Not that Mr Myers ever was much of one; but this latest article from him “Africa is giving nothing to anyone – apart from AIDS” has put the last nail in the clichéd coffin of his ramblings.
A long time ago (using the word Knackers as he went) this cynical excuse for a writer copped to a very simple rule of Lowest Common Denominator journalism; if you can court outrage, you can sell copy. Since then Our Kev has merrily prattled away in his little corner of the press world, and when he feels either his crown as “Mr. Controversial” or his readership slipping away from him he produces a column of such breath taking bigotry that A) he gets publicity and B) because he goes so far out, so often, he is less likely to be fired than a less “controversial” colleague.
But in his latest article he scrapes bottom with comments about dying children, children left to die in the wake of both Western colonialism (past) and Western Commercial Imperialism (present) I’ve read few sentences that are as simply offensive and as deeply ignorant as this example: The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic, Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him. With every sentence Myers displays (quite proudly) his absolute lack of knowledge of Africa, the history of the continent or the various nations thereon, the cause of economic and financial instabilities and the causes of interracial, international and tribal unrest. And he overlooks both Africa’s historic contribution to mankind and it’s huge potential to contribute.
And most offensive of all, he does this not because he believes this rubbish; but because it gives him scope to puff up his own vanity. Just as he hurt and belittled thousands of women and their children by raging against “bastards” a few years ago, he now hurts, belittles and endangers both innocents in Africa and here in Ireland, our friends and colleagues and neighbours. If he could genuinely say this was a considered opinion I would in turn consider him an ill-informed idiot but at least he wouldn’t be both a bigot and a hypocrite.
Don’t be fooled by his bleating that this is a debate we need to have. The debate we need to have is the one John O’Shea from GOAL has been trying to start; we don’t need this kind of drivel crowding out the real issues.
I’d ask why a once great newspaper allows Myers to shoot his mouth off within its pages but sadly the answer must be, it sells newspapers. Publicity hounds like Myers provide an occasional transfusion of interest to newspapers in an over-serviced media market. But hey! Why not? Who cares if he feeds the bigotry and racism of the small minded, or deeply offends or cruelly hurts – as long as it sells.
Well this is one subscription they’ve lost. I won’t be buying any more of Myers’ painful trumpeting. It’s just a pity that they’ll be accepted by the unreflecting as corroboration of their own, dark fears.
18 responses so far ↓
Daniel Murphy // July 13, 2008 at 12:45 pm |
Exactly what parts of his article do you disagree with and where’s your evidence to prove the contrary. Fair enough he exaggerate in some places but the message he is getting across is 100% correct. All you are doing nothing but attacking the man instead of the message. It might not be a nice read but it is the reality
LordSidcup // July 13, 2008 at 7:33 pm |
I agree.
A very weird article. Strangely sex-fixated and irrational.
Maybe he was drunk or hungover when he wrote it.
There seems to be a bevy of heavy drinking men in late middle age coming out with this booze-fueled rants trying to create controversies (Myers / Amis / Hitchens / Dunphy to name but a few).
africandemocrat // July 14, 2008 at 6:48 am |
Thanks for your analysis of Myers’ motives. I wrote to him about his ignorance of the facts, but it was a waste of bandwidth.
Much of the reason that Africa is a basket case can be directly attributed to the direct interference of G8 countries during the Cold War era. They installed people like Idi Amin and Mobuto Sese Seko and then loaned them large amounts of money that went straight into numbered accounts in Zurich.
Until the 1980s, most African countries followed a benign form of socialism. Per-capita income was on the increase and industry thrived on import-replacement activities. Then along came the “brilliant” economists from the IMF and World Bank who forced African countries to adopt pure Milton Friedman twaddle and since then African currencies have plummeted in value and so has per-capita income.
Many African countries are still spending the majority of their budgets on debt repayment. The original capital plus generous interest has already been repaid many times over. The debt repayment dwarfs any aid that foreign countries give to Africa, so in effect, Africa pays exhorbitantly for the “aid” that destroys the agricultural sector in Africa.
It’s time for the G8 countries to cancel the debt unconditionally, pack up the NGOs and meddling “humanitarian” organisations and trade with Africa on a fair basis.
bodhranbanger // July 15, 2008 at 9:25 am |
Daniel, there are so many inaccuracies in the article, and it generalizes so widely there is little in it that will stand up to any unbiased scrutiny.
If you do not understand my objections then you need to find out a little more about the history of Africa (an entire continent btw) and the individual histories of the various countries and ethnicities that form its populace. The reasons why Africa as a continent is plagued with difficulty are manifold. The success stories are also many and varied, but they do not get reported. The responsibility of the Western democracies lies in our rape and pillage, stripmining of natural resources, corruption, seeding of wars and financial chicanery.
As for my “attacking” Mr Myers, Mr Myers makes his living as a figure of controversy. Objecting to the response he deliberately and cynically provokes is more than a little silly.
I don’t deny there is a need to re address our traditional response to African crises – and if you are interested in reasoned and intelligent discussion on the thorny issues involved, you might like to google some of John O’Shea’s (GOAL) articles and letters. Yes, our present response while humanitarian in nature may not be efficacious in the long run. But Myer’s prejudiced ramblings merely confuse and alienante; the debate needs to be fair, unbiased and unmotivated by personal issues.
bodhranbanger // July 15, 2008 at 9:27 am |
Lord Sidcup, there is indeed a worrying trend in Irish journalism to under edit the ramblings of certain types
Africandemocrat thank you so much for your response and for adding to the information about the real causes and effects at work.
Pete // July 18, 2008 at 3:26 pm |
The idea that most of the humanitarian aid has pushed the problems further is very true! Africa is still a boiling calderon with INCREASING miserable population.
The mainstream media incentives hipocrisy. People should have the right to write whatever they thing.
Pete // July 18, 2008 at 3:30 pm |
The arcticle fails in not considering the BIG interests of the world in Africa. The rest of the world is no victim in the story.
sara // July 18, 2008 at 3:36 pm |
thank you Bodhranbanger for a thoughtful and accurate summation of the Myers. And to Africandemocrat for the other interesting comments.
I notice a lot of the Aryan and Racist websites and blogs are not only lauding the article but are attacking blogs or websites that object to it!
I find the arguments in favour of Myers free speech are almost mindboggling in their hypocrisy – if kevin myers can write that africa is a kip why can;t we write in return that he is no journalist? have these people no ide what a jounralist is supposed to be, how the press is supposed to work in a democarcy?
Noone will stop Myers writing – but I like you can choose not to BUY his drivel.
bodhranbanger // July 18, 2008 at 3:43 pm |
These people have of course no idea what a journalist should be nor what is the press and it’s ideals under democracy. You see, anyone who writes what they want is allowed to invoke free speech – objections are not afforded the same privilege (and yes, I’ve had hate mail, or rather hate comments. I check ‘em out and if they are aryan/racist/white supremists I delete)
What amuses me is that noone seems to notice when I say that we have to rethink Aid to some afircan nations and address the form aid should take in the future. I personally believe we do owe something to africa – the same something we owe to every other human being on earth.
I laugh when the same objectors to aid for Africa bleat about immigrants from Africa – the best way to stem the flood of immigration is to help emerging nations provide economic prosperity and peace at home.
What i object to is Myers muddying the water of an important debate with vitriol and bigotry. It is not racist to say that we need to rethink aid packages, it is to dismiss starving children as future “priapic thugs” spreading aids.
The Locust // July 18, 2008 at 9:57 pm |
This was posted on politics.ie in response to it:
The Irish Independent is giving nothing to anyone – apart from making us wish we’d died of AIDS
No, it will not do. Even as we see the Irish Independent refusing to take action to employ someone resembling a journalist on that title, the begging for controversy begins again. It is nearly 25 minutes since it facilitated Kevin Garnett’s last Feed My Ego campaign, and in that time his sense of self importance has grown to believe it is 78 million times more significant than it really is.
So why on earth should we do anything to encourage further catastrophic growth of that publication? What is the point of the Indo? There is none.
To be sure, there are indeed many things said in the Indo and none of them count. To be also sure, there are some which say buying the Indo equally doesn’t count, that it can’t do any harm. There are though two things which say that it does count.
One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing hopelessly in fear, yet again, at the camera, which yet again captures the tragedy of yet another Kevin Haw Haw article being unleashed on the nation.
So, yes, my conscience has suffered terribly as I, like most of you, have shamefully on occasion bought the Indo, hiding it inside a pornographic magazine after purchase (usually in Bestiality With The Over 60s, but sometimes in Toilet Traders Monthly) lest I be seen taking it home with me. This has helped in facilitating a wild-eyed middle aged man, who should have known better some 20 years or so ago, siring illegitimate articles whenever the whim takes him. Won’t somebody please think of the children?
Yes, there is, no doubt no good argument why we should prolong this predatory and dysfunctional title; and if there is, I do not know what it is.
There is, on the other hand, every reason to write a column like this.
It will make me no friend of the self-righteous wrathful one who employs in his columns a defensive device which proposes that it is embarrassingly self-righteous and wrathful to not think that the best thing for Africans would be if they all just starved to death and stopped annoying us. So, as I say, there is every reason to write a column like this.
Within 20 seconds of him joining the Indo, its quality had dropped by another 30pc.
Alas, that wretched title is not alone in how bad it is. Somewhere, over the weekend, lies the Sindo, another fine ‘newspaper’ of violent, typewriter-toting, coke-snorting, crap-spewing, permanently bloated layabouts.
Indeed, we now have an entire collection of sexually hyperactive and indignant titles, worth tens of millions of Euros, but which can only survive with help from the outside world of newspaper buyers.
The lot of us are now — one way or the other — virtually all giving money to Independent News & Media, whereas IN&M is giving nothing to anyone, apart from making us wish we’d died of AIDS.
How much morality is there in bringing into the world another Irish child today, for it to survive to a life filled with Brendan O’Connor’s brutal attempts at humour, to a poverty of any talent whatsoever in the newspapers of the company which pays him, to its violent fantasies and abuse of sexual images posing as news stories?
For self-serving morbid curiosity as to what Kevin Duke might have written today about those bloody gypos/Paddys/women/bastard offspring/wogs has been one of the curses of Ireland. The collection of titles has sustained a political party which would otherwise have collapsed.
It is inspired by Connor Cruise O’Brien’s program to infect the country with West Britism, a disease which is, in the almost complete absence of self-worth, one of the most effective forms of control of population now operating.
If that program is successful, for millions of children it would have been better if they’d just died in infancy.
It is boasted that it will be successful. Oh good: then what? I know. Lets the rest of us move to Ethiopia. Yes, that’s an idea.
Kevmyarse@Irishshinnerdependent.ie
steve white // July 21, 2008 at 10:46 pm |
john’shea neocon fantasys of re-colonisation of africa are worse the myers and maybe even the g8/imf/wb
sara // July 22, 2008 at 11:53 am |
Steve, why do you say that?? I happen to have read a fair amount of O’Shea’s comments and while I don’t agree withall of them “neocon” (which is an american rather than irish political term anyway) is not a term I would apply to him, or his views – so I’d be interested in your reasoning?
Bodhranbanger, I agree wholeheartedly with you and I too find it frustrating that people miss the point –
YES there is a discussion to be made,
NO myer’s version of that discussion is not helpful.
Anyone whose knee jerk reaction to this blog (as I have seen here and there) is “but Myers raises good points” has missed the point. Myer’s plagerizes points from better minds than his and regurgitates them in a hatefilled rant.
Among adults, that’s not what passes for either jounralism or discussion. If you can’t tell the difference between “there are issues to be discussed” and “africa gives us nothing but aids” then all rational adult debate is wasted!
bodhranbanger // July 22, 2008 at 12:02 pm |
thanks for all the comments good and bad
it’s interesting to see such wide opinions and reactions.
Keep ‘em coming
PS someone posted anonymously asking to see the hate mail (sorry – anonymous comments aren’t allowed, so repost anytime with a name and email – the email is always kept private)
I won’t bother reposting them mainly cos they went into the spam folder and got deleted. Anything I get as a comment that is couched in racist abuse at me or others, is automatically deleted. Anyone who posts good or bad comments I try to check out their website/email – anyone posting from a racist website or anonymizer for the same (btw aryan is spelled with one n !) gets deleted just as they did when they wrote “agreeing” with me on Hajibs. so tough.
Other than that everyone gets through, for or against. I don’t want to reissue the racist remarks here, having found them bad enough to delete in the first place, but suffice it to say “bitch” was the politest term
The Locust // July 23, 2008 at 2:29 am |
the saga continues -
Myers tries to explain
* don’t know how to hyperlink sorry. maybe the admin can shorten that?
Edited by admin on request
bodhranbanger // July 23, 2008 at 8:37 am |
This is Myers MO agin!
most reponses agreed that there were issues regarding aid to Africa that need to be addressed – the point all along was that Myers merely ranted and raved, in the most offensive manner possible and used the most offensive language possible. not because he is intelligent and trying to start a debate on thorny issues but because that’s his modus operandi to garner a few more sales of whatever paper he currently haunts.
He did it a few years back about “unwed mothers and their bastard children” and he did it as far back as Gaybo and the late late show where he used abusive language to anyone non irish/ non settled/ non middleclass.
Then when a furore ensues he waits a few days and produces a milder toned down version expounding at length much more reasonable views and sniffling into his hanky that we all misunderstand him. it’s sad and predictable and in fact was predicted by several commentators. And once again people buy it.
The man is capable of prose and debate, why didn’t he produce the second article first? because he knows that while it would be good journalism it’s not good salesmanship
Steve // July 29, 2008 at 7:19 am |
African Democrat – isn’t it a bit patronising to say that Idi Amin and Mobuto Sese Seko were installed by G8 countries?
They were perfectly capable of seizing power by themselves. OK, they may then have sought arms deals with whoever but they were hardly puppet rulers.
By suggesting that they were installed by others, you perpetuate the idea that Africans can’t do anything without outside help, not even launch military coups in their own countries.
Chris Potgieter // September 5, 2008 at 4:52 pm |
Here I am in Cape Town reading Myers’s drivel and wondering whether I should do more to encourage my kids and grandkids to flee the shores of Africa. In our country today the ruling party does not stop it’s youth leaders from proclaiming that they will kill for a the future President. Daily I am made aware of factories closing down and the number of unemployed South Africans growing at an alarming rate. As a member of the Lions organisation I am only too aware of the fact that we are already feeding 65000 people daily in Cape Town. Unforunately it is easy to donate to make a problem go away but far more difficult to have the will to teach people to become self sufficient. Tough love is the only thing that will work in Africa.
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