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Scrambled Password Bogus Email
09:49 / 06.01.05
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 fuck 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?
 
 
ilredicoppe
12:02 / 06.01.05
It is very hard to tackle the subject without hurting someone's feeling since this site reaches every part of the world and someone might be suffering losses from the tzunami...I apologize in advance.

I think this subject is very intresting...first of all, it's all a matter of press. The media decide what is "painfully tragic" and what is "too bad for them". I think news are manipulated, and some lives are just more worth saving than others: if we were all equal we would not hear news about the latest movies before (or even instead of) news on famine in africa that kills 100 000 people... some places, like africa, will always be just beyond the vision of our eyes, as some dirt we swept under the carpet and we never want to see how they are doing...
why? I think self-defense. After all if news of african kids gutting themselves apart with a knife were on tv everyday, somebody would ask: why are they doing this? And the answer would inevitably include the words "colonialism" "exploitation of natural resources" "structural adjustments" "poor" "debt" "WTO" and "AIDS medications (too expensive)"
(I'm stopping, the list is WAAY big!)
We would feel guilty and guilty isn't cool.

the south-east is different: these are economic tigers, and they are beautiful places...many films were shot there ("the beach" anyone?!)
also, it all happened in a rush, so it was nobody's fault. And no monsoon caused by climate changes, either. It was a earthquake, and boy it doesn't get more guilt-free than that!

even then, though...some lives are just more lives than others...

Here in Italy at least, much ado was placed on Italians that were there at the moment of the tzunami...video footage, interviews...the number of missing italians constantly decreasing and used as a mantra to say "everything is fine"
...a life should be a life, no matter if their passport says "repubblica italiana" or not...
I dunno, I think I got carried away...still, here is what I think!
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
13:05 / 06.01.05
I wonder if part of the reason is the time of year? For the Western world at least it started during the post Christmas holidays, everyone was at home watching telly, there was no other news, at the moment News 24 is still all tsunami almost-all the time. Maybe Band Aid would have been more successful if it had been changed to "Did they Know it was Christmastime (About A Week Ago)?" and had been scheduled to be realised after Christmas?

The ultracynical part of me would suggest that famine in Africa is 20 years old, a tsunami is new and sexy.

The less cynical part of me would suggest that Geldof did Band Aid 20 on his own, it wasn't tied into any specific CURRENT news on Africa and, as far as I'm aware, didn't have a number you could phone to pledge extra money, so the BA profile was considerably lower. I'm not sure if Bob even mentioned that Jubilee Drop the Debt thing (he might have done, I haven't paid close attention after all).
 
 
Grey Area
16:17 / 06.01.05
My assessment of the situation is that the degree of support was mainly forthcoming because of the number of foreign victims. The fact that 'one of us' was directly involved in the role of victim created a bit of a psychological link to the disaster that isn't normally present with the likes of famines in Africa.

Another factor to consider is that the African famines have been the topic of continual appeals for over two decades now, and like it or not most of the people out there have become numb to the pictures and the soundbites. Yes, it's tragic, but it's almost become a yearly thing. Floods in Bangladesh, famines in sub-Saharan Africa, it's all just so much media wallpaper.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
17:15 / 06.01.05
Good points...I feel like I'm walking on glass a little here, since on the one hand I do not wish to disparage the immense generosity on display or belittle the enormous charity already collected, but on the other hand, I am completely bewildered as to how the people who have contributed to this relief effort are able to draw a blind on all the other, equally immense and tragic suffering already occurring all over the place which somehow does not require a similar philanthropic mode of conduct.

Since this is the Head Shop, and on the basis that if anyone wants to call me a cynical cunt for suggesting it is anything but noble and great then they are welcome, I can take it, I'll carry on.

Could it be that there is an element of mortality and the fragility of existence playing in the minds of everybody here? I mean, no-one is about to take holiday in Somalia or the Congo, and the suffering there is nicely out of view unless looked for...but that nagging notion that 'it could have been me, my family, people I love, so I feel compelled to care because I am able to sympathise by imagining myself in that situation'...which is to say, very few Brits or Europeans are likely to picture themselves starving to death in a milita-ravaged famine struck wasteland, but the notion of being washed away while slapping on the Ambre Solaire is uncomfortably close to hone, and a jarring reminder of the fragility of life and the arbitrariness of death...

As a post-script, can someone please tell the Media Machine that never has a more stupidly inappropriate soubriquet been coined than 'Mother' Nature, particularly when referring to a calamitous Earthquake and consequent tsunami which has, in the space of six hours or so, claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people. How Motherly, exactly, is that, to you?

Fetch a better cliche, for fucks sake.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
19:47 / 06.01.05
"I am completely bewildered as to how the people who have contributed to this relief effort are able to draw a blind on all the other, equally immense and tragic suffering already occurring all over the place which somehow does not require a similar philanthropic mode of conduct."

I think this is obviously because they don't *know* about the other troubled areas in the world. That and the fact that this tsunami is a sudden, shocking thing whereas the famines drag on and on.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:02 / 07.01.05
So I am intrigued by this selective compassion, and struggle to understand the rationale behind it all

I think that when people see pictures of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand they see places and destinations that they can at least imagine, that are conceivable in relation to the way that we live. Pictures of Africa- particularly the footage that we were all exposed to in the '80s because of the Band Aid single- are completely at odds with our existence. We don't even have any films to relate to, we don't hear the various languages particularly often, there's just no cultural bridge and we can't make a cultural comparison. There is no bell of recognition, not even an understanding of industry.

Now think about rationality and emotion. People don't work rationally, human society really makes very little sense, we're not systematic especially where our money is concerned. So it's no surprise that people are giving so much money to a relief fund that is aimed at a society that they immediately have some understanding of and not to something ongoing that they've never really been able to cope with because they're too far removed.

I don't think this is primarily about press attention though that is a slight factor, I think it's about what we basically know and don't know*.

*and I mean 'know' in the most instinctive way.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
14:41 / 07.01.05
It's perhaps got something to do with the horrific speed of the destruction. So many people suddenly homeless, a death toll that still may be a conservative guess, and the possibility of more to come. I think Anna's right in so much as the destination's are familiar to a large percentage of the western world in a way that Africa is not. Empathy plays a great part in motivating people. What remains to be seen is whether the help continues after the initial media-splurge - an advert on BBC1 last night urged people not to lose interest. I do think we should be slightly wary of casting too cynical an eye upon a nigh on global act of charity. To be honest, anything that doesn't involve bombing people is a relief, and the US in particular could do with an image boost in the eyes of the world (as could the Mini-Me Britain...)
 
 
alas
13:15 / 08.01.05
To be honest, anything that doesn't involve bombing people is a relief, and the US in particular could do with an image boost in the eyes of the world (as could the Mini-Me Britain...)

A conservative, hearing what I'm about to say, would probably say, "First you complain because the US was stingy, then, when we pony up the cash you say it's all P.R." but, well, I can't help but think that Karl Rove and co., ARE, after an initial gaffe, thinking; "If we make a big public show of charity in this situation, it will nicely deflect attention from the fiasco in Iraq and everywhere else we're dipping our fingers into the trough."

Luckily most people in the U.S. have no clue that the U.S. actually has a very low rate of foreign aid donations in relation to our GDP--and particularly when you subtract aid to Israel, which receives 1/3 of all our foreign aid (and MOST of that aid is military supplies), we are one of the cheapest nations on earth. But we still see ourselves in the evuncular Sam-ly way; as if we're the world's sugar Daddy. Well, we're not. What we've given, what we annually give back to the rest of the world, is _still_ pretty much peanuts.

We get a lot more than we receive, in the form of our use of the world's resources and our exploitation of the world's cheap labor and the consequent social and environmental damage that goes along with all that.
 
 
Pingle!Pop
06:31 / 10.01.05
A conservative, hearing what I'm about to say, would probably say, "First you complain because the US was stingy, then, when we pony up the cash you say it's all P.R." but, well, I can't help but think that Karl Rove and co., ARE, after an initial gaffe, thinking; "If we make a big public show of charity in this situation, it will nicely deflect attention from the fiasco in Iraq and everywhere else we're dipping our fingers into the trough."

It might be worth mentioning, also, that apparently western countries and particularly the US have a rather awful track record on making good on such promises of charity. Someone in the Grauniad was quick to point out after the US' pledge that for most of such pledges, the majority of the money is either redirected from other areas of their aid budget, or just doesn't materialise at all...
 
 
Cat Chant
10:03 / 10.01.05
Yes... has the $1billion you refer to in your first post actually materialized, Money$hot? As Pingle Disco says, apparently the ratio of promised money:actual money is generally about one-quarter.

I mostly agree with everything everyone's said, but there were a few more things I wanted to add:

(1) In situations like the Congo or Darfur/Sudan, where there's a conflict, people maybe are not only wary of contributing money because it seems like taking sides (getting involved in politics/war) but also because there's a well-publicized danger of the money/food/aid being diverted into politics and war - that is, it all gets nicked by the armies and doesn't make it to the refugees. I don't know how great this risk actually is compared to the situation after a natural disaster - does anyone have any information on that? - but there's an immediate cynicism associated with 'political' conflicts rather than 'natural' ones.

Actually, it would be useful to have that distinction broken down a bit ('natural' disasters = result of global warming/ecological disaster = the fault of the energy-consuming/rich nations = 'political', similarly perhaps with some food shortages, eg with farmers in Afghanistan growing opium poppies rather than food for local markets because the price is better due to demand for heroin in Europe...).

(2) I tried to donate some money online to Medicins sans Frontieres for the tsunami a week or so ago and they told me not to - they actually had enough money to be getting on for a while in that area - and passed me on to a website where I could donate for their work in Darfur. So I did. Which I probably wouldn't have done otherwise. So that's good.

(3) I think there's also the Princess Diana effect - though more benevolent in this case (to me, anyway). Mass compassion rather than mass hysteria. Like advertising. I mean, every shop I've gone into lately has had a big home-made bucket for tsunami donations: Lush has not only a free stuff offer but also a pledge that they will match all donations. So instead of begging letters coming through the door, which you can open or not open, or even instead of having to pick up the phone while watching a MsF ad on the telly, the mechanisms for donating are (a) integrated into our daily capitalist/consumer lives and (b) very communal, so you start giving because everyone else is giving. (I guess AIDS ribbons and stuff work on a similar principle - the visibility of contributing to a particular cause.)

(4) I think one thing that's really important is that people giving all this money - and genuinely feeling affected and co-operative and global about it - is a good thing. I mean, I think we should analyse why it happens, but we should do so not, maybe, in a cynical way ("Oh, we only care when there might be [white/British] tourists there") but in a way that can help us... pah, this sounds sort of like an over-statement... but help us foster those conditions for other disasters. Like, if people can feel a sense of global community, compassion and responsibility in these conditions, how can we make these particular conditions apply to other tragedies? I mean, the world is so fragmented and fractal now that in any country in the world there will be the relatives of, say, Britons (being a Brit myself). Or if not relatives, then friends, or even the people who make your fucking trainers, and those sorts of bonds and links between people should be affirmed.
 
 
Not Here Still
18:32 / 11.01.05
Bravo, Deva - I agree with pretty much all of that post.

OPB Money Shot: ...After all if news of african kids gutting themselves apart with a knife were on tv everyday, somebody would ask: why are they doing this? And the answer would inevitably include the words "colonialism" "exploitation of natural resources" "structural adjustments" "poor" "debt" "WTO" and "AIDS medications (too expensive)"

Two points here; people, even those who I know who are politically engaged, have given more to tsunami relief than, say, Band Aid. Because this is an immdeiate response, it's a sticking plaster of aid rather than a bunch of anti-retrovirals, if you follow the metaphor.

Their cash needed now, giving it is uncomplicated and it will, by the sound of things, be very much needed.

People feel they can't, say, re-structure unfair world trade rules or stop wars on their own. Sure, they may feel better for buying Fair Trade coffee, but they don't have a seat at the WTO to change these rules. Sure, they may have oposed the Iraq war and gone on anti-war marches, asd millions did - but they can't stop the bombs from falling once the war has started, at least not until elections in their country come round (and sometimes not even then.)

But they know a tenner to OXFAM will help people, now. A disaster like this is an opportunity to do something which helps others (and this makes people feel good about themselves and, say, that that war they know about but could not stop hasn't ended.)

Point two on this is that more questions do seem to be being asked about things such as global trade and debt relief. I even heard Boris Johnson, the renowned bumbling Tory twit, talking about unfair tariffs on clothing from Sri Lanka the other day. If you ask me, there has been more of a focus on things such as debt relief and the unequal weighting of Western and majority world trade rules in the past fortnight than I've noticed in some time.

To refer to the old adage about the Chinese word for both being the same, this crisis could be an opportunity for more poeple to get involved in issues such as trade, which affect our imopact on the majority world.

Oh, and this is not directed at anyone here, is not a personal attack and is not an attempt to flame, but I do find the assumption that just because people care about the tsunami victims they couldn't give a fuck about anything else a little grating, not least for what the unspoken subtext about the person suggesting such a proposition is...
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
19:24 / 11.01.05
Well, it's difficult not to feel that way. The UK, through charity based donations, raised 100 million quid in a week, did it not (feel free to dispute this if I'm wrong)? That's extraordinary. At work, we're getting five internal emails a day in an office of 300 people for projects they're embarking on to raise money for this one worthy cause. Fantastic. Where's the effort, the give-a-fuck for any of the other equally devastating crises afflicting various poorer nations around the world? It isn't there. Not even like a tenth of this. Makes you wonder...
 
 
Not Here Still
20:37 / 11.01.05
Not even a hundredth of the donations or cash raised, no; I have no reason to dispute your figures Jack, and no desire to either. But as I said in the post above, the situation here is simpler than many; no-one to blame, a natural disaster with no known causes, etc etc. and sure, some people are only giving a fuck about this.

But I don't think we should assume that everyone doesn't give a fuck, just because a vast amount of fundraising isn't being done for every stricken person in the world.

Sometimes, things are more complicated than just giving money; and just because people don't respond to every situation in the same way doesn't mean they don't give a fuck.

And just because someone is aware that all these other people are suffering doesn't make them any better than the hoi polloi they look down on (again, general comment informed more by discussions with people IRL rather than an attack on anyone here)

Hope that's clearer; probably not...
 
 
eye landed
21:52 / 11.01.05
there seems to be three theories running through this thread. (if you dont like my tone, please pretend it isnt there.)

1. the tsunami was sudden, excting, and discrete. it took place during the christmas season. it was therefore more newsworthy than other events. increased exposure by televization means increased dollars from compassionate world citizens who are only prevented from solving every problem by woefully inadequate coverage on cnn/bbc/cbc/mtv.

2. arrogant white neocolonial assholes can identify with danger from 'the other' (in this case, the kali ma/cruel mother archetype) but they (we) shy away from 'internal' (politcal) struggles that we can claim express a process of maturation through crisis.

3. somebody in a position of power is deliberately using the story as a distraction or a pr move. or maybe they set the whole thing up with haarp. ok, that hadnt been mentioned yet.

i find #2 most interesting. in north america at least, we have been conditioned to be strongly anticommunist (i cant really call us capitalist anymore). so somebodys political problems are their own problems (as somebody mentioned). some suckers have to be exploited if we are going to drive hummers (i bike). but without even caring about day-to-day life in indonesia, we figure that propping up victims of a single event thats unlikely to be repeated (theory 1) wont endanger our position of power (in fact it will consolidate it: theory 3).

in order to make myself unpopular, i hereby invoke the spectre of the end of the world. every earthquake is a mere glimpse of what could happen if the earth really decided to change its clothes. one idea ive heard about 2012 is that its the date of a shift in the earths crust or magnetic field (or both), predictable based on precession of equinoxes, that will wipe out most of civilization as it has done before (eg. noahs flood, atlantis). the prominence of earthquake-induced flooding currently in the global consciousness could be a precursor of a worse future.

last thing id like to mention might make me even more unpopular. people are, in fact, working on those other problems. africa is often singled out as a hopeless situation that nobody cares about. but what about other global issues? george bush has been working hard (real hard) on terrorism for the past three years. as much as i disagree with his methods, terrorism is a real problem and it would be nice if he could make some progress for all his rhetoric. but in any case people get behind him for merely acknowledging the problem. next, the (also very recent) death of arafat has prompted many middle east leaders to hope for resolution of that conflict. sharons unsettlement (heh) plan is radical, if ingenuous. my own national leader, paul martin, has been petting a project where world leaders would get together every once in a while and...chat about stuff. its a terrible idea, as even bush has pointed out, but at least hes trying. the unique thing about the tsunami is the grassroots nature of the aid. theres a great immanence in the air, like the day of judgement is near, and it seems like everyone is trying to get in their own good books. an earthquake just happened at the right time (not the right time for the people who died, though).
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:41 / 12.01.05
as much as i disagree with his methods, terrorism is a real problem and it would be nice if he could make some progress for all his rhetoric

Let's be precise here. Terrorism, if we include civil unrest, civil war, the many political crises affecting, say, Africa, is a real problem. Terrorism in the sense that the Bush doctrine defines it - threats of violence against American sovereign territory or US nationals by agents who can be connected to foreign governments - is, although certainly a *problem*, not an enormous one. Compare the casualties from that form of terrorism against the casualties from the tsunami, say, and the comparative spending on both.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
10:29 / 12.01.05
Quite...Aren't the US spending three quarters of a trillion dollars on 'defense'?
 
 
LykeX
12:06 / 12.01.05
I think it's only about half a trillion. They are trying to cut back.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:57 / 12.01.05
the tsunami was sudden, excting, and discrete. it took place during the christmas season

That's a good point actually, we haven't really talked about the Christmas aspect of this and I think it might be relevant. Collectively we spend so much money at Christmas but there's also that giving aspect- how many people actually feel like that's relevant at Christmas?- I always feel guilty because all I seem to do is buy charity cards. And when a massive disaster happens during the season of goodwill- I wonder if that made this bigger in people's minds, like they'd been spending so much money on frivolous things that when something so very different came up they felt motivated to do more.
 
 
Cat Chant
16:23 / 12.01.05
we figure that propping up victims of a single event that's unlikely to be repeated (theory 1) won't endanger our position of power

I think that's an extremely good point, though I wonder to what extent it applies to individuals rather than to governments.
 
 
Cat Chant
09:40 / 10.02.05
Something else I thought of, which at first struck me as trivial but the more I think about it the more I think it's actually important and key: the word tsunami is an excellent brand name. 'Famine', 'civil war', 'Democratic Republic of Congo', not so much good brand names. But tsunami is the kind of sexy, exotic word that could have been used to name a bar a few years ago (Bar Tsunami!). Plus, it works like other brand names: it has instant recognizability (there aren't any other tsunamis going on) and it refers to a social position (caring global-village-type person) as much as to content/product. I'd really be interested to see what kinds of things are being 'branded' as tsunami benefit nights - could we use this thread also to collect those with a view to doing a Mythologies-style analysis of the tsunami logo?
 
  
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