Biggest moments of 2011 #7 Africa goes hungry

Tim says:

09:40am | 17/12/11

Shhhh.
Those people can have as many kids as possible and when those kids starve its your fault.

RyaN says:

10:20am | 19/12/11

@Tim: And you will find it is always the kids that starve because in Africa the parents eat first. If the kids starve, well you can always have more kids, if the parents starve then the whole family dies. Straight survival.

Bertrand says:

09:12am | 17/12/11

Of course anybody with a sense of the continent’s history would realise that a large reason Africa is like it is, is that the processes of imperialism, decolonisation and neo-imperialism have made it incredibly difficult for the people of Africa to establish functioning governments or economies. You would also realise that, although we have spent billions on aid for this continent, we have also extracted billions of dollars worth of resources, and the people of this continent have not benefited in the same way as, say, Australia from the mining boom.

Of course, the money spent needs to be used carefully. Working with women and families in these areas to educate them about birth control and family planning is essential. Surveys of Somali women have found that many are not aware of many birth control methods, and were sceptical of the reasoning and thinking behind them. Most also felt that their husbands would not approve of it. Africa has the fastest growing population in the world, and unless we help them solve the problems of overpopulation and overly rapid population growth, we will continue to see crises such as this.

At the end of the day we can choose to blame Africa or not blame Africa for what is happening. But we also need to realise that the millions of children facing death by starvation are not to blame and deserve our immediate help and compassion.

Erick says:

09:56am | 17/12/11

@Bertrand - At the end of the day, you choose to blame us for what Africans are doing to themselves.

I choose to disregard such racist nonsense, and to see the facts as they are.

St. Michael says:

10:12am | 17/12/11

“But we also need to realise that the millions of children facing death by starvation are not to blame and deserve our immediate help and compassion.”

No.  No they don’t.

This is the “won’t someone think of the children” argument rewritten, and it’s no more valid an argument than it is in the western context.

I’m fully conscious how cold that sounds.  I don’t resile from it.  You have to think through the consequences of what are noble and unquestionably good intentions.  This is what Bono et. al. have refused to do for a good 30 years, and it’s in effect made the suffering ultimately worse.

The Kingston Trio had a song called “They’re Rioting in Africa”.  Go look it up.  The lyrics sound as if they were written yesterday.  Their actual date of production was 1953.

Then go look at a book called “Dead Aid” by Nambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist who therefore is in a position to know: in short, her conclusion is that the average African was better off financially 40 years ago than they are today.  In other words, the billions upon billions thrown into Africa over the decades have either had no effect whatsoever at best or (as is more likely) have actually made things worse.

In the main, the aid has not been distributed in ways that create lasting benefits.  Rather, they are thrown at the various countries and are either (a) swallowed up by “administrative” costs from the various “charitable” organisations; or
(b) swallowed up by the murderous regimes that run the nations concerned and thus cause the destruction in those countries.

And there is no real indication that situation is going to change.  Red Cross and the other charities are not going to change their ways, because their business model works quite well, thank you very much.  And it is apparent that the Africans themselves do not care about changing the way things are, since they retain murderous addictions to primitive religious cultures in particular and tribal affiliations that result in stuff like entire tribes dismembering other tribes with machetes (Rwanda) or those starving children, saved by money from the West, being recruited in as child soldiers who then commit atrocities for their “team”.  I believe the aid agencies know quite well that this is the result of their actions, but they enjoy the aid teat too much at worst or at best are letting their good intentions blind them to the consequences of what they do.

The aid money merely keeps that cycle going, just like welfare money in our own society keeps the poverty cycle going—because it disincentivises people against change.  Welfare corrupts.  Institutional welfare, which is what Africa has been getting for 40 years, corrupts institutionally.

If there’s to be aid to Africa, it should go to the countries on the north coast, not the Horn.  Egypt, Libya, and Syria have all realised, as nations, that there’s a better way to live, and they took that responsibility into their own hands.

If you want to stop the famines and the suffering in Africa, stop the aid.  Turn off the tap.  You will then turn off the tap of money that buys ammunition for those regimes that keep their own people starving.  Africa will then have the chance to sort itself out or perish entirely.  We have done more than our share in trying to help.  At some point you have to say enough is enough.

Bertrand says:

11:13am | 17/12/11

Erick,

Nowhere in my comment did I suggest that self responsibility doesn’t come into play, but it is nothing short of ignorant to pretend that there isn’t a connection between Africa’s history and it’s current problems.

The process of European decolonisation in Africa led to the formation of arbitrary country borders that divided ethnic groups across many countries, and forced other ethnic groups with a history of conflict to share countries. Often valuable natural resources have pushed these groups to fight each other for control over those resources. It’s not racist to acknowledge this. I am not suggesting that you or I take personal responsibility for it, or that Africa’s history requires us to shoulder the burden of white man’s guilt. But we should be mature enough to realise that Western societies have benefited from aspects of Africa’s past and present, that past (and some current) policies of Western governments have helped contribute to pressures facing the continent, that many of the people dying in Africa have nothing to do with the conflict and poor governance and should therefore not be ignored out of some sense that they need to take responsibility for their situation, and that we are wealthy enough to help.

Yours is the typical conservative viewpoint that sees things in black and white and is too quick to believe that any mention of the historical processes that may have helped create a situation is somehow an attack on you.

John the Zombie says:

12:51pm | 17/12/11

The mention of the Red Cross got me a giggle. The red cross is currently holding a conference paid for by donations into whether or not those playing games such as Call of Duty and Modern Warefare are commiting war crimes, you know the important stuff.

St. Michael says:

05:07pm | 17/12/11

@ Bertrand:

“I am not suggesting that you or I take personal responsibility for it, or that Africa’s history requires us to shoulder the burden of white man’s guilt. But we should be mature enough to realise that Western societies have benefited from aspects of Africa’s past and present, that past (and some current) policies of Western governments have helped contribute to pressures facing the continent,”

I find it ironic that you start by saying we shouldn’t burden white man’s guilt, but in the next sentence then make an argument that demands precisely that.  Exactly how is today’s government responsible for the depradations of Cecil Rhodes et. al.?

Bertrand says:

07:17pm | 17/12/11

St. Michael,
If you bothered to read my earlier posts you would have read about how the Western process of decolonisation helped set in motion the civil wars that have plagued African nations since then. This isn’t ancient history.
Similarly, you would have read about the Wests exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. This is an ongoing issue. Africa is an incredibly resource rich continent, but the profits from their resources go to Western mining companies, agricultural corporations, etc. They certainly don’t ‘trickle down’ to the people. It is completely reasonable to argue that the current economic system works against Africa’s interests and that we are indirectly profiting from it. (through access to cheap fuel, etc)

stephen says:

07:45pm | 17/12/11

You talk about aid to Africa as being re-directed to military regimes, then use this as an argument as not giving any money at all ?
As if those regimes are not the same ones we are fighting in Afghanistan ?
Silly, really.
Africa needs aid from the IMF and education about conception from, not the Catholic Church, but from the Jesuits, say.
Those pictures of lines of women and their children in Somalia are just as deserving as pictures of Americans and their children in the dust-bowls of Oklahoma, and they are as subject to same forces of capitalism as any of those in 1932.
You wanna raise your standards St. Michael.
You’ll never kiss Zeta’s nose like this.

St. Michael says:

11:17pm | 17/12/11

@ Bertrand:

“If you bothered to read my earlier posts you would have read about how the Western process of decolonisation helped set in motion the civil wars that have plagued African nations since then. This isn’t ancient history.”

So?

You’re still running white man’s guilt.  England isn’t in Africa anymore.  Africa wanted self-government, and it got it.  If they now want a different form of self-government, they should obtain it for themselves.  Like I said before, the Arab Spring is a pretty potent example of what the poor, benighted natives can do when they decide to change their own system of government.  The rest of Africa should contemplate doing the same.

America also had a poor, downtrodden, exploited and black race as late as 1960 or so.  They seem to have done all right since then.  In fact, they managed to overcome that issue so comprehensively that the US overcompensates for affirmative action so much it’s prepared to implode its own real estate markets for that political purpose.

“Similarly, you would have read about the Wests exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. This is an ongoing issue. Africa is an incredibly resource rich continent, but the profits from their resources go to Western mining companies, agricultural corporations, etc.”

So is Australia.  The majority of the profits from mining companies don’t go via tax to Australian taxpayers.  But there’s enough overspill that it still fuels a two-speed economy.  The reason the miners invest here? According to top mining executives—check recent issues of the West Australian—it’s because Australia is a stable democracy with an actual rule of law attached to it.  Thus, by implication, Africa is not.  Perhaps Africa ought to contemplate trying that model if it wants more trickle down and more investment.

And the slice that does stay in Africa goes to the dictators.  But the dictators are not propped up by mining royalties; far from it, you’ve said yourself the profits don’t go back in there.  The dictators are propped up by aid.  Malawi’s the most potent recent example: the dictator there only allowed free elections when the UK threatened to turn off the foreign aid tap due to the human rights abuses practiced there.  Nothing else prompted him.  (And to their credit, the people of Malawi turned out in record numbers to vote him down.  Geoffrey Robertson tells the story in “The Justice Game”, I recommend it to you.)

“It is completely reasonable to argue that the current economic system works against Africa’s interests and that we are indirectly profiting from it. (through access to cheap fuel, etc)”

Don’t be absurd.  It still works for their interests.  If the miners are there, they contribute to the local economy.  That the economy is controlled by dictators is the fault of the aid agencies for supporting them and the people for not overthrowing them.  And frankly, I don’t have a problem with us “indirectly profiting”, as you put it, from them.  China and the US do the same from our own fairly generous terms of trade and stable democracy.  You jare just choosing not to see the whole equation.

@ stephen: I don’t need to kiss Zeta’s nose, thanks very much.  I’ll settle for laughing at his articles, and yours.

“You talk about aid to Africa as being re-directed to military regimes, then use this as an argument as not giving any money at all ?
As if those regimes are not the same ones we are fighting in Afghanistan ?”

Nice try at the straw man, but if you reviewed my posting history you’d see I’m opposed to us being in Afghanistan at all, for pretty much the same reasons as I’m opposed to all aid welfare to Africa: it’s a medieval “country” that can’t give up its own addictions to tribalism, opium sales, and fundamentalism Islam.  Beyond vaporising the terrorist bases which apparently were used for training the 9/11 attackers, we have no business being there at all.  Try again.

Bertrand says:

10:17am | 18/12/11

St. Michael,

Your arguments basically boil down to little more than being a direct example of the amoral nature of extreme libertarian ideology. You are saying little more than, “if the African people aren’t able to throw off their dictators and feed themselves, stuff them and let them starve.”

The argument that foreign aid props up dictators is true to an extent (The Live Aid debacle in the 80s being a case in point.).  But to use this as an excuse to never give aid is simply a selfish person’s way to justify never opening their wallets to help some of the world’s poorest people.

You are confusing structural problems in the way long term aid is delivered and the specifics of this one event. I am all for a reassessment of the way aid is delivered to Africa (particularly considering the lack of oversight of the way AusAid spends its money). However, to simply refuse any suggestion that we should help the people currently dying in East Africa, is little more than libertarian social Darwinism in action.

The United Nations, through organisations like UNICEF, is on the ground now using donations to do things like vaccinate kids, provide emergency food to subsistence farmers whose crops have failed due to a once in a generation drought, and provide clean water.

Your arguments that these people deserve to die because they haven’t pushed hard enough for political and economic reform or because there are structural problems with the overall way aid is delivered in Africa speak volumes for the moral vacuum that lies behind your libertarian ideology.

Most of the people dying in East Africa are children. Money we give can directly help them. Get past your ideology and try to find some bit of humanity left inside of you that realises these kids have nothing to do with the economic, political and ideological debates going on about this whole issue and, just like our kids, are people who have the capacity to feel fear, hunger, hope, and happiness. I find it quite disheartening that so many people in a wealthy country such as Australia can find so many ways to justify their unwillingness to part with a few dollars in order to help fellow human beings.

St. Michael says:

01:47pm | 18/12/11

@ Bertrand: let’s see: straw man, overgeneralisation, avoidance of answer, changing the subject, appeal to moral authority, white man’s guilt, First World guilt, “Won’t someone think of the children,” and now ad hominem attacks.  Are there any other intellectually dishonest debating tactics you’d like to try out in support of your argument?

“I am all for a reassessment of the way aid is delivered to Africa (particularly considering the lack of oversight of the way AusAid spends its money).”

You’ve had 40 years.  That’s time enough.  Not to mention a good 30 since the Live Aid “debacle”, as you yourself termed it.  No one is going to fix the “structural problems”—or the less politically correct concepts of widespread corruption, fraud, theft, and embezzlement in aid agencies and the nations they service—if they’ve had this long to figure it out and if multiple whistleblowers have been saying exactly the same thing.

“The United Nations, through organisations like UNICEF, is on the ground now using donations to do things like vaccinate kids, provide emergency food to subsistence farmers whose crops have failed due to a once in a generation drought, and provide clean water.”

Ah, yes, UNICEF.  This would be that nice, friendly body that gives medical incubators to public hospitals in Liberia but doesn’t tell them how to operate them, with the result they’re left gathering dust for eight months until a visiting UK midwife finds out by chance and teaches them how? See the latest episode of “Toughest Place in the World to be a…” for details.

Rather a fitting illustration of “structural problems”, wouldn’t you agree?

Or shall we get into the fact there have been literally dozens of embezzlers caught out in Oxfam?

Or, as someone’s pointed out, the ICRC debating video games with the donations they get?

“Your arguments that these people deserve to die because they haven’t pushed hard enough for political and economic reform or because there are structural problems with the overall way aid is delivered in Africa speak volumes for the moral vacuum that lies behind your libertarian ideology.”

Ad hominem, as I said.  Which only speaks for the logical or factual vacuum that lies behind your argument.

But seeing as you’ve summarised your view of me, let me summarise how I view yours: you are an enabler.

If you took the analogy that Africa is a long term drug addict—which it is, albeit its addictions are tribalism, medieval religions, and corrupt governments—then you are the person who is arguing that people should simply give the drug addict more money and that will somehow cure his addiction.  History has repeatedly proven you wrong: every time you have given the drug addict more money, he has gone and shot it up his arm whilst beating or murdering his wife and children along the way.  The drug addict receives so much money from you that he is now dependent on your money, and he has shown no indication of wanting to change his ways.  Yet you would still give him more money to abuse himself and others around him.

You call my view amoral.  Yours, by comparison, is immoral, because you know full well what the result is going to be but you do it anyway to soothe your own middle-class guilt which you like to call “compassion”.  Or alternatively your view is insane, because someone once described insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result every time.

RyaN says:

10:44am | 19/12/11

@Bertrand: “Similarly, you would have read about the Wests exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. This is an ongoing issue. “
I think you will find these days that China has just as many if not more interests “exploiting” natural resources in Africa.
I guess we should feel guilty for that too? Its all our fault isn’t it!

Bertrand says:

11:00am | 19/12/11

St. Michael,

You said,

“No one is going to fix the “structural problems”—or the less politically correct concepts of widespread corruption, fraud, theft, and embezzlement in aid agencies and the nations they service—if they’ve had this long to figure it out and if multiple whistleblowers have been saying exactly the same thing.”

You could run this same argument against corporate capitalism and use it as a basis to argue against capitalism in general. Examples of corruption, fraud, embezzlement are constantly being uncovered. Bernie Madoff and Enron would be two spectacular examples that ended in serious criminal convictions. Corruption and fraud even occurs in companies still considered respectable, such as British Airways, which got caught in collusion and price fixing. But to run the argument that corruption and fraud condemns all of capitalism is to ignore the fact that, despite the structural problems in corporate capitalism, it stills serves a positive purpose and generally leads to a higher standard of living for many people. It is the same with aid work. Instances of poor service delivery or corruption should not condemn the entire system. It is unfair to go, well UNICEF failed on training people in the use of incubators in Liberia, therefore they will be unable to deliver food and vaccinations to East Africa.  Or to argue that some people in charge of Oxfam were caught embezzling, therefore the entire system is corrupt and we shouldn’t support any of it.

I could argue that we should put a stop to foreign investment in developing countries because there are too many examples of governments and corporations colluding to suppress ethnic minorities (one of the reasons the benefits of things like mining often don’t trickle down to the people living in the area being mined, and also one of the reasons why foreign investment in the developing world can actually work to support ethnic violence). For example, in West Papua the Javanese government and mining companies have actively suppressed the West Papuans, using violence, intimidation and torture against them.

But, unlike you with your arguments against foreign aid, I wouldn’t use these examples to argue for a wholesale end to foreign investment in the developing world. This is because such an argument wouldn’t recognise the good that is also done through foreign investment in 3rd world countries. Again, it is the same with aid work. I’m sorry, but I can’t help but believe that if there are a couple of million people starving to death because a mixture of violence, political unrest and extreme drought (none of which any of these people have any real control over) has colluded to deny them access to basic food, water and healthcare, and we have the means and ability to provide them with these very basic things, then it is the right thing to do. Your labelling of my belief in the fundamental rightness of providing these people with help as immoral because it somehow ‘enables’ them was a fantastic exercise in doublethink.

Bertrand says:

11:01am | 19/12/11

This brings me to the second main point you made, which is that my argument that, “Your arguments that these people deserve to die because they haven’t pushed hard enough for political and economic reform or because there are structural problems with the overall way aid is delivered in Africa speak volumes for the moral vacuum that lies behind your libertarian ideology”, is little more than a dishonest ‘ad hominem’ attack on you, and therefore not a valid point.

What I said there was a completely valid argument against the fundamentalist libertarian believe in personal responsibility and natural justice that has been promoted through statements such as,
“Like I said before, the Arab Spring is a pretty potent example of what the poor, benighted natives can do when they decide to change their own system of government.  The rest of Africa should contemplate doing the same”; “No. No we should not” (feel compassion for these people); and “If there’s to be aid to Africa, it should go to the countries on the north coast, not the Horn.  Egypt, Libya, and Syria have all realised, as nations, that there’s a better way to live, and they took that responsibility into their own hands”,

Put together, these statements are a very clear example of social Darwinist philosophy. They do little more than justify sitting back and watching a couple of million people starve to death or die of preventable disease, and thinking it is right to do this, because it might make them become more responsible for themselves. It ignores the fact that these people didn’t choose the circumstances they were born into. The argument that we should sit back and allow millions of them to die as the natural consequence of their being born into a region of the world plagued by conflict, violence, poor governance and drought (none of which these people have any real control over) is one that I think is worthy of criticism.

Your refusal to admit that a place’s history shapes its present, and that sub-Saharan Africa’s history involves centuries of ongoing and massive acts of upheaval committed by Western societies against the native inhabitants, and that the consequences of these acts must invariably be felt today is either dishonest or ignorant. To mislabel the observation of an historical truth as white guilt is no more than the use of a dishonest debating technique, which is something you were so quick to apparently find in my arguments. This dishonest removal of Africa’s history from any considerations about its present makes it easier for you to falsely lay the entire blame for what is occurring in East Africa on the people currently suffering the effects of this region’s myriad problems. This in turn makes it easier to justify allowing them to die as a form of natural justice.

Finally, I don’t apologise for appealing to a moral authority on this topic. It is a moral question that we are considering.  It is completely valid to question the morality of allowing a couple of million people to starve to death in aid of an extreme ideological belief in libertarian philosophical arguments regarding personal responsibility and natural justice. It is also valid to use the ‘think of the children’ argument that you decided to disparage. You keep referring to the concepts of personal responsibility and natural justice in order to justify the denial of basic life saving food, medicine and water to the people in East Africa and I think it is reasonable to point out that the children dying are in no way responsible for their circumstances, for the very reason they are children.  Again, it is nothing short of extremist ideology to argue in favour of allowing a few hundred thousand children to starve to death in the name of personal responsibility and natural justice.

Condor says:

10:42am | 17/12/11

CH was a brilliant mind. Perhaps an open thread mention on Monday ......

PW says:

02:37pm | 17/12/11

Even if the money does get through, all this does is allows for unsustainable population growth is these places to continue.

Humans are really no different to animals or the grass on the ground. If there isn’t enough food and water, many of these things die. When things are good again, they are replaced. This is the way the maker of the world clearly intended it. And its also why so many are trying to get to Australia.

Bertrand says:

09:27am | 17/12/11

You’re speaking crazy talk mick. The planet is a limitless resource that we can exploit at an exponentially expanding level for an infinite of time. Any suggestion otherwise is simply absurd.

chuck says:

10:13am | 17/12/11

Looks like Bertrand has been drinking too much “infinite”.
I’m not too sure which book he has been reading perhaps 1 of the 2011 HSC “soft subject” variety and we can only hope that he is able to lead the crusade into that part of the world with his rosy glasses. Perhaps he would at least consider the Maltheus work albeit written some centuries ago but then again so was a lot of things. Methinks he should also apply for running the economies of the PIIGS in Europe where they too believe that sitting around and waiting for handouts is good for the mind and soul.

Personally I have stopped giving too lost causes!

PW says:

02:41pm | 17/12/11

Chuck maybe you need to slightly adjust your sarcasm detection meter.

John the Zombie says:

11:27am | 17/12/11

Perfect example is Zimbawe pre-Mugabe. The place was the bread basket of Afica growing and producing large amounts off food but then Mugabe sent his gangs in and kicked the white farmers off the land and gave it to the black Zimbawians (even though many of the white farmers were born there) on the line they were getting rid of the imperialist. The African Union stood by and let this happen. What has followed is famine and drought.

marley says:

05:46pm | 17/12/11

@GratuitousAdvisor:  well, there’s a bit of a question in my mind as to how respected Oxfam and the Red Cross are, and the UNHCR isn’t really a charity.  I donate, but to organizations I have confidence in - and that wouldn’t be any of these three.

fox says:

08:51am | 18/12/11

As much as I hate seeing it, there’s a reason why excess food is dumped. Giving it to the poor, in any country, leads to a dependance, then an expectation and eventually a demand for supplies in such quantity to continue.

Additionally, people will have more children due to the sudden increase in food supply, even though they cannot support them by producing their own food or income.

I used to say the same thing as you, seeing all that good food destroyed while people are starving to death is utterly heartbreaking.

St. Michael says:

01:48pm | 18/12/11

“Why can’t we respond in their moment of need and give without receiving anything back at all?”

Because we’ve been responding in that way for 40 years, and it hasn’t made a mouse’s fart worth of difference.  At some point anyone but the insane concludes you have to stop throwing good money after bad.