why do we want them to be like us?

our development projects aim to boost them, to modernize them, integrate them, and win them over. them is the third world, that invisible realm we created between cold war allies and enemies, the two inches of blanket our governments treat like they don't really want, but that they would rather have and hold than let their sibling take. so we tug and pull and fight.

we want to spread our values, tissues, collars, colours, coolers, and covers. but why do we want to melt and mold them into our jungle of plastic, waste, coughing, vomiting, concrete, sterile glaring light and art that screams from the pages of literary supplements, begging for you to notice that they took a risk revealing the agony that chomps and chews inside our ears, behind our eyes, in our bellies.

it is not a world i want them to bear. like a tragic paddle to get away from it all, only to find a parking lot and an old logging road that made it an escape for stoned, fucked, and fucking kids like me who are begging for escape. why do we lead the underdeveloped world down a path to development that is only as nice as it is from the outside? that is not sustainable? our development is a folk tale that will be told to the lasses and lassies to come, for months and centuries. our folklore excuses, excuse me, expels and eclipse: drugs, lying, cheating, concrete, mental disorders, excessive orders, drive-through kelp and fries.

it is not a self-selected population of self-loathing, lost women who sigh, half of them, in sad sorry agreement with me, that they two still strive for development: development to squeeze, squish, shit, squander and vomit what makes them too oddly shaped for the mold.

oh good heavens, do we want to welcome the third world into just another hostile world? but one whose precarious equilibrium teeters at such a high level of intake and excretion that certainly, we shall all slip into a fiery whirlwind, only to be saved from concussions and death if we can get a sorry! off our lips in time.