Kerryanne:
<They are most certainly NOT part of our society... >

I never said anything about them being part of our "society" or our culture, but part of the same economic system--which strictly makes quaint distinctive notions of society and culture ridiculous.

However, clearly you and others here are beyond reason.

Squeers:"We all have to learn to live sustainably; the starving and unsustainable millions elsewhere are simply the obverse of obscene glut in countries like Australia."

And like every society through history, the poor bear the brunt of any catastrophes. The purpose of wealth is not to make it possible to live in a nicer home, but to make it possible to continue to have a nice home to live in while others are living in ditches. In historical times it was not unusual for the wealth of a community to be so concentrated that the only part of a town that was defended was the local lord's castle.

In our global environment, we ARE the lords (albeit very minor nobility who've risen from the muck) and the peasants have to look after themselves. This is a simple fact of life. We could send ourselves broke trying to feed them all, but that wouldn't solve their problem, which is that there are too many of them for the land they live in to support so it will routinely be their fate to suffer drought and famine. Unless we want to debase our own lifetyles by opening the doors of the castle, there's not much we can do except hide our women and kids inside where they don't have to watch the slaughter and become upset.

Kerryanne,

Squeers said they were part of the "system", not our society. Ergo the "filthy rich" Arab countries are the one's don't get a dose of Uncle Sam's "knock 'em down and build 'em up for profit" medicine.

We in the West are not the "givers" - most emphatically, we are the "takers". I challenge you to study the situations of just about every third world country in dire straits - you will find that the U.S./European controlled institutions of the IMF and the World Bank have contributed to or been instrumental in the destruction and destabilisation of their traditional economies - and that's on top of whatever damage was wrought by colonialism.

Hiya Lexi...good thread, and one where it's helpful to look beneath the surface at how systems have effects further along the chain.

Ah come on Poirot, no need for your Western guilt trip. If anyone
exploits people in the third world, it is the powerful there,
exploiting their own.

The IMF and World Bank have been full of people with good intentions,
who thought that building dams and roads in these countries might
be a good thing. Most were too naive to realise that the powerful
would simply run off with the treasury, when given the opportunity.

Now we impose all sorts of conditions to avoid these things, so
the Chinese are moving in to provide "aid", they don't ask any
questions and just get on with plundering any possible resources.

The worst thing we ever did in places like Africa was send in the
Catholic missionaries. They filled up the kids with vaccines etc,
did all they could to deny adults contraception, the result has
been a massive population explosion and even more hunger and famines.

So if anyone has screwed up the continent, its not the IMF or
World Bank, more like the Vatican.

Lexi

Excellent thread. My thoughts have been succinctly presented by posters such as Squeers and Poirot. I see the usual blame game used by some for situations over which people have no control. There are no guarantees in life and I remain ever grateful, through accident of birth, I was born into a society like Australia (even though it is not without fault), but as a woman I have had the benefit of education, a reasonable health system and the legal right to lead an independent life.

The Western world has made its money at the expense of the third world and we do have the power and money to do better for those we have exploited and still retain a roof over our own heads. As long as there remain people like Lexi we still have hope. As long as we ignore those who would denigrate us and continue to aid people where we are able, there is hope.

Be interesting to watch as we run out of fossil fuels - not necessarily pleasant but interesting to see how those who rely upon the castles built from speculation cope when those edifices collapse. Knowing how to live off the land may well be the best skill to have.

Again, this thread has taken off in directions I did not expect.
However, that is a good thing - and for me at least - the varied
points of view gives me much to think about. I value all of your
inputs - because you've brought up things that I would not have
thought of and it is good as Poirot pointed out to look beyond
the surface, so to speak.

I'm not familiar with the history of Africa, as such, and I don't
know the causes - or the root of the problems that exist in this
continent. My husband tells me that droughts are a serious problem,
they produce the famines. Then there's tribal fighting. There's
over-population, disease, and so on. He says that you'd need to invest big time in building infrastructure - like dams and water storage systems so that you'd be better equipt to handle the droughts when they come. You need to look into hardier crops as Kerryanne suggested
that were able to survive in dry conditions. What I can't fathom
is these problems have existed for centuries. And they will obviously
continue to exist. Why can't something more constructive be done
about them? Is it greed? Are there so many factions within the
land mass - that simply do not want to interact to help each other? I just don't know. But surely there must be better ways of dealing with this ongoing problem that isn't going to go away anytime soon.