"We cannot do everything in Africa, but doing nothing is not an option"
About this Quote
Pragmatism is doing the moral math in public, and Lee H. Hamilton’s line is built to sound like a conscience with a calculator. “We cannot do everything in Africa” sets a boundary that’s as political as it is logistical: it pre-empts the familiar critique that Western engagement is either naive mission work or an imperial blank check. Hamilton, a long-time congressional foreign-policy hand, knows the domestic audience is allergic to open-ended commitments. The first clause is a pressure-release valve for voters, budgets, and the institutional memory of interventions gone sideways.
“But doing nothing is not an option” snaps that valve shut. The sentence pivots from limitation to obligation, framing inaction as its own kind of choice - and a costly one. The subtext is strategic as much as humanitarian: instability spills, conflicts metastasize, pandemics travel, terrorist networks exploit ungoverned spaces, markets falter. “Africa” functions less as a single place than as a shorthand Americans use for distant crises that feel endless; Hamilton’s wording tries to compress that sprawl into a manageable mandate.
The intent is coalition-building: give skeptics permission to support targeted action without endorsing savior fantasies, and give idealists a moral floor beneath which policy can’t sink. It’s also a quiet rebuke to performative concern. If you can’t promise transformation, at least promise engagement: diplomacy, aid with conditions, peacekeeping support, debt relief, public health infrastructure. The line works because it refuses both extremes - omnipotence and indifference - and makes incremental responsibility sound like the only adult position left.
“But doing nothing is not an option” snaps that valve shut. The sentence pivots from limitation to obligation, framing inaction as its own kind of choice - and a costly one. The subtext is strategic as much as humanitarian: instability spills, conflicts metastasize, pandemics travel, terrorist networks exploit ungoverned spaces, markets falter. “Africa” functions less as a single place than as a shorthand Americans use for distant crises that feel endless; Hamilton’s wording tries to compress that sprawl into a manageable mandate.
The intent is coalition-building: give skeptics permission to support targeted action without endorsing savior fantasies, and give idealists a moral floor beneath which policy can’t sink. It’s also a quiet rebuke to performative concern. If you can’t promise transformation, at least promise engagement: diplomacy, aid with conditions, peacekeeping support, debt relief, public health infrastructure. The line works because it refuses both extremes - omnipotence and indifference - and makes incremental responsibility sound like the only adult position left.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
|---|
More Quotes by Lee
Add to List
