Monday, March 03, 2008

The NGO Game

Wretchard of the Belmont Club is discussing a recent Spengler/Asia Times article on Obama and then veers off into a discussion of NGOs. He says they are manned by idealists and hypocrites and the hypocrites always grind down the idealists.

The first type is the cynical, devil-may-care consultant who never rises in the aid bureaucracy but is indispensable to getting anything done. They pointedly reject the trinkets of international bureaucracy and while young enough think they can change the system. But they always give up in the end. The second type is the anal careerist of the subcontinental sort who scrupulously claims every perk due him, from paid home leave to relocation and drapery expenses; and who is as soulless and dead as the carpet he walks upon. In contrast to the first type, they never give up, no matter what.

But living the life of the first type provides a great opportunity to absorb color. There's nothing like sitting in a home-made sauna, built by a mad Finn in the tropics to remind him of home, with the temperature turned up so high that the pitch is bubbling out of the pinewood and dripping on your hair. Then running out when you can stand no more and leaping into a swimming pool, much to the consternation of the local househelp, who can never quite get used to the antics of the mad foreigners. And then to stagger back to the bar and buddy up to a German consultant so drunk he is toasting to the Fuhrer's health and greets you as his favorite untermensch.

And then to go out into Third World night and watch the children asleep on the street unaware that the angels who are meant to guard them are forever barred from their simple dreams.
In general, religious organizations do it better.

1 comment:

LarryD said...

You don't get status (except perhaps among a very small group) for doing overseas missionary/ministry work. And the religious workers expect that conditions won't be as comfortable as home, at best.

Which keeps the glory seekers out.

And of course, Christ warned against seeking public recognition and status for doing good works (Matthew 6: 1-2).