"Peace is the quintessential ingredient that cures all other ills. Failure to seek peace with the same passion as our daily bread; is proof it is merely a concept of which we have no idea of what it is. Making peace recovery our first passion is where we find "love".
Peace, Peace and there is No Peace.For centuries we've been bombarded by declarations suggesting humans, a so-called advanced species, is genetically predisposed to conflict, & has resigned themselves to the inkling that peace is an ideological impossibility. Such a notion is inexplicably ridiculous; is not intelligent behavior, and are words that all but annihilate any valiant efforts of them who do good works.
From ancient prophets to present day promulgation falling from the lips of the highest leaders of the land we are continually subjected to the cries of men whom blatantly scoff at notions that peace is within our grasps.
For our protection, they warn against ridding ourselves of weapons that destroy; yet with the same breath pray to their gods.
As such, it is distinctly evident that any and all initiatives that do not provide distinguishable activities that focus on advancement of each person's RIGHT to a sovereign and peaceful existence, will ALL WAYS fall short of the goal. ALL-WAYS.
The ONLY road to true prosperity is Peace. For, there is no propensity sans Peace.
Peace is not a process. Peace is irresistible. Peace is a choice. It is what happens when we calculate Humanity as SumOne"
1
"Ambassador Haley, please understand that without peacekeeping, you’re sentencing civilians to be raped and shot — and boys like Frederick Pandowan to starve."
What a horrific accusation. "Sentencing"? Do you truly believe that this is a personal decision and action being made by Ambassador Haley, or any other individual?
The U.S. government has absolutely no responsibility for ending conflict, starvation, or any other horror outside of its own borders. The U.S. government exists only to secure the well being of "ourselves and our Posterity."
What we responsibility do we have to the millions of suffering, stone age Africans? You and your ilk may feel that you do on a humanitarian level, but our federal government does not. At least admit that you to co-opt our federal government for your personal morality.
1
@Austin Wow. You’re comments are truly disturbing. You’re lack of compassion and apparent anger directed at people who need help are hard to understand. Violence is destroying parts of humanity and trying to help people in need is what makes us human.
1
Love your reporting, but, just fyi, cassava is actually quite nutritious and a long-time staple in Africa. Obviously more calories and more variety would be good, but the meat and eggs are not indicators of a healthy diet.
5
Mr. Kristof
Our family lived and worked as missionaries and international development trainers in Sierra Leone for 23 years. Twelve of those years were dominated by a brutal civil war. We spoke the local languages, knew the political situation, and had strong relationships with key leaders throughout the country. This enabled us to work together with an amazing Catholic bishop, with Catholic Relief Services, Medicin Sans Frontier, UN Peacekeeping force Generals, the British military, South African and American PMC’s. I was obviously not a “normal” missionary. During this time we held several negotiations with rebel groups, made deals that allowed food to go through rebel lines to starving people and lobbied the US Congress, the British Parliament, the Canadian parliament, the heads of UN agencies in New York City, and attended several international peace talks.
I am sad to say that all this effort did not produce peace. What finally brought peace was the overwhelming force of the UN peace keepers and British SAS in response their being attacked by the rebel groups.
Without external intervention by a large and credible military force, the starvation, war, death in the CAR will not end. The question is which developed countries will take up the challenge?
5
We are lied to from birth and separated into groups based on belief in order that this division among ourselves creates a friction which is beneficial to those who profit from the divisions they create.
Religious belief is practiced by residents of nations which are considered progressive when in fact the progress is limited to the very narrow sector of those who accept the words and directions of their religious leaders. It is no coincidence these leaders are without exception men.
The problems which beset those who are suffering are exacerbated by this paradigm which is always enforced through the use of violence, not a trait held by most women.
Why is it so hard to see that men cause hunger and promote pestilence? Why is their rule so hard to question? Why do we accept this rule? Why do we finger the beads of prayer instead of confronting this aberrancy?
Might does not make right.
Call things as they are. Men rule because they use the coercion of physical force. Is it simple coincidence that men rule throughout the world while women and children starve?
4
Mr. Kristoff, you do a great job. But one year could you take a kid from a junior college instead of from the same small list of elite universities (Northwestern and Oxford in this case). You'll be surprised.
4
One is struck by the irony of the Coke bottle in the left side of the picture. Multitude of meanings: No food but sugary soft drinks still readily available? The pervasiveness and collusion of American corporate interests? Hope: "Things go better with Coca Cola?"
2
The bottle has water inside and the soda that was once inside would be welcomed by anyone who is starving...save your ridiculous comments.
2
“Conflict is more profitable than peace.” Unfortunately this principle rules in America as much as Central Africa.
War is more profitable than peace, and therefore we we are stuck with unending wars which we never seem to win. But winning is not the point of them. The point is that they are very profitable for the people who own our government.
Guns are more profitable than peace, we make it easy for crazy people to do massacres. Even though a large majority of us would much prefer that these things didn't happen we tolerate the fact that our government feels differently. Maybe the student's now will be intolerant enough to change it, but if so it will be a first.
The common factor behind these things, and the looming disaster of climate change as well, is that all of them are systemic. The are the inexorable outcome of the profit system. To change them would require doing away with the profit system, and we can't seem to get our minds around that tact. If these kids now are stubborn enough maybe they will manage it, but as I said it is hard to believe that it will happen. Revolutions are uncommon.
4
America, other than individuals, and small groups, have done nothing in Africa, for decades, except throw billions of dollars of money with most of it going to despots, and dictators, their relatives, security forces, and inner circles. Once it is established that these type of people are running a country, the only thing, and it could still do wonders for these countries, is to them to agree to allow workers in, who would build clinics, schools, community centers, sanitation, and water systems, and bring in massive amounts, of food, medicines, supplies, doctors, nurses, teachers, agricultural experts, etc.
2
The neglect shown to "the most neglected crises in the world" begins with the media. When humanitarian efforts somewhere in the world are funded at 2%, or at 1%, or even at 27% of needed, people suffer.
When people suffer in popular coverage areas, we hear about it, along with countless op-eds about our collective responsibility and words of the most extreme used to make sure we are listening to what the reporters want us to listen to -- words like genocide, crimes against humanity and the like.
When that happens, the funding levels go up, not surprisingly.
But when places are dangerous, or nobody can see a bright line between good and evil, or there is no international -ism that can be easily applied, always neglecting the fact that when people have to live the way they do in 1% funded crises, that should be -ism enough and more, then we get, "...for many Americans these issues seem as remote as if they unfolded on Mars..."
But why is that, really?
When some conflicts are more covered than others, and some conflict destinations are more popular with reporters than others, the last people who should get tagged with not paying enough attention are the readers.
We can't read it if nobody wants to write it.
1
Slash assistance and peacekeeping while increasing profits on $100 billion in weaponry sales to Saudi Arabia to be used to slaughter even more Yemenis and to enhance warmongering in the region.
This is the free-market capitalistic principles that benefit the fewest at the expense of the most, driving them into extreme poverty in exchange for unimaginable wealth at the top as it is applied to inhuman activities like warfare and power grabbing. What does Haley or trump care?
In an effort to kill more live babies that cannot survive once born through starvation and disease to support a religious dogma - they withdraw support and even ban talk (speech) about family planning and contraception issues crucial to women who bear the brunt of the suffering and even death - inevitable consequences. Shutting up caregivers seems innocuous enough but the devastation that results is clear, unequivocal and truly cruel.
10
The number of non-Americans killed in American-led or American-supported conflicts since World War II is estimated to be between 20 and 30 million (www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-vi.... These numbers include conflicts in 37 nations around the world. While we are outraged at Islam for 9/11, we have wrought the equivalent of 10,000 9/11's in other countries around the world.
And America is highly efficient at killing. In the Vietnam war alone, estimates of military and civilian casualties of non-Americans are between 3.4 and 7.8 million, compared to 58,220 Americans.
This is why the 2nd Amendment is so important to us. We need to condition our young men and women to understand that holding a gun and killing another human being is not only normal, but heroic and patriotic. And much more important than the safety of our children in school.
Maybe it's time to start asking ourselves, who is the Evil Empire?
10
Tragedy being fed by the "civilized world's" need for rare earths and metals, gold, diamonds etc. No strange that all these countries are ruled by dictators, gangs and oligarchs. The oligarch is the go between the dictator who sets the bribe numbers and the corporation which wants to do the mining.
4
This article feeds into yesterday’s op-ed on Bolton’s old criticism of the UN. I agreed that the UN. talks while people, children, die.
I think the time for U.N. “Peacekeepers” is over. If we are going to keep this dysfunctional version of a dithering congress of supposedly enlightened nations, it seems time for a U.N. - army. Said army takes over the nation/territory/area in dispute. The ‘conflict’ factions either come to the table or are treated as enemies of peace and- fought. Meanwhile, aid, farming, civil life is at least more secure than using these questionable peacekeepers we have now.
Then President Obama said in accepting his peace prize, sometimes violence, war, killing is necessary. I’m tired and mightily sick of seeing starving and dead children. If the U.N. can’t manage an army, it is definitely time for a new type of multinational council. Doing something decisive might encourage the funding needed- or toss out the cheapskates. Including us. Money for blathering, no. Money for an army- I’m in.
1
America has been arming the middle east to a standoff for generations. Around the world, we are the largest arms dealer. These suppliers are part of the same group of lobbyists that donate so much to insure the special status of guns in this country.
If we rid ourselves of the influence of money in politics, we could be the honorable people we have always pretended to.
6
The title of your piece says it all. The current administration is now requiring low income seniors to having to choose between medicine and food with “compassionate” cuts to Meals on Wheels, seemingly in order to build up our military for upcoming conflicts with North Korea and Iran. If the US government doesn’t care in the least about its own non- billionaire citizens, we can expect no compassion from them for poor people around the world, especially if those people happen to be black or brown.
4
Conflict. Now there's a word that resonates with a large part of our society. While the concept of making Peace more profitable has always been true, compared to wars this only applies to the least powerful among us. Unlike the "Merchants of Death" which only enriches the few, Peace can raise the fortunes of the many.
Some see no hope as the powerful almost always conquers both of these concepts of "War and Peace." So that even in times of plenty, aggressive, greedy competition creates another type of "Conflict." The nature of humankind then causes another round of ever spiraling suffering.
Perhaps one day, probably in the distant future will come a time of lasting Peace and Prosperity for all people around the globe. Until then we Quixotes' will 'soldier on' pushing as diligently and mightily as humanly possible. Perhaps, as seen from yesterday's new anti-violence 'Youth Movement' against the gun lobby here in America and indeed around the world, working together will bear the new fruit of the next leg up towards a more 'Just and Lasting Peace'.
I know that I'm a dreamer in all of this "but I'm not the only one."(John Lennon)
6
Needless to say, "conflict" is MUCH more profitable in America than anywhere in Africa. So our oligarchs hire Bolton to lead us into new trillions in military purchases for our coming wars in Iran and North Korea. The stupidly passive American public truly deserves all the body bags these profiteers will ship back to them. Have the American dunces really learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan? Are they going to let Trump, Putin, and the Military-Industrial-Complex shove these wars, and their kids dead and dismembered bodies down their throats, in pursuit of total disaster for America, yet again?
10
I'm glad to see that Kristof was returned to humanitarian work, in which he does much good. He should stay out of politics and climate change, about which he knows nothing.
hmm..humanitarian crises caused by conflict aren't political?
3
The republicans running this country should be forced to live a year in one of these places.
6
I do wish both you and the Times would ban use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing” for all time. It’s a bizarre euphemism for mass murder and displacement via terrorism. Use of the phrase whitewashes and then papers over some of the most atrocious brutality in human history.
5
We must watch John Bolton's efforts to bring more war to the world with a close eye, and stop him before he fills our empty president with more macho bluster in the "shock and awe" vein that filled up GWB. He will soon be in a position to create even more starving mothers and children--those hoping for the occasional rat for dinner. This column will stay in my memory for a long time.
6
As I always said about the defense industry: Peace is bad for business.
5
“‘Conflict is more profitable than peace,” noted Neal Kringel, a senior U.S. diplomat for the region, highlighting what needs to change.’
It seems like, with conflicts raging in the Middle East and regions of Africa, in Myanmar. Dictators are gaining power around the world. There’s profit to be made.
The world is in a very dangerous place, Trump keeps telling us. He begins trade wars and wars of words with pretty much everyone but Putin.
Thank you for connecting the dots, Mr. Kristof. Bolton is the opposite of what we need. Trump is after war for two reasons: profit and the chaos it will create to keep the Mueller investigation out of the public’s eye.
7
Look at some of the primary drivers for conflict and mass migration. One that you will find is climate change. It needs to be a priority. In addition, security in multiple forms may be needed, it doesn’t always mean arms.
4
Hauntingly, virtually every photo in your essay includes small children, including suckling babies, or pregnant women. The young woman in the first photo has already given birth 5 times.
How could there NOT be conflict in a place with so many more mouths to feed than it has food?
The UN needs to send teachers and family planners along with its peace keepers. Maybe if it did the peacekeepers would eventually not be needed.
9
The conflict in the CAR did not stem from food insecurity; food insecurity stemmed from conflict and resulting displacement. The religious and political conflict is the root of the problem. To address your comment that there MUST be a conflict in a country with so many young mouths to feed, consider that the population distribution of CAR mirrors that of many surrounding countries, whose political landscapes are comparably very stable. As the article mentions, land in the CAR is actually very fertile. Peacekeeping should not be the only service in the CAR, but it is undoubtedly of the most important. No level of teacher training and family planning programming will be effective if such large quantities of the population are regularly displaced and unable to access those static services. One way around this is to implement family planning, health, and education programs in displacement camps, or to implement integrated health, education, and peace-keeping models that touch on all high-priority areas.
4
Thanks for replying to the previous comment with such eloquence. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
As long as we embrace Reagan/Thatcher style Predatory Capitalism - the most widely practiced 'religion' in the World - conflict and misery will be major players for most of us.
7
You write a lot about numbers killed but not about numbers born. Despite the conflicts, many of these countries continue to grow because of very high birth rates. Just look at the population pyramid for Yemen, for example. Every cohort of children far outnumbers the group 5 years older.
How do conflict and population growth interact? Does rapid population growth cause conflict? Does conflict prevent parents from planning their families? Do counties that have become more peaceful grow slower or faster? As a jounalist you owe us this information; otherwise your stories are only half told.
4
This organization seems to do very good work in all areas -- health, education, you name it -- around the world. I give all I can to them.
AmeriCares
https://www.americares.org
Americares saves lives and improves health for people affected by poverty or disaster so they can reach their full potential.
1
If more Americans knew how preventable starvation, malaria and other human suffering is in places like Central African Republic by simply funding U.N. peace-keeping forces, they would demand that ambitious loudmouths like Nikki Haley and, now, John R. Bolton, shut up and stop trampling on the basic human rights of innocent people.
The people of CAR are not looking for handouts; they only want to be protected long enough to work the land and receive badly needed medical attention.
Nikki Haley, especially, should be ashamed, because there is a strong thread of racism in her stance. There is no justification for her to bow to the ignorance and bigotry of Donald Trump.
10
Wrong. Haley has been a strong voice for intervention to protect people in places like CAR from the thugs.
1
I have read Kristof article about peace being more important than anything else against poverty. How can I help? [email protected]
2
Perhaps Nikki Haley should start traveling and working in these desolate areas. Perhaps sleep on the ground and eating Cassava
Maybe then she would understand the needs of people outside her cocoon. She is a bad model as a US Ambassador of our country to the rest of the world. She needs to become a full fledged human being with a heart and a conscience
5
There is no profit from caring.
The world is profit driven and poverty and famine and pestilence and all of Liberals' wishes will never be profitable. Therefore Liberalism always loses. Everywhere.
1
Totally ignoring 400 years of liberal progress since John Locke.
1
Ending civil conflict is the prerequisite to the work of building societies. While it is essential to stop the wars, that will not be enough. To build their future, citizens of these countries need education and not just reading, writing, and arithmetic. They need all the arts and sciences we take for granted. These offer a chance for natural human genius to emerge everywhere.
If you want to see the prospects for the future of these societies, look at higher education. Where African universities are building strength by empowering the brilliance of their students with access to knowledge—in Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, just to name the few I work with—they sow the lasting seeds of societal development.
Their students face challenges and attain achievements that Americans will find unimaginable. In Senegal, the medical school lacks enough classroom space to hold all the enrolled students. Those late for an 8 am class have to sit outside the building and listen to the lecture through the windows. But they also have a telemedicine center for clinical decision support to community health workers in the field using smartphones and body sensors. A university in Tanzania brings localized health data to people in rural areas so they can see how their community is faring compared to their peers. Medical students in Botswana use virtual cadaver tables to visualize entire bodies to learn anatomy.
It’s a very long list, and they have only begun.
10
What a wonderful thing.
In some small cases many "do gooders" have saved poor children from malaria.
That way they can reach puberty. assuring more hungry children, and assuring successful fund raising for the "nonprofits".
2
You would rather see children die of a horrible (as I can attest as a malaria survivor), curable disease? You imply that high childhood mortality is preferable to the education of women. Education is an impossibly under current circumstances in these war-torn nations, but it has repeatedly been demonstrated world wide as leading to significantly lower birth rates.
Why dismiss non-profit organizations? They are just that, making no profit, dedicated instead to a charitable mission. The people delivering the services these organizations provide in places like CAR, Congo and Sudan not only do so for little compensation. They are risking their lives to help their fellow human beings.
Many faiths and philosophies have as a central principle the concept of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I hope that you adopt this principle yourself.
4
Thank you for raising awareness of this situation Kristof. Glad you were able to find Christophe and the CRS team there. Hopefully this will help us and others to continue their important work.
5
The same profitability keeps the wheels of our own military -industrial complex well oiled. The new Trump team will likely oil the wheels even more if we let them. Hear that Congress?
6
How are you going to protect the innocent without a military that can deploy to these places?
Especially on this day, with hundreds of thousands of kids in the streets all over the planet - a planet awash in guns - protesting the ubiquity and relentless presence of gun violence in their lives and ours, it might be appropriate to mull the role that easy and cheap availability of firearms plays in monstrous acts and devolving social cohesion in so many corners of the world. Guns magnify the damage and chaos one person, or small groups of people, can inflict on others by many orders of magnitude. Central America, Mexico, much of Africa, the Middle East, and of course the good ole USA are in thrall to a culture of gun violence. It's time to listen to the kids, to make it 'uncool' to be a gun guy (and by and large they are indeed guys). It's time reexamine Lysistrata - that ancient tale may reveal an important existential truth in a time of real existential threats.
8
One of the factors rarely considered in situations such as this is the lack of coordination between the various intergovernmental agencies, NGOs, charities, local and international government agencies, and neighboring nations attempting to solve these problems. Various organizations put in place ad-hoc solutions to specific problems, few of which are connected to any unified plan for the solution of the crises. For instance, if the goal is to generate employment and to foster dialogue between religious groups, why hire people to dig drainage ditches, a relatively pointless venture that imparts on its workers no transferable skills or lasting impact? Why not coordinate with peacekeepers the securing of an area, and, with the government, distribute arable, secure land to Christians and Muslims in equal measure? Or train people in certain skills and form inter-religious cooperatives to help them ply their trades? These are examples of long-reaching, targeted solutions that would be far more effective at facilitating peace and development than one-off, traditional aid solutions. The conflict in the CAR requires the bravery of the various stakeholders to talk to each other and formulate a detailed, logical masterplan for stabilizing the nation. Foreign aid and charity do not fail because because they are inherently unable to solve any problems, but rather, because they fund unplanned, open-ended, imprecise programs that often have marginal effects on the lives of the suffering
8
Without drainage ditches farmland can become waterlogged and saline and crops won't grow. They are not useless.
Before you can distribute land you have to own it, and provide basic security.
2
"Whatsoever you do unto to one of these the least of my brethren, you do unto me.", Jesus Christ. I don't see any qualifiers in that statement.
7
"We must ensure that peace is more profitable than conflict. As the mayor of Boda, Boniface Katta, told us, 'Without peace, nothing can be done.'” Isn't this a universal mantra?
How will our world eliminate greed and corruption? The usual method is to send in troops to defeat the oppressors but then it seems as though someone starts profiting.
It is a vicious and unending cycle, yet progress is being made.
2
With a nearly $ 4 trillion annual budget, America annually spends $ 40 billion on foreign aid and $ 675 billion on it's military. That is simple arithmetic.
6
Except this year, if the budget gets rammed thru, there'll be almost 1 trillion for the military industrial complex as well as the unaccountable black budgets for the CIA/NSA/FBI/Who-know's-who 3 letter agencies, and bupkis for the rest of the country.
Is war profitable? You betcha. Peace is for the "useless eaters"
“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries”. – Henry Kissinger
“World population needs to be decreased by 50%”. – Henry Kissinger
“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” and “The elderly are useless eaters”. – Henry Kissinger
"Control oil and you control nations. Control food and you control the people." - Henry Kissinger
“Soldiers are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy”.
(as quoted in Woodward and Bernstein’s “The Final Days”, ch. 14) – Henry Kissinger
Nice guy, Henry. And he got the Nobel Peace Prize and is lauded globally…by the elites.
1
Re quote from Nikki Haley: no surprise!! Why would we expect anything less callous and insensitive, indeed amoral, from a member of the Trump team?
Would that her own children might suffer like the children in this story. Then she might suddenly develop compassion.
Don’t hold your breath, however!!
8
AS I wrote, she used to be a fairly respectable Republican - but has since sold out.
3
The slashing of the UN budget contribution reflects the belief of the Trump administration that UN peacekeeping has been ineffective. Trump has attempted to slash the foreign aid budget across the board. But Congress, including many Republicans, rejected that effort and our commitment to foreign aid for 2018 is pretty much the same as it was the previous year.
People often think that facts like these are offered for partisan reasons. But I offer them just because they are true and I think that readers should know that America's commitment to the CAR and other needy countries remains intact.
3
Thank you, Michjas, for your quiet bright tone of solace and hope. It took the help of the UN communication lines for this American and an African friend, to confirm and assess that she and her family were well and at home. 'Our Lot in Life', she says, but my spouse and I have been traveling back and forth to bury with honor our elderly relations.
We worked together in New York for an international children's agency, and she is a teacher of life. She introduced this newcomer to the department of water and sanitation, and to other African colleagues, all hard-working, spending hours around the clock, trying with fervor to save not only African nations in devastation, but the children of the world, left right and beyond.
Her vision of the world is far broader than mine and she has a great love for America. On occasion, I tease this friend and tell her that Gauguin, the French artist, would have painted her, or that she reminds me of The Statue of Liberty.
A young grandmother, now the matriarch of her family, and both of us know, that we have miles to go in the midst of sorrow and joy.
She is the one who reminds her friend here that 'America will prevail', and towering above my crown, she will receive the hug of the 21st Century when we are reunited.
4
While commendable that Congress did not decrease foreign aid as the president requested, the goal should be to increase it.
First, the US needs to staff up the State Department with people knowledgeable about each region of the world, charge them with remaining current, and listen to them in setting and conducting policy. Otherwise, how will we know where to provide aid appropriately?
Second, the US needs to resize our aid budget to reflect the need in the world and our position of relative wealth.
Third, we must rebalance our aid programs so that there is enough funding to respond both to need and American strategic interests.
1
Well If had a few billion dollars laying around, I'd give Engineers Without Borders and Doctors Without Borders a huge chunk and let 'em go at it. EWB teaches locals how to build sanitation systems, water systems, and solar energy projects from materials the folks can source locally/regionally. They teach them how to maintain these systems as well.
Student debt for engineers and doctors that agree to work with these organizations would be forgiven at a high rate, depending on years of service provided.
5
"‘Conflict Is More Profitable Than Peace’"
This has always been the case, see General Smedley Butler, "War is a racket."
It's why the Iraq was deliberately bungled by Planned Chaos, it's the most profitable that way.
5
THE WORLD COMMUNITY MUST AND ALWAYS WORK FOR PEACE, REDUCE POVERTY, AND OUR CHILDREN, EVERYWHERE MUST BE FED PROPERLY, A HUMANITARIAN CULTURE, COMPASSION, AND CONCERN FOR OUR FELLOW MAN, VALUE HUMAN LIFE SHARE THE WEALTH.
4
Hey Nic, maybe visit Flint Michigan next. We poisoned their water so the republican government in Mi could save a few mil. You want suffering, we have it right here. But really, our oceans are dying, I could give two blips about Africa.
4
Your concerns about Michigan and the oceans are righteous. Why undermine yourself by saying other lives don't matter?
15
Is there any way to adopt or foster one of these children?
2
RC,
Place a call to The U.S. Fund for UNICEF located in New York, and ask how you can become a caregiver to one of these children in need and this global agency will lead you in the right direction. Thank you for caring enough to ask; it is a Beginning.
2
How does a country promote peace while simultaneously and gleefully talking about turning regions of the Middle East into glass, nuclear war with North Korea, and singing “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran?”
4
Seth,
It is plausible that we are seeing the last days of a failed presidency and its administration, enjoying its final rattling and hurrah; our Superior and Servant to All, to the detriment of The People he represents, forgot in his antics the Privilege of Representation and has become entangled in a political nest of vipers.
1
The trans-Atlantic slave trade, extractive colonialism, and decades of neoliberal economic 'solutions' (basically capitalist colonialism part II) alongside the forceful suppression of non-capitalist thought (e.g. Thomas Sankara) is what has given the world situations like these in SubSaharan Africa.
Throw the cache of AK-47s at whoever the 'right people' are to you, Nick, but let's not be surprised either at the present situation or its inevitable future replications when exploitation by multinational corporations (usually Western... but hey, China's gunning hard for exploitative supremacy! #Diversity!) or the obscenely wealthy at home is all that's available to the people.
3
I've come to believe that conservatives and Republicans lack one important characteristic that liberals and Democrats posess, and that is empathy. I simply cannot understand how anyone could not care about these people in C.A.R. or Yemen or South Sudan. How can many in our country continue to deregulate everything that requires regulation? How can they not want to spread around the resources, wealth that we have here? Isn't it better if I'm a little short of spending money this month so that a young woman in an African country can deliver her baby safely? And a young girl can get an education? I just cannot fathom the complete selfishness of most of our Congress, and the infantile, solipsistic myopia of our buffoon-in-chief.
Nick, this article is powerful, as are the photographs. Once again, thank you for informing us about these crises around the globe.
11
At the very first glance at the headline I flashed on Eisenhower's speech. War is big business. Lots of money to be made. The military industrial complex is a job creator!
4
I'm shocked and sickened at the some of the heartless comments in response to this article. Where is our humanity? How can people read this and then write that we can't help, that Africa should help itself, that this will never change? Didn't you read the parts about the progress made and the lives saved in the last couple of decades? Isn't it up to those of us who have the ability to help to try?
11
Insure peace in Africa? The only way to accomplish this would be a permanent armed presence, namely UN troops. This means that the primary funder of the UN, the United States, would foot the recurring bill. No thanks. We have pressing needs here at home.
2
When most of the money, food and supplies ends up in the hands of the killers, how does increasing aid help?
1
Have the U.N. task force and peace keepers armed with sense, support and funds, put an end to these anarchist predators with the backing of industrialized and richer countries.
The former are often public servants with family, willing to place their life on the line, and many have died to ensure peace for others. 'We will not surrender' is one motto among others.
1
Three times I worked in CAR, each time I saw the starving, the corruption, the violence - we talked with rebels who we knew had probably killed some of our staff. But we stayed and we talked.
But I also met many people, beautiful, proud, who tried to live life with dignity, who would offer us food or a mat, or sweep the dirt in front of their shelter with a sense of pride. I will go back and try to do my small part. Be the change you want to see in the world. Write, read, and do something. Thanks Mr. Kristof.
14
The headline, so true, is a heartbreaker. I have friends abroad and sometimes it's just hard to be from the US. Even if my heart is in the right place, I am an active participant in a country that makes profits from international arms sales. Like Christians unable to follow the advice of selling all they have and giving to the poor, I am less than willing to give up my comforts. It is shameful, the way we accept comforts without knowing their true cost. I sound confused, perhaps, because I am confused. That is the world we live in, where marketing is king and reality takes a back seat. Thanks for the reminder.
7
Thank you Nicholas. I have added the Catholic Charities to my list of charities. So few agencies are willing to go to these places - God Bless the folks willing to go there and help.
8
Some people will look at this and say, "aww, it can't be helped. The population's too big, the climate's too hot, the government gets in the way, history repeats itself, etc" and then some people will go, lend a hand, and make a difference.
I just want to applaud the people in the second group. And I also want to point out that even among the poor, there are people who will take their relative little and use it to help their neighbors, and they should be applauded more than anyone, although they get 0 international press.
These people are the reason to keep fighting.
16
Sadly we don't have a government that cares about peace in poor countries, especially in Africa. Ms. Haley's tough stance is a prelude to a presidential run, but she was a poor to middling governor in SC who addressed issues late and minimally, from flooding to infrastructure. Mr. Trump doesn't care because he has war aspirations in other parts of the world that have more easily accessed resources. Mr. Bolton will bolster that. With the U.S. refusing to pay its usual share of the UN dues, peacekeeping is only a dream.
6
But don't forget that Trump's foreign policy is the fault of his base. They adore every racist thing he stands for. Haley would be all for "peacekeeping" if the Trump Republican base hadn't written off blacks in Africa and America as worthless trash in the first place. Trump won by giving over 40% of our fellow citizens the racism they crave, from Trump's idiotic "birtherism" on. It's tragic that American blacks were so clueless that they voted to make Hillary, the most despised person ever to lead the Democratic Party, the hated nominee, simply because blacks believed the absurd smear and lie that Bernie was somehow less on their side than Hillary. If blacks had not made Hillary the doomed nominee, as all the Rust Belt exit polls prove, Bernie, not Trump, would be in the Oval Office, and even though the Republican Congress would block him at every turn, he'd care a lot about peacemaking in Africa.
1
URGH.
Aside from the fact that you have denigrated all African-Americans as low-information voters, which is extremely inaccurate, you seem to have forgotten a few key things.
1) Polls predicted Hillary would win--so why are polls saying that Bernie would beat Trump any better than ones saying that Hillary would?
2) Many people hate Hillary Clinton and that crippled her--but Bernie primarily only won caucus states in the primary--the majority of Democratic voters (including myself!) chose Hillary.
3) NONE of Bernie Sanders' statements support the idea that he would care about peacemaking in Africa--in fact, he had little to no commentary on foreign policy, and what he had was incoherent. Without researching--can you tell me his position on Syria? Yemen? Boko Haram? I may not always agree with Clinton on FP, but no one can argue she didn't understand it or care about it.
So get outta here with that nonsense.
The lack of access to birth control is tragic. Children are born, only to die of malnutrition. Aid organizations focus on providing food and health care, of course, but birth control is a necessary part of health care.
13
All foreign aid should not be for food, malaria prevention, etc. but for all forms of birth control, including sterilization and abortion. Pay people if necessary. If this happened many years ago there would not be so many starving children.
3
One should ask how these nations came to be run by gunmen? Often the answer will be, with US, British or French assistance.
Take the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There was an opening for democracy under the leadership of Patrice Lamumba - but the CIA would not stand for a leader who believed that the resources of his country should benefit the people - not western interests. With Allen Dulles and Eisenhower's blessing, Lamumba was murdered and replaced with Mobuto, a gunman/kleptocrat who was willing to funnel resources to the west.
The report mentions Yemen - currently the recipient of US bombs via Saudi Arabia, with mid-air refueling via the US air force.
And on and on it goes.
Kristoff knows not to dig too deeply - the hand of the US and the imperialist European nations of France and Britain are usually behind the evil in Africa.
34
Eventually it will no longer be possible to blame all the wrongs of the world on the West.
How many generations have to come and go before people become responsible for themselves?
It is time for the people of these countries to start fighting for the kind of future they want- instead of blaming past generations.
They are the only people who can make the changes necessary.
And remember this: the West didn't just take. The West has given the world some of the greatest things- medicines, technologies, rail-roads, telephone systems, the internet. I think many of these countries have gotten a decent deal.
16
While Trump appears intent to be on the Road to Perdition, and less said about Haley, his Ambassador to the U.N., Colin Campbell, a former reporter for the New York Times, previously a member of its editorial board, was directing a study of political problems connected with international emergency aid in 1987, which ties in with the brutality of Nations and their deliberate policy of 'Let Them Starve'.
Mr. Campbell writes of this action being deliberate in reviewing the research of Dan Jacobs, a long-term UNICEF consultant, who raised the alarm when Biafra, the short-lived Ibo tribal state, seceding from Nigeria in 1967, soon found itself at war, surrounded by Nigerian troops, and cut off from food supplies.
"How, in pursuit of political objectives in the Nigerian Civil War, a number of great and small nations, including Britain and The United States, worked to prevent supplies of food and medicine from reaching the starving children of rebel Biafra', writes Mr. Campbell, in following the footsteps of Jacobs.
Do not ask for whom the Bell tolls, it tolls for Thee and the end of Humanity, while the humanitarians among us in some life and relief agencies on a global emergency basis, continue to make sacrifices to give sweat, blood and tears for those, who are often born to die.
Homage to these Public Servants who care about the Universe within and without, while many Souls are starving from greed.
2
I suspect you're unaware that child labor mines many of the raw materials used to make your I-Phone and tech devices generally.
We'd have a much better discussion of the role of the west in Africa's woes if you knew what you were talking about.
Here's a good start: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-merchant-iphone-supplychain-2...
1
Endless need. Endless.
7 billion people. The planet is dying and we are on the path to see another 3 billion people in a short 32 years. More and more people, every year, means less and less for each of us. It means more species go extinct. It means more ecosystems collapse. It means more human misery.
Climate change is going to create immense suffering- for everyone.
I am sorry for these people. I wish we could help them. I am afraid that we will not have the resources to help ourselves in the near future.
20
Have you ever considered that the best thing we could do for "these people" is leave them alone? Contrary to what some of the Easy Solution commenters here seem to think, CAR is not overpopulated by any stretch of the imagination, and still has enough wild spaces to provide back-up food sources to any inhabitant who knows how to forage (which in the rural villages is everyone). They just need to be able to go out in the bush without fear of running into a gang armed with our marvelous industrial instruments of death by some agent of the global commodities market in search of a quick and lucrative source of animal, vegetable or mineral products in high demand in our wonderful industrial economy, though they may mean less than squat to the people whose homes and lives are being destroyed*. How about we just leave them alone for a change instead of pretending that they are the ones who benefit when we give them a few cheap trinkets of "civilization" in exchange for wreaking their lives?
* Mr. Kristof doesn't mention it, but Bayanga is in the middle of forest elephant territory (such as are left) and Boda abuts a diamond mining region. The people with the guns aren't there by accident, and the people who gave them the guns know exactly what they want out of the deal.
15
Unfortunately you may overdramatize the loss of children in this environment, exactly as you might be overdramatizing JS Bach's loss of ten children or my great grandmother's loss of six. A child's loss is a devastating blow when children normally don't die, and this is a function of time and space.
4
I’m a liberal so sorry - but maybe it’s time to give up on Africa. They need to figure out how to solve their own problems. Monetary and military assistance to sub- Saharan Africa is usually a subsidy to self-serving dictators. I’m older so I’ve been hearing the same sad song since the sixties - I.e. Biafra. Sorry people, all of the hand wringing and empathy in the world isn’t going to change the momentum of history in Africa. I’m not a pessimist - I’m a realist. But Is it heartbreaking? Yes.
13
When Americans and Europeans respect African culture and customs, a lot of good can result. The work by the Gates Foundation has been very successful, for example. What we should "give up on" is trying to reshape their culture and customs in a way that we find more familiar, either through bribery or force.
A good example of this is digging wells in villages to "liberate" women from having to walk miles for water. What was overlooked was that walking to/from the water source was central to the community and social lives of the women. In fact, walking to the water source "liberated" them from being around the men all day.
9
More than 800m people need to travel 30 mins for safe water, report finds
Water inequality is increasing in the world’s most environmentally stressed nations, warn the authors of a report that shows more than 800 million people need to travel and queue for at least 30 minutes to access safe supplies. Despite an overall increase in provision of tap water, the study - the State of the World’s Water 2018 - charts the gaps within and between nations, as poor communities face competition over aquifers and rivers with agriculture and factories producing goods for wealthier consumers - The Guardian
Sorry , I’ve been there; until they start initiating, planning and digging their own wells - without support of Europeans or Americans - they will continue to suffer as a continent.
3
Throwing money and medical assistance at this is will only exacerbate the problems that have existed in most of Africa for centuries. A multitude of tribes, religions, cultures and natural resources all mixed in with a corrupt ruling class makes for an untenable situation. Europe and the United States tried that experiment with the tribes of the Middle East, forcing them into nation states, and we see what a fiasco that's been. We can offer some humanitarian aid for the effect, but we will never be able to eliminate the cause.
4
And, it is for this reason that more refugees continue to flee and flood into Europe and America.
I feel sorry for the pygmies. In the end, they probably won't survive. The Bantu are larger, stronger, more violent, and more knowledgeable, and will eventually eat them as bushmeat. The world is a cruel and pitiless place.
4
We just added 90 Billion to our 1 trillion dollar defense budget. We sold 40 Billion dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia to be used to destroy Yemen. We use less then 1% of our budget for helping other countries.
33
I'm surprised by Mr. Kristof's choice to use the term "ethnic cleansing". It is genocide. We owe it to those who are murdered, and those living with the constant threat of death and suffering, to talk about their reality in truthful language, especially since he also calls the conditions in CAR the "world's most neglected crisis". Thank you for the report, otherwise. We cannot sit back and ignore this atrocity.
22
Good luck with that. Arms dealers shall inherit the Earth--and you may quote me. The US still exports three things: food, weapons, and entertainment. We supply the warlords with weapons and ammunition; arms manufacture and sales are a mainstay of our economy, and in a happy coincidence, conflict creates a market for our food surplus. It's a win/win--for us.
11
The UN is way too busy approving a new arms embargo against Israel to be bothered with starvation and suffering in CAR.
7
Sharon, with all due respect, this is a very good point to bring up since “the article is about conflict being more profitable than peace”. That being said the $14,000,000,000.00 we give Israel, annually I believe, would feed, perhaps eventually lead to a means of educating folks on birth control, and relief from such abject misery one would hope; having said that, perhaps our largesse, particularly with respect too weapons for Israel, a bit unnecessary even, considering the number of Israeli billionaires who could easily write a check for that amount, leaving the U.S. and new Ambassador Nickey Haley, a bit on the table for humanitarian causes, not that that in any way interests her as she is to busy shilling for the neo cons, but it is a thought. Meanwhile, the good news is, it does appear there are people living in much worse conditions than the Palestinians, so see they don’t have it so bad.
15
Ted--with all due respect--please don't recite the Palestinian talking points. Any "humanitarian" aid the Palestinians receive doesn't go toward basics like food or paying Gaza's electric bill. Palestinian humanitarian aid is seized by Hamas and Hezbollah to buy more weapons and train terrorists to attack Israel. Why should the UN bother with a real humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic when they can pass resolution after resolution condemning their favorite target -- Israel?
1
Thank you for this sad and excellent piece. In Light of current WH antics and policies the arguments will fall on deaf ears. P...... against the wind comes to mind.
7
Once again Nicholas Kristof barely acknowledges that in almost every armed conflict in the world today we see Muslims. It's just not in harmony with his PC background to emphasize that.
Why wouldn't the Christian lady digging drainage ditches be afraid? All she has to do is do some research. She could start with Boko Harum in her continent, or the Coptic community in Egypt. Maybe ask the Christians living in Syria? I'd suggest the Gulf States but they don't allow non-Muslims to freely practice their religion of choice.
22
The CAR is a sad, sad example of the worst effects of corruption in Africa. Most of its leaders care for nothing but their Paris apartment and offshore bank accounts. I've had some experience in CAR, with a Canadian corporation trying to invest ethically in the country. Never happened because the government would not respect an existing contract and it was made clear nothing would happen unless bribes were paid. My client refused. Here are a few telling anecdotes. At a meeting with the then Prime Minister he told us that his finance minister had just told him the country had $10 000 in the bank as of 10 AM that morning. My client proposes paying the government five years of rights and taxes in advance. The PM answers that he appreciates the gesture but that any decision was in the President's and the mining minister's (Prez' cousin) hands. Translation: bribes required by them. The PM was clean as far as we could tell but we were surprised to find out he was also a Canadian citizen. There was also the story about Bozizé's (the President) trip to Antwerp with a bag of diamonds and his being refused landing rights by the Belgian and French authorities. A call was made to French President Chirac, who advised him to fly right back to CAR. The Germans, where the plane landed for refueling, seized the blood diamonds. And there are many more such stories, all sadder and more maddening that the other.
30
Americans cannot conceive of the level of corruption in most of Africa. Government exists to loot the country, laws are merely a basis for extracting bribes, and the great majority of people live in poverty.
23
Our economy has been offshored except for defense and war. Economic growth depends on constant military involvement.
23
"Conflict is more profitable than peace."
The unfortunate truth is that for the greedy, the power hungry, the militarists and weapons dealers, the uncompassionate, this is often true.
For the rest of us - not so much.
These issues are not as remote from Americans as one might think.
We know that the profitability of conflict is a sentiment found frequently in corporate offices, palaces, White Houses and parliaments, terrorist enclaves, extremist media outlets, among others.
We have seen it drive fear, racism, xenophobia, oppression, poverty, and division, not just abroad, but here at home. I do not insult the people of CAB by comparing their plight to life (in general) in the US. But neither do I dismiss the amount of poverty and conflict that exists here, and the threat that greedy conflict-mongers pose to our nation and our peace.
I agree with Mr. Kristoff - we must work for peace around the world and here at home, for making it more profitable than war. We can start by changing our attitudes about what profit means.
And we need to stop falling for the tricks of the conflict-mongers' trade - fear of the "other," perceiving those who don't share our ways as enemies, scapegoating, stoking bigotry, dismissing the effectiveness of non-violent conflict resolution, reducing the idea of "profit" to selfish acquisition of money and power.
Peace is far more profitable than conflict when you place more value on human life than greed.
50
Yet there seems to be enough food for people to make all those babies I see pictured. How do we know giving them more just won't result in more of them? Heartless, I know, yet still my blood circulates. It's a mystery to me too.
12
May you always be treated as you have treated others. For some that's a benediction. For others it's a curse. Which do you think it is in your case?
27
These people (as you call them) have no health care of any kind - and no contraception or other reproductive health care. So, unless you want them to be homeless AND isolated or alone, they will have children. Also, women often have no say in how often their husbands wish to engage in sexual activity.
23
So the parents that have 5 o 10 children and can not provide any care are no responsible of the crisis ??
I think they are, when seeing one child suffering does not impede them to bring another soul to the same circumstances.
1
War and Capitalism two ideas that form an ugly alliance.
12
I'm certain you have the solution for that, or, have you?
5
Jusr curious, did Tyler know that the CAR was the destination when he entered the ‘’win a trip’ contest?
4
"Yet Trump has slashed assistance for U.N. peacekeeping and his ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, has boasted in a tweet that the administration was "only getting started" cutting back on peacekeeping."
While I appreciate Nicholas Kristof's piece, which brings to lights what has hobbled Africa's development, I disagree with him on the notion that the United States should be a panacea to these ills that plaque Africa. I'm an African, and for many years, all what we Africans have pleaded for, from the West, was to help us get rid of dictators like the late Jean Bedel Bokassa (Central Africa), Mobutu Seseseko (Zaire, present-day DRC) or those still living, like Paul Biya (Cameroon) and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea). Western countries, especially during the Cold War, turned a blind to our yearnings. The result? Calamities that include genocide, hunger, civil wars. We do not need hand-outs from the West. Sub-Saharan Africa is very fertile. There isn't any reason why a child living in Sub-Saharan Africa should go to bed hungry. The United States embassies, which are located in these African countries, should help their citizens bring out good leaders that would steer their countries in the right direction. Instead, as it's happened on many occasions, American diplomats are reluctant to criticize the atrocities that are committed by these African leaders in order to stay in power.
34
“Conflict is more profitable than peace". Apparently here in the USA as well. After every horrific mass shooting the NRA and its minions call for More guns! More guns! "Well regulated" seems to be too complicated for most everyone except teenagers. Thank heavens for them...and keep writing your columns exposing what many don't want to know.
40
Unfortunately Mr. Kristof, it's not just liberal doves uncomfortable with this, because the question will arise: "How many American lives are you willing to put at risk or sacrifice to make this happen?" What would help here is a sense of why security is the biggest problem now. Is it just because we have solved all the easier problems? Or has conflict gotten worse? And for what reasons? If conflict has gotten worse for known reasons, then is it more possible to address those reasons? If, however, the reason is that the harder problems have been solved, then you will have to argue that in today's Global Village, such misery anywhere is much more likely to spill over to violence and instability everywhere, including here.
3
In order for there to be peacekeeping - there has to be a peace to keep.
The African Union has the resources and the mandate to make a peace - the fact that they have shown no interest in doing so speaks volumes about the nature of life in Africa and not about life under Trump.
7
We, here in the U.S. have, over the years, thrown billions of dollars at Africa, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars of "research" to the point that it is almost inconceivable. China is the new back-handed colonial patron these days. Africa needs to--at last and finally--pull up it big boy pants and start taking accountability and responsibility of and for itself. This isn't going to happen under the co-dependency that has been fostered over the past decades by Americans and Europeans. Sorry if the truth hurts. This independence needs to be homegrown. And it's about time; in fact, it is past time. Guilting the world over not changing Africa's nappies is precisely what's wrong. Fortunately, a number of African leaders have recognized this in rejecting the white savior complex the white world keeps insisting on inflicting on Africa. Sometimes it's cruel to be kind. God bless the child who has it's own. Let Africa develop, revolution, create its own path.
9
Interesting. I came here to tell Kristof that he is way off base when he writes, "Ambassador Haley, please understand that without peacekeeping, you’re sentencing civilians to be raped and shot — and boys like Frederick Pandowan to starve." Because I think Haley understands just fine. I think
it's not the side effect; it's the goal. I think there are people - a substantial portion of the right, in fact - that think Africans all deserve to suffer. And they don't place any limits on who or how much suffering. Rape, torture, starvation, agonizing death? Deserved. Civilians, old women, little girls, babies still on the breast? Deserved. They get a smug, cruel satisfaction from this kind of pain. They find it righteous and just. They like seeing the afflicted suffer, because it means to them that the world is just. It's a circular worldview: the suffering suffer because they have done something to deserve it, therefore they deserve even more suffering for the crime of having deserved it in the first place. Nothing is ever enough, for people who think like this. They justify anything - absolutely anything - as deserved.
Some of us read this and see fellow humans in unimaginable pain and ache to do something to help. Some of us see fellow humans in unimaginable pain and say, "good."
Case in point, up here.
46
@Tee Jones
I can't give you the history of Africa from ancient times, but the Western "democracies", i.e. Europeans first and then the Americans have pillaged and enslaved Africans for centuries. We have done a lot of damage to that Continent. They have a lot of natural wealth which we wanted and want, "people" resources we took by force and now you claim we have given them billions? You have to read up a bit to make informed comments on this subject.
Even now the U.S. is fighting "Islamic insurgents" in countries you have probably not even heard of or want to know. It is part of our "nation building" foreign policy. As long as they are dying there these terrorists will not attack the homeland.
To add to the misery we carry out indiscriminate aerial bombing using fighter jets, attack helicopters and more insidiously our infamous drones. More civilians die in these bombings than Islamic fighters.
The Western democracies have a lot to answer for and now China is emulating what the West was and is doing. Except they only want the natural wealth. As cheaply as they can get it.
Maybe if we had left them alone they might have just retained their cultures and may or may not have developed a western model. It is none of our business.
2
Fear and Anger are highly profitable. Just as Cambridge Analytica.
10
The article talks about Trump’s role in possibly perpetuating conflict in Africa by cutting back on peacekeeping. But the role of polygamy and war in Africa should also be explored. The Central African Republic has a high rate of polygamy (as shown in the accompanying graph) and numerous examples show that such a high rate corresponds to a destabilization of society.
https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732695-plural-marria...
8
"For thousands of years, humanity’s greatest challenge was poverty and disease, but increasingly it may be conflict.".....war has always been one of the four horsemen. And what you call 'militias' are rightly called criminal gangs...as exist in Mexico, and, increasingly, USA. So it is not so much war that we are looking at as it is organized criminal activity (as in the government of Russia, and perhaps now USA). We are experiencing a global decline of civilization, in countries poor and rich.
7
Conflict is indeed more profitable than peace, and not just in 3rd world "anarchic states." Who has started the most wars of choice and who sells the most weapons around the world?
36
Mr. Kristof's column offers insight into what happens to the quality of life when government collapses. As he suggests, the CAR might be thousands of miles away from the US, but even here we have "liberty lovers" who measure freedom by the armaments they carry or by their resistance of governance of any kind.
The American founding fathers established self-governance as the foundation of national existence. They did not create an anarchy to replace British colonialism. They were prescient, knowing that the rule by disorganized ragtag of randomly weaponized militia would spell catastrophe for decent human life.
As Mr. Kristof pleads, "[UN] Ambassador [Nikki] Haley, please understand that without peacekeeping, you’re sentencing civilians to be raped and shot." We need to remember that Ambassador Haley, who gloats about gutting UN peacekeeping, of one of our current administration's "moderates." As for the the rest, it is becoming more nihilistic by the day.
12
For all “small government” Republicans - how do you reconcile this statement with your support of a “small government” and strong gun-rights/ NRA?
“That’s because we’re making huge strides in most places, with the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty dropping from about 90 percent in the early 1800s to less than 10 percent today. Yet there are exceptions like CAR, South Sudan, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo that are horribly off track — because they are ruled in parts not by governments but by gunmen.”
8
There should be more coverage on oppressed people (Tibetans, Kurds, Rohingya) rather than the lopsided bashing of Israel despite the fact that it's one of the most tolerant and giving countries in the world.
9
And having undergone every possible “devastating blow” that humans can suffer, Mr. Kristof is confidant that he knows what blow tops the list? Please don’t rely on such cliches to explain life to the rest of us.
3
How about teaching these people something about birth control? The men should have access to free condoms. Free birth control pillsshould be distributed to the women. Maybe Planned Parenthood can set up shop in these downtrodden villages.
11
Actually, the Clinton Foundation has done remarkable work in this area.
5
Read my comment Sharon5101 - Trump ended our funding to the UN for birth control. I guess he needed the money to go to Florida every weekend.
4
International Planned Parenthood does reproductive health work in this part of Africa through L'Association Centrafricaine pour le Bien-Etre Familial. They provide sex education as well as community distribution services.
2
Again, huge praise to Mr. Kristof for another eye-opening column. Wondering if he might be so kind as to follow-up these pieces with a suggestion for how the average reader can help. Besides writing letters to the wretched politicians that run our country and the world, what tangible impact can we have? Is it a donation to Catholic Charities? Something else? With thanks and prayers.
10
Rule by gun. it sounds like the NRA's vision of paradise.
22
The global Arms Industries promote their products everywhere. And its not just Russian arms.
11
The US is the biggest international arms merchant.
2
Powerful, violent men wage war against each other and everyone else accommodates them, avoids them, or dies due to the conflict. Kids, women, animals, and the environment - collateral damage.
Must we keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Isn't it time we tried something new, like talking to each other?
12
Great article. I can't believe they allow ads to run on articles like this.
6
Having been a TFA volunteer in w. African countries for years, as well as in Rhodesia back in the day when they were celebrating U.D.I, I sympathize with everything author has to say, and share his compassion.Also recall his enlightening yet encouraging article about elimination of the guinea worm.Among others, decided to accomplish 1 concrete good thing amidst the desperate poverty I saw around me so, like many others, sponsored a family from Ghana now living happily state side, as well as numerous mutts rescued from dusty streets of Africa's capital cities. See my video, "Krueger and my
dog!"Recommend that author follow suit.But I also question why Mr. Kristof took a privileged white American student with him, rather than an African American from a housing project. It would have been more sensitive, more appropriate!Student, Mr.Pager, is a graduate of Northwestern and 0xford? Gimme a break. Or Mr. KRISTOF might have waited until he got to C.A.R. and plucked a student from a village environment, who would have been more appreciative, more deserving!It is also time for him to match his actions to his words and in the spirit of altruism, sponsor a family from Africa to the US like so many other Americans have done with fewer means!No se ofenda, but it is time for Mr.Kristof, in the argot of the street, to put his money where his mouth is! One can't solve all the problems of poverty in the world, but like throwing a pebble into a pond,1 good action leads to others.
8
I agree about Kristoff's choice of students. I don't see him picking any of his students from other than private, flagship and first tier colleges.
How about opening the contest primarily to people who go to second tier or commuter colleges (like Eastern Washington University, Northern Arizona State, Bluefield State, Medgar Evans College...). We'd more likely to end up with someone who isn't white and Christian. Selecting students from the kind of schools I mentioned would most likely mean re recipient would have more empathy with the people they see since they see the world differently then the ones he currently selects.
1
Forgot to mention: In 1960, Sub-saharan Africa's population increased by 5 million with 23/1000 natural increase (births-death). In 2015 those numbers had grown to 25 million and 27/100. Meanwhile damage to soils and subsistence agriculture failures due to climate change are growing problems. Population stability isn't the only thing Africa must do to be better off, but it is definitely one of the more important and cheapest.
33
Trump stopped our family planning aid.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/21/trump-global-...
4
Yep, let’s blame those Africans for daring to have babies. How much material does your family use? How much does it cost the planet for a family of four to live the American way? If you’re so into stats, then you’d also know that stability and education ( particularly for girls and women) lead to lower birth rates. Your callous comments make it sound like a cannon full of condoms is the solution.
2
I thought this was gonna end with a call to dismantle the profit obsession, but your call to action was "We must ensure that peace is more profitable than conflict."
Yikes.
Doesn't peace have other, more valuable aspects, that we can use to promote it?
20
There is so much money as you stated being made off of conflict. The fact that Trump cut the funding and Ms. Hadley never spoke about it, shows what type of nation we are becoming. These countries have been suffering forever and unless reporters like you bring these ugly facts to our attention we wont know because the other hot stops suck up all of the oxygen in the room. When Mr. Johnson was killed in Niger the door was open a little bit to these secret forces, and the war horrors that were going on. Thank you for kicking the door open for us. Now we have the information there is no excuse for us not to act.
As we move to these midterm elections, we should show these pictures and how this administration is part of the problem and not the solutions.
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Poverty and hunger—especially child malnutrition—should make any human being redden with shame. Of course, the CAR is one of those you-know-what countries that American “president” Donald Trump was so especially contemptuous of. He would rather spend billions on weapons and walls—when neither are needed in this day and age—and is greatly pleased that his U.N. ambassador—now there’s a title rife with irony and contradictions—crows that we “are just getting started” in our noble de-funding of programs designed to ease—if only temporarily—the two most evil consequences of the human condition.
It’s heart-breaking to read accounts like yours, Mr. Kristof. The soul-wearying and soul-crushing lives that these poor villagers lead far surpass the torments to be found in Dante’s Inferno. Americans, metaphorically speaking, live atop a mountain of untold wealth. It seems that our “leaders” cannot spare a thought for needy people far away; yet the Pentagon budget alone could probably re-make over the CAR in less than a decade. We’re a country grown numb to the suffering of others—even our own.
As far as the gang—don’t dignify these criminals with “militias” —violence is concerned, it’s impractical for one country to come to CAR’s aid with soldiers; Americans wouldn’t stand for it. But certainly a humane president could take the lead in standing against the terrorism that levels villagers and consigned children to a hell that he wouldn’t wish for his own.
Where’s the moral courage?
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Please mention fertility rates and family planning. There is a strong correlation between fertility rates and violence. Conversely demographic transitions help with "the outbreak of peace."
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What about fertility rates in one of the most violent and dangerous countries in the world, the USA?
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regarding fertility
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/21/trump-global-...
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While there is a strong correlation between fertility rates and poverty, hunger, instability, and other markers of human misery, women in these situations give birth to many children precisely because of these factors. The lowering of birthrates can only follow improvements in qualities of life, not cause them. If the underlying issues are fixed, birthrates will naturally drop. The CAR's population growth is stymied by its poverty and conflict; if overpopulation is a concern, then speeding the transitions of stabler states such as Nigeria and Ethiopia towards low birthrates would be far more effective.
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Great article Kristof. I think most people would agree that peace is preferable to conflict. The problem is that the people who benefit and profit from conflict are often the ones who make the decisions that lead to war or prevent peace. As we can see from our current political climate, hawkishness seems to have no bounds. The fact that a war with North Korea or Iran is possible, when we still have not concluded the war in Afghanistan and we left Iraq in shambles after the occupation is terrifying. But I have often felt that is the hubris that results from living in a nation where we have not had a protracted war fought on our own soil since the Civil War. If we had to endure a few days of what the citizens of the CAR have had to survive for 14 years, would we be so quick to seek war over diplomacy to settle our problems with other nations? Even several prominent military leaders have stated that despite the strength and size of our military, diplomacy should be the at the forefront of our foreign policy.
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There is a huge amount of money to be made by the aggressors during war, e.g. Halliburton Corp., Blackwater (owned by the Prince family), and others during the George Bush Iraq war.
Thanks for bringing this to light. I wish Mr. Kristoff would go back to reporting more on what is happening in the wider world and stop with the constant Trump bashing. We can read that anywhere.....
I used to look forward to your insights on developing countries and what is happening there. Now, not so much.
I hope you will consider going back to what you do best! Enough already of Trump. Please. Just. Stop.
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This critical story is about survival in the harshest environment. Those pictures are trump bashing??? Kristof is interested in saving humanity. What a heart-rending, insightful look at what we Americans are so, so, so far removed from.
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Agreed. And a shout out to Lynsey Addario, the prize winning photographer of the piece. Her photos always tell the story. Look at the eyes of these desperate people.
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Thank you for this. Most Americans don't understand and just don't want to see how brutal life is some countries. I represent asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, two of the most dangerous places on Earth. I try not to tell friends and family too many details about the violence and hardships my clients endured before fleeing their countries because these
Americans have told me that they find the stories too upsetting. Please keep speaking out and providing the photographic evidence.
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why do we want people who know only brutal violence to come here?
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You're all heart, Think.
Please grow one.
Because that is the humane to do.
Once again, you are the only journalist in the United States to shine a light on far-flung African countries struggling due to constant conflict in which there are no winners, ever. It is no coincidence that CAR remains the most evacuated U.S. Embassy in the State Department’s history. Peace has been elusive there for decades, but this does not mean it should be ignored by western democracies. Thank you for raising awareness about the plight of the innocent civilians in CAR who struggle to survive at every turn, and against whom the odds have been stacked for decades upon decades.
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When you only read the Times, your awareness is skewed. Newsweek has written three articles on the CAR in 9 months. NBC and CBS do periodic reports. And the Associated Press has done quite a few stories. Among those I checked.
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Thank you Nicholas for doing your work the way you do, for being the beacon of awareness for helping us understand which is the only way to then get involved. Thank you.
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