Tea at Trianon: Philanthropy Gone Wrong

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Philanthropy Gone Wrong

From The Federalist:

Earlier this year, a team of reporters from the Wall Street Journal published a story detailing the treatment of ten of the women who escaped or were rescued from Boko Haram then came to the United States to attend school. With its cast of characters including fervent and deluded nonprofit leaders, a scheming attorney, and a colorful congresswoman, the story feels like one Tom Wolfe might have written, if he forgot to include humor.

A cautionary tale of disgraceful, predatory philanthropy unfolds. After all the goodwill that was marshalled, the awareness that was raised, and the money that was collected, the end result of #Bringbackourgirls for these women was continued harassment and exploitation, not liberation.

After their escape from Boko Haram, these ten women immediately sought to continue their education, enrolling in special scholarships offered at the American University of Nigeria, in the northeastern state of Adamawa. Soon after they began school in the fall of 2014, the human-rights lawyer and activist Emmanuel Ogebe, a Nigerian national influential in Washington, descended on the campus. Ogebe demanded the school’s administrators allow him to bring a group of women from Chibok to weekend meetings in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. (Read more.)