Update February 28, 2012: This article was awarded a bronze prize by Viewshound on August 5, 2011. It was published under the title “Sorry Somalia: A Logical Look at Foreign Aid”.
Today TheGrio posted an article to their website asking if the starvation of people in Somalia was getting enough news coverage. I think it’s getting enough, if not too much. I know that as a nation, the United States is probably better off than the vast majority of people in the world. I know too, though, that there are people who live down the street from me that are suffering. Those people are my focus first and foremost.
I’m sorry that people are starving in Somalia, but I have friends and family in America that can’t afford food, medicine, or even to keep their electricity on during the hot summer months. Me feeling bad and sending $10 bucks to Somalia to help pay for food might be great, but that $10 bucks could be used domestically to help people near me, too. I am the kind of person who performs actions based on her heart and feelings a lot of the time, but as I am maturing, I have also begun to recognize the value of logic and rational thinking. Walk with me.
The $10 dollars I might give to my neighbor for gas, instead of sending to Somalia, might be used to help him get to an interview down the street. It could also go toward helping him commit a crime, but we won’t go into the devil’s advocate position here; there’s positive, neutral, and negative possibilities for every action in the world. Keeping with the neighbor and the interview, my neighbor gets the job and now has income. My neighbor is now producing income that can be pumped back into my community. That money can help other people in my neighborhood, and can expand such that our neighborhood is able to help our district.
You probably see where this is going; helping out locally can enable us to be able to help out on a national level. How great would that be? And considering that we’re in a nation that has outstandinging debts and an ongoing debt crises (because no, raising the debt ceiling – i.e. getting another credit card – does not get you out of debt), we don’t really have the means to be sending money overseas. We’re talking about cutting out programs to Americans here at home (the “entitlement programs”, as they are dubbed); where are we getting the money to send to Somalia? From that?
People who think that these answers are cruel and heartless need to do a little less thinking emotionally and a little more rationally. I am a person who leads with her heart and feelings a lot. However, I realize that there is also logic in this situation: you can’t help out other people (or nations, as the case may be), when you yourself are having problems keeping your head above water. Fix the problems at home – all of them – then worry about helping others.