Eshin Direct

The tsunami disaster raises mixed feelings in me. Sympathy for the human tragedy is an obvious reaction. My initial worries about people that I directly knew in the region subsided when I knew they were safe. Of course, there is a nagging doubt in the back of my head about the people I have less frequent contact with, and the big worry is when I go back to Hong Kong where I’m sure to run into people who will have been affected by the tragedy. I don’t know whether it is because I live in Asia or because I look Asian, that people sign off their emails to me these days with “did you know anyone?” or awkwardly inquire at some point during the conversation.

While others wallow in the shock, horror and tragedy of it all courtesy of pervasive consumer technology and sensationalist press reporting, I myself can only stomach the news headlines on TV for a short time before I change to something more lighthearted. In fact, the Internet is positively wonderful since I get the facts without the gorey pictures and the human suffering. Does this sound cold and heartless? Maybe, but once you’ve seen tragedy and people suffering, do you really need to see it in a 24 hour loop? In myself and in my prayers, my thoughts are with those affected and I’ve donated as much as I can afford given my present financial situation.

People should wake up to the idea that nature can and will take lives; for which we can only make feeble attempts to protect ourselves and the bulk of our efforts lie in the relief efforts. She has rather loudly reminded us that we do not yet hold dominion over the earth as the Bible indicates. She has also drawn out the compassionate in us.

But here my skepticism kicks in. While the efforts are admirable to provide aid and do what little we can for our fellow human beings suffering after this tragedy, I wonder whether the extent of the world’s reaction would not have been as great had the numbers not been so high; the timing of the event; and the fact that a good proportion of Western holidaymakers were in the region. Did anyone donate to the victims of Bam in Iran? I certainly found no links to disaster relief aid on any websites after that natural disaster. Were these people any less worthy of our compassion and aid? Perhaps they did not die in enough numbers or they weren’t enticing enough to tourists to warrant a global mobilization of aid.

And here comes the difficult bit. The disaster was a regional catastrophe yet I’ve noticed there has been a stronger focus on Thailand than other areas of the region. I suspect that this is because Thailand had the largest number of foreign tourists in the area, of which included people armed with technology, various media and journalistic types who were on holiday over there. And sure, being in the West right now, I’m inundated with news reports of how many foreign tourists died, who survived and so forth. The plight of the ordinary Thai citizen is perhaps less well documented but then their plight might not be as great as those in Southern India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives or even, in case we forgot them, Indonesia. I don’t know. For me the loss of all life is tragic and the perspectives on that loss of life is for me skewed to be unequal.

What surprises me is that when nature takes its course, the sympathetic heartstrings are pulled and we enjoy the TV specials in a perpetual loop. The world mobilizes in unified expression of solidarity. In essence, it says “We will help you.” The only question I have, without it turning into a political debate, is why this happens so successfully for something that is natural and unstoppable, yet we blindly sit back and watch as human beings, something that we can control, take the human death toll to new heights? Granted not as much as nature can in individual cases, but cumulatively still a scary figure. I wonder that the world has not become desensitized to the thought of people killing each other, and does it really need a natural disaster with a high enough death count to arouse people’s concern for their fellow man into action?

My words aren’t designed to diminish the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami. Nor are they there to discourage you from donating to the relief aid. They are more for you to ask yourself the question why has this been so tragic and perhaps by understanding why you’ve felt sympathy, which galvanized into action, you can call it forth for the rest of the world’s tragedies that are man-made.

Glutter, much that she hates me linking to her site, is one site where you can find a blogger who is finding ways to best get involved with the relief effort in Hong Kong. Since I know her on a personal basis, I can say that in her case, her compassion and concern for people she doesn’t know personally is a consistent thing. Unlike pretty much the rest of the blogosphere, including me, who only gets concerned with it if the numbers are high enough or if people we know were involved. It’s a harsh criticism and an ugly observation but I suspect that it is true for many of you.

Locating the Lost & Info
Red Cross Tsunami Appeal

Tags: charity, disaster, Random Thoughts, red cross, tsunami