Should Wealthy Western Philanthropists Work With Unethical African Governments?

 

That is a big question.  I wish I could really delve into it and share an analysis about the idea, but unfortunately, I don't have enough knowledge about how current African continent country governments work.  Do the governments allow free speech to be a key value in each country?  Do the governments support torture of their citizens?  I don't know.

In general, I think there is a question of practicality.  Some leaders who might endorse, e.g., torture, would say, "This is what we need to do to maintain order in our government.  We cannot do what the USA does, because if we did, the government would fall and we would have chaos."

Perhaps some people in Africa would say, "We need to have *a* government."  The challenge might be, freedom of speech would lead to different leaders, and the infrastructure to support democratic elections and peaceful transitions of power might not exist yet.  The leaders might feel that they are "doing what's necessary" to maintain order in their governments.

At the same time, a Western philanthropist considering such an argument might say, "This sounds like Neville Chamberlain's tolerance of right-wing autocracy in Europe in the 1930s."  Bold, "expensive" action might be required to bring about prosperity and democracy in Africa, but you could argue that it is necessary to generate conditions of peace of and freedom in Africa.

There are two "bad thought experiments" you could do.  One:  Imagine yourself on trial, as a Western pro-African philanthropist, for having been overly supportive of a regime that tortures its citizens.  The judicial system that has arisen now that the country is doing fine accuses you of having been too tolerant of evil government leaders from the past.  You say:  I wast trying to fight poverty and accelerate us towards prosperity in as quick of a manner as possible.  But the critics who are putting you on trial say, "You aided and abetted government officials who tortured people in my family.  You have high-minded ideals about practicality and helping us, but you failed to recognize that we are real people, not just data in a spreadsheet, and real people were tortured because of your tolerance and embrace of a past crooked regime."

The other bad thought experiment is:  An Iraq-war-like conflict consumes the country in Africa where you decided to anticipate the previous thought experiment and do what you think would be idealistically correct.  You didn't do nothing to help, and you didn't tolerate people who were evil in African governments.  You participated in the peaceful ouster of a government leader who had been mistreating the country's citizens...and then a civil war broke out, and massive casualties ensued.

So what should a person interested in philanthropy do?  Accept the imperfect and possibly objectively evil government and work with it as best you can, reject being Neville Chamberlain and try to change the government, or stay out of it completely, ignore the government as you do your philanthropic work, and avoid "touching the system" of politics in that country that is very delicate and dangerous--you just stay out of it completely?

I don't know what to do myself, but I am tending towards supporting option 3.  Maybe if I knew more in-real-life information about African governments, I would have better ideas about this.