In the News: Africans to Bono: ‘For God’s sake please stop!’
July 7, 2007 · Print This Article
With all of the megastar attention to the needs in Africa, and public awareness reaching all time highs, voices from inside Africa have begun to raise a new concern: STOP flooding
The articles, one from American Magazine and one from the LA Times, are definitely worth your time. You can read them here:
American Magazine: Africans to Bono: ‘For God’s sake please stop!’ This article contains a plethora of great links for further investigation.
LaTimes: What Bono doesn’t say about Africa was written by William Easterly the author of “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”
The Vanity Fair “Africa Issue” that the Easterly article mentions is also full of great resources and certainly worth your time. Explore it online here.
“We can save Africans from disease. We can even save Africans from themselves. Africa can be saved if we just try hard enough.”
So often we talk about more awareness, more aid, more volunteers, etc…I think we as a culture think more highly of ourselves than we should. Often times, I submit my best effort and wonder why things did not work out how I planned. Maybe I didn’t pray enough? Maybe I wasn’t spiritual enough? Or maybe I just wasn’t listening.
The idea in Christian sub-culture that God has called me to something is misused. God calls all of us,(those that consider ourselves followers of Christ) to glorify him. To suggest that we are the reason that some “mission” succeeds or fails is arrogant and prideful in nature. It says in the word that God doesn’t even need us and that the “rocks would cry out”
Too many times we see the real cost and we opt out and take the easy way out; ie. write a check, complain to leadership in the church, join a celebrity cause, create a facebook group. The same thing that happens in Africa happens in the US. Armed with eternal security we have a license to save the world.
This article really outlines the true cost of saving Africa. Not shockingly no-one really wants to roll their sleeves up and get dirty and take some real risks. Writing and aid check is tangible, and we can pat ourselves on the back that we are doing our part. What if we were just stewards of what GOd had entrusted to us and we saw to it personally that those funds were being used in impactful ways? Not just band-aids…
What a HUGE awakening this was for me. It is a concept I know very well, yet somehow it was escaping my grasp. Both of these articles truthfully lay it out!
There is a GREAT need for teaching people and injecting money into the African economy. I don’t mean write checks. I mean start grant programs for farmers/fishermen/seamstress. Improve their infrastructure through teaching them how to pave roads/runways/lay rail roads. Start education funds for orphans to go to university!
I agree it is time to STOP making the world aware and START making a real difference.