I'll Give You Money If You Promise To Follow My "Religion"

Foreign aid organizations are well-known for linking their aid to ideological change. Usually this involves setting some stipulations upon which the aid money is contingent. These stipulations usually center around the promotion of various Western ideologies - democratic reforms, free-market reforms, women's rights, individual liberties, etc. etc. The IMF is well-known for this, however even smaller NGO's participate in such aid-linked ideological reforms - some explicitly and others more implicitly.

I personally find this strategy to be both ill-founded, and oppressive. I believe that development projects should not be linked to ideological changes for a number of reasons including:

1) it subverts local movements by linking them to western movements which often hold negative connotations in many parts of the world

2) it takes advantage of vulnerable people who need essential service and essentially holds them hostage to promote our own western political views

One example to demonstrate how the (well-meaning) promotion of ideologies by foreigners may paradoxically have the opposite effect of that intended follows below:

As many of you know, Canada has a Communist Party. Now, imagine that there is a Chinese NGO whose mandate is to support communist movements around the world in the hopes of "enlightening people to the joys of communism"(much as we Westerners do in our zeal to "enlighten people about democracy"). This NGO may well consider lending their support to the Canadian Communist Party. What effect do you think this endorsement would have? Do you think it would increase Canadian buy-in to communist values? Or do you think it would do the opposite?

Personally, I think that if such an endorsement were to occur, most people would develop increasingly negative feelings towards the Canadian Communist Party. Why? Because of all of the negative connotations that Chinese-style "communism" holds in most Canadian's minds. Their endorsement would backfire and ultimately subvert the Canadian communist movement.

Similarly, if western women's groups went into Pakistan to preach women's rights (as they do), I believe that it would do a similar disservice to the Pakistani women's movement. Because of the connotations of western women that exist in Pakistan (that we are "loose", "easy", and "lacking in morals") - endorsing a local women's rights movement would actually cause people who may have been sympathetic to move away.

Besides being wholly insulting to the legitimacy of another cultures' chosen world view, besides being an instrument of holding poor people (who need these essential services) hostage to ideological reforms, this ideologically-linked aid in fact has the possibility of having effects that are directly opposite to its intent. Much like Colonialism, these blatant neo-Colonial excercises will no doubt bring about more misery than development.

Herodotus and Relativism

I recently came across this interesting story by Herodotus and a corresponding comment by Mary Midgley (philosopher) in her book "Can't We Make Moral Judgements?" that I thought readers of this blog may enjoy.

Darius the Great, King of Persia "summoned the Greeks (who cremated their dead) who were with him and asked them for what price they would eat their fathers' dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. Then Darius summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding through interpreters what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. So firmly rooted are these beliefs; and it is , I think, rightly said in Pindar's poem that custom is lord of all"

Mary Midgley states that the Persian King appears "in the role of the detached, sophisticated, neutral observer above the dispute who understands other people's difficulties. He is the one who can see through superficial symbols to the reality behind them. The Persians, after all, neither burned their own dead nor ate them. They knew very well that they had solved the problem of disposal in the only right way, namely by putting corpses on high towers and letting the vultures eat them"

Flirting with the devil...

As many of you know, Jen and I don't have a car - by choice. Most of the time we're on our bicycles or on public transit. For the few out of town trips we make, we rely upon rentals, and for occasional in-town hauling needs (dog-food, garden supplies, etc.) we are part of a car co-op, and can use cooperatively owned cars at an hourly rate.

Well, we recently learned that there is a new city car "rental" service in Toronto where one can rent a vehicle for just $1 a day!!! Jackpot (so I thought)! Ah wait...there's a catch...the car is covered in advertising...we'd drive the car and spread visibility for the advertising...the company sponsoring the ad benefits and we'd benefit by getting a dirt-cheap rental. In order to make this deal worthwhile for the sponsors, we'd need to drive a minimum of 30km each time we rented.

Could we justify this as a simple symbiotic relationship? A win/win situation that happens to be privately sponsored by big-corporations? I mean, they'd advertise anyhow, wouldn't they? And we'd rent a car anyhow, wouldn't we? So why not help each other out??

And here arises the dilemma...what if your values (such as our own) do not support the promotion of the hedonistic consumerism that these ads likely promote? What if you're vegetarian on principle (like I am) and the car you rent is advertising McDonald's? What if you're a labour activist, and the car you rent is advertising Wal-Mart? What if you're an NDP supporter, and the car you rent is advertising Stephen Harper? What if you're a Catholic, and the car you rent is advertising condoms? What if you're an environmentalist and your trip was only 20km, and you're forced to drive around for another 10km just to meet your minimum quota??

So what initially seemed like a sweet deal, suddenly begins to look like a potential deal with the devil (although I guess some could argue that the difference between mega-corporations and the devil is minimal anyhow!). In the end, we decided that it was more important to not sell our souls for the few bucks we'd save from it all. But it was an interesting process and I thought I'd post it to see if anyone has had similar experiences and/or other thoughts?