Kenya facing drought and famine of biblical proportions…

I know, I know:  reading about the scourge of drought and famine in Africa is like reading about the menace of guns and drugs in America. 

And truth be told, I harbor no illusions that anything I write will have any bearing on the looming fate of millions who are now competing with wild animals for food and water.

Not to mention that Kenyan’s seem so forsaken that as some pray for rain, others – who were displaced from their homes to tent cities by tribal warfare – are praying that it won’t rain….

But I suspect that your conscience is as troubled as mine by the fact that as Americans are debating how to provide better access to health care, Africans are praying for a way to provide the basic necessities of life. 

And the only way I can think to explain my abiding concern is by invoking the humanitarian concern Martin Luther King, Jr expressed in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”:

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Accordingly, we cannot sit idly by in America and not be concerned about what happens in Africa.  For, as 9/11 demonstrated, what happens in remote, repressed and poverty-stricken areas of the world can have profound and devastating impact upon us here in America. 

A joint Kenya-United Nations report indicates that drought conditions and food shortages are expected to last until next spring.

Therefore, any contributions you can make to the UN’s World Food Program, which has been spearheading efforts to provide food aid, would be greatly appreciated.

Related commentary:
Kenya forms coalition gov’t…

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