Are there shithole/shithouse countries in the world?

Jan 28, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is a line in the Billy Wilder comedy, “Avanti!” starring the inimitable Jack Lemmon, where the American Ambassador to Italy couldn’t get a public document because of long lunch hours, and in frustration yelled out that the US pours money into Italy yet the country doesn’t work.
It is a very instructive scene in the film and it tells a sociological story that is as old as time itself. It doesn’t matter if a person’s character is essentially flawed, but once that person has money to give to others, that person becomes the standard by which you judge others. It is the same with countries. If a wealthy state bankrolls other nations, it becomes the centre of the universe. The peoples in the countries of the world come to admire rich countries that pour money into their pockets.
I remember an amazing irony as a young Guyanese growing up. The population wanted free and fair elections, but the entire country admired a land where there were no free and fair elections, including political parties that were fighting for free and fair election here in Guyana. The reason was because of Cuba’s assistance to Guyana.
If we are going to judge whether a country is phenomenally positive, we have to judge it by its culture, social mores, sociological values, philosophical essence, its overall ontological nature; not only by the wealth it has. Personally speaking, I have no admiration for Australia and block that country from my mind. If I have to put it bluntly, I would say I do not like Australia. For me, India is a phenomenal wonder, even though the levels of poverty are sickening.
While studying in Canada, I travelled outside, but did not visit the US. I first went to the US in 2000 for treatment of my eyes in Miami arranged by Father Andrew Morrison, then-editor of the Catholic Standard. Jacob Rambarran, owner of channel 13, arranged for me to stay at his Haitian friend. I came out of surgery at 6 30am. I called the Haitian gentleman to tell him I was out. He said to me to take a taxi from the hospital and not a bus. He warned me to keep away from standing at any bus stop since it was sunset, and head straight home. He also advised me not to worry how expensive the fare was; just get into a taxi.
He lived far from the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and the fare was indeed expensive. When I reached home, he explained how dangerous it would be for a stranger like me, not knowing my way in the night in Miami. This was a culture shock to me. We were taking about the US – the centre of the universe. Father Morrison had asked me to visit a fellow Jesuit priest before I left Miami. That night, I called the priest to tell him I was coming and had a little gift Father Morrison sent for him. The priest told me not to come in the night, because of where he lived, but suggested I visit in the morning. I was leaving in the morning. I didn’t get to see him. That was my first impression of the USA. I wasn’t in El Salvador.
Two of my Canadian friends were robbed in Italy while I was a student at the University of Toronto. When they came back they told me that the Italian police were the most incompetent they had ever seen for all the countries they ever visited, including several Third World states. If countries allow themselves to be fed, housed and clothed by other territories and to be treated as lesser lands in a civilized world, then they will be treated like shithole/shithouse nations as Donald Trump insultingly referred to El Salvador, Haiti and Africa.
One must remember that in his Freudian mind, Trump was thinking of poor, non-white lands that forever look to the US for money. The UK Ambassador to Kenya referring to the begging mentality of some Third World countries, said, “they vomit on our shoes.” Bruce Golding, while Prime Minister of Jamaica, referred to Guyana under President Jagdeo as a panhandler that is always begging the international community.
So we still have to answer the question in the caption above. Not because we have disdain for President Trump it means that he is wrong. He is not. The evidence does not prove him wrong. He is a president of a democratic superpower and should not have even uttered those words. But the scientific fact is that you can measure some countries and conclude that they are shithole/shithouse territories. I honestly think and believe Guyana is one such wasteland.

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