ngos, neo-colonialism, and you

this 'attention economics' is a two-way business. while western societies become involved only if old colonial ties are still a factor or if a vital source of materials is affected, the local combatants in protracted wars gamble more and more on triggering mass poverty and refugee flows to spur the west into relief initiatives that can be fed back into the economy of violence." ____________________________________________________________________________ harald welzer. Climate wars:why people will be killed in the twenty-first century. ____________________________________________________________________________ "the manner in which humanitarian aid is given can also influence opportunities for corruption. aid given in the context of humanitarian relief can assume a number of forms. the current predominant model is that of direct project implementation by international agencies. this model has partly developed due to the perceived risks involved in transnational aid resources delivered to national actors...aid recipients have very few powers of sanction in relation to aid providers, while the latter can choose for themselves the level at which their work is subject to scrutiny." ___________________________________________________________________________ corruption in humanitarian aid. transparency international. ___________________________________________________________________________ so...ngos are hip to the "economy of violence" which is simply a variation of extortion in which unscrupulous elites wage war on some minor segment of their population to generate internally displaced persons and a humanitarian crisis that will draw aid agencies like flies and provide them with the means of making a decent living at the expense of the balance of their people...nothing new in that...capital has refined the mechanism to the point that violence is only necessary when they are faced with the threat of substantive change form below...then they simply declare the pursuit of change criminal and build more jails...nations in the southern hemisphere often lack the resources to enact this sort of subtlety and so are forced into the cruder methods discussed above...in an effort to curb this sort of thing ngos have developed a sort of neo-colonial approach well suited to the bureaucrats-in-waiting that those who staff then are..a sort of proxy for the "western societies" that have grown sensitive to the criticisms of their former subject peoples and the need to present an enlightened facade to the world while still finding a way to engage in exploitation..rather than turn the aid supplies over to omar al-bashir, sharif sheikh ahmend, or mahinda rajapaksa, they'll go in and set up their own little satrapy independent of any sort of local input or oversight and distribute aid to whomever they deem worthy of help...a sort of "thin red line" for the twenty-first century holding the carrot of humanitarian aid instead of the traditional musket ( this, of course, is still available for use if the area contains a resource that is "vital" or if it is in a position to impede access to said resource...these, rather than the conservative bugbear of "nation building" or the equally fatuous contention of "spreading democratic ideals", have been the driving force behind the imperial wars of the last decade...the empire is finding its extended borders more and more difficult to defend and the imminent financial collapse won't be simplifying the task of maintaining the empire's power base...the "american century" is truly over...reality simply eludes the knee-jerk reaction of the elite...give it time ) maintaining an old tradition of subjugation to the colonial master's needs with new methods...there may have been a time when i felt that the good groups like amnesty international and oxfam did outweighed my misgivings about, among other things , how much of my donation they applied to their ostensible "work" and how much they used to solicit further donations from me and anyone else that found their way onto their mailing lists...that view has fled screaming into the night...pretty soon oxfam will be a pentagon sub-contractor.