The accusation of racism is a serious one in our society. But that is just the charge UN special envoy Stephen Lewis effectively has made against all of us. Responding to the question "Why does the West ignore Africa?" while speaking at the Canadian Club in Toronto recently, Lewis approvingly quoted Senator Romeo Dallaire's claim that "there is an unacknowledged, subterranean racism at work." Lewis decried the "inexplicable resistance to the Continent and a willingness to find millions of lives expendable." Warming to his theme, he dismissed the West's response as "paralysis, inertia, indifference and passivity." Lewis also bemoaned the failure of "the big multinational corporations, whether in Canada or abroad," to make financial contributions to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
By and large, conservatives don’t march. There are occasional exceptions that make the rule like pro-life demonstrations or England’s revolt of it’s rural population a few years ago, but generally it is the left that commands the streets. There may be several reasons for this. Conservatives tend to be preoccupied with the demands of job and family, they may be generally less extroverted in character and the conservative mind set, to the extent there is one, is less inclined to reduce the complexities of modern society to simplistic ideological paradigms. But one other factor that strikes is the universal, timeless, dogged refusal of leftists to accept any responsibility for the world’s woes, no matter what role they played in causing them. Leftists are not only born without original sin, they never seem to pick up any along the way. They are always the powerless victims of the greed and rapacity of others, unstained by, and oblivious to, the consequences of their actions.
The classic example of this is the support the international left gave Hitler until 1941, now pretty much expunged from a history that records only the valiant, united struggle of "the people" against the twin threats of German fascism and Western capitalism. But there are lots of others, such as denying, turning a blind eye to, or simply ignoring the horror’s of Mao’s China and Castro’s Cuba, destabilizing nascent democracies to the point where authoritarian reactions became inevitable, and blaming multinationals, Thatcher/Reagan and globalization for the abject failures of the welfare state.
They’re at it again with Africa, which has been directly and indirectly guided by leftist thought and influence since the fifties, and which is now by general agreement in a near-terminal, pathological mess. From the early days of colonial retreat, Africa has been largely governed by either the doctrinaire socialist proteges of the likes of Harold Laski or thugs steeped in anti-Western rhetoric, all given much support and tolerance from the left in the name of anti-colonialism and “nation-building”. Superimposed on this world record in sequential mis-governance is a huge trans-national establishment whose central locus is the UN and all its agencies, but which extends to an astounding number of NGO’s, consultants, academics, government aid departments and even popular stars like Bono, Princess Diana and Angelina Jolie. If the Texas oil patch is the metaphor for the influence of multinational capitalism, the African development industry is where the world’s beautiful leftists and their progressive fellow-travelers meet, party and plan.
Stephen Lewis is a spoiled and pompous Canadian socialist who was appointed Canada’s ambassador to the UN back in the eighties (by the Conservatives!) and parlayed it into a series of high-profile activist-for-Africa positions, the last being a UN Special Envoy for AIDS about five or six years ago. Only the naive would think that meant he was supposed to try and help cure or contain AIDS. No, what Stephen was expected to do, and what he proved to be an expert at, was travel throughout Africa being photographed with cute kids in remote villages and give speech after speech lambasting George W. Bush, the United States, the West, Big Pharma, multinational resource companies, churches and whoever else doubted the virtue and wisdom of “the boys”as directly responsible for AIDS in Africa. The notion that he himself had any accountability for a plague that continues to rage and spread would presumably strike him as bizarre and contrary to some leftist version of the doctrine of natural law. That its continuing infliction of untold misery and death just might call all his timeworn, progressive shibboleths into question is simply beyond his ken or that of anyone else in the well-fed, well-paid UN-directed transnational conglomerate.
A more tempered analysis is provided here by Gerald Kaplan, another Canadian socialist with a lifelong history of activism in Africa. The first half is actually pretty good and reads like it may be headed towards that rara avis, honest leftist self-criticism. Kaplan faces up to the depth of the mess and has no time for rock concerts for Africa or other quick fixes. He also drops the astounding figure that there are FORTY THOUSAND branches of NGO aid agencies operating on the continent, and yet things continue to decline fast. But then, just as sure as God made the little green apples, he turns his guns on the good old causes–-colonialism, racism and the secret cabals of African despots, multinationals and Western spooks trying to rape Africa for gold and the glory of their distant homelands.
Anyone who worked in the aid industry in the sixties and seventies, as I did briefly, will know this is pure revisionist fantasy. Africa was the darling of the UN, NGO’s and the Western progressive set, who ensured aid would continue no matter what havoc was wrecked by African leaders or what corruption was evident. They provided endless experts and consultants to help "plan" the African economies, societies, laws, consitutions and just about anything else that needed planning, which of course was everything. In many cases they planned them right into destitution. Never mind military intervention, the idea that aid would be tied to freedom, democracy, the rule of law, human rights or any kind of intelligent economic structure was unthinkable and would have brought the self-righteous wrath of even the decent middle down on Western governments at great political cost. The charitable impulse of Westerners had been very effectively hijacked. An occasional butcher like Amin or Bokassa might make them squirm, but less murderous, although arguably just as destructive, leaders like Nyrere and Kuanda were feted as sages who just needed more time to build their uniqely African versions of The New Jerusalem. As one time-proven incident of peace and prosperity after another fell to new barbarisms, the left stood guard against any reactions from the West and played the racism and colonialism cards over and over to shame us into keeping our munificance and goodwill flowing.
And thus, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Africa mid-wifed and nursed by the left, a miserable continent wracked by war, crime and terror, steeped in disease and penury, treating women as cattle, in a visegrip of corruption, devoid of hope or spirit and teeming with sick, pathetic, despairing orphans. The left, though, can see nothing it has wrought and reacts like the mother of a Mafia hitman on trial, accosting everyone in court to tell then what a good boy her son is and how the whole problem was that he met shadowy, unnamed “bad people”. It would be naive to think there are any quick conservative fixes or that a simple dose of supply-side economics or even free-trade would turn everything around, but when one sits quietly and reflects for a time on the depths of the sheer human misery of the place and juxtaposes it with the self-righteousness of the comfortable progressive Westerners who promoted and tolerated it for so long and continue to do so, it is hard to hold down a rising surge of bile and rage.
Indeed, it’s almost enough to make a conservative march.
6 comments:
Did my earlier comment go into the ether?
Great post, Peter.
This ties in with the discussion we were having on TofE about human rights. The leftist approach always puts ideology above practical application, and generally refuses to learn the lessons of reality.
It is considered sufficient to legislate against poverty: to demand that governments approve of everyone’s right to a certain standard of living, and to harangue the successful – rich countires, corporations - for 'ignoring’ these rights by allowing poverty to continue. But all the while these leftists refuse to acknowledge the reasons for success and failure, and the one big right that creates wealth: the right to property.
Excellent post and title!
The left/media only noticed what a monster Hitler was when he attacked the Soviets, and no matter how compelling the evidence, socialism can't be faulted for the heartbreaking poverty in Africa, so they resort to the old favorites of imperialism, capitalism, racism . . .
Good luck with Blogger.
I see Brit's great post, and raise with a double-great post! You really are a great writer, there's a second career there for you - except you're probably too conservative to get hired in Canada.
Lets not forget the damage being done by meddling eco-nannies with their efforts to keep gm crops out of Africa and other developing countries.
Yeah, it's not surprising, given that Leftism set back Russia and China decades, that it would ensure that no progress could be made in the more primitive Africa.
The Left is desperate to keep playing in Africa since most of the rest of the globe is moving on toward saner economics.
What's infuriating is how little is actually necessary to set up a sound economy. The rule of law and secure property right. How hard is that?
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