Cut back on Foreign Aid?

Deleted User wrote: »

Yup but should we be subsidising Indias space program??

Should we be subsidising beer and fags for native Irish leeches who never contribute anything to society?

If its a choice between fags for the lazy or food for the starving, then the only answer is food for the starving.

Did anyone see the primetime special on emigration?
http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1059959

Perhaps we should be sending some of that aid to those Irish organisations helping to care for Irish people in London etc.

Long post

It's hard to argue for aid in this particular moment of economic depression because, the way that we've become over the past twenty years, people want you to convince them about what they gain from giving aid, what they get out of it, and that particular kind of (capitalist! :pac:) logic is in a lot of ways the antithesis of aid itself.

Which makes arguing for aid difficult. I haven't seen any of the aid adverts in Ireland recently, but I'm sure they follow the format of showing you some poor person, probably looking malnourished and maybe cradling a child who is looking equally, if not more, malnourished, and trying to get you to sympathize with their plight and give what is, to you, a relatively small amount of money to them based on that sympathy.

That idea of sympathy and being able to identify with this other person, who you probably don't have anything in common with besides both of you being human beings, and then to give away money that you have earned really doesn't equate with the logic of capitalism which is a logic of competition, gain, return, and individual self interest.

So, when people in Ireland, at this moment in time, ask why give aid, should we cut aid, I'd argue that what they're really asking is, in this exchange between me and this person, what do I get? Do I get a good return? Is this a good deal? I give x amount of money, what do I receive in return? What's my y! What kind of material return do I get for giving aid? What am I paying for. Charity, or aid, is, in itself, a selfless act, and the way that these questions are asked, or phrased, is rooted in a selfish logic, so any answer you give to those kind of questions can never be enough to satisfy those questions.

That doesn't mean those questions aren't valid. People are of course entitled to ask where is my money going? It would be completely irresponsible to hand out money and not enquire how it's being used. There should be comprehensive monitoring of who is getting aid, where the aid is going to, how it's being used, how can it be used most effectively, and where can it be used most effectively. The practice of giving aid itself, and of development as a project of the global community, should be constantly scrutinized, and it should be continually critiqued and examined, and the misuse and abuse of aid should be rigorously rooted out and exposed.

But none of these things, like corruption, like waste, like misuse, are reasons not to give aid. There are a lot of problems with aid, and with development practice. But, again, they are not reasons to not give aid. The only, as far as I can see, legitimate reason to not give aid, if you are willing to give aid, is if aid does not work, and, as far as I'm concerned, aid does work, aid improves peoples lives and it gives them a chance to improve not just their lives, but their families lives and their countries prospects.

I don't want to go in to why aid works here, because my post is long enough already, but if, as I believe, aid does work shouldn't that be answer enough to the question, why give aid? Should aid be cut? The funny thing is that it isn't. Why? I will go back to what I argued at the start, we think in terms of a capitalist logic. We think, what do I gain from this exchange? I give X, where is my Y? I want a return, what is my return? Is my return a school built in Ethiopia, is it giving a child an education in India, is it giving a woman a job in Haiti, is it giving children vaccines in Malawi? Or, is it the case that we don't get a return? We, I, me, do not get a return, in the sense, or logic, of capitalism.

I'm trying to point out that there's a fundamental disconnect between aid, or charity, and the way that we think in terms of money, which makes it incredibly difficult to justify it in those terms because it does not participate in them. Charity doesn't start at home. Charity starts by recognizing another human being, by recognizing their suffering and by sympathizing with their plight. Charity is blind to division, it is indiscriminate, and it is not bound by man made geographic borders, by notions of nationalism, or by constructed images of race, religion or creed. Charity is not a market relation. It is a moral act, and unless you happen to espouse a morality of "**** you buddy", then I don't see how you can possibly argue against giving aid, or how you could possibly argue for cutting aid altogether.

Giving aid is an act of solidarity. It is a recognition of another human being, a recognition of their suffering, and a recognition that I have the power to help them, and so I should, because, morally, it is the right thing to do. Cutting aid because some fat ****ing banker in Shrewsbury Road, or some property developer who was complicit in creating a property bubble that helped ruin this country, because of their own rampant self interest, because of their own lack of solidarity with their own people, seems to me to be a terrible thing. If anything it justifies them. It justifies and legitimates the actions of every single greedy mother ****er on this planet who rode roughshod over the markets for their own self interest because if you can't perform what is a tiny act of solidarity (48 cent out of every 100€), a tiny moral act that creates some good in the world, than why should they have any solidarity with you?

If you want a world where people don't care about others, can't sympathize with the plight of others, and can't help each other, than sure, cut aid. But you should understand that it will make absolutely no difference in Ireland, because that very act of cutting aid and refusing to recognize and sympathize with others is the very act that got Ireland in the position it is in today. You're perpetuating a morality and a logic that led to rampant greed, self interest, and disregard for others, instead of a morality that recognizes others suffering, acts to end their suffering, and realizes solidarity between human beings regardless of who they are or where they're from, and that is a morality that is the complete antithesis to capitalism and all of the ugly sentiments it espouses.

So the Indian govt. can afford a nuclear weapons programme, but western tax payers are feeding their poorest citizens?