Charity to Strangers in Distant Lands

Charities may give a skinny penny out of every dollar to the actual people they are collecting for. There are too many charities and too little oversight. In general, the bigger and older the charity, the better. A large charity is likely to enjoy economy of scale and be more efficient. It is also likely to attract enough attention to remain honest in its dealings, rather than devoting most of its income to maintaining its staff.

When Westerners give to Third World nations, they may fail to consider who they are giving to and what their aims and motives might be. They give because it gives them a fuzzy feeling inside, which is all right, but where does the money ultimately go, and who benefits? Throwing money into a blind alleyway to unknown strangers is not a good way to distribute charity.

Here is a recent case of a Somali man who entered Denmark with bloody murder on his mind. I wonder whether he was fed and nourished by Western aid at some point in his life. Some in Third World countries have different values than we do. If they were better off, they would choose to harm, rather than help us. They might interpret our cartoons, poetry, fiction, movies, or editorials in a negative light and target us for killing. I'm reminded of Uganda, which has declared that they will murder all homosexuals and imprison anyone who knows of a homosexual and does not inform authorities. Contributing to relief in Uganda would be like paying for the nourishment of future murderers. There is a case in Malawi where the police want to conduct humiliating medical exams on gay men to prove they had "unnatural relations," punishable by a lengthy prison term.

I prefer for charity to begin at home. I'm more familiar with people that live around me and would rather tend to them than unknown strangers in a distant land, who might be villains for all I know. I think there is a kind of self-loathing that causes people in developed countries to shrink from helping their own countrymen, but to look to distant lands to bestow gifts. In this way, they assist those who may later prove to be villains.