Last week’s reports of another earthquake off the coast of Sumatra caused justifiable panic. Well they might. It was just a couple of hundred kilometres from the epicentre of the quake that triggered the December 26th tsunami. And it was bad enough to cause a thousand deaths.

The suspicion now is that there will be more as the tectonic plates continue to adjust to the new pressures arising from the original quake. The shocks will work their way down south along the line.
It is not a comforting scenario. Nobody knows when there’ll be another. And will it launch more tsunamis or not? The first one did, this one didn’t.
This recent quake reminded us of the horrors unleashed by the first and in turn that the work started then has only begun to gather pace. After all, bodies are still washing up on shores around the Indian Ocean and in many of the most devastated areas there just aren’t enough people to start rebuilding.
The aid agencies were, as ever, quick off the mark. Their ads insinuated into our everyday lives again. Fair enough, that’s how it works.
But in many areas the issue isn’t about money for aid agencies, it’s about the capacity of local systems to support the kind of massive building programme required. This is not the case in Thailand, but is certainly true in parts of Indonesia and in Sri Lanka. The money’s there, the builders aren’t.
You might say that it’s too early to call that one and that’s probably true. It will take a combination of western tourism and local entrepreneurship to rebuild what was there.
After all, what has happened in South East Asia is a cataclysm. It’s redeemable. What’s happening in Africa is an apocalypse.
It’s an important distinction, between cataclysm and apocalypse. The one is sudden, awesome and often unforeseen whereas the second is structural, multi-faceted and portended.
But this begs the question of the role of aid, indeed the role of any external agency.
Does western aid make a difference? If not, shouldn’t we try to understand why and change what we do? More of what is failing is not usually the answer.
It may be that some parts of the world are simply uninhabitable and should be abandoned to the elements. On the other hand, it may be that rulers and factions and tribal divisions and untenable cultural factors render them so.
Certainly this is the case in Zimbabwe, one of the most fertile places on earth, a land so rich and honeyed that the Zionists considered establishing their Promised Land there.
So why is it facing famine? The answer, plain and simple, is that it is ruled by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF. Until this party of inept thugs is dismissed from history Zimbabwe is doomed.
So, what to do? Invade? No, that won’t happen - there’s no oil there. Subvert? This is not acceptable nowadays. Sanctions? These don’t work, and certainly didn’t work in Iraq.
It’s a serious question. Why send aid there when it will be diverted to the ruling party’s functionaries and used to buy votes? Monstrous as the thought might seem, would it not be better to simply spend aid money where it has some chance of having a beneficial effect?
The truth is, it’s too glib to rant at the west that it has a duty to save Africa. Africa also has a duty to save itself. Giving money on an open-handed and open-ended basis is not a solution. It isn’t ruthless to say that we need to judge by outcomes, it’s common sense.
We should always ask does this work? If not, we should work out why and let that influence what we do. And if it’s irredeemable, throw it out and try something else. Much as we might wish aid to be inexhaustible, it isn’t. Only a fool throws money away.
In the case of the Indian Ocean catastrophe, it looks like money pretty well spent. In the case of Africa’s apocalypse I am not so sure. It may be time to think of other paths to freedom…
In doing so we rich westerners must always be wary of both overt and covert colonialism.
Colonisation comes in many forms. The classic form consists of military, political and/or economic conquest and the establishment of a puppet administration.
But there are others. They include ‘spiritual’ colonisation by Irish, British and American missions and the economic, social and cultural colonisation most usually known as globalisation.
Anti-globalisation and ‘aid’ often situate themselves in opposition to globalisation. But aid can often present like another kind of colonisation. Some aid campaigns seem to insinuate that many non-white peoples cannot govern themselves and need enlightened westerners to gift them their skills, their wisdom, their benevolence.
It’s a complex arena. The bottom line is the bottom line. Are the aided getting value for our money? If not, we need a change…