God save us from people who mean well

by Gushwell Brooks · January 11, 2015

As a St Vincent de Paul volunteer – a Vincentian – I am always burdened by the lingering question of whether our interventions with soup, bread, blankets, clothes, shoes and whatever other donations we receive for the marginalised poor people we serve are good enough.

Bob Geldof: Is he doing good or is he part of the problem? (Photo: Larry Downing, Reuters/CNS)

Are we just providing a temporary solution which gives those who would ordinarily have nothing at all something alternative, or are we enablers?

Recently Bob Geldof and Bono took a lot of flak for their attempts to put together Band Aid. Band Aid has an extensive legacy, dating back to 1984 when Geldof, inspired by a BBC news report about the famine in Ethiopia, decided to get a bunch of musicians together to record the song, Do They Know It’s Christmas?. The proceeds from sales were intended to feed starving people in Ethiopia.

Last month, 30 years later, Geldof wanted to replicate the success of the chart-topping hit with Band Aid 30. This time proceeds were intended for the people of West Africa impacted by ebola.

It is a much better response than Australia’s closure of its borders to people from countries in West Africa affected by ebola, but unfortunately it is no more than a band aid to treat the real social, economic and political issues that accompany the spread of ebola in the region.

This is what the world caught on to and many global organisations and individuals, some of whom are the very musicians approached by Geldof to participate in the cutting of the single. They have not only declined participation in the project, but very publicly criticised it.

Thirty years after the initial Band Aid, the world now realises that a bit of money thrown at a problem does not eradicate all the issues that accompany a particular crisis. The obvious reason for this is that money in itself does not address the cultural, social and political fertiliser that gives rise to the rapid spread of a crisis such as ebola or famine.

Recently I chatted to an ordinary civilian who figured that the best response to teenage pregnancy, gangsterism and drugs on the Cape Flats of the Western Cape would be shipping a bunch of urban teenagers to farms to open up their world to work opportunities.

There is a self-righteousness in suggesting that a bunch of teenagers, living in conditions you only read about and could never understand, should go off to a farm to expand their horizons. This misguided need to save a community also stems from our historical and geographic separation.

If you did not grow up and live in the Cape Flats, then no number of newspaper articles can educate you on the social ills of those neighbourhoods, nor can it obviate the solutions that these communities need.

I was very privileged to have worked with people like former cabinet minister Jay Naidoo who taught me that solutions to improve the lives of people can come only from those communities themselves. We, as outsiders, can only catalyse or facilitate these solutions.

People in poor social and economic conditions are best placed to understand what it is that negatively impacts on their lives, so it stands to reason that it is for them to not only find these solutions, but to see these solutions through permanently.

Does this mean that middle-class people should leave poor communities to their own devices? Of course not but before we call in the cavalry to save the helpless poor, a little humility might do.

Many initiatives to assist marginalised society exist today. The most successful of these come from within the communities themselves, and most survive on very limited resources. Those with access to resources, those of us outside of these communities, sometimes sweep in with their preconceived ideas of what they think is needed and make little, if no difference.

It is about time that we stepped back and asked the real question: Am I intervening because it makes me feel good, or am I doing this to make a meaningful difference in the lives of a community? The narrative that even if I impact on the lives of five or ten out of an entire community can be ascribed to narcissistic self-service.

All too often our implanted interventions tend to divert resources from projects and initiatives that are already well placed to solve these problems. Rather than giving resources to people on the ground, those who actually bury those who have succumbed to ebola, we would much rather buy a single asking questions about West African access to Christmas.

Why? It is easier; here you have the benefit of a song on your smartphone that sounds peppy and with it, and the money you paid, will in some convoluted way get to those that need it.

But is that not the perfect way to surrender utter and complete responsibility?

Worse yet, one could set up a project and when it fails dismally, one might always blame the beneficiaries after all, they tend to be an ungrateful bunch anyway.