Sister Barbara Raftery, in the Letters column here the other day, was critical of the treatment of Africa by the west. It was a familiar plaint. Thailand, she said, had been the beneficiary of quick and generous moves by western governments to rescue it from its current financial problems, with the IMS, and several western countries, led by Japan, agreeing to give it $16 billion - she adds, almost as if it is irrelevant, as a loan. Compare this with the treatment meted out to African countries: years of negotiations, stringent economic reforms demanded, and with detailed agreements about repayments.
The language used here is as interesting as the message. Japan is referred to as a western country. Clearly, "west" in this context does not mean west; it means rich. The fastest growing economies in the world are not western at all; they are eastern. The most powerful banks in Asia are all eastern-owned and eastern-run. The "west" is an irrelevance - only it is not, for this in fact is simply a familiar victimhood portrayal of the black man being maltreated by the white man, i.e. the "west". It is not the only misleading term. The word generous was twice used to describe the activities of banks. It is as appropriate to attribute generosity to the behaviour of banks as it is to internal combustion engines, alligators and the weather. Banks do what they do, and generosity - "nobly minded magnanimity, liberality, munificence" - should not be part of it. Let me tell you Sister, any bank which is "generous" is not going to get my money.
No unowned money
That is the point. Banks do not invest their own money. They invest other people's, and by doing so, make a lot of money for themselves. But there is no such thing as unowned money, no free pelf to be culled from the skies to be given "generously" to Thailand, never mind, God help us, Africa. Banks which treat their deposits as if they are unowned money to be "lent" to African governments will soon run out of depositors.
And the other big word here is "lent". Lent is not just a time of fast; its meeting is clear to the lender, though in recent decades in Africa, not so clear to the borrower. There is a difference between lend and give. Religious orders of nuns, who are amongst the biggest property owners in the state, and who have been converting land banks into vast financial assets in recent times, are no doubt happily conversant with the economic principles involved. When they put their money into a bank, it is a loan to the bank. They want it back with interest. They do not want to be told it is being given to Africa. Nuns are human too, after all.
Which of us actually wants to lend money to African governments? We know from experience what "lend" in that quarter often means - it means "give". African governments have squandered billions of "borrowed" money which has been funnelled into the pockets of ruling elites. When they default on their payments, they ask for debt rescheduling, and mobilise their supporters in the west - and I mean the west: there are no such voices in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, I can tell you - to call for a cancellation of the debts because of the intrinsic immorality of World Bank loans.
Lectures on our improbity
It was a pity that these poor African countries didn't perceive that immorality a little bit earlier - at the time of borrowing, say. In the past decades, we have been getting regular little lectures on our financial improbity from the likes of Julius Nyerere and Kennneth Kaunda, who have presided over the ruination of their economies, aided by Pilgerishly pious declarations from the ex-Marxist left of the immorality of trade.
The good sister says that we can live in luxury as we demand debts be repaid at the cost of lives. These are unrelated issues. Premature death in Africa is not caused by my living well. It is caused by predation by local ruling elites and by locally-induced war. Merely unloading money from European barrels onto an African problem does not solve that problem, but merely complicates it.
Bob Geldof, for example, now admits that the aid to Ethiopia in the 1980s actually helped prolong the civil war there - though at the time, of course, it made us feel so much better. Feeling better is one of the main motives in our attitude towards Africa; and charity which enriches the giver's sense of self is often a proud and idiotic charity. It is the charity that gives a drink to an alcoholic, and is no charity at all.
Purging our consciences
Dr Michael O'Reilly, who has worked in Africa, on Wednesday criticised the entire philosophy inherent in aid to Africa. He is right. Too much European involvement in Africa has been prompted by an egotistical desire to gain a place in the hereafter and a sense of benignity in the here-and-now. Our very first charitable impulses were mobilised around black babies. Trying to purge our guilty consciences over our daily deficiencies in life by interfering in Africa is a reversion to infantilism. The great and once-impoverished continents of China and India have shown that the only real-help is self-help. Africa must learn that lesson; and we can help by leaving Africa to learn it alone.