She looked at me with a radiant smile and spoke with a tone of voice swollen with pride, “look at me I have green eyes, when my uncle saw this photo he said I am as beautiful as those slim dazzling women that we watch in American movies”. I smiled back showing astonishment and admiration. Every thing about the young teenage girl was actually brown, brown hair, tanned skin, and small rounded glowing eyeballs reflecting all shades of brown from chocolate to honey. My surprise at the girl’s obstinate conviction that she had green eyes, because her manipulated photo said so, was combined with a realization that; though she comes from a disadvantaged surrounding, had to work as a servant when she was only ten years old, could not read nor write, could not and did not understand English or any other foreign languages, she and her entire family actually watched closely the popular American soap operas that get often shown in Egyptian television.
Both the girl’s own manufactured photo and the American movies’ dazzling women had created a world that existed in parallel to the real world; and instead of living in the world of reality, she chose to move into this other, seemingly better world of fantasy. However, in her brown eyes that was no fantasy, because it has materialized in the form of a concrete photo, a document that she drew in the face of anybody and everybody to prove that she actually had green eyes.
Latter, when I joined an NGO working in an impoverished area at El Hadaba El Wosta in Mokattam hills in Cairo I realized that despite the actual harsh living conditions, a rather expensive photo shooting session for young teenagers, girls and boys, was actually a popular trend. The resulting photo would be usually remotely connected to the original image of the subject, yet s/he would usually be very proud of the remoulded copy of his or her own figure.
The Denial Choice
When the youth of the Ngo produced a short documentary about the images of life in the Mokatam surroundings the immediate reaction was an infuriated crowd of parents shouting angrily. They blamed the NGO and their children, who shared in the shooting and editing, for showing the mountains of trashed waste that has become almost an integral part of the natural scenery of the place. Their pride was wounded and feelings hurt as if this film was describing them and not the place they lived in. They simply did not want to see, in a film or an image, the huge mountains of harsh reality that lay at the doorsteps of their own houses.
In the media world it is this power of imagery that is at play all the time. In order to sell products, advertisers sell images not only of the product but also of the happy jolly people who consume this product. Of course these cheerful consumers are good looking if not strikingly beautiful and very well dressed; They act, walk, and talk, in a space that is radiant and calm, green mountains, prairies, beautiful houses, exquisite decoration, in short the very opposite of what poverty is.
Poor, on the other hand, is seen and heard in the context of social disruption of some sort, a motive for committing crimes, poor is simply ugly. In a documentary entitled “marazzeek” (an Arabic word that means random unsteady income as opposed to regular salary) an Egyptian peasant who lives in a poor village in Upper Egypt describes herself saying: “I am not beautiful, I know that, will never be and I do not care, not any more”.
The point that is at issue here is that the mediated world of advertisements and entertainment is imposing a passive reactive attitude of denial for the marginalized masses that turns them away from fighting back to emerge from their sad conditions. Instead, very often they choose to follow the same consumption patterns of the privileged minority as advertised in every day media in disregard for their own economic conditions and constraints. Thus, they congregate to buy mobile phones ( recent studies show that there are 57million mobile device in the Egyptian market) and Satellite dishes while their own houses might not, literally, have a solid roof to protect them from the cold and rains of winter.
Praising Actions Not Looks
Franz Fanon(1968) observes, rightly, that “A national culture is the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify, and praise the actions through which the people has created itself and keeps itself in existence.”(As cited in A. Mersepassi, A. Bassu& F. Weaver, 2003, p.195)
In his book Architecture for the poor Egypt’s renowned architect Hassan Fathy revealed the embedded wisdom of traditional architectural designs and techniques common in rural Egyptian villages, a wisdom that the poor Egyptian fellah accumulated through his interaction with nature and lead him to the creative use of available natural resources in the form of materials such as earth, reed, straw or stone. Fathy re-introduced environmentally sound techniques such as wind catches, cooling towers, the mushrabiya window screen, vernacular devices and proven methods for cooling structures; techniques that became, ironically, the astounding features of some of Egypt’s most rich households.
The ability of the poor to survive adversative conditions is not a legend of the past in the form of a monumental architect. It is a skill that has long been abandoned simply because the consumption ethos of modern times is based on craving demand as opposed to the old wisdom of making ultimate use of the available resources.
Unilever Value Chain
In an attempt to explore the links between international business and poverty reduction Unilever and Oxfam worked together in a collaborative research effort to examine the impacts and effects of Uniliver operations on economic development and poverty alleviation in Indonesia. The research explored Unilever ‘s entire value chain in Indonesia, examining issues such as the company’s employment policies and practices from supply through distribution, its relationships with poor consumers in the marketplace, and its wider impact in the community and on the business sector. In dealing with marketing and advertising goods for the poor both organizations agreed that marketing to the poor could serve the poor’s interests:
- “If product choice and competition leads to lower prices, and if consumers are provided with better information about products.”
Though basically well intentioned and reasonable, these two conditions are actually seen from a macro economic position rather then down to earth social stand. The impact of the televised advertising of a worldview of luxury and wealth prompts an uneven competition not between two different products that are equal in importance, but between the social fantasy and the harsh reality of a strained economic condition. Providing better information about products is largely the concern of the educated wealthy. When the poor buys a product he is embracing the worldview that this product is promoting, which undermines the element of free choice and most certainly decreases the ability to make wise choices.
Nevertheless, the research in the final analysis does lay down the foundations for the marketing and advertising of goods to work for the poor:
- If it gives them access to high quality products that are good for health or well being more generally
- If it improves the value of their limited disposable income
- If it increases economic opportunities in their communities by creating jobs in the distribution network or the supply chain: in particular jobs that provide working capital or new types of skill and opportunity.
Still all these conditions in the absence of awareness, will have a very limited impact.
The Charity Pornography
So far the industry of media and communication, outside the context of charity campaigns, did not care to recognize the poor. In the world of development hundreds if not thousands of charity campaigns have made use of such photos of powerless, helpless poor women with a flock of ill and mal-nurtured little boys and girls heaving around, to advertise for their noble goals and to elicit responses from generous donors. All these vivid representations of poverty massively over a long period of time represent a sort of “development pornography”. Inevitably they send simplistic messages that foster racist stereotypes, striping an entire population of their dignity and encourage prejudice. Further they help projecting a stereotyped image that these helpless and incompetent communities in the developing world whether in Africa or Asia are in need and will be in need for perhaps indefinitely and that without aid, donations and charitable donors, they cannot survive (Sankore, 2006).
Nevertheless, access to new technologies by individuals means simply an access to power where the consumer is perceived as an “active” subject, an independent variable in the consumption process (Fortunati, 2006). A recent study on exchanging messages using missed calls drew attention to the creative use of the mobile by the poor to avoid being charged for phone calls forcing phone companies to allow customers send open requests in the form of a very basic signal to friends for a phone call (Donner,2007).
Practical Solutions
The number one practical solution is from our field work. At Alwan wa Awtar a major component is to work on boosting a positive self image. All our activities, arts, music, photography, and even sciences are designed to help the children feel better about themselves, to have a positive self image, and to trust their abilities and skills
- On a larger scale mobile companies, internet service providers, international businesses, advertisers and various TV channels play a conscious responsible role in recognizing the disadvantaged masses. Research should be conducted to focus on the effects of consumption patterns on the general community welfare ( we encounter the negative effects on daily basis this is a change that needs to be on a macro scale).
- Media has an important role to play to reintegrate the poor in the wider social and political context, to engage them in the wider conversation of rules and power, and most notably to hold them accountable for his own welfare.
- Advertising for development campaigns should stress the role of the poor in any development project. The Poor should not be portrayed as a recipient of aid but as potential entrepreneur, an added value.
- There is a dire need to tell the stories of success, fruitful results, aid receivers who became donors, youth who were able to turn their lives towards productivity. Some of them should be made into national figures an emblem that stirs feelings of hope and pride.
Finally, in their book, “fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid” (2002), C.K. Prahald and Stuart L. Hart sought to prove that “low income markets are a great opportunity for the wealthiest companies to seek their fortune and bring prosperity to the aspiring poor” (p.1) This has been proven to be a true theory that could work effectively but needs rigorous on readjusting the priorities of the business elite to make use of a huge potential that is so far has not been explored.
Useful References:
J. Meyrowitz, 2004. Mythologies of big media corporations, April, number 119 (September), pp. 12–13
Jason W. Clay, Exploring the links between international business and poverty reduction : a case study of Unilever in Indonesia
Peters, Durham, John, Speaking into the air. University of Chicago Press, 1999
Miresepassi, Ali, Basu, Amrita & Weaver Fredrick, Localizing Knowledge in a Globalizing World. Syracuse University Press 2003
Panel on Technology for Basic Needs of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, an Assault on poverty, basic human needs, science, and technologym 1997
J. Donner, 2003. What mobile phones mean to Rwandan entrepreneurs, In: K. Nyíri (editor). Mobile democracy: Essays on society, self, and politics. Vienna: Passage, pp. 393–410.
Fortunati, Leopoldina User Design and the Democratization of the Mobile Phone
First Monday, special issue number 7 (September 2006)
http://firstmonday.org/issues/special11_9/fortunati/index.html
Radwan, Samir, Employment and Unemployment in Egypt: Conventional Problems, Unconventional Remedies Working Paper No. 70, August 2002
John P. Powelson A History of Wealth and Poverty why a Few Nations are Rich and Many Poor?
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp34288
Mohamed A. El-Nawawy, Profiling Internet Users in Egypt: Understanding the Primary Deterrent against Their Growth in Number, InTouch Communication Services, SAE
Egypt.
Christian Welzel, A Human Development View on Value Change Trends (1981-2006)
Amin, Galal, Globalization, consumption patterns and human development in Egypt, working paper No 9929, American University, 1999
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