The View from Here
I am heartily sick of the cult of celebrity, and all the baggage it hauls with it. That so many people worship at the alter of this quasi-21st-century version of royalty (possibly even theism) is degrading to the spirit of cerebral functioning, of intelligent values.
I am heartsick at the dilemma of African poverty. That vast, diverse and resource-rich continent whose people appear to be destined to live forever in a stench-ridden cauldron of deprivation. Yet within that population exists a relative handful of cunning, venal egotists whose sole purpose and pleasure in life appears to be the plunder of their country, leaving their countrymen to a daily struggle with disease, deprivation and death.
Odd that the two are now so fatefully linked. Is there that much difference between the celebrities who vaunt their fame, prodding the rest of us to pony up, while they lend the lustre of their names to an effort which, when fully examined, turns out to be an enterprise of self- advertisement that no amount of publicity could possibly equal - and the corrupt dictators who rule that direly wasted continent?
How much of their vast personal fortunes have the world's celebrities who are so eager to excoriate and exhort the rest of us to cough up more and yet more of our own meagre earnings to the cause of African relief given to this selfsame cause? Why don't we know? Why don't we ask? Why do we accept, blindly, that it is enough for these celebrities to lend their names and their fame to their perceived counterpart of western government aid to third world countries in need, and not ask of them to also put their money where their self-adulatory mouths are?
The wealthy developed countries of the world have poured billions of dollars in aid to those parts of the world whose development has been arrested and many of those same countries, India, China, Vietnam, Korea, have managed to pull themselves into positions of economic feasibility, giving their populations decent standards of living. Not so with Africa where one country after another has suffered from the limitless personal greed of its rulers. The African Union itself estimates that Africa loses up to $148 billion each year to corruption. Its leaders are unwilling to singly and collectively ameliorate the dreadful conditions their people live in. Corruption has become the lingua franca of these countries' rulers and ruling classes. Almost without exception these leaders become Mercedes-Benz-driving, palace-building, psychopaths, eager only to build up their personal reserves while spurning the need of the African masses whose existence is a daily struggle in futility.
Western countries have forgiven billions of dollars in debt to those scant few African countries which have demonstrated a willingness to make meaningful changes, to keep corruption to a minimum, to attempt to provide clean drinking water, education, medical services to their populations. The vast majority of leaders of African countries remain dedicated to spiriting monetary aid out of their countries into their personal Swiss bank accounts, into the purchase of properties abroad, registered slyly, but in their names. Why, the intelligent observer might enquire, should western countries remain dedicated to African relief, when it has been and continues to be a figment of hope, and in reality aid remains elusive to the poor underclasses who live the most dire of existences?
Could there be a more heartless quandary than this? Could it be possible that Western countries make a physical presence in these countries of need, and themselves oversee the introduction of needed infrastructures to provide the bare and basic necessities of life for millions of disenfranchised Africans? Screams of imperialism would abound from those same African leaders who demand the cancellation of debt, and that Western countries give more aid. They are fully capable of development they assert, as they revel in the status quo.
Enough, enough. Wealthy industrialized countries will continue to do the best they can, but the aid they profer is meaningless as long as they are not themselves willing to audit the results. The very ineptitude of the wealthy West in offering aid but not following up, and accepting the fallout is also at fault. Better, far better, if these governments handed over working funds to NGOs with a proven track record of being on site and utterly devoted to the work at hand, which is to better the lives and lifestyles of those who need it most; the millions upon millions of impoverished, disease-ridden, uneducated Africans. And while they're at it, these wealthy governments should just stop their tired and fruitless subsidies to their own farmers and industries if they're really serious about giving Africa and Africans a hand up.
Tough times require tough decisions. If the west cannot persuade the African Union to get tough themselves on their member states, if corrupt African leaders persist in their corrupt feather-bedding to the vile detriment of their countries and countrymen, then bypass them and if we're really serious about giving that hand up, then do it via dependable aid agencies and give the African Union, African leaders the cold shoulder. It's about time.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 06, 2005
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