Is there not a newer and softer form of colonialism, that of international aid? Not that aid to foreign countries is a bad thing, but it is when we treat entire nations as if they were children incapable of learning to take care of themselves. Our snide paternalism and unchecked egotism have ensured that almost all our efforts to help the developing world have instead only hurt them.

It seems that every time somebody does something for Africa, or the rest of the developing world, they are really just doing it for themselves. Which is why at the end of the day, the movie stars and millionaires get what they were looking for and go home, while Africa suffers on.

More or less agree. It is truism that objects of compassion, concern over suffering and injustices a long way away are little more than amusements for many and diversions from the need to consider one's own contribution to the state of the world.

The entire article is worth reading. Paul Theroux fills it with prescient insights far deeper than a mere book review. It gets at the heart of our first world pathos, and the crisis of identity that pushes us to redefine ourselves when we feel lost and irrelevant in modernity.