Taking, Giving, Repairing, and Reversing

The premise of this book is that “giving” to the African continent is very often compromised at best, and that there is an urgent need for rethinking the parameters of “giving” and “receiving.” So, what is necessary for westerners to know and do to enact their part in an equitable humanitarianism? This chapter puts to work some of the lessons learned thus far in this volume to say that those who employ logics of help emanating from the west need to acknowledge our own ignorance and limitations, regarding both what we know and do not know about Africa and Africans, and also about ourselves and our countries’ histories of intervention. We need to acknowledge our own ethical precarity and listen and learn instead of trying to lecture and impose our limited and flawed projects on others. Such learning, if sincere, inevitably results in perspectives that begin to see how Africa and Africans have given and continue to give to the west; this in turn leads to supporting projects of repatriation and reparations instead of charity and aid.