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Mauritius: Let's die of hunger- So we are all going to die of hunger.
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L'Express (Port Louis)
14 April 2008
Posted to the web 14 April 2008
Deepa Bhookhun
Port Louis
Serves us right, I say. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but we've got only ourselves to blame. And we can't say we haven't had it coming. Although bizarrely this is exactly what we are saying - everybody seems surprised by the extent of this impending food catastrophe as the world engages into discussions on the increase in food prices as well as its scarcity. There is really no limit to our hypocrisy.
Unless it's not hypocrisy and that the truth of the matter is that we really are stupid. That we are so conceited that we have never really considered the consequences of our actions, of our greed, of our gluttony. That we have never paid attention to the age old warning that there will always be enough for our need but never for our greed.
Yes, it must be stupidity. How could we not have known that there would be a shortage of food if we ate more than we produced? Unless of course, that in our arrogance, we had thought that food would magically appear on the shelves at the supermarket? Yeah, maybe inflated with our self-importance, we even expected it.
I'm saying "we" because all of us are accomplices to the real culprits in this impending catastrophe - the so-called developed countries that have encouraged this culture of selfishness, of indulgence and of greed. Unfortunately, it's always the poorer and less "developed" countries that are first to pay the price of the first-worlders' folly.
So much so that now that we are facing this food catastrophe, what do we do? We play the blame game. Why is the price of food commodities going up? Because Chinese and Indians are eating too much. Why is there not enough food? Because those people in the East are eating more and more of what we (in the West) eat.
Good grief! So what should they do? Not eat so that other people can get on with their gluttony?
It's a good thing that not many Africans go to bed on a full stomach because otherwise, imagine the disruption this would have caused to the eating habits of the rest of us!
And do you know what? As you and I are getting worried about being able to eat, thirty percent of this year's US grain harvest will go straight to an ethanol distillery. To feed cars, not people. Everywhere else, grains are being produced to feed and grow animals so we can kill them and we can eat them. Why not just eat the grains? Because grains are not as tasty as meat.
And mark my words; we won't change our eating habits because we are arrogant enough to think that we won't starve, that things are bound to get better.
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That people only die of hunger in Africa.
So we are all going to die of hunger?
Good. That might put us at par with those who die of hunger everyday.
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