White Saviour

Yes Africa is severely lacking in young people who can dig holes and carry bricks. Your brother epitomises all that is wrong with it. Treating building a home for people as an opportunity to network, make friends, get something good to look on your CV.

Teach the people out there the skills, It doesn't need a group of unskilled teenagers to travel 7k miles in a plane to ask their church, friends, university to send aid money.

I always saw this as sarcastic or maybe just saying "well it's them and not you" in a "cause we know you don't care!" Way?!

I support Doctors Without Borders and Engineers Without Borders. They work directly with the communities that need help and about 93% of their takings go to their projects.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c10l2vvjy9lo

I look forward to Fuse's non-cringy, dignified and above all future-proof solution to the current situation that won't make people "squirm" in 40 years time.

Agree. I'm glad the line was replaced in the last version as it doesn't land well in this day and age, but I've always thought of it as an angry line, as 'just count your damn blessings and look at how some people have to live.'

I don't think it's helping that Bob Geldof is being so arrogant about his achievements, though. The whole Messiah complex is bound to be turning some people off to the message.

Want an orphanage built, lets send a bunch of students paying £5k each on a gap year over to do it 🤔. Really want to help that orphanage get built, give the local builders the job. If they don't have the skills, send some builders over to teach them.

I think you're sort of missing a few key points here.

eg, things like houses for humanity or building orphanages - often these are projects undertaken in a very short space of time and the volunteers are not there designing the building, measuring the frames etc... they're carrying bricks around and maybe digging holes, under the supervision of people who actually know what they're doing (many of whom are local) but they're basically free labour.

As importantly, many of these sort of projects build long-term relationships. So, a group of students come out and support the building. They meet some people. Perhaps they stay in touch. They go home. They lobby their local church or university to set aside some funds to go to the orphanage for routine maintenance and costs or, as they get older, they set up a direct debit and send money over directly. Over time, perhaps they become wealthy or are in a position to direct more money in some way..... These organisations rely heavily on these funds to keep doing the work they're doing.

My brother, who works in this sector, told me recently that when they do fundraising of this sort, it takes on average, at least five direct contacts with potential donors before they see any real investment. Building those relationships, and finding ways to do so by, for example, getting these people out on a bit of a "jolly" to experience it for themselves, is often a crucial step in the process.

That's not to say there aren'y many many faults with the way these funds get channeled to Africa and other parts of the world, but dismissive casual comments like these really get my back up because they're completely out of touch of the reality.

This is what Fuse actually said and he makes some very valid points. I don’t really doubt the original intentions of artists in the song but actually, perpetuating the idea that Africa (which is a continent!) is full of dying and starving people who need charity to survive is ridiculous. Christmas is Ghana is probably the best time of the year and whilst lots of people would be considered poor, it’s a whole country with diversity and joy. I went to Ghana for the first time as an adult, and honestly even as a black person, I was expecting deprivation and starvation everywhere. In reality, it was much more like my normal London life than expected. Songs like band aid, give an idea of the continent of Africa which is not as close to the truth as people think.

Yes, I think this is fair. It's like someone earlier on said: giving money to train doctors in their own country is probably a good thing, parachuting foreign in to deliver aid is more problematic in the long run.

But, then if people need help right now, what do you do? It's a minefield.

Going back to the OPs question, I don't think we should necessarily stop giving aid, I think it's more about how it's given and used to ensure empowering rather than reliance. I see aid as a redistribution of wealth between countries which has to be inherently a good thing if done in the right way.

Re. the song, I think we can't judge the 1984 version by our standards now, times have changed. However, we are right to question whether it should be re-released now, and for me the answer to that is no.

Like others have said, I am not a fan of judging something of the past with today's eyes and morals. The song was written with great intentions, raised a lot of money and - no doubt - saved a lot of lives. Well done Bob and Midge and well done everyone who bought it in the 80s.

But that was 40 years ago and it was of it's time. I can well see how views of Africa need to be changed from that of many people desperately starving and needing charity to one of a vibrant continent filled with diverse and varied countries with many different skills, values and needs. I don't think the song needs rerecording or has any place in 2024, tbh.

Oh right, those lazy patients who can't help themselves how fortunate you can show them where they are going wrong.
I actually think your lecturers attitude is a dodgy as anyone who wants to help because it makes them feel good.

No @TheignT what you wrote above was the exact prevailing attitude in conventional medicine. The patient needs saving and the doctor is there guiding them to salvation. Modern therapeutic approach recognises the strengths of a human in front of them and works with them collaboratively. If you don't like this approach, it's ok. You have an ample choice of paternalistic old-school doctors out there still who can treat you as helpless patient not in control of their treatment.

Unfortunately once you look into these 'charity' volunteer companies, you soon realise it is all being done for the benefit of that company.

Want an orphanage built, lets send a bunch of students paying £5k each on a gap year over to do it 🤔. Really want to help that orphanage get built, give the local builders the job. If they don't have the skills, send some builders over to teach them.

As a child I raised money for the Ethiopia appeal, even before Sir Bob started because I was extremely upset at the pictures being shown in the media. It was only when I reached adulthood and researched how corrupt it all is and how little aid reached the people that truly needed it, that I changed my beliefs in charity giving.

Sir Bob and Sir Bono would have disappeared years ago if not for their self aggrandising nonsense that has made little change to Africa in the past 40 years.

But it is very much a long the line of patients, particularly those with chronic conditions, being experts in managing things themselves. They might need help or tools or treatments, but it's very much working with a patient coaboratively not a medical person swooping in and telling them what has to happen.

Having the time and money to decide on the absolute best thing to do long term is a luxury not afforded during a crisis.

If someone comes to put out a fire, there's a time for a conversation about fire safety and prevention but not for criticising someone who actually did something in an emergency.

Bob Geldof did not have the power or ability to set up functioning non corrupt governments or better agricultural drainage systems that could magically fix the lack of crops - he did something, he raised awareness and there are people who survived a famine as a result. How many of us can say the same?

I sometimes think this academic style discussion is a way people talk themselves out of ever actually doing anything. By all means have these discussions in times of plenty, the merit of gap year students etc is different, but to apply these thoughts with hindsight like this is distasteful, it's essentially saying we'll pay ourselves on the back for letting you starve.

What? I didn't suggest that aid should be cut off, or that people shouldn't fundraise. Just that it's dignified. To me that's no high principles that's just treating someone else like a fellow human being.

@catza thank you, lots for me to think about.

Oh right, those lazy patients who can't help themselves how fortunate you can show them where they are going wrong.

I actually think your lecturers attitude is a dodgy as anyone who wants to help because it makes them feel good.

Just wanted to add my husband and I both give to our favourite charities by monthly direct debit. I'm white, he's not with roots in Africa. Is his help just as bad as mine or should I let him send my donation as it will be better in some strange way?

If my baby is dying of starvation and you have food for me so I can produce milk for the baby you can patronise me as much as you like. Food or high principles? I choose food.

I agree with @pinkdelight. The song was of its time. It achieved a fair amount in terms of providing money for an emergency. Today we have DEC appeals and giving money is so much easier. This was a way everyone could donate specifically to provide aid for those affected by the famine. Today there are other methods and really it should be retired as a song.

Haha, no worries. No, of course most people will have the best intentions but it doesn't mean that the underlying assumption isn't very much "I am an educated white person with enough resources and free time to go and do some good for deprived communities because they couldn't possibly learn to do it themselves". There is something very uncomfortable about that and I think we should be able to acknowledge our own shortcomings. In my example, this thinking resulted in white people flocking to deprived parts of the world to "do good" but the good they were doing was not in collaboration with the locals. There was no acknowledgement that the local population has capacity and skills to do the work themselves and, perhaps, just needed support in developing these skills in a sustainable way. If we did examine our (subconscious!) assumptions that white people know best, we wouldn't choose this specific solution to the lack of qualified SaLTs in Vietnam.
There was an interesting exercise our uni lecturer took us through. He would ask us for a reason why we wanted to work in a caring profession. Every time someone would give a reason (cousins with ASD, mothers with ill mental health, friends disabilities etc.), he would say "go deeper. What is the reason for you thinking xyz". Several layers deep, we pretty much unanimously established that our desire to be in a caring profession stemmed from our own ego and the need for being needed. We could then start challenging our reasoning and assumptions that patients need saving and learned to think about their own strength which they can leverage in therapy to help themselves.

Regarding the song, the lyrics are clunky but they're basically saying, don't forget how lucky and comfortable you are (in general) living in the west and not having to worry about serious droughts and famines, etc.

If Africa is capable of dealing with its own problems then why doesn't it? And I say this as someone who did a charity project in the second poorest country in the world, so I have a tiny idea of what it's like to live there. The living conditions, even for volunteers, were horrific.

It's a song from 40 years ago, of course it's dated! For those of us who were about in 1984, this is like us back then pulling apart the message and social values of a song from 1944.

I totally agree that the lyrics are cringy. Africa is an entire continent and Ethiopia a single county within it. Clearly rain and rivers do flow in Africa (the Nile, anyone?) and there's definitely snow on Mount Kilimanjaro etc, etc. It doesn't land well today at all - it makes me squirm to hear it now - but it's of it's time and was put together with the best of intentions. People really wanted to do something - however patronising or misplaced the medium was - to help the people they were seeing on their tv screens who were literally starving to death. It's very easy 40 years on, with a 2024 sensibility, to pull it all apart ...

Personally I think that's a midway between acknowledging elements of Band Aid are problematic today without completely shitting over the idea and intention. But unfortunately nuance and context doesn't translate into social media clout.

That's interesting. I tend to think of your example as more unintended consequences / poor planning which probably happened more in the past but absolutely should not be happening now as it's unethical. I think of white saviour complex as more the (completely incorrect and patronising) mindset that only white people/nations have the skills and ability to sort out another nations problems and the idea that if white people didn't help then a country/people is/are helpless and floundering and could never improve themselves. It's also the idea that white people know best and are more developed in all respects and there's nothing to be learnt from other cultures or countries. But I guess from what I've written, the white saviour bit in your example is the fact that speech and language therapists are sent in rather than working to develop/improve a countries own speech and language therapists. However, I guess my sticking point is whether that is from what I think of a white saviour mindset or it came from a good place without thinking through the consequences. Though I guess you could argue that perhaps it doesn't matter, the outcomes are the same. (Sorry Catza, that is a lot of waffle of me trying to sort it in my head!)

I think what Ed Sheeran and the like are trying to get across is that you can help people without patronising them.