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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 November 1999 Issue No. 454 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 November 1999 Issue No. 454
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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A week in the world
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Mad cows and Englishmen
By Peter SnowdonIt was not a good week for large mammals. Shortly before 5 pm last Friday, a panel of 16 European Union scientists declared that it was safe for Britain to recommence exporting beef to the continent, and that objections recently brought forward by French experts should not be allowed to stand in the way. France had refused to fall into line with an EU ruling last July that British beef was once again safe for consumption.
Though never likely to escalate into a full-scale trade war -- British beef exports to France are unlikely to reach £50 million by 2001, which would represent only 2 per cent of total bilateral trade, and less than a quarter of the present value of the trade in Scotch whisky -- the Anglo-French standoff was nevertheless a major embarrassment to both governments, and particularly to Tony Blair, who is actively seeking to coopt his opposite number Lionel Jospin in his search for a mystical post-socialist "Third Way", through which he hopes to establish Britain's voice in Europe.
The tabloid press took full advantage of the opportunity provided by France's refusal to bow to the rule of Brussels. The Daily Mail campaigned for a boycott of French goods under the slogan: "Just say Non", while the Sun printed a special French-language edition for distribution in Boulogne and Calais, in an attempt to appeal to the common people of France and encourage solidarity between nations. Popular resentment at home, ill-focused and often misinformed, was further strengthened by "revelations" that France was freely exporting meat from cattle which had been fed on human sewage.
The beef ban came into force in 1996, following the discovery that British cattle fed on processed meal made from the bones and internal organs of sheep infected with scrapie (a disease of the central nervous system), had contracted a complaint that went under the technical name of bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE), but was more popularly known as "mad cow disease". This then led to further fears that the condition might be transmitted to humans, after a number of people died of Creuzfeld Jakobson's Disease (CJD), a syndrome whose symptoms are similar to those of BSE.
British beef exports collapsed from a quarter of a million tons in 1995 to virtually nil today. There are now only two abattoirs in the entire country which are licensed to sell beef abroad. Together, they process a maximum of 600 cows a week.
The government's handling of the crisis was widely seen as incompetent, as ministers vacillated, as eager one minute to mislead the public as they were reluctant the next to support the farmers whose livelihood depended on the trade. The image of then Agriculture Minister John Gummer feeding his young daughter a beefburger in a cowardly and manipulative attempt to restore public confidence, only weeks before the EU declared all British beef unsafe for human consumption, has since passed into popular legend. Much of Europe's present mistrust of large-scale agribusiness, the return to "organic" farming and the broad-based campaign against genetic engineering, can all trace their origins back to this period.
Although, British safety regulations for beef are now reckoned to be among the strictest in the world, a degree of uncertainty persists. French Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany pointed out this week that, despite all efforts, there will still be an estimated 3,000 cases of BSE in British herds this year. "In the light of this statistic, the food safety risk is not nil," he commented.
Meanwhile, behind the manoeuvering to see who can dominate whose export markets, the industrial food system which produced this tragedy continues to advance and colonise new territories. Why feed cows on diseased sheep brains in the first place? Because Western democracies are as dependent on cheap food policies for their political stability as any tinpot subtropical dictatorship, that's why. Yet cheap food simply serves to mask the abuse of power, and to conceal the near-exhaustion of the natural environment on which we all depend.
Cows weren't the only animal who saw their life-expectancy drastically shortened this week. In an incident which further confirms how close we are running ourselves to extinction, scientists in Canada reported an alarming surge in the mortality rate of grey whales off the Pacific coast of North America. More than 100 carcasses have been found washed up over the last three months, and hundreds more are thought to be floating out at sea. Scientists believe that up to 1,000 whales, out of a total population of 25,000, may have died during the annual summer migration from the Gulf of Mexico to the Bering Sea. Observers also reported a sharp fall-off in the number of calves sighted alongside females.
The most likely cause of death was at first thought to be toxic chemicals that had been washed into the oceans. Salt mining in Mexico is also known to have impacted access to traditional breeding grounds. But levels of pesticides and polychlorinated biphenals (PCBs) found in the blubber of the dead were lower than expected. Instead, the whales appear simply to have starved to death on the 30,000-kilometre journey north.
The ecosystems of the northern Pacific have been profoundly disturbed by the El Nino activity of the last two years, and cold-water salmon stocks were already known to have dropped dramatically. These latest mass deaths are further evidence that the destruction wreaked reaches right through the food chain, and is not simply confined to one particular species. Set beside the decimation of North Atlantic cod, and the imminent extinction of coral reefs worldwide, the future for our oceans looks increasingly bleak. This is bad news, not just for marine biologists and fishermen, but for life on earth as we know it.
But then, maybe we won't have to wait for the oceans to take us down with them. Maybe we'll all be wiped out long before then. Last week saw the heaviest rains to hit Ghana in 30 years, leaving 325,000 families homeless. In the Upper East Region, 225 villages were entirely submerged, and 1,500 cases of cholera have already been reported. These floods are the latest in a particularly bad year for West Africa, following similar destruction visited on Benin, Burkina-Faso, the Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal over the last four months.
Then, just when you thought it was safe to tune into the news again, a 'supercyclone' hit east India on Friday, as winds of up to 160 miles per hour swept across the coastal regions of Bengal and Orissa. No reliable reports as to the numbers of those dead or wounded were available at the time of writing, but a spokesman for Christian Aid speaking from Calcutta said as many as 10 million people may have lost their homes, and 100,000 villages may have disappeared entirely. This is the second cyclone to hit Orissa in less than a month, and the worst recorded on the sub-continent since 10,000 people died in Andhra Pradesh in 1977.
Strange how it always seems to be India or Costa Rica that gets pulverised, and never New Hampshire or Surrey? But then, as Clausewitz might have said, "Weather is simply the continuation of politics by other means."
