Preemptive Diplomacy: Everyone Can Play
January 16th, 2009 by Wil Robinson
There are a few things in life that have proved true over time:
- HDTV is not a good thing when watching news anchors that have had too much plastic surgery.
- Permanently wearing a blue-tooth earpiece does not make you richer, more professional, or more respected. It just makes you look like you wish you were a part of the Borg’s collective consciousness.
- Our most treasured gifts are not the most expensive, but are the ones that have a person behind them.
When it comes to foreign aid, we must remember that without a human face, human sweat, and human relationships, free money can become an obstacle.
Greg Mortenson, of Three Cups of Tea and the Central Asia Institute, is successful working as an American in the least likely of places for one reason: he understands money is not enough. His work building schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan has impacted thousands of lives only because of the personal relationships he has forged.
Anyone can dump money on a problem and hope it goes away. But without personal interaction, frequently the money is spent unwisely, used to feed corruption, or enhances the power of despots and dictators.
Often the change we seek is only possible through human relationships. Money is the essential starting ingredient, but without a human heart behind development aid, the original sacrifice is lost. And the original intention – generating goodwill toward our nation – is lost with it.
Mortenson spent years showing – not telling – the people of northern Pakistan what his intentions were. There were no radio shows regurgitating talking points to convince the people of his values; there were no fliers dropped from airplanes with illustrations to show his objective; there was no generic building erected with a signboard in front bearing his insignia or nation’s flag.
There was only Mortenson – an American visiting, living, respecting, learning and talking with the very people he aspired to help.
As events over the last 8 years have shown, America ignores the rest of the world to the detriment of its own security. Our future foreign policy needs to revolve around development assistance. Foreign aid – if handled appropriately – can act as preemptive diplomacy. Yet just as we would never appoint a bag of money as an ambassador, how can shipping suitcases of cash with only a sender’s address hold any meaning for the people we aim to help?
By successfully combining these two agents of change in American society – those people that can donate money, and those people that can donate time – we can create a new era of American foreign policy that truly will make our world more secure. We have spent the last 8 years sending money abroad as a sign of our good intentions, but have accompanied that aid with soldiers, guns, torture, and air strikes.
We need to stop sending conflicting messages and show the world a human face to go with our human charity. We have to stop sending our military out on diplomatic errands to deliver briefcases of cash without knowing the names, lives, trials, and needs of the people we claim to be helping.
In the slums of Mumbai, Akanksha, an Indian-based NGO, organizes classes of young teenagers for two-and-a-half hours each afternoon to help with their studies.
Akanksha students stand out from their peers, and not just because they do better in school. Akanksha children have high self-esteem, are not afraid to practice their broken English, are less likely to acknowledge religious differences with their friends, and even stay healthier and cleaner (though some still refuse to wear shoes).
Akanksha has many donors, foreign and domestic (but as with any non-profit – not enough). They also have dozens of teachers who devote their time – some of them Westerners, some of them Indians with experience living in the U.S.: wealthy housewives who teach an after-school class everyday; under-grads from the U.S. that volunteer their spring break; mothers in the slums that find paying jobs at the centers, thereby earning respect in their communities; Indian engineering graduates who spend months tutoring math before starting a career.
I have seen firsthand the impact that personal relationships can have between the first and third worlds. I have seen the smiles that make you want to cry, the hope that grows with each sign of friendship, the confidence that builds with each word of praise, and the future that brightens with each passing day.
As we set out in 2009 with a new president – and hopefully a new foreign policy – we have the necessary resources to succeed in preemptive diplomacy. There is no shortage of Americans who want to be the face on the front line, and neither is there a shortage of those who want to donate money or supplies. At some point, we must separate war from diplomacy; we need to distinguish between real humanitarian aid and bribes.
To really have an impact, we must focus on establishing personal relationships alongside monetary donations – relationships between different cultures, religions, and people. We need to make sure we have American faces on the ground to devote the time, energy, and love necessary to show – not tell – the rest of the world what real American values are.
There are those Americans that volunteer their time. And those Americans that volunteer their hard-earned money. It’s a team effort. If the two are linked so that development aid recipients can see this connection, we’ve already done more for world peace than any armed “liberation” ever could.
Anyone interested in Akanksha (or who would like to donate), they have a New York office website at www.akanksha.org. I can personally vouch for the great work Akanksha does, and even the smallest donations go a long way in India.
Tags: central asia institute, India, foreign aid, slums, foreign policy
Three Cups of Tea sure leaves one with a lot to think about. On the one hand, it is a testament to how much one devoted individual can do. As I read the book I could not help but think: what if we had 20 Americans out there doing this? What if we had 200? 2,000? I am reminded of the statistic highlighted in Nial Ferguson’s book, Colossus: The Cost of America’s Empire. Nearly half of the Oxford graduating class of 1900 left for India, Pakistan, or Burma to work on civil projects. Can you imagine a similar number of Harvard grads leaving their cushy careers to work in Afghanistan or Iraq?
On the other hand, what Mortenson has set up is completely unsustainable. If you take him out of the picture, the entire Central Asia Institute falls apart. Without a steady and institutionalized way to continue the kind of work started by Mortenson, we are left trying to dam a river with a pebble.
But how can we create such a framework? While NGOs like the afore mentioned Akanksha are very successful at what they do, their resources are too small for the enormous task at hand. And as I have already mentioned, most Americans -working class through ivy leaguers- don’t give one wit about actually devoting time to helping those in the ‘third world.’ Sure, every latte sipper can throw in a few dollars for the local Save Darfur! campaign, but the minute personal sacrifice is required they all disappear, one by one.
Neither does the government provide an adequate solution. One of the passages in Three Cups of Tea I remember most vividly is that where the U.S. Army officer contacts Mortenson, offering to donate to the Central Asia Institute. Mortenson refuses the money outright- if word ever got out that the government of the United States was behind the schools, Mortonsen would not be constructing another building again.
This leaves us Americans at an impasse: the one tool we have capable of accomplishing our goal is rejected by those we wish to help, while the tool that is accepted is not capable of accomplishing anything on a large scale.
I can see the problem, but I do not know how to fix it.
~T. Greer, frustrated.
T. Greer–
I remember the same passage in 3 cups of tea, about Mortenson turning down the military money. It goes to the root of the problem - US foreign aid is seen as having strings attached. I guess putting an American face on all foreign aid, and not conditions, might solve that problem.
There are more Americans out there sacrificing their time than you might think. Yes, we need more, but we can’t discount the ones doing their job now as “not enough to affect the problem.” To sit at an impasse with the excuse that “it won’t solve everything” is to avoid trying in the first place.
Besides, not to sound cliche, but it matters to the few that we do affect. There are 20 children in the classroom I visit twice a week - and it matters to them. That’s 20 lives that American money and American time may have an impact on. I hope that one day, these children will look on America fondly and remember those that cared about them. Those 20 will have, say at least 40 children, who will grow up with a good impression of America based on what their parents tell them…and so on.
We need to stop looking short term. Short term thinking leads to big sums of money, but little invested time. We need to really invest ourselves. Yes, the problem is big - but the solution has presented itself. Implementing that solution on a long-term and larger scale is the challenge we now face.
I think if the U.S. government wasn’t dropping bombs on villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan from unmanned drones, or torturing prisoners in Baghram and Guantanamo, or doling out money to corrupt warlords to buy them off (or doling out Viagra), the US government could spend money on a program like Mortenson’s - and others. The problem is that no one believes it’s truly meant to help when the US is giving out cash with one hand and bitch-slapping recipients with the other. We need consistency - we need to prove it - and we need to maintain it over time.
Excellent point about the graduating class from Oxford in 1900…of course, many of those were directly involved in maintaining empire - not aiding in development for sovereign countries.
I do not mean to belittle the accomplishments of the thousands of Americans working overseas with NGOs and private organizations dedicated to helping those in need. Indeed, I hope to do so myself shortly after graduating this year. Likewise, I sincerely and honestly applaud the work you have done- I wish all Americans would follow your example.
However, it is a drop in the bucket. Mumbai alone has around 100,000 ’street children’, and India as a whole has 11,000,000.
However, here is where I have to double back on what I wrote a day ago. John Nagl and Nathan Fick wrote something in FP Magazine that caught my eye after I wrote the above comment. Let me share part of it here:
“Afghans’ greatest concerns, according to polling by the Asia Foundation, are access to electricity, jobs, water, and education. Those who think the country is moving in the right direction can rightly cite instances of successful reconstruction efforts as the primary cause for optimism. For these reasons, security must not be seen simply as a necessary precondition for development efforts. Development often creates security by bolstering people’s confidence in their government and providing a positive, tangible alternative to the Taliban. Take the National Solidarity Program. Under this initiative, villages elect a community council to oversee a development project chosen by village vote. Local people contribute a portion of the capital, labor, or materials, and allocated aid funds are distributed transparently. The results of this bottom-up process have been remarkable: Although the Taliban has burned hundreds of schools across Afghanistan, almost no schools built under this program have been destroyed, largely because the Taliban knows it would win no allies by destroying them.”
Assuming that Nagl and Flick are in no way distorting the truth, this brings up an interesting point not yet considered. You have stated that throwing money at our problems solves nothing- I would suggest that throwing schools at problems does not do much more. What appears to have made this particular program so successful is that the local projects were chosen by local councils and constructed by local workers. Under this system, aid is more than a handout insidiously doled out by foreigners. It is the collimation of the collective hard work of an entire community, and their friends, the Americans.
If we are to implement the lessons of the CAI, I cannot help but think this is the best way to do it.
~T. Greer, bit more hopeful than yesterday.
T. Greer–
Not sure where you got the figures for Mumbai’s street children, but I would guess it’s far higher. And the figure of 11,000,000 in all of India has to be a low figure, too. Don’t rely on the Indian government’s figures- they are always far too low, because the gov’t doesn’t want to appear inept (which it is).
Your reference about Afghan projects is specifically what I’m talking about, and proves my point. Joint projects - with a real relationship between people - is what’s needed not just in Afghanistan, but in many developing countries.
What Mortenson - and NGOs like Akanksha - do is create this relationship. It goes beyond just “throwing money - or schools - at the problem.” Relationships are invaluable. Schools - without a relationship - are no more than wood and concrete, with a fixed price. Without real human bonds behind them, they don’t do much.
Glad to see that you’re a bit more hopeful.
The numbers came from a LA Times article citing “conservative estimates” from UNICEF. I will see if I can drop a link when I have a bit more time.
I agree with your point on ‘wood and concrete’ completely. My specific worry was that the U.S. government could not replicate NGOs ‘human bonds’- but it seems I have been proven wrong.
Now I just have to hope for the widespread adoption of such practices.
~T. Greer