18th July 2023

Yesterday morning I was casually watching the Government Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and I saw an interview with Iula Joja from Prague, currently with the Institute of the Black Sea Program and previously with The NATO Allied Command Transformation (whatever that is – based in Virginia, USA I understand) talking about the Ukraine shipments of grain through the black sea no longer being protected by Russia.

Of course, everything was blamed on the Kremlin and Putin, with no reflection on the reason for the agreement of ships carrying Ukrainian grain in the first place.  The original plan was that grain should be delivered to those countries in desperately need of that grain – African countries – not the wealthy European counties.  However only 2.5% of these exports went to Africa and extreme hunger even starvation continued unabated there with no concern from Europe or of course the USA or Canada.

The second reason for the arrangement was of course financial. If the cost of any raw product goes up for any reason (scarcity being one of them) then that cost must be passed on (basic corporate profit motive) and the fear of increased prices to Europeans was more important than the starvation of millions of Africans. The fact that Europe was shooting itself in the foot financially with sanctions imposed on both Russia and itself was immaterial.

Since the main reason for the agreement was not being met, and anyway shipments now are being made by rail and road through Poland – to “wealthy” European countries – what was the point of continuing with the Black Sea agreement?

No real reason, but of course blame for everything had to be laid at Russia’s door. I wonder sometimes how facts today are not really facts because even black and white can be made to be white and black.  Truth is hard to recognize even though it appears to be so rare, and prejudiced opinions are everywhere – (including here it appears though I do try and look at both sides) – and with the coming rise of AI it will become impossible to get to the truth. 

I wonder what happened to the concept of logic.  I fear it went away with the lack of actually talking to one another over a table instead of texting.

Jeremy

https://www.un.org/en/black-sea-grain-initiative/vessel-movements