Peacemakers
by Jorge Vargas
This article is dedicated to the woman who made strong.
The United States can most certainly be accused of a multitude of crimes. Violations of human rights by way of physically hindering the free movement of persons along with the usage of torture as defined in the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, there is evidence that the U.S. government has self-righteously and selfishly thwarted the efforts of freedom-loving governments elsewhere at bringing peace and stability to their respective nations, all for the sake of profit and commercial interest. In the history of nations, the United States is worthy of no more honor than Imperial Spain, and perhaps less so, since Imperial Spain did not lie much about her actions.
But there is no such thing as an entity that is completely 'bad,' save perhaps for Satan - and the U.S. government is most certainly not Satan, though proximity to that extreme is debatable.
The United States, some decades ago, launched a program that would work to develop the nations of the Third World while also improving opinions of the U.S. in those countries. Let us look beyond the governmental level, however. Let us speak of the people who are giving up years of their lives to bring assistance to the people of the Third World and who remind them that they are not forgotten. These individuals will go there to wake these children up from their perennial nightmares, showing them possibilities and giving them opportunities.
These individuals are selfless in the truest of meanings and they are more courageous than any soldier marching into enemy territory.
Of course, there are those who argue that assistance programs of these sort are foolish and that they reek of attempts of playing 'white savior.' Are there individuals who go into the U.S. Peace Corps with that mindset? Most likely. Are they a majority? Most likely not.
And even in those cases where the participants are being slightly arrogant in their assistance, one must ask: So, what? The individuals they are helping are impoverished and almost always without options. These programs are set up as foreign assistance and their participants were invited in.
There are those economists, locked up in their ivory towers in New York, in Washington, in London, in Paris, in Berlin, in Hamburg, in Tokyo, and in half a dozen other cities who argue that direct foreign assistance is bad for the developing nations. I ask those individuals to provide proof. Not a whirlwind of numbers that most people don't understand - I do and I see no proof in those numbers - but substantial proof.
Are we making these nations dependent? They are already dependent, and so are the developed nations. That's the idea of interdependence.
Oh, they're not doing enough to boost up opinions of the U.S. abroad? Come on now, that's probably a cause of illegal U.S. actions that started in the 1840s and which continue today. It has nothing to do with foreign aid.
No, there is no fault in these programs and in the vast majority of the individuals taking part in them.
What the nations of the Third World need to do is shed their pride and welcome these programs in, on terms of mutual international respect and without condescendence on the institutional level. Only by working with these groups - and here one can speak of Oxfam, Amnesty International, and dozens of other organizations, governmental and non-governmental - will the nations of the global South rise up.
Perhaps I am partial because I have dedicated a significant portion of my life to foreign assistance of that sort, and perhaps I am partial because I was myself born in a Third World nation, and perhaps I am partial because someone who I love very much is today embarking on her own voyage to bring light to the darkest quarters of our world, and perhaps I am partial because I was, at birth, one of those whom the Ivory Tower dwellers would have written off as economically and politically inconsequential, but I believe that there is no greater method to create peace than supporting these programs and their participants.
Governments may be cruel, and they may commit crimes, but if even one person can demonstrate a desire to help, then that will be one step closer toward mutual respect and peace. If the experts want to oppose that, then let them. At least we know where they stand.
