John Lewis’s comment re Napoleon and his cronies is interesting but no one has suggested that charity consists simply of bags of money being handed out willy-nilly. Western nations have been mistakenly doing this for years and there has been little if anything to show for it because it ends up in the pockets, or bank accounts rather, of corrupt politicians and despots. Napoleon Mugabe has had the most elaborate tasteless obscene palace built at a cost of millions and who benefited from it? European manufacturers and contractors, and Mugabe’s cronies (political, military and police) have all lived high on the hog under his dictatorship, but what has happened to the Zimbabwean people? They starve in what was once the breadbasket of Africa or die of diseases for which there are no medicines whilst Mrs Mugabe hightails it to Paris to replenish her already overstocked wardrobe and to buy another twenty pairs of expensive shoes. These people have no humanity or sense of how despicable their behaviour is so it would be pointless pouring more money into that cesspit in the hopes that some of it might float and stay clean.
Oil rich Arabs too build their dream palaces at enormous cost, purchase overseas mansions and buy their multi-million pound custom-made aircraft that are luxury flying hotels while their wives and families outdo Mrs Mugabe with their shopping sprees in European cities so again, who benefits?
It is true also that there are evidently some charities that are overloaded with their own high earning staff but there are also more deserving ones not so well off that should receive much more support so I wouldn’t take too much credence in Napoleon’s theories. He was after all as much of a despot as the ones we see today and responsible for some pretty gruesome massacres. In fact today he would no doubt be labelled a war criminal which is what he was.