Peace Corpse

An Army of Peace

Spiro Agnew, UN Ambassodor under the JFK administration, once characterized the America Peace Corps as "a spirit of national masochism, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." His statement has stood the test of time, regrettably.

Designed to corral the virile and sustained optimism common amongst youngsters proceeding graduation and in an effort to funnel it into constructive programmatic development projects rather than have it siphoned off into the degenerative abyss that is after graduation domestic employment in the US, the American aide agency, the Peace Corps, is by most standards a valiant, worthwhile development objective. It attempts to marry the quixotic views of American peaceniks with that of its unwieldy though equally ambitious paradigmatic cousin: the American development agenda. It is un-holy alliance, between those that make policy (Government) and those that are the physical manifestation of it (Peace Corps volunteer). This grotesque partnership is personified by the unabashedly opinionated, helplessly unintelligent, overwhelmingly ignorant, and lastly, and perhaps most regrettably, ubiquitous Peace Corps volunteer.

The first thing that strikes you about the Peace Corps is the name. It suggests a sort-of Hobbesian world, where anarchy reigns. Peace is won, but only through the legions of idealistic, lost, confused 20 somethings fighting for it. It implies an army of Peace (which is in itself an unadmirable oxymoron), in which individuals are labeled volunteers, or, when taken collectively, a corps. Despite its intentions, the semantics are decided militaristic. Secondly, it registers ‘volunteers’ despite the fact that the stipend they receive far exceeds that of any ‘native’ they are charged with aiding. It is indicative of another paradox within the Corps. The Corps relies heavily on appealing to one's self interest (in the form of tuition repayment schemes, career opportunities and a substantial stipend upon completion: $7,000) to recruit people. Yet it asks them, once signed, to be selfless, to teach and propogate. It thus attracts a brutally self-seeking, opportunist type of individual interested only in preaching.

Crouched over, attempting to escape the thunderous rain under an awning in downtown Nairobi, I had the misfortune of meeting my first Peace Corps volunteer. It was a loud night, the rain hit the awning with a deafening, consistent beat a sound I was soon to beg for. I stood in a corner hoping the only other white person corralled in with us wouldn't drag me into a conversation that I not only did not wish to participate in but feared might involve the weather. Luckily neither happened. She ended up speaking to me, but neither about the weather nor with the intent to elicit dialogue. This happened to me a lot with Peace Corps people: they tended to talk about things not with, but at me and not about anything but rather about everything. I found this lack of coherence disturbing partly because it sounded very similar to how I had envisioned a subject in a Picasso picture might talk, struggling to open its disjointed jaw only to spew out a distorted and disjointed smattering of vowels, ultimately resigned to the fact that it simply was not meant to speak. Simple resignation however, was not a trait possessed by peace corps volunteers. I often used art as a basis through which I could compare Peace Corps volunteers to normal people. It provided for me the visual representation necessary in understanding what seemed to me a species not only appropriate for but the heinous product of another world. A world where being a wallflower was not only not a euphemism but also an admirable trait and, all be it, a functional reality. Mostly, though, it took my attention away from having to listen to them. It was not so much my first encounter with the Peace Corps that piqued me, but rather, the consistently bad encounters that followed. The mind can only take but 5, at very most, 6 conversations with these idealistic, uber-motivated muftis before it begins to wonder not just about the Peace Corps, humanity and life itself but of more reasonable questions like: the reason for their ubiquity. They are everywhere, inescapable, the personification of spam. Unfortunately, no human faculty of mine could discern an ‘x’ on which I might click. It was not long before I made the seemingly simple philosophical leap from not concerning so much of the guy (Peace Corps volunteer) as I did about the ‘guy behind the guy’: the US government. To a certain extent, those who participate within the Peace Corps are given, through the mandate on which the Peace Corps is itself framed, a sort-of moral, intellectual and culture ascendancy. They are told to teach rather than to learn, to patronize rather than to care and to talk rather than to not. Despite that many Peace corps volunteers are liberals, they exult views that are neither progressive nor open. It is fundamentally opposed to the idea of indigenous knowledge. Indeed the phrase itself is understood as an oxymoron. The ethic of willful ignorance is palpable.The first goal of the Peace Corps is to " Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women."

There is little effort to learn from the subjects as they are told not to listen - and most are inclined to not without having been being told - but to teach. Perhaps Incapable of making the connection, peace corps volunteers spend their time disaffected, ignorant and irritated. The peace corps volunteer is thus the ultimate manifestation of their government’s moral, ethical and philosophical core: ignorant, infuriating and everywhere.