Letter: Aid for Ethiopia
Your editorial of 24 March (‘Unseemly goings-on’) on UN agencies refers
to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), asserting that its Director-General
‘withheld help’ to Ethiopia in 1984 over disagreement with the World Food
Programme (WFP) over who should manage famine relief for Ethiopia. This
allegation is as malicious as it is untrue.
And a further claim that ‘this delay’ contributed to the deaths of thousands
more Ethiopians strikes the height of absurdity. The facts are well known
and it should not have been difficult for your commentator to find out.
They show that, as WFP itself wrote to FAO, the Ethiopian government
request for relief assistance ‘has been treated by both WFP and FAO Secretariats
with celerity, taking into account the urgency of the situation and the
procedure applicable to emergency operations’.
In addition, the Ethiopian officials themselves lauded the FAO Director-General’s
actions in combating famine. President Mengistu, in a letter to the Director-General,
cited his ‘untiring efforts’ in mobilising international assistance and
said that ‘the consistent humanitarian and professional concerns you have
shown to my country . . . will always be remembered and honoured by the
People and Government of Ethiopia.’
And Dawit Wolde Giorgis, the Commissioner of the country’s agency directly
concerned with relief, wrote to FAO’s Director-General praising his ‘honesty,
sincerity and courage’ in helping Ethiopia, thanking him for all his ‘help
to the poor and deprived in Ethiopia’ and praised him for his ‘important
role in the huge operation through which we have been able to put under
control one of the greatest human tragedies in recent history’.
Your comment, apart from portraying fiction as fact, also refers to
the management of UN agencies and makes a point on the necessity of reforms.
Here again FAO underwent an exhaustive two-year review with the participation
of outside experts and its management scrutinised at the suggestion of the
Director-General. The organisation was judged as ‘solid and dynamic’ and
given a ‘certificate of good health’.
Richard Lydiker Director, Information Division FAO, Rome, Italy
Letter: Seeking power
I was surprised, for several weeks, that there was no massive supporting
response to the powerful article by Igor Aleksander ( ‘Ministers decide,
professionals despair’, Forum, 7 February). The lack of response surely
cannot indicate lack of agreement. It must show instead the very weakness
of professionals that allows us to be pushed around so much by the politicians:
our idiosyncratic individuality.
The source of the politicians’ power is in their great parties, in their
parliamentary whips, and in their brash sloganising and budgetary baits
to win popular votes. Their aim seems to be power as an end in itself rather
than as a means to meeting the people’s needs. We should be naive to assume
that strong intellectual arguments can ever change this.
I agree entirely with Igor’s views but they will never have any value
other than as debating topics among ourselves or as demoralised bleats unless
we adopt the same tactics as the politicians and purposefully seek power.
Tony Greenfield Whitwell, Herts
Letter: Children and animals
David Paterson’s article in your issue of 24 March (‘Beastly images
of childhood’) is interesting, but it leaves some questions.
First, surveys of this kind take no account of the context in which
children are introduced to work with or about animals. Animals do not suddenly
pop up in the curriculum as a separate subject; camouflage may be discussed
with very young children as part of work on colour; levers and forces may
be taught in terms of the disposition of the child’s own muscles and joints,
or by examining videotapes of moving animals. It is quite misleading of
Paterson to present practical biology teaching as a choice between ‘offending
sensibilities’ by forcing the pupils to watch the casual violence of dissection
or boring them silly with rote learning.
Secondly, we are told very little about the techniques used in these
surveys. Children are quite capable of being charming; that is, telling
you what they think you want to hear. In gaining a picture of children’s
attitudes, then, a whole range of behaviour must be examined, not just utterance.
This implies experience, which brings me to my last point. The way we organise
the school day in this country makes work with animals little more than
an afterthought, a kind of diversion on the way to the real goal of the
course: passing the exam.
In the first years of secondary school the kids are herded round a noisy
crowded building, the only experience of animals being a cage of white rats
at the back of a room they visit perhaps once a week. In the later years,
where a bit more flexibility might be expected, the shadow of the exam falls
over everything, and major efforts must be made just to get through the
factual content of the course.
The main obstacle to the promotion of ‘respect for all forms of life’
is thus not primarily a matter of cognitive development, but of educational
strategy.
The great joy of the teaching profession is being able to watch prejudice
dissolve in the presence of direct experience; slimy snakes become warm
and handsome animals. It should happen more often.
George Burt Falkirk
Letter: Tuberculosis
Jon Turney, in his review of Austoker and Bryder’s Historical Perspectives
on the Role of the MRC (Review, 17 February), says that ‘In fact, the MRC
never did much work on TB.’ This extraordinarily inaccurate statement cannot
be allowed to go unchallenged. A special committee of the Medical Research
Council was formed in 1946 to plan clinical trials of streptomycin in tuberculosis
(TB); a Tuberculosis Research Unit was established in 1946; and the MRC
Unit for Laboratory Studies of Tuberculosis in 1960.
These two units, together with the MRC Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge,
were nominated as the WHO collaborating centre for tuberculosis chemotherapy
and its application. The MRC was responsible for the national tuberculin
survey and BCG study which led to the introduction of the schools’ BCG vaccination
programme in Britain, and the MRC units have collaborated over many years
with centres overseas.
N. J. C. Snell Henley-on-Thames, Oxon
Letter: Who's a clever bird?
There is much in Annabelle Birchall’s article on parrots (‘Who’s a clever
parrot then?’, 24 February) on which we would like to comment, but let our
remarks be confined here to just a few subjects.
Dutch sources are quoted as saying that captive birds live for only
5 of a 50-year life expectancy. This might be fair if it were true that
all parrots had long lives (many of the small species are old at five) and
if all entered captivity as youngsters (most do not).
Charles Munn’s finding of a low reproductive rate in macaws is quoted.
Given that Munn’s studies took place in a Peruvian national park where the
birds are protected and therefore have large, long-lived, adult populations
using the resources of the environment to their limit, it is absolutely
unsurprising that few young are fledged. Indeed, it could hardly be otherwise.
If harvesting were to be applied to those populations, however, reproductive
rates would rise to compensate for the loss and to ‘take up the slack’ in
resource-use. That macaws are capable of this is demonstrated by experience
in breeding captive birds, as referred to in the article.
Moreover, the lie is given to the claim that macaws cannot be harvested
by the simple fact that, in virtually every country in which there are wild
populations, they have for centuries been harvested for food and feathers.
Indeed they are a significant source of food for some indigenous communities.
The practice tends to be an alternative use to the taking of birds, as pets.
In countries where they are allowed to sell the birds the cash value far
outweighs the food value and fewer birds need be taken to obtain the same
yield.
The claim that the scarlet macaw is one of the ‘world’s most threatened
birds’ is erroneous. In fact, it is still found over a huge range (Mexico
to Bolivia) and is locally common.
Finally, I would question whether keeping a macaw is really like keeping
a wolf! The latter, like the former, will doubtless transfer its social
reponsiveness to its keepers, but there the similarity ends.
Barry Riley Livestock Advisory Panel Pet Trade and Industry Association
Bedford
Letter Sliding home
John Wilson’s article ‘Look! No Buttons!’ (Forum, 17 March) reminded
me of the two slide rules I still have from my university days – kept only
because I haven’t the heart to throw them out. Does any reader know of a
good home for a couple of reasonable-quality, well-loved, 10-inch slide
rules?
David Brownridge Northcote, Victoria, Australia
Letter: Nuclear demo
Having spent a whole weekend making the skull pictured in the 24 March
issue (‘Montreal nations agree tougher rules on CFCs’, This Week), I would
like to correct your caption suggesting it was a protest against CFCs. The
purpose of our action of 6 March was to raise public concern about the Czech
nuclear programme. All the people here would agree on the harmful effects
of CFCs or sulphur emissions. On the other hand, despite a number of unresolved
problems, the nuclear industry presents itself almost as a saviour from
our environmental crisis, while the environment officials generally avoid
a public discussion of this issue.
It was only on 28 March of this year that a Czechoslovak Atomic Energy
Commission expert announced in the press that the Jaslovske Bohunice plant
(in Slovakia – the name is spelled out on the skull) would have to be closed
down because its safety could not be brought to an acceptable level even
after an expensive reconstruction. Because the official environmentalists
seem to devote most of their energy to setting up the proper bureaucratic
apparatus (‘Czech greens press for stronger control’, on the same page),
I think the ‘fundamentalist’ groups have to play an important role in the
social control of decisions affecting our environment. It might be of some
interest to find out where the information linking our protest to CFCs came
from.
Antonin Hradilek Prague Czechoslovakia
Letter: School research
I agree with the ideas outlined by Paul Butler in his article ‘Teachers
as researchers’ (Forum, 17 March). I took a teaching post to finance the
last six months of my PhD and enjoyed the experience so much that I made
teaching my career. I curently maintain my interest in research by running
a small project (supported by the Royal Society’s scheme for research in
schools) with a group of dedicated sixth formers. We all enjoy it and my
students get a taste of what it is like to undertake research. They actually
get a chance to do experiments which hundreds of other students have not
done before them and not even the teacher knows what the outcome will be.
The other advantage that Butler did not mention relates to the National
Curriculum. As I understand it, teachers are intended to encourage pupils
to follow the same processes that a research scientist would in solving
problems. The difficulty here is that not many science teachers will have
undertaken any original research themselves.
So a teacher-as-researcher would have all the advantages that Butler
outlined but would also give opportunities for pupils to get involved in
research and help teachers to deliver the National Curriculum.
John Williams New Hall School Chelmsford, Essex
Letter: Sunday strife
I was intrigued by Bertil Falk’s article ‘For six days shalt thou labour’
(Forum, 31 March), in which he puts forward a case for the abolition of
Sunday as we know it.
He says that this would not only make economic sense for society, but
would also make sense for individuals and families, enabling us to use our
spare time better.
Undoubtedly, the economic argument is a sound one but I question the
notion that it will actually benefit families. Society is, by definition,
a social community sharing customs and practices. How could it continue
to be a social community if there were no common leisure-time, family-time,
or time of worship? ‘Rest days’ would become shopping days, churches would
disappear (when could they function?) and every day of the week would be
filled with noise, pollution, and angry commuters.
Still, we could give it a try I suppose, and while we’re at it why not
go the whole hog and have everything running for 24 hours a day as well?
It’ll be an interesting exercise in time management for parents and their
children who want to spend a family day at the zoo.
Carole Trowbridge New Ash Green, Kent