Quick question:
If you had grown up on the streets of Phnom Penh, or in Canada's verison of America's projects in the Jane and Finch section of Toronto, would you be where you are right now? Working in the same job? Living in the same house?
I'm betting no.
The other night on DVD I watched the new Samuel L. Jackson film Coach Carter, about a California high school basketball coach who locked his team out of the gym, banned practice, and forfeited games until the students improved their academic standing and fulfilled the contracts they had signed with him at the beginning of the season. At one point in the flick he says: "The system has failed these kids."
The line resonates.
There will always be the Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Oprah Winfreys of the world, people who, though uncommon will and focus, manage to transcend their roots and plant themselves firmly on the foundation of their dreams.
For the rest of us, we need help.
It's scandalous to even consider, but it's true -- the systems are sometimes purposefully designed to hold people back. Or sometimes there's no systems in the first place.
In Cambodia, you usually can't go to school unless you have enough money to pay the teachers alittle bit every day. Why do you have to pay the teachers? Because the teachers ask for bribe money? Why do the teachers ask for bribe money? Because the government pays them twenty American dollars a month. They can't live on that much; nobody can live on that much. The government doesn't care -- not when they're living the high life, driving Benzes and raising children who tend to scream through town on their motorbikes and ram into civilians.
It's funny. On TV yesterday there was a live panel debate from the Davos conference in Switzerland, that yearly gathering that assembles the best and the brightest from the world of finance and politics, technology and business. The members of the panel? Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bono, Tony Blair, the Prime Ministers of three or four African nations. Not bad. Their concern? How do we help Africa? Their solution? Well, we're not sure, they said. Yes, they had many options, but implementing them, actualizing them, remains fuzzy.
The biggest problem is the most obvious problem: corruption. Economist Jeffrey Sachs has a much applauded new report stating that the way to end poverty in the next few decades is through a massive influx of cash; the only way to help the poor is to give them more money.
I agree.
It's that simple.
It's that difficult.
How do you get the money to the people? Therein lies the difficulty. How do you get past the endless levels of bribery and payoff these nations' governments demand, expect, require? You can throw all the money in the world into these countries, but if nobody's able to track it, seeing that it goes where it's actually supposed to go, then the cycle will continue.
Clinton made a point that I could relate to, because much of where I work is related to capacity building, moving away from aiding a community, city or nation, and shifting towards enabling them to build things on their own. Sounds so simple, doesn't it?
It's the hardest thing in the world. Think how long it took you to figure out how the world works -- how to tie your shoes, take a test, do a job interview, learn new software. It takes years and years and years. (I'm just realizing, after almost thirty years, that I have no idea how the world works. If anyone knows, please let me know.)
The same thing is true for countries. But there's no other choice, is there? If we just give money and feel satisfied, then nobody learns anything, nothing gets done, and in twenty years the poverty, coups and deterioration will continue, if not escalate.
It all comes down to capacity building -- having people on the ground, with the people, telling them: You do it like this and like and like this. And you do that for a whole generation, in all fields: health, education, entertainment, finance -- the list goes on and on.
There's no other way.
You have to show people how to build a system.
The system may be corrupt, and illogical, and faulty, but it has to be there to work.
If you're a kid in Cambodia, the system is barely hanging together. If you're a kid from the streets of Jane and Finch in Toronto, there's a system, yes, but what real hope is there? How good are your schools? How good are your teachers? What kind of support system is in place? Who's giving kids the self-confidence and tools that will enable them to get beyond Jane and Finch to at least the Harvey's burger restaurant at Yonge and Bloor?
The system is failing a lot of people all over the world.
And, in the end of course, the big slap in the face comes when you realize that there is no system.
Watch the movie Spartan, with Val Kilmer. It's a crafty political thriller that also kind of encapsulates everything you need to know about life. As Kilmer learns at a crucial point in the film: There is no 'they'; there is only him, and what he said he was going to do, and whether or not he will do it. That's all.
There is only you.
