Death in Ethiopia: Tragedy Repeats Itself

BreakPoint ^ | 22 May 03 | Chuck Colson

[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."

[Mr. Silverback]

Saddle up folks.

[Mr. Silverback]

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[marron]

What is the cause? Before there was war in Ethiopia, and an irrational Marxist government that was uprooting people and actively destroying the economy. Under those conditions, famine was not surprising.

In the absense of war in Ethiopia, what is happening there to cause this, this time around?

[neutrino]

If so many are starving, why does the population keep increasing? Ahh, but we aren't supposed to ask that, now, are we?

[mabelkitty]

Last famine was in 1985. Why are we just hearing about this now?

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Blame the corrupt, ruthless dictatorships and the UN whose globalist policies supports them. Most of the food and supplies we gave to Ethiopia in 1985 was taken away by the Marxists.

Until the people rise up and realize they've been had, they deserve neither American money nor support.

[arthurus]

They are not starving yet. It is coming and the 84 famine did reduce the population.

[John H K]

There's a book that argues that literally every single famine in human history has had as it's primary cause war (Somalia), deliberate starvation by the government (Soviet Union in the 1930s, Ethopia in the 1980s), or inadvertent starvation caused by stupid government policies (many socialist countries, the English in the Irish potato famine), rather than drought or environmental conditions.

[ServesURight]

Dittos, dittos, and more dittos.

[Kenton]

Not to sound too terribly callous, but starvation on a large scale is often nothing more than Mother Nature's way of bringing the population back into equilibrium with the carrying capacity of the land.

This is like going to the animal shelter and wanting to take home all the puppies to save them, but ya know you can't. Sorry if that's too blunt for some folks.

[arthurus]

The people do not deserve to be shunned. Ethiopia does not have the tribal wars that plague the Congo. Ethiopia has a Christian heritage that goes back to the 4th century. Amharic and Ge'ez are languages with ancient Greek influences. Many of the names are Greek. Ethiopia 50 years ago was more like 10th century Europe than like stone-age Africa. Looking at the map and at the geography induces in me the feeling that Toklkien may have built Middle Earth on this place.

The government is still nominally Marxist but it is fighting no war and is not trying to starve any of its people. This country has a large Moslem population and to date seems immune to jihadism. The Christians and the Moslems and the Jews (the Jewish popularion goes back to the 500s BC)treat each other as one would would expect in America.

[marron]

Obviously, not a lot of news comes out of Ethiopia these days, so I am simply not as aware of the day-to-day there as I am from other parts of the world. As you say, famine usually has causes or agravating factors that go beyond environmental, although a good hard drought in a region that depends on subsistence farming could be catastrophic. But people have lived in this region for millenia, and usually have developed ways of dealing with drought, they migrate, or whatever. The famine during the eighties was caused by a government that prohibited people from going where they had to go to survive.

I am wondering what stands in the way of developing an economy there that can withstand bad weather cycles. Are there no minerals there worth exploiting, are there no resources, is there nothing at all there to support something beyond subsistence?

[marron]

starvation on a large scale is often nothing more than Mother Nature's way of bringing the population back into equilibrium with the carrying capacity of the land.

The trick is to learn to harness Mother Nature, to learn to use your environment. You can accept famine, which is cyclical as you point out, or you can learn to build with the building blocks your environment affords, or you can migrate. Death is not inevitable if you don't accept it as such.

Its not only a matter of developing technology, its also a matter of developing cultural habits of collaboration that tend toward the modification of the environment rather than living at its mercy. It can be taught, it can be learned. Charity is not enough, it has to be combined with development or we will be right back here in another decade doing it all again.

[Alberta's Child]

Walter Williams once pointed out that the simplest means of avoid famine is usually the last measure any of these African countries thinks about -- instituting a commodity futures market that allows farmers to negotiate prices on their crops before a single seed is planted.

[tru_degenerate]

'Are there no minerals there worth exploiting, are there no resources, is there nothing at all there to support something beyond subsistence?'

Good question. Now I have heard and briefly read that a lot of places in Africa were robbed of its natural resources whether by invaders or ruthless governments. Then again this could be irrevelant...

[cherry]

"If so many are starving, why does the population keep increasing? Ahh, but we aren't supposed to ask that, now, are we?"

but what is the answer?....I have always wondered myself.....

here in Western culture, if you don't take your daily vitamins your baby is considered at risk.....why, with famine, AIDS, tuberculosis, female circumcision, and the stress of drought and war and tribalism......one would think they could never reproduce.....

answers needed....

[Billy_bob_bob]

The history of Africa. A one act play.

< scene one >
A village of hopeless, helpless people sit in the dirt and mud, quietly starving to death. Along comes the WESTERN DUPE, who is touched by the misery he sees. "What ho, we cannot allow this. We must send in food to help these starving people."

< scene two >
Planeload after planeload of food is shipped to the hopeless African people. For some unexplained reason the food never gets to the hungry villagers, because the local warlords grab it up for themselves and their loyal followers. The WESTERN DUPE wises up, realizes he's been played for a fool, and gives up on Africa.

< scene three >
A village of hopeless, helpless people sit in the dirt and mud, quietly starving to death. Along comes the NEXT WESTERN DUPE, who is touched by the misery he sees. "What ho, we cannot allow this. We must send in food to help these starving people."

< scene four >
Planeload after planeload of food is shipped to the hopeless African people, although it is a few less planeloads this time around. For some unexplained reason the food never gets to the hungry villagers, because the local warlords grab it up for themselves and their loyal followers. The NEW WESTERN DUPE wises up, realizes he's been played for a fool, and gives up on Africa.


< scene five >
A village of hopeless, helpless people sit in the dirt and mud, quietly starving to death. Along comes YET ANOTHER WESTERN DUPE, who is touched by the misery he sees. "What ho, we cannot allow this. We must send in food to help these starving people."

< scene six >
Planeload after planeload of food is shipped to the hopeless African people. Well, more like one or two planeloads but it's the thought that counts. For some unexplained reason the food never gets to the hungry villagers, because the local warlords grab it up for themselves and their loyal followers. The YET ANOTHER WESTERN DUPE wises up, realizes he's been played for a fool, and gives up on Africa.


< scene seven >
A village of hopeless, helpless people sit in the dirt and mud, quietly starving to death. Along comes the WESTERN DUPE, the NEW WESTERN DUPE, and the YET ANOTHER WESTERN DUPE. They are no longer touched by what they see, in fact, deep inside they start thinking about what could be achieved by sending them grain laced with arsenic. They no longer care about the plight of the permanently hopeless, and they have learned a hard lesson about extending charity to a place as pitiful and wretched as Africa. This revulsion spreads across the entire planet, and pretty soon nobody in the whole world cares about Africa any longer. Sooner or later they all die of famine, disease and want. Nobody cares.

The End.

[AppyPappy]

Where did the billions of dollars go? (rhetorical question)

[y2k_free_radical]

SHAME ON YOU

[Kenton]

SHAME ON YOU

Yeah, thanks for noticing. I was beginning to think I hadn't offended anybody. Glad to see you're paying attention. ;)