Kevin Myers (born 30 March 1947) is an English-born Irish journalist and writer. He is known for his controversial views on a number of topics, including single mothers ("How many girls - and we’re largely talking about teenagers here - consciously embark upon a career of mothering bastards because it seems a good way of getting money and accommodation from the State? Ah. You didn’t like the term bastard? No, I didn’t think you would."), aid for Africa and the Holocaust.
In July 2017, The Sunday Times announced that Myers would no longer be writing for them following an article he wrote on the BBC gender pay gap, for which he was accused of antisemitism and misogyny, although the chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland stated "Branding Kevin Myers as either an antisemite or a Holocaust denier is an absolute distortion of the facts."
In July 2008, Myers wrote an article arguing that providing aid to Africa only results in increasing its population, and its problems. Under its headline "Africa is giving nothing to anyone – apart from AIDS", it continues, "Even as we see African states refusing to take action to restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the Begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us out of Africa, yet again. It is nearly 25 years since the famous Feed The World campaign began in Ethiopia, and in that time Ethiopia’s population has grown from 33.5 million to 78+ million today. So, why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none." Read the full article here.
He sums up his assessment of Western aid thus: "How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them. Of course, it might make you feel better, which is a prime reason for so much charity!
But that is not good enough. For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed. It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade. It is inspiring Bill Gates’ programme to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most efficacious forms of population-control now operating. If his programme is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.
Oh good: then what? I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or America. (not forgetting Australia!) Yes, that’s an idea".
Instead of criticism, he ought to get a medal for being so truthful about what is a huge problem on a continent that is said to double its population by 2050 - click here.
And here's my final contribution to the subject: remember gumballs? When I was a kid, gumball dispensers were everywhere but there are gone now, having been displaced by what? Syringe disposal containers? Journalist Roy Beck has found one last use for them in this colorful presentation of data from the World Bank and U.S. Census Bureau:
This demonstration speaks for itself and should be required viewing for every politician trying to catch votes through constant virtue-signalling.
