African famine.
shush
Senior MemberPosts: 6,259 Senior Member
This is something that's been in the back of my mind for many, many years; albeit not very Christian.
I remembered reading this some time ago, a recent discussion brought it up again and I re-found it.
Kevin Myers (born 30 March 1947) is an Irish journalist and writer. He
writes for the Irish edition of the Sunday Times, having previously been a
columnist for the Irish Independent and a former contributor to The Irish
Times, where he wrote the “An Irishman’s Diary” opinion column several times
weekly. Until 2005, he wrote for the UK Sunday Telegraph.
His articles criticise left-wing opinion and the “liberal consensus”,
sometimes incorporating hyperbole, sarcasm and
parody. This essay recently appeared in
The Irish Independent:
Politics and History, zz_Archive2015
Kevin Myers
Posted by Managing Editor on 10. August 2014
Somalia is not a humanitarian disaster; it is an evolutionary disaster.
The current drought is not the worst in 50 years, as the BBC and all the
aid organisations claim. It is nothing compared to the droughts in 1960/61
or 73/74. And there are continuing droughts every 5 years or so. It’s
just that there are now four times the population; having been kept alive by
famine
relief, supplied by aid organisations, over the past 50 years. So, of
course, the effects of any drought now, is a famine. They cannot even feed
themselves in a normal rainfall year.
Worst yet, the effects of these droughts, and poor nutrition in the first 3 years of the a child’s life, have a lasting effect on the development of the infant brain, so that if they survive, they will never achieve a normal IQ . Consequently, they are selectively breeding a population, who cannot be educated , let alone one that is not being educated; a recipe for disaster
We are seeing this impact now, and it can only exacerbate, to the detriment of their neighbours, and their environment as well. This scenario can only end in an even worse disaster; with even worse suffering, for those benighted people, and their descendants. Eventually, some mechanism will intervene, be it war, disease or starvation.
So what do we do? Let them starve? What a dilemma for our Judeo/
Christian/Islamic Ethos; as well as Hindu/Buddhist morality.
And this is beginning to happen in Kenya, Ethiopia, and other countries in
Asia, like Pakistan. Is this the beginning of the end of civilisation?
AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone outside Africa — apart from AIDS and new
disease. 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 out of Africa, yet again. It is
nearly 25 years since the famous Feed The World campaign began in Ethiopia, 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 children starving.
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 low
IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and
blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind. 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.........................................................
End of part one.
Replies
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 planes, 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, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts, and housing pirates of the ocean. 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 or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by lending it from the World Bank!
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. (not forgetting Australia!)
Yes, that’s an idea.
http://africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311
I have copied this in full, not bits of quotes and a link, because.......well because.
Of late we have been seeing some of the consequence in Europe.
Not forgetting our very own Big City;
".............low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind".
Part two.
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 planes, 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, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts, and housing pirates of the ocean. 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 or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by lending it from the World Bank!
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. (not forgetting Australia!)
Yes, that’s an idea.
Believe it or not. I wondered about these questions when I first started to read newspapers, at about age ten. At that time, the famine was in China and India, at a time when they were having border skirmishes that were threatening to become all-out war, and China was unveiling its A-bomb capability.
Still no answers.
Link;
http://africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311
I have copied this in full, not bits of quotes and a link, because.......well because.
Of late we have been seeing some of the consequence in Europe.
Not forgetting our very own Big Cities;
".............low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind".
But in our case no AK's thankfully.
To put it bluntly, ANY animal population that eats all the available food while still reproducing unchecked will reach a point where the population starves to death down to a point that the food will support them. And the cycle repeats itself. Snow geese are a good example of the population exceeding the carrying capacity of the food and nesting sites. Jackrabbits in the SW U.S. are another that see cyclic booms in populations, and a huge die off during a drought or other cause of lack of food.
To think that people are any different is to turn a blind eye to the ugly truth. The truth is what it is, and you can make nothing else of it.
― Douglas Adams
Perhaps the region can remain a testing ground for missionary types of various religions. Assuming courage and willingness of those so inclined.
Added
The lack of protien rich grains being detrimental to brain development.
I recently had cause to look up a timeline graph of human population growth. In the eons of time from when we crawled out of the slime at the bottom of Olduvai Gorge, it took us up until sometime in the last half of the 19th Century to crack the One Billion mark. In that last 150 years, we have shot up to Seven Billion. What I found really interesting, and more than a little disturbing, was that the only visible dip in the steady slope before the insane mid-1800's spike were the bubonic plague years that wiped out a quarter of Europe, and that was just a brief, slightly downward arching pimple. You would think that WWI, the 1918-19 influenza epidemic, WWII, and the various political purges would have made a dent in the rocketship upsurge. Nope.
So yeah. . .SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE. . .and here we have groups subsidizing the multiplication of those who have nothing to offer except an anchor around the necks of those who do.
The author is wrong on one count - he says he won't win any friends in writing an article like that. I've got a high five for him right here. I'd happily buy HIM lunch at least.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
― Douglas Adams
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2015/07/21/shark-attacks-during-wwii/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-worst-shark-attack-in-history-25715092/
I'm not saying it's true or false. Just throwing it out there as food for thought. I know when we threw our food garbage overboard it brought a lot of fish into our wake to eat, and sharks showed up soon after. Poking around at 5 knots lots of times you got to see some strange stuff.
― Douglas Adams
Those pesky federal forms all charities must file and the freedom of information act SO ruin a good money making scam.
And this is why you don't feed the animals in parks. People develop the same habits, too.
― Douglas Adams
― Douglas Adams
Part two.
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 planes, 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, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts, and housing pirates of the ocean. 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 or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by lending it from the World Bank!
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. (not forgetting Australia!)
Yes, that’s an idea.
http://africaunauthorised.com/?p=1311
I have copied this in full, not bits of quotes and a link, because.......well because.
Of late we have been seeing some of the consequence in Europe.
Not forgetting our very own Big City;
".............low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind".
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 planes, 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, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts, and housing pirates of the ocean. 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 or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by lending it from the World Bank!
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. (not forgetting Australia!)
Yes, that’s an idea.
I have copied this in full, not bits of quotes and a link, because.......well because.
Of late we have been seeing some of the consequence in Europe.
Not forgetting our very own Big City;
".............low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind".
Part two.
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 planes, 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, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts, and housing pirates of the ocean. 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 or allowances by the semi-communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by lending it from the World Bank!
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. (not forgetting Australia!)
Yes, that’s an idea.
I have copied this in full, not bits of quotes and a link, because.......well because.
Of late we have been seeing some of the consequence in Europe.
Not forgetting our very own Big City;
".............low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind".