White Saviour

[username8348]

Ed Sheeran has said that he wouldn't participate in a rerecording of Do they Know it's Christmas which was first released in the 80s to raise money for a famine in Africa.

The single and other similar endeavours have been criticised as portraying a negative view of Africa and belying a White Saviour complex.

Some critics have said that Africa is capable of dealing with its own problems and such sentiments mean it loses business and investment:

While they may generate sympathy and donations, they perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa’s economic growth, tourism and investment, ultimately costing the continent trillions and destroying its dignity, pride and identity - Fuse ODG

Do they know it's Christmas was last rereleased to raise money for ebola. Geldof has denied the claims saying that they're bollocks and the money has achieved a lot.

Western countries give a lot of aid to African nations, is it time to stop that aid? Many countries are feeling the pinch and could plough the money into their own nations.

AIBU to believe that we should stop playing the White Saviour and as advised, let Africa deal with its own problems?

As far as I am aware (and I am in no way an expert), we’ve been giving money to African countries for the best part of the last 100 years and my understanding is that the vast majority of that money disappears before reaching local projects due to corruption. A few wells may have been built here and there but, on a whole, I think we just financed local conflicts, drug trades and mansions for government officials. So something needs to change.

ETA: there are some really good books on this subject by both western and African authors.

The song lyrics are quite unpleasant really - “thank god it’s them instead of you” - that is not nice, I have never thanked god someone is going through terrible times so I am not. What an absurd lyric!

the song raised money, let’s not have it again.

There is a new white saviour mentality now. It doesn’t revolve around giving charity to Africa, but race baiting all the time. Everyone and everything is racist and you must be an anti-racist virtue signaller to be a good person.

As for charity and aid. Where does it all go? In the pockets of corrupt dictators, politicians and their cronies. You’d have to be naive to think that ‘aid’ and charity actually ends up really changing anything.

I think anything that can prevent people dying of starvation and/or preventable disease in any country should be done. But most traditional aid work doesn't work. Corruption, planning by people from outside of the area you don't understand local systems and cultures.
I am a big advocate for direct giving. This has been challenged me very successful where you give people a small minimum income directly to households ideally to the woman. This means they can buy what they need when they need it and hugely boosts local economies.
The impact is immediate and long term. It cuts out a huge amount of bureaucracy. Areas in which it has been done has seen fast improvements. Infrastructure is also needed in some places for sanitation but this should be done by local government. Unfortunately often corrupt.

When the single was first released in 1984, there were no easy ways for the average person, especially young people, to donate to charities. It would involve queuing in a bank or post office to pay money into a published account number; sending off a cheque/postal order in the mail, or happening on someone with a collection bucket or some other local fundraising initiative.

Buying a record was an easy way to give - singles were sold in many high street shops, including places you might be going for other things, such as Boots and Woolworths. It was a good idea to raise money. Everyone had seen footage of starving children on the TV news, and most people wanted to 'do something', so this was a way of doing it. The project was pulled together at very short notice, involving the music A-listers of the day, in an era when they couldn't contribute their performance remotely.

But - we live in a very different world now, where anyone can donate money to any cause at the touch of an app in their living room. The legacy of the original song will live on as it's established as a classic Christmas hit (rightly or wrongly). The lyrics, though well-meant, are now seen for what they are - hastily written and thoughtless in their lumping together the whole continent of Africa. So, I don't think there's a place for repeated iterations of the song - time to say, it did its job well in the 1980s, let it retire now.

Fosters dependency, kills local industries and barely gets to the people that could use it.

He’s right even as his explanation is wrapped in woke.

As we right-wingers often say, sometimes the woke ARE more correct. Here’s a relevant example.

I don't know. I'd like to think the purpose of any given aid was well thought out but maybe it isn't. Most developed nations seem to give out aid so we would be an outlier if it stopped, but I sort of assume US and China aid is a bit of empire building without being an empire?

We give aid to places other than countries in Africa, so is it just countries in Africa you are proposing against or just the concept of foreign aid at all.

Lots of people seem to misunderstand this lyric. It's similar to "there but for the grace of god", I don't think its unpleasant at all. I think it makes it pretty clear that starvation isn't a personal moral failing and invites you to consider what it would be like if it was you rather than someone else.

No good deed goes unpunished, you can’t be white and do bloody anything anymore without being accused of negative behaviour, we are either culturally appropriating, being white saviours or being blamed for all the worlds ills, best white people become completely insular like so many other communities and look after only ourselves, but that would probably be wrong as well!

Well said OP, Ed Sheeran and Fuse ODG. Patronising bollocks for a mediocre, self righteous factually incorrect song that perpetuates damaging stereotypes and gets desperate signers on board looking to virtue signal.

In a world where artists, actor and celebs are happy to look back and admit they got it wrong with certain offensive things I think Bob Geldof should stop deluding himself about that God awful song and say sorry to every single one of us who has had to spend the last 40 odd years having our ears bleed as he gets a load of half wit singers to tell us we aren’t doing enough for the (non-specific) Africans and people outside of Africa couldn’t possibly know what poverty looks like. The ONLY good that ever came of that song was the scene in Gavin and Stacey.

1984 LiveAid was well intentioned, but we know better now, I think. Teaching a nation to be self sufficient and create its own wealth is a far better idea. Plus the aid doesn't get to those who need it most. I like the quote Oxfam used to use on their adverts about teaching a man to fish vs giving a man a fish. I feel the same about homelessness also. I much prefer to give to charities which can help give the person a place to sleep and meals and also help them gain skills to help them manage addiction and debt, also help finding benefits and work.

It also implies no one in the U.K. could ever be in a position where they couldn’t afford a present for their child. Which sadly continues to be demonstrably untrue

That said, it is hard to walk past someone begging in the freezing cold and see them suffering, so I do give a bit of change occasionally. But it's not the long term solution.

I had a economics lecturer who grew up in Eritrea. His thoughts on Live Aid were .... interesting.

I cringe every time I hear "do they know it's Christmas" - Ethiopia is an country with an ancient tradition of Christianity that pre dates most European countries.

You are jumping to quite superficial conclusions here. The issue with the “white saviour complex” is not the act of giving, it’s the failure to consider cultural norms and wider implications of giving. For example, there are projects which recruit voluntary healthcare professionals for poorer countries. Disabled children in Vietnam get free speech and language therapy. Amazing, right? Except that by importing free therapist en masse makes it unattractive to the local government to provide and pay for training places for local SaLTs and they are unwilling to pay graduates a salary when they have hordes of free therapists shipped in by charitable organisations. So the country becomes fully dependent on these projects. A better solution would be, for example, for charities to train local therapists. Failure to plan in the long term and availability of, mostly, white middle class people to donate their time for free created a much bigger issue. That’s white saviour complex in action.

That lyric was put there to get people to think.

It's meant to mean that what is happening to them, could be happening to anyone, it could be happening to you.

I like the sound of direct giving, Moonlight. How do you do it? Are there charities set up for this?

Meanwhile I tend to support charities with one single aim (eg to fix fistulas, or cataracts) in the hope that with one clear purpose, less money gets wasted along the way. Hope that’s not just wishful thinking!

I used to volunteer abroad. Not in Africa but in Asia.

Nobody used to remark on it. Then the "white saviour " remark began to be said in the media. About Stacey Dooley going to Africa.

All of a sudden I began getting mean comments. I posted a post on Facebook about where I was staying in Nepal. I put one line in the post, that I was going to volunteer at a centre.

One of my facebook friends (a girl id went to college with)sent me a really nasty post calling me a white saviour.

I said i was trying to help this charity. She said "but then you're taking jobs away from local people" and I said no "this charity has specifically asked for outside volunteers to come over and help'.

I had done lots of volunteering before this. And it had been a really worthwhile experience. The places needed help.

But my conversation with her really affected me. It's horrible being told that you're helping people just to benefit yourself. I wondered if that's how other people saw me.

And I just stopped volunteering anywhere after that

I think it makes a lot of sense too, small basic incomes directly given to women. I like the microloans schemes as well where you are able to loan money to people so they can improve their own lives and they pay it back over time. I always have a couple of loans going through Lend with Care and have done for years, when I get paid back I lend the money out to someone else. It avoids fostering dependency which is one of the major issues with aid and enables people to help themselves. Slightly different but that might appeal @Hairyesterdaygonetoday .

I think you have to be very careful about where you volunteer. The big problem in Asia was with fake orphanages - the children weren't always orphans, they were there to make money from tourists.

The song lyrics are quite unpleasant really - “thank god it’s them instead of you” - that is not nice, I have never thanked god someone is going through terrible times so I am not. What an absurd lyric!

It's the same as 'There but for the grace of god go I'. It's not about being glad someone else is suffering but about feeling lucky not to be, which is part of empathising and understanding that we are all the same and could be in someone else's shoes in a heartbeat given a different twist of fate, rather than it being our innate qualities that make us different. It's a common human sentiment that everyone feels at some time or other whether they like to admit it to themselves or not. But sure, there's a v simplistic way to read it and react too.

The song was of its time as were the well-intended efforts around it. It doesn't need re-doing now and no one needs more Ed Sheeran. As an Xmas/charity song, it's less annoying and stands up musically better than most.

@Womblewife do you genuinely not understand? The whole point of that line was to verbalise what we all secretly think when we see horrific footage of other people’s suffering. We feel sympathy, anger, powerlessness, desire to help, frustration, even devastation - but we also feel relief that it’s not us suffering. That line was meant as a wake-up call, for us all to acknowledge how lucky and privileged we were.

I do think that aid other than for emergencies basically removes responsibility from the state for taking care of it’s responsibilities. I do support emergency giving though. I remember reading about how giving clothes had destroyed local fabric merchants, tailors etc in communities in some areas in africa.

But there ARE people in the UK starving and unable to provide a Christmas. IME only the privileged like Geldof and Ure ever believe that everyone else is privileged too. They don’t get it and never will

At the moment I'm just talking about Africa. I think the situation is complex.

International aid is an industry and many countries make a lot of money out of it. For example there may be certain conditions for the aid such as using certain suppliers or it's actually a loan with interest.

Governments can become dependent on free labour like English teachers or tradespeople. Meaning locals aren't trained up and earning money.

Regimes have stolen money using it to oppress people. Projects are often not designed with locals and remain unused.

The West has long depleted Africa's natural resources.Some Western countries are in cohoots with corrupt officials and take advantage by leaching resources such as oil and minerals.

Aid is only really effective in functioning democracies where there is accountability.