Uzodinma Iweala, author of the novel “Beasts of No Nation”, published an editorial piece in the Washington Post on Sunday. In it he recounts the experience of being “accosted” by a college-age peace activist seeking to stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Apparently this episode offended him. Iweala claims that the West, “wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created” in Iraq and the Middle East, has now “turned to Africa for redemption.” Iweala’s theory is that the campaigns to ‘Save Africa’ are self-serving attempts to make the campaigners feel better about themselves, while promoting stereotypes of Africans as underfed, helpless and diseased. He goes on to question whether aid to Africa is given for the ‘right’ reason, or “given in the spirit of affirming one’s cultural superiority.” In other words, white people give aid to Africa to make themselves feel better than black Africans.
Mr. Iweala, please. Let’s be real here.
It’s one thing to question whether the recent, high-profile campaigns featuring white celebrities are promoting certain stereotypes. I welcome that conversation. However, it’s quite another thing to look at real efforts to stop human suffering and impugn racist and imperialist goals.
Mr. Iweala, this is the same, unfortunate attitude that leads African leaders like Thabo Mbeki to deny Western assistance with the African AIDS epidemic, or to deny the fact of the epidemic all together. It is the same attitude that leads African leaders to slap Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on the wrist, even as he leads his country into total economic collapse and utter despair. It is the same attitude that allows Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir to garner support from African countries in the face of a proposed UN intervention in Darfur.
We don’t need your help, Western Powers. We Africans can handle it ourselves.
Really? It is not stereotyping Africans as people to look at the situation on the ground in Africa and note widespread human suffering right across the continent: conflict, unrest, and humanitarian crises in Zimbabwe, Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Chad, Somalia and Nigeria. There are real problems in Africa, Mr. Iweala. Unfortunately, African governments are - for the most part - unable and unwilling to act as partners in alleviating the suffering of their people.
So why is your response to turn against those who are willing to help?
In my opinion, an argument that organizations [or governments, or individuals] withhold aid based on the race of the recipients is legitimate. An argument that organizations provide aid based on the race of the recipients in order to promote the superiority of their own race is frankly ridiculous. Western governments, and for that matter all governments with adequate resources, are morally obligated to alleviate human suffering when and where they can. This includes humanitarian and development aid to Africans. Citizens of democracies who believe that their societies are not doing enough to alleviate suffering in African countries have the right to protest and use all means at their disposal to draw attention to the plight of the individuals affected. They certainly have the right to do this without being labeled insincere or worse.
I have one final question for you, Mr. Iweala: is Africa a better place because there were no ‘Save Rwanda’ tables on college campuses in 1994?
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