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I was thinking about the differences in how we perceive natural disasters as opposed to man-made ones. A terrorist act like 9/11, etc., is set up for maximum public exposure--the images that appear on TV and online all over the world are the real point. Since we get those images so clearly and so immediately, the event seems real to us. But the natural disasters aren't set up that way. The news leaks out, a little at a time. No one was filming the waves that hit during the Tsunami, and only now are we beginning to get some visual images that make it seem real to us.
But it is real. This is a site about one refugee camp before the disaster and the people who lived there. It makes it real to me:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ceret/52383.html
But it is real. This is a site about one refugee camp before the disaster and the people who lived there. It makes it real to me:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ceret/52383.html
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It really did help me see the human, real side of this catastrophe.
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To me, the problem with giving money is partly the possiblity of corruption taking it before it reaches its goal, and partly that I don't feel that I'm really giving of myself. I try to find organizations I can trust (I give through Save the Children right now, also Oxfam). I also try to find more local ways of giving of myself, but that's harder to do.
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Like you, I try to support established organizations like Foster Parents Plan, or Oxfam, or Doctors Without Borders,organizations that have well established track records. In times of crisis, like now in SE Asia, money is the most useful thing we can donate. Many of the organizations are there already, and have warehouses of emergency supplies there. The logistics of sending blankets and food etc. overseas makes it very expensive, and uses up money they could better spend on the ground.
I am so amazed at the generosity of people in these tragic times. I read in the paper today that one of the First Nations bands here are donating $2000.00 that was designated for repairing flood damage to their town, to the people in S.E. Asia. They said that those people needed it more than their town did.
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That is truly generous--for people who have their own problems to see that someone else's are worse. And good for you as a Foster Parent.
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Also, did the US not show non-stop footage from the evening of the 26th with a banner at the bottom giving death counts and missing from the different regions?
Perhaps it was still early morning in the US, and so perhaps less people would have been watching tv at that time, here the coverage started in time for the late news to pick it up, and one of our free to air stations switched to BBC world non-stop coverage, although, as it was night there wasn't an immediate televisual effect, that had to wait until the morning.
I am rather curious about the amount of coverage received in different parts of the world, most of my lj friends seem to be relying on the internet, rather than tv news for their information. Which is not so surprising given that lj people are more likely to be using the internet anyway.
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Several of my LJ friends had mentioned how unreal it seemed and how they didn't feel a close connection to it. I thought this might be related to the limited images, but now people seem to be responding (and the coverage is more dramatic).
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Other LJers have mentioned an "us" and "them" attitude in the reporting, in the sense that the focus has been "what if something like this happened to us?". I think proximity may be a factor. But more generously I think that sometimes we need to make an imaginative leap by projecting the figures onto landscapes and populations that we know, in order to grasp the immensity of such events. Also, in the first footage I saw, the death toll was under 5,000, and although it was steadily climbing I'm not sure anyone was prepared for the sheer loss of life we're seeing now.
I guess I was struck (again) by how acts of terror are planned with a careful eye to the media.
Indeed. Because it's rare to have a random act of terrorism, the whole point being to show people that you exist and then to use it to get across your demands or grievances (although, once those have been established, subsequent
acts are explained in terms of them).
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Sidebar: de-friending
That I noticed within hours of it being so evidences just how stunned I am.
That my last two posts were about grappling with persona authenticity evidence how derelict I am.
That I say, "Follow your bliss!" and mean it ...
... well, /you/ say we aren't friends.
I get a lot of that.
HeyHo
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It's freezing cold out, and I'm in a room that is neither drafty nor mouldy, so it's all good!
:-)
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Interesting: a friend and I were discussing how we relate to deaths of near-and-dear, deaths of friends / acquaintances, deaths of people in the community, deaths of a number of people (say a bus or industrial accident), and then something like this. )If we find it hard to relate to 50, can we related at all to 50,000?)
But niether of us brought up the distinction of "natural" and "man-made" ... is a plane crash an act of God, like an earthquake? Maybe not in terms of legal liability, but to us mere mortals, the two seem quite similar!
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My own experience of political action maybe formed that theory--who would stage a protest with no chance of media coverage?
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*looks around*
*raises hand*