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| Bob Geldof - great fund-raiser for Africa - but also a 'white saviour'? |
Some years ago Somerset was flooded. It was a wet winter and, being low-lying and next to the Bristol Channel, the area is prone to this. While the politicians were wading around in wellies and trying to look concerned, the Daily Mail said the people in the area should be helped and the money ought to ‘come out of the foreign aid budget’. Why are we helping people on the other side of the world when our own citizens are suffering seemed to be the message.
That message has got through to our populist government. In the wake of Brexit – another v-sign to foreigners - the government has cut the budget it (we, really) spends on foreign aid. The amount may seem small in terms of percentages (0.5%, down from 0.7% of GDP) but that represents four billion pounds in real money. And that is not a typo – it is billions not millions, so a thousand times as much.
I have mixed feelings about foreign aid. Broadly speaking, I am in favour of the better off helping the worse off. The rich (we, again) can afford it and the poor need it, so why not do a little wealth redistribution? I have just transferred money to my daughter to help her buy a house. This will help her achieve her main ambition at the moment, owning her own home, and we are both looking forward to her doing so. It might be nice if she could do it without my help but I have the money and spending it on her is the best use I can make of it.
Gifts, however, can have unintended effects because they may create a sense of obligation and dependency. If we are examining motives – always a tricky area – then it is not unknown to bestow largesse as a way of emphasising this dependency, the giver sending a message that he (usually) is doing this out of the goodness of his heart and the taker needs reminding of his place when accepting.
This has always been the main argument against tipping, that it emphasises the gap between the tipper and the tipped, and that this emphasises the gap between the two parties and actually makes it less likely that it will ever be closed. In an ideal world the person providing a service would receive an adequate reward and should not need to ingratiate him or herself to obtain anything extra just for doing their job.
To which the obvious reply is that we do not live in an ideal world and the tip/aid that is given can make a good deal of difference to the person who receives it and is a small enough amount for the person who gives it to hardly notice. It is not as though we are getting a tax reduction because foreign aid is going down, and very few people offers tips to those carrying their bags or golf clubs if they cannot afford to.
The phrase ‘white saviour’ (‘savior’ if you are American) is sometimes used to describe and denigrate those who offer help to people in Africa. Celebrities are particularly vulnerable to this, shown jetting in with their entourages to provide blessings on black children who always display white teeth in smiles of gratitude. They encourage others to donate and then return to their privileged hideaways.
The problem is that, if people are told to get lost, they do just that – and take their cheque books with them. Instead of saviours, they become so-whatters (a term I have just invented). They shrug their shoulders and decide that they are not wanted so it would be better to leave the less fortunate to fend for themselves. While I realise that a lot of aid goes into corrupt pockets, this cannot be a good outcome.
The phrase ‘white saviour’ (‘savior’ if you are American) is sometimes used to describe and denigrate those who offer help to people in Africa or elsewhere in the developing world. Even using this phrase to describe countries poorer than ours is considered suspect these days as it assumes that we are better than they aren't just better off.
Celebrities are particularly vulnerable to this, shown jetting in with their entourages to provide blessings on black children who always display white teeth in smiles of gratitude. They encourage others to donate and then return to their privileged hideaways having done their bit and patted themselves on the backs.
The problem is that, if people are told to get lost, they do just that – and take their cheque books with them. Instead of saviours, they become so-whatters (a term I have just invented). They shrug their shoulders and decide that they are not wanted so it would be better to leave the less fortunate to fend for themselves. While I realise that a lot of aid goes into corrupt pockets, it cannot be a good outcome for it to disappear completely because of western guilt.
In Factfulness, the late Hans Rosling uses statistics to show that the world is actually getting much better. Girls are being educated and, when they grow up, are having fewer children, making smarter choices about what to do with their lives apart from being perpetually pregnant most of the time. As well as being educated, people are being vaccinated and it is foreign aid and the western values that come with them which have helped to make these advances.
Whenever we do something good, we always act from a mixture of motives. Sure, we want to look and feel good, getting a pat on the back and a warm glow for putting others before ourselves. It is the easiest thing in the world to undermine a good action by adding a bad motive to it. In the end, though, it is the action that should be judged not the motive. Otherwise we would all do nothing, afraid of the cynicism of others.
Setting aside a certain amount of your disposable income to help people worse off than you is obviously the right thing to do and nobody should be ashamed of doing it. So, by all means, encourage people not to take a patronising – and racist – white saviour attitude to those they are helping. Just realise that this help is often needed and valued and that we should not turn these saviours into so-whatters.
Edwin Lerner
My other blog is:diaryofatouristguide
