fortheloveofbertrand:

Ugh. This basically happened the other day; apparently, a friend of mine wishes to visit Libya at the moment because at the moment it’s ‘interesting’ there. Blargh. Ah pity/poverty tourism, where would you be without the north London middle class?

I find this topic interesting because I find myself frequently falling prey to it, although my desire is less to “be poor” than to “avoid boredom”—I’m a writer, so there’s already a good chance I won’t exactly end up lavishly wealthy. My dream day job, for example, would be in the company of a traveling circus as a tutor for the performers’ children—or even with Virgin Atlantic as a flight attendant. I certainly want to travel, and I’m most interested in French-language countries; this isn’t exactly a unique aspiration, but I find that my predilection as of late lies more with Francophone African countries—Senegal, Morocco—than with, say, French Canada or even France itself.

As of late I’ve been asking myself why this is. Why? Because all that poverty is so thrilling? When I visited Ethiopia, I experienced culture shock like none other. I’d like to think that my interest comes from a genuine appreciation for African culture and history: though Africa is not a monolith, it is treated as such in the Western world and thus everything there is new to me. The history of Ethiopia (and, yes, I’m aware that Ethiopia isn’t Francophone), for example, is fascinating in a way that French history—though I also find it incredibly interesting—is not. Ethiopia prides itself on being one of very few countries never to have been possessed by any other than its own people; even the Italian occupation was brief and is still considered just an “occupation”—pretty fuckin’ majestic, no?

I guess that begs further questions: is it possible for a First-Worlder to be genuinely interested in far less fortunate aspects of the world for reasons that don’t smack of a desire to experience “poverty tourism”? What to do? How to be grateful for what you have but still wish to engage with, y’know, less-secure parts of the world? I speak not for the person whose words are depicted in this picture, and certainly not for your acquaintance (her attitude is revolting!), so much as in general. I don’t condone their attitudes, but I fear that my own might be more similar to theirs than I’d like to think.

(via spitthepips)