Most of us, with the exception of a few ultra-conservative activists on Bruin Walk, believe that helping others abroad is a good thing.
While caught up in all this do-gooderism, though, student activists ““ along with some pros at nonprofits and institutions such as the World Bank ““ engage in a discourse about humanitarianism that actually degrades those they are trying to help.
To illustrate, let me ask you to imagine Africa. Unless you’ve studied the continent intensively or have lived or worked there, I’ll bet I can predict what images come to mind.
A depressed looking mother, holding a sickly child. Maybe there are flies. There are words, too, that describe her situation: “poverty” certainly, maybe “AIDS,” “war,” “hunger,” “despair.”
If you’ve been listening to the president recently, the mother’s probably lacking “freedom,” the ability to make independent choices, to be an entrepreneur. She’s not empowered.
Images like this one are central to what, borrowing terminology from philosopher Michel Foucault, can be called the development discourse, that pastiche of images, representations and language that defines our understanding of what it is to help people abroad.
The function of this discourse is twofold.
First, it quite usefully serves to inspire folks in the richer parts of the world to donate their time, money and effort to those in its poorer parts.
Looking in from the wealthy world, we only see outsiders for what they lack in relation to what we have in abundance. This sight shocks us and motivates us to act, either out of guilt or moral obligation.
The discourse also serves a second, more deleterious purpose. It creates a dichotomy between the humanitarian and the person being helped ““ dare I say the “developed” and the “developing” world ““ in which the humanitarian has more power, agency and, ultimately, worth.
Since we only see others for what they lack, our work amounts to simply bringing them what we have and what they do not. Inherently, this means making them more like us.
We devalue the knowledge and agency that they have within their own communities, and in the name of education or financial empowerment, this local information is steamrolled by our imported agenda.
For example, if we give micro loans to people in order to empower them individually, we also give them an incentive to perhaps leave their family farms, which disrupts their family’s and their community’s stability. While we believe individual agency is a good thing in the United States, it may be less good in their community, where they value cohesive families.
A better idea would have been to give the entire family a loan, thus not encouraging its members to leave.
Our notion that individual empowerment would be best for people comes from the Western bias of how we discuss what people need.
Then there are those we work to help participate in the discourse as well. When I worked in Zambia, my clients, all Congolese refugees, frequently told me of their horrible privation and how if only the benevolent Americans would help them with a loan or a class or a book, they would be okay.
I can’t blame them. I was distributing loans ““ and tugging on my heart strings was probably an efficient strategy for getting one ““ but submitting to the notion that they needed my help to have a good life.
If my idea of helping them was to empower them, the discourse did just the opposite.
Now this is not to say we should stop trying to help people. We must change how we think about doing it.
Instead of using the discourse of empowering, as does FORGE, or freeing, as does President Bush, or educating, as does Students for International Change, we should instead use one of service, in which we work for ““ and beneath ““ those we wish to help.
Instead of an impoverished African woman, imagine a powerful, confident one directing an office of educated Americans and Europeans about how to best serve her country in the way her people see fit.
That’s really what humanitarianism should be all about.
Tristan’s poor. Wire him a micro
loan at treed@media.ucla.edu.
Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.