Today's Guardian on the Disaster

The Guardian noted the rapid and generous response from our countryman to this terrible tragedy.

However, according to Jeremy Seabrook:
In Death, Imperialism Lives On

For the western media, it is clear that a tourist's tragedy is more important than that of the 'locals'

and

This time there was something different. The tsunami struck resorts where westerners were on holiday. For the western media, it was clear that their lives have a different order of importance from those that have died in thousands, but have no known biography, and, apparently, no intelligible tongue in which to express their feelings.

While, from a leader article also in today's paper:
Helping Asia's victims

...But perhaps the brutal answer to an impressive display of empathy and charity is that wealthy westerners only really notice distant disasters when wealthy westerners are themselves caught up in them.

I'm sure that most, if not all, of us have donated money towards this cause. How many donated because of the British victims?

I feel insulted and would like to know, re. the Guardian, WTF is wrong with these people (journalists)?

 

as one who's experienced the friendliness, warmth and kindness of the thai people i'm one westerner who feels just as much for the locals as for the tourists. the fact that one of the places i stayed whilst over there (khao lak) was obliterated brings it home even more vividly for me.
cheers


julian

 

S'funny, I read that yesterday and felt the same way as you guys.
The Guardian theory really doesn't hold water IMO, as the huge amounts of money that ordinary people are giving will not help the western tourists, but local people in the areas affected. And those of us giving are perfectly well aware of that!
So, there is very little connection between donation and Westerners caught up in this. However, as Julian has noted, many Westerners have travelled in that part of the world and so many people feel they have a personal connection, however tenuous.
What the Guardian editorialists really dislike about all this is the underlying implication that Globalisation (of which mass tourism and cheap, efficient travel are prime examples) can be a force for good, and can bring people *closer* together.

 

I don't believe it is as simple as the quotes above suggest. I doubt that charitable donations are increased due to direct impact to tourists; however, the plight of tourists in the region will have made it easier for journalists and news media to 'sell' stories and therefore more easily raise awareness in western lounge rooms.

 

I don't either think that donations are increased due to direct impact to tourists. I believe instead that it increased because of the number of casualties. That shocks people: not 1000, not 5000, not even 10-20000; now it is over 130000.

The fact that tourists are also involved helps the journalism to make this tragedy psychologicaly even bigger by showing your "neighbour's" pain.

Also interesting is the fact that they are lots of tourists which are continuing their holidays there and are laying down at the beach in the mids of all the broken stuff.
One couple couldn't believe that the locals weren't at the beach to clean everything up and to come back to their normal work. "we cannot understand that they don't go back to work and they don't take care of us. After all we have the money, just what they need at the moment."
It was luckily only one couple who said that but I do believe there are some more around. Rita and I couldn't believe what they were saying in the TV-interview.

 

I tend to broadly agree with the Guardian on this. It's perhaps not the Westerners caught up in the tragedy itself so much as the fact that many of the places affected are places known to many Westerners who've often visited there so, as Joel says, they'll feel they have some kind of connection to the place.

I'm fairly sure that had 150000 people got killed in some natural disaster in the middle of some remote region of China the response would have been nothing like the response to the Tsunami disaster.

What irritates me is that the US is already using the tragedy for imperialist political aims. In setting up a separate "relief" alliance separate to and competing with the UN they are doing two things:

- attempting to discredit the UN by trying to show that "whatever the UN can do, we can do better".
- a massive image bolstering excersie for the US especially as Indonesia, the worst affected country, is also he most populous muslim country in the world.

Michael.

 

Really? What a surprise, I thought you might have some original thoughts on this one.

Absolute nonsense. The scale of this disaster has caused an enormous outpouring of compassion and massive aid donations. However, there was also a considerable response to the recent earthquake in Iran, hardly a world centre for Western tourism.

Another statement straight from the 'Clare Short Book of Anti-American Doublespeak'.

It is Short who has accused the US of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief. This follows Bush's announcement that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world's response.

The US hasn't tried to discredit the UN. After Bosnia, Rwanda, Dafur and the 'Oil for Food' scandal the UN doesn't need any discrediting. Do you seriously think that the US needs to prove that "whatever the UN can do, we can do better"? The Isle of Wight could do better for f*ck's sake.

And before they had waited around to count which country was the worse affected or which country had the most Muslims, many countries, including the USA were flying in aid, supplies and people. Kofi Anan, on the other hand, spent a further 3 days on a skiing holiday in Wyoming.

Still, it's unfair to over-criticize the UN. They have now appointed a committee to oversee the appointment of committees to monitor the situation and determine what committees might need setting up in the future. Also of course, they've got the important job of deciding through whose bank accounts the billions of dollars of aid funds should be channeled.

They should roll their sleeves up like everyone else involved and get f*cking digging.

 

oil for food sounds better than the current bullets for oil exchange going on in iraq
cheers


julian.

 

...must not rise to the bait ...must not rise to the bait ...gasp ...losing control ...

A-A-A-A-R-R-R-G-G-G-H-H-H-H

 

sorry steve. just repeat the mantra - 'itsallbollocksanyway. itsallbollocksanyway. itsallbollocksanyway' to yourself whilst contemplating your navel and you'll be fine.
cheers


julian

 

personally, I get the impression the media bosses actually like this sort of thing reported. No, they love it.

 

The US certainly has sensed an opportunity to buy itself some political capital with muslims from helping people on the ground. The NYT quoted Colin Powell intimating as much.
If this causes the US to give more money and more help, then that is a good thing.
FWIW, the "inspiration" for the Guardian's article appears to have come from something Bernard Kouchner said. Kouchner's point, however, is more subtle and rather different than that of the Grauniad's gormless leader writers.

 

According to the TV news I've been watching here in the UK, the US was apparently stung into giving more money by criticism that as the world's 'superpower' it wasn't doing anything like enough to help.

Regards,

JonR

 

I'm sure that there's some truth in that.

However, one has to remember that the TV news in the UK persists in treating the UN as if it has moral authority. It hasn't.

As Victor Hanson writes in his excellent article on the current moral bankruptcy of the left (Into the Tar Pits - Dinosaurs Either Evolve or Die):

Don't believe much of what the U.N. says anymore. Its secretary general is guilty of either malfeasance or incompetence, its soldiers are often hired thugs who terrorize those they are supposed to protect, and its resolutions are likely to be anti-democratic and anti-Semitic. Its members include dozens of nations whose odious representatives we would not let walk inside the doors of the U.S. Congress. The old idea of a United Nations was inspiring, the current reality chilling.

Those on the left really should read this. Michael (michaelab) recently made the comment that he was left wing 'because he cares' (like no one else does). I'm sure that this is true. However, just as the old Labour Party was unelectable, voters in one country after another (Australia and the US are two examples) are beginning to smell a rat with the 'caring' left. Perhaps Victor Hanson's article explains why. (Of course in the UK, the Conservative party is virtually unelectable and the leadership of New Labour is to the right - but that's another story).

Getting back to the disaster aid effort, there are some other perspectives, apart from British TV news. The following is a blog by some US Foreign Service Officers who are pretty close to the situation on the ground. Naturally they're also biased but they balance the views fed to us, day in/day out by our TV stations. The article called UN Death Watch from Saturday 1st of January is especially interesting.

I don't raise these points merely to be controversial but because there's some truth in them. I raise these points because I'm tired of hearing the same old unbalanced bollocks being trotted out from the BBC to ZeroGain. I raise them because I care too.

Now I'll batten up the hatches (whatever that means), retreat beneath the parapet and get under cover. Come on you lefties, bring it on.

 

Believing in greater social justice, in using social engineering to help push against the natural tendency for unfairness in economic systems hardly puts me in the same group as a trade union dominated institution like 'old Labour'..do you think any political party in the UK [or US perhaps?] really has priorities or ideas that the public would consider important, if it werent for the tripe they read and watch from the politicians' Media bed-fellows??

 

Graham,

I hope that I didn't imply that you were in the same group as 'old labour'.

There are some influential politicians, intellectuals and commentators on the left and they have to 'wake up and smell the coffee'. Moral clarity is required and, like with the 'old labour' analogy, some cherished doctrines need to be re-examined. For instance, in their (often valid) criticism of the USA, the left don't have to ally themselves so closely with the dicatatorial and oppressive regimes that they consider to be the enemies of the US (isn't the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'?).

Once clarity is given by the leadership, the politicians and their media bed-fellows will improve the messages that they put out in their own 'tripe' and will thus influence the broader public.

Much of the old 'right' is dead - replaced by the neo-con movement (which has actually emerged from disillusioned democrats from the left). With the threats we face today, post Cold War, we need a clear and ethical left to counter-balance the remaining 'fundamentalist' right and the more war-like tendencies of the neo-cons.

 

i think the baby is in danger of being thrown out with the bath water. certainly old labour wasn;t my particular cup of tea but neither is the rampant capitalism of new labour or the overly right wing now in power in the usa.
i once read a story involving something called enlightened self interest where the protagonists realised that capitalism without any checks led ultimately to a dictatorship. this mixed with a bit of good old fasioned fcuk-you anarchy perhaps comes closest to my own personal politics.
cheers


julian

 

I think you'd be absolutely right...
When I worked for the BBC you could see the big whigs in News 24 rubbing their hands in glee whenever there was any sort of disaster as it showed how important it was to have 24/7 news so that they were ready should "it" ever happen".
That would usually be the time when they'd start throwing their weight about as regards facilities, and attempting to up their budget again.

Where most right-thinking folks would see a terrible catastrophe they'd see an opportunity (sounds a bit like the US as well!).

 

Some food for thought:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0407/S00040.htm

 

That's a very interesting article, Graham.

The global economy can do much more for the world, especially the developing nations, than not having a global economy. However, I've long believed that the crazy subsidies (of which the EU's agricultural subsidies are amongst the worst) are horrifically damaging to the prospects for poor countries trading their own way in the world.

Now, I'll have to add these banks to my 'anti' list - Nestle has of course been on my list since the 60's - I do still have some leftist credentials

Mind you, I'm scratching my head:

If you are a Buddhist, ask yourself, “Where would the Buddha bank?â€Â
If you are a Muslim, ask yourself, “Where would Mohammad bank?â€Â
If you are a Confucian, ask yourself, “Where would Confucius bank?â€Â
If you practice Judaism, ask yourself, “Where would Moses bank?â€Â
If you are a Christian, ask yourself, “Where would Jesus bank?â€Â
Whatever your spiritual or ethical tradition, ask yourself where the person of the highest integrity in history would bank if he or she were alive today.

Where would these guys bank?