New mindset on western world and developing world
Introduction
Hans Rolsling tried to change the mindset of the people to correspond with his dataset when he gave a talk in the state department. He shows a deeper meaning of what the terms “we” and “them” mean using his dataset. His students use the term “we” to refer to the developing world while “them” refers to the western world. His student defined developing world as a world where families are large and the life expectancy is 30-50 years while western world is a world with small families with a long life expectancy. The difference between these two worlds is that the western world employed some tactics as the years eloped that that the developing countries failed to use.
This whole video of Hans’ explaining about “we” and “them” has changed my perspective on these terms because according to him even the countries being referred to as the western world were once in the stage that the developing countries are. He gave an example using Afghanistan and United States. According to his dataset 200 years ago United States was at the level Afghanistan was currently when he was giving his speech. The life expectancy was 35-40 years and the income per person was one or two dollars. This is proof that even the western world was one a developing world (In Edelman, In Mandle, & In Kudzma, 2014). Afghanistan is currently trying to increase the people’s life expectancy rate to try and match that in a western world.
China one of the leading countries in western worlds was in a position where developing countries are. It faced a period of a hundred years where there was no growth in the country and in the year 1993 when Mao Tse- Tung introduced health into China, the country started to progress but then he died. After his death Deng Xiaoping moved the country forward (Duiker, 2010). China was able to get back on its feet because it started applying the knowledge of nutrition, education and use of family planning this led to china achieving social development.
The concept of how the western world evolved are still the same concepts that the developing world are using to evolve like the western countries. People in developing world are using family planning and reducing the amount of children in every family. They are now able to increase the life expectancy rate in the countries (Gaimard, 2014). These developing countries are applying vaccinations to their citizens with the help of vaccines from western world. Controlling the birthrate in the country has reduce the number of children to about two children in a family and this has led to a better life style. This is made evident by countries such as Mexico, where the natives health is improving to compete with the health of people in China and United States (Baker, 2014).
conclusion
Hans’ video has changed my idea of “we” and “them”. Despite the fact that this video is a little old his view about developing worlds and western world is still accurate. As proposed by him earlier developing countries are employing tactics that western countries employed to grow. According to his view back them it is still true to say that talking about developing world is like having two chapters of the United States since it was also a developing state that rose to be in the western world. The people need a new mind set on what is developing world and western world since the people in the middle income countries are making progress economically.
References
Duiker, W. J. (2010). Contemporary world history. Boston: Wadsworth.
Gaimard, M. (2014). Population and Health in Developing Countries.
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state/transcript
Baker, A. (2014). Shaping the developing world: The West, the South, and the natural world.
In Edelman, C., In Mandle, C. L., & In Kudzma, E. C. (2014). Health promotion throughout the life span.
