A bunch of readers, mostly liberals, have objected to this email I posted earlier:
BTW, your post reminded me of a (non-Goldberg) quote on a Starbucks cup (photograph by someone here):
“We will end poverty and stop HIV/AIDS within our generation when guided by African principles such as ubuntu that underscore our interconnectedness. With greater compassion for others, we would no longer accept hunger and disease as facts of life.” Cedza Dlamini
I think the quote in unintentionally hilarious. Does anyone think that the secret to eliminating poverty and HIV/AIDS is to be found in African principles? It just doesn’t seem like the first place I’d look.
This reader offers a typical objection:
I fear asking what you meant by your remark that “It just doesn’t seem like the first place I’d look.” because I am a liberal who enjoys reading your stuff and don’t want to have my illusion of a fair minded conservative blown.
Let me cut to the chase: Referencing core African principles is tantamount to referencing the intentions of the founding fathers. You can always appreciate the wisdom of the principles without condoning the way that those principles have been ignored or implemented centuries later (cough, Bush, cough).
Your comment came off as a wee bit condescending and [hate to even say it because it inevitably leads to a Sharpton/crying wolf retort somehow] Eurocentric. As if it is impossible that African proverbs/thought couldn’t actually bring something positive to the table on issues like AIDs, world peace or even famine.
You’re better than that. At least I’m hoping you are.
– Liberal Black Corner Fan
Me: Well, first we should be clear that it wasn’t my remark, but a reader’s.
Second, I don’t really shrink from the “Eurocentric” label. I am Eurocentric, properly understood. Which is to say, if you mean by Eurocentrist “racist” then no, I’m not a Eurocentrist. If you mean that my attitudes and values are largely shaped by the Europe-centered development of what we call Western Civilization and the pride I take in its accomplishments, then yeah, I’m Eurocentric.
Anyway, I understand the objections to the initial e-mail. As another sarcastic reader put it: “What morons to think they can combat AIDS and poverty through ‘greater compassion for others.’ The idea!”
Hah, hah and touché. But look, when I hear this kind of stuff from the “youth emissary” to the UN, I don’t think I’m crazy to think this is a Trojan Horse for more of the same from the UN global bureaucracy which measures “compassion for others” by ones commitment to failed aid policies and wealth redistribution.
One might also note that we’ve seem statism trussed up in folk wisdom plenty of times before, from Mao’s “Chinese way” to the socialist prattle I heard from the Islamist in my Oxford Union debate to Huey Long’s folk socialism. Hillary Clinton’s village and, to a certain extent, Bush’s compassionate conservatism, are both guilty of a similar, though hardly identical, tendency to justify dirigisme with time-worn platitudes.
Not to sound too “Eurocentric” but what’s often even worse is when people actually believe the folksy nonsense they spout. In South Africa, recall, President Mbeki has inflicted horrific suffering on his people by rejecting what Matt Feeney might call the “abstract globalist norms” of the scientific revolution, preferring instead to follow the “African path” of folk remedies over “European” medicine.