Σάββατο 13 Οκτωβρίου 2018

Sweet Poison: The Dark Side Of The International Aid Business


Note of our blog: We do not question the good intentions of the people who are fighting for Africa. Moreover, this is what the Orthodox missionaries do. But surely Africa must be freed from the need for help from the Western (capitalist) World. This is the world that exploits it.



Journeyman Pictures

Half a trillion dollars have been spent on the international aid machine in the last 50 years and it just keeps on pumping. It's an industry that's unquestionable and supported by the world's biggest celebrities; Bono, Bob Geldof, Angelina Jolie ... But recently an increasing number of experts have begun to criticise the giving game. This doc dissects the aid industry and reveals some difficult home truths about 'Aid as Business' in the Third World.

Like mana from heaven the white sacks full of grain fall from the skies onto the dusty plain, as hordes of children run after them. "We'll never get out of a mess like this", an African pastorialist states frankly.

Yet it is not just emergency aid that's under the microscope, long-term development aid projects in Africa have gone badly wrong; muddled thinking, failure and a desire to protect Western interests all undermining efforts. "The factory was useless and the white men were gone. And then the next famine came", a local says, describing what happened when Norwegian aid workers built a fish factory in Turkana. It was an ultra-modern factory, but totally unsuited to local requirements. With not enough electricity or water it closed down after 6 weeks.

Cyclical stories of 'the aid trap', dependency and NGO imperialism abound and it is puzzling how so many countries can commit so many resources to the problem with very little result. And as Professor Mamadou Diawara explains to us the cost of this failure isn't landed on the Westerners: "This money isn't a gift. African countries put themselves in debt."

From an African perspective 50 years of aid history has only one striking conclusion: "Africa is a very rich place. We have enough people... we have enough culture, we have enough natural resources, and in our view, the development of Africa can only be achieved by Africans".
 

You can see also

An Orthodox Christian parish in Turkana desert
Approaching the Turkana tribe
The Orthodox Church in Kenya & the Orthodox Patriarchal Ecclesiastical School of Makarios III

Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa (& the Decolonization of Africa)
The Orthodox African Church (Patriarchate of Alexandria) denounces the exploitation of Africa by contemporary colonialists

The Sins of a Nation
«African needs to be helped, to find his divine roots, for his soul to be at peace, to become united with God...»
 
How “White” is the Orthodox Church?  
Eight principal areas of convergence between African spirituality and Ancient Christianity
The Church as the Liberated Zone: "All we Christians are terrorists..."
The Kingdom of Heaven, where racial discrimination has no place   
"THE WAY" - An Introduction to the Orthodox Faith 

Is capitalism compatible with Orthodox Christianity?
Grace and “the Inverted Pyramid”

 

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