"Dude! Africa!"

I was recently reminded of this article by novelist Uzodinma Iweala. It ran in the WaPo last summer, and my mom actually mailed to me when I was at TASP. I thought of it after hearing that a group of students from my school had gone to lobby Congress for money for the education of children in "developing" countries.

While this may be a worthy cause (although I'm sure Gayatri Spivak would have something to say about the transmission of Anglo-American values through US-funded education systems), I'm absolutely infuriated by the idea that Congress would send ed money to other countries while schools just blocks away from the Capitol are understaffed, dilapidated, and lacking basic resources like clean drinking water and textbooks. But that's not really the point here.

"...There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems...

Two years ago I worked in a camp for internally displaced people in Nigeria, survivors of an uprising that killed about 1,000 people and displaced 200,000. True to form, the Western media reported on the violence but not on the humanitarian work the state and local governments -- without much international help -- did for the survivors. Social workers spent their time and in many cases their own salaries to care for their compatriots. These are the people saving Africa, and others like them across the continent get no credit for their work.

Last [June] the Group of Eight industrialized nations and a host of celebrities met in Germany to discuss, among other things, how to save Africa. Before the next such summit, I hope people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved. Africa wants the world to acknowledge that through fair partnerships with other members of the global community, we ourselves are capable of unprecedented growth."

from "Stop Trying to 'Save' Africa" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301714.html)

I pose this question to you all: which is more important, giving aid (keeping in mind that financial assistance has produced valuable successes as well as miserable failures in many of these contries) or avoiding the development of quasi-colonial dependency in countries receiving it?