Should the west try to ‘save’ the third world?

And other questions of a politically incorrect nature.

So, I’ve been reading The Rainmaker, by Michael Martin. In the book, a young, brilliant female engineer (the aptly named JC) is invited to implement an ambitious irrigation project in the fictitious African country of Adi Baran. In the arid eastern area of the country, the starving populace live and starve in squatters’ camps, surviving more or less on aid deliveries. JC, accompanied by her love-struck best friend MJ, sets out to bring a sustainable solution, supported by cashed-up international donors. However, JC’s instability and the conflicting values of local politicians spell trouble for the fledgling project.

Which made me think about the whole deal of Western aid projects and such.

You could, for instance, take the view that Western donors shouldn’t be marching into African countries building dams and so on, and whatever ensues is a result of Western hubris. One thinks of World Bank projects gone awry and suchlike.

Or you could argue that these things are inevitably fucked up by the endemic corruption of African government and society, and that this – in its turn – is the result of colonial imperialism. If we hadn’t they wouldn’t be and so on and so forth.

Or you could say, no, it’s just that ‘Western’ notions of progress don’t fit into African nations’ ideas about what matters and who matters. And who doesn’t. Mind you anyone who has watched politicians almost openly bribing their electorate with promised carparks and sporting facilities, etc (here in Australia we call it pork barrelling) or giving their friends coveted posts in the diplomatic service would have to admit that African politicians don’t have dibs on tribalism and corruption.

It is a funny (well no, tragic) thing that intervention in Africa, for good or ill, rarely seems to work out well. Assassinating democratically elected presidents (Patrick Lumumba in Congo) aside, there’s patented seeds and other agricultural products of dependence, dams that screw up river systems, deforestation, the generous contributions of our arms industries to African conflicts, blah blah blah. And no matter how much food we donate, some part of Africa seems perpetually starving and/or fleeing. Is it the nature of Africa to be how Africa is (due to the influence of geography, culture or, more dangerous to argue, genetics) or a result/continuation of Western exploitation? Or a combination of both? Recall that there was a time when Romans must have said to themselves of the British, ‘Doesn’t matter what you do for these bloody northern barbarians, they’ll still piss in the balnearium and paint themselves blue. We give them roads, laws, public toilets,’ such a Roman might have said, ‘And are they grateful? The fuck they are!’

I’ve never been to Africa, but it’s seemed to me, on visiting India, that the average Indian is pretty annoyed by the power structures that keep the poor in their mud huts and the rich in their nightclubs. Most of us, everywhere, are, but find ourselves unable to do much about it. But the more glaring the distinction is, the more ignorant the deprived masses and the more complacent the one percent, the more that country will start to fall into moral decay – at both ends. People are inclined to the good but when millionnaires wallow, the upper middle class congratulates itself on its well-earned good fortune and beggars lie down to die in the street, people learn to care less about each other. Or so my theory goes.

Anyway, The Rainmaker is an interesting exploration, not only (or even mainly) for the questions it raises about attempts to ‘do good’ in third world countries, but of the relationship between the gifted but troubled JC and her friend MJ, with her self-destructive crush on the heroine of the hour. I found the novel well written and thought provoking. You can download it free here.