http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14369252
Another decade, another famine. Another news story showing us images of starvation. The country this time is Somalia. The rains have failed followed by the crops followed by hope. The past quarter of a century and more have seemed like a torrent of musicians helping to banish poverty. It doesn't seem to have made much of a difference in the longer term. Natural Selection may have been put on hold but it plays a long game. So why do we bother?
Large areas are under the control of Islamist 'extremists' who despise the West and all it stands for. According to them the 'famine' is Western propaganda. They appear to be preventing aid getting in, or starving people walking to a new place to die. Such aid as arrives can be the invitation to be murdered.
The countries in the Horn of Africa are in a mess. The only things not in short supply are weapons and murderous ideologies. Somalia itself is the source for all of the piracy that occurs in the Indian Ocean. There is no oil and no inclination of the African States to impose order. The Muslim countries do not seem to be forcing large amounts of aid and order on the countries especially Somalia. So why do we bother?
If, because of our (very unlikely) inspirational interventions, the countries became stable and well fed it is doubtful that they would offer any thanks to us at all. Instead of hungry zealots and medievally minded murderers we would have well fed ones no doubt. I reject any attempts by the apologists who cast all the blame back at the West in general and this country in particular for some acts committed hundreds of years ago by some ancestors or other.
What we have in the Horn of Africa, and in Somalia in particular is an opportunity to help some people to live a little longer while doing nothing obvious to address one of the real reasons that the people are starving. If there was stable secular government then perhaps the periodic droughts could be managed more successfully. All the time there is no government and what rule there is is the rule of medieval superstition, delivered with mindless cruelty and modern weaponry we may be wasting our time. So do we really need to help the children in Somalia live a little longer? Do we really need to bother?
How should we manage the refugee problem that this may generate and the tides of immigrants who are already crossing into Europe seeking a chance for life?
What does the team think? And why?