|
|
By  David Craig, on December 11th, 2013 A few days ago, I wrote a piece pointing out that official government statistics showed that M*slims were much less likely to be in work (or be intending to work) than all other groups in Britain and I wondered whether there could be a link between each country’s social costs and the size of their M*slim population https://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/7748
Following that, a reader contacted me with this link https://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN04334.pdf It’s a Government analysis of Britain’s prison population. On page 11, the report looks at the percentage of the prison population from each religion and the proportion of that religion in the general population. I’ve done a simple graph of the results.
This shows that almost all the main religions represent a lower proportion of the prison population that they do of the general population. There is just one exception – M*slims. Although M*slims only represent around 4% of the general population, they make up over three times as much (13.1%) of the prison population. The only other group that make up a higher proportion of the prison population than they do the general population are those who profess to not belonging to any religion. But with them the difference is much smaller than it is for the M*slim population.
This means (and could the politically-correct who hope to discredit me as a racist and an Islamophobe and things like that please note that these are official government figures, not something I’ve concocted) that a person from Britain’s M*slim community is three times more likely to commit a crime that merits a prison sentence than anyone from any other religious group and even than anyone who doesn’t belong to any religion. That’s a pretty frightening statistic. It’s odd that such important information never seems to be mentioned by our main news media like the BBC.
It’s not about the money money money – I occasionally exhort readers to buy my books to show support for this website. Some readers apparently believe that this is because I want more of their money. Honestly, the opposite is true. It really makes no difference to me if I sell another 20, 30 or 50 books. We’re talking peanuts. It’s more a matter of pride. Any idiot can write a blog where they spout inanities day after day. I really work quite hard to find things that could be of interest to readers and which may not have been reported by the mainstream media. I have now written over 1,200 blogs of about 600 words each – that’s over 720,000 words – more than 10 full-length 70,000 word books. I realise there is some repetition, but I try to keep my blog fresh.
A few years ago I was in contact with a journalist who did a weekly column for a national newspaper (The Observer) and he admitted that he sometimes found it hard to find something to write about each week. I blog daily (often from thousands of miles away from the UK and often with dreadful Internet connections) so I have to work quite hard to find new subjects for each and every day and new diagrams and charts to show what I’ve found. So, I would just like to think that people would show their appreciation by buying my books. It’s not about the money money money. Hope that’s cleared the air.
By David Craig, on December 10th, 2013 I’ve been frequently contacted by readers asking why I don’t display readers’ comments under each day’s blog and why they have to click on the title to leave a comment or see comments. So today I’ll take a break from the usual current affairs stuff and answer the question.
There are several reasons:
1. Legal liability and EU censorship
You have to remember that in most EU countries, many press and media groups (like the BBC) receive large amounts of EU money in return for “informing” the EU’s 500 million citizens about all the “good work” the EU is doing. This means that very few will ever print any articles or allow any broadcasts that are critical of the EU. When I went to Brussels in 2008 to research and write my book THE GREAT EUROPEAN RIP-OFF , I was handed tons of material by journalists from other EU countries who were not allowed to use it as all their stories had to be in support of the EU.
So the only source of truth about the EU’s waste, corruption, lack of democracy and catastrophic policies is the Internet. The EU has been trying to control the Internet for years and this year managed to gain a massive victory against free speech. The European Court of Justice (which is actually a political court dedicated to “ever closer union” and has nothing to do with “justice”) ruled that websites were legally liable for any comments put on them by readers. I reported this in www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/7084
In the case a ferry company complained that commenters had damaged its reputation. But rather than using the “report” function to have the negative comments removed, the ferry company waited 6 weeks so that maximum number of people could read the negative comments and then it sued the website. The ECJ naturally supported the ferry company against the website. If you haven’t read my blog on this, I strongly advise you to as the ECJ ruling is probably one of the greatest attacks on free speech in decades. So, I cannot risk being liable for what people write.
2. I can’t moderate
Given the above, I would need to moderate all comments. But as I work alone, often on bad Internet connections, often thousands of miles from the UK, I can’t moderate comments.
3. Hijack by people with extreme views
Most comments I get are informed and useful. But sometimes I get rants accusing the Jews/Blacks/Muslims/Immigrants/whoever of ludicrous conspiracies. While I personally have no problem with people revealing their ignorance and prejudices, I feel that displaying such stuff would detract from the serious messages I am trying to communicate
4. There are better forums for discussions
I appreciate that most people don’t have the time or energy to look behind the main news stories. So I use the information I find writing my books to try to pass on things I hope people might find interesting or useful. Hence so many diagrams and charts. People are free to comment on my site, but if they do so, they’ll probably only get 400 to 500 readers. If you comment on the Telegraph or Times websites, you’ll probably get many more readers.
5. Cost
It would probably cost me a couple of hundred quid to make changes allowing display of comments and including a “report” function. I don’t mind spending the money. But when I started the website I naively thought readers would show their support by forking out a few quid to buy my books. With my latest book GREED UNLIMITED about 70% of readers have been too tight-fisted to buy the book and so I’ve lost a fair bit of money writing and producing it. That makes me less than enthusiastic about throwing more money into the bottomless pit of trying to inform people of what’s really happening if I don’t get any support. And that’s why I’m considering closing down the website. I’ll probably soldier on till mid-February 2014 when my next book gets published and see how things go before making the final decision about whether to continue. So, if I close the site down sometime in the next few months, there’s no point spending money now improving it.
Hopefully that all explains why readers can comment and view comments but why they are not displayed immediately with the articles.
Tomorrow’s blog – Some possibly interesting figures on the ethnic/religious make-up of Britain’s prison population
By David Craig, on December 9th, 2013 As the usual idiots blame Global Warming or Climate Change or Ocean Acidification or whatever it’s called this week for the recent bad weather and flood surge, I’ve managed to get hold of a copy of Ye Olde Eafft Anglia Thymes from 1286.
On 1 January 1286 a large storm swept much of the town East Anglia town of Dunwich into the sea, and the River Dunwich was partly silted up; this was followed by two further surges in the following year, the South England flood of February 1287 and St. Lucia’s flood in December that year. A popular local legend says that, at certain tides, church bells can still be heard from beneath the waves.
Ye Olde Eafft Anglia Thymes reported:
“A severe storm and a resultant tidal surge strucke the coaft of Eafft Anglia last night, sweeping away the largest part of Dunwich, ye capitale of the Eafft Angles. Speaking from his home up a tree in Saxmundham, Eafft Anglia’s most famous alchemist and general know-it-all Wiseman Phil Jones from the respected (respected? Be ye sure? ed.) Eafft Anglia Centre for Natural Philosophie said that this was a clear indication of the direction that future weather events would take. Daft Phil, as he is known locally, said that his recent warnings against what he called “the alarming rise of horfe-drawn vehicles” following the widespread use of “rounde wheeles” was clearly the cause of these extreme weather events and called on ye Parishe Councile to levy a special taxe on rounde wheeles to discourage the use of horfe-drawn vehicles. This be Daft Phil:
 The newspaper went on to say that everyone who knew Daft Phil said his warnings should be ignored as he couldn’t be trusted. Only a year before the storm surge, Daft Phil had claimed he had found a “mysticke potione” that could turn donkey’s droppings into gold. This turned out to be somewhat inaccurate. But the Parishe Councile accepted Daft Phil’s thesis and duly imposed a punitive tax on round wheels – the “rounde wheele taxe”.
A year or so later, the same paper reported that the “rounde wheele taxe” had had a disastrous effect on the poor. Those farmers who could afford to pay the tax passed it on in the form of higher food prices, particularly on “turnippes and parsnippes” the staple diet of “ye poore” as potatoes hadn’t yet been invented. Moreover, those who couldn’t afford to pay Daft Phil’s “rounde wheele taxe” were forced to go back to using square wheels which were found to be much less energy-efficient than round ones.
Though perhaps Daft Phil wasn’t so daft after all. While “ye poore” suffered terribly from Daft Phil’s “rounde wheele tax”, Daft Phil was given a pile of money by the Parishe Councile in the form of a “grante and speciale difpensatione for the studie of the relaionshippe between the use of horfe-drawn vehicles and the difaftrous waterie floodes that hath so blighted our lande this paste yeer”.
There was an equally fierce storm in 1328 which swept away the entire village of Newton, a few miles up the coast. Ye Eafft AngliaThymes reported: “Daft Phil’s grandson Edmund, known locally as ‘he who be even more daft than Daft Phil’, suggested that the recent discovery of three witches in Mudduningham had clearly caused the Greate Storme and proposed immediate government action to tackle the growth of witchcraftery. Edmund even drew up a “Greate Charte” often called “ye broomsticke charte” showing how the number of houses destroyed by the storm was directly linked to the rising number of ugly old women practising witchcraftery.
When another large storm in 1347 swept some 400 houses into the sea, Daft Edmund ran through the one remaining street shouting, “I tolde ye, I tolde ye. I showed ye my Greate Charte, my broomsticke charte. But ye did sodde all. And nowe looke ye at what hath befallen us.”
Perhaps there’s something we can learn from what happened in Eafft Anglia all those centuries ago?
(Sorry about the different text sizes, but WordPress seems to be playing up again)
(Click on title to leave a comment or to see comments)
By David Craig, on December 9th, 2013 Yesterday I announced I would do something exceedingly politically incorrect. I would look at the size of the main European countries’ M*slim populations and the amount of their welfare spending. Of course, there are many factors which influence welfare spending – the degree of industrialisation, the demographic profile, each country’s economic situation and government policies. So it’s difficult to identify just one single cause of the level of welfare spending.
But we do know that in Britain, according to official figures from the Office for National Statistics, that people from M*slim communities are far less likely to be in work and less likely to want to work than people from other communities (click on charts to see more clearly)
The most egregious example being our wonderful Somali community where 65% of men and around 90% of women are not in work. I’m not sure why so many M*slim men are not working, but obviously there are cultural reasons why most M*slim women don’t work.
However, it could be interesting if there was some kind of mathematical correlation between the size of a country’s M*slim population and the size of its welfare spending. In the table below, I list on the left 14 countries along with the percentage of their population that are M*slims in descending order. The figures come from the Guardian so they are politically correct. On the right I list the same countries in descending order based on the percentage of their GDP spent on welfare (figures from the OECD).
So, what do we see? Well Denmark and Sweden have average M*slim populations but are high on social spending (as is Finland) due to the Nordic countries’ tradition of making welfare a priority. And Greece is in the middle of the table regarding M*slim population, but low on welfare spending as it is totally bankrupt. Holland seems to be a bit of an exception – maybe that’s because the Dutch have been more successful at integrating their immigrant communities. Otherwise, it could possibly be argued that there is a mathematical (though not necessarily causal) correlation between the size of a country’s M*slim population and the size of its spending on welfare. Or perhaps not. I leave it to my highly intelligent readers to decide.
Although this is hardly a statistically-sound study, it’s the kind of analysis that no journalist could ever conduct as they’d be hounded out of their job for racism. Because in today’s politically-correct Britain, even using government statistics can be considered a crime and racist if they don’t show what the politically-correct opinion leaders want them to show. Hey ho, that’s the way it goes.
(click on headline to leave a comment or to see comments)
By David Craig, on December 7th, 2013 Yesterday I came across a quote from the fragrant Angela Merkel which encapsulated the self-inflicted economic catastrophe that is engulfing many European countries. Apologies if you already know it. The great hausfrau has repeatedly said “The EU has 7% of the World’s population; 24% of the GDP; and 50% of the social costs“.
While the Asian countries prosper and create their own ASEAN “Common Market” (without the corrupt, wasteful, undemocratic Brussels bureaucracy), many developed countries are floundering as their social costs spiral out of control (click on chart to see more clearly)
(I haven’t bothered mentioning basket-case Africa’s economic prospects as I suspect Africa will continue to go backwards under its worthless, venal, violent, kleptocrat leaders)
Britain is not in such a disastrous situation as our friends in France (click to see more clearly)
But after January 1 2014, many more of this lot will all be able to come to Benefits Britain:
And they’ll be able to claim many of these benefits:
- Attendance Allowance
- Child Benefit
- Council Tax Benefit
- Disability Living Allowance
- Guardian’s Allowance
- Housing Benefit
- Income Support
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
- Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
- Carer’s allowance
- Reduced Earnings Allowance
- Severe Disablement Allowance
- Statutory Sick Pay
So our benefits bill will shoot up as the EU tries to halt its economic decline by using Britain as the dumping ground for its unemployed and unemployable.
Next time the biased BBC starts bleating about the “cruel Tories” setting a cap on benefits for a family at around £25,000 a year, please remember that we have to cut our benefits bill by about a third if we’re to avoid national bankruptcy.
Tomorrow, I might do something very politically-incorrect. I might try to discover if there is any mathematical relationship between the size of each EU country’s social spending and the size of their Muslim populations. That would be something that no journalists would ever dare to do if they wanted to keep their job in PC UK.
By David Craig, on December 6th, 2013 Yesterday on my blog “Has the last honest person in South Africa just died?” I foolishly suggested that South Africans were not stupid enough to let their country descend into the kind of useless, destructive civil war typically seen in most African countries. I wrote “There is no danger of the country descending into the kind of tribal civil war so beloved of most African countries. The danger to South Africa is widespread corruption practised by the political and bureaucratic classes“.
I sincerely apologise for this. What I meant was that for the next maybe 5 years there was little danger of South Africans destroying their country in a tribal civil war. However, I worry that within 10 to 15 years, our South African friends will decide to start massacring each other and ruining their country. Here are three possible scenarios for South Africa’s future:
1. Growing prosperity – Jacob Zuma and his ANC cronies decide that corruption is really not a very good thing. So they all become totally honest and the country’s massive earnings are reinvested in schools, hospitals, universities, roads, sanitation, electricity and all the other things that lead to development and increasing national wealth for the majority (In your dreams! ed.)
2. Growing corruption and economic stagnation – the country continues on its present course where much of the money earmarked for inward investment mysteriously ends up either in the brimming offshore bank accounts of the ruling elites or else at their local Mercedes dealerships. So, schools don’t get built and pupils are taught without books in shacks. With few people being educated, no universities are built. Tens of millions continue to live in squalor without sanitation or electricity. And the corrupt rich become richer and more corrupt and richer and more corrupt.
3. Tribal civil war – I believe that while he was alive, Mandela acted like a kind of moral anchor. Just his presence prevented some of the worst abuses of power. But now he has gone, all bets are off. What might now happen is that Jacob “Mugabe” Zuma decides to expropriate white-owned assets, particularly farmland just like his hero Robert. That would be OK if the farms were given to South Africans with agricultural education who know how to run the farms productively and profitably. But most will probably be given to ANC bigwigs and other members of the ruling elite – and most will probably be given to members of Jacob Zuma’s Zulu ethnic group (I cannot write ‘tribe’ as that is now deemed condescending and politically incorrect).
This favouring of ANC bosses (particularly Zulus) will be resented by the other ethnic groups. (There are about 9 million Zulus, 7 million Xhosas, 6 million Sothos and 20 million from other ethnic groups in South Africa’s 42 million black African population). Moreover, food production will collapse and food prices will shoot up. This won’t affect the ruling elites, but the rising prices will be disastrous for the poor. There will be protests. They will probably start in the mines where I think mainly Xhosas work (though I may be wrong) or in the townships:
This will lead to a government crackdown and growing unpopularity for the ruling ANC kleptocrats. Seeing that it could lose power, the ANC will use Mugabe-style creative tactics (dead people voting, supporters being bussed around to vote in many districts, opposition supporters being removed from electoral rolls etc) to keep power.
Next step will be widespread unrest as people protest about a “stolen election”. The ANC will, of course deny any wrongdoing, will accuse “foreign agitators” (maybe even Britain) for causing the trouble and will launch a crackdown on the opposition. Seeing that they can achieve nothing through democratic means, people will resort to violence and there will be attacks on Zulu property and possibly small local massacres. These will lead to reprisals. The situation will escalate and soon we’ll have what so easily could have been avoided – a full-scale civil war.
Is a South African civil war avoidable? Yes. Will a South African civil war be avoided? Who knows.
And if a civil war breaks out and all the “experts” express surprise and astonishment that yet another potentially prosperous African country could go from civilisation to barbarism because of the greed and stupidity of its leaders, remember we predicted it all on www.snouts-in-the-trough.com
By David Craig, on December 6th, 2013 As the much revered Nelson Mandela leaves us, many South Africans must fear for their future. There is no danger of the country descending into the kind of tribal civil war so beloved of most African countries. The danger to South Africa is widespread corruption practised by the political and bureaucratic classes. This corruption ensures that the rich get richer while the vast majority of South Africans live in grinding poverty in shacks without electricity or running water.
A new report called The Real State of the Nation published this year concluded that South Africa is fighting a losing battle against corruption. “Corruption is rampant,” the author of the report said, “It’s out of control … And the dedicated units that have been created to fight financial misconduct are in essence fighting a losing battle.”
A former managing director of the World Bank Mamphela Ramphele recently said, “A culture of corruption and impunity is seeping through every level of government, corroding our entire society. It is estimated that corruption robs us of more than R30 billion ($3.34 billion) from our government’s budget every year.” Substantiating her point, Ramphele queried where the country could be if R30 billion a year was spent on schools, bridges and roads, rather than being lost to corrupt practices.
One of the more newsworthy scandals was 206 million rand ($22.98 million) of state funds used on President Jacob Zuma’s private compound in his home village of Nkandla, in KwaZulu-Natal province. Inevitably, a government inquiry found that this money had only been used for security upgrades and related costs at the president’s private compound (not for any home improvements) and that this decision to spend the $22.98 million on “security” was based on an assessment of threats to Zuma. Well, I guess that the president should feel pretty safe with $22.98 million spent on security for his home – that’s an awful lot of bullet-proof windows, security cameras and burglar alarms.
Fortunately (for the corrupt), thanks to a new media bill passed in April (I think) by an overwhelming majority in the utterly corrupt South African parliament, in the future South Africa’s utterly corrupt politicians and bureaucrats shouldn’t be embarrassed by so many news stories revealing their venality. The “secrecy bill” will increase the government’s power to restrict access to information and impose hefty fines and jail terms on reporters who publish information the government classifies as secret. Like President Zuma’s home improvements, perhaps? Sorry, I meant security for his home.
Here’s a picture of South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela:
And here’s one of South Africa’s current president Jacob Zuma:
One of these men is respected around the world for his integrity. The other is said to be very very very rich. Can you guess which is which?
By David Craig, on December 4th, 2013 
Fat lump John Prescott or, as forelock-tugging oiks like us should call him, “Baron Prescott, of Kingston upon Hull in the County of East Yorkshire” might well be a worthy contender for our prestigious Trougher of the Year trophy.
What has he cost us?
First elected to the Commons in 1970 and leaving in 2010, fatman Prescott must have cost us in the region of £16m. Since 2010 he has continued troughing in the Lords and even tried to extend his troughing career by being elected Police and Crime Commissioner in 2012 at the age of 74. Fortunately for us, he lost to a Conservative.
What has he done for us?
Prescott’s main role as Deputy PM from 1997 till 2007 seems to have been trying to keep the peace between the warring camps of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – the “TBGBs” as the perpetual conflicts were called.
The role of Deputy PM is unpaid and so Prescott was also made Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions giving him a nice juicy minister’s 6-figure salary.
Responsible for local government, he pressed for the introduction of elected regional assemblies, which would have seen about 25 to 35 members elected under a similar electoral system to that used for the London Assembly. However, because of opposition, the government was forced to hold regional referendums on the change. The North-East referendum in November 2004 was first (where support was felt to be strongest) but resulted in an overwhelming vote of 78% against. As a consequence, the plan for elected regional assemblies was shelved.
The UK played a major role in the negotiations on the disastrous and unnecessary Kyoto Protocol on the myth of climate change and Prescott led the UK delegation at the discussions.
In 2003, Prescott gave up a grace and favour home that he had rented from the RMT Union in Clapham; he had left the union in June 2002. Prescott paid £220 a month for the property – a fifth of its market value. Though he had not declared the flat in the register of members’ interests, he was subsequently exonerated by MPs who (surprise surprise) overruled Elizabeth Filkin, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. On 12 January 2006, Prescott apologised after it was revealed that the council tax for the government flat he occupied at Admiralty House was paid for using public money, rather than his private income.
In April 2006, Prescott admitted to having had an affair with his diary secretary, Tracey Temple, between 2002 and 2004. This two-year affair is said to have commenced after an office party and, in part, took place during meetings at Prescott’s grace-and-favour flat in Whitehall. Prescott’s lover famously informed us that the Deputy PM’s manhood resembled a “cocktail sausage”. In May 2006, The Sunday Times quoted Linda McDougall, wife of MP Austin Mitchell, as saying that in 1978 Prescott had pushed her “quite forcefully” against a wall and put his hand up her skirt as she opened the door for him to a meeting in her own house just after her husband became an MP; Prescott had not met McDougall before.
Prescott was nicknamed “Two Jags (he owns one Jaguar and had the use of another as his official ministerial car) and many MPs also called him “Two planks” due to his alleged deficiencies in the brainpower area. This later became “Two shags” for fairly obvious reasons. Following exposure of his affair, he lost his department in a cabinet reshuffle but managed to keep the benefits and residences associated with his title -it really was “Carry on Troughing”
In its leaks of MPs’ expenses The Daily Telegraph that Prescott had claimed £312 for fitting mock Tudor beams to his constituency home, and for two new toilet seats in as many years. Prescott responded by saying, “Every expense was within the rules of the House of Commons on claiming expenses at the time”.
By David Craig, on December 2nd, 2013 If I can make a sweeping generalisation, I’d suggest that those households that pay more in taxes than they receive in services (the givers) are likely to be against ever-increasing government spending, a bloated overpaid, over-pensioned public sector and massively expensive corrupt institutions like the EU. Whereas those households which receive more from the government than they pay in taxes (the takers) will support large government and increased public-spending – after all, the more the government spends, the more they get and the better off they are.
At some point under New Labour (probably around 2005) Britain reached a very important “tipping point”. The dictionary definition of a “tipping point” is The point at which a slow, reversible change becomes irreversible, often with dramatic consequences.
This tipping point was when Britain moved from a situation where the majority of households were “givers” paying more in tax (including direct taxes such as income tax and indirect taxes such as VAT, fuel and alcohol duties) than they got in services (including state spending on benefits in kind, such as the NHS and state education) to one where the majority of households became “takers” getting more in services than they pay in taxes. In 1978/9 around 43.1% of households were “takers”. By 2010/11 the “takers” had reached 53.4% of all households.
Now the percentage of “takers” is likely to be even higher.
This little-known figure – “takers” becoming a majority of households – has massive implications for Britain’s future. “Takers” are likely to vote for ever-increasing borrowing and spending – after all, it’s not them who will have to pay the bills.
Many commentators have wondered how the useless, ludicrous schoolboy Red Ed Miliband and the (IMHO) financially-incontinent, deluded, sociopathic liar and buffoon Ed Balls can be leading in the opinion polls and headed for power in May 2015. Perhaps “takers” becoming a majority is the explanation. As the Americans would say, “there are more people in the wagon than are pulling it”. Then when you factor in that idiot Brown hugely expanded the public-sector bureaucracy, you have millions more who will see more spending and more borrowing as being to their personal advantage.
And then you have to also remember the massive scale of postal vote fraud in immigrant communities who will tend to vote Labour.
Oonce there are more “takers” than “givers” in a country, the majority will always vote for more money for themselves until the bring the country to its financial knees.
If I may re-use a quote I used a few days ago Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813), ‘A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship’.
I suppose that the only hope for Britain is if enough of the “takers” are too lazy, indolent or stupid to go out and vote in 2015.
(By the way, a reader has told me that WordPress seems to be playing up and has changed the text size making it difficult to read. I’m trying to find a solution. Thanks for your patience)
By David Craig, on December 2nd, 2013  This blog is not intended for the politically correct. So let’s be a little controversial today.
A couple of weeks ago, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) launched an urgent appeal to raise millions to help those whose lives had been affected by the Philippines typhoon Haiyan. We were told that over 5,000 were killed by the typhoon. But were they really killed by the storm?
Let’s take Holland. About 20% of Holland is below sea level, 21% of its population lives on land that is below sea level and about 50% of the country is just one metre above sea level. Even Amsterdam’s huge Schiphol Airport is 4.5 metres below sea level. But when there’s a major North Sea surge, do the Dutch run around throwing their clogs in the air and screaming “aaiiiaiiieee we’re all going to die?” Nope. No need. The Dutch can sleep soundly in their beds because Holland is a relatively corruption-free advanced country and has built effective defences against flooding. Similarly, Britain could protect London against flooding by building the Thames flood barrier.
Or take Japan. When there’s a major earthquake, a few people will die. But because Japan is a relatively corruption-free advanced country, where some attempt is made to ensure buildings can withstand earthquakes, the death toll is usually quite limited. Yet every time there’s an earthquake in corruption-ridden, poverty-stricken, misgoverned hell-holes like Pakistan or Iran, thousands die.
So what is really killing these people? Is it the natural disaster? Or is it because their countries are backward, corrupt, misgoverned hell-holes so they haven’t developed and are thus unable to provide the infrastructure – flood defences, flood- and quake-proof buildings, decent housing, proper roads, effective rescue services for example – to protect their populations?
Moreover, when one of these countries does actually make an attempt to build the infrastructure necessary to protect against natural disasters, what usually happens is that most of the hundreds of millions spent gets stolen by corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and their business cronies and what little is built is often so shoddy that it’s crumbling into useless disrepair within months.
So I would humbly suggest that it’s the corruption and poverty that is the real cause of the massive death tolls whenever there’s a natural disaster in a Third World country.
And when there is one of these disasters and we hand over tens of millions, what actually happens to our cash? Does it go to those who need it? On the few occasions when journalists visit the scenes of these disasters a year or two after the event, the story is almost always the same – those affected are still living in misery while most of the money has mysteriously disappeared into the pockets of the already wealthy.
But if DEC were to tell us the truth that our money is needed to protect these people from the corruption, incompetence, stupidity and venality of their own governments, then we might be less tempted to give. So the lies continue – “flood/tsunami/typhoon/earthquake or whatever kills thousands” – and we keep giving and nothing ever changes.
The only way to cause change is to first recognise reality. But that would be politically incorrect and so nobody ever dares mention the real causes of these many deaths.
(No doubt I will now be lambasted for my supposed “callousness”. But sometimes the truth hurts especially when it’s not politically correct)
|
|
