July 28, 2007
Stop Trying To 'Save' Africa
Uzodinma Iweala in the Washington Post:
Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the "African" beads around her wrists.
"Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!
My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.
"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.
It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 01:23 AM | Permalink
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quotes
"Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!
My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.
.....
Before the next such summit, I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved.
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"Africa doesn't want to be saved" Tell that to the people in Darfur, Mr. Iweala. They don't care about your silly scruples.
Why do I find this article so distasteful? However clumsy the efforts of western college kids and rock/movie stars might be to help Africa, it's mean spirited to give so little credit to such people, as this author does. At least those college kids are not pathologically self-absorbed; they are preoccupied with improving the plight of others that live in serious poverty and peril. And the clumsy efforts of those college kids sometimes do work: I think the China-Darfur Olympic protest ("Genocide Olympics") has a good chance of succeeding. And yes, it is being promoted by fatuous stars like Mia Farrow. So what if doing charitable work makes you feel good; the author believes this sullies the charity giver. I don't think so. Thinking that it does is sick.
Posted by: rrtucci | Jul 28, 2007 3:41:47 AM
While good intentions may ultimately do good for the intended, the author makes good points about the conceit of intenders.
Posted by: beajerry | Jul 28, 2007 7:21:24 AM
Yes, the Westerners who want to "save Africa" deserve thanks for what they actually accomplish, whatever their motivations might be, but Iweala has a valid point, I think.
Just try to reverse the situation. How would Americans feel if Africa, a much richer (let us suppose) continent, had been sending its people for several centuries to force us to give up our diamonds, coffee, etc., at the cheapest prices they could get, constantly sent missionaries to convert us to their religion, and generally assumed that they were a cut above us as humans because of their skin color and "superior culture"? (I am deliberately omitting mention of the whole slavery issue, since apologists for the West constantly remind us that Africans themselves were deeply implicated in the slave trade.) And now they seem to feel smugly that, with their superior culture and technology, they can pull us out of the ruts which we "poor Americans" have become stuck in and are totally at a loss to deal with ourselves.
The feelings Iweala expresses may be unjustified to some extent, if looked at in a completely rational way, but who of us has not had irrational feelings of hurt pride, suspicions based on histories of bad relationships, etc.? Isn't this perfectly understandable?
Posted by: JonJ | Jul 28, 2007 8:35:07 AM
(regarding the cover)
David Bowie's wife is a fashion model from Somalia. Perhaps it is possible to be fashionable and sincerely concerned about certain troubles in Africa?
Posted by: Jacob | Feb 25, 2008 2:35:26 AM
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