Comment
Feeding The Hungry On Revolution
One small battle has been won, if indeed there was ever such doubt on the subject of the power of the press and the good it can do. The television cameras have managed to do in less than one hour, what the combined skills of thousands of charity workers and United Nations agencies have been unable to do for more than a year.
Western governments have been told about the desperate situation for over a year. As those who preside over the European Economic Community 'food mountains'; they were sympathetic but explained it was impossible to do more than they were doing already.
With the television pictures, however, the entire public has succeeded in getting the governments to move. The reaction of ordinary people who have been most generous has shamed governments into action.
It is, of course, very tempting to zero in on the hypocritical aspect of the western world - the fact that one would think judging from the sudden outburst of activity that the hunger only started a fortnight ago, the fact that people will forget about the tragedy as soon as a new fad comes along.
It is tempting also to point out that it is not only Ethiopia that is starving and that in many other parts of Africa, television cameras can record equally harrowing pictures guaranteed to put people off their food.
The drought cannot be avoided also in any discussion about the subject, that is the one thing that can be blamed for the disaster on which the whole world will agree.
Unless, however, the suggestion is that the problem lies in food mountains not being sent to places like Ethiopia and other starving areas in Africa fast enough, then the world will have to face the unpleasant questions.
The Ethiopian leader Colonel Haile Mengistu has only just finished lavish celebrations of ten years of revolution which cost the nation not less than £200 million. There was a lot of self congratulation and a display of the awesome firepower that the regime has accumulated in the ten years of revolution.
Ethiopian society is said to have been transformed from the feudal and exploitative one that had existed under Emperor Haile Selassie. Col. Mengistu has been in the forefront of what is popularly known as radical and progressive African leaders.
If revolutionary rhetoric and conscientization could feed people, all Ethiopians would be satiated and possibly overfed. But there are those pictures haunting the whole world, totally incongruous with the image of the dynamic and progressive country whose people have thrown off the yoke of oppression and whose leader is fast to pro- duce a quote condemning exploitation all over the world.
If after ten years of revolution, such a miserable state of affairs can still exist, when are the people going to see the "gains of the revolution"?
Not unpredictably, the Soviet Union, which nourishes this particular 'revolution' has been unenthusiastic about joining the 'famine relief appeal circuit' and has gone to great lengths to emphasize the 'hypocrisy of the West'. Press reports state that Soviet television has been showing pictures of well-fed Ethiopian children happily playing and at school. Doubtlessly these are authentic scenes. For it is not the whole of Ethiopia that is starving, many people in that country, as in other parts of Africa where there is starvation, have more than enough to eat. Such people have the ability and the willingness to contribute towards relieving the suffering of their unfortunate countrymen.
However, the chances of such people ever seeing the pictures that have moved the rest of the world on the television screens in their own countries are very rare. Most Ethiopians possibly first heard about the tragedy from foreign radio stations. Revolutionary and progressive governments in Africa are not very fond of ruining their image with such reports.
It might be pointed out that there were many western reporters in Ethiopia during the revolutionary celebrations in September and their reports gave no indication about the suffering in Eritrea and Tigre.
It is possibly true that the ship load of Scotch whisky heading towards Ethiopia is meant for the diplomatic and business community, as is claimed by the Ethiopian authorities. It just goes to demonstrate the attempt to present an atmosphere of normality and progress to mask the daily tragedy of the 'real Ethiopia'. It is also possible that such shipments of whisky and others like it, are meant to keep members of the ruling elite and their supporters happy so that they can stay in power. The starving and dying thousands are affordable victims in the struggle for power.
The liberation wars in Tigre and Eritrea have com- pounded the problems generated by the drought. It would be too much for any revolutionary leader in Africa to admit to anything less than universal and total support among his people and thus Col. Mengistu could not bring himself to admit that there are parts of his country not under his control. It is not unlikely that much of the food aid being rushed into Ethiopia will never reach those areas and will only go to feed people in the parts of the country that are already well fed.
But that is the reality. One of these days, a BBC television crew will doubtless make it into the parts of Chad that can produce pictures shocking enough to cause another worldwide burst of activity.
Another camera team might make it to Burkina Faso and bring out scenes to generate another set of activity. For as long as it will take to immune the human system to such scenes, the rigmarole will continue from country to country.
Nobody will want to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states and the progressive self-respecting leaders in Africa will continue to claim that they prefer to starve and be revolutionary to being well-fed and reactionary. The only problem being that not one such revolu- tionary leader has ever had to go without a meal.
