Monday, January 09, 2006

And the First "STFU" Award Goes to...

Whenever I read headlines like “UN envoy slams donors over lack of aid to Africa” I hold my breath and look up to the heavens and whisper, “Which UN envoy? Please, please, please… not… not… not…”

"The capacity in the world to let people die is really amazing and we know that 8 to 10 million people are dying every year because they are too poor to stay alive," said…

No, please, no…

said Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Goddammit!

Yes, our pal, our buddy Jeffrey is outraged, I tell you. Outraged. And why is Jeffrey Sachs outraged? Aw, c’mon. What else outrages Jeffrey Sachs?

"One would think the world would stand up and do something to help with a far greater sense of urgency ... but the fact is that it hasn't," he told a news conference in Nairobi.

Oh brother. No wonder his friend Prime Minister Meles keeps blaming the west for not doing enough to feed Ethiopians. February 2003 anyone?

We are not out of the woods yet. Quite a bit of the required food assistance has been pledged, but it’s not been arriving in time. Perhaps, more importantly, the total requirement for food aid is nowhere close to being fulfilled. Up to now, we have succeeded in avoiding mass deaths. But the expectation now amongst the donor representatives in Addis Abeba is that unless there is a rekindling of interest and shortfalls are covered we may run out of food by June, and that would be a very dangerous time because that will be the rainy season and it will be difficult to transport food to the rural areas even if it arrives.

(For more on EPRDF strategies on guilt tripping the west into donating food, see a seriously bloated blog, How to Lose a Leader in 14 Years. My, I am verbose.)

Professor Sachs adds a little twist to his standard sanctimonious harangue.

"The finances in Africa are so extraordinarily tight, the challenges on the ground of climate variability, drought risk, and soil nutrient depletion are so high that these problems cannot be solved by these countries themselves," Sachs said.

Here’s a newsflash to Monsieur Sachs… yes they can. Seriously. I know you don’t think so, Professor Sachs, and ultimately your job is made infinitely easier if you just blame the west before moving on to the next conference, but what Africa lacks is not money. How much has the west poured into, let’s say, Ethiopia again? And why is Ethiopia poorer than ever? If the glove don’t fit, Professor, perhaps we should get a different glove instead of excoriating people for not helping you pull up the glove.

There is exactly zero reason why Ethiopia should not feed itself. There is land. There are able people. But Professor Sachs has friends in high places who prefer ferenjies feed their people while they attend to more expedient matters such as covering up rigged elections and reigning terror on those who dared stand up and say “enough!”—or the “imperial revanchists”, as Professor Sachs refers to them.

[Sachs] said people often blamed African governments for mishandling funding, but stressed the amount given to Africa to deal with practical projects such as agriculture production was insignificant.

Africa, according to the magnificently ineffective African Union, loses $150bn a year to corruption. Would that be considered “mishandling funds”? Or is $150 billion now considered “extraordinarily tight” finance?

Therefore, with sappy muzak playing in the background, with a soft lens capturing the scene, with virgins sprinkling rose petals at his feet, we proudly announce on this ninth day of the month January, in the year 2006 that Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute and UN Special Envoy has been awarded Wonqville’s first ever “Shut the Fuck Up Award.” May he shut the fuck up.

On more important matters:

Yeqolotemari at Aqumada says brilliantly what I have been fuming about for the past 10 years in my exile from attending Ethiopian concerts. Party in Hell speaks to so many of us.

Tsegasaurus’ Top Ten EPRDF solutions to ‘No Humvee for you!’ is an instant classic.

Andrew at Mesqel Square is back in Addis, thank God. He quotes from a Fortune article of how the EPRDF is trying to prove that a 14-year-old kid accused of genocide is… really 16-years-old.

25 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wonqiye,

a) how do you make 'shut the fuck up' seem like a legitimate argument?

and

b) should we be wasting the precious few wonqvilliam virgins on something as mundane as rose sprinkling at the feet of J. Sachs?

5:19 PM, January 09, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since Sachs is determined to blame everyone except his aid-pilfering friends who lead our continent, maybe he can be outraged and 'slam' western banks which help launder money for these goons. Why not? He likes bashing the west. And he is concerned about lack of money. Sachs, look into it.

And congratulations on the award.

5:32 PM, January 09, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Y'all suddenly woke up this year or last year and discovered your role in developing your country. Sachs has dedicated his life to alleviating poverty. There's more to him than Meles or Ethiopia. you STFU and vacation in Nice and drive your fancy car to your fancy office and choose to be a cog in the capitalist machine. But ato Sachs'n leqeq. Minew ete!

7:08 PM, January 09, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Donald Levine has an adopted ethiopian name, Liben. The liqe liqawint in wonqville should give our Sachs an ET name. I humbly suggest "Nadew Demssissew".

wonnnnqqq you drive a fancy car?

7:45 PM, January 09, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's Sachs at his best...

http://uc.princeton.edu/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62&Itemid=6

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
One billion people on the planet are struggling with extreme poverty according to Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University.
In this March 31 lecture, Sachs discusses his new book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, which explores the challenge of global poverty. Sachs also shares accounts of his recent visits to Africa and offers practical solutions to the challenge of global poverty, which he contends can be eliminated by 2025.

2:20 AM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i checked my calendar and it is not 1974 and the breaking dawn of the ethiopian revolution where people who vacation in Nice were the bad "adhariwotch" who needed to be un-adhari-ized.

phhhiiiiiew. so unless Sachs is making these statements barefoot, hungry and from a hut in ethiopia (as oppoosed to the sheraton and business class flights) then i say vacation ON, wonq!!

8:06 AM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dube, it did not surprise me one bit to learn that wonq-the-cog drives a fancy car to a fancy office. What surprised me, broke my heart really, was that YOU don’t drive a fancy car to a fancy SOMEWHERE if not an office! All this time, I thought that kinda stuff was a given here among the g’lgel mesafint. Oh, the inequities of this sew bela siraat!

Anyway, dear Dube, not all is lost, because there IS a way to right this wrong! I don’t know how you failed to see it, but it’s right there in your name: DUBE, as in CREDIT! Even if you can’t outright BUY that fancy car, get it on Dube/Credit and shut the fuck up so they won't know you're an imposter! See?


Yohannes, I like Nadew for J. Sachs, but I’m liking “J. SUCKS” better!

12:30 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your friend Nancy said it best, Wonqqi-- J. "Nadew" Sachs are there helping our "stinking starving country" so whatever they do, we are obligated to say "Thank you, may we have another?" So shush, especially you fancy ETs driving your fancy cars and going to your fancy vacations.

1:24 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

think everyone missed the point here... there are virgins in Wonqetteville!

1:29 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.meskelsquare.com/archives/2006/01/meanwhile_in_th_1.html#comments

wonqnet,

esti think about this comment from meskel square above. it rung true to me..

"Posted by: Yohannes at January 4, 2006 08:19 PM

It seems to me that all the mutual admiration society between these blogs is getting a little bit tiresome. As much as I appreciate the original contents and sheer entertainment value of some of the blogs, the constant desire to acknowledge and be acknowledged by the same circle of people is a tad bit juvenile."

you may also benefit from visiting http://www.esai.org every now and then for a fresher way of dealing with each other as Ethiopians.

..and photos of ethiopia if you are homesick also posted on esai just recently

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/yilkal_abate/album?.dir=71e2


melkam qen

1:33 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

correction to previously posted broken links/web addresses:

http://www.meskelsquare.com/archives/2006/01/meanwhile_in_th_1.html

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/yilkal_abate/album?.dir=71e2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/yilkal_abate/my_photos

http://www.esai.org

1:37 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Adhari is as Adhari does bilo z'm

I can't and don't want to enka selantya about the work of kibur ato Sachs as we would return to that "what have you done for ze country lately, or come to think of it, ever" discussion.

Neither will I debate my dube-worthiness, and teshkerkari zufan-less-ness : ke sefiw hizb gar subway echanalehu. In the end, like the good metshaf kidus says; wezaderoch will inherit the earth. Or for the heathens, Guad Mengistu used to tell us, alem ye wazaderoch tihonalech. amen.

yiblagne lenante benzin lemitgzut. If I was an adhari like you, I could buy 2 lattes for each one of your gallons. But I'll just get 10 packets of kool-aid.

1:53 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To be fair, Jeffrey Sachs' revanchist theory of 'throw money at the problem', now dressed up in 21st century garb, could have some merit. After all, he's written a book on it!

IMHO, in a nutshell, the problem with Sachs' analysis is that it ignores sociological factors of underdevelopment (something that Sen's work at least addresses). To paraphrase, when it comes to development, 'It's the sociology, stupid!' The constant among underdeveloped countries of various economic and political might is social underdevelopment. Yes, the average Kenyan makes a few times more than the average Ethiopian per year, but it's the same social underdevelopment that has kept the Kenyan's income constant for the last thirty or so years.

For an easy read on how Sachs' rehashing of old theories is not quite sound, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25562-2005Mar10.html

2:54 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You american diaspora types are quite similar. You think that your goverment is all good and would do what is right for third world countries like ethiopia if they only knew better, if they knew Meles was really really ( a la spice girls)Communist and so on and so forth.
Unfortunately it does not work that way. If you do not like lenin's on Imperialism, read Chomsky on how your government treats third world midgets, maybe you would believe him and shed your illusions.

3:06 PM, January 10, 2006  
Blogger EthioPolitics
ARTIST OF THE DAY
said...

Shameless plug

http://ethiopianpolitics.blogspot.com/

4:04 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think your bashing of Jeffrey Sachs is getting tedious. Despite his errors of judgement on Meles, he is one of the best advocates Africa has. I bet he has made more contributions than many of our inter-continental cyber warriors. Excessive, and at times juvenile, bashing of Mr. Sachs and all ferenjis who appear to be close to the Ethiopian government is doing a diservice to the opposition's cause.

8:41 PM, January 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh pul-eze. sachs has insinuated himself as an africa expert and taking him to task is the least we can do. aren't ferenjies supposed to be held responsible when they make these kinds of "errors in judgement"? (an error he has not acknowledged publicly, btw.) do they get a pass? Sachs's policy on poverty reduction is naive, at best. if it was just a theory and he was engaging in intellectual whimsy we would have dismissed him. but when it costs lives, the LEAST we can do is bash him on a blog comment.

and give me a break with the "he has done so much for your stinking starving country than you" line. The italians built railroads in africa too.

why is standing for ourselves so wrong? sachs is a big boy. he can handle it.

12:28 AM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A few weeks after the June killings where Meles's Thugs 'R Us shot people who were throwing stones, Jeffrey Sachs went to Norway to present Meles with the Yara Award. In his speech, Sachs was not shy about calling his friend visionary and brilliant. Now if that ain't worth bashing, I don't know what is. I don't care whose "cause" it is hurting. Sachs behaved like a self appointed colonial viceroy... Oh. Or was that Anna Gomes?

1:59 AM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

----- talk of teshkarkari zufan-lessness means there are latent Seledistas in this forum. (Damn imperial revanchists.) I have been hereby instructed to pass on the following message from kibur dr. Raselas:---

I am deeply, deeply distressed about the precarious situation we find ourselves in today. These are cruel times. Times that are unforgiving and hate-filled. My heart bleeds. Look, my blood. Splish-splashing all over the mother board of the highway of the Internet and Internet-ess.

I never thought I would see these days come to pass: days when a PhD is disrespected so willfully. Professor Jeffy Sachs attended Harvard when I was at the University of Tamijiskstan. His ph.D is more valuable than all the wires connecting the hard drive on my lap computer to the CD-ROM. I find it appalling and heretic that a man of his stature being attacked. when did a Harvard PhD become so unimportant? Do you not know that just him stepping on the parched land of Ethiopia is grace enough? He is a man of honor. A man who has written books and articles. LONG books and articles. He has done more for Ethiopia than all you piddly baccalaureate degree holders put together and thrashing in your pathetic phDless, gloomy world. You people are ingrates- from the dandruff embedded in the roots of your hair follicles, to the hangnail hanging hazardously on your crusty little toe.

I beg you. I beg you to stop the madness. We have to return to the days when the three letters P, h and d mean something and everything. I chastise you in the name of my thesis.

May Ethiopia rise above this unspeakable tragedy.


Dr. Raselas ze B'hayre Ph D.

3:51 AM, January 11, 2006  
Blogger EthioPolitics
ARTIST OF THE DAY
said...

He can take his PHD and shove it up his u know what!

You can quote me on that.

7:46 AM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you alafi!
The mutual appriciation blogs are rresembling some of the restautants we have here. The main protocol in these restaurants is impressing others And to recieve and give adulation. But it's a very boring atmosphere.

12:09 PM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

gudu kassa, I can tell you ain't no PhD! gudih! For you and other unfortunate souls who missed the hay-day of the now defunct-dead-as-a-doornail-Seleda, here’s a sampling of a letter penned by a REAL PhD! None other than His Eminence-Grand Master, Doctor PhD Raselas Himself:

Dear Son Zelalem -yenE:

I am sure now that you have discovered that I am your father, that you have a sense of overwhelming pride. Since you are from my loins, I hope the "intimidation feeling" with subdue in time. Until then, I will understand. We all should be proud of our parents. I am certainly proud of my father, who was proud of me when I got accepted at the University of Lima in nineteen sikkstyyyy… ay aydelem… nineteeeennnn sebentyyyyyyyy two. Gizew yet hede?

Both my best friends Dr. Temesgen and Dr. Dagnaw have sons, so I am glad now I have one too. Their constant discussions about their sons was starting to annoy me. Now they can't hold that against me. Yetabatachew! Do you know Dr. Temesgen and Dr. Dagnaw? They are very good friends of mine. We will soon have a radio program called "InnE Dokteroch Mn Alu?" to be heard all over the DC area. You can tell your friends about it if you want. I am sure you already know all about me. But, if you have any question, ask them. I have one question for you. Astemrewehal wei? ECH yenessu neger! You probably don't even have your first Ph.D. That cannot do. I am going to write to my contacts at the University of Mbabane to see if they will take you. Ay! Essu enkuwan yQribih. University of Mbabane'n University of Imba blew zm mallet new. Le Ph.D. mymech ketema, son. Maybe I will contact others for you.
I will have to go now. You are probably wondering what you should call me. Whatever it is, it cannot be daddy. Hahahah. A little father and son joke. Dr. Temesgen's son calls him GashiyE. I like that but it seems a little too familiar. So you can call me… Dr. Abatiye.
Dehna senbit. Abatih,

Dr. Raselas.

12:16 PM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ahhh, dr. raselas. he found us all the way in Wonq Tera.

funny. other ferenjie blogs i read adulate each other and refer to and support each other. When we do it, however, it is unsightly? Ayyyi. Faradise.

1:48 PM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gashiye Dokteriye Raselas has spoken.

Pee Aychhh Deee syawera, lij, wezader ena chama must report to alga sir.

beqa zm.

3:57 PM, January 11, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sour grapes or what? EbakAchihu PhD'n teWut. PhD has done no one no harm. It's Dr. Sucks, stupid. Not to speak of Dr. "Tegadalati" Yonannes! But then we have Dr. Birhanu. PhD has nothing to do with anything -- ManInim albEdelem. Keep PhD out of this, pul-ezze.

8:27 PM, January 11, 2006  

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