I know two things about the entry I'm about to write. One is that many will say I'm overreacting and belittle my concerns. The other is that many will feel just the same as I do.
Yesterday, in the Spanish town of Bunol, near Valencia, over 40,000 people took part in "La Tomatina" a gargantuan food fight held each year in August. During this inexcusable descent into debauchery, more than one hundred metric tons of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown around in the streets. More than one thousand metric tons of food is wasted, wantonly destroyed, with no thought to what it could mean to those currently suffering in the Horn of Africa.
According to the UN, more than six out of every 10,000 people there are dying of hunger every day. In some parts of Somalia, more than half the children are suffering from acute malnutrition. "Somalia is facing its worst food security crisis in the last 20 years, This desperate situation requires urgent action to save lives." So says Mark Bowden, the UN official in charge of humanitarian aid in Somalia.
In that same region, Ethiopia and Kenya are also facing a famine because of the worst drought in 60 years in some places. While the disgusting scenes of La Tomatina played themselves out in Bunol, there were 11 million people starving in Africa. They all require humanitarian assistance. They all would have been more than delighted to eat those tomatoes. They would have treasured that food so willfully wasted in Spain.
La Tomatina should never happen again.
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