The Wrath of the Irish Man - A Response to Kevin Myers, the Leprechaun

Mimi1

This is a response to Mr. Myers' article entitled " Africa is giving nothing to anyone apart from AIDS" that was published by the Irish Independent a couple of days ago.

This response is by Chereka, an Ethio - American blogger that lives in California.

http://lelatensae.blog.com


Mr Myers, the obvious thing to do to an article like yours would have been to give a well thought out response in hopes of getting a productive dialogue started. But I don't think your article was designed for such things. No, I think it has a different purpose. I mean I can try and explain as to why the West is mostly responsible for the horrible situations that are happening in Africa today or every other continent for that matter and how it goes as far back as the days of Western colonialism and Slavery. I can also talk about the hypocrisy of the West and how it still exploits the rest of the world through fancily named organizations like "The World Bank", IMF, WTO etcetera. The hypocrisy was never more evident than at the recent G8 Summit where Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, urged the rest of the world to" not waste food" as he and the rest of the leaders gorged on an 18 course meal. Of course, you already have the pre-canned standard answer, "Why is it's always the West's fault?' or ‘stop blaming others for your own failures'. No, I think there is more to your bile diatribe than just meets the stomach.


I can also start with the title of your article - "Africa is giving nothing to anyone - apart from AIDS" which is deliberately mean spirited but hopelessly flawed. Mr Myers, as you know, we had always been told that the first case of the AIDS virus was apparently discovered in Africa, if one is to believe the Western theory of the origin if the AIDS virus, of course. So, if that is true, the next obvious question is how did it get to the rest of the world? But as you confidently stated in your article, we Africans are incurably ignorant and incapable of doing anything as basic as feeding ourselves let alone come up with a plan to import a deadly disease to the other side of the globe. So, the next question is, did we actually give it to you, or did you take it from us? Yes, Mr Myers, we didn't give it to you - you took it from us, just like you did and still do with everything else. And who is the less intelligent ‘species' one in this equation?

I can also talk about how a man, who supposedly has seen it all first hand, can have such mean and hateful things to say about innocent victims? I am curious to know what made you care to ‘tour the territory on foot and financially' in the first place? Was it the human side, which I'm convinced you have none after reading your article, or your tabloid journalist side? Were you there for a sincere compassion cause or for a Kevin Carter moment? At least Kevin Carter took his life, whatever his reason. No, I am not suggesting that you do the same, because you don't strike me as the type with such conviction

Your arrogance and pomposity, it seems, has no limit. You seemed to be worried more about your Irish readers than the readers from the rest of the world. How provincial one can get, especially when it comes at the expense of the miserable no good poor Ethiopians who have nothing to give to the rest of the world except a deadly disease.

And what exactly was the purpose of comparing the Irish famine to Ethiopia's? Aside from the factual inaccuracy you provided on the length of the "Great Irish Famine" which by most accounts occurred between 1845 and 1849, I really could not understand the logic. First of all, the Ethiopian population did not double, let alone more than double, between the 1980's and now. But "white lies" and all aside, don't you think you kind of defeated your own argument there with your point about the Hercules and Mercedes reference - cute to be sure - but so obviously obtuse? Of course we have more means to deliver food to many staving people compared to say 200 YEARS AGO! - thus helping people live longer.

Read the rest of the entry at http://lelatensae.blog.com

flogen

I'm really not keen on people copying and pasting their blog articles in this forum for a number of reasons - for one I think it's just a way for them to pimp their blog and for another it's pointless to start a discussion in one place and then start the exact same discussion elsewhere.

Besides, there's a thread about Myers here already (which I see Mimi has copied and pasted to too).

I'm locking this thread and deleting the post in the other thread - if you want to contribute to the discussion feel free to do so, just don't lazily repeat a few talking points you made elsewhere.