Cultural Diversions
Consumed by guilt over our good fortune to have been born to freedom and the leisure to pursue our educational, social and professional goals, to enrich ourselves in very conceivable way in an atmosphere of opportunity, we look back at other parts of the world we describe as "have-not" and succumb to unease and guilt. We are eager as a consequence to dispense supplementary wealth to assuage our collective consciences, enjoying the relief that ensues from making an effort to help others.But it's a really tough thing to do; to transfer large sums of funding to the governments of other countries in the hopes that one's generosity will effectively result in improvement in the fortunes of the country and the people it represents. All the more so when far too often the recipients of grants, funding, investment, have long been accustomed to graft and corruption benefiting their politically exalted positions within the country. Tradition. Social precedents.
Human nature seen at its most questionable. Those very people elevated to positions of responsibility to their country, their culture, their society take unto themselves goods and funding meant to assist the country and its population. It's endemic, not an occasional lapse in judgement. It's part and parcel of the social and cultural baggage of entire states. It's deplorable, but it's also the reality of human nature.
Take HIV/AIDS in Africa, for example. Billions of dollars in aid have been rendered to Africa through private enterprise and public taxes. The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS has brought aboard corporations worldwide. The United Nations' erstwhile emissary, the redoubtable Stephen Lewis, has done his best to fuel this burden of guilt and its resultant waterfall of donations.
Some critics such as Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations has delivered an analysis of the AIDS "industry" and its impact on global health programmes. She points out that kleptocratic creatures of the state along with a virtually absent infrastructure to deal with the problems at first-hand is resulting in the donor cash having little-to-no result.
Inefficient bureaucracy sops up huge amounts of donor cash; just desserts in response to the benevolent concern of outsiders. But it's the vast wasteland of simple corruption that consumes the bulk of the funding. Do-good funding transferred in good faith, in blind acceptance that good will be done for those who desperately need help. Blown to the winds, to the deep and eager pockets of corrupt politicians and other self-serving agents of deception.
And then of course there are other cultural effects; those high-ranking elites within African countries who seem to believe that HIV/AIDS does not represent a problem within their populations, and others who want to spread the real truth, that the viral agents responsible for these calamitous diseases were deliberately spread by evil whites. Even those who eventually buy into the desperate truth aren't often sufficiently interested to apprise themselves of safe practise.
And let's not forget the trickle-down culture where as in any poverty-ridden society the bottom rung are the women and the children. All the hardships, the anguish are magnified exponentially and settle comfortably among the most helpless in the society, those who are seen as fair prey by their male counterparts. African males who celebrate any opportunities they make for themselves to enrich the number of their conquests, paying little to no heed of whom they infect.
Arican males who harbour the outlandishly infantile belief that a cure for HIV/AIDS is to have sex with a virginal child. Shouldn't responsible heads of countries identify cause and effect, make strenuous efforts to ensure that the issues are fully understood by the community at large? Insist that one-half of the population responsible for deadly-errant behaviour in the spread of the disease take themselves in hand or risk punishment?
Isn't it incumbent on a responsible administration to make reasonably effective efforts leading toward the country's infrastructure improvement - build clinics, hospitals, disseminate practical and honest information to the population, encourage their medical professionals to honour their humanitarian responsibilities to their countries of birth rather than respond to the siren call of earning more money abroad?
Develop a culture of abstention and responsibility to self and others. Take personal ownership of responsibility for the good of the whole, let alone oneself.
Too much to ask?
Labels: Human Fallibility
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, February 01, 2007
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