Technology, brick-and-mortar progress should never 'trump' human dignity

An array of book titles under a variety of category headings on bookshelves above a wooden chair in the corner of a San Francisco second-hand bookstore. [iStockphoto]

One of the myths sold to people, especially in the so-called Third World (who, really, did these classifications?) is that all they need is access to world-class, cutting-edge technology, swanky eight-lane highways, glass-walled skyscrapers gleaming in the African sun and they will be hunky-dory. This fixation with physical things as the primary measure of progress has always struck me as deeply misleading.

It reminds me of a myth I overheard as a small boy growing up in Embu. Village women whose children had secured white-collar jobs in Nairobi would make month-long plans to travel to the city to visit their children’s families.