Two of Denmarks televison channels raised 110 million kroner in the cause of starving Africans today and a lot of my family and friends on facebook have expressed pride and satisfaction. 110 million kroner is about $21 million US, or £13 million Sterling. Not bad for a small country like ours.
Unfortunately I cannot share the joy, because I no longer believe raising ever larger sums of money to give to the Horn of Africa is going to change anything at all. Denmark alone forks out 15 billion kroner a year on foreign aid and even this collosal amount of money hasn't prevented the people of that blighted region from waging non stop civil wars (with attendant genocides) or from having the planet's highest fertility rates.
If anything I am dejected that a quarter of a century after Live Aid, we still maintain the illusion that throwing alms to the poor is going to solve anything at all. It is especially galling that a significant proportion of the money and food sent to alleviate suffering in the third world, is stolen by corrupt officials in the recipient countries and in the UN, which has degenerated beyond the absurd as a means of solving geopolitical problems. In many cases aid money raised by charity in the west buys the very weaponry and ammunition which is a part of the cause of problems faced by the starving multitude.
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