The Earth’s crust shifted last week, and then the waves came.
They came harshly and without mercy.
The tragedy they delivered is natural and undeniable. A death count somewhere around 150,000.
The waves washed over much of coastal Asia, and Americans were so moved by the horror of tens of thousands of stiffened bodies stacked like so much split firewood that the Bush administration had to boost its disaster aid offers by many millions of dollars. And Americans themselves rallied to the cause in a way not seen since the Sept. 11 atrocities, privately organizing disaster relief groups to assist populations that are mostly Hindus, Buddhists, and...Muslims.
Is the world becoming a community again?
Health experts predict at least the same number of people on the ravaged Asian islands and coasts will die from diseases, mostly water-borne, incurred as a result of the tsunamis.
250,000 to 300,000 people in all.
The news does not spare us the parental sobbing, the screaming, the rending of garments, the heart-wrenching last embraces, and the unimaginable grief of those who survived. The sorrow is so unrelenting, one has to do two unthinkable things — turn the television off, and do something, somehow, to help people very far away. People living in societies and following religions and governments that are, dare we say, sometimes unsympathetic, contrary, or even hostile to American interests.
The “they” and “them” of the Bush administration.
God must be directing us to have mercy and compassion, to understand human suffering and not turn away from it.
Tidal waves are terrorists of the sea. They don’t come ashore often. But when they do, it is with terrible finality. People dwelling in ocean Asia lost their ancestors’ accounts of the great waves, television having replaced evenings of traditional story-telling during which tales of the giant waves would be related again and again so that people would know what to expect and what to do. And their governments so desired the cash flow coming with the tourist dollars that they didn’t create life-saving early warning systems in the belief that tourists, dismayed by false alarms such a warning system might bring, would be discouraged from coming. And spending.
So now we are reminded of the Earth’s incredible capacity to renew and change its own face, to tumble men like so many matchsticks.
What else might the message?
With one hand, Americans reach out to help victims of an undeniable disaster, who died all at once over vast stretches of Asian coast and islands. What have Americans done with their other hand?
Killed a hundred thousand people in Iraq.
But not all at once. Modern war is no tsunami. It comes in dribs and drabs. And since the Pentagon meticulously counts its own dead but not anyone else’s, the number of Iraqis who’ve died has been something of a mystery.
Until now.
According to a recent Johns Hopkins study published in The Lancet, a hundred thousand Iraqis have died as a result of the US invasion and occupation.
But did we notice?
When people are killed all at once, we notice it. We respond without hesitation to the tragedy. We cannot escape the horror of it. A hundred thousand bodies wildly angled by rigor mortis, bloating like nauseating, gaseous balloons cannot be ignored. But kill a hundred thousand people slowly, over time, and we don’t pay much heed. Or the same kind of heed.
Some 100,000 Iraqis dead. That’s roughly 100 Iraqis dead for every American soldier dying in Iraq whether in combat, in a road accident, or of any natural cause. That’s about 33 Iraqis for every 9/11 victim.
And we haven’t even looked at Afghanistan yet.
When the Earth shakes in her utmost convulsions and throws up her burdens, thrusting out tidal wives, engulfing villages and cities, children on beaches, fishermen and fashion models, Thai princes on jet skis, beggars and billionaires, men cry out, distressed: “What is the matter with the Earth?”
Surely if we could see all Iraq’s dead on television, all at once, we’d cry out that it’s enough. And maybe even ask: “What’s the matter with us?”
Sending help? Don’t hesitate. It’s time to do more than an atom’s weight of good.
— Sarah Whalen is an expert in Islamic law and taught law at Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.
