Today in the Post there were a number of stories about conditions in Liberia. One article included a disturbing photograph of starving children with distended bellies; the caption described peasants reduced to eating grass.
When I saw that picture, I couldn't help but think of a Georgetown bakery I passed yesterday afternoon. Looking through the storefront window I was confronted by shelf after shelf crammed with an amazing assortment of tasty delights, including biscuits and cookies.
I didn't enter, though, because this was a bakery not for humans, but for dogs. "Does your pet deserve anything less than the best?" the sign in the window asked.
It doesn't bother me that there are bakeries for dogs. OK, it does bother me that there are bakeries for dogs, but it's more a matter of style. If some well-to-do Washingtonian wants to treat their poodle to a $5 scone, and if there is a someone willing to satisfy that desire, then I suppose everyone benefits.
Is it the poodle owner's fault that Liberian children are starving? What about the rebels who fight in the civil war? What about the drought? Some countries are rich, and some are destitute, and we'd like see an end to poverty and hunger, but isn't that just a dream?
Perhaps, but I hope not.
And I keep coming back to this: whatever the reasons, there is something very, very wrong in a world where human beings in one part of the globe are eating grass to stay alive, while thousands of miles away there are Doggy Bakeries.
We can at least help.
Posted by cradle at August 4, 2003 10:34 PMYou can't 'eat grass to stay alive', grass is indigestible by humans. (The physiological reason for cud-chewing is because cellulose is such a pain to digest.) When a person resorts to eating grass it is only to alleviate hunger pains, there's no nutricional value. In the article it says they ate "wild leaves from the cemetary" which could actually have been something digestible.
On a similar note, here in the US when have an amazing assortment of equiptment to save lives (From my window I can watch the shock trauma helicopter make it's frequent trips to the hospitals). But in the third world children die from diseases preventable by only a cheap and easily administered vaccine.
Posted by: Brooke at August 5, 2003 10:35 AMSome people are trying to do something about that, though. Good for them.
Posted by: David at August 5, 2003 11:12 AMAlso, Medecins sans Frontieres, one of my future goals.
Posted by: Brooke at August 5, 2003 4:28 PMhi
who is the person who writes these articles?
Me. :-)
(David Eisner, cradle at umd dot edu)
hi
who is the private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks?
You can help combat hunger at no cost to you at http://www.thehungersite.com/
Posted by: Mindi at August 6, 2003 3:15 PMI was recently reading a history of Liberia, which was founded in 1847 as a home for freed American slaves, with a constitution based on that of the States.
Of course, nobody asked the indigenous Africans about this. Today, only about 5% of Liberians are descended from freed American slaves...
By the turn of the century, Liberians descended from freed slaves had begun to put the locals into slavery...
Only in 1936 was the practice abolished, and only in 1951 did women and indigenous peoples get the vote.
For 133 years after independence, the Republic of Liberia was a one-party state ruled by the Americo-Liberian dominated True Whig Party (TWP). Until 1979, when more than 40 people are killed in riots following a proposed increase in the price of rice. (Indigenous) Master Sergeant Samuel Doe stages military coup, and executes the top Americo-Liberian leadership. GDP growth fell to nearly nothing, inflation and unemployment increased dramatically.
BTW, "West must open barn door, or else" says:
Most of us may not know it yet. But we blithely content, overfed citizens of the developed West could soon see an economic turnabout unlike anything in recent times. In a nutshell, it's this: Either we begin to share at least some of the fruits of trade liberalization or watch it grind to a halt.
The fulcrum is agriculture. The debate is about whether, or how much, rich countries will reduce barriers to relatively cheap agricultural imports from developing countries. The potential benefits for developing-world farmers, and Western consumers, are enormous.Posted by: T* at August 9, 2003 10:24 PM
T*,
You, and others as well, may find this 1973 article
from The Atlantic to be of some interest. It's
a bit dated, but the description of the earlier
history of Liberia is still accurate.