Thanks for the colonialist attitude!
Those countries won't get better if we don't help them.
Those countries won't get better if we don't help them.
The "white man's burden" was the justification for all manner of interventionist, abusive (and self serving) policies.
Countries can definitely improve without "our" help - that's not to say we shouldn't offer our help, but we definitely shouldn't go around assuming inherent superiority.
Ever heard of things like volunteer work, Engineers Without Borders,....?
The people will need to want to organize a goverment which has the integrity, capacity and resources to improve the conditions. Work on the education system, social and economic structure and provide basic infrastructure. However most often than not these countries are full of corruption, no matter how much money you'd pour into it it'll just go for the benefit of the few.
It all begins with the local people and tbh, I'm not holding my breath.
And finally a personal anecdote, it's funny how the people in these 3rd world countries fail to organize even the simplistic things such as bus terminals. And one just has to wonder, if they can't organize a bus terminal what chance do they have of ever organizing a properly functioning goverment that could organize their country?
As a resident of New York City[0], I am not sure how to respond to this observation.
[0] http://www.wnyc.org/story/surviving-port-authority-bus-termn...
Nepal by no means has "failed to organize even a bus terminal". For god's sake, the Nepalese people organized a pretty successful resistance against their Monarchy[0]. So please get your facts straight before making such sweeping generalizations about 3rd world countries. In general, every country has a very unique set of circumstances for being in a state of social/economic/political backwardness.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_democracy_movement_in_Nep...
You believe that — through your own luck and with your own privilege — you are able, and therefore should be willing to help people who — through no fault of their own — require some help.
A colonialist would say that — due to their innate genetic superiority — they are able, and therefore should be willing to help people who — due to their own innate inferiority, primal culture, and lack of intelligence — require some help.
If anything, as an ethnic Han Chinese myself, I know we are all too aware of how to conquer and colonise other places. And trust me, Chinese have no shortage of a superiority complex, regarding the barbaric hordes outside of the Middle Kingdom grins.
This isn't exactly like being Jewish, and getting away with anti-Semitic remarks like Sacha Baron Cohen.
"In the later 20th century, in the context of decolonisation and the Developing World, the phrase "the white man's burden" was emblematic of the "well-intentioned" aspects of Western colonialism and "Eurocentrism". The poem's imperialist interpretation also includes the milder, philanthropic colonialism of the missionaries:
"The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit — economic or strategic or otherwise — of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized (and Christianized)."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden
My employer for the last ten years has been an Asian company, so I hardly agree with that.