Trenches immersion

I only recently heard the term, ‘trenches immersion.’ Apparently, it refers to ‘privileged’ Nigerians travelling by all manner of public transport or visiting urban slums to mingle with the poor. 

Years ago, I read of a travel company that organized unique trips to South Africa which included a stay in a hotel that simulated “an authentic slum experience,” to give the tourists a taste of what it was to live in a slum albeit in an artificial one, and only for a night. These tourists paid a lot of money to stay in cramped rooms with no running water, no bath tubs and I believe, no indoor plumbing.

I also seem to recall that much like what happened with the human zoo in Belgium in the 1950s when Congolese men and women were displayed live in an artificial village to give the Belgians who’d never been to the “colony” a chance to see the “natives in their native condition,” the hotel also paid Black South Africans to parade around the ‘slum.’ 

Both trenches immersion and slum tourism operate on the idea that the poor are exotic, the “other” to be gawked at like animals in a zoo, and that the tourists and the immersers are better than the poor for being wealthier. To what end, one might ask, does someone wake up one day and decide to be a poverty tourist? Well, someone who’s done it implied on Twitter  that it lets him gain a better idea of how the poor live, to feel what they feel and to hear what they talk about. In other words, that it helps foster empathy by walking in their shoes.

Of course, it is nonsense to imagine that by occasionally travelling by public transport (and only when the conditions are ideal) or by visiting slums that one gains any meaningful insight into what it is to be poor. I am certain that those who engage in these activities do not believe so either, not even the one who eloquently articulated his reasons on Twitter. No one is silly enough to expect anything constructive to come from this type of tourism.  

So if they are not interested in fighting the systemic issues that lead to inequality, what do they gain from this disturbing voyeurism then? Why do it? Perhaps, they do it simply because it makes them feel good. Who was it that said that everyone needs their own feel-good drug? Arguably this is theirs. They do it for personal gratification which is probably why they share photos on social media and write long posts about their interaction with these “exotic beings,” centering themselves in the narrative and not the poor. And sometimes, when they have an audience, they talk nonstop about it.

A few years ago, I was at a Naija gathering where this very wealthy woman glowed as she talked loudly about how she visited the poor in their own homes. To hear her say it, it was  a massive achievement on the same level as Mother Teresa interacting  with lepers at a time when the latter  were stigmatized. This woman, trilling from head to toe, even said that her pastor frequently cited her humility in sermons because her willingness to engage with the poor wasn’t commonplace. Odikwaegwu!

In a society like our Naija where wealth is worshipped, where the poor are often treated like second class citizens and where socioeconomic inequalities are deeply entrenched, it is not surprising that poverty voyeurism is becoming a thing. Trenches immersion my foot. There is nothing immersive about intermittently using public transport. Or going to the slums to talk to the poor.  And there is nothing compassionate/empathetic about it. It reeks of classism. It is condescending. Above all, it is disrespectful.

Anyone who is really interested in helping the poor must begin by treating them with respect. And that can only happen if you see them as fellow humans, not by reducing them to an exotic ‘other’, to mere objects whose lives can be experienced/understood by occasionally performing superficial poverty immersion acts. 

It is important to challenge these problematic, shameful practices wherever we can and however we can. That is one way in which we can at least contribute to a more equitable Naija.