俗话说得好:“好心未必办好事。”这话用在慈善一事上真是再合适不过了。我们愿意相信,所有的慈善之举都是出于良善的意愿;但我们必须承认,并非所有的慈善之举都能达到预期的效果。如果你还以为抱着善心捐点鞋子、袜子、T恤衫就能救人于苦难和水火,那么下面这篇文章中略带刻薄的理智之语也许会让你充满盲目慈善热情的大脑清醒许多……
In the history of foreign aid, it looked pretty harmless: a young Florida businessman decided to collect a million shirts and send them to poor people in Africa. Jason Sadler just wanted to help. He thought he’d start with all the leftover T-shirts from his advertising company, I Wear Your Shirt. But judging from the response Sadler got from a group of foreign-aid bloggers, you’d think he wanted to toss squirrels into wood chippers1) or steal lunchboxes from fourth-graders.
“I have thick skin. I don’t mind, but it’s just the way they responded—it was just, ‘You’re an idiot; here’s another stupid idea; I hope this fails,’” Sadler, 27, says. “It really was offensive because all I’m trying to do is trying to make something good happen and motivate people to get off their butts, get off the couch and do something to help.”
Little did Sadler know that he had stumbled into2) a debate raging in the aid world about the best and worst ways to deliver charity, or whether to give at all. He crashed up against3) a rather simple theory that returned to prominence after failures during the 2004 Asian tsunami4) and the Haiti earthquake: wanting to do something to help is no excuse for not knowing the consequences of what you’re doing.
Sadler has never visited Africa or worked on a foreign aid project. To his critics, his video pitch5) seemed naive with its exhortation6), “Share the wealth, share your shirts—we’re going to change the world.” Still, millions of Africans who have no trouble getting shirts, and who never asked Sadler for handouts7), might object to the idea that giving them more clothes will change the world. Stung8) from watching people donate old, useless stuff after the tsunami and earthquake, aid workers and critics bristled9). “I’m sorry to be so unkind to someone who has good intentions, but you have to do things that make sense,” says William Easterly, an author and New York University economics professor who is a leading critic of bad aid. “If a surgeon is about to operate on me, I’m not all that10) interested in whether he has good intentions. I hope he doesn’t have evil intentions, but I’m much more interested in whether he knows what he’s doing. People have a double standard about aid.”
一名年轻的佛罗里达商人决定收集一百万件T恤送给非洲贫民。纵观对外援助史,这样的做法似乎有百利而无一害。贾森·萨德勒只是想做件善事罢了。他所创办的广告公司“我穿着你的T恤”有大量的T恤存货,他想以此入手开始他的慈善活动。但那些撰文讨论对外援助的博主们可不这样认为,你要是看到他们对萨德勒行为的反馈,准会以为他做了什么十恶不赦的坏事呢,比如把松鼠扔进了木材切碎机,或偷了一个四年级学生的午餐什么的。
“我脸皮厚,倒不介意,但只是他们反馈的方式太……净说些‘你是个傻瓜,这个想法愚蠢透顶,希望你的计划失败’之类的话。”27岁的萨德勒说。“这的确令人不快,因为我只不过是想尽自己所能去做一些好事,去鼓励人们行动起来,别总待着,做点什么去帮助别人。”
萨德勒并未想到,他已在无意间卷入了援助界的一场激烈争论,争论的焦点就是,提供援助的最好与最坏的方式是什么,或者说人们究竟是否该提供援助。在对2004年的亚洲海啸以及海地地震的援助失败后,有一种相当简单的理念重新得到人们的关注:想要帮助他人是好的,但你必须要明白自己的行为可能造成的后果,善意并不能成为无知的借口。撞到了这个理念的“枪口”上,萨德勒自然被骂得狗血喷头。
萨德勒从未去过非洲,也不曾参与过对外援助的项目。在那些批评他的人看来,他在宣传视频中使用的口号似乎颇为幼稚:“分享财富,分享T恤——我们将会改变世界。”然而,数百万的非洲人并不缺少T恤,也从来没有向萨德勒索要过这类援助物品。对于“多给他们点衣服就能改变世界”这一说法,他们大概会表示反对。看到人们在海啸和地震之后所捐赠的那些破旧、无用之物,救援工作人员和批评家们感到心痛,甚至愤怒。“对那些有良善意愿的人如此刻薄,我感到很抱歉,但你必须让自己的善举有意义才行。”纽约大学经济学教授、作家威廉·伊斯特利这样说道,对于有害无益的援助行为,他是主要的批评者之一。“如果一个外科医生要给我动手术,我不会太在意他是否有良善的意愿。当然,我希望他没有恶意,但我更感兴趣的是,他是否知道自己在做什么。但对于援助行为,人们却有双重标准。”
But why gang up11) on a guy who just wants to help clothe people in Africa? First, because it’s not that hard to get shirts in Africa. Flooding the market with free goods could bankrupt people who already sell them. Donating clothing is a sensitive topic in Africa because many countries’ textile industries collapsed under the weight of12) secondhand clothing imports introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. “First you have destroyed these villages’ ability to be industrious and produce cotton products, and then you’re saying ‘Can I give you a T-shirt?’ and you’re celebrating about it?” says James Shikwati, director of the Nairobi-based Inter Region Economic Network, a think tank. “It’s really like offering poison coated with sugar.”
“People looking to help the poor often think so-called goods-in-kind13) donations are a good way to help,” Easterly says. They’re certainly an easy way to inspire potential donors. There was the boy in Grand Rapids, Mich., who collected 10,000 teddy bears for earthquake victims in Haiti. Soles4souls.org is sending shoes. The list goes on: old soap from hotel rooms, underwear, baby formula, even Spam (the pork product). “Years—decades—of calm, reasoned discussion do not seem to have worked,” an aid worker who blogs under the name Tales from the Hood said. “People are still collecting shoes, socks, underwear, T-shirts ... somehow under the delusion that it is helpful. Sometimes loud shouting down14) is the only thing that gets heard.” Then there’s a matter of cost. Money spent shipping teddy bears to kids might be better spent providing for more pressing needs. The same goes for T-shirts.
Sadler says he never planned to dump a million shirts on the market at once. With his two partners, HELP International and waterislife.com, he wanted to send a few thousand shirts at a time to orphanages in Kenya and Uganda that asked for them. Widows would sell the shirts and make a little money. “We’re looking at bringing in several thousand shirts and it being a yearlong process of distribution,” says Ken Surritte, founder of waterislife.com. “The goal is not to hurt the economy in these areas but to be an asset and to be a blessing to these people that otherwise wouldn’t have jobs.”
Sadler has proven flexible: he says he is listening to his critics and no longer plans to send the shirts to Africa. He says he will find another way to use the T-shirts he collects, possibly for disaster relief, giving them to homeless shelters or using them to create other goods. He says profits would then “go back to the company’s goal of helping foster sustainability.” And judging by the response on the Web, he’s getting a lot of donations. “I’ve since listened to a lot of these people,” he says. “I want to change this thing into something that’s better, that’s more helpful and that listens to the people that have the experience that I don’t have.”
There are some critics who argue that all foreign aid—whether from individuals or nonprofits or governments—is keeping Africa back. A vast body of research shows that foreign aid has done little to spur economic growth in Africa—and may have actually slowed it down. “The long-term solution is not aid. It may seem cruel that aid should stop, but really it should,” says Rasna Warah, a Kenyan newspaper columnist. “Africa is the greatest dumping ground on the planet. Everything is dumped here.” Adds Warah: “The sad part is that African governments don’t say no—in fact, they say ‘Please send us more.’ They’re abdicating15) responsibility for their own citizens.”
但是,对于一个只是想为非洲人提供御寒蔽体之物的人,人们为什么非要群起而攻之呢?首先,在非洲,买几件T恤并非难事。而让大量的免费货物涌入市场,则很可能会让当地一直销售这些商品的商家破产。捐赠衣服在非洲是一个敏感话题,因为在20世纪70和80年代,非洲许多国家的纺织业就因二手进口服装的涌入而陷入瘫痪。“你先是毁掉了这些村民勤勉劳作的天性和制造棉纺品的能力,然后又说,‘我送你件T恤吧?’你难道会为这样的事情感到欢欣鼓舞?”詹姆斯·西科瓦提说道,他是以内罗毕为中心的跨区域经济网络智库的主任。“这种行为真的就像给他们送糖衣炮弹。”
伊斯特利说:“那些乐于扶贫的人常常认为,所谓的实物捐助是一种有益的帮助方式。”的确,实物捐助的方式能轻而易举地激发人们捐助的热情。密歇根州大急流城的一个男孩就收集了一万只泰迪熊玩具送给海地地震的难民。鞋类慈善网站soles4souls.org则把鞋子送往受灾地区。琳琅满目的捐赠物品还有很多:酒店房间里的过期香皂、内衣、婴幼儿配方奶粉,甚至还有Spam牌罐头(一种猪肉制品)。“几年乃至几十年来心平气和、有理有据的讨论似乎并没有发挥作用,”一位博客名为“幽冥时代”的援助工作人员说,“人们仍然在收集鞋子、袜子、内衣、T恤……误以为这样做会对灾区大有帮助。有时候,想让人们听明白你说的话,只能大声喊叫。”而且还有成本问题。把用来给孩子们运送泰迪熊的钱花在提供更迫切的需求上,也许更好。T恤的情况也是一样。
萨德勒说,他从未想过要把一百万件T恤一次性地倾倒在非洲市场上。他希望与援助组织HELP国际和waterislife.com合作,向肯尼亚和乌干达那些需要服装的孤儿院发去几千件T恤。那些寡居的妇女们可以通过卖这些服装赚一些钱。“我们打算发去几千件T恤,发放的过程要持续一年。”Waterislife.com的创始人肯·苏利特说,“我们这样做的目的不是要破坏这些地区的经济,而是给那些不卖衣服就找不到其他工作途径的人送去有用之物和祝福。”
事实证明,萨德勒是个懂得变通的人:他说他在听取批评者的意见,而且不再计划往非洲送T恤。他说,他会寻找其他方式来利用自己筹集到的这些T恤:也许可以用于赈灾,或者把它们送给为无家可归者提供避风港湾的收容所,或者用来制造其他物品,所有利润都将“用于公司所制定的帮助促进可持续发展的目标上”。从互联网上的回应来看,他收到了不少捐款和捐赠物。“在那以后我已听取了有经验人士的建议,”他说,“我想让这件事变得更美好,更有益处,更符合比我有经验的人们的意愿。”
有些评论家认为,所有外国援助——无论来自个人、非营利机构还是政府——都在让非洲倒退。大量研究表明,在促进非洲经济增长方面,外国援助基本上没起到什么作用——实际上,还有可能延缓了其经济增长。“提供援助并非长远之计。停止援助或许看起来残酷,但确实应该停止了。”肯尼亚报纸专栏作家拉斯纳·沃拉说道。“非洲是全球最大的垃圾场。什么东西都往这里倾倒。”他补充道,“而不幸的是,非洲各国的政府官员并未说不——事实上,他们说的是,‘请多给我们点儿。’他们这是在逃避其对本国公民所应承担的责任。”
1. wood chipper:木材切碎机
2. stumble into:无意中卷入
3. up against:面临
4. tsunami [tsu5nB:mI] n. 海啸
5. pitch [pItF] n.〈美口〉竭力推销的广告语;(无线电、电视中的)广告宣传
6. exhortation [7e^zC:5teIFEn] n. 劝告,讲道词,训词
7. handout [5hAndaut] n. 施舍物
8. sting [stIN] vt. 刺痛,刺激
9. bristle [5brIsl] vi. 发怒
10. not all that:并不特别地,不那么太
11. gang up:联合施加压力
12. under the weight of:在……重压下, 迫于……
13. in kind:以货代款
14. shout down:用叫喊声(或讲话声)淹没(或压倒、使住口)
15. abdicate [5AbdikeIt] vt. 放弃(职位、权力等)