Live 8
Aug 4, 2005 Print This Post
//MOOD: Hmmmm
//ITUNES: “Hurt” – Nine Inch Nails
Just read an interesting post from a missionary in Kenya about the Live 8 concerts, etc. It was interesting because I am teaching on James 1 this weekend and have been thinking about what this verse means in this day and age:
James 1:27 Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.
This verse keeps flying around in my head:
Matthew 26:11 For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.
I have been waffling in my head on the Live 8 thing as well as the “Make Poverty History” deal. My friend Matt had a good post on it recently as well.
Anyway, you can read the whole post from the missionary here. For now, here are a few excerpts:
I have heard a lot about the Live 8 Concerts held earlier this month. It seems to have caught more attention in the West than here in Africa. I guess that is why I didn’t really spend much time thinking about whether it was a good idea or not. However, over the last month I have collected a few good articles on the topic of Live 8 and Poverty in Africa and I thought I would post a few that seem to coincide with what I am hearing Africans say.
Quoting Andrew Bolt:
Live 8 shows of superstars such as Madonna and Mariah Carey will feed a dangerous fantasy — that Africa’s squalor is caused by Western selfishness. They will also pamper to a generation of slackers by promising all they need do to end Africa’s misery is bully our politicians into sending a cheque of someone else’s money.
Africa does need help, of course. What a disaster the continent has been. Living standards of sub-Saharan Africa have dropped over the past four decades, AIDS has decimated countries such as Swaziland, and civil wars still rage on…
The official Live 8 demands — endorsed by the Blair Government – seem simple: “This without doubt is a moment in history where ordinary people can grasp the chance to achieve something truly monumental, and demand from the eight world leaders at G8 an end to poverty.”
An end to poverty? How? “By doubling aid, fully cancelling debt, and delivering trade justice for Africa.”
Notice how none of the solutions involve African countries doing much themselves? But this always was more about us than them. What a terrible fraud. ..
the harsh fact is Africa got $530 billion in aid between 1960 and 1997, and wound up poorer, not richer. Double the aid, and we may do no more than double the waste and the thieving.
Let Kenya be a warning. The British High Commissioner there, Sir Edward Clay, has publicly accused corrupt officials of “vomiting on the shoes of donors”, and named 20 big public projects riddled with graft. In February, the US Ambassador, William Bellamy, backed him, saying the money stolen in one of those projects could have paid for enough anti-retroviral drugs for every HIV-positive Kenyan for the next 10 years. He warned the US already gave Kenya $200 million a year in aid, and “more donor money is not the answer”. Kenya had to sell its bloated state enterprises and “either fight corruption of be overwhelmed by it”…
Help we should, but only to help Africa help itself.
Open up trade, yes, but tie aid to real reform, as the US now tries through its Millennium Challenge Account.
Not glamorous or fast, but, with luck, effective…
Africa is not poor because we are rich. It is not enslaved because we are free. Africa is poor because of its vices, not our virtues.
Food for thought.
August 8th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Did you see the follow-up post on July 20th due to a response he received from another missionary? The writer Bolt links to in that follow-up provides a much wider perspective through five essays that examine in some more detail issues of ‘western’ corruption and the effects of aid/debt cancellation in countries other than just Kenya. I agree with this statement he made: “Unfortunately, people tend to reduce such arguments to either/or, when it is both-and.” I don’t believe the troubles in Africa are all ‘our’ fault or all ‘their’ fault.
I think in his initial piece, Bolt overlooks a lot of history that is relevant to the situation at hand. For starters, there’s the slave trade period. Then there was the subsequent colonization following the 1885 Berlin Conference. Selfish, “ends justify means” US Cold War policy of funding militaristic, dictatorships or power-consolidating regimes (like in Iraq…) is also a factor to be considered. Environmental conditions, farming policies, women’s roles, etc. Keith does touch on some of these, but I think even his just spots the iceberg for us . . .
This reminds me of the class I took a few years ago on Africa while at MSU. Initially I thought it would be stupid, but it turned out to be very interesting and helped reveal a lot I didn’t know about my own attitudes toward Africa and those generally held by the society I live in at large (even why I assumed it would be stupid from the outset). The textbook from that class Understanding Contemporary Africa seemed to do a great job of introducing me to Africa — what exactly it is, who the many different people can be there, and the many perspectives on why. I still have it, actually.
August 8th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Always good to be reminded to have balance. Thanks for that, Travis.
I would love to borrow that book from you some time. Sounds like a great read and probably timely, as well.
August 8th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
yeah good comment Travis.
August 18th, 2005 at 10:24 am
The situation in Africa is not more unfathomable than the existance and prevalence of the societal and economic negatives of misery, poverty (relative and absolute), substance misuse, indivudal dislocation, in the “rich and developed” worlds.
It may be as intractable as the above issues sitting next to the seats of global power and material wealth and supposed monopoly on “solutions”.
Relatively we are all the same.
It is not a question of blame but an issue of roles and the effect of actions deliberate or not well intentioned or not.
A majority of power and economic base from which peopel speak from was acquired from universally morally reprehensible methods – currently and for correct reasons denied others.
is it “deny unto others what you would deny yourself”?
Look comparatively at home first, in your cities and neighbourhoods. Then with less absolutism look out. You may than have something you can bring – a serious new relationship model, because that is what is needed to curb the excesses talked of in Africa at all levels and where you are outside Africa.