Tsunami Relief Responses

I’m drinking Gin in the conservatory, occasionally looking out over the hills of Cartworth Moor at the twinkling yellow lights that mark the occasional farm entrance. It’s a peaceful scene, despite the occasional sting of hail on the ceiling windows. I’m warm, and I’ve just helped myself to yet another slab of Christmas cake. Today I dragged everyone out in the rain for a walk around the reservoir to mark the New Year.

I just thought I’d let you know I was comfortable. I think it’s important to remember these things when we’re about to write about suffering and tragedy. Despite what might be perfectly honourable intentions on my part, I think it’s only right to admit that I’m sitting in luxury as I have them.

Enough Force to Move the World

According to the BBC report I heard, the force of the earthquake was enough to shake the earth’s axis by an inch. I didn’t take that in for a while. I had to think about it: The whole world being knocked by any measurable distance implies a strength of force that it’s almost unimaginable. Think about how much force would be needed to move something like an oil tanker by an inch. And now think about how tiny an oil tanker is compared to the whole planet.

Martyr73 wrote a great passage about the force of the quake which you can read here.

So, you could say that this is catastrophe has quite literally shaken the world. I know it’s done a lot to change mine just now. But it seems that every few years there’s a major event that will ‘change the world for ever.’ And I’m sure that within a year or so we will all be making off handed references to Asian Tsunami in the same way we casually slip 9/11 or Tinanmen Square into a conversation. Although this is a tragedy of almost science fiction proportions, it is already old news. The Tsunami is now merely the most significant earth-changing event since the last one.

Some Boring Money Figures

I was talking to Cygnus about this, and he told me he’d taken some money down to Oxfam. It wasn’t a lot of money but it was all he could afford. He gave it on the assumption that if everyone did the same then the world would be a better place, and it seems that everyone else in the country had the same idea! In the first 24 hours, The British public had raised $39m. A day later, and that total stood at $80m. The British Government stand out as a significant contributor at $95m as their original promise of just $29m was derided by the public who were far more generous.(Seattle Times)

For my part I’m very proud of the response of the British people and of the government. Retailers have wailed for most of the festive season that people just don’t have enough money to spend. And yet when something like this happens we can collectively raise more than twice as much money as the American government, which (until yesterday) had offered just $35m. That figure may seem like a lot until you learn that $35m is comparable with 0.026% of the money the US government has spent on Iraq in the last two years. (BBC News, 30 Dec 2004)

Democratic Party Congressman Patrick Leaty addressed this in fine style, claiming that he “went through the rood when I heard them bragging about $35m. We spend [that much] before breakfast in Iraq.”

So yet again, the tail wagged the dog and the public of the USA put enough pressure on their own government to increase the amount of aid by a factor of ten, which is good. American businesses are certainly leading the way in terms of contributions, with pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer giving a total of $35m and Coca Cola $10m. (Washington Times)

But I still can’t help but wonder why there is such a difference between the $18m collected by the American Red Cross and the $39m collected by the Disaster Emergency Committee in Britain, or why nations such as Australia and Germany should be content with contributions of $27m.

Mind The Gap

I’m not pointing the finger of blame. This is a genuine attempt to understand. Is the fact that we once colonised and subjugated India more likely to make the British feel a sense of responsibility towards India? Or is it simply down to the large number of British Asians who live in our country? I’d rather believe it’s the latter, but I really don’t now the answer. When Diana, Princess of Wales died, I witnessed the national outpouring of what I called ‘me-too grief’ with a sense of revulsion. I suppose it’s hypocritical of me not to see this disaster response in the same light.

But I want to believe that we’re so integrated as a nation, so truly multicultural, that we now see a tragedy such as this without noticing the distances involved. I’d like to think that we don’t see yet more helpless third world people, that we just see father and son, and daughter and granddaughter. Have we really come so far despite the best efforts of the right wing press and the British National Party?

But rather than looking for the reason why the British public was so generous, perhaps there’s more to be gained in looking at the lack of a proportional response from the private citizens of the USA. In saying this I realise I might well insult and alienate a good percentage of Blog readers, but I’m dwelling on the facts as they have been documented.

I’m playing with a hypothesis at the moment that revolves around the assumption of Divine Stewardship. It’s perhaps not the most elegant name for a theory, but it’s helping me come to terms with the fact that Republicans have little regard for environmental protection. In a nation in which (according to a Gallup survey in 1980) more than 40% of the population believe that the Bible is the “actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word”(‘Fundamentalism’ by Malise Ruthven), it’s not difficult to understand that many people think that the fate of the world is still very much in God’s hands.

This can give way to two neat little assumptions that make life a lot easier for somebody such as an oil driller who might be tempted to worry about the environmental damage caused by his pollution.

1 – An all powerful God has the power to heal the earth and restore it at will. Since He would never allow His children to die out there is no real need to worry about environmental issues. God will repair the earth when He sees fit.

2 – We all await the End Times. God has a plan for us all and it involves some people getting hurt. The earth is a finite plane of existence which will be swept away and replaced with a clean sheet after the Second Coming. Many non believers will die in this process, but we shouldn’t waste our time feeling sorry for them. They had their chance of redemption and they chose to ignore the Gospel.

This mindset is (in my opinion) at the core of Right Wing philosophy and its government policy. In this context, what happens to Muslims in Indonesia or Hindus in India seems a lot easier to deal with. These things probably should happen over there because the only the Righteous Few deserve to be protected.

I can’t help but wonder what a Literalist oil driller tells his children when they ask where oil came from. Is it just black stuff that God put down there ten thousand years ago to make them rich? If so, how come the Arabs got so much of it, too?

Suspicious Minds

But I’m going off on a tangent (as usual.) You don’t have to look far to find people who worry that there is too much money being spent on aid for the tsunami victims. One of my own family was getting angry with the government a few days ago. Her objection was that the government had announced $29m in aid. “When you want the money for an operation, or to help the needy in this county they haven’t got it. But as soon as anything like this happens they’re bloody well giving it away.” In fairness, this attitude is very common among tens of thousands across the country.

The world is changing quickly and it’s leaving an awful lot of people behind. What she said, in many ways, is perfectly valid; the government does waste a fortune on red tape and lost causes. Sometimes it seems like our Patron Saint should be Jude rather than George. It’s just that I can’t imagine anyone begrudging the survivors anything at a time like this.

Right wing tabloids are quick to point out the figures we spend in aid, but very few have made reference to the fact that India has made $115m available for aid relief. (Al Jazeera) I know it’s only right that it should do so, but that’s precisely my point; Conservatives love asking why ‘these people’ aren’t helping themselves. They just choose to ignore the fact that they actually are.

Far more common, and perhaps more understandable, are the assumptions of many people who have learned over the years that aid can be abused. Where ever there’s a flow of money, you’ll always find people inserting themselves into the plumbing. I can understand anyone who’s heard reports of the terrible corruption in many developing regions and been put off handing over cash on the assumption that it’s only going to get intercepted by a local warlord or corrupt government official.

I was having this conversation with my dad and he was making pretty much the same point. My immediate response was to argue that corruption is something that usually sets in. It doesn’t just happen overnight. The network of middle men which siphons off aid in areas such as The Democratic Republic of the Congo or Iraq has developed and evolved over a number of generations. The trickle of foreign wealth in these places is part of the infrastructure. It’s dependable, reliable and stable. The aid provided by the DEC is a rapid response to people in immediate need. At this stage, things are moving too quickly for criminals to even get organised enough to make a killing. A steady flow of sewage will attract a steady flow of flies, but a big enough deluge of shit will knock even a rhino over.

Profit is Theft

But it started me thinking: Why should the cost of relief aid be so expensive? If it normally costs a dollar for a bottle of water, then why should the aid agencies need a million dollars for a million bottles? Somewhere, somebody is making a huge profit. Every penny that’s donated is going to be spent. And that means that somewhere in the world, an awful lot of people are going to end up obscenely rich after this.

And that’s what’s worrying me now. The collective might of the World Bank should be able to force companies to trade with the agencies at (or near) cost. If the actual production cost of a bottle of water is ten cents, then why can’t the World Bank buy them in at eleven cents each? Why should it cost ten thousand dollars to fuel a plane when OPEC should be prepared to underwrite the cost of the aviation fuel?

Nobody who is selling to the relief agencies, whether it’s blankets or helicopters, should be allowed to charge any more than what they absolutely need to. I don’t mean that we should be able to requisition everything we need, but I do think that anybody who makes a profit from dealing with this tragedy – even an honest profit – is defrauding the generosity of donors and people in great need.

I ran this past my dad the next day. “Now you’re getting my point.” He said.

But, for that matter, what about everyone else who makes money from this? What about the increased newspaper circulations? What about the dramatically increased advertising revenue garnered by commercial news channels when they run their ’Tsunami Specials’? What about the airlines who quite legitimately offer a service to the affected areas, or the manufacturers of pain killers and bandages who expect big orders this month?. Where do we draw the line?

At a time such as this, was it immoral for the apocalyptic firework display in London to commemorate the New Year? Is it wrong for somebody to spend £100 in the January Sales when they could have given it to Oxfam instead? And what about the Café owner who sells Indian tea? Should he feel obliged to hand over his takings this month?

I ran all these thoughts past Cygnus before I sat down to write, and his advice on what my actual ‘message’ should be made the most sense. “If you see somebody in a hole, you don’t have to jump in there with them.” He said. “We should acknowledge what’s happened and we should pay what ever we can afford to make it better. Beyond that, everything else you worry about won’t do anything to help them. Just be grateful for what you’ve got and be glad it’s not happened to you. You don’t need to feel guilty just because you didn’t lose everything this week.”

Amen to that.

In closing, I’ll leave those of you who are still reading with this little story.

I was on a coach heading down to Newbury to see my children earlier in the week. The traffic was terrible and the streets were clogged with shoppers. Our coach was delayed by seventy minutes which meant I had missed my connection. Everyone on board was livid, but as we eventually pulled in to Birmingham Coach Station, the woman next to me said, “It puts all this in perspective when you see the message my sister sent me last night.” She handed me her mobile phone, which had the word “HELP” written on its screen.

“She’s staying in Thailand for Christmas. I got that from her at two in the morning and I haven’t heard from her since.”


Written on 1st January, using statistics dated 31st December.

Statistics quoted for this entry can be found at The Seattle Times, Washington Times, Al Jazeerah and BBC News