Wake up and smell the tears
So. Katrina.
I'm not normally shaken by disasters of this or any scale. So sue me, I'm jaded that way. I recognize without needing my degree in history that atrocities have always happened and always will, but that whenever we as an individual or a society have it in our realistic power to ease suffering we should do so. It distances me emotionally without reducing my will to act. I'll claim it as a benefit.
So excuse my rant.
I've been sitting back and watching both camps on the Katrina "tsunami" issue, be it forums or friends. One probably very frazzled and politically innocent line from the mayor of Biloxi and everybody's arguing. (I note, too, that in the first article I read there was fuller version of the quote where the mayor was calling this a local, smaller scale version of the tsunami, which is more accurate, but I can no longer find that article in the flood of online postings now..) I can understand why people would be disgusted if they perceive that analogy as "typical American egotism". Yeah, hurricane Katrina's devastation is nothing in terms of numbers compared to December tsunami. Yeah, our citizens are getting more in aid than the people of SE asia did.
Grow a heart, people.
I'm sure there are cases of people believing this disaster more devastating in the bigger picture than the tsunami -- and they're either emotionally blinded or egotistically ignorant. But the vast majority of people supporting that statement favor and the point in general is that Katrina and the tsunami ARE the same --- in that lives are ruined and have to be rebuilt, regardless of nationality. These are people whose lives have been ruined by happenstance nature. Don't live near the ocean? Many people (to note, those now suffering the most) are too poor to relocate, and living in a high-risk of natural disaster area is least on their list of worries. (Although I agree people who build their condos basically on the water and have hurricane parties are deserving of every Darwin award they get.) People are suffering now, and people did in December. Whether they're American or Indonesian makes no difference. Would you walk up to a now-homeless and jobless mother from New Orleans and tell her she should suck it up and be happy she's American and thus more privileged than the tsunami victims, that it's her own fault for living there?
Grow a heart, or at least stop and think outside your own anti-American narrowmindedness.
I'm not sure of the percentages, but the feeling from at least some Indonesians is not outrage at the US calling this "our tsunami", but empathy to the victims. Thailand's program manager for Oxfam, Yowalak Thiarachow, is quoted as saying the devastation in New Orleans "shows Thai people and Americans are in the same boat." She did add that the victims will receive more aid than Thai victims did, but the bottom line is that innocent people were dealt a crippling blow by an indiscriminating natural monstrosity.
I twitched when I saw the our tsunami quote because I knew it was a potentially loaded and divisive statement the media could run with. I disagree with it as anything more than a general humanitarian analogy like I already alluded to, but I disagree more with people jumping all over it. That's not the point, people. The point is the tsunami was a tragedy for the victims and Katrina is a tragedy for its victims, and we need to try and step into what it must be like for people going through trials like that. There was also a quote by a Biloxi official I read earlier saying he imagined the devastation now is what Hiroshima must have looked like... that's probably going to have even more people up in arms.
That's not the point. The point is these are distraught people faced with wreck and ruin by any decent standard and they're likening this to the only things they can conceive of in their emotional state as equally devastating... I don't agree with those analogies, but I can understand the emotional impact is still terrible, and that's what really matters.
But then, that might be the psychologist in me.
The point is we shouldn't be bickering over things that are most likely emotional things said in emotional times --- start complaining if the history books record this as an event greater than the December tsunami. Right now, people are suffering, and we should think about them first.
One of my best friends just moved to Biloxi because of family and I can't reach him. I'm distraught and since cell towers are down I can't get through to his mom. I have no idea where he might have evacuated to, if he and his mother are homeless now, jobless, collegeless... the odds point towards all of those. I've filed with the Salvation Army and other missing person sites and am waiting to hear something, and fucking god I can tell you it's not pleasant just sitting and waiting. I'll drive down there if it's needed and bring them up here myself, gas prices be damned. I'm one rather broke and overloaded college student who was supposed to graduate but while finishing up requirements decided to tack on another minor even if it'll cost a bit more (gov't, surprise surprise) so I can't do that much, but if I couldn't even help out a friend like Matt...
I don't know about you, whoever you are, but to me that - human feelings and understanding - is what really counts throughout this and all trials of humanity.
I'm not normally shaken by disasters of this or any scale. So sue me, I'm jaded that way. I recognize without needing my degree in history that atrocities have always happened and always will, but that whenever we as an individual or a society have it in our realistic power to ease suffering we should do so. It distances me emotionally without reducing my will to act. I'll claim it as a benefit.
So excuse my rant.
I've been sitting back and watching both camps on the Katrina "tsunami" issue, be it forums or friends. One probably very frazzled and politically innocent line from the mayor of Biloxi and everybody's arguing. (I note, too, that in the first article I read there was fuller version of the quote where the mayor was calling this a local, smaller scale version of the tsunami, which is more accurate, but I can no longer find that article in the flood of online postings now..) I can understand why people would be disgusted if they perceive that analogy as "typical American egotism". Yeah, hurricane Katrina's devastation is nothing in terms of numbers compared to December tsunami. Yeah, our citizens are getting more in aid than the people of SE asia did.
Grow a heart, people.
I'm sure there are cases of people believing this disaster more devastating in the bigger picture than the tsunami -- and they're either emotionally blinded or egotistically ignorant. But the vast majority of people supporting that statement favor and the point in general is that Katrina and the tsunami ARE the same --- in that lives are ruined and have to be rebuilt, regardless of nationality. These are people whose lives have been ruined by happenstance nature. Don't live near the ocean? Many people (to note, those now suffering the most) are too poor to relocate, and living in a high-risk of natural disaster area is least on their list of worries. (Although I agree people who build their condos basically on the water and have hurricane parties are deserving of every Darwin award they get.) People are suffering now, and people did in December. Whether they're American or Indonesian makes no difference. Would you walk up to a now-homeless and jobless mother from New Orleans and tell her she should suck it up and be happy she's American and thus more privileged than the tsunami victims, that it's her own fault for living there?
Grow a heart, or at least stop and think outside your own anti-American narrowmindedness.
I'm not sure of the percentages, but the feeling from at least some Indonesians is not outrage at the US calling this "our tsunami", but empathy to the victims. Thailand's program manager for Oxfam, Yowalak Thiarachow, is quoted as saying the devastation in New Orleans "shows Thai people and Americans are in the same boat." She did add that the victims will receive more aid than Thai victims did, but the bottom line is that innocent people were dealt a crippling blow by an indiscriminating natural monstrosity.
I twitched when I saw the our tsunami quote because I knew it was a potentially loaded and divisive statement the media could run with. I disagree with it as anything more than a general humanitarian analogy like I already alluded to, but I disagree more with people jumping all over it. That's not the point, people. The point is the tsunami was a tragedy for the victims and Katrina is a tragedy for its victims, and we need to try and step into what it must be like for people going through trials like that. There was also a quote by a Biloxi official I read earlier saying he imagined the devastation now is what Hiroshima must have looked like... that's probably going to have even more people up in arms.
That's not the point. The point is these are distraught people faced with wreck and ruin by any decent standard and they're likening this to the only things they can conceive of in their emotional state as equally devastating... I don't agree with those analogies, but I can understand the emotional impact is still terrible, and that's what really matters.
But then, that might be the psychologist in me.
The point is we shouldn't be bickering over things that are most likely emotional things said in emotional times --- start complaining if the history books record this as an event greater than the December tsunami. Right now, people are suffering, and we should think about them first.
One of my best friends just moved to Biloxi because of family and I can't reach him. I'm distraught and since cell towers are down I can't get through to his mom. I have no idea where he might have evacuated to, if he and his mother are homeless now, jobless, collegeless... the odds point towards all of those. I've filed with the Salvation Army and other missing person sites and am waiting to hear something, and fucking god I can tell you it's not pleasant just sitting and waiting. I'll drive down there if it's needed and bring them up here myself, gas prices be damned. I'm one rather broke and overloaded college student who was supposed to graduate but while finishing up requirements decided to tack on another minor even if it'll cost a bit more (gov't, surprise surprise) so I can't do that much, but if I couldn't even help out a friend like Matt...
I don't know about you, whoever you are, but to me that - human feelings and understanding - is what really counts throughout this and all trials of humanity.