abc religion and ethics: foreign aid and moral vision

Yesterday an article I wrote was posted on the ABC Religion and Ethics website entitled Foreign aid and moral vision. Here is an excerpt:

…This leads me to the second reason why we should question that aid is about the wealthy sacrificing their wealth to the poor: the assumption that aid is about charity and generosity. When such intentions, however virtuous and commendable, become the sole moral lens through which foreign aid is viewed, the criticism that aid is really a form of the “White Saviour Complex” can become all too accurate. The truth is that aid is not primarily about generosity – it is about reparation.

In this construal, the “White Saviour Complex” is in fact a “White Sinner Complex,” and it is not inappropriate that we should suffer from it. In truth, the way each of us lives is in some way connected to a global economy that exploits someone on the other end of the production chain. As Thomas Pogge has written:

“affluent countries, partly through the global institutional order they impose, bear a great causal and moral responsibility for the massive global persistence of severe poverty. Citizens of these countries thus have not merely a positive duty to assist innocent persons mired in life-threatening poverty, but also a more stringent negative duty to work politically and personally toward ceasing, or compensating for, their contribution to this ongoing catastrophe.”

That every major world religion ascribes in some way to the ethic of “love your neighbour as yourself” should lead us to deep moral reflection: Who is my neighbour in such a globalised world?

You can read the rest here.

MCA