Why exactly did Belgium need the Congo?
In the 20th century Europe didn't have the economic or military muscles to flex any more, so it was content to sit back and let America carry out a cultural and economic imperialism across the globe. Wasn't it jolly good fun trying to guess which country would have Coca Cola as their number one soft drink, and which would have Pepsi?
(Incidentally, if you want an insight into cultural imperialism can I recommend the book Why Do People Hate America?
. The authors use the example of an episode of The Simpsons. It's an expensive 30 minutes of television to make, but the economics of it (the authors go into detail) is such that by the time you get down to the smaller TV markets in Africa and Asia, it's much much cheaper to buy an episode of The Simpsons than it is to make 30 minutes of your own TV. Thus America dominates the world's culture.) Now in the 21st century, it seems that we're going back to our old ways - we're grabbing land. This time instead of just walking our military into a foreign capital and telling them we're taking over for their own good, we're buying up or leasing farmland for our own means.
And just what does the west, or rather "north", need African farmland for? Surely they're starving over there and need all the fertile soil they can get?
Ah, of course. We need to run our cars. And the EU has mandated that 10% of our fuels must be biofuel.
Friends Of The Earth Europe and Friends Of The Earth Africa have done a little digging and discovered the extent of the land-grab, which affects 11 countries across Africa. In one case in Ethiopia, land inside an elephant sanctuary was cleared to make way for agrofuels.
This is just crazy. The EU needs to grow a pair of balls and admit that it's wrong on the biofuel mandate. Not only are African lands being bought up, but forests are being destroyed in the name of going green.
It's time we acknowledged that this isn't environmentalism, it's just mental.
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