Extracted from NGOs and the victim industry, by Bernard Hours
“The ideology behind humanitarian aid depends on three principles. There must be universal human rights – a worthy premise, but problematic. You create victims whom you can save. Then you assert the right to have access to these victims.
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In one way or the other, we are all, with significantly less physical distress, victims of the media, too.
When a person is labeled as something long enough, it is easy for him/her to truly believe in the label. I am afraid we have already labeled Africans as the victim for long enough that they have accepted that as fact. Some of them believe their saviors lie somewhere out there.
“I will not work.” said Meki, a 19-year-old street kid orphaned 3 years ago, who has come to Arusha and been living on the streets since then. “I want education. Someone is going to sponsor me, I know it. Some foreigners!”
“Of the seven years that I have been on the street,” Mohammed recalled, “there was only one time that a foreigner dropped me a hundred US dollar bill.” Regretting becoming a street boy, “I am afraid the foreigners are not as generous as my friend who brought me to the streets told me.” Even though he suffers on the street, he doesn’t know any other way to make enough money to help his single mother.
Some kids make between 2 to 5 thousand shillings (roughly 2-5 dollars) a day, while a farmer on average makes about 3.
Poverty is a problem. But perhaps on our way to tackle that we have created an extra, tangible industry. An industry that does not require government intervention; in fact, it strives better as long as the government ignores the issue.
Here in Tanzania (reasonably the whole Africa) everyone endorses Obama. Kenya made the day after the election - Happy Obama Day - a public holiday. T-shirts with the word Obama floods the streets of Arusha.
The world, at least the one around me, celebrates this historical event. And of course, now we all look forward to what kind of change this next president of the United States could do…
Today, when I was driving down the street in Suzi, a police officer pulled us over. He ordered my passenger to get off the car, and climbed into it himself - a clear sign of bribe-seeking. He told me that Suzi’s hand break was not working, before he even examined it (and, to his disappointment, the hand break does work). He asked for my driver’s license, and I gave him my Californian one (for lacking an international one).
“Obama!” Cheered the police officer. A little handshake. “I can find other mistakes in your car if I want, but for Obama, I’ll let you go.”
Before entering his office in January, Barack Obama is already easing the corrupt situation of law-enforcing officials in East Africa.
Yes, we totally can.
