In tiny Lesotho, a landlocked kingdom in southern Africa, about one-third of its estimated two million people spent much of the past two years in danger of starving because of the lingering effects of a drought. ...The article goes on to explain that international aid is futile, as the Africans there reproduce until they die of starvation and AIDS.
More than 40 years ago, I made Lesotho the centerpiece of a book, “The Alms Race,” that explored why so many development projects kept failing. I chose it because in 1974 it received more development aid per capita than any other nation.
It could also have been voted most likely to vindicate Thomas Malthus’s warning in 1798 that human numbers would inevitably outrun the resources on which our lives depend. ...
Even with only 1.2 million inhabitants in 1974, Lesotho’s leaders saw the country was overpopulated. A 1966 British Colonial Office study estimated that the land could support 400,000 people at best — a number Lesotho had reached by 1911.
Normally it would seem racist to point out these facts, because they lead the reader to some uncomfortable conclusions. But the article goes on the argue that it is all Donald Trump's fault!
Telling the story of Lesotho probably would not have made the pages of the NY Times in the Obama administration.
No comments:
Post a Comment