The West has managed to manipulate the world to favour them & we can only admire what they have accomplished. Most Western countries have managed to make their world all about them & their best interests while outside of the West, it is about survival & an undetermined course of life. Outside the West is the developing world & the "Global South", these are lands that do not fully believe in the Western/United Nation's concept of Human Rights for whatever reason. The problem in my world is that nobody seems to know what "freedom" really is, is it uncontrolled anarchy or individual room to practice free will within a certain legal framework?
While the world has embraced democracy, the Global South (Africa, in this case) still sees the concept of everyone having a voice as not as important. I'll admit that some people are just liars (or propagandists) & can't really be trusted with what they say so their voice is not as important as independent thinkers with critical analysis of society but that's because these liars hold no value by having an input in society, false facts can only harm society. Democracy has usually been aligned with freedom of speech but who speaks in a national discourse needs to have their words analysed. We can't just have razzmatazz statements being brandished about without analysing whether the words a certain individual is saying are true.
Nepotism & favouritism in society: Favouring family & individuals with certain characteristics over those who are best capable of doing the job is common among developing countries. In countries where the best people are chosen for certain roles indiscriminately, those countries naturally improve in quality. Meritocracy is vital for a country to function optimally. A country which chooses the best national team players indiscriminately usually does better than national teams that chose based on ethnicity, nepotism or unjust favouritism.
N. B. It's not far from the truth.
Simple ignorance is sometimes why the Global South is underdeveloped & often the ONLY reason why many lands are underdeveloped. Education can solve ignorance in society but governments are often careful to educate a people on ideals that will be useful to the ruling class in future. So society has to find ways of combating ignorance & getting verifiable facts to the public to create a culture of critical thought & analysis.
In many underdeveloped countries, the Global South, there's an oppressive ruling class & their funders. It is very difficult for a land to rid itself of such people because they rely on a politician's greed & love for money. A healthy dose of patriotism & collectivist economic protectionism usually solves this problem of "hidden hands" & paid politicians in the national discourse.
I understand the sentimentality of holding on to ancient practices more than most but ancient practices were usually done to solve a persistent problem of a bygone era & many ancient problems no longer exist today so some customs can do more harm than good if the reason for them being done is not clear. Many ancient customs are outdated & either need to be reviewed if their continued practice benefits society or not. If ancient customs do hold value in modern times, they need to be escalated & put in national law to be given supporting structures as opposed to be left as obscure tribal practices in hidden corners of society.
Due to ignorance again, many societies in the Global South remain stagnant & reluctant to innovate solutions to existential problems.
So in this opinion piece; it's 1) unjust favouritism, 2) ordinary ignorance, 3) leaders & politicians funded by corrupt wealth & 4) outdated, harmful ancient practices that prevents the Global South from creating the freedom that the West enjoys.
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