Exposing the aid ideological trap

Cape Town - Turning to the media as he welcomed President Zelensky, President Trump sarcastically said "He's all dressed up today," pointing to the military fatigue dress style President Zelensky is known for.

Once in the Oval Office, reporter Brian Glenn asked President Zelensky "Why don't you wear a suit? Do you own a suit?" Then Trump, amidst the heated exchange, told President Zelensky, “You’re being disrespectful.” Vice-President JD Vance went next, saying “Have you said thank you once?”  

If you have ever been a benefactor of American government or private foreign aid, you will be familiar with this language. This is how aid recipients are frequently spoken to by foreign aid agencies. Gratefulness for aid includes a significant degree of grovelling if you want to continue being "in the good books." Foreign aid is often wrapped up in ideological strangleholds. It has an ownership expectation that extends way beyond the value of the aid. Aid recipients are required to align themselves ideologically with the donor. You may not speak, write or publish that which politically or ideologically contradicts the aid giver. What happened in the Oval Office on Friday is not unique. It happens very frequently in the foreign aid landscape. 

I have made visits to the USAID offices in Washington and other agencies in the US. I have been to Aid offices in the UK and Germany. I have hosted foreign aid delegations during my career. Humiliation and superiority come with donor aid. Unless you bow down and worship the foreign aid delegations, you are soon eliminated from the "aid priority list." 

I have seen undergraduate Global North students telling 30-year local veterans in the non-profit sector how to do "community work better." I have seen the disrespect and arrogance. And I have seen them pack their bags and terminate their internship after just three weeks, because “no one is listening to us.” 

President Zelensky did the right thing. He is a war-time president. He is busy fighting a real war with a bully president and he found himself being attacked by bullies in the Oval Office who said to him “We know you’re wrong.” No self-respecting person bows down to grovel in such circumstances. Notwithstanding the aid he might lose, there is a greater cause that he represents. The peace deal offered by the Americans includes a minerals mining deal as "repayment" to the Americans without satisfying the Ukrainian demand for certain securities to be included in the agreement – most importantly, that Russia would respect their borders and abide by the cease-fire.  

Afri-Forum and Solidariteit are part of this growing cult that seeks the negative power of superiority but fails to see that their concomitant duty will be to grovel. They are mistaken if they think they have friends in the US Administration who will support their need for superiority. In the Aid playbook, only the aid giver is superior. Afri-Forum and Solidariteit are being trained as future grovellers.

Donor nations have often used aid as a new form of colonisation. When poorer nations accept aid from wealthy Global North nations, such aid has significant overreach. It prohibits certain policies, ideological positions and the right to publish certain things. It does not allow the recipient nation to criticize the donor nation, even on unrelated matters. The donor-recipient relationship is still a very immature and controlling relationship. But its most toxic characteristic is how donor agents laud it over recipients as their superiors on almost all levels. It's humiliating and infuriating to observe. 

The Zelensky-Trump Oval Office spat is a window into how aid superiority works. From criticising his sense of dress to demanding a thank you, to saying he's ungrateful and that he knows he's wrong, it all is taken directly from the Foreign Aid playbook chapter on "How to use aid to enforce Global North superiority." 

Can aid be made kinder, less humiliating and less ideological? Yes, it can.

*Davids is the Executive Director of Urban Issues Consulting

Cape Argus