What is it about the word "Africa" which causes tongues to babble in platitudes and pious non-sequiturs? Last week, for example, a group of ex-missionaries wrote to this newspaper urging people to vote No to Nice because of events in Africa. We might as well have been told to vote No because of the impact on Jupiter. Any child in a mission school who wrote such tosh would be led out of class by the ear and told to go and hunt lions with his bare hands, because he clearly has no academic future.
Paragraph one of the letter alleged that awful destruction had been done to Africa by small arms and conventional weapons - as opposed to what? Nuclear weapons? Napalm? Or, in Africa's case, do they mean pangas? Because the panga was the weapon of choice during the massacres in Sierre Leone, Liberia and Rwanda, and is excellent for impromptu amputations and inflicting lingeringly fatal wounds.
Home-made weapons
Paragraph two said that many of the weapons used in Africa are made in Europe. Pangas are home-made. The preferred rifle is the Soviet Kalashnikov. I have seen some American M16s there, and the occasional antique Belgian FN, long since out of manufacture. No rifles made in the EU are commonly used in Africa.
Paragraph three declares that "from this background, we wish to express our concern at the implications of a Yes vote on the Nice Treaty". No, there is no connection between the three paragraphs; only when you have inhaled that strange hallucinogenic drug called "Africa" could you think there was. Sniff on, and see what sense you can make of what follows.
After pointing out the "disturbingly" close relationship between the European Rapid Reaction Force and NATO, the letter then asserts that the increase in US defence spending will mean that EU defence spending will increase also. (Why?) This same dazzling paragraph, which never mentions Africa once - perhaps because its authors are too busy inhaling it - then declares that the US plans to withdraw from European NATO, "knowing its needs will be adequately cared for by the RRF" (And? The point, please?)
The next paragraph adds more blather about not militarising Europe, and urges us to follow the example of Denmark's protocol on arms. This is puzzling. Denmark is an enthusiastic member of NATO. Its air force has 69 F16 fighters, three C-130 Hercules, eight Sea King helicopters, numerous other combat aircraft, and 5,000 personnel. Its 4,000-strong navy has five submarines, 14 multi-purpose attack vessels, six mine-layers, 10 fast patrol vessels and a dozen other combat vessels. Its army is 25,000-strong, with 300 battle tanks and a combat-ready reserve of 81,000. Its defence budget is £2 billion - four times that of the Republic's. If our missionary friends are saying our Defence Forces should emulate Denmark's, with supersonic fighters, submarines, and missile launchers, well, by golly chaps and chappesses, for once I agree with you.
Irish leadership
Paragraph six returns to Africa after an absence of four paragraphs, declaring: "Our experience of the killing fields of Africa convinces us that increased militarisation is not the road for Europe to travel. We urge the Irish people to give leadership on this issue."
Go on. Pick that paragraph up. Feel it. Smell it. Turn it upside and examine it closely. Does it make any sense? I wouldn't expect anything as mentally rigorous as a syllogism in its reasoning, not with all that Africa in the air, but is there an intellectual relationship of any kind between its essential premises? Or does this psychedelia of non-sequiturs generally state that because things are bad in Africa, we shouldn't agree to Nice just yet, and, oh yes, we should give leadership.
Leadership, eh? Excellent! And who will follow? Who will say, There goes Mighty Ireland, the Moral Colossus of Our Times, and wherever it goes, so must we? Go on. Which country? What other state has the luxury of living in a NATO-defended sea from which it can issue stern and leaderly requests to its defenders to disarm? What other state? Well, Iceland, actually. Good. So the pair of us can call on the world to follow our example; and of course, everyone promptly will, provided, that is, they've been inhaling Africa.
Of course no one should sell arms to Africa; the continent is already awash with them. But otherwise, is it generally agreed we should do business with Africa, invest capital in its industry, and buy its exports? Yes?
No, alas. Trocaire now says the Government should "use its influence in the UN and the EU" - ah yes, our leadership again - to halt Western investment in the Sudan oilfields until human rights abuses by the Sudanese regime are ended.
Human rights
Hold on, I'm getting dizzy again. Are we going to lobby the US government to tell Exxon not to invest in Sudan, or anywhere else where there are human rights violations? And George W's going to look at our ambassador in Washington, and he'll slap his thigh and cry, By Jiminy, you have a point there. Is that it?
So what African country can we ethically invest in? Tanzania, the Congo, Uganda, Zimbabwe are at war, so they're out. Liberia, Sierre Leone and Somalia have nothing to invest in. As for Rwanda and Burundi, where do you begin? There's Nigeria, of course, this week at least. But it wasn't so long ago that we were being told to boycott BP because of the execution there of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Which leaves what? Chad?
Very sandy, Chad.