Re.: The IMF and Malawi famine

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"As the world food summit ended in Rome this month in a drizzle of
non-action (non-attendance in the case of Britain's development
minister,
Clare Short) hundreds - possibly thousands - had already died of hunger
in
Malawi. The only offer on the table - a technical paper from the US on
how
biotechnology could combat world poverty - was too late for them and
insultingly irrelevant to millions more living in the shadow of hunger
throughout the rest of southern Africa."

I know E.H. Carr denounced the anthropomorphic personalization of states
in history, however, I couldn't help imagining the United States's
appearence at the food summit as somewhat like a Dickensian absurdity, a
sort of rich Uriah N. Cashgrubber who steals pennies off the sightless
eyes of starved corpses.  Completely ignore the fact that millions are
threatened by famine at this precise moment when something could be done
about their fate, when there could be a humanitarian reason for
subsidization of agriculture, and rather discuss next year's crop
yields.  Blatant.  Hideous.


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