PHILIP DONNELLY,
Sir, - It was dispiriting to learn through your newspaper of the Government's decision to support the cancellation of debts owed by the world's poorest countries (The Irish Times, July 20th). That this hugely irresponsible campaign enjoys the support of aid agencies, our liberal news media, and rock stars should surprise no one; however when a European government is prepared to climb abroad this bandwagon, its folly is legitimised and a dangerous precedent is set.
Take the example of Africa, a burden on the conscience of every white, educated and well-fed Westerner. According to World Bank statistics, the 10 poorest countries on the planet are all African. This despite the fact that Africa teems with natural resources - oil, diamonds, gold, hard woods, rubber, tobacco, coffee, coal, iron ore, bauxite, natural gas - and has unrivalled tourist potential. Visitors to the continent speak of a resilient and inventive native populace. Yet the puzzle persists: why does Africa contain so many faltering and failed states?
Conventional wisdom tells us, bluntly, that it is our fault. We in the West colonised Africa in the 19th century, enslaving its people and stealing its wealth. Though the flags were lowered and the polo ponies shipped home in the 1950s, we continue to oppress Africa by a form of stealth colonialism called globalisation.
The best way we can make restitution for these evils, the argument runs, is to keep pumping billions of aid dollars into the bank accounts of African governments, allowing them to spend it more or less as they wish. To be allowed to vet expenditure or take a look at the books would be to patronise and insult Africans, and haven't we done enough of that already?
But this inspired wheeze of dropping the debt is yet another example of the wilful stupidity that informs our post-colonial relationship with Africa.
For the past 50 years governments and supranational entities such as the IMF and the World Bank have lavished every conceivable form of free money on Africa in the guise of loans, grants, schemes and initiatives, the sole result of which has been some short-term alleviation of want, and the long-term fostering of an utterly dependent, infantile, begging-bowl mentality among leaders who prefer to blame nebulous fictions such as globalisation for their woes, rather than admit to their own bungling or greed.
Africa is now the world's welfare junkie, and cancelling its debts willy-nilly can only encourage its leaders, a grotesque circus of dictators, kleptocrats and warlords, to gouge even more cash out of the West and squander it on fighter planes, luxury cars, and crackpot neo-Marxist vanity projects. Why shouldn't they boot economic self-discipline (the basis of lasting success), into touch when we in the West are so eager to accommodate them? Mouths they can't, or won't, feed, can be exported to Europe.
Amnesia seems to have struck the upper reaches of the Irish Government. I remember a small, agrarian, ex-colonial backwater some years back, that had borrowed recklessly and found itself being menaced by pin-striped heavies from the World Bank. There was muttered discussion about welshing on debt; saner counsel prevailed and Ireland went on to prosper.
Funding the misrule of Africa prolongs the suffering of her people, with consequences for all of us. We must acknowledge that the new imperialism of donor aid has failed Africa, and that alternatives, however unpalatable, need to be considered.
Military intervention to remove power-crazed wreckers such as President Mugabe of Zimbabwe would be a good place to start, if only we in the West still had the courage and self-belief we possessed before we left Africa in such unseemly haste. - Yours, etc.,
PHILIP DONNELLY,
Roseberry,
Newbridge,
Co Kildare.