Josh How to Starve Africa: Ask the European Green Party
Jun 8, 2016 Bureaucrats EU Green Blob Greens Posted by Josh
I read this today on Risk-monger.com
There is a commonly shared neo-colonialist expression: The Europeans have the watches; the Africans have the time. Today, the European Green Party, with the support of countless environmentalist NGOs, proposed an initiative in the European Parliament to make Africa wait for at least another generation to be able to lift itself out of poverty.
It's a shocking read and ends:
A sad day for Africa
Today, in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs voted “overwhelmingly” by 577 MEPs, with only 24 against and 69 abstentions to accept the Green Party’s Heubuch Report and demand that the European Union stop funding the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. It is with great hope that the world ignores this unfortunate act, considering it as a narrow-minded gesture towards appeasing a backward looking European green constituency.
In 2015, after 30 years of residence in the Brussels area, I became a Belgian citizen. Today, for the first time since officially becoming a European, I was ashamed of what ill-guided people in the European Parliament had done in the name of Europe. This act of selfish science denialism (with the potential for massive negative consequences) is no way for reasonable Europeans to act.
We need to let Africa have the chance to develop, not on our terms or demands, but on theirs. It is time to give Africans the watch and let them manage their affairs on their time, not ours.
Shame on Maria Heubuch and her band of eco-religious missionary zealots.
Shame on our MEPs too. Read the whole thing here.
Reader Comments (156)
Did any of these MEPs go on a fact finding holiday to the most impoverished areas of Africa, before deciding how nice it was, and should be preserved for cultural reasons?
Will the EU now accept that some refugees fleeing from African poverty to the EU, are doing so because of policies decided by the EU?
Perhaps the EU has decided that Africa is the gullible sucker for the EU's Carbon Offset/Credit Scam?
Should refugees from Africa be reclassified as Refugees from the EU's War on Climate Change, the most pointless waste of lives and money
This is almost incomprehensible. EU Parliament votes overwelmingly not to fund African Food Security? Another glimpse of the ugly Green true spirit.
Brexit.
Selfish, self absorbed, murdering bastards is too polite a description.
I spent 4 years living in Zambia as a new graduate in the early 70's. The grinding poverty and political corruption was like a slap in the face. Africans don't need this kind of high handed, idealistic,action.
Rud Istvan. Agreed, but before crying Brexit I would want to know a) how British MEPs voted? b) what the present British goverment views this decision? and c) whether Leave campaigners would do anything different should they win the referendum?
What is not explained is how the Green faction convinced the majority of the EU parliament to follow its lead. Are not the other factions equally culpable?
AK, I don't think you get the point of leaving. It is not for leavers to pontificate on every issue where UK policy will need to be determined in the event of brexit. It is for the UK government to decide. In this case we will be funding, or not, a UN initiative with our own money not a share of the EU's money. The UK government of whatever colour will be capable of deciding. Whether it gets it right or wrong is immaterial.
IMHO everything outside countries do for Africa makes it worse. And everything African countries do for themselves makes it worse too. That may be cynical but it fits observations.
Why do Africans need Europe? Who cares what EuPar does?
Prosperity for Africans won't come from being given stuff.
Is this the only way EU supports Africa?
I looked at the New Alliance 2015 annual report on Malawi. The very first graph is a "doing business" ranking, with targets to improve (lower) the ranking. That's OK if you help just one country; if you help two and they both improve, their relative ranking stays the same. At the first sight, the New Alliance's first criterion does not make sense.
GC:
The only 'refugees' fleeing to the EU will be the despots moving to be closer to their money - oft-times supplied by our own DfID.And, AK: If you can't see the reason for Brexit before now, you obviously have no idea of democracy - more especially, as it was defined by (cough) Tony Benn (whose name is easier to type than say for this free-stater). The EU is a corrupt organisation over which we have no control; MEPs are nothing but puppets.
8:12 PM Harry Passfield
MEPs are nothing but near anonymous overpaid Muppets few voters know who they are and even less what they do . - there - fixed it for you.
Fair edit, Tomo. I was stuck for words. <grin>
And if the Bish will allow, (and some may not like the man's politics) I find Pat Condell has said, in ten minutes, what is so much better than I ever could (but, ironically, rather like Tony Benn did).
I can't say that I'd endorse the Riskmonger analysis of the remedy to chronic nonperformance of African agriculture.
Having seen African (well mostly, West African) agriculture out in the sticks - it strikes me that the involvement of larger commercial outfits gives the people a fighting chance. African kleptocrats (local and national) just *love* international conferences and international NGO led bunfights - they are *not* imho so enamored of multinational commercial outfits who have an ongoing in-country presence to mind their investments...
I've seen one absolutely pitiful episode in Nigeria where a successful farming project was simply destroyed by thieving local officials and local banks - that would not have happened if there was a chance the biters might get bit.
That said - Mrs Heubuch is a real piece of work - 577 out of 751 voting *for* it? They need to move the EU Parliament to Bamako for a year I think
ps - thanks Josh for the story.
The European Parliament has hardly any power at all so it doesn't matter which way it votes on anything. It's just a charade to create the appearance of democracy in a fundamentally undemocratic system. The only thing that matters is what position the European Commission takes on this issue, because that's where all the real decisions will be made.
Rhoda, Harry Passfield. The main point I was trying to make is that this matter should not be associated with the referendum at all, especially if we do not know the answer to my three questions. The decision seems to be wrong on all counts. I can see (but not understand) why Greens, with their anti big business mantra, would propose and support this decision, but why did the other elements in the parliament? Is there something we are not being told? Why should the EU do what it has done - it doesn't make sense?
The Greens see Robert Mugabe's destruction of the Zimbabwe economy as an example for the rest of Africa to follow.
Has Angele Merkel attempted to distance Germany from the Genocidal Greens?
The EU has now decided to block/oppose plans drawn up by the G8. The G8 includes 4 EU States, UK, France, Germany and Italy. The President of the EU also tags along. One of the G8's objectives is world food supply.
Green MEPs have subverted the EU (again) with a minority view, in opposition to the G8, composed of 50% EU Countries, to compel Africans to starve as a result of a decision they had no vote on.
The Greens can take credit for Crimes Against Democracy, causing Crimes Against Humanity. Stalin would be very envious of the final death toll, which the Greens will shrug off as due to Global Warming.
Alan Kendall, agreed, it defies logic even by Green standards (whatever they are)
The simplest logical explanation would be the suspicion that all profits would end up outside Africa, if the G8 'grants' were actually private finance initiatives.
The UK has a track record of giving 'foreign aid' that benefits UK interests. Developing countries have a track record of receiving overseas aid, that develops the overseas bank accounts of local politicians.
Meanwhile people have a track record of dying of starvation, when they can not grow or buy food to eat. Of course Gene Modified Foods, able to cope with less than ideal conditions are available, but the Greens don't want them either, for reasons they haven't thought through.
"Another glimpse of the ugly Green true spirit. -- Rud Istvan
¿Why should we expect anything other than ugliness from the greens, heirs of the misanthropic spirit of Communism revealed here: “Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass.”-- Karl Marx.
Alan Kendall may well be right. It seems more than just green anti-GMO/'kemikals' Luddites getting giddy riding their usual horse.
Cherchez le CAP constituency. The last thing they want is cheap food from Africa undercutting European sources.
Alan Kendall
I agree the referendum is a completely different issue. I'm not sure why so many of our politicians follow the green lead like sheep. I have a pet theory that it is because they are all townies with, in 97% of cases, no technical or historical knowledge. So we have renewable power and organic farming using traditional non-GM methods are the only way to go, and the current global population will live in comfort and plenty in a pristine environment. If the global population falls then that will be a good thing. We all know that before Britain made the world ill with the industrial revolution humans lived in Nirvana.
In or out of the EU/NATO/UN/G8/G20 I can't see UK politicians changing any time soon.
Thankfully, not everything in life is as Unreliable as a Green.
The Ecologist magazine article linked to, was written by Oliver Tickell, whose family is linked to the imposition of disastrous policies. Supporting families running small holdings is a delightful way of advocating subsistence farming.
The average Ecologist reader wouldn't know which way up to plant chicken seeds, or pasta bushes.
If you've ever had any doubts that skeptics are fighting for real people living now, as opposed to hundreds of years hence, the EU's action should banish them. And such actions are not atypical of the whole environmental movement.
"Future historians, especially black African ones, will categorise the effects of the environmental movement as genocidal and they will be correct."
Why we fight
Pointman
golf Charlie. I am ashamed to say that I don't know which way up to plant chicken seeds and may have been doing it incorrectly all my life. On the other hand, I do half remember seeing a BBC documentary on the April pasta harvest, so could refer to that if ever I felt the need to grow my own pasta bush.
I gather from your post that you are a horticultural wizard, so I ask what growing conditions are needed to produce green or black pasta?
Alan Kendall, black pasta is produced traditionally by killing a cephlapod, a multi-tentacled creature capable of getting into things and destroying them, and extracting the black dye that masks them.
On the other hand, Green pasta should be made by killing multi-tentacled Green Blob like creatures, capable of getting into things and destroying them, that mask themselves with a cloak of Green immunity.
There is no direct link between this evil legislation and the EU referendum, of course: but lessons may be learnt from it.
I've just looked at the way East of England MEPs voted. The three UKIP and two of the three Conservative members did not vote, one Conservative voted against (as directed by his party grouping). The only East Anglian vote in favour was cast by the one Labour member (also as directed by his party grouping).
You can see the vote here.
Looking at the votes, I'm struck by :
- given that only 4% voted against, and one of our Tories followed his group to do so, the non-Federalist group the Tories are in is pretty small and has, we must assume, very little influence;
- assuming that all UKIP's MEPs abstained, not many members from other states joined them; in other words, the Continental members voted nearly unanimously in favour.
In other words, the views of voters in these islands count for little or nothing on this issue - and, very probably, on most other issues too.
World Bank is offering debt swaps for climate change measures:
https://jamaicagleaner.com/article/news/20160519/government-exploring-debt-swap-world-bank
"Prime Minister Andrew Holness says the government is exploring with the World Bank an innovative debt swap initiative to improve Jamaica’s debt profile.
He says it’s part of the government’s active debt management strategy.
Holness made the announcement at a press conference at the annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank last evening, following discussions with World Bank Vice-President Jorge Familiar.
"We have endorsed the idea of debt-for-policy swaps. And I will be speaking more about that in my budget presentation. But you can imagine what that means. It is a way of rewarding countries that have a high debt profile, who take on new, bold initiatives to preserve the environment on issues such as climate change," the Prime Minister says.
"Already there is a mode globally, as to how you can incentivise countries that adopt policies that are aligned with environmental preservation and managing climate change, and a debt-for-policy swap could be one way. The level of significance of this is to be determined, but certainly it is worth exploring," he adds.
"It is not just a debt-for-policy swap on nature. But then you start to look at other things, debt for equity, for example, debt-for-land swap ...," he says."
This post and another on that site about the glyphosate ban shows that when the MEPs actually have a chance to exercise democracy they demonstrate themselves to be too ignorant to be allowed such power. Democracy isn't much use if fact is so easily displaced by blind dogma. Would then greater democracy make it even worse?
It was the Industrial revolution and the mechanisation of farming that lifted Europeans (and later Asia) out of the grinding poverty of subsistence agriculture.
That these green zealots are trying to deny Africans the same opportunity is a crime against Humanity.
We need Nuremberg-style trials for these Nazis.
Fen Tiger.
In my book an abstention on a matter such as this is tantamount to a vote in support of the despicable measure*.
In my book it is also a matter that should transcend national or partisan politics. Even if all UK MEPs supported the majority vote I would still consider it wrong (and therefore my country wrong)*.
* This judgement is based on what I know now. The vote is inexplicable to me and thus I believe there may be other factors involved that I am currently unaware and which might cause me to change my mind. Those factors would have to be very strong ones indeed.
I totally agree with
Jun 8, 2016 at 7:06 PM | Unregistered CommenterRud Istvan
and I do think it is related to our referendum AK, the point being to ask why we would want to be linked in any way to an organisation that could make this kind of decision.
Before anyone shouts Brexit (I know, too late) I thought the Brexit argument was that the EU is run my unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels, and the that European Parliament is an empty talking shop.
In which case, this vote is an empty gesture and no more. So which is it?
steveta_uk, probably an empty gesture because others will finance the agricultural and industrial emergence in Africa. It's a western thing to see western advances as bad and see the past in a nostalgic light. They want to keep Africa like a poverty theme park. The only thing this plan will do is keep more ethical and regulated organisations from interfering in Africa but leave the door open for everyone else, no matter how unscrupulous.
Typical of the well meaning but inept plans of the EU.
steveta_uk, I think those MEPs that supported this should spend a year's sabattical in rural Zimbabwe, without pay, expenses, food, water, power, health care etc.
Any survivors will have the experiences to lecture others about. The BBC could do a fly-on-the-wall documentary about them surviving with lots of flies, and no walls.
Look at what the Ecologist wrote:
It being the New Alliance aid initiative. That is defined in the article.
Why do they want to stop this?
So:
1) This is not changing anything. The EU Parliament is not a body with any power. This is just calling on the EU (and DfID) to stop funding this particular aid initiative. The EU Parliament funds nothing and decides nothing.
The vote is an empty gesture.
2) The gesture is that big business, development and technology are seen as anti-growth. The Green-led Parliament thinks the risks are too high for the poorest nations as they can least handle setbacks. Controversial and ahistorical that may be (I think it's wrong).
But it is coherent.
3) The fact that the overwhelming majority of EU Parliament MEPs supported the gesture says a little about the EU Parliament. But it says a lot about the MEPs from all of Europe.
We in the UK have our share of fools.
Yeah Dork, I'm living such a pathetic life compared to my peasant ancestors. They must be wringing their ghostly hands for my generation.
Dung. I totally disagree with your view that this vote has relevance to the UK referendum result. Using information from the website provided by Tiger Fen I looked at the way UK MEPs voted. 25 voted for, only 1 against with 23 abstentions and 24 did not vote at all (every MEP was present) For this measure an abstention or not voting is as good as voting for. As far as I could see the only MEPs rebelling were those abstaining rather than not voting as instructed.
So essentially our glorious MEP cohort (voting as instructed (or when rebelling to no effect)) voted 72 for (plus effectively for) and 1 against.
Since most MEPs voted according to instructions from their UK political parties and the EU vote was similar to that demanded by UK political parties, I cannot see how this matter has any relevance to Brexit.
All this is an irrelevance. At the present time I abhor both the EU decision and the instructions given to our MEPs on how to vote.
What is equally abhorrent is the large number of EU counties where their vote was 100% for the measure.
M. Courtney.
So
1) an empty gesture perhaps, but perhaps a symbolic one that may encourage others to vote similarly.
2) your analysis here suggests Europe acting in its traditional colonialist manner regarding the less well developed world. Mugabi and company will have many field days. No doubt China and Russia will make hay, with the former making even more friends and inroads in Africa.
3) I don't understand.
Alan Kendall, for any developing country, whether in Africa or elsewhere, looking to China for financial assistance will be logical. The EU and USA will be seen as the 'nasties' on the world stage, and Chinese views in the UN will be supported by a growing number of loyal vested interests.
Many countries with UN voting rights are already loyal to China.
China is not known as a cricketing nation, but has built International Test Match quality cricket grounds all over the West Indies. Presumably other sources of finance were not so advantageous to the many politicians that make up the West Indies.
golf Charlie. I was unaware of the Chinese financing of West Indies cricket grounds. Does this Chinese influence correspond with the relative rubbishness of recent WI teams? If the correlation is high, climate scientists will 97% of the time conclude there is a causative link. Perhaps chow ming slows down fast bowling, and egg fu yung is incompatable with backward sweeps. I always feel full after a Chinese, but soon afterwards am soon hungry again. Not the sort of thing needed for long days on the pitch or at the crease.
On a more serious note, presumably the Chinese financing for WI cricket was for future political support of China, whereas much of the influence offered in Africa is related to future resource supplies.
Jun 9, 2016 at 12:25 PM, Alan Kendall,
I'm surprised that you don't understand my point three as, at Jun 9, 2016 at 12:00 PM, you pretty much derived it yourself from the arithmetic.
The outcome of the vote is not a result of the procedures of the European parliament. It is not a result of the strange, trans-national groupings that have evolved there. It is not an expression of the workings of the institution...
Which it could have been.
Politics involves compromises. This unusual institution could generate unusual decisions merely as a by-product of its internal working.
But it wasn't that.
It was a result of the MEPs themselves acting as a collection of very stupid of individuals.
Alan Kendall, Islands are the first to outgrow their natural resources, due to an expanding population. People are now living in parts of the Marshall Islands that previous generations would not have done, due to storm damage. Now deaths/casualties/destruction are blamed on rising sea levels due to global warming.
The UN is not quite 'one nation, one vote', but Island States are excellent for Disproportionate Representation at the UN.
Why would some tropical Island Nations support whaling countries? Cricket grounds and yacht marinas!
China is doing very well for itself now, and in the future, by 'investing' in developing countries, in all sorts of projects deemed politically incorrect by the developed west. The former Communists of China are doing very well out of being non UN Green. They have not had to rely on expanding using military might.
Most Nations would like China to swat North Korea. Perhaps they will one day, and be regarded as heroes brave enough to do what the US couldn't/wouldn't.
What is to stop China bailing out Greece and receiving an Island in return, so the Chinese have a direct import route into the EU? Hong Kong in reverse?
I don't see any of the above as a threat to world peace. Right Wing politicians in the US might see it as a threat to US domination of world peace keeping.
Either way, Global Warming will be blamed for anything bad.
M. Courtney, sorry to disagree yet again but the evidence does suggest that the groupings composed of strange bedfellows played an overwhelming influence. The data I consulted includes information as to whether a MEP voted with their grouping, or rebelled. I only paid real attention to UK politics but in so doing did skim through the information about other countries' MEPs and noted how very few rebels there were. This suggests the voting did follow the decisions previously made by the groupings. For this particular vote the outcome was predetermined by earlier political manoeuvring, just as it is in the British parliament. I am reminded of the 2008 Climate Change Act.
golf Charlie. Why don't we steel a march on Greece and offer the Chinese the island of Lundy and get them to pay off our national debt? Think of the other benefits - it would pi$$ of the greens, revitalize depressed areas in the SW and S.Wales, boost UK-China trade and much, much more. They might even build us a world class cricket pitch there.
Alan Kendall.
I will concede to your greater research.
My feeling was that with such near unanimity it had to be a populist groupthink thing rather than horse-trading.
But I haven't looked at the figures in depth. Nor do I have time to do so today.
Since you are talking aboutsmallholdings etc I thought I would remind you of the proper measurements.
Acre - Amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day. 1 chain x 1 furlong.
Chain - The distance between the stumps of a cricket pitch. Derived from Gunter's chain which was a surveying instrument designed in 1620. It was a 100 link chain that was 22 yards in length.
Furlong - The length of furrow in one acre of ploughed field. 220 yards.
Alan Kendall, Lundy would be rejected for all the obvious Green reasons such as Sightscreens on guillemot flightpath, and a lack of BioDiesel buses chuntering behind the sealions. Traditionalists such as Botham and Tufnell would enjoy the challenge of spotting opportunities for a Swift Leg Over Before Wicket, and a sneaky Puffin' Behind the Pavillion at close of play.
The clincher however, would be a lack of cake shops. Even when the cricket is boring, or rained off, the BBC's Test Match Special always has .some of the world's top cake experts on hand, to explain how one piece of cake can be even better than the one before, moister or drier, richer or simpler, or ones full of nuts and fruits with plenty of wind to follow. The UK's cake forecasts and opinions are devoured all over the world. The computer generated cake is rubbish, and with no Real Cake shops on Lundy, how can this tradition live on?
AK
I couldn't agree more: abstention is certainly not enough in such a case. I also agree that horse-trading almost certainly played a big part - which further damages my respect for those responsible.
The parallels with the Climate Change Act are there, altho' that was suicide whereas this is murder.
golf Charlie. You have little faith in the power of the oriental mind. It was you yourself who made the analogy between Hong Kong and China's coveted European entropot. Did not Hong Kong build its new airport on made ground, and is China not building completely new islands in the South China Sea? Lundy's cricket ground could be similarly newly made using Chinese expertise in island manufacture.
Cakeshops would not be a problem. Mary Berry could begin a cake revolution and neighbouring Devon and Glamorgan would benefit from a resurgence of cakeries. Lardi cakes would be rebranded as Lundy cakes and Chinese Mooncakes made for the new owners.
If cricket were introduced, most puffins would wander off out of boredom, perhaps to the fleshmarkets of Skomer.
The main problem of Lundy becoming a cricketing nation is that they might win the Ashes.
I can't understand what you are all getting steamed up about. It is only people who are dying.
Come on now we have a planet to save here. /Sarc off
The callous disregard for the third world (and the poorer first world) marks out the environmentalists' mind-set.
Slightly O/T -
I try to avoid politics on here, because climate realists come from both sides of the spectrum, but BREXIT is also split this way - so can I just say anyone who watches BREXIT - The Movie, as recommended by our host, and still thinks staying in the EU is our best bet should seek help.
Dave Richardson & Alan Kendall,
The idea of exiting the EU, and entering China, without moving anywhere, has some appeal.
I am not so sure about crispy peking puffin.
Jun 9, 2016 at 3:09 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie
OMG I have to disagree with Golfus Charlius! ^.^
As AK has pointed out; China has 'manufactured' many islands in the South China Sea and not only that but it has built docks, airstrips and hangars for a powerful military presence. On the basis that it claims the surrounding waters for each island, it has also deprived other countries on the China sea coast of large amounts of fishing rights and drilling rights and has denied their ships free passage in what were international waters. China has now claimed the whole of the South China Sea as its own territory.
Dung, why did the South China Sea get so named by British Seafarers and Navigators?