Live8: Alive Or Dead

I could not agree more with the points MacDara brought up this week in his post: Learning a Lesson from Live8 .

He has an amazingly accurate understanding about how many Africans view and feel about the concert.

In truth a bunch of well meaning celebrities jumping up and down, pronouncing their support, does little to get aid to where its is really needed in Africa. This is a continent where some (not all) leaders, care more about their own pockets, then the state of their countries economic or social shape. No matter what policies are instituted by the G8, these leaders will not be persuaded to change their ways.

Neither me or MacDara, I believe, are saying that raising awareness about the needs of so many African countries is a futile endeavourer. We just believe that the millions spent on organizing these concerts could have been better spent on providing aid in other forms; like for example teaching starving people how to farm and how to rotate corps properly. Trust me, the proud people of Africa would rather prefer to learn ways to help themselves, then to have to accept aid from others.

This post is not about stopping all aid to Africa, but rather about giving people the chance to take care of their own, before we accept that they can not do so without any aid from the West.

This is about not being patronizing to those that are in need of aid.