What NGO-s are really after

My apology,I deleted a site because it was in a language other than English. I added another Euro NGO site.

View the http://blog.world-citizenship.org/blog/index.php/wp-archive/767 blog website

Historically "charitable" organizations were sponsored by "the church" (which in the Western world, and that is to say West of Jerusalem, more or less) was the Roman Catholic church, or even further back, the Catholic church before the schism.  That meant that regardless of any other motives that the underlying purpose was to create more Catholics.  If, perchance there were some form of local wealth, that was also absorbed by the church to whatever extent was possible (for the "glory of God", of course, but usually in the form of adornments for the local church, and if it was really prosperous, wealth sent home to the mother church in Rome).   The more "official" an expedition of explorers was, the more likely it was that priests would be included in their number, which was partly because in many "states" (which is to say before most states were really countries in the modern sense) were also set up with the rulers as the figurehead of the religion, for, of course, only God chose who would be born into the royalty, and who should succeed as the next monarch.   This also meant that the line between explorers, conquerers, and espionage was blurred more than it might have been, had not the interests of the divine be the same as those of the heads of state.  The church, too was extremely powerful for much of the last millenium (which is to say from the middle ages until today) because they had acquired so much land that the priests and other clergy were landlords to much of the population, not to mention the offerings to God which seem to be divided according to the punchline of an old joke that goes, "I throw the money into the air, God keeps what he wants, and what he lets fall to the ground, I pick up for myself."  This meant in many places too, that becoming a bishop, or archbishop, or even a cardinal of the church was often bestowed upon a member of the nobility, either as a reward, or as an outright purchase by adding to the monarch's treasury.

While the personal intentions of modern "missionaries" working with NGO's in foreign territories may be largely, "to help my fellow man,"  the religious conversion is often the real purpose and why their church supports the mission.  Such missions are unlikely to be profitable in the way that colonization could be centuries before, but because of their "good works", they also have a reason to "attract" (or extract) more donations to the home church(es), and thus they become "well funded".  Extremely well funded if the home parish happens to be in one of the drug producing regions where "drug lords" also may be fervent followers of traditional faiths, and therefore generous supporters of their treasuries.  Is the chuch acting as a money launderer in such cases?  Of course they are.  The benefits that flow back to the drug cartels are better schools and churches in their districts, so the people see them as benefactors, and less as criminals just because they are exporting drugs to countries that consider such activities to be illegal (not that they are ignoring the local drug market, but someone was going to serve that anyway, in the way that such things have always existed for thousands of years).

The other well known and well funded organizations that have carried on NGO type activities are those funded by empire building nations.  Both the United States and Soviet Union, and long before them, the British Empire and the Empires of China and Japan, all have had foreign missions of trade and exploitation, espionage and infiltration.  These days, too, Persians and Brazilians, and doubtless many other nations, prosperous or just hoping to become prosperous send out operatives across the globe. 

But that is not to say that all NGO's have ulterior motives, are inflitrated by spys and people with secondary agendas.  American "missionaries" tend to be well meaning folks who cannot even conceive of the fact that it would be a capital offense to preach conversion to their faith in some foreign land.  Naivety is not the same as innocence, though not all illegal activities are sinister.  Some laws are unjust.

Every year tens of thousands of your members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints go off on "missions" for the church.  These Mormons are on the whole some of the nicest people with whom I have ever had the privilege to spend time.  I give much of the credit to their church, especially for the stong emphasis on family, responsibility, and honesty.  These missions are mandatory, not just voluntary.  I am strongly opposed to "organized religion", and I heartily disapprove of attempting to conscript more willing followers of the superstitions and nonsense that compose most of most religious faiths, but as I look at the sponsored ads that appear on this web page next to our discussion I see mostly medical missions, cross cultural volunteering to promote peace and understanding, and attempts to end the suffering of children in particular and poverty in general and I have to applaud the intentions and accomplishments, however large or small, in all those areas of human endeavour.

Stafford "Doc" Williamson