By Matt Friedeman
July 7, 2005

(AgapePress) - Let's not give any more money to Africa -- regardless of what our Live8 rock stars are saying and the guilt they are trying to lay on us at the current G8 summit. We will look scrooges in the eyes of the government-drunk of the world, but it will be the right thing to do.

Mark Steyn, in a recent column in the Telegraph points to the hypocrisy of the Live8 concert and states truth to power:

"These faux revolutionaries are capitalists red in tooth and claw ... The system that enriched them could enrich Africa. But capitalism's the one cause the poseurs never speak up for. The rockers demand we give our ------ money to African dictators to manage, while they give their ----- money to Winthrop Stimson Putnam & Roberts to manage. Which of those models makes more sense?"

But the best insight of the week goes to a man touted by Der Spiegel as a "Kenyan economics expert" -- a gentleman known as James Shikwati. Concerning African aid, he says, "... for God's sake, please stop it." These excerpts from the interview stand out:

"Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid."

"Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent."

"Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice."

"[If the World Food Program of the United Nations did nothing?] In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure .... It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy."

"In the industrial nations, there's a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either."

Compassion, poorly given, hurts. And it is high time for Christians to recognize that if money given serves only to make us feel better but actually puts Africa, or welfare recipients of America, or beggars down the street at a disadvantage, then it is far more Christian to assuage the compassion pangs with personal relationship, serious accountability that springs from first-hand knowledge of the recipient's plight, and the application of spiritual and moral principles so necessary to the advancement of hurting and disenfranchised people.

That takes more work, of course, than singing songs and passing a plate, or showing up in a European meeting and challenging the gang to send billions more in taxpayer money.

But it is work -- God's work through us -- that is the need of the hour.