An Old Russian Proverb

I have had some interesting reaction to my Outlook piece last Sunday, which you can see here, describing some of the unexpected challenges I ran into in Sri Lanka. Readers experienced in development work said they could relate to my description of the jealousy and even rage that is often triggered by a relief effort as people fight each other for their share of the aid.

Obviously, this isn't just a phenomenon unique to Weligama, or even Sri Lanka. When I lived in Russia (I was the Post's correspondent in Moscow between 1988 and 1993), I learned an old Russian peasant adage that went roughly like this: "It's better that my cow should die than my neighbor get a second one." In other words, people can put up with misery as long as it's shared. But if your neighbor receives something that is denied to you, then you become angry.

Consider this reaction from Kathleen O'Connor:

Your article in Sunday's Post really struck home. I did my dissertation research in low (or no) income areas in Bahia, Brazil. I was constantly buying medicine and other necessities for people, partly because they couldn't afford it and partly to thank the community (in a general way) for their hospitality (the anthropologist's angst is that we make our careers by talking to people, and finding a way to "give back" is hard sometimes). I have had to deal a lot with envy, and devoted a section of my thesis to it. When you want to buy something for someone, just do it when no one else is looking, and tell the recipient not to tell.

Or this from Ralph Blessing:

Your experience in Sri Lanka sounds like an abbreviated version of the phenomenon so well documented by Moritz Thomsen in his Peace Corps chronicle Living Poor. Long considered the definitive Peace Corps memoir, Living Poor describes not only the difficulty of introducing new concepts in an impoverished part of Ecuador, but also the human relations issues that surface when one set of villagers is envious of others who happen to benefit from the volunteer's assistance.

Bill Horn came up with an idea for avoiding the jealousy that comes with distributing material assistance in the form of fishing boats, houses and so on:

After reading your recent article about the problems encountered in aiding the victims of the tsunami, I had an idea that might be of some help to the relief efforts. Since the death and destruction was caused by luck -- very bad luck -- why not base the relief efforts on luck? That is, why not have some sort of lottery for determining who gets aid, if resources are very limited, or who gets aid first, etc.? This would do away with jealousies caused by helping one person but not another, since who can argue with fate for determining his or her fortunes.

Actually, my brother and other Weligama donors have tried this approach with fishing boats. (Obviously, several hundred boats can't be built at the same time and there has to be a mechanism for deciding who gets the first boat.) It's not a bad suggestion, but it ignores the obvious fact that some fishermen are more in need of immediate help than others. A lottery will not necessarily help the most needy candidate.

-- Michael Dobbs

By washingtonpost.com |  March 3, 2005; 5:00 AM ET  | Category:  Michael Dobbs
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