Not again...
Yesterday afternoon we had another protest in front of the main building. Thankfully it wasn't more lame fucking students and hippies who don't know anything about foreign aid... no, these people have some real scores to settle: the Ethiopians. Unfortunately the Ethiopians came to the wrong place. Right up to the wrong place's front door, in fact. It was kinda awesome regardless.
/hoping for a ruckus in my heart of hearts
First, a little background.
Far from the image of an arid wasteland full of starving natives that the media enjoys broadcasting to the west, Ethiopia is in fact a fairly modern country built on the remnants of the oldest Christian empire in the world. Actually it is fairly arid, but whatever, they have some of the most beautiful women this side of Mumbai.
/how do you say "you so fine" in Amharic?
From their independence until this year, things have been going fairly smoothly for the fledgling democracy: good relations with the US, shitty economy that's getting better slowly, pretty much par for the course for any east African nation. But in July of this year, however, the ruling party known as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was accused by several external bodies (including the EU) of rigging parliamentary elections. The EPRDF didn't take this criticism lightly, and on at least two occassions over the ensuing months government troops have opened fire on peaceful demonstrations in Addis Ababa. With over 80 people reported dead and another several hundred whisked off to prisons in the highlands, the EPRDF then decides to start a pissing match with neighboring Eritrea over a decades-old border conflict that in 1990 claimed thousands of lives on both sides and led to one of the world's most severe land-mine problems. And to top it all off, they're on the brink of one of the worst food shortages in years. Fickle Fortuna's a fucking bitch.
Suffice it to say that the expatriates around the world are pissed off at their government back home, and furthermore, they're pissed at those institutions that they see as implicitly supporting that government.
Enter the protestors.
/bundled Ethiopians.
Before I go any further, let me express my sincere sympathies to these people. Their country's government is turning from democracy to fascism at an alarming rate, their economy could use some work to put it lightly, and they aren't getting any help from the outside. I understand this. But damn it, do some research on the institution you're about to protest.
In short, they're fulfilling all 3 requirements for a wholly ineffectual demonstration:
1. No focus of message - A) "Injustice anywhere leads to injustice everywhere." That statement makes me feel warm inside, but it hardly makes for a hard-hitting emotion that'll keep me up at night. Call me jaded. B) "[Picture of EDRPF leaders with bullets flying through their heads]" Just kinda creepy.
2. Signs making outrageous accusations. A) "World Bank funds the Ethiopian military" No we don't. B) "Bank/IMF $ = Ethiopian Prisons" False. C) "You have blood on your hands" Tricky one, but I just don't see it.
3. Little or no hint at a viable alternative. "World Bank get out" I'll get into this one later.
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Alright. In the first 10 articles of the Bank's founding charter you'll find repeated reference to the rule that says no matter who the ruling party or political entity within a country is, it shall have no bearing on the amount of aid the nation should recieve. I think the logic behind this is self-evident: we'll support the world's poor whether they're commie, Muslim, fascist or democratic. Starvation is starvation.
/a hungry Bolshevik child? fuck 'em.
Furthermore, let's get one thing straight: the Bank does not hand blank checks to foreign governments. After a review process lasting months and months, a team of experts makes recommendations to a government on how best their money can be spent towards the goal of alleviating poverty. They're very clear about this. Every single dollar that the Bank either gives or loans to a government is tracked by about 20 different bureaucratic processes, and we're very fucking good at this if I do say so myself. If it is ever found that the money isn't going towards the designated end, the funding stops... it doesn't trickle, it stops.
So, after a quick review of the Bank's Ethiopia country office activities, I've concluded that what the Bank does provide to Ethiopia is a) education [read: school construction], b) infrastructure development [read: road maintenance], and c) agricultural assistance [organic pesticides and training]. Hardly sounds like bullets and prisons to me, but hey, maybe the children are just exaggerating?
/another brick in the wall beats another corpse in the ground
So what about the alternative? What happens if we really were to leave? Some protestors seemed to be making the case that millions of dollars of Bank aid is essentially propping up this government, and that without it the corrupt governments would collapse. Well, this doesn't really happen. Ever. Look at Cuba, North Korea, and pre-invasion Iraq. The logic there is to isolate, cut off aid, and hopefully they'll crumble over time. But the sad and by this point fucking obvious truth is that when we stop providing food and aid on behalf of an oppressive regime, no more food or aid is provided by anyone, much less the government. The population just keeps starving.
So here's an alternative, Ethiopian expats: go one more block down the road and pay our fearless leader a visit at the White House. Go a couple blocks down to the State Department and have some tea with Secretary Rice. The Bank's mission is to fight poverty, while the Bush administration's self-described duty is to "end tyranny in our world" and promote democracy worldwide, apparently at gunpoint if necessary. But oh by the way, while your uncles and brothers and cousins are getting cut down in the streets of Addis Ababa, they aren't doing a goddamn thing about it.
posted by Nat at 2:44 PM
