Orphaned Disasters
The outpouring of sympathy and money in the wake of the tsunami is profound. The world has responded like it never has before in the wake of a catastrophe.
Yet one thing has bugged me about it. There are crises in the world everyday that don't get a scintilla of the attention and support that the tsunami is. I fear that the media and world are so exclusively focused on this one disaster that people with equal needs are being forgotten. Setting aside how you feel about him, Kofi Annan is right when he refers to them as "orphaned disasters".
Comments
To the best of my recollection, very few other disasters (natural or otherwise) racked up such a high body-count as the tsunami has. I've seen pictures of the beaches with literally thousands of bodies floating among all the debris...it's really amazing. I'm also wondering if there's some hidden mass guilt involved, considering these were mostly Muslim nations affected. Something else to chew over.
Posted by: Randy | January 7, 2005 03:59 PM