posted
I'm not the author of this post; I wanted to transport it from here because I thought it was an interesting question.
quote:I do not wish to offend anybody who may have been affected by the tsunami which has claimed many lives and caused great devastation to several countries and their economies, but I am very confused by the sudden unprecedented outpouring of symapthy over just this specific tragedy.
Uncle Bob Geldof rather bravely hit the press yesterday with somewhat the same sentiment - up until Boxing Day, it was all about Band Aid...500,000 copies sold! £1.99 a copy, all proceeds to help starving peoples in Africa, who die at the same magnitude as the tsunami effected every quarter or so, probably more (31,000 per month in the Congo alone - although a conflict is involved, the deaths are largely a result of famine and starvation).
Also, the 'nature' part seems to be a factor - if it was unstoppable, we feel we have to help, but if sanctioned by goverments or deliberate though illegal, well - thems the breaks, sorry, you're on your own!
So I am intrigued by this selective compassion, and struggle to understand the rationale behind it all...I mean, a billion dollars is no mean feat...It's an old cliche that the cost of feeding and providing basic sanitation for the entire planet has been estimated by the WHO and various other organisations (UNICEF etc.) to be "just" $4 billion...a quarter of which has been collectively achieved by charitable donation and international government help in just one week...seven rotations of the planet, and enough slush funds to feed and provide sanitation conditions commensurate with high life expectancy for one whole quarter of the planet's population!
I've noticed the media heading off into tangents as ephemeral as 'How does belief in God jibe with an event such as this' (????WTF???) but the real question that is burning in me is do we, individually and collectively as nations and a species, either give a **** about each other or not? What are the criteria for caring? At what level of destruction or loss of life is the demarcating line drawn?
posted
People are sheep. They do what the media tells them. Though I did mention in some other thread that the tsunami donations were probably going to starve other charities for a while.
Posts: 666 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Single disasters are more sudden, and more heartbreaking, then things that go on for a long time. "1 death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." One day, or one week, of deaths is a tragedy... 10 years of deaths is part of life.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Personally, I've wondered how much was racism. Asians are stereotyped as smart and hard working. Blacks are stereotyped much less favorably. Does Africa get less charity because it's full of blacks?
I've generally found the people who complain the most about sending our money overseas instead of helping the poor here in America are ususally the people who aren't giving anything. Not sure about the folks who give for one crisis but not another. They sure aren't getting the newsletters from World Vision that I'm getting. The stories of the hunger, droughts, and AIDS deaths make it very immediate to me.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
AvidReader, I can hardly bear to read my newsletter from WorldVision each month. We have three sponsored children...two of them are with WorldVision. The other is with CompassionInternational.
I love getting letters from our kids...don't like so much the newsletters from WorldVision. They're just so heartbreaking.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"Does Africa get less charity because it's full of blacks?"
I suspect it gets less charity because its humanitarian disasters are largely seen as the consequence of human error and wrongdoing, rather than an Act of God.
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posted
*snort* So God we want to fix but human mistakes are left on their own? Yeah, that makes sense.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Yeah, there are plenty of people in the world who need help just as badly as those who are actually getting it. And we can wonder why so many people are doing their best to help those affected by the tsunami, but not those who have been suffering elsewhere. But when it comes down to it, shouldn't we just be glad that people are helping the tsunami victims? In fact, after the situation has improved, it might encourage people to try and see how else they can make a difference in the world. As for why people seem to more readily open their hearts (and wallets) in this particular case; that's probably because it was a sudden disaster which has been all over the news, whereas things like people starving to death and dying from disease in Africa (as horrible as this may sound) are essentially background noise in people's lives. People know that it's terrible, but they've just kind of accepted it as the way the world is. I'm not saying that this attitude is right, I'm just giving my take on the situation.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I think the problems with aid to Africa are as follows:
1. People feel so daunted by the problem there they think it can't be fixed, so they'd rather donate money to something they can see, something that makes them feel a part of something ACCOMPLISHING something constantly, such as the tsunami rebuilding.
2. We can see that there is progress being made in the tsunami clean up and aid, but it seems like in Africa there are always civil wars and famine and death. Basically, they cause so many problems on their own that anything we do to try and help would be a waste of time, and pointless.
3. The problems of Africa are because of the screw ups of man in the past, whereas the tsunami happened to people who have built their own societies only to see them washed away due to bad luck.
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quote:*snort* So God we want to fix but human mistakes are left on their own? Yeah, that makes sense.
"Acts of God" like tsunamis happen once, and then the calm down, and we come in and fix them. Acts of man like genocide, epidemic, and forced starvation are often ongoing, and attempts to fight them are actively resisted or undone by the people causing them.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I think part of the reason why the tsunami victims are getting so much aid is because so many people died so very quickly, so many lives changed in an instant. It didn't happen over a year or two - it happened in a few minutes. So there's the suddenness, the shock aspect. I think another reason is because tsunamis killing this many people don't happen very often. When was the last time it happened? Probably Krakatoa in 1883, although I could be mistaken. Another reason is the publicity. It's sensationalism to keep showing pictures hour after hour of the devastation the tsunami caused.
Pictures of dead bodies caused by famine aren't as interesting. They don't garner the ratings that tsunami pictures will get.
Perhaps another reason would be that, in at least some of these countries where people are dying of starvation, reporters aren't allowed in, or aren't allowed easy access. Or it's been going on for so long that people are bored by it.
Commenting on "the tsunami happened to people who have built their own societies only to see them washed away due to bad luck" - not entirely true. Many of the people who built their homes close to the beach had, in fact, been warned by the government not to do so, that there were potential hazards. They chose to anyway. That's choice. Bad choice, but choice nonetheless. And yes, still bad luck that the tsunami hit - they didn't deserve that.
However, people who are starving because of bad politics don't deserve it, either.
It's pretty easy to forget about things when we're not constantly reminded.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Another thing I've noticed with the tsunami aid is the EASE with which we all can donate. My local Costco has signs over the cash register that say "donate here." Amazon.com opens with a splash page that says "donate here."
Has this not happened before because we as a society would've been bugged by it? (probably) In that case, we really must be feeling more sympathy for this batch of victims. I think you guys hit the nail when you talked about the media coverage of all the tragedy in Africa. Do they even talk about it? Do they run, or are they able to run photos (which appeal to sympathy more than words, as does a huge death toll)?
It would be great if this movement sparked several other fundraising movements that make donating easy and brainless and that can actually make a difference. Do you think we would go along with it? I hope so.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Words don't help as much when they're about groups of people. But words help a helluva lot when they're about specific individuals with specific stories. And that's something else that's different about this one - a lot of individuals reported in to people they knew about the disaster as it was unfolding via text messaging with cell phones. Cell phone technology is a huge thing here in south Asia, let me tell you. Embraced and run with it is another way to phrase it. People here use their cell phones in ways that make you North Americans look like neophytes. Like text messaging. I think it was nearly always available on my cells in Canada, but I never used it, and no one else did that I know of. Here, everybody does. The reason? Cost.
A cell phone call costs me Rs. 17 per minute outgoing, Rs. 8 or so incoming. A text message costs Rs. 2 - even if it's to another country! When you consider how poor people here are, you can see why people here are so price conscious and embrace things that save them a lot of money. Fahim and I will text message each other when we're not in the same building rather than make a phone call - because of the cost.
Granted, not everyone can afford a cell phone. True. But in a disaster like this, people from all parts of the economic scale are affected.
So when the tsunami hit, and landlines were down, if one could actually find a telephone, that is, and there's no internet to be found, scores of people sent text messages about everything that happened and was happening. Many of these stories formed news reports on the internet or became part of a blog. Huge dissemination of information in a very fast way.
Africa. Starving. Do they have cell phones? If they're starving, they're likely too poor to have cell phones. Not all parts of the economic scale are affected equally, I would think. If you have money, you can afford the inflation that comes with droughts or shortages. That's the position Fahim and I are in - we know we'll be okay financially even if food is short because we can afford to pay. But the poor and starving in Africa? Not likely.
I think that again, it's the lack of personal accounts and pictures of individuals. We don't hear from any of the individuals who are being affected.
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