Paved with Good Intentions

Over the Christmas break, I read a book recommended to me by a professor in response to a deep sense of unease that I felt in some of my classes last semester. The author of "Dead Aid" Dambisa Moyo is a Zambian economist educated at Harvard and Oxford, and her thesis is far from politically correct: Development assistance funded by the West is doing more harm than good to the African continent. Against the voices that call for more and more aid to the developing world, she shows how the African nations' current dependence on foreign aid for recurring expenses breaks the ties of accountability between governments and their people, shifts the source of incentives from the prosperity of citizens to the whim of international development agencies, and fosters a culture of corruption. At face value, it makes sense that if a government depends on someone other than its own people for much of its revenue, it will not care as much about ensuring that the people live in a climate that fosters the growth of businesses and makes hard work profitable. It also makes sense that in the presence of a large pie of foreign money attracts those who would like to have a slice just to themselves - thus the Swiss bank accounts of African dictators and their aides.

A similar argument was recently put forward by Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist who also wonders how it is possible that since the 1960s the West pumped over $600 billion into Africa, but the GDP and life expectancy in most of the countries who received the aid have actually fallen. While the relationship between the two is hard to establish, especially given the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is troubling to think that what we consider as goodwill and charity of Western nations may actually be contributing to the plight of countries where life expectancy is under 40, and most people live on less than a dollar a day. It is especially troubling to me given my current field of study, international education development, which trains Western specialists to help solve the problems of the developing world. The ensuing dilemma is not a comfortable one. Do you rush to the aid of people dying of hunger and preventable diseases and by your presence reinforce the deep causes behind these symptoms, so that the scenario is repeated in the next generation? Or do you, as Moyo sugessts, exercise "tough love" and turn off the stream of money that corrupts politicians, risking that your action might cost the sick and hungry of this generation their lives? Whose lives have more value - the sick and hungry of today, or those who will repeat their lot tomorrow if something does not change? And finally, why are the terms of this debate determined on American campuses and not by those whom they most intimately concern?

The older I get, the more questions. I persevere because I hope for a third way that is based neither on guilty charity nor on tough indifference. I don't know quite what it looks like, except that I know that it is harder, and in light of the Way of Jesus, I can't help but believe that it exists.

Of Nuclear Warheads and Suicide Bombers

With this post I will effectively annihilate any future chance I have of becoming involved in American politics.  

The other day I was thinking about nuclear weapons.  And instead of pondering how soon they will be falling upon my city and my subsequent contingency plans (As is my usual custom), my brain turned to ethics.  I wondered why the United States was never tried for war crimes after dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  On August 6th and 9th, 1945 two bombs were dropped in two cities, killing 80,000 people in Hiroshima (140,000 total counting radiation related deaths) and 74,000 people in Nagasaki (A couple of hundred thousand more due to radiation) effectively ending the war.  

I understand that death tolls of this sort are nothing new in modern warfare and that conventionally firebombing Tokyo itself caused around 100,000 civilian deaths.  Yet I pause when I consider the calculation that must have gone into this momentous bombing and the foreknowledge that hundreds of thousands of civilians would die.

At first I wondered if this event would fall under genocide.  Surely there have been those even in recent history who have been prosecuted for rounding up civilians and killing them in a time of war such as in Kosovo and Bosnia.  Yet after talking to my brother, we decided that the atomic blasts would not meet the definition of genocide because they were not targeted at eradicating a certain ethnic group simply because they were Japanese, but because they were at war with us.  (I wonder if this would change if those who planned the attacks hated Japanese people?... Which it is quite possible most Americans did at the time...)  

The argument goes that it was justified to kill all of these civilians because it effectively ended the war and saved many more lives than were taken by the blasts.  Using a Utilitarian ethic, this makes sense.  We kill a couple hundred thousand people to save 500,000 or a million.  The greatest good for the greatest amount of people.  Yet allow me to pose a thought experiment.  

Currently in Pakistan the Pakistani military is undertaking a major offensive against the Taliban in Southern Waziristan.  Meanwhile, the Taliban are attempting to break the political and popular support of the offensive by engaging in numerous suicide bombings targeting military officials and civilians, often detonating explosives in crowded markets.  There is a chance, as has happened before, that the military will call off the attacks under pressure and make a peace treaty with the Taliban. ("We won't bother you if you stop bombing us")  My question is, if the Taliban succeed in stopping the Pakistani fighting through the use of suicide bombers, will they be justified in killing civilians?  Many more Pakistani and Taliban lives would be saved than the number of civilians killed in suicide bombings if the fighting stopped.  The greatest good for the greatest amount of people right?   

So who are more justified? Atomic Bombers? Or Suicide Bombers?    

Render Unto Ceasar

Marta and I recently watched the movie "Syriana".  It is a film about the corruption that comes with America's pursuit and dependence on oil, illustrating the convoluted interconnectedness between the oil companies, politicians, the CIA, oil Sheiks, energy analysts, lawyers, and ordinary Arabs caught up into terrorism.  The film left me with a sense of powerlessness, feeling that this problem is so big and complex that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.  What made me feel even more powerless was the thought that the people who are in these positions of corruption and power are not even afraid of this movie.  If they really felt threatened by this film, it would have never been made.  The thing is that they know as well as I know that the entire nation could see this movie and come out of the theatre saying, "Wow, our system is really corrupt, oh well, nothing we can do about it, unless we want to give up what we have."  

There is a quote in the movie by a lawyer who is being sacrificed up to the public as a scapegoat to appear that the system is actually fighting corruption, he states, "corruption is what makes all of this possible, corruption is what keeps us safe and warm instead of fighting for scraps on the street".  Our standard of living is supported by these activities all across the globe.  If it weren't for the CIA, oil companies, and politicians meddling in world affairs, we wouldn't be able to have cheap gasoline or heating, or have as much money to buy inexpensive electronics (which would then be expensive electronics).  Everything would be harder to come by, raising prices and driving many of the superfluous or luxury goods and services (that we have gotten used to) out of business.  It is kind of like having a drug dealer for a father.  You don't really want to call the police on him because he is the one paying for all of your food, clothing, and video games.  Without him, you would be in poverty, or at least not able to buy all the cool stuff you have now.  

I used to be really obsessed with conspiracy theories and wanting to uncover them and fight against them.  A couple of years ago, my friends and I were serving coffee on the street and I remember talking to this homeless guy who was telling me all about who was behind the Kennedy assassination and how it was really the Defense Department's Intelligence Agency or something and he strung a pretty convincing web of facts and connections, but at the end of it I looked at him and said, "The powerful will always be corrupt but I follow the laws of a different kingdom".  Basically, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's".  

I don't discount the efforts of those in government fighting against corruption and attempting to bring justice to the system.  I just believe that the greatest change will be brought about by planting small mustard seeds that eventually work their way through the cracks of the concrete above.  Inviting my neighbor over for breakfast, speaking truth and healing into the lives of those I love, caring for the poor and the sick, living simply with the knowledge of how the distribution of resources affects others, freeing myself from the idols of consumerism and militarism. This lifestyle brings change and works its way like yeast through kneaded bread.  

Some would take issue with me at the moment and accuse me of playing right into the hands of the powerful, enabling them to continue to get rich off the blood of others.  I understand and empathize with this sentiment, yet I believe there will come a time when they are judged for their deeds, but I will trust in one more powerful than I to do that judging.  Meanwhile the powerful are the ones who are fighting for the scraps of power on the floor, unaware that there is real food to be had at the kingdom feast, the appetizers of which we can enjoy now.  

Yet I am not so sure that the powerful of this world should be entirely unafraid of those who plant mustard seeds.  There is a quote in "The Brothers Karamazov" by a French intelligence officer, rounding up and arresting socialists. "We are not afraid of all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, and revolutionaries.  We keep an eye on them, and their movements are known to us.  But there are some special people among them, although not many: these are believers in God and Christians, and at the same time socialists.  They are the ones we are most afraid of; they are terrible people!  A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist."   One has to think... Why was Jesus put to death? :)