In the article, “Starving Children Don’t Cry”, Nicholas Kristof sheds light on the negative effects that the current pandemic has had on developing countries, especially Yemen. He begins by writing about how too many children are dying as a result of starvation. One of the main negative effects that Kristof speaks of is the financial situation within these countries that have led famines beginning to rise for an additional time since 2017. This resulted in many innocent people and children dying. Also, the pandemic made it increasingly difficult for people with illnesses such as AIDS, malaria, polio, and even Vitamin A deficiency to get the proper meditation that they need to treat their conditions. Another main issue the author stated was that the pandemic would escalate child marriage rates, genital mutilation rates, and reduced access to contraceptives which may add to the unintended pregnancy rates. As a result of the author illuminating these issues, she comes to the conclusion that one of the main solutions to this issue was to have greater efforts to distribute the vaccine globally, debt relief and assistance from wealthy countries. Therefore, the author’s attempts at these strategies are effective enough to more likely bring the reader to a conclusion that they can help and also strive to make a change within the world in terms of world hunger and many other issues that were stated in the article.
In the beginning of the article, Kristof opens up by simply stating how terrible starvation can be and then proceeds to explain the symptoms that one most likely undergoes when dealing with severe starvation. However, he did this by using a 2nd person point of view to get his point across. This strategy appeals to emotion; the author is intentionally leading the reader to imagine how awful starvation is and how devastating it would be to starve to the point of nearly dying. In the article Kristof states, “Starvation is agonizing and degrading. You lose control of your bowels. Your skin peels off, your hair falls out, you hallucinate and you may go blind from lack of vitamin A. While you waste away, your body cannibalizes itself: It consumes its own muscles, even the heart.” By writing in a 2nd person point of view, it allows the reader to feel included in the article and creates a sense that the author is speaking directly to the reader. To add on, Kristof includes facts about starvation that the reader most likely does not know about. This could be due to the fact that the audience for this article is mainly those who are in a better financial standing and not suffering like the people living in developing countries are. More than likely, these people don’t know what it’s like to suffer to this degree, which is why the author made such an emphasis on including these symptoms. This strategy is effective because when allowing the reader to step into the shoes of others that may be suffering from starvation, it paves the way for a surreal comprehension. This contributes heavily to the overall attempt to get the reader to feel convicted and make a move. Therefore, opening with these facts is an exceptional attention grabber to effectively speak about the starvation crisis that has been worsened due to the pandemic.
After Kristof writes about what it’s like to go through starvation, he then proceeds to tell the story of a little 4-year old boy named Abdo who lives in Yemen. This is an appeal to both facts and emotion. In the article Kristof states:
Yet Abdo Sayid, a 4-year-old boy so emaciated he weighed just 14 pounds, wasn’t crying when he was brought to a hospital recently in Aden, Yemen. That’s because children who are starving don’t cry or even frown. Instead, they are eerily calm; they appear apathetic, often expressionless. A body that is starving doesn’t waste energy on tears. It directs every calorie to keep the major organs functioning. (Kristof)
By using the strategy of storytelling in this case, there is a possibility that the reader would imagine someone that they know who might also be around the same age going through the same thing, resulting in them truly feeling the pain of knowing this same young boy and were not able to help in his situation. Also, it is not common knowledge that people or children who are starving severely can not cry due to the fact that the target audience mainly consists of people who are in a more stable financial condition and have never gone through such a traumatic experience. Using this strategy is effective because it allows the reader to open their eyes to how serious this situation is. To add on, the author includes information of a helpless child which would effectively stir up emotions because any person with empathy should believe that no child should have to go through this. Therefore, the storytelling is essential to the effectiveness of the author’s purpose because it sets a relevant representation of the suffering that the children in third world countries are going through.
Further along in Kristof’s article, he mentions the fact that he usually begins writing his more downhearted articles by illuminating the highlights of the previous year. However, in this article, he simply was not able to do so because he believes 2020 was a very despairing year with nothing good that came from it. He proceeds to mention the statistics of how many more children have died in the matter of months instead of years. This is an appeal to emotion and logic. In his article, Kristof stated;
At this time of the year I normally counter all my gloomy columns by writing that the previous year was the best in human history, by such metrics as the share of children dying by the age of 5. But 2020 was not the best year in human history. It was an annus horribilis, and UNICEF warns that the result may be 10,000 additional children dying each month from hunger. (Kristof)
The purpose for the author saying this was to highlight the true disparity of what's been going on in terms of the pandemic and how it’s affecting certain groups of people. The fact that the author was not able to introduce bad news by stating the good news from the year before conveys that there is truly an issue that needs to be addressed sooner or later. Stating his dilemma and these statistics are effective because it is a further shot at getting the reader to understand the severity of the issues such as starvation and famine that are plaguing this world. In other words, the fact that there was not good news to give, pushes the reader to reflect on how much the world is increasingly falling apart day by day which may further allow for some deep thinking on how the reader may be able to help in this situation. Therefore, if the author had not used this strategy, the reader would not have known how much this grieves the heart of the author regarding this topic.
Soon after mentioning how he was not able to include his usual introduction, Kristof decides to give some background information about Yemen which is an appeal to logic. In the article he states:
Yemen’s suffering is complicated. Always poor, the country has been shattered by a war and blockade by Saudi Arabia, with backing from the United States under both the Obama and Trump administrations. (Obama officials have acknowledged, not as candidly as they should, that this was a mistake.) Misrule by the Houthi faction, backed by Iran, has compounded the suffering, as have both cholera and the coronavirus — and donor countries are focused on their own problems and averting their eyes.(Kristof)
The author’s purpose for stating this information is because he wanted to let the readers know that Yemen has been suffering as a country for a long time even before the pandemic. This strategy is effective because it allows the reader to feel empathy for people living in these conditions on a daily basis for a long period of time. These facts further prove the author's claim that the pandemic had only made matters worse for these third world countries.
In addition to Kristof giving some background information regarding the long suffering in Yemen, he proceeds to call out developed countries on their lack of aid to the countries that are mainly struggling. This strategy is an appeal to logic. Kristof stated, “The setback in developing countries has been exacerbated by passivity, paralysis and indifference in the United States and Europe, and in international organizations like the World Bank.” (Kristof) The author is pointing out the fact that one of the main reasons developing countries are in this state is because the people that are actually able to help are being passive and not focusing on the issues that matter much more. This strategy is effective because it allows the reader to get a better understanding of what exactly is adding fuel to these pre-existing issues.
Soon after calling out developing countries regarding their idleness to help the countries in need, Kristof provides further information that connects the pandemic to global suffering in developing countries. In his article he states, “The biggest cause of the global crisis is the coronavirus pandemic, but only indirectly. Outside of the rich world, the casualties are not octogenarians with the virus so much as children dying of hunger because of economic disruptions, or middle-aged adults dying of AIDS because they can’t get medicines.
Works Cited
Kristof, N. (2021, January 2). Starving children don't cry. The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/opinion/sunday/2020-worst-year-famine.html?smid=url-share