Good Idea .... bad idea

I got a copy of the MakePovertyHistory booklet yesterday when I went to Virgin to buy some new cd’s.

Now, as someone who grew up in sub-Sahara Africa and lived there until six years ago before relocating to the UK, I think that this is the biggest load of old tosh I have ever heard off. Along with the shock headlines reading “Africa worse off than 20 years ago!” it honestly makes me insanely angry.

I think what they are doing, all these concerts to abolish poverty is admirable (sic), drawing the attention of the world to the plight of those less fortunate than them and encouraging people to spend money on different coloured armbands (which are made in sweatshops, but we won’t talk about that) to abolish poverty.

Applauds madly! Good on you lot. Throw money at the corrupt governments so that they can buy more bullet proof cars, tanks, guns, Evian water to bath in, send their kids to Swiss boarding schools, charter airplanes for those crucial Caribbean holidays in the sun, houses for their fifteen wives, thirty children…get the idea????

I was chatting with someone here at work, whose father is from South Africa. He (work colleague) was fortunate enough to have grown up on both sides of the fence and agrees wholeheartedly that instead of lobbing money at something, we should instead use that to set up a proper infrastructure that will cut through red tape to ensure that the money goes to the people who need it or, who will be able to convert it into usable objects/structures which will benefit those in need. Things desperately needed such as schools, hospitals, clinics and further education so that local people can be trained to help those in their own country. Corruption needs to be called to a halt and dictators need to be replaced and governments need to be sorted out so that they can deal with what is currently happening in their own countries, which have fantastic resources, instead of looking for handouts.

When are the people (Europe and America) going to realise that all the guilt-money (to make up for colonisation and then mucking it up when leaving) they lob at the problem to assuage their guilt, doesn’t get to the grassroots which is where it is meant to go to? What happened to those tonnes of food that was sent to those in desperate need when those tsunamis hit? Nothing – it sat on the tarmacs and rotted away. What happened to all the water that was sent, the money? The clothes, the blankets..everything? Tied up in red tape, it was sold on the black market, it never reached its end-destination, it was stolen, lost somewhere … It was a very noble cause with a very bad outcome.

So until someone can magically cut through red tape and get things done on the ground level, this money and aid will just once again disappear into the ether and no one will remember about it for another twenty years until headlines once again scream “Twenty years on and Africa is even worse off than before.” And old Geldof will get his zimmer frame out and once again arrange a concert.

I don’t think I am being cynical – it is being honest and realistic! Something daydream believers can’t cope with.