05 May 2016
The Hunger Gap
Food for thought.
by Neil Tidmarsh
Have they gone too far this week? The pro-Russian separatists of Ukraine might have got away with the annexation of Crimea, they might have got away with establishing the breakaway peoples’ republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, but have they at last bitten off more than they can chew? They’ve ignored international sanctions, they’ve fought government troops to a standstill, they’ve seen off threats from the EU and the USA, they’ve defied Putin’s Minsk agreement, but now they’ve come face to face with one of the most powerful forces in the world – the McDonalds corporation.
McDonalds closed down its outlets in east Ukraine’s breakaway republics when armed conflict broke out two years ago. But the company’s lawyers are scrutinising photos published on-line this week which show a new fast-food restaurant called “Mc” serving American burgers, with that famous golden arch prominently displayed, to hungry pro-Moscow separatists in Luhansk. Yes, someone has reopened one of the McDonalds restaurants closed in 2014, and even though the new operators have decorated the place with a prominently displayed Luhansk Peoples Republic flag, it seems that they aren’t bothering too much to hide where they got the business from. The McDonalds corporation claims that the operation is unlawful and will no doubt take all measures they can to get it closed down. An interesting clash of corporate globalisation and local if bloody ethnic conflict is about to ensue.
Here, in the first week of May, the traditional “hunger gap” is about to peak. The “hunger gap” is of course this time of year – February to May – when people were traditionally in danger of starving, as the new crops, though beginning at last to ripen in the field, are still not ready to eat, and the remnants of last year’s harvests, stored for consumption over winter, have given out or gone off. Naturally, this is no longer a danger today – foodstuffs can be flown around the world from one hemisphere to another, so seasonality no longer applies – but some sort of atavistic memory about the “hunger gap” must survive. How else to explain the abundance of stories about food and eating in the news this week?
Of course, they aren’t really about food – this is a serious column about serious issues, after all, as my co-editor is about to remind me. The food shortages in Venezuela are a serious matter – the riots and looting in Maracaibo this week are proof of the failure of the hard-line socialist policies of Presidents Chavez and Maduro, and an indication of their dreadful consequences. And the removal of the president’s Food Minister by the opposition majority is a sign of a desperate fight-back by democracy after sixteen years of virtual dictatorship.
And a supreme court ruling in Italy is being used by the Italian press to highlight the fact that even in this first world country many people are living with hunger and poverty. The supreme court was considering an appeal about the case of a homeless Ukrainian immigrant sentenced to six months in jail and a €100 fine for stealing sausage and cheese worth just over £3 from a supermarket in Genoa. The court threw out the sentence, judging that stealing, if you’re hungry, is not a crime. “The condition of the accused and the circumstances in which he obtained the merchandise show that he had taken the little amount of food he needed to overcome his immediate and essential requirement for nourishment” said the written ruling (as quoted in The Times).
Mind you, the hungry can be fussy, as another story from Italy showed this week. Simone Salvini, a celebrity vegetarian chef with his own TV show, volunteered to lend a hand at a soup-kitchen run by monks in Bologna. He served up a number of his vegan recipes, only to have them rejected by the homeless denizens of Italy’s culinary capital, famous for its meat sauces. They turned their backs on his pulses, declaring “We’re heading back to the streets because we need meat”.
In Germany, this week’s news has been dominated by revelations about the disaster which is the new Berlin-Brandenburg airport. It’s 5 years behind schedule and £5 billion over budget; and the project’s ex-chief planner admitted this week that it may never be completed. There are even rumours that it will have to be torn down and rebuilt. But what really brought the whole story alive was the claim that an engineer who had raised concerns about bribery and corruption at the project had been poisoned while drinking coffee at the construction site last May. Fortunately, he has since recovered and returned to work; but his spiked coffee must be the most potent symbol of the way corruption poisons society since Uncle Claudius poured poison into Hamlet Senior’s ear while he was asleep in the garden at Elsinore Castle.
Finally, from Tuva in Southern Siberia, the story of the lawyer who was caught eating the evidence which would have had his client convicted of drink-driving offences. The lawyer was briefly left on his own in a court room while examining documents about the charge. He took the opportunity to pocket the paper confirming the positive breath test. Later, he popped it into his mouth and ate it. With a vital piece of evidence gone missing, the trial could not go ahead. Luckily, all was recorded on the court’s surveillance camera, and the truth came to light when the footage was reviewed by court bailiffs. And the serious point illustrated by this story? Well, I’m not sure there is one. I just thought it was funny.
After all, there are few things in life more important than food and laughter. An opinion which grows only stronger week by week as I review the world’s dark deeds for Shaw Sheet.
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