Article written by Kevin Myers, certainly a different point of view.

[Charlie Hannah]

Received this this morning from a mate.Interesting!


Article written by Kevin Myers, certainly a different point of view.



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:

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 diseases.
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.
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 plane, 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 borrowing 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!)

[j.sabourn]

Thats what I call free speech and expression. JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

Well he's certainly hit the nail on the head, having spent much time in Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries of that ilk on food and fertiliser relief, pre and post Bob Geldorf days, he's got it absolutely right, the worst thing that happened to Ethiopia was Bob Geldorf and his misguided good intentions (or was it self promotion) together with misguided politicians who never bothered to look beyond the headlines but jumped on the 'saviour' bandwagon, he/they set the self management of Ethiopian agriculture back decades after years of UK/Europe/USA restricting food imports but flooding the country with fertilisers/basic agricultural equipment and water equipment which was paying dividends until that silly bugger started flooding the markets with food that wasn't really required. Ethiopia was once the breadbasket of Africa exporting grains/cattle to other parts of Africa and Indian sub continent, it was getting back on that track when the SB came along, I'll spare you all the details as it's Sunday and I can't be bothered and I've expounded on it before.

[Captain Kong]

That is the most intelligent report I have seen for some time. Thanks for that Charlie,
Maybe our political `leaders` should read and inwardly digest.
Nature sometimes has the answer. such as diseases like Ebola raising its head to cull the populations.
My son`s Doctor fiance is working on a cure for Malaria, it kills FIVE MILLION people a year.
I have told her , what happens then??? in 20 years another 100 Million all breeding and other 200 million people , again many with weapons and all their kids starving and begging while Dad goes and kills another load of innocent people, it is just another merry go round of shagging, breeding and killing and suffering.
I have also noticed on TV the babies are like skeleons, the mothers are all well fed, in good parents should it not be the other way round??

Why not let Nature take its course.
With its famines, hurricanes, floods, Tsunamis, earthquakes, diseases and so on. It all has a reason.
The animal world seems to cope with population growth. We are not over run with elephants or hyenas or gyraffs. or even polar bears. So maybe Nature has the answer that so called intelligent humans have missed.
Have a nice day.
Brian

[Louis the fly]

Only a fool with his head buried in the sand would disagree with the conclusions of Kevin Myers.
He has given us all disastrous issues facing the world but where are the answers ?

[Charlie Hannah]

Kevin Myers,certainly knows what he is on about problem is do the d. h----s in power get the picture? Doubt very much thier ability to even come close to solution.

[happy daze john in oz]

Then we have the heart wrenching ads on TV in the hope some one will feel guilty and send money on a regular basis. The fact is that if these people do get to sufficient numbers they will then become a political force and possibly pose a threat to the west. The West will pay lip service to famines etc but that is all, no real aid is given. It is only the misguided ones such as Geldorf who think they can save the world. the fcat is this sort of thing has been going on for centuries. Many countries are little advanced from the stone age and it will take many more centuries to bring them to our level, that is if we want them to!

[Ivan Cloherty]

Then we have the heart wrenching ads on TV in the hope some one will feel guilty and send money on a regular basis. The fact is that if these people do get to sufficient numbers they will then become a political force and possibly pose a threat to the west. The West will pay lip service to famines etc but that is all, no real aid is given. It is only the misguided ones such as Geldorf who think they can save the world. the fcat is this sort of thing has been going on for centuries. Many countries are little advanced from the stone age and it will take many more centuries to bring them to our level, that is if we want them to!

Having worked on famine relief for a number of years real aid WAS being given by various Govts and private charities, but not food aid as such and progress in self reliance was being made, alas after Geldorf's misguided efforts port charges and stevedoring charges for ships bringing fertilisers/agricultural equipment/grain cargoes went up thousands of percent, as the recipient govts knew that the donors would not stop giving for political reasons, as Soviet Union was trying to gain a foothold in that area and the USA/EEC did not want that to happen. However no donor govt has unlimited money to throw at one problem, so what money that went to pay these charges had to be deducted from the particular aid programme, so consequently less funds were available for actual fertiliser or grains. The extra money the recipient govts gained from increased port/labour charges was spent on armaments and ordnance (including Geldorf's only in his self disillusionment he states it never was-get real Geldorf) this military equipment was supplied by the Soviets, the USA/EEC never supplied any, nor would the USA/EEC supply any bulk road wagons fearing that these would be converted (because of their strength) to military heavy weapon carriers. I know this as a fact because I was commissioned to carry out a survey of all bulk wagons (of plus 10 tonne capacity) in Ethiopia by the US Govt, out of 5000+ such wagons available only 2000 were suitable for carrying bulk cargo and most were in the hands of the rebels. The Russians did supply wagons but they were ex four wheel drive troop carriers with a payload of 5-7 tonnes, leaked like a sieve and did about 5-7 miles per gallon, these were the wagons that we were supposed to use transporting ferts/grains to the interland, so each convoy had to be accompanied by a tanker, the rebels loved this as it gave them chance to not only capture the grains but also the fuel, what they didn't want they shot up and burned, both sides did this even tho they were fighting each other. Again consequently this resulted in all cargo having to be bagged for transit to the interlands, again incurring extra costs as one tonne of bulk cargo coat $1 to load a tonne of bagged cargo loaded was costed at $17 to load (this does not include discharge costs) because of increased time taken thus increasing time vessel is on charter, 1 day to load 20,000 tonnes bulk ferts, 18-20 days to load 20,000 tonnes of bagged ferts, again these costs reduced the amount of funds available for actual useful goods. We tried with great success to circumnavigate the bag loading costs by using mobile bagging machines at the discharge ports of Ethiopia and Sudan, this reduced the discharge costs by around $8 per tonne (but Sudan is another story) which was ploughed back into fertiliser provision, unfortunately due to Mr Geldorf's interference the will to be self sufficient evaporated, why work when you get food for free, especially when you think your own govt is supply the ferts/grains because the said Govt had the audacity to cover the bags which said 'Gift of USA/EEC/UK etc with bags emblazoned with 'Gift of Govt of Ethiopia'. Another consequence of misguided men was through the increased armaments shipments the ships carrying these goods got priority berthing at one time I had ships with 90,000 tonnes of aid sitting at anchorage whilst the berths were kept clear for the arms carrying ships from Russia. There is a lot more to tell, but I'm sure you have other things to do, as have I.

Funningly enough I never recall reading the true situation in the National Press

Suffice to say, I do not give to charities for Africa or other countries of that ilk, I am hardened to those soulful fly encompassed faces, because my money will never reach them, it will reach the pockets of directors of said charities or be used to purchase more guns if cash aid is given to the recipient countries.

[Captain Kong]

Many thanks for that information Ivan,
That is something the public never hear of.
Cheers
Brian