Kenyan economist James Shikwati’s interview with Der Spiegel, quoted in my column on Tuesday, really ought to be required reading. Here’s another excerpt, about clothing donated to help underdeveloped nations:

Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They’re in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria’s textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

For a similar but more recent perspective, read novelist Uzodinma Iweala’s piece, Stop Trying to ‘Save’ Africa:

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent’s corrupt leaders, warlords, “tribal” conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like “Can Bono Save Africa?” or “Will Brangelina Save Africa?” The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and “civilization.”

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head—because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West’s fantasy of itself.

This is so interesting, everything we do interacts. The global aid networks must start working closely together to gain more effectiveness in the distribution if help!

Given how much energy price is supposedly dependent on Nigeria’s oil and gas pipelines, I think we owe Africa more than used t-shirts.

I still think the best thing we can do for Africa is keep them from becoming overly addicted to a fossil fuel economy.

Speaking of which, I noticed this week’s MTBE settlement did not get well reported in the Times Dispatch.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010430/greider/print

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN0730876720080508

It is all Bush’s fault.

Agree that Darfur is messy and dangerous, and we have no strategic interests there other than to counter yet another extreme Islamist regime.

Moreover, Darfur is not Kenya. Darfur is a military and humanitarian crisis. Kenya is a hotbed of political unrest but stable.  Well, probably not stable. 

Of course Kenya borders Sudan and Rwanda so the unrest is endless. Election disputes, refugees, food riots, tacky orange t-shirts from America…

It would be nice to think that if we just stopped sending over clothing all the unrest would end. Far from it. That would only please some of the militants who see us and other outsiders as interfering and/or interlopers in their own internal squabbles.

One of the many difficulties of aid across the world is that it simply is not safe to be there. From Yahoo 1 hr. ago, a posting that an international aid worker was just killed in No. Kenya.

Fighting over t-shirts perhaps ?  I expect not.

bob,

Well, we COULD try to do something in Darfur but, it’s a lot easier to just donate clothes. Darfur is messy...and dangerous. I mean really...why risk something when we can get the same ego rush just by shipping our old Birdwell Beach Britches oner to Botswanna?

And yes, I still have mine from 1977. Real ones...not those sissy velcro fly ones. They’re up in the attic with my Alva skateboard.

My dad told me in church once that if I didn’t sit still he’d make me do yard work the following Sunday. Next week, while I was helping him rake leaves, it dawned on me that it was as much an excuse for him not to go as it was to teach me a lesson.

He didn’t have any teeth either. He was cremated after he died...all but his false teeth. I buried them between his favorite beagle and my german shepherd. So far they haven’t come back to life.

The teeth, not the dogs.

Save the Negro! In the US we have a suicidal culture that is enslaved to poverty and ignorance--yet we continue to go to Africa to save...someone, anyone. It is not even appreciated. More than likely an evil plot dreamed up by whitey.

My guess is excess clothing is not donated through a sense of “cultural superiority” but because of simple logistics.

Our own textile industry was savaged itself (thank you very much) by cheap imports from third world labor mills and sweat shops to bring us t-shirts for $2 and knit shirts for $4, which if you stop to think of it, and who does, is impossibly cheap.

After we have worn those ill-fitting duds a few times, and seen them shrink in the dryer, we hand them off to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.  Been there, done that.

They in turn have nothing to do with the massive influx of clothing. They can sell jeans at their outlets but a t-shirt is as common as dirt these days.

So they bale them. Yes, assemble them into gigantic bales of cotton clothing, where they are then loaded into container ships bound for China to pick up brand new t-shirts for us. The ships sometimes run empty, but a little stopover in Africa will get rid of some excess apparel.

There they sell for .25 or less. No industry here in America much less Africa can produce the garment for that price. It destroys the African cultural identity to switch from cool dashikis down to tacky striped t-shirts with irreverent logos.

Still, I would much rather destroy a nascent textile industry than mess up their food supply. Done in the name of love not in the name of cultural superiority, but it must be galling and enormously frustrating all the same.

Africans think they have all the problems. Who will save us ?  Out of control celebrities like Brangelina and Bono are a threat to us too. Their sole claim to fame is they look good and entertain, which in the West counts for a lot.  Perhaps this African economist should learn how to entertain.

Then he can torture us too by making us beg for Nigerian oil, by bombarding us with appeals for AIDS medication and appeals to save the starving chimpanzees or the mountain gorillas. Darn good appeals too. I have never seen a gorilla celebrity (some likeness aside) with a big ego or anything less appealing than Brangelina herself, nor do I find those appeals superficial. Not as sexy though.

Oh no wait. This economist writes books. Books we buy. He already is entertaing us. Oh no.

R. Smith… its hard to tell but it is kind of non-sensical.
Does this mean we don’t have to save Darfur anymore ? Actually it reminds me of some thing my mother said at church one time.
It was Christmas and the obligatory poor family was there to get a Xmas dinner. They looked uncomfortable in a middle class Methodist Church. All they wanted was the goodies and get out of there.
My mother commented that it would be nice if the church would buy the woman some teeth to be able to chew the food they were giving her.

“because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West’s fantasy of itself.”

Man...that’s a freakin’ gold mine if ever there was one.

I wonder if Uzo would consider running for mayor of New Orleans.

Is that a racist comment? I can’t keep track anymore.

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