A Century of Helping Africa

That Charles Dickens was already able to satirize aid to Africa in Bleak House
in the person of Mrs. Jellyby, the woman who busied herself saving Africa while neglecting
her own household, ought to tell us something. The Live8 enthusiasts who entertained millions
over the weekend might be interested to know that Bleak
House was first published in 1853, one hundred fifty years ago.

Niall Ferguson
writes that the policy cocktail of “double aid,
drop the debt and make the trade laws fair” demanded by Bob Geldof will not do a thing to relieve the agony of Africa.
The top three problems “are in fact chronic misgovernment, recurrent civil war and the
high incidence of diseases such as malaria and Aids.”

There is a deep cultural reason why Africa cannot seem to rise above corruption and chaos, and
it was discussed in a remarkable article in 2003 by British psychiatrist and conservative writer
Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal. Here is the money graf where he speaks of his years
working as a doctor in Southern Rhodesia just before it became Zimbabwe:

The young black doctors who earned the same salary as we whites
could not achieve the same standard of living for a very simple reason:
they had an immense number of social obligations to fulfill. They were expected
to provide for an ever expanding circle of family members (some of whom may have
invested in their education) and people from their village, tribe, and province.
An income that allowed a white to live like a lord because of a lack of such
obligations scarcely raised a black above the level of his family.

In other words, Africans still live in extended families and clans where people are
expected to support and assist their blood relatives. When Africans obtain an education and
then a government position they are expected to spread the wealth among their relatives, who
would surely “have condemned them
for failing to obtain on their behalf
all the advantages their official opportunities might provide.”

We westerners are more selfish than Africans. Instead of helping our relatives we say screw them.
Let them get a job.