Doug’s Dynamic Drivel

While it is heartening to see the outpouring of empathy for the victims of the tsunami I am left with some uneasy feelings.

• Without pointing to specific sites, because I’m not looking to start an argument but instead a dialogue, I’ve seen bloggers and their readers demanding of other bloggers that they concentrate their blogging efforts on helping the disaster victims, and I’m left wondering why this is:
  1. Do they think there is nothing else that can be legitimately talked about? If so then what about AIDS in africa or the horrendous ongoing genocide there in various armed conflicts? Or let’s not forget the 100,000 plus civilians that the Americans themselves have killed in the last year and a half in Iraq, but I suppose that’s striking a little too close to home for some.
  2. Do they really think bloggers can make a difference? Sorry but the amount of difference a blogger can make to the average Sri Lankan, or Javanese affected by this disaster is miniscule compared to what the UN and individual governments and relief agencies can achieve. In fact they can do a great deal of harm by promulgating false or misleading information or raising money that goes to questionable groups using the disaster to hide the promotion of their own agenda or profiteering off the disaster
  3. Where do they get off claiming the moral high ground? Caring and doing your ‘good’ in the background is every bit as morally commendable as being vociferous in exculpating one’s conscience.
• There has already been enough money pledged and raised by governments and NGOs (about $2 billion USD) to take care of the immediate needs in the area. What happens when people give all now and six months down the road schools and other infrastructure needs to be rebuilt? There’s a long history of coming to immediate rescue in disasters then leaving the victims to cope for themselves when the novelty of the disaster wears off, or if you prefer, some other disaster grabs people’s beneficence. Have they thought what the outcome of that will be, especially in countries that are having their own problems with Islamacism, such as Indonesia and their Aceh province. Care to guess how the mullahs will interpret that?
• How do you know your money is getting to where it will do the most good? There is tremendous corruption in governments in that region. Actually tremendous doesn’t do the extent justice, it is completely endemic. There are already reports of the Indonesian government delaying emergency supplies to some areas such as Aceh where they have been fighting a civil war against radical Islamic fundamentalists bent on separating Aceh from Indonesia and into an Islamacist state.

None of the above is meant to suggest you should not care, or that you should concentrate your efforts on other things if you do not want to, but it is a suggestion that you leave it to each person to decide what is the best way for them to cope with such disasters. What is right for one is not necessarily right for all. It is also a suggestion that you give some thought to what comes next, six months or a year down the road for these victims and perhaps give your money to those organizations that deal with long term infrastructure rebuilding, which NGOs like the Red Cross do not and ones like OXFAM do.

So now you all can get on with calling me a heartless selfish son of a bitch.

Update: In addition to OXFAM, which I have already mentioned, Frank suggests contributing to American or Canadian Friends Service Committees. For those not familiar with the Friends Service Committees, they are the expression of Quaker philosophy, service, put into action.

Another suggestion, from me, is to contribute to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières as this money will be put to good use throughout the year throughout the world bringing medical care to war torn places and sites of natural disasters.

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