CHAPTER 1
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the
study
A number of scholars have suggested that, although optimism
and pessimism might seem like opposites, in psychological terms they do not
function in this way. Having more of one does not mean you have less of the
other. The factors that reduce one do not necessarily increase the other. On
many occasions in life we need both in equal supply.
Antonio Gramsci famously called for ``pessimism of the
intellect, optimism of the will'': the one the spur to action, the other the
resilience to believe that such action will result in meaningful change even in
the face of adversity (Wikipedia 2009).
However, to take decisions that will have an impact in
economic development of the country, the decision-makers need sometimes to be
optimists.
In their broadest sense, policies of economic development
encompass the area of job creation and retention through specific efforts in
business finance, marketing, neighborhood development, small business
development, business retention and expansion, technology transfer, and real
estate development. This category is a primary focus of economic development
professionals (Lewis F. Abbott 2003).
Anne O. Krueger et al. (2009) state that economic development
refers to increases in the standard of living of a nation's population
associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern,
high-income economy. Its scope includes the process and policies by
which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its
people.
1.2. Statement of the problem
Economic development, which is thus essentially economics on a
social level, has evolved into a professional industry of highly specialized
practitioners. The practitioners have two key roles: one is to provide
leadership in policy-making, and the other is to administer policy, programs,
and projects. Their role is to seek out new economic opportunities and retain
their existing business wealth.
There is intense competition between communities, states, and
nations for new economic development projects in today's globalized world, and
the struggle to attract and retain business is further intensified by the use
of many variations of economic incentives to the potential business (Lewis F.
Abbott 2003).
Additionally, the use of community profiling tools and
database templates to measure community assets versus other communities is also
an important aspect of economic development. Job creation, economic output, and
increase in taxable basis are the most common measurement tools. When
considering measurement, too much emphasis has been placed on economic
developers for not creating jobs. However, the reality is that economic
developers do not typically create jobs, but facilitate the process for
existing businesses and start-ups to do so. Therefore, the economic developer
must make sure that there are sufficient economic development programs in place
to assist the businesses achieve their goals.
One of under-developed countries' characteristics is that they
like to live by aids coming from outside. They spend several millions of francs
in conferences while pronouncing promising speeches but don't do nearly
anything. Moreover, many have the badly targeted programs and false priorities
that divert the rare funds from development promotion programs.
Rwanda is not away from these dishonoring traditions. It
essentially lives by aids from foreign countries and a big number of
development projects meets numerous obstacles so that it is necessary to be
optimistic to think about achieving them.
Obstacles to the economic development of Rwanda are mainly
social; the mindset of the population doesn't facilitate the innovation in
various domains. From an artistic point of view, the problem is serious. The
situation becomes even worse when one approaches the topic of Comic Strips
(CS).
Therefore, the problem being investigated in this study is
that an artist ``script-writer and drawer'' determined to turn his skills into
business, had the opportunity to initiate a project of historical, satirical
and half-realistic CS from American style, but met various obstacles. Some
individuals get across the author's path, advancing the reasons that his
project doesn't have any importance, others (with mistaken ideology) tell lies
about Rwandans and assert that they are not mature enough to achieve such
projects, others want merely to accentuate the bad culture of antagonism among
Rwandan people.
Indeed, it is not about succeeding after crushing others, but
to succeed all together. To be optimistic, it is what a large number of
Rwandans misses to initiate the process of development.
The researcher, therefore, is interested in optimism of
Rwandan people and economic development of their country taking the project of
CS done by A.Z.C. as a case study.
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