Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

The Two Worlds
In a previous story, I argued that Earth is really two worlds: the temperate and the tropical.  Because of factors that have more to do with environment than any intrinsic difference in peoples (nicely covered in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel), the people of the northern temperate zone came to dominate the globe and obtained a significant technological advantage over other regions.  In parts of the planet where they were able to reproduce their culture, these peoples drove out native populations and turned areas into variations on their home turf -- a planet full of New Englands, Nova Scotias, and New Zealands.

In other parts of the world, the crops and culture of temperate Europe could not so easily be grafted.  This is true of desert regions of the Middle East, of the most mountainous parts of Asia, and particularly true of tropical Africa.  The tropics became a second world, so dismissed from the thoughts of the temperate world that it might as well be located on the far side of the Moon.  Only the tropical world does serve one important purpose: it is exploited for its resources.

A Fish Story
The Nile Perch (Lates niloticus) is, as you would expect, native to African rivers and to several lakes of the African Rift Valley.  The fish has been widely exported as a game species.  If you happen to be fishing the Green River in western Kentucky and you hook into something that looks like a crappie grown to absurd size, you can thank the TVA, who brought in Nile Perch to live in the warm waters downstream from power plant cooling towers.

In Africa, one place where the fish was not native was Lake Victoria.  Local legend suggest that the fish was introduced by one man, pitching one fish into the lake on one afternoon.  However, that's more of a metaphor for how quickly the fish have come to dominate the lake.  

Some time in the 1960's, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species.

Having displaced many native species, Nile Perch turned Lake Victoria into nearly a monospecific environment, especially when it comes to large fish.  So much so that the primary food or large Nile Perch in the lake is... small Nile Perch.

But there's a good side to this invader.  Nile Perch is much treasured for the large slabs of white filets it can produce.  This fish is well established in the food supply of both Europe and America.  Having a lake full of Nile Perch represents a valuable resource.  So naturally, it had to be exploited.

Once the extent of the fishery in Lake Victoria was realized, foreign companies displaced the local fisheries just as neatly as the perch had done in the competitors in the lake.  Locals did get some jobs catching, preparing, and packing the fish for overseas shipment.  There was only one problem: the price they could get for the fish in foreign markets was so high that locals couldn't afford it.

People are literally starving on the edge of plenty.  It's not that there's no food in the area, it's that the food is being exported to people who can pay more for it.  Then the UN and charitable organizations are paying to ship more food back to the region, usually much lower quality food with much less protein than what was shipped out.  But hey, the locals are allowed to eat the rotting fish heads and pick flesh from discarded bones.

And that's only the beginning of the nightmare.

The Prime African Import
The most amazing discovery that Sauper made was not that more food was being poured out of the region than in, it was the other cargo being ferried in by those huge planes: weapons.  The same planes that carried food to the refugee camps were also full of guns and artillery.

Where were the weapons going?  To local armies and guerilla groups -- the same forces that had driven people into the refugee camps in the first place.

I met the Russian pilots and we became "kamarads". But soon it turned out that the rescue planes with yellow peas also carried arms to the same destinations, so that the same refugees that were benefiting from the yellow peas could be shot at later during the nights.

In the mornings, my trembling camera saw in this stinking jungle destroyed camps and bodies.

Ever wonder why there always seems to be another "rebel group" springing up in the mountains or jungles of every tropical African nation?  Why can't they get a stable government?  Why is there always corruption?  Because, by God, we want it that way.

Any time an African country threatens to get on its feet, a rebellion miraculously appears.  A rebellion well stocked with weapons.  How this miracle occurs is simple enough: foreign companies play "angel" to the rebels, providing them with the tools they need to destabilize their countries.

Why? To ensure that the tropical world is there to act as a cupboard for the temperate world, and not competition.  The nations of the temperate world make sure that the tropical world is never organized toward raising its own people out of misery.  Instead, Europe, America, and the rest of the temperate world work to see that Africa in particular stays a land of despots and poverty, a land where a moderate bribe is enough to relieve temperate companies of any burdensome laws and a case of Kalashnikovs delivered to the right people will always get you access to resources you might otherwise have to buy at market value.

What would happen if Africa made sense, if it had stable democracies?  Then its resources would cost more.  The temperate world would see price increases that made it harder to live as if the tropical world wasn't there.  There would be serious movement in Africa to address the health disaster and provide widespread education.  A stable Africa would know it's own worth and realize that it held the resources the rest of the world could not live without.

Nobody wants that.

The Story in a Nutshell
As part of his documentary, Sauper focuses on the life of one young girl.  Beautiful and educated, the girl can speak enough English to communicate with the visiting pilots.  This opens to her the only job available, that of prostitute.  When the girl is then killed by one of her drunken clients, a quick bribe is enough to see that the guilty party escapes the country without prosecution.

That's Africa. That girl tells the story of a continent in her short, tragic life. We're working hard to see that it stays that way.