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Africa does not need aid

Africa does not need aid.

Communication for an upright Africa

(Summary)

Sisi Kayan

 

Couv livre afrique aide

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What does Africa look like, what can it be compared to? To this question the author replies that Africa is like a bedridden patient who is given sleeping pills to make him sleep more, instead of a real cure that will put him back on his feet. The author sees the various types of aid to Africa as a kind of 'valium' therapy, consciously designed and carefully administered to keep the continent in a state of continuous dependence, in perpetual infancy, and thus ensure its control by a West always in search of strategies of domination, in the face of an Africa deliberately stigmatised and chosen as the physical address of poverty.

How can we free ourselves from this recolonization, which continues through a system of aid that constitutes a kind of deception? The book begins by denouncing the drift of an aid that does not help, and which is the result of an erroneous diagnosis, resolutely made to bring down on Africa the chain of historical humiliations of which it has always been a victim.

The idea of Africa deliberately defined as an icon of poverty stands in stark contrast to its reputation as a continent of immense wealth, which the world needs for its advancement and maintenance.

The role of communication runs through this process from one end to the other: the presence of degrading, humiliating images of children and life on the black continent on the big screens and on television, in the various media, with the noble objective of mobilising for help (by arousing compassion), has a negative influence on the perception that Europeans have of Africans, creating prejudices, stigmas and stereotypes. Africa is only talked about for its ills. We have become accustomed to a communication based on the colonial "cliché" that has decisively shaped the process of stigmatisation of the black continent, thus legitimising the aid system as a response to its endemic "poverty". It is communication that disseminates the idea of an ailing Africa that is increasingly in need of care. But after so many years of aid, Africa remains the same, with no significant changes. So, it is time to ask: what is wrong with such an aid process?

From this point of view, international cooperation is seen by the author as a strategic extension of colonisation. Indeed, the day before yesterday, for the West, Africans were its slaves, yesterday its natives to be 'civilised' (colonised) and today they are its poor (to be helped). Only the concepts change, the reality is the same, that of an asymmetrical relationship between a powerful and a weak (to be increasingly weakened).

The intuition for this book comes from an article in the newspaper Le Monde of 21 March 2006: "Si l'Afrique se réveveille, nous la renverrons au lit" (by Hugues SERRAF).

Putting the ailing Africa back on its feet will be done first through communication with a new narrative stripped of all colonial clichés, a "committed" communication.

Restoring the image of an Africa that is different from what has been deliberately portrayed is the heavy task of Africans who, once aware of the strategies of the self-proclaimed doctor with his deceptive therapies based on a false diagnosis, decide to take their destiny in their own hands. All this requires a series of new views and perspectives (on poverty, on aid, on communication) that must be translated into 'new paradigms'.

Such a process must involve the rejection of aid that does not really help. African political leaders must create values to ensure the true independence of the continent. We must educate and train the African people to be, to belong, to do and to invest for a dignified and upright Africa.

The book is not a one-way arrow (to the West). Africans also have their share of responsibility: victimisation, corruption, poor governance, and many other ills that make aid unhelpful.

Above all, the book does not focus on individual aid, with many volunteers who really and sincerely work to put a smile on the faces of some of the poor, but questions the international aid system through international cooperation, NGOs, and organisations such as the World Bank or the international world funds. It is a system that keeps African countries on the ropes, with endless debts and that is a real "factory" of poverty.

Whatever its nature, real help should not be repeated forever; if not, then it should be called something else.

The statement "Africa does not need aid" can be justified by the following reasoning:

  1. If the black continent is full of all possible riches, how can its poverty justify the aid it is owed? Who is rich does not actually need help.
  2. If the aid system, as it works, must take from African countries 100 times more than they receive in loans and remain eternally indebted, then can we talk about aid? It would be more honest to speak of a system of exploitation, control, and submission.
  3. Do African leaders need to kneel before those who organise to plunder their wealth and beg for help? If they love their people and manage their states honestly, fighting corruption, theft, or embezzlement..., they will have no reason to suffer humiliations and impositions, according to the good adage: "the hand that gives is always above the hand that receives".
  4. If billions and billions have been poured into Africa for over 60 years in terms of aid, without really changing the living conditions of the people, let alone achieving its objective, it means that something is wrong with the process. Indeed, there are a lot of suspicions about aid, both in its intention and in its delivery.
  5. If the climate of insecurity and wars are to justify aid structures, such as international NGOs, and most of them only exist if there is a war or calamity, then for a lasting peace, we should turn our backs on the 'firemen' who are also accused of being 'pyromaniacs'.

Date de dernière mise à jour : 17/05/2023

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