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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Africa doesn't want to be saved

Last fall, shortly after I returned from Nigeria, I was accosted by a perky blond college student whose blue eyes seemed to match the "African" beads around her wrists.

"Save Darfur!" she shouted from behind a table covered with pamphlets urging students to TAKE ACTION NOW! STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR!

My aversion to college kids jumping onto fashionable social causes nearly caused me to walk on, but her next shout stopped me.

"Don't you want to help us save Africa?" she yelled.

It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.

This is the West's new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help...

Rest of the story.



4 comments:

Sam Oracle said...

Its not like Africa doesn't wanna be saved, but its only Africans that can save Africa.

Anonymous said...

tell dat! But like d saying goes ... oppourtunity knocks but once. We can use it to collect big time!Never mind that they r trying to fufil righteousness after committing ... let's not go there.

Grab while u can. I'm just saying.

La Reine said...

Is that the Africans in Africa or the ones that left?

Viaduct said...

I am a big believer of individual responsibility.