[Via Hit & Run] There’s this fascinating Der Speigel interview with Kenyan economist James Shikwati. Shikwati’s point is one that many of us free-traders in the US have been making for a while: Aid does more harm than good, and African nations would be better served by trading on the world market than relying on handouts from richer countries. He also makes a great point about the difference between building and rebuilding:
Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.
Read the interview for the relative economic points, which he makes with more force and eloquence than I could hope to muster. What strikes me most out of this interview, besides the quite salient points about the sad state of affairs in Africa, is the condescending nature of Der Speigel’s questions. Most of the questions aren’t so much questions as talking points about the good intentions of aid, and I think they make quite obvious that much of the west is less concerned about helping Africans overcome poverty than it is about feeling good about “doing something”. Questions that strike me as quite telling below.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
This isn’t too bad, but it also isn’t a question. Notice that the reporter obviously thinks that aid money is the only way to accomplish the stated goal. Stopping the handouts strikes him as somehow abhorrent. It’s not compassionate, I’d bet.
SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.
Notice that this is a statement, as if it was fact, and that it doesn’t even imply a question. Further, note that the interviewer again assumes that Africans aren’t going or can’t help themselves. Someone obviously has to be exogeneous.
SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn’t do anything, the people would starve.
Translation: “Without our help you poor, backward jackasses would all die in the streets. You need us to support you, you’re incapable of doing it yourselves, and without our charity you’d be nothing.” Needless to say, this is not a particularly productive attitude. If the objective is for a richer Africa, capable of being self-sufficient and prosperous, they damn well better be able to do it themselves.
SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?
No, of course not, Western Europeans are the only people who are capable enough to pull themselves out of eons of poverty and squalor. Europeans are, you know, plain better. Silly backward Africans, they’ll need to be given things for eternity because without support of the west they might never be able to keep starving. How can anybody claim to want to help Africa while at the same time holding an attitude that Africa cannot succeed without outside support because Africans aren’t capable of solving the requisite difficulties? It reminds me of leftists saying, before Afghanistan and Iraq, that “Arabs aren’t ready for democracy.” It struck me as condescending and, frankly, racist then and this strikes me the same way.
SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags …
You see, compassion is enough…no worry that it floods local markets and makes local producers uncompetitive. Nevermind that it, in all liklihood, causes more unemployment and suffering as a result. No, the people doing these things are well intentioned and therefore shouldn’t be questioned. Please.
SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.
The German government doesn’t take pride in actually helping the Africans it claims to want to help, and it doesn’t take pride in seeing people lift themselves out of centuries of warfare and poverty, no, it takes pride in having loads of auditors. Right, so you know exactly who’s getting what from you…but you don’t know (or care, in all probability) what benefit that’s actually having in the region.
This reporter’s questions, and attitude belied by them, make me ill. If you want people to be prosperous, allow them to solve problems on their own. Stop giving men fish, and teach them to fish. Handouts bestow no pride, and those who are wholly dependent upon the charity of others will never have the motivation to do for themselves.
