To think the drought in Africa should merit more news time?

[Dysgu]

Was just watching ITV1 news with DP. First story, which had more than 10 minutes of the programme airtime, seemed to be the same story told by three different journalists and it seemed that the lack of a resignation by Rebekah Brooks was a bigger story than the original story. I know there are other threads about that horrendous situation.

However, in the 'highlights' at the start of the programme, the third story (after NotW and the death of a soldier in Afghanistan) it highlighted the plight of millions of people suffering the drought in East Africa. Charities are campaigning at what they say is the worst drought in a generation in an area where people are used to drought and famine. This story lasted for less than 2 minutes - of which some time was taken up with the delay in the link from the journalist in Africa.

AIBU in thinking that actually the story from Afghanistan and the story from Africa should both have merited more air time - especially when the first 10 minutes seemed to just be an 'anti-News International' and Rebekah Brooks story rather than the distress caused to 'real' people?

Africa is in the situation it is mostly by its own governments, corrupt politicians and dictators. Zimbabwe is a prime example (and a recent example for those not familiar with the history of Africa). In 1981 Robert Mugabe took over Zim. He systematically took control of everything and nationalised the whole country and then gave it to his cabinet ministers and supporters. He insulted all foreign governments, blamed his county?s woes on Britain (this still happens in Zimbabwe and is starting to happen in South Africa ? watch this space, SA is on the ?international genocide watch list? while the world isn?t noticing us being murdered ? 89 PER DAY!! How many of you knew that?). Blaming Britain obviously doesn?t help the people who are living there who are not British but are presumed to be so (not for a few generations now). He took all farms (literally killing the farmers) and ran the country into the ground. He then gave those farms to his supporters who obviously, had no idea how to actually run a farm. The bread basket of Africa then becomes another starving nation ? at the mercy of the elements and their government (you will be amazing how many will vote for your party on the day for an apple). They then have to ask for aid which very rarely reaches the man on the street. The Zim dollar (due to hyperinflation in Feb 2007) is no longer worth the paper it is written on and it literally costs a wheel barrow full of notes to buy a loaf of bread (if you can find any).

The question is ? why does the world turn a blind eye? Where are we supposed to go? I assure you that you have no idea what it is like unless you live here on a daily basis. We are African by birth but not by blood. We are European by blood but not by birth. We are called such and are treated as such and have no hope as the world turns from us. Where do we belong? What are we supposed to do and where should we go while the rest of the world watches Africa and passes judgement and opinions on it as though it were another planet. We are NOT our governments. We are here, we have families, we have the same traditions and way of life that you in Britain do as that is where our grandparents came from. We are the people with no place to call home. We are the lost souls of Africa. Dont close your eyes to us. Watch us and listen out for us because the stories we tell will open your eyes to terror, fear and a reality that you would not believe exists in this beautiful world.

Here we are called European Soutpiels. Soutpiel (literally translated) means salt dick. Apparently we have one foot in Africa, one in England and our dicks in the sea. Obviously not true as most of us have never even been to England as they dont want us either!

YANBU.

Ten million people nearly starving in East Africa / Horn of Africa. Ten million of our fellow human beings.

the money raised from Live Aid has done fantastic work but this is an area that is hit hard by drought, this is always likely to be the case plus wars going on (that we have benefited from sells arms to these countries)

i agree it deserves more news coverage. the line well its the same thing over and over again, you could apply that to so many situations, our soldiers dying for one in another war that we have no business fighting. surely empathy can be given to everyone suffering

and our suffering looking at the bigger picture is minimal in comparison

YABU. I don't watch TV news at all, but listen regularly to R4, use the BBC website and read a daily newspaper (always a broadsheet). All of these media channels have covered the situation extensively including analysis on the underlying causes. I have also received emergency appeals via email from a number of charities I support who work overseas in this area. As others have said, the story is complex with a range of contributory factors, some natural and some manmade. TV news is effectively in a "tabloid" format and given today's shocking revelations about NI, it is hardly surprising that their editing team would go big on that, especially as RB was big buddies with a lot of hte New Labour crowd.

If you want news from Africa, you have to avoid the tabloid TV and use the other channels I've described. There are also a wealth of specialist websites and organisations who provide news on international development issues, and development in specific African countries. It always annoys me that Africa issues are lumped together as though the continent is one huge undifferentiated mass, when the different countries have very different sets of issues. We would be rightly annoyed if the Greek economic crisis was reported by illustrating it with the German economy.

This caused me no end of pain in 1984, I tried to raise as much money as I could and we believed that we could solve problems. It hurts me still after all the annual fundraising and if we still raise so much, where is it going? Engineers, navigation anyone? My OH was involved with digging wells and showing how to instruct in doing that for storage. It really upsets me

Yes, the NOTW scandal is serious. But which would you prefer - to have your phone hacked into, or to watch your children starve to death? Yep, thought so. Famine is more serious.

I can't believe all the people saying "It's not news". "There's nothing we can do". Yes of course it is news - it is an immediate and urgent crisis. There has been a drought - these typically happen every 15 years - and when they do millions of people risk death from starvation. This is distinct from the ongoing serious but not immediately devastating poverty in Africa.

There is an £85 million funding shortfall so yes, there is something you can do - donate money, and pressure the government to donate more money.

The newspapers don't report it because they think that people in the UK are too insular, selfish and ignorant to realise that the lives of millions of people including children and babies is a bigger priority than ANYTHING that is going on in this country. And depressingly, looking at this thread, they are right.

And if you really do not give a shit about the suffering of anyone who doesn't live in the UK - there is a proven link between this type of hardship in a country and a. increased immigration to the UK and b. increased threat of terrorism due to angry, displaced people in strife-torn countries. So you can consider it news now and try and do something to help, or you can wait and consider it news when the UK is swamped with immigrants and bombed. [BTW i am pro-immigration; I just use the term "swamped with immigrants" to appeal to the daily mail demographic].

You're right Jane, but I still feel helpless.
I'll happily send a donation, but that's all I can do. It's just never enough.
I agree with you about how some people say that we should give only to UK charities, but I don't see emaciated children on UK streets dying of starvation.
In this country, people moan about a drought when they can't water their lawns!

how can our government donate more money.....we are having money troubles here aren't we, isn't that why we are facing such severe cuts? so where do they magic the money from?

"The newspapers don't report it because they think that people in the UK are too insular, selfish and ignorant to realise that the lives of millions of people including children and babies is a bigger priority than ANYTHING that is going on in this country. "

Is that how you feel? Or how you think the media think the British public are?

Seems terribly harsh, either way.

I thought that the UK public gave generously to band aid, live aid, comic relief every year, disaster appeals, other charity events, oxfam and other international aid organisations, as well as british army taking part in humanitarian missions and british doctors engineers other professionals, and people without specific skills going out to help people overseas in need.
Maybe I imagined it all.

The problems in Somalia cannot be solved by us donating.
Problems are due to corruption, war, lack of contraception & drought. Huge problems to address.

Sardine - yes, that is genuinely how I feel. Polls show that two thirds of Brits want to cut aid to the developing world. What is that if not insular and selfish?

People do give - on average, 0.01% of their gross income - to these causes. Which is not especially generous. We spend more on pet food on average than on all charitable giving put together.

Shoewsy - the government can make cuts elsewhere - like maybe Trident? Yes, we are suffering cuts but we are NOT STARVING TO DEATH. It is this kind of failure to recognise that some suffering - like horrible slow death - is worse than other kinds - like cuts to library services - that I regard as insular.

Actually the government has promised an extra 30 million because it understands that the famine will cost us more in increased immigration and counter-terrorism measures than it will cost to prevent.

Hammy - no, we cannot solve all the problems in Somalia by donating. But we can provide food to people in refugee camps, and buy livestock and grain for people so that they can sow crops instead of starving.

And the aid agencies are not corrupt nor controlled by corrupt governments. Possibly some of your money may be wasted - but most won't - and it will definitely do a lot more good than if it's spent on an ipod.

If you were starving and someone said "Well, the UK's corrupt, plus there's loads of other problems there, and there's lots more people starving as well, so since I can't solve the entire problems of the nation I'm not going to give you this food and water" - would you think that was reasonable?

Yes, there are millions starving but each is an individual as important as you are. If you can save one person you have done one of the most important things you will do in your life.

Dysgu

YANBU

You are right, people need to know what's happening in the world. I am donating money and things to sell at Save The Children. There is plenty of work going on in Africa which has been funded by aid, but there are still a lot of problems. The argument saying it's been going on for 20 years so let's not bother is crazy. People have been dying from smoking for the last 20 years, but we don't stop funding cancer treatment. Some things take a lot of time to improve, luckily the NGO s are in it for the long haul.

If people don't want to get involved that's up to them, but personally I can't watch it without wanting to take some action

Jane I am not sure that telling people that they are selfish bastards is the best way to get them to help out.

Your assertion that everyone in the UK is a self-centred shitbag who doesn't give a fuck about people dying is offensive to me.

Jane054848 sorry you didn't say where the money would come from, where will the government find it.
no idea why you mentioned libraries, the cuts we are facing are much more severe than a library shutting, calling people selfish because they don't donate is too simplistic.
a lot of people are struggling, and a lot like me are living with the kind of situation charities help.