being perceived as such - and by the way, the locals suffer from this more than we do: "hey cousin, you moved to the city so you're rich now and can support your family in the countryside, right?" Well no, but try telling your family that. It's hard to get a break in Ghana, because as soon as you do everyone wants a piece of the pie (and don't get me started on Ghanaian funerals, if there's one example of a tradition being warped and now bankrupting families...[1]). You have to realize that if you're from the West, you are considered rich by definition, so you have to mentally be ready for constantly being asked for support. It's tiring, but it's not like you can blame them. From our point of view it might feel like reverse-racism, but look at it from their perspective: you can afford a plane ticket (return ticket even) and taking a few weeks/months off of earning money and going on holiday - how rich do you have to be for that? Just because Weber-Fechner[2] fools you into not feeling rich back home doesn't mean you're not. Where things go sour is that if you say no, which is perfectly fine, you're supposed to do so with an excuse, so that the person asking doesn't lose face: "I'm sorry, I can't give you my sunglasses, they're the only ones I have." Business and social life are not separated there. Because most Westerners instead feel like being hustled, or are just tired of the never-ending stream of requests, they just bluntly reject the haggler, resulting in him/her feeling insulted and going "well, screw you too then." So the next time they'll just be more rude and blunt like the Westerners, which can result in this weird cycle of everyone slightly pissing off everyone. If you don't know how to haggle respectfully and understand the social component (and it takes a while before you "get it"), you will be hustled disrespectfully in return. Luckily there's some locals who "get" Westerners and are capable of bridging this. Also, there's a clear correlation between how bad this Western/local culture clash has corroded things and how close to the capitol you are: the closer, the more bluntly the people will ask you for money. Another communication breakdown example: if you stay over at a family, traditionally they would insist you don't have to pay them. Not because they actually mean that, but because you don't discuss money exchanges out in the open - everyone will want a piece of the pie and they might end up with less than what they started with. The exchange happens discretely when nobody is watching, and you have to 'spontaneously' offer it, sometimes insisting on it a few times (although these days nobody is that naive towards Westerners anymore). Also, a Ghanaian will not tell you to your face that he thinks badly of you - you kind of have to infer that indirectly from others. So more than once this has resulted in a Western family leaving without paying, thinking "wow, those Ghanians are so generous!", while the Ghanaian family thinks "those disrespectful jerks exploited us!" resulting in them being blunt and openly "Western" (as they interpret it) towards the next family. And then that family will be openly pissed off and haggle about payment (remember: in Ghana, you never dismiss someone to his face, and are supposed do the haggling indirectly/implicitly by giving excuses so the receiving party's social status isn't compromised - things are never "just business" there). So in the end, the local family is even more insulted and the tourists are pissed off and stay away. More than a few local tourism initiatives have failed because of this. These days, the successful tourist villages have a tourist center, where you pay for the whole experience of staying in that village at once, and everyone in the village gets a share later (again, secretively). What pisses me off is that every other visitor I met (implicitly) complained about how the Ghanaians weren't more like us, and more than once I've started an angry rant towards them that fell on deaf ears. No, that's now how it works: we're the visitors, so it's our responsibility to understand the Ghanaian point of view. And they actually have a point in their judgement of us being rich. Not that we should accept being treated as walking fountains of cash, but the "it's unfair, it's not like I have endless supplies of money just because I'm white!" gut reaction is very short-sighted, as it's also unfair that we were lucky enough to be born in an economically privileged position. Think of it as an investment in the local economy, an actually working trickle down effect. Yes, it can be tiresome, but you should have done your homework and realize what you were getting into when you went there. As long as it's no too blatantly disrespectful, and you know how to talk your way out of ridiculous requests with a bit of humor, it's all fine. BTW, this is generalized of course: Ghana is full of different ethnicities and cultures, and things differ from place to place. I had a wonderful time being "back home", and in my experience most of the annoyances could be attributed to past miscommunications souring things as explained above. So anyway, back to my original post: it's the local population that is hesitant to pick up internet, because they associate it with Nigerian scams and their reputation being smudged. I'm repeating what I was told by them, and was just being curious how this easy access to internet will change things and how the local cultures will adopt it. Also, if you really want to know more about this issue: "Invisible Users, Youth in the internet Cafés of Urban Ghana" by Jenna Burrel[3]. Just picked up my own copy the other day, still have to start reading it, but based on the blurb it seems to mirror my own experiences. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/07/ghana-call-friday-off-funeral http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/07/ghana-call-frida... [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12funerals.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12funerals.html?p... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law [3] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/invisible-users https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/invisible-users

rattray 13y ago

I think that's a bit harsh; at least, I didn't interpret his anecdote as such. I've spent some time in West Africa, but not much in internet cafes and none in Nigeria (or Ghana, for that matter). I never saw anything like what he described, so I appreciated the anecdote. Basically, I took his observations as more an honest description than a judgement. Your accusations of "inaccurate" and "ignorant" beg the question; are you speaking from a point of superior knowledge on the matter?

Myrmornis 13y ago
My comment was certainly aggressive, but intentionally so. That person's response to a discussion of increased internet access for Africans was to talk about the problem of spam email. I think I could have been harsher. > are you speaking from a point of superior knowledge on the matter? That seems to imply that you are in doubt about the truth value of the following proposition: `Africans mainly use the internet to scam people in the first world`.
- freehunter 13y ago
  The guy even said "most of the Internet users will be of higher education", he did nothing to imply that the majority of the users are scammers. That's all you putting words in his mouth. If he's demonstrating racism, you're demonstrating white guilt. I don't even know either of your races, but I think that statement adequately highlights the absurdness of your claim.
  - Myrmornis 13y ago
    If scamming is not a significant proportion of Ghanaian internet activity then why is it even being mentioned in a discussion about increasing internet access across sub-Saharan Africa? "White guilt"? Would you care to expand? Guilt which causes me to ignore the problem of pesky Africans using the internet to scam honest folk in rich countries?

vanderZwan 13y ago

> As such it is inaccurate, smug, racist and ignorant, and reflects an implicit assumption that the world should be organized so that it is benign to the interests of affluent westerners. I understand why you read it that way, but you couldn't be more wrong about what I think about Africa. As rattray mentioned: I wasn't judging them, just making an observation of how things are there. Your interpretation of my standpoint is kind of ironic: I was born in Ghana, lived there the first four years of my life. I feel more of a connection to Africa than to my supposed roots in China (I'm half Chinese too), and I hated growing up in the Dutch countryside. While I was visiting my birthcountry for the first time in 25 years, it was the visiting Westerners that pissed me off. They were always complaining about being treated disrespectfully, and refused to see how their insistence of interpreting situations through a Western lens plays a huge role in all the misunderstandings. So this is getting very off-topic, but let's talk for a minute about white folks not "getting" Ghana, as I understand and experienced it. There's plenty of things, but I'll focus on the wealth sharing issue. First of all, if you are wealthier, in the local traditional culture it is perfectly acceptable to be asked or expected to share the wealth. Not in the form of money (more on that later), but material wealth, or "spontaneously" paying for something they need. Of course, there's a difference between actually being rich and being perceived as such - and by the way, the locals suffer from this more than we do: "hey cousin, you moved to the city so you're rich now and can support your family in the countryside, right?" Well no, but try telling your family that. It's hard to get a break in Ghana, because as soon as you do everyone wants a piece of the pie (and don't get me started on Ghanaian funerals, if there's one example of a tradition being warped and now bankrupting families...[1]). You have to realize that if you're from the West, you are considered rich by definition, so you have to mentally be ready for constantly being asked for support. It's tiring, but it's not like you can blame them. From our point of view it might feel like reverse-racism, but look at it from their perspective: you can afford a plane ticket (return ticket even) and taking a few weeks/months off of earning money and going on holiday - how rich do you have to be for that? Just because Weber-Fechner[2] fools you into not feeling rich back home doesn't mean you're not. Where things go sour is that if you say no, which is perfectly fine, you're supposed to do so with an excuse, so that the person asking doesn't lose face: "I'm sorry, I can't give you my sunglasses, they're the only ones I have." Business and social life are not separated there. Because most Westerners instead feel like being hustled, or are just tired of the never-ending stream of requests, they just bluntly reject the haggler, resulting in him/her feeling insulted and going "well, screw you too then." So the next time they'll just be more rude and blunt like the Westerners, which can result in this weird cycle of everyone slightly pissing off everyone. If you don't know how to haggle respectfully and understand the social component (and it takes a while before you "get it"), you will be hustled disrespectfully in return. Luckily there's some locals who "get" Westerners and are capable of bridging this. Also, there's a clear correlation between how bad this Western/local culture clash has corroded things and how close to the capitol you are: the closer, the more bluntly the people will ask you for money. Another communication breakdown example: if you stay over at a family, traditionally they would insist you don't have to pay them. Not because they actually mean that, but because you don't discuss money exchanges out in the open - everyone will want a piece of the pie and they might end up with less than what they started with. The exchange happens discretely when nobody is watching, and you have to 'spontaneously' offer it, sometimes insisting on it a few times (although these days nobody is that naive towards Westerners anymore). Also, a Ghanaian will not tell you to your face that he thinks badly of you - you kind of have to infer that indirectly from others. So more than once this has resulted in a Western family leaving without paying, thinking "wow, those Ghanians are so generous!", while the Ghanaian family thinks "those disrespectful jerks exploited us!" resulting in them being blunt and openly "Western" (as they interpret it) towards the next family. And then that family will be openly pissed off and haggle about payment (remember: in Ghana, you never dismiss someone to his face, and are supposed do the haggling indirectly/implicitly by giving excuses so the receiving party's social status isn't compromised - things are never "just business" there). So in the end, the local family is even more insulted and the tourists are pissed off and stay away. More than a few local tourism initiatives have failed because of this. These days, the successful tourist villages have a tourist center, where you pay for the whole experience of staying in that village at once, and everyone in the village gets a share later (again, secretively). What pisses me off is that every other visitor I met (implicitly) complained about how the Ghanaians weren't more like us, and more than once I've started an angry rant towards them that fell on deaf ears. No, that's now how it works: we're the visitors, so it's our responsibility to understand the Ghanaian point of view. And they actually have a point in their judgement of us being rich. Not that we should accept being treated as walking fountains of cash, but the "it's unfair, it's not like I have endless supplies of money just because I'm white!" gut reaction is very short-sighted, as it's also unfair that we were lucky enough to be born in an economically privileged position. Think of it as an investment in the local economy, an actually working trickle down effect. Yes, it can be tiresome, but you should have done your homework and realize what you were getting into when you went there. As long as it's no too blatantly disrespectful, and you know how to talk your way out of ridiculous requests with a bit of humor, it's all fine. BTW, this is generalized of course: Ghana is full of different ethnicities and cultures, and things differ from place to place. I had a wonderful time being "back home", and in my experience most of the annoyances could be attributed to past miscommunications souring things as explained above. So anyway, back to my original post: it's the local population that is hesitant to pick up internet, because they associate it with Nigerian scams and their reputation being smudged. I'm repeating what I was told by them, and was just being curious how this easy access to internet will change things and how the local cultures will adopt it. Also, if you really want to know more about this issue: "Invisible Users, Youth in the internet Cafés of Urban Ghana" by Jenna Burrel[3]. Just picked up my own copy the other day, still have to start reading it, but based on the blurb it seems to mirror my own experiences. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/07/ghana-call-friday-off-funeral http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/07/ghana-call-frida... [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12funerals.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12funerals.html?p... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law [3] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/invisible-users https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/invisible-users