Indian scholar and DNA friend Vishal Mangalwadi was recently interviewed by a German-language publication about Western assistance to Africa. We are happy to point our readers to this remarkable Q&A.

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A great deal of development aid has already been provided in Africa. Why does nothing seem to change?

Finland and Switzerland are among the most developed nations in Europe. No one gave them any aid. Nor did they go out to colonize other nations. In fact, they are better developed than European nations that looted their colonies e.g., Spain, Portugal, Belgium, France, and Russia.

Land, natural resources, climate and people are a nation’s hardware. The ‘word’ — language, laws, literature — is a nation’s software: its soul. Language carries the ideas that bind a people into a common culture and drive their institutions. Reformed nations developed because they educated the soul — minds, hearts, character — with God’s “word.”

Dambisa Moyo, Zambian economist, educated at Harvard and Oxford, is the author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. She states that aid worth US $1 trillion was given to Africa over five decades. Some of it helped, but most aid has hindered sustainable, long-term development. Aid (i.e. injecting capital) deals with the hardware. It doesn’t change a nation’s soul — the software.

Education addresses the soul. In most of Africa, “modern” education came about a century ago. Most universities taught a materialistic (non-spiritual, secular) worldview which deceived African nations into thinking that financial aid or loot is the secret of economic development. Therefore, ambitious individuals, who cannot go out to colonize other nations, fight with each other to loot their own nation of its resources, including aid dollars.

The failure of aid shows that the secular belief is false that economics drives the world. Europe’s Reformation believed that material progress takes place when we seek God’s kingdom and righteousness. Secularism has failed in Africa, just as it failed in most of Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America.

Go to Vishal’s page, RevelationMovement, to read the rest of this powerful interview.

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