Tokyo
“Unnecessary kindness” is a literal
translation of a Japanese phrase. I think it has broad implications
and makes good sense in English.
One of the hardest lessons in my life, not taught by any group I know of, is that kindness should not be offered unless the recipient clearly welcomes it, otherwise it can create antagonism.
The issue comes up in an email I received from an important person in West African development, currently in the fourth year of living in West Africa. She is normally anti-Bush but she totally supports Bush in his unwillingness to throw more money at Africans.
Bush has learned, as have other
Americans who are alert to reality, that the 1996 welfare reform,
that requires welfare recipients to get jobs, has worked well. My
friend makes it clear that throwing money at Africa has generated
foreign aid dependency, corruption, individual irresponsibly on a
broad scale and specifically has made Africans unwilling to invest
their own money in their local village projects. The attitude is now
“wait until foreigners give us the money.”
Unfortunately Bush has to give a sop to PM Blair. The African aid, properly classified adds a trivial half-a-percent to the cost of the war in Iraq.