...What the Problem Is

The underlying assumption, the truly painful implicit belief in all of this is that efficiency, honesty, and integrity are Western ideals that cannot rightly be expected to flourish in other cultures.  The equally mortifying corollary holds that if you are efficient, honest, or trustworthy, it must be due to a Western influence. 

I can’t count the number of times I’ve caught myself thinking of some positive behaviour as ‘Western.’  Even when it comes to Pastor, we wonder whether his down-to-earth attitude, analytical skills, and dedication to the Word of God are due to his post-secondary education outside the country.  As if poverty and necessity breed an acceptable, ethical form of sin and weakness, while democracies and accessible healthcare and education breed a resume of virtues.  As though the reality that God changed him is not only laughable, but impossible.  As though goodness comes from somewhere out there rather than in here. 

I’ve pointed out before that locals tend to think that creativity and innovation must come from elsewhere; they also tend to implicitly believe that vices originate here.  Some are shocked when I state that there is dishonesty, fraud, and exploitation in the West.

Ah, bon?!  And then they carry on living in expectation of, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie so eloquently put it, ‘a life that happens elsewhere.’

And foreigners have contributed to this worldview by using overseas postings as temporary homes, an opportunity to make great salaries, to throw money around, and to alternate between the noble savage theory and the white saviour complex.  This outlook is adapted by locals to treat the country as a giant rubbish bin, a permanent mess in which they have a temporary stay while straining towards a future somewhere else.  In absence of the assurance that a virtue is hard work that begins one person at a time, the onus is forever on some faraway time in a faraway galaxy.  Even my progress in Swahili is chalked up to a muzungu’s natural ability to attempt and achieve stupidly ambitious things.

The aspect I most struggle with (as a generally  rude  practical person) is the necessity to keep quiet out of politeness – out of respect for cultural norms.  This silence and avoidance, incidentally, are the foundation for any form of abuse.  And it begs many questions.  Which culture advocates corruption and abuse of millions of impoverished?  Which culture enjoys the supremacy of one ethnic group over another?  Which culture supports the continued enrichment of the rich at the cost of the country’s economic stability and infrastructure?

The answer is that no healthy culture seeks this.  Those at the top of the food chain – in any society – seek this outcome, as well as the dishonest who eventually want to reach a position in which to cheat with impunity.  In the past, societal leaders were rarely vastly richer than their subjects because they also had to be seen as generous – a leader of a village would be expected to openly share resources and, quite frankly, there likely wasn’t going to be a chance for him to build a palace in the jungle using marble flown in on a private Concorde.  Times have changed; now this generosity means letting your cabinet find creative ways to steal foreign aid, ostensibly to help the misshapen babies who are all the Western world sees of your country, while you bury the lion’s share in international villas, yachts, and Swiss banks. 

And I’m not denying that this story of exploitation started with King Leopold of Belgium; does this mean it’s more acceptable now?  Wrong does not endorse cutting aid - and neither do I.  She is simply stating the reality that pouring money into a leaking economy and calling it cultural is profiting neither donors nor recipients.  She calls for a little less naïveté on the part of the West, and a little more from Africans.   

Here is the hard truth:  The West cannot ‘save’ Africa.  Not with money, not with the best intentions, not with all the social anthropology it can find to wallpaper blatant corruption.  In fact, by implicitly using a different set of standards for Africans and their own (i.e. A little bit of corruption is okay), the West is actively increasing the sense of inequality both between itself and African citizens as well as between African politicians and their voting public, inciting a move towards violence to engineer social change (which only results in new top dogs up to the same old tricks), and unwittingly promoting the unravelling of decades of development programs, HIV/AIDS/gender/sexual violence awareness, and educational reform by the very millions of poor they were supposed to help.

“Mention John Githongo and...  [e]ven admirers will tell you that the number of Kenyans who think like John is so small and atypical their words and actions can have no fundamental impact on larger society.  Their scepticism is shared by a school of Western analysts who see sleaze in Africa, intertwined as it is with cultural respect for the extended family and ethnic loyalty, as part of the continent’s very haemoglobin...”  - Wrong 321

“The key to fighting graft in Africa does not lie in fresh legislation or new institutions...  Most African states already have the gamut of tools required to do the job.  ‘You don’t need any more bodies, you don’t need any more laws, you just need good people and the will.’ ”  - Wrong 327

“The hardest part... has been coming to terms with the betrayal of my tribe, my class...  The worst thing I’ve been called is naive...  I accept that.  Only a naive person would take an anti-corruption job after twenty-four years of systemic corruption.  But that’s what you need.  I went in Naive and I want to stay that way.”  - John Githongo (Wrong 331-332) 

Instead of a sad clucking of the current state of affairs, an omission of the lies told and the truths withheld to gain funding, and a defensive Why me?! when it comes to fighting corruption, I’d like to see local youth, regional leaders, and foreign aid workers filled with hope because their lives have begun here and now and they know that revolution comes from the heart and will of a single person.  I want a donor mindset free of shame for its colonial past that is not effectively crippled by its desire to gloss over lies, embezzlement, and a chain of corruption that results in the worst of human rights abuses.  I want a recipient mindset free of blame for its colonial past that is not effectively crippled by its insistence that help, change - life - must come from without because it cannot be found in its borders.

“[John Githongo] hoped to push the global aid industry into recognising that its chirpy determination to look on the bright side, its readiness to turn a blind eye to blatant abuse, was doing Africa more harm than good...  ‘There’s a condescending, implicitly racist argument with regard to Africa, which says that “excessive enthusiasm” in the fight against corruption somehow undermines the task of fighting poverty.  But corruption... is the most efficient poverty factor on the continent.’ ”  (Wrong 266)

Because while humans are extraordinarily adept at creating the worst, we have an equally extraordinary capacity to create the best. 

That’s not cultural and I will never, ever stop expecting more.      

Part I
Part II

Works Cited

Wrong, Michela.  It’s Our Turn to Eat – The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower.  HarperCollins, 2009.