A ragged set of principles
'The things we do for charity", the sexy girl smiles seductively on a poster in my JCR. She's advertising RAG's calendar of half-naked girls. The calendar doesn't lay out steps to solve the world's problems, nor does it elucidate the issues at stake, but RAG has concluded that sex sells better than politics.
RAG's sexy girls raise an interesting question though, particularly in light of Boxing Day's tsunami: what should we be doing for charity? At the core of the debate there's a key question: Is giving money to charity enough to solve the world's problems or do we need to start political campaigns to change the way our world works?
Oxford's RAG (Raise and Give) is keen to stay apolitical. In the words of the Vice President for Charities and Community at OUSU Ian King, "RAG is essentially a fundraising organisation - not a campaigning body." But RAG hasn't just ignored politics, it seems actively to have gone out of its way to avoid anything serious at all, focusing on blind dates, paintballing and bar crawls. But despite this, Ian believes that RAG at Oxford is relatively conservative: "I've heard of three-legged pub crawls and stripathons at other universities."
It's clear that money, rather than awareness, is RAG's focus - so if 'Shagging for the Sudan' or 'Masturbating for Mauritius' is likely to make the most money then that is exactly what RAG is going to promote. Does anyone even know what happens to the money that we donate? Does anyone, for instance, know that this term's charities are Marie Curie Cancer Care, Médecins Sans Frontières, Zov UK, Childline and Exeter College Vac Project? According to RAG, as long as we put our money in the bucket, it doesn't really matter.
But increasingly charities are coming to realise that donating money without political change or awareness is meaningless. What can street collections make in a year when compared to the amount poor countries lose through trade barriers every day? The few coins that we shake out of our collection tins is negligible in the face of the money that comes back to us through goods, debt repayments and capital flows.
Not only that, but by ignoring the political dimension of the world's problems, even the small positive effect our donations could have is eroded. Because the money RAG donates comes in one-off lump-sum amounts, charities do not get the reliable long-term flows that are needed to eradicate the problems that they are addressing.
It is a paradox that charities should exist to eradicate the need for themselves: that they should help people to help themselves in the future. But charity without political change won't achieve this. Simply donating money to charity is only treating the symptoms of the world's problems when we need to address their root causes. No matter how much money we raise, trade rules still need changing, debts need to stop growing, patents need removing and corrupt governments still need reforming. It's common to hear people referring to Boxing Day's tragedy as a 'natural disaster', but this is not the full story. If developing countries could afford to put warning systems in place, if they had the capacity to respond quickly to disasters and if they could afford to plan development in such a way as to minimise the effects of such freak events, then there is no doubt that the effects of this 'natural' disaster could have been halved. It's time to admit that the majority of the world's problems are political, and thus demand political solutions. Charity should not be an excuse to shy away from this change - it should be about making it.
Charities and governments alike are beginning to realise that charity without political change will not make a sustainable difference. Gordon Brown, for example, has realised that aid from the British public cannot help countries to recover from the tsunami disaster without parallel reforms to drop the debt in the affected areas. It would be like feeding them with one hand whilst strangling them with the other.
So if the Chancellor can make this link between charity and politics, why can't RAG?
Restricting RAG to fundraising does have its advantages; it makes a quantifiable difference to the world and, perhaps more importantly, it's easy and uncontroversial. RAG has to balance the interests of over 30 colleges, and it is constrained by the quick turnover of its members. According to King, raising money is a "lot less hassle" than political campaigning, and he's "never heard of a RAG that focuses on politics". Ian believes that "If students feel strongly enough about something, they'll generally start a campaigning group - Oxfam is a good example of an organisation that started life as a student campaign in Oxford."
But this divide between politics and charity is not only outdated, it's impossible to sustain. Successful charities have already realised this. Oxfam has a campaign manager, Greenpeace have established lobby groups, and charities increasingly have places reserved for them at political summits. If RAG is raising money for charities with political agendas, can it continue to sell itself as an apolitical organisation?
Hannah Stoddart, the prospective Vice President of Charities and Community, doesn't think so. Hannah has been voted in to OUSU on a political platform and believes that "The effort RAG spends on shaking tins could be reallocated to deliver more substantial change."
There are some fairly obvious ways that this could be made to work. Firstly, RAG could give greater priority to raising awareness - raising money by holding talks is just one way that fundraising can be given a political edge. Secondly, RAG could work in conjunction with OUSU's political campaigns - it seems something of an anomaly that the student union's charitable arm is so detached from the rest of the body. Finally, as one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Oxford has massive potential to help global causes simply by putting its name behind political campaigns.
Like the seductive girl in RAG's poster, we need to address "the things we do for charity". Donating money may help in the short term, but if it is to mean anything it must be done in conjunction with political change. By acknowledging this political potential, RAG could make a real difference to the problems of this world.
13th Jan 2005