From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Date: 05 Oct 92 21:35 PDT
Subject: Re: 9/22 News Stories on Hunger
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1471700135:cdp:1471700139:000:4357
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  5 21:35:00 1992


/* Written  8:05 am  Sep 23, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
We have different perspectives.  I do not think anyone owes anyone
else relief from life's tragedies.  No one is charged with the job
of eliminating famines.  There is NO widely held, publically
understood and backed commitment to eliminating hunger or famine,
nothing that the common man would say, "Yes, I signed up for
that".  However, numerous promises have been made by high
officials of many countries to reduce the IMR and Child mortality
rates in the context of the CHildren's Summit and the Declaration
of the RIghts of the Child.  See earlier inthis conference.  There
exist promises from others, as well, including private voluntary
organizations who have declared this mission.  But the guy on the
street does not yet understand that the world has promised itself
to end hunger.  It probably sounds pretty strange for me to even
say it here, but there does exist such a promise at the global
level.

So, it's not appropriate to fault people for not doing what they
have not promised.  We can, however, remind people of the
extraordinary possibility available to mankind -- the possibility
of working together to defeat mankind's oldest, largest and most
implaccable enemy -- starvation.  People need to be enrolled.

What can you do with someone who is deeply resigned? People are
powerfully "thrown" by life to feel they cannot make any
difference.  Ask anyone.  Everything is so overwhelming.  The urge
to just "get along", "don't make waves", is so strong.  The
resignation in people must be dealt with directly.

A few years ago, the world made a tremendous effort for Ethiopia.
Many hundreds of thousands of lives were saved and the effects of
a terrible famine were largely ameliorated, but the story of this
success was not told.  The story of PVOs conning people was told,
also "Food rotting on the docks", greed, corruption and so on were
told.  So, did all those donors get thanked?  did we get
acknowledged for our sacrifices?  Mostly not.

We must get people to have a public conversation about the
hopelessness, also about what our commitment to relief efforts
reallyamounts to.  These are not easy subjects to deal with in the
news media because they don't fit the profile of a story.  Hope,
battling for a vison of possibilities is an uphill battle.  One
always looks foolish to anyone alse who is in the grip of
resignation and denial about being a citizen of the world.   The
famine insults our sense of humanity, but our common sense tells
us that those people are not us, and that our sacrifice may end up
being meaningless.  What do you say to convince folks to
participate even though some of the donations will be lost to
corruption, looting and so on?  Why does Dorothy Morse keep on
going when anyone can see that it is hopeless?

The "media" is not uniformly pursuing some goal or agenda with
respect to the famine.  But some stories are easy to write and
sell and others are not easy, not so obvious, in almost the same
way as it is embarrassing, disconcerting to take a hopeful,
positive stand in the face of the evidence that the world doesn't
work.  It makes you look kind of naive.  Reporters and editors and
ordinary readers do NOT want to appear naive, or foolish.  No one
wants to feel they've been conned. And we can not get people to
participate, by and large, unless the issue of resignation is
dealt with.

In order to do this, we must address the hopelessness in an adult
manner, directly.  We must talk about it, give people a chance to
air their concerns.  Then we must go on to inspire people to
action by calling forth their basic commitment to humanity, to the
possibility we have to participate in the world, to the
inspiration that life is.  Somalia presents us with an
unprecedented opportunity to accomplish something very big, very
necessary, and very difficult, together, in the name of humanity,
and to develop the skills, the structures, and the compassion to
take action at a planetary level.  You could say that this famine
is a lesson asking to be learned.  We must be willing to put
ourselves back in planet-school and to try to do what we don't
know how to do.

People should not be made to feel at fault about this.  What is
needed is for people to see the tremendous opportunity we have to
take action and to accomplish.