12:04
I don’t ask this with any sarcasm. I am asking this as a very serious question:
Can anyone name me one Aid organization that has had a huge, tangible positive effect on any community in Africa?
No doubt on an individual level, they manage to help folks who otherwise wouldn’t go to school and live another day via market surplus…er, sorry I meant food aid. But here’s the thing, if you ask me why I am sitting in Australia today in 2008 without any fear that I’ll be beaten for being black or for making a living I can tell you it’s because of:
a) Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Steve Biko, The Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee amongst others for putting the idea of Africans being equal human beings not only in the public psyche but in various laws.
b) The Mau Mau, Tom Mboya, Dedan Kimathi amongst others who managed to cause enough pressure in the British empire to force them to give us a little bit of freedom.
c) The Westerners who marched for the 8 hour work day and the unions who fought for decades to earn workers rights throughout the Western world.
But for the life of me, I can’t think of any organization that comes from a rich country or is run by a rich man or rich organization a.k.a. a movement that isn’t grass roots that achieved some huge social change. And so I turn the question over to you? Can you think of any? What can we learn from them?
