When in doubt, sneer. That’s the motto of Western culture in the early 21st century. A mood of low, jeering pessimism is slathered over every topic that comes along: You can’t trust anyone, they’re all crooks and liars, nothing will ever change. The Make Poverty History campaign has confused the keepers of this culture. Millions of privileged Westerners have spontaneously announced that they refuse to live in a world where 50,000 people die every day in Africa simply because they are too poor to stay alive.
They refuse to accept a trading system that is rigged in favor of the rich and strangles African industries in their infancy. They refuse to accept that we spend more on pet food than on aid to Africa, or that three billionaires now hold more wealth than the poorest 800 million people on earth, or that the equivalent to 6,000 attacks on the World Trade Center happens in Africa because of poverty every year.
And they are prepared to do something about it: Write and fight and protest and shout. This doesn’t fit the script, guys. Where’s the self-interest? What’s to jeer at? This senseless outburst of decency has produced months of confusion in the media. They were forced to explain quite complex and urgent policies with a straight, uncynical face. You could hear the sighs of relief when the pessimists found their angle over the past week. Drum-roll please: Even if the campaign succeeds completely — full debt cancellation, doubling of aid, a fair trading system — it won’t make any difference! It’ll just mean more money for the Mugabes. Tsk! Dumb naive lefties.
Whenever somebody says this to you, there’s a simple one-word answer: Tanzania.
In 2001 — thanks to the Jubilee 2000 campaign — the country was given a hefty chunk of debt relief, on the condition that the proceeds were used for education, health and HIV/AIDS. At the same time, the British government significantly increased aid. So, was it all squandered on corrupt officials? Not quite; 1,925 primary schools have been built, and 37,261 new teachers have been employed. The number of children at primary school has nearly doubled, and next year, for the first time, every child in Tanzania will receive a primary school education. An entire generation of children has been given the power of literacy by Africans on the ground and the campaigners in the West who sided with them.
Now they can read and write, the children of Tanzania will transform their country and their region. Only now — after aid — is it possible for them to seriously discuss trade; you can’t trade when your people are illiterate, innumerate, diseased and starving. So the right aid works. Debt relief works. As with the anti-slavery campaigns of the 18th century, it is possible for people separated by oceans and continents to support each other and force their governments to do the right thing. Ah, the cynics say, but billions of pounds of aid have already been hurled at Africa since World War II — the equivalent to six Marshall Plans — and still poverty is rampant.
What’s the flaw in this argument? Well, most of this budget wasn’t humanitarian aid at all; it consisted of Kissingerian bribes to Cold War allies — including the most evil tyrants — to stay “on side” and maintain bases. (There are worrying signs that aid may drift in this direction again during the “war on terror”; check out the massive increases in so-called aid to Pakistan). The cynics do not distinguish between this fake aid and real aid. Nor do they distinguish between aid that works and aid that doesn’t. Picture this story as a trashy Channel Five documentary: When Good Aid Goes Bad. If you want to know why our aid often goes bad, look to the two great Western dogmas: Christian fundamentalism and market fundamentalism. Few people even in Europe have understood quite how deeply America’s aid donations have been poisoned by extremely right-wing Christian dogma since 2000.
Since Bush became president, US aid money has been used to assault and undermine the providers of condoms and abortions in countries dying of AIDS and lack of access to family planning. If you are an organization in Africa seeking a single dollar of US funds, you have to agree that — across your entire organization — you will sign up to the evangelical agenda. You must never mention abortion as an option, even to the victims of rape in war-zones.
You must never “promote promiscuity” by handing out condoms or vigorously promoting their use. Instead, you must instruct the natives about abstaining from sex before marriage. I am actually quite glad Blair failed to persuade Bush to donate more aid last week; it is better to have no money than to have money with these insane and counter-productive conditions.
The British aid budget is thankfully free of superstition. But don’t get too smug: When it comes to America’s other fundamentalism, Britain is an eager supporter. Too often, poor countries can only receive aid if they agree to conditions laid down from the High Temples of market fundamentalism, the IMF and World Bank. If you want money for schools and hospitals, you have to agree to undemocratically privatize great chunks of your economy (even the parts that are working perfectly well, thank you very much) and allow much of your economy to be run by remote bankers with a disastrous track-record. This can contaminate even the best aid programs.
Let’s go back to Tanzania. In return for the amazing advances in schooling, the British government demanded the privatization of the water supply. The result? As many people predicted, water supplies ran chronically short last summer, and the charity ActionAid warns: “There is already evidence that poor households are now shifting toward unsafe water sources, with serious consequences for their families’ health.” Of course markets are an essential tool among many to achieve development, but blindly promoting markets as the answer to every problem is absurd. So is the solution — as the cynics urge — to shrug and assume that aid, trade and debt relief will never work? Only if every time you see a dangerous driver, you argue for the banning of all cars. When it comes to aid, there are two fights right now. One is for a massive increase in funds. The second — just as important — is to ensure that aid is not conditional on accepting Western dogmas.
The revolution in Tanzania’s primary schools show why we must fight the first battle; the collapse in Tanzania’s water supply shows why we must fight the second. Oh, by the way, if it took you three minutes to read this column, 60 children have died as you skimmed through, simply as a result of starvation or the preventable diseases of poverty. There’s 60 reasons why pouring the acid of apathy and cynicism over this debate is despicable.
