Message-ID: <0.97757f74.256bf45b@aol.com> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 08:44:59 EST From: mailto:AXEOXALA@AOL.COM Subject: Re: The Life in Africa Foundation -- seeking microfinance stories To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
In a message dated 11/22/99 10:09:11 AM Eastern Standard Time, mailto:kthompson@partners.ca writes:<< Are either of you Africans?! Who is claiming to speak for whom? Getting
case stories circulated and seeking to build on best practices in development work is useful. It will take all of us working together, not just Africans, to create an equitable and peaceful world. Do you really think this kind of arguing advances anyone's agenda? >>
We are not talking about some we are the world type statement about creating "an equitable and peaceful world." "Best Practices" is useful, but the best practice has to be Africans able to function on their own. Why is that idea so threatening?
When one talks about women's issues, the point is rarely lost that it is NOT sufficient if men handle women's problems for them. It is clearly stressed that women must be able to be functional - men can support such an environment, but they are not expected to control the 'best practices' in that area. So why is it different for Africa? Is the idea that Africans cannot have control over their own issues, and they need to be helped - protected, taught, herded, etc., - so ingrained that any hint that when problems arise that they be the primaries to solve them is immediately seen as strange?
Can we guess that you are not African, and therefore cannot understand the importance of autonomy and the need for primacy on one's issues? Have you any clue of the issues and impacts of inferiority, paternalism, lack of autonomy and decision-making? Consider it like going from father to husband, never being one's own. Do you know the sense given when lack of control of one's issues has gone from a colonial power to the more benevolent, but not sufficiently less controlling "aiders" and "helpers" who like the colonizers feel that Africans aren't capable on their own? Are you aware of the demeaning experience of seeing the autonomy that other nations have being nonexistent for your own country, that NGOs have in some cases greater power than your own government.
Autonomy is okay unless it is from the "savers"? It is paternalism (maternalism) in its exact form - I care so very very much for you Africans and I want to make a just world, create a good habitat for you to live in, and like fish in a tank I will forever care for you and I will forever protect you, nurture, feed you, adjust the temperature of the water, and you will be okay because I will take care of you, teach you to do tricks when I feed you so I can take pictures and show the entire world that I am a wonderful, caring, loving person because I have devoted my life to caring for you.
What is the impact on a people when the typical paradigm is that everyone who looks like you is "incapable," but those who don't look like you will "save" you? What does that do to one's sense of culture, society? What impact would it have on a little girl to see only the men handling solutions and women waiting for the men to solve them?
I understand, both intellectually and emotionally, those issues and can indeed speak with a personal stake in them. They are not going to fade away and are too crucial to be ignored just because people like yourself don't think they are important.
These issues are continuously discussed, but many are not be aware of the discussion because Africans do understand that just like colonial authorities, the "aid" givers do not want to hear conversations about African desires and goals for autonomy over their lives, their nations, their issues because it threatens their position, their sense of control over them. The "aid" givers do indeed grow emotionally attached that they will save the world, bringing justice for all.
However, they forget that Africans are not pets that you save from the shelter. If you are so moved to "save" them, because they are people you must give them the respect to understand that the best practice is not perpetual paternalism. If I help a man that is starving, I want to see him function on his own. I don't have any desire for the sense of power that I will save him each day of his life by having him come to me each day for food, so each day I can feel like a saviour.
Those who can't understand this, probably won't ever do so. And that is their handicap. I refuse to be cowed on this issue by whatever number of "aid givers" who are so threatened that they howl.
Sure, you like the "exotic" locations, maybe even dating the local men and women (or both), you collect nice pieces of art, 'local culture', you feel very worldly and pick up the languages, have friends with 'ethnic" names, while feeling very "open" unlike some of your relatives, others of your tribe, who wonder why you go to those strange places and deal with those strange foreign people, but you proudly say "they need me," - but remember, these are people who have lives in which THEY need to be "primary".
A whole industry dependent upon the continued weakness, suffering and overall dependence of others.
Yet, even the Red Cross and FEMA have to leave Florida sometimes. If your house caught on fire, once the firefighters put the fire out, do you want them hanging on for weeks and weeks afterwards, telling you how to behave in your own house?
Granted, addressing this topic in this forum of "aid givers" is like discussing "economic justice" in a forum of corporatists.
But remember, while you have your discussions about how to "develop" Africa, contrary to those who want to exploit the "third world," those "third worlders" are having their own discussions on how to exist without you. The question is how to be grateful for the assistance, while trying to protect against your desire to be a permanent presence.
As someone brought up to me in private mail, any of you ever read "Lords of Poverty?"
I kind of prefer sitting in on the corporatists discussions, rather than the "givers" discussions, because at least the corporatists are honest about what they want to do and they don't annoy with "but please, we want to help you, take care of you."
"to create an equitable and just world," okay now I am nauseous, time to stop reading before it gets worse.
Sounds like it should go on a poster, or perhaps as the objective statement on superman's resume (or on that of development "specialists").
Nicole