"Something must be done, even if it doesn't work." --Bob Geldof

According to Gethin Chamberlain, writing in The Scotsman today, there are plenty of things that would work for Africa but won't be done, at least in part because of the very people who demand that THINGS BE DONE for Africa. For example,

What Africa could do with right now is a massive programme of work on its infrastructure - on roads, electricity and water. Tackle those and everyone has a chance. What if you could really persuade the G8 to address those problems? Would all the demonstrators agree with the solution?

Take electricity. Most African villages have no power source. Providing one would need a massive programme of power- station construction. Nuclear? Many of Saturday's protesters would blanch at the prospect. Coal-fired? The climate change lobby would not be happy. Oil? The Chinese are already working overtime to get their hands on as much of the continent's supplies as they can.

So here's how the argument goes, something needs to be done, but only the things that won't work, not the things that will work, because we don't like them or aren't interested in them or they'd piss somebody off, and if we don't do the things that won't work, continuing poverty in Africa is our fault, and if we do the things that won't work and they don't work, continuing poverty in Africa is our fault. Got it, America? Well, get on the stick.

H/t Lucianne

BTW: With an investment of less that 20K, the Presbyterian Church of Urbana, IL, provided close to 100 wells to people in Malawi who had no previous access to safe drinking water. The same investment, provided on a government to government basis, would have disappeared without a trace.

Comments

[Jake]

The White Man's Burden
Rudyard Kipling, 1899

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

[gail]

Dear old Kipling. Have you seen The Man Who Would Be King? One of my favorite movies. Christoper Plummer makes a perfect Kipling.

[Jake]

Yes. I've seen the movie.. as a matter of fact I was wondering what movie I should get at Blockbuster.. Now I'm thinking 'The Man Who Would Be King' and 'Blue Velvet'... Thanks for the idea.

"something must be done even if it doesnt work"! what a ridiculous statement and we are supposed to take this person seriously?

[gail]

Who was that? Sorry about the sign-in problems,but everybody wants to know who's talking.

[Jake Jake Jake Jake]

I think Lord Sir Bob Geldof was just making an awkward attempt to say "Time to either fish or cut bait".. or "Lead, follow or get out of the way" or "shit or get off the pot".. or some such inspired words...

[CraigC]

"something must be done even if it doesnt work"!

One of my favorite quotes ever. It should be immortalized in the pantheon of stupid liberal quotes. It could be a running gag that could be used in almost any situation to illustrate the essential unseriousness of liberals.

This is the liberal worldview writ large.

[CraigC]

And the thing that's left unspoken there is, "Because it makes me feel good about myself because I'm trying, and even if it's totally useless, it makes me a better person than you are."

[Bob]

There is such a chilling irony about the continent where man was born seems to be heading towards the first continent where man will die off. I once wrote a not very good poem off this theme.

[gail]

It's terribly, terribly sad. A family from Malawi attended my husband's church for a number of years while the mom and dad were in grad school. They returned to Malawi and both took important positions in the government, but when the dad developed kidney trouble and needed a transplant, he couldn't get it done -- because the government of Malawi didn't provide even catastrophic health insurance. The Presbyterian Church of Urbana had to take up a collection and pay for the guy's new kidney. Unfortunately, he died not long after that.

[gail]

The infuriating thing is that everyone knows what sorts of things DO work. They just don't get done because it requires doing end runs around the corrupt bureaucrats that run the countries. (Botswana is an outstanding exception to the rule -- they're a model of good government and really starting to prosper.)