Posted on 05/22/2003 9:31:01 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Nineteen years ago, a British television crew shot footage that shocked the world. The pictures of starving children, their bellies distended from hunger and their eyes lifeless from malnutrition, alerted the world to the tragic famine then unfolding in Ethiopia.
The response was almost immediate. Musician Bob Geldof, previously known for a song about a schoolgirl who shoots her classmates, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his relief efforts. His "Live Aid" concerts were viewed by a huge worldwide audience. They raised millions of dollars to help eight million people in danger of starvation and signaled a determination that something like this would never happen again.
But it has. Only this time, it's not eight million, but TWENTY million people facing death from disease and starvation.
For the past year, word has been coming out of East Africa about a looming humanitarian catastrophe. A severe drought destroyed much of the 2002 harvest. Hardest hit were subsistence farmers who not only lost their harvest, but also the seeds necessary to plant future crops.
As a result, between eleven to twenty million people in Ethiopia and neighboring Kenya face starvation. In addition, millions more, weakened by hunger, are threatened by diseases like tuberculosis, measles, malaria, and meningitis. As Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told the BBC, "if [the 1984 famine] was a nightmare, then this will be too ghastly to contemplate."
This prospect, and the world's indifference to it, prompted Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia (R), a Wilberforce Award recipient, to write an op-ed piece for the WASHINGTON POST. In it, he writes that when he tried get the media to cover the story, one television producer said that he wouldn't be interested "until hundreds of children were dying on a daily basis."
That's shocking. Even more shocking, in its own way, is what happened when Wolf approached the United Nations. He asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "to appoint a special envoy for hunger to help elevate the crisis in Africa and to deal with other hunger issues around the world." Annan's response, Wolf writes, was "less than enthusiastic."
Since we appear to be lacking star power this time around, the leadership role in averting this catastrophe falls squarely where it belongs: the Church.
As my friend Frank Wolf rightly reminds us, this task isn't optional. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that the line that divides sheep from goats is our response to the poor and the hungry -- the least of Jesus' brothers. If Christians won't be moved to action by what Wolf and others have described, who will?
Part of our response, in addition to giving to good Christian relief agencies, is making our concerns known to our leaders. This is an issue that really is a matter of life and death. And we should treat it as such. We are blessed to live in the one nation that can make the difference. Let's work to see that saving twenty million lives is a top priority.
Wolf calls what's happening a "silent emergency." It doesn't have to be that way -- not if the people of God, as Wolf says, tell the story of what's happening "loudly and boldly."
My question too. I don't know about you but if I KNEW that if I had a child and that it would more than likely die of starvation or disease I wouldn't bring a child into the world. Maybe if they kept their population in check there'd be more food to go around.
In my round-about way, this is what I am getting at. The present crisis demands emergency action, but if structural changes are not made, we will all be right back here dealing with the same problem next decade. I suspect that there are resources, mineral or otherwise, that could form the basis for a real economy.
At what price development? At the price of no longer having to deal with mass starvation every time the weather cycle changes. In their acerbic way, "Kenton" and "Billy_bob are pointing to the same problem. Any country can have an emergency. A country that has emergencies every decade without fail has other underlying problems. Emergency aid alone is not enough. Aid must be a bridge to allow time for the necessary reforms.
"Under Ethiopia's land tenure system, the government owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; the system continues to hamper growth in the industrial sector as entrepreneurs are unable to use land as collateral for loans. " CIA World Factbook
"Although it had reported the existence of a wide range of minerals throughout the country, the government had authorized little exploration." Library of Congress Country Study
They have natural gas. There is evidence of oil. They are actively mining gold, and other minerals are there. Decades of war was a turn-off for investment, as was its insane Marxist government during the eighties. But the war and the Marxists are past tense, so there must be other limits to investment in the economy. Maybe there is someone out there who has personal knowledge of the facts on the ground, who can comment.
Doesn't it make more sense to insure the survival of the population by making sure that those that are born are fed properly so that their live expectancy is more than 5 years?
Oh great. Does this mean that recording artists like Prince, Huey Lewis & The News, Tina Turner and Kenny Rogers are going to record some new B-sides to slap on an album that they will still be charging $17.98 for 20 years from now?
And the money will go to what? Propping up the dictatorship regime that oppresses these people? No thanks. I'll just get these tunes from Kazaa and I'll wish those poor Africans a happy Kwaanza. Hint: The system you got right now ain't working.
What else? That old reliable "dought"
My question too. I don't know about you but if I KNEW that if I had a child and that it would more than likely die of starvation or disease I wouldn't bring a child into the world. Maybe if they kept their population in check there'd be more food to go around.
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On the contrary, you'd bring lots of children into the world, in the hopes that at least a couple would servive and provide for you in your "old age" (say, 43 or 44)
In the late forties, as part of Truman's Point Four program, my alma mater, Oklahoma State (then Oklahoma A&M) set up a faculty and student exchange program with Ethiopia (then ruled by Haile Selassie). Ethiopia set up an Ag school and extension service, which was initially staffed by Okie Staters, then Ethiopian graduates of Okie State. And, finally, Ethiopian graduates of what we came to know as Ethiopia A&M.
By the mid fifties, Ethiopia was feeding itself -- for the first time ever. By 1960, they had become a net food exporter.
Then, Marxism arrived. And the rest is famine...
At one time, they did. See #34.
Only if I were a very selfish person.
It was stopped because there was a bloody revolution, Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974 and Ethiopia was run by a brutal Communist dictator for the next 18 years.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, I believe Ethiopia has fallen into, well, anarchy. Before Ethiopia A&M, the extension service and the exchange program could be re-vitalized, there needs to be a stable government in Addis Ababa.
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