My wife made an interesting point this morning in response to Bono's appearance on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC. Bono had just returned from refugee camps in Jordan and near Somalia ... and said that these huge displacements pose an existential threat to Europe if their refugees were all to be absorbed therein.
He said that the answer to this threat was for the developed world, particularly the United States, to help these areas of the world with economic development ... so that their people will not be tempted to exit their hellholes. We need to show them how to raise themselves through better sanitation, better farming, better governance, better industry and stronger trade. (I'm extrapolating here a little from Bono's comments.) Kinda like a new Marshall Plan.
My wife's observation was that Bono's recommendation of outreach to these underdeveloped areas sounds a lot like what happened a century ago when the European nations engaged in an orgy of colonialism ... which did greatly benefit, at least economically, these areas of the world.
It seems to me that there is at least a germ of truth to her observation. If we listen to Bono and help lift these areas of the world out of their downward spirals, will we then be cursed later on as evil colonialists? The irony is palpable.
2 comments:
{The perils of colonialism - The Life of Brian}
...What have they [The Romans] ever given us in return?
Xerxes:
The aqueduct.
Reg:
Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.
Masked Activist:
And the sanitation!
Stan:
Oh yes... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
Reg:
All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done...
Matthias:
And the roads...
Reg:
(sharply) Well yes obviously the roads... the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads...
Another Masked Activist:
Irrigation...
Other Masked Voices:
Medicine... Education... Health...
Reg:
Yes... all right, fair enough...
Activist Near Front:
And the wine...
Omnes:
Oh yes! True!
Francis:
Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
Masked Activist at Back:
Public baths!
Stan:
And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
Francis:
Yes, they certainly know how to keep order... (general nodding)... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
(more general murmurs of agreement)
Reg:
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
Xerxes:
Brought peace!
Reg:
(very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all) What!? Oh... (scornfully) Peace, yes... shut up!
Very apt ... thanks.
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