This report by K. Myers appeared in an Irish newspaper "The Irish Independent."
AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS
No. It will not do. Even as we see African states refusing to take action to
restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the Begging bowl for
Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again.
It is nearly 25 years since Ethiopia's (and Bob Geldof's) famous Feed The World
campaign, and in that time Ethiopia's population has grown from 33.5 million to
78 million today.
So, why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic
demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none.
To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn't count.
One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another
wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the camera,which yet again,
captures the tragedy of . . .
Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially. Unlike
most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have stumped up the
loot to charities to stop starvation there.
The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic,
Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.
There is, no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory and
dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system; but I do not know what it is.
There is, on the other hand, every reason not to write a column like this.
It will win no friends, and will provoke the self-righteous wrath of, well, the
self-righteous, hand wringing, letter writing wrathful individuals, a species
which never fails to contaminate almost every debate in Irish life with its
sneers and its moral superiority. It will also probably enrage some of the
finest men in Irish life, like John O'Shea, of Goal; and the Finucane brothers,
men whom I admire enormously. So be it.
But, please, please, you self-righteously wrathful, spare me mention of our own
Irish Famine, with this or that lazy analogy. There is no comparison. Within
20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was down by 30% Over the
equivalent period, thanks to western food, the Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the
Lockheed Hercules, Ethiopia's population has more than doubled.
Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness. Somewhere, over the
rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, Kalashnikov-toting,
khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts.
Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive,
illiterate indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because
of help from the outside world.
This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or commonsense.
Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the president of South
Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the
post-coital penis as a sure preventative against AIDS infection.
Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not prevented
idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea etcetera.
Broad brush-strokes, to be sure. But broad brush-strokes are often the way that
history paints its gaudier, if more decisive, chapters. Japan, China, Russia,
Korea, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 20th century have
endured worse broad brush-strokes than almost any part of Africa.
They are now -- one way or another -- virtually all giving aid to or investing
in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its lush pastures, is
giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.
Meanwhile, Africa's peoples are outstripping their resources, and causing
catastrophic ecological degradation. By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will
be 177 million; the equivalent of France, Germany and Benelux today, but located
on the parched and increasingly Protein-free wastelands of the Great Rift
Valley.
So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult population
of what is already a vastly over-populated, environmentally devastated and
economically dependent country?
How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today,
for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence
and sexual abuse,
resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly
little lives ahead of them? Of course, it might make you feel better, which is
a prime reason for so much charity.! But that is not good enough.
For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has
sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.
It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade. It is inspiring
Bill Gates' programme to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost
complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most
efficacious forms of population-control now operating.
If his programme is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise
have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.
Oh good: then what? I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or America.
Yes, that's an idea.
AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS
No. It will not do. Even as we see African states refusing to take action to
restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the Begging bowl for
Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again.
It is nearly 25 years since Ethiopia's (and Bob Geldof's) famous Feed The World
campaign, and in that time Ethiopia's population has grown from 33.5 million to
78 million today.
So, why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic
demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none.
To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn't count.
One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another
wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the camera,which yet again,
captures the tragedy of . . .
Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially. Unlike
most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have stumped up the
loot to charities to stop starvation there.
The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic,
Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.
There is, no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory and
dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system; but I do not know what it is.
There is, on the other hand, every reason not to write a column like this.
It will win no friends, and will provoke the self-righteous wrath of, well, the
self-righteous, hand wringing, letter writing wrathful individuals, a species
which never fails to contaminate almost every debate in Irish life with its
sneers and its moral superiority. It will also probably enrage some of the
finest men in Irish life, like John O'Shea, of Goal; and the Finucane brothers,
men whom I admire enormously. So be it.
But, please, please, you self-righteously wrathful, spare me mention of our own
Irish Famine, with this or that lazy analogy. There is no comparison. Within
20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was down by 30% Over the
equivalent period, thanks to western food, the Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the
Lockheed Hercules, Ethiopia's population has more than doubled.
Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness. Somewhere, over the
rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, Kalashnikov-toting,
khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts.
Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive,
illiterate indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because
of help from the outside world.
This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or commonsense.
Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the president of South
Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the
post-coital penis as a sure preventative against AIDS infection.
Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not prevented
idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea etcetera.
Broad brush-strokes, to be sure. But broad brush-strokes are often the way that
history paints its gaudier, if more decisive, chapters. Japan, China, Russia,
Korea, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 20th century have
endured worse broad brush-strokes than almost any part of Africa.
They are now -- one way or another -- virtually all giving aid to or investing
in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its lush pastures, is
giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.
Meanwhile, Africa's peoples are outstripping their resources, and causing
catastrophic ecological degradation. By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will
be 177 million; the equivalent of France, Germany and Benelux today, but located
on the parched and increasingly Protein-free wastelands of the Great Rift
Valley.
So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult population
of what is already a vastly over-populated, environmentally devastated and
economically dependent country?
How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today,
for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence
and sexual abuse,
resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly
little lives ahead of them? Of course, it might make you feel better, which is
a prime reason for so much charity.! But that is not good enough.
For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has
sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.
It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade. It is inspiring
Bill Gates' programme to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost
complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most
efficacious forms of population-control now operating.
If his programme is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise
have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.
Oh good: then what? I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or America.
Yes, that's an idea.
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