… And that is why, even though I am poor in America, I am usually a happy person. Because I have food, water, shelter, and clothes.
Yes, your donations do some good. They do save some lives. You have realize you can’t save everybody, but there is a definite good from donating to an organization like Doctors Without Borders.
There are people living in my local area, people who are my neighbors, who once lived in refugee camps like that, who walked for miles to escape war and famine and drought. They lived because some people cared enough to set up a refugee camp, bring food, supply water, and some basic medical care. Sudanese “Lost Boys” and Ethiopians and Somalis and people from other parts of the world. The world would be less without them. I look at pictures like the ones linked and don’t see the photographic excellence, I see suffering human beings. People worth saving every bit as much as the former refugees I run into at the grocery store, sitting next to me at the doctor or dentist’s office, people who are now thriving.
A couple centuries ago the people now in refugee camps would have simply died. While the situation is still horrific, I choose to see the hope and the progress we’ve made as well as how far we still need to go until these sorts of things are no longer business as usual in some parts of the world.
We can’t send food to Somalia unless we also send troops to stand guard over the food. Last time we were in Somalia it didn’t work out so well. Since we’re not going to send troops to Somalia any time soon, we’re also not going to fix the problems of Somalia. If you know of any other country who’d be willing to step in, let me know and maybe I’ll chip in a few bucks to help them out.
Apparently, though, aid is getting to refugee camps surrounding Somalia. That will save lives. Then the problem will be what to do with all those refugees, other than warehousing them in place.
There’s kajillion links if you google somali refugees.
But then what does one do, except proclaim “awww how awful” and click the NEXT or refresh button? Who do you give money to - money or aid that will get to the right people?
Perhaps for some people, but for me, the sight of the suffering and my empathy completely overwhelms any thoughts about “art”. I can’t see framing or lighting or composition - all I see are human beings suffering terribly.
Moreover, I don’t know how to say, ‘‘This suffering is worth more time/energy/resources than that suffering.’’ People are suffering all around us. How do we decide who is most worthy of help?
My understanding is that the famine is indeed “100% political.” More than that, (again, as I understand it from years of reading occasional articles about it) it’s 100% intentional. This particular starvation is not caused by poverty, rainfall patterns, or distribution difficulties – it is a deliberate weapon being used to displace and/or kill people.
We can’t give food aid usefully because the people interested in causing the starvation don’t want us to, and will resist. In order to solve this problem, it will be necessary to kill people, possibly large numbers of people. Unless we steel ourselves to do that, it will continue.
Currently the best strategy I can come up with is to copy the convoy strategy from the Battle of the Atlantic in WWII. Current thinking is that convoy, contrary to appearances, was an offensive strategy – it created a situation where the only place ships were (the convoy) was guarded by submarine-killing escorts, drawing the U-boats into a killing zone where they could be attacked and defeated.
Send in the food aid convoys in a highly visible way. Let them know it’s coming. But guard the convoys heavily, and escort them from a distance with air resources. Try to draw the fighters out of hiding in the brush and into a kill zone. Then fix the problem.
You get to pick and choose where you send your charity money - so it’s up to you to pick which groups you do or don’t help. For sure, with the publicity this Somalia situation is now getting if you don’t help them in particular someone else certainly will.
Or you could give to a particular organization and let them determine where your buck will get the biggest bang but do feel free to do some research before handing them money.
The thing about starvation is not that it’s always there, but that it must be there. Food scarcity is nature’s way of keeping the lid on a population, whether it’s bees, fish, deer or humans. If we somehow magically grew crops there such that everyone had plenty to eat, then over a few generations, those people would just settle further into the desert. And if we fed them, then they’d push even further into the hostile environment.
And the reason that food aid can’t get to the refugees is because that food is needed to feed the militants. Once again, the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.
It’s certainly sad, but hey, it’s the world we live in. The only way to solve it permanently would be to stop people from breeding or stop them from settling in hostile terrain.
While as animals we are still of course fundamentally dependent on natural resources and growing of food, the human species has, for the most part, long past the threshold – through its ingenuity and long-distance interconnectedness – of having the matierial well-being of any group of humans necessarily be so directly attached to the food-producing capacity of their immediate surroundings.
I take it that you, for example, do not grow your own food, nor does it all come from your neighborhood.
Your point is well taken that many peoples in much of the world do depend greatly on the conditions of their physical environment – and this can be seen as a good thing, this *not having to depend *on global interconnectedness (i.e., producing for an uncertain market); as fostering landscape and culture diversity; etc. But I caution all of us not to assume that it *has *to be this way, in all situations. If you do assume that, you will miss the strongly *political *causes of this crisis, and therefore you might dismiss the possibility of political solutions.
Some rare organizations (Doctors Without Borders is one of them, I believe) have chosen to keep operating within “rebel” controled Somalia (it seems that in “government” contoled areas aid can go through). That knowing that they’re “taxed” on every shipment of aid or equipment, have to abide by warlords decisions regarding distribution, etc…
The wide majority, however, are operating only from neighbouring countries, where I assume there’s no issue with aid being stolen or such things. So, I don’t think people should hesitate to send money. It’s unlikely to be wasted.
Strange wording in the link’s title: “Horn of Africa: on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.” Somalia has BEEN a humanitarian crisis since before I was born (26 years ago). What’s it on the brink of now? Total annihilation?
It’s great that people are paying attention to Africa. And I personally am extremely self-involved; I can generally make good use of a massive dose of perspective. But at some point, we have to realize that most first world interventionism (particularly anything militarily-motivated) in the third world is simply not working. We probably could go into Somalia, guns blazing, displacing corrupt leaders, and save a lot of people from starvation. But we’ll have to leave eventually. When we do, the local corrupt governments will spring up again.
Unless we could convert the population there to English-speakers and install our own PERMANENT leadership (complete with 1.4 dogs and a big-screen television in every hovel), which is impossible from a resource standpoint, this will keep happening until Somalia gets its shit together as a nation. Which could be 200 or 2000 years from now.
FWIW, I think that medical professionals who go there to help are admirable. But they’re not there to right perceived wrongs with military force, and thus are exempt from this rant.
In my opinion, the governments of every industrialized nation on the planet should be ashamed for letting something like this happen.
The only things that will help Somalia long-term is the discovery of massive oil reserves there, or a permanent mass exodus. Sam Kinnison was joking when he mentioned it, but they live in a desert…and when you live in a desert, you are always on the brink. They may also want to consider not reproducing, if the Catholics haven’t gotten into their heads yet.