so here i am watching the news about niger

[Heathcliffscathy]

and crying. and seeing ds in all of the starving childrens' faces. and knowing that it isn't nature to blame but every one of us. i know i'm always doing this, but i just feel so awful about the state of the world at the moment.

the famine in niger was predicted years ago. we obviously on a governmental level haven't given a toss.

we worry about being blown up by a terrorist. we tolerate a world where people are starving to death. we wonder why people are angry and hate-filled at us at the west.

i had really good news today. we exchanged on a house ending a long process of house hunting and i can't feel anything but over indulged and despairing. and so angry.

we spend billions on slaughtering civilians in iraq. and begrudge pennies to africa.

i don't even know why i'm posting this except that i don't know what to do with myself.

If I remember rightly this is EXACTLY the way another thread with LLB222 went.... and she ended up laughing and saying she loved winding us all up.

Hmmm....

Q: "shut up u lot of weirdos"

Nice.

Intelligent debating tactic too.

"weirdo" to try to have an informed discussion?

"queen of quotes its great that you go round searching for all my messages you must have plenty of time on your hands......."

It took all of 10 seconds using the search facility here on the website!

gosh what has happened to my thread!

llbb22 or whatever your name is thanks very much for giving it a higher profile.

the night i posted this we set up a medicins sans frontiere direct debit, which made watching the news again last night a milifraction more bearable....but not really....whoever said the thing about their less than stick legs and our babies plump thighs.....

incidentally don't know if anyone has said this but our international aid spending on a govt level is not very high up the pecking order if i remember correctly...also, even if good reproductive healthcare was the key (and as many have rightly argued, until you sort out the roots of high mortality and poverty it can't be as families need loads of kids), george bush has ensured that both the american government and many many organisations over which it holds sway do not donate a penny to anything that includes contraceptive/abortion advice, but rather are going down the abstinence as the key message route....great...another tick on his crimes against the human race list

also niger is an ex-french colony non? so is quite right that they should be concerned and giving lots. and i hope they are.

what really really really gets to me though is that govts were warned about this months ago, that makes me really angry, but what makes me maddest of all is that we live in a world where the media didn't think it newsworthy enough to really make us as a mass aware...takes pictures of starving babies to do that.... and

"because i said that one way is to hand out free condoms?"

It doesn't stop people who (just like us lot on here) want to have children having them. And it doesn't help those people who already have children.

In Zimbabwe 6 or 7yrs ago of course there was poverty, but most people could afford to feed and clothe their children. THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN they are now unable to do so.

The same goes for Niger - until they were hit by locusts and drought a lot of people were at least able to feed their families and clothe them, even if it was only the absolute basics.

This person is surely either (a) incredibly stupid, (b) deeply ignorant or (c) a troll. Why not just ignore her/him and get back to debating the important issues? LLB clearly knows nothing about the realities of poverty in Africa and, worse, doesn't want to know, either. Sorry to be so bad-tempered, but I teach Development Studies to students who have a good understanding of the issues and a real wish to make an impact on poverty. The contrast is startling.

or you know what Oldie - they could be all 3 (a,b and c)

And here's how to give money to OXFAM. here

She's been here a while..... so not a troll. Although behaves like one sometimes.

ah but toothy - Trolls often do hang around a long time, sometimes 'appearing' to be posting normally

Can we talk about something else, please? I have just given money to OXFAM, but was intrigued by the Guardian story which juxtaposed photos of a hungry mother and child with a photo of market stalls elsewhere in Niger full of food. This often happens during a famine - there may be an absolute food shortage, but it can be worsened by what Amartya Sen calls 'entitlement failure' (ie people lack the means to obtain food that is, in fact, available. This may be because of transport problems, it may be because people who sell food are holding it back, because people lack the money to buy it, or it may be because food has been redirected elsewhere (as happened in many famines in the colonial era). This matters, because the cause of entitlement failures is the best place to start intervening with famine relief and long-term development aid.

I found that article interesting, because I was trying to work out whether giving money was the way forward in this crisis...and I now believe it is..but..at the same time ...

A large part of the problem is the attempt to force the economic model of developed industrial countries onto a tiny country like Niger...

And in the long term this needs addressing which is why we can also help by trying to educate ourselves in these very complex issues.

lemonice - despite having studied Africa for a long time, I must confess to knowing very little indeed about Niger, apart from the fact that it's very poor and has a lot of people who keep cattle. I don't think that the revelation that there are some people in Niger with money and means to eat should deter us from sending money for famine relief, but there is a difficult set of issues to be faced around debt relief, aid, trade and institutional reform within African countries. Unfortunately, much public debate in this country never gets beyond the 'more aid' versus 'they need to deal with corruption first' dichotomy. Actually, both propositions are true.

thank u for thinking of me and searching for me its a pleasure!
what did i say that took so much offence?

Do you use that CIA Handbook website? It is really interesting for facts and figures.

I haven't used it, lemonice, though my students say it's very useful.

The only thing I would say in LLB222's defence is that her frankly shocking attitude made me all the more determined to donate sooner rather than later which I have just done on the DEC website. It doesn't matter how skint I am I'd always find the money to send in a situation like this. I sent double what I had intended to make up for LLB222's non-existent donation and others like her who can't be bothered and try to twist politics to make it sound like by doing nothing they are helping more and somehow have the moral high ground.

Bizarre.....

Actually, the notion that giving to the poor encourages their fecklessness is one of the oldest excuses for ignoring poverty. One finds it right back to the Middle Ages (and beyond, no doubt). In late nineteenth century India, British administrators were so determined to make sure that only the deserving poor got access to famine relief that they exported food from famine areas and set up labour camps where starving people were worked to death (see Mike Davis' book 'Late Victorian Holocausts').

I still think that the strength of Bob Geldof's message not to give money, but to exert pressure on the G8 may deter people from giving financial aid. I think he should have asked for both, as this crisis had already been flagged up then.

Not giving money is a denial of this generation (and I don't just mean individuals I mean governments too)

I agree Lemonice, we've been discussing that very thing here this afternoon over lunch. His intentions were good but by not raising money as well as awareness he did deny those suffering NOW and meant that many who use an easy out to deny these problems can now think they are doing something good by NOT helping with Geldof's blessing. Awareness is one thing - but its no good if we are simply being aware of thousands starving to death with no help being sent as people would rather exert political pressure. Whats wrong with doing both?

We give very little in aid as it is. Another very striking development is how much of the aid budget is now going to Irag and Afghanistan - the so-called 'securitisation' of the development agenda.

Who is responsible for aid on the ground in Afghanistan? I noticed that MSF were forced to withdraw from there 12 months ago because they were targetted.

There is a lot of government-to-government aid, and many private companies are acting as sub-contractors. A colleague of mine doing research in Kabul met a large number of ex-military people who have now set themselves up as 'development' consultants.

geldof has fallen victim of desperately not wanting to seem to be repeating the original band aid/liveaid message, nor to be seen to be repeating the same thing twice. i can understand give the cyncism present around these issues, but i don't agree with him.