Bono or Booker T.?

2009-05-28
By Brian Gilmore

Weeks ago, Paul David Hewson aka “Bono,” the lead singer for the Irish super group, U2, wrote in the New York Times about aid to impoverished nations.

So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.

Bono, to his credit, walks the walk; he just doesn’t talk the talk. He also is not extreme either; he has spoken out for loan forgiveness for many of these countries as well, fairness. Yet, he isn’t against aid to poor nations of color.

Dambisa Moyo is.

Ms. Moyo, a western trained economist (A.U. in D.C.; Oxford in the U.K.), born in Zambia, and nurtured at Goldman Sachs, thinks Africa, the continent should do a Booker T. Washington. Drop its buckets. Lift itself up by its bootstraps.  A few months ago, she spoke of Bono as well on the issue of aid to African nations and referred to him, among others, as a celebrity.

Celebrities, Moyo also noted, are not a good thing for Africa.

“I object to this situation as it is right now where they have inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent,” Moyo said

I cannot disagree and I don’t necessarily completely disagree with Moyo’s premise that many African nations need to begin to make their own way in the world. Her central theme has relevance for Black America as well.

In Moyo’s view, African countries have taken aid from the west, have become more dependent on these financial handouts and loans, progress is minimal, the continent remains poor four decades after the many independent movements, and there is no prospect for change. Most of Africa’s leaders and those with influence are ordering up more aid, more dependency. It is international welfare.
   
Corrupt African leaders are acting as neo-colonial embezzlers and keeping the riches for themselves; the continent remains stagnant economically. Here’s Moyo in her book, “Dead Aid”:
“The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so, is a myth,” Moyo writes.

Of course, Ms. Moyo is under attack. Just like Booker T. Washington was under attack back in the late 19th century for urging black self reliance in Black America. Of course, Washington, despite his 1896 Atlanta Exposition speech, has been absolved by history.

It is also not an either or debate. While Washington was the most popular of black leaders in the U.S. during his time, the political tact taken by Black America in the 20th century was not the Booker T path. For the most part, the integration-assimilation model has been the approach of Black America and the more autonomous efforts at progress in the U.S. were marginalized.

August Wilson’s play, “Two Trains Running” thematically provides the real formula for greater success: integration into and as an autonomous group but also strident efforts demanding civic equality in every aspect of American life.

In light of where we are now politically, Dambisa Moyo is onto something whether we like it or not. The President is black. Cabinet officials are black and have been black. Governors of states are black. Corporate moguls are black.

The first train is running smoothly. Now, how about the second train?

Brian Gilmore is a writer and public policy lawyer in Washington, DC.