. West ‘risks new Ethiopia famine’ is the headline to this BBC story. Attracted, in a train-wreck sort of way, to the assumption that it’s the West risking a new Ethiopia famine rather than Ethiopia risking a new Ethiopia famine, I took a look. The article is a mouthpiece for the views of Dr Tewolde Egziabher, an Ethiopian government scientist, who says, no less than four times, that the private sector is the problem. Here’s a quote from the start of the article.
“Will Ethiopians starve again?
“Ethiopia’s efforts to feed itself and avoid another famine are being fatally undermined by Western policy, a senior scientist has told BBC News Online.”
“Will Ethiopians starve again?” That’s an interesting question. Here’s another interesting question, not mentioned in the article and certainly not put to Dr. Egziabher by his ever-respectful interviewer:
WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK ETHIOPIA STARVED THE FIRST TIME?
Sorry. Sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever descended to leaning on the caps lock button before, but the thought of the monstrous thing that killed one million Ethiopians going unnamed made me angry.
Give the BBC some credit. The answer to my question can be found on the BBC website, although you have to put the separate bits together yourself because the BBC won’t exactly lead you to this conclusion. Here is the country profile for Ethiopia. And here, in that profile, is the answer to my question:
In 1974 this helped topple Haile Selassie. His regime was replaced by a self-proclaimed Marxist junta under which thousands of opponents were purged or killed, property was confiscated and defence spending spiralled.
Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, now Zimbabwe… In Africa*, where Marxism has gone famine has followed. “Property was confiscated” may not sound so bad but those three words were the death knell for millions. If farmers, black or white, know that if the reward for high production will be having their produce or their very farms stolen from them, why then they won’t produce much. Not exactly rocket science is it?
Naturally, my assessment of the causes of famine is not shared by everybody, and I wouldn’t expect the BBC to talk as if it were. However the role of private property rights as a bulwark against famine is one of the major arguments kicking around the world poverty debate at the moment. Yet it came as no surprise that neither the interview with Dr Egziabher nor this analysis of why famine stalks Africa, nor this one of why Ethiopia faces another famine address the issue at all. The nearest we get is that the first story has a tiny, tiny mention of how under the “present terms of trade African agricultural exports command low prices and cannot compete on world markets.” Nice try but exactly wrong. Under the present ‘terms of trade’ i.e. the monstrous barriers to trade put up by the BBC’s beloved European Union, African exports are commanded to have artifically high prices, otherwise known as tariffs, in order to protect French farmers. That’s why Africans can’t compete on the world market.
Like my argument on insecure property rights being a cause of famine, the argument I have put forward on tariffs, while not universally accepted, is a major contender in the debate, put forward by people far more eminent than I with such force of evidence and logic that even deep-dyed anti-capitalists like Ken Livingstone have reconsidered their opinions. So don’t expect to hear much about it at the BBC.
Have you seen this piece on how the US is crushing journalistic freedom in the Middle East —
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3309597.stm
It goes on and on about how the US is hypocritical for preaching freedom, then forbidding it, but nowhere in this piece is there any mention of WHY the US is critical of these media outlets. (Uh, becuase they incite violence and provide purely fictional accounts as journalism.
The final paragraph:
And a journalist from Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah TV channel Al-Manor expressed the frustration of many journalists from the developing world at the Geneva summit when he said: “Double standards apply on the right to express your opinion freely. It depends on which part of the world you live in.”
“Pro-Hezbollah TV channel?” WTF is that. Yes I am sure that tolerance and balance are their watchwords.
I think there should be a warning on voting slips (cigarette style) that socialism kills.
If you cross out “socialism” and replace with “mindless populism of any political hue”, this’d certainly be be a good move.
(in ascending order of insanity, socialism != Marxism != Maoism)
BBC News reports on the French headscarf debate have concluded by suggesting French government hypocrisy in seeking to ban religious ornament on pupils, whilst placing decorated fir trees outside government offices.
So the BBC solution would appear to be that all festivals are discontinued. And that decorated fir trees are a Christian symbol – used for the crucifiction?
Assuming Africans are powerless to resist the misery and starvation allegedly imposed on them by powerful Westerners is racism in its 21st Century guise.
Assuming that Africans cannot end misery and starvation without Western aid is also racism in its 21st Centtury guise.
Africans are miserable and starving because their leaders behave like corrupt and greedy leaders everywhere. Venality is colorblind.
To be fair, decorated fir trees are a pretty strong symbol of Europe’s native pagan traditions, so there would be some consistency in banning them…
Billg – agreed, except that in a lot of cases the west backed and armed the corrupt and greedy leaders (like one we just deposed) in exchange for not becoming communist. This leaves us with some responsibility for their actions.
JohnB,
As we backed non-communist countries we can take the credit for the fact that at least some people didn’t starve!
P.S. in ascending order of insanity, Fascism, socialism etc. Fascists are at least “honest”.
Off Comment: The BBC said “Israelis” were wounded when they visited Joseph’s tomb.No mention that they were Hassidim on a religious pilgrimage and posed no threat to anyone.
John B: Agree that we bear some responsibility for what’s happened in Africa, since we dd, in fact, support those incompetent, venal and meglomaniac African dictators who happened to be on our side.
However, given what would have happened had the Soviet Union won the Cold War, perhaps our wicked dictators were a tad better than their wicked dictators.
In the end, most African nations are aproaching their fifth decade of independence. That’s more than enough time for them to assume responsibility for their own development and their own mistakes. Was the U.S. collapsing in 1840 and blaming the Brits? For Africans, and Westerners, today to blame the West for Africa’s continuing failures is simply racist.
Oh, John B, let’s not forget that artificial famine is a favorite African weapon of war. Those people deserve an especially painful corner of Hell.