The Human Zoo

Apologies to Desmond Morris for stealing his title...
I heard an interview on CBC Metro Morning this morning between the host and the engaged and caring parents of three children. Essentially, these parents forgo holidays to places of mere enjoyment, relaxation, and entertainment for holidays to places where their children see creatures in their natural habitats. The aim is to make their children more aware of the integrity of other lives on this planet and to spur them to become engaged and caring themselves. The latest vacation lasted three weeks and the family flew a long distance (to Africa this time) to a habitat where first world development has not yet succeeded, where they were all able to study their subjects in as close to their natural habitats as possible. This type of travel is becoming more and more popular, especially among the caring and financially comfortable.

This same sort of expedition used to happen in the late 1800's - via ship, of course. Travellers would go to exotic, far-flung locations and bring back, often surreptitiously, specimens of plant and animal life. Many beautiful, or at least interesting, artifacts which grace our museums were acquired this way.

Today - we have as many wild and diverse plant species as we care to have - many hybridized to grow in our gardens, others happily basking in sunny greenhouses. Our high-tech zoos with cunning or real habitats provide homes for species from around the globe. Most people are within a few hours drive of seeing almost any exotic animal which catches their fancy.

What is different about the type of vacation this family is taking, and many others like them take for the same reasons, is that they are going to see human animals. They get off their respective planes, with their UV protection clothing and malaria tablets in hand, and for a relatively modest fee, are able to gawk at all the wonders of the Third World. Their children can laugh with delight at the antics of the local children, so eager to crowd round and beg for pencils, or candy. They can all recoil in horror at the stench, gasp in terror as they drive the precarious routes the local inhabitants amusingly refer to as "roads", shed tears of pity for maimed and deformed creatures wailing in pain, and sample the unusual mixtures of pounded grains, strange animal parts, and local produce - always surprisingly cheap!

I have to admire the parents of these children. Disneyland is so 1980's. These vacations have much more cache, and for a small sacrifice of comfort (the roads are often very bumpy!), their children can enjoy the social benefits of espousing a philosophy of global compassion to friends who were not able to actually touch the bodies of real, live, third world people. How lovely for them to discuss their "experience", and what they have learned, and how they have become better, more caring, people.

But I can't help feeling that these vacations are perpetuating a culture of elitism. After all, why should only the fairly well-heeled inhabitants of our planet get to see these fascinating exhibits? I think in the spirit of caring for our fellow first-worlders, we should import some of these third-world people for educational purposes. Lets create duplicate environments for them here, in North America, just like we did 100 years ago for lions, and tigers, and bears. We could have special exhibits, like a war zone, or a ship salvage yard, or even a local school with no supplies.

I have ideas for how to do this. Some environmental standards would have to be waived to allow for the unsafe drinking water. Health and safety standards would have to be waived in special cases, like oil tanker dismantling, or food preparation. Immigration standards would have to be modified, perhaps a new class of worker created. And of course there would have to be waivers signed by the visitors because of the risk of infectious diseases. Yes, there are many obstacles. But let's not let the naysayers stand in the way of this opportunity. If these experiences really teach us how to become better people, shouldn't each and every one of us be able to experience first-hand the thrills of gawking at third world suffering and poverty? Shouldn't we all be able to care...