I donated money to Oxfam last year…and so did you if you’re a UK taxpayer. That’s how generous we are here in Blighty. We give without even knowing or being asked.
In fact the UK government donated over £200 million of taxpayer’s cash to Oxfam alone in 2016. Tax free of course.
That’s not charity. It’s State policy, sub-contracted through the cuddly sounding “aid sector.”
I’ve no idea how many trillions of dollars the developed world has given away in aid these past decades, but we’ve seen precious little progress to show for it. With seemingly endless conflict, famine and migration crises, our generosity seems to have done almost nothing to alleviate the Developing World’s most acute social and economic problems. A true cynic might begin to wonder if the “aid sector” has any real interest in actually solving any societal and cultural problems. After all, it could be argued that increased prosperity and self-reliance are bad for the aid business as they diminish demand, and overseas aid donations have become big, big business.
In this case the word donations is a euphemism for the State confiscating our property via taxation, before handing it over to an ever growing list of multi-billion dollar enterprises on our behalf. It may surprise many of you to learn that the single biggest recipient of UK Government aid during 2016 was Pakistan, a nation that can somehow afford nuclear weapons yet can’t (or won’t) govern its own territory or educate its population effectively. I wonder how they manage to pay for all that shiny military hardware?
I’ve no doubt Pakistan’s ruling elite is indeed grateful for the £463 million the UK government donated to it last year, as it leaves them free to pursue their global and regional agendas without the cost and bother of building schools, hospitals and other such boring but vital infrastructure. Why fix the road yourself when your neighbour will do it and you get to drive all the same? This bottomless bucket of guilty-conscience cash is a great advantage to an entrenched ruling class, as it weakens any potential grassroots challenge to their authority. A population dependent on aid is easily controlled, because hunger is a powerful political persuader.
There’s some serious coin in compassion these days, with Oxfam’s Chief Executive trousering a hefty £119k per annum as far back as 2013. Indeed, Oxfam’s own statement from August of that year claims the figure was “in the lower quartile of what other large charities paid for their chief executives.” This state-funded largess makes the latest revelations regarding the behaviour of some Oxfam staff all the more reprehensible, especially with former ministers claiming this is just the “tip of the iceberg.”
When it comes to charity and generosity of spirit, we in the developed world have no reason to reproach ourselves, but I’ve got a nagging feeling we’re about to learn that everything we thought we knew is wrong.
Image courtesy of Alex_ ugalek at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
