An open letter to the global south

Dear friends

I'm sorry not to have written sooner but I've been very busy recently protesting about the global climate crisis.

I appreciate that this is affecting you much more directly than us in the global north but we're all in the same boat aren't we? Not the flimsy inflatable kind, obviously, but metaphorically. As you may have seen, we in the UK are currently experiencing a shortage of tomatoes and cucumbers in our supermarkets. Can you believe it? 

Brexit must take its share of the blame, of course, as the rest of Europe seems unaffected by such shortages but they are having other problems, like the rivers Rhine and Po running dry. And the French and Italians are getting very worried about their vineyards, which might actually work in England's favour. After all, the Romans grew grapes here right up to Hadrian's Wall and our white wines are really quite good so maybe, with a few more degrees of heat, we could actually start producing some decent reds too. It's an ill wind...

Anyway, I digress, what I wanted to say was that I do understand why, in all fairness, we in the global north should be doing our bit to support you by reducing our consumption in favour of a more equal global distribution of finite resources.

But here's the thing, over the past hundred years or so we've come to rely on electricty, gas, oil, petrol, running water, flush lavatories, showers, swimming pools, hot tubs, cars, planes, trains, buses (for poor folk), central heating, air-conditioning, fridges, freezers, dishwashers, tumble driers, TVs, computers, foreign holidays - well, you know (come to think of it, perhaps you don't) - the list goes on and on. So it's going to be quite a wrench for us to live without these things, or with fewer of them at any rate.

You, on the other hand, have not had so much experience of them and they do say what you've never had you don't miss. I read somewhere that the African continent only has about 25% mains electricity coverage. Well, that's obviously not very good is it? The trouble is once you're better-connected you'll start to want all the white goods etc that we take for granted and then where will we all be? 

Hopefully, though, you'll learn from our mistakes and not rush to repeat them. I can assure you, while these things have undoubtedly made our lives more comfortable, they haven't necessarily made us happier. It would be a shame if you were to sacrifice your simpler, slower lifestyles for the sake of a load of consumer goods that just create stress, use up scarce resources and cause more waste and pollution.

That's not to say that you aren't entitled to a higher standard of living but it does appear that a lot of your problems stem from poor governance. One thing you might copy the global north in is its properly functioning democracy. In the UK we've had three Prime Ministers in the space of seven months. That's mature democracy in action for you; no coups, no bloodshed, just a peaceful transfer of power, and life goes on as normal. 

Admittedly, we didn't get to vote on our current Prime Minister, or the one before him for that matter, but that's just the way the electoral cycle goes.  When the next General Election comes round we know it'll be free and fair. Okay, it may be a little bit more difficult to actually vote now that we'll need photo ID to prevent the scourge of fraudulent voting but, as a pensioner, I can show my bus pass so that shouldn't be a problem. Always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to open democracy.

It's true the UK economy's lagging behind the rest of the G20 at the moment but that's the normal swings-and-roundabouts of global capitalism and free markets. Besides, if we can't spend as much we won't be adding to over-consumption and, as our Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rightly says, we shouldn't be importing out-of-season tomatoes when we can eat perfectly good homegrown turnips. Every cloud has a silver lining and we must learn to look on the bright side and not make perfect the enemy of the good, as our politicians like to say.

Another thing I can't help noticing is that you do have rather a lot of armed conflicts, which are terribly wasteful of resources, to say nothing of lives. In Europe we've enjoyed peace for almost eighty years, which is something to be proud of. True, there was that unfortunate business in the Balkans in the 1990s but, then, that's hardly Europe really and, a bit like Ukraine now, was all to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russians have always liked strong leaders and that's what happens when you support despots. It never ends well.

I realise this is a tad personal but I hope you won't mind my mentioning that you do tend to have quite a lot of children too. We all love the little ones but this may not be such a good idea when resources are scarce. When I was growing up in the 1960s the UK birthrate was about 2.5 per family whereas now it's 1.75. Some people think we've gone too far, though, and that we won't have enough young people to sustain us oldies in our dotage, which makes you think.

That's where I do believe our government has seriously missed a trick. Their immigration policies have made it so much more difficult for you and your children to come here at a time when the country could really do with you to look after we pensioners in our declining years. And your taxes would come in handy, too, to pay for our social care.

Anyway, I hope this finds you well.

Best wishes - and good luck!

Popular posts from this blog

Looking to Africa - long read

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du
Read more

On old age

"The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death."  Writing his essay,  De Senectute (On Old Age), in 44 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero went on to refute these four supposed reasons in characteristically robust and forthright manner. Cicero wasn't one to sit about moping in his own old age; he remained actively engaged in the political life of the Republic whose survival, in the face of tyranny, he championed so fiercely.  Cicero was nine years younger than I am now when he met his untimely end yet he considered himself already an old man; or, rather, his society judged him to be so. His second point about age enfeebling is more germane. Physical decline had not yet impacted him but, six years on from my retirement, I
Read more

Born to rule

When, ten days ago, I posted my piece about the manipulated image of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children (see Snap Judgment) I didn't know of her cancer treatment. Had I known, I would have adopted a gentler, though I hope no less critical, tone. But I didn't know, and nor did any of us outside the immediate royal circle, which rather goes to strengthen the case against the monarchy. For Kate and her family the diagnosis of cancer (as yet unspecified) will have been a devastating blow, as will the chemotherapy she is currently undergoing. On a human level, of course I sympathise and extend my best wishes for a full recovery as, indeed, I did at the time of her father-in-law's diagnosis. It is particularly cruel, then, that on top of all this she has been obliged to record a video statement to reassure the public. As if she didn't have enough to contend with already. But such is the unpalatable obligation placed upon any royal personage - noblesse oblige. Whic
Read more