Last week, former diplomats called for a new, modernized Department for International Affairs, citing the elitist, dated nature of the current Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, no more clearly demonstrated than in its colonial artwork inside and out. This must start with an overhaul of the “we know best” attitude that governments in the so-called global north too often display toward the global south, along with a recognition that simple north-south divisions fail more than ever to grasp global development’s complex politics.
Earlier this month, this attitude and a failure to understand the full contexts of complex issues came to the fore as Germany found itself at risk of receiving 20,000 elephants from Botswana. London’s Hyde Park has similarly been threatened with a “gift” of 10,000 elephants to roam its gardens.
The humor is serious in this gesture from an African government toward countries whose legislation for stricter limits on importing trophies from hunting animals betrays a fundamental mismatch between European good intentions and the practical realities of those living on the front lines of conservation.