The swaths of Southeast Asia worst hit by the natural disaster on Sunday, Dec. 26, and subsequent days have for long been associated with everything cheap: Cheap laborers, cheap raw materials, cheap tourist destinations and yes, much cheaper life.
But what was it exactly that most of us found so horrifying as we watched them being swept away under the murky waters? Was it the squandered lives that were washed away in a glimpse? Was it the innate fear that often accompanies natural disasters wherever they strike?
What I found inexcusable however, was much of the media’s narrative in response to the unprecedented Asia tragedy. In Western media, the obvious concern was over the safety of the European, Australian and North American tourists. Once that was settled and everyone was accounted for, the Asian multitudes became a statistical issue, raising futile and untimely philosophical questions and providing an opportunity for politicians to show off their kinder, gentler side. Hogwash.
While many commentators around the world had no suggestions on how to help the estimated five million people roaming the towns of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maldives and others seeking food and shelter, they spent so much time demanding answers for nature’s mishaps.
Every number associated with the earthquake and tsunami disasters and their aftermath has been high. Aside from the dead, the seriously wounded have been estimated at least four times as much. World Health Organization Director, Lee Jong Wook spoke of hundreds of thousands of people sustaining serious injuries. Health officials warned of numerous diseases caused by exposed and floating bodies and contaminated water; dysentery, cholera, typhoid, malaria and dengue fever etc.
But what about pledges of aid? Emerging from his Texas vacation after days of silence, President Bush vowed a paltry aid package of $15 million, which was later upgraded to $35 million, and then to an astounding $350 million.
According to the National Priority Project and based on official estimates, the US war in Iraq has thus far cost nearly $148 billion. According to NPP, this amount could have housed 1,329,102 families in the United States alone, or could have fully funded worldwide AIDS programs for 14 years. Instead, they were funneled into a catastrophic war that has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis, and well over 1,000 American soldiers.
The tsunami aid pledged by the US would hardly sustain the Iraq war for more than 36 hours, as the daily cost of the war is estimated at $270 million.
But how much of a choice do we have when our tax money is funneled to drop Napalm on sleeping families in Basra, or to “aid” Israel’s most ingenious endeavor to fence off Palestinians in an open-air prison in the West Bank? Wouldn’t most Americans rather contribute a meager half million dollars from the Pentagon’s $1.5 billion-a-day budget to purchase two early warning systems to be placed in the Indian Ocean?
It would have prevented thousands of needless deaths.
The death tally in Asia is expected to grow; faceless victims have been swept away and many more are left behind fending for themselves, fighting for the little food that will be dumped to them from speeding trucks. Most of those who perished owned close to nothing to begin with and most likely the survivors will continue to be the exploitable cheap laborers.
— Ramzy Baroud is a veteran Arab-American journalist and editor in chief of PalestineChronicle.com and head of Research & Studies Department at Aljazeera.net English.
