A topic of a recent Nightline (which was on the constantly droning TV, but which I as usual wasn't really watching, just catching bits and pieces in passing) was why some crises get all kinds of press, attention, sympathy, assistance, and donations, and others just as devastating get nothing.
There has been virtually zero response to the carnage and famine in Somalia or the Sudan. There was minimal response to the earthquakes a few years ago in Greece, Iraq, or China - which killed more than the tsunami. The religion, color, or political friends theories don't hold up. As Ted Koppel pointed out, many of the tsunami victims are as black as Africans, most are not Christian, and a few are isolationist. The theory of man-made disaster (like "ethnic cleansing") vs. natural disaster also doesn't hold up, as evidenced by the lack of response to the killings, earthquakes, and famines.
Media attention isn't the answer, either. Reporters have gone to and reported on many crises that quickly dropped off the screen (heartbreaking stories of famine victims who see reporters, and "thank God that now people will see, they will know, and now help will come", and they sit and wait hopefully, and wait, and wait - and no one comes). Reporters drop the story because no one is interested. So why? Nightline had no answer.
They didn't ask me.
My theory: First the reporters have to come, of course. If no one knows, no one will help. But some crises have been fully reported, and still no one cares. So the real question is, what makes people care or not care?
I think the key is whether aid will make a difference.
If you have an area of subsistence economy in which there has always been and will always be periodic drought and famine, an especially bad drought or famine will elicit little sympathy. Very few people will admit it, but I suspect the underlying thought is "Well, if the land won't support that many people, there shouldn't be that many people there. If we feed them, the population will continue to increase, and it will only get worse. Let the equation naturally adjust."
If you have an area of historically unstable government and constant social conflict, then another civil war or ethnic cleansing isn't going to elicit anythingmore than mild sympathy. You could go in and try to stop it, but the history of the area has shown over and over that as soon as you turn your back, it will happen again. There's not much point in trying. You may be able to fix a situation temporarily, but you can't fix the people who create the situation. So our tendency is to turn our backs and let them go. Maybe some day they'll get tired of killing each other. Survival of the fittest, and all that. Although no one says it out loud.
If you have a disaster in an area that is relatively unknown to us, the pictures have little impact. So when the earthquake destroyed so many people, homes, and industries in central China, the photos and numbers meant nothing to the western world. We didn't know what it had been like before, so to most of us, what it looked like now seemed to suit our concept of what life was like there before. Most will not admit it, but I suspect the thought was "Well, they are used to hardship. The Chinese government always insists they want nothing from us, so ok, they can handle it. They'll be ok."
We seem to think aid and assistance will make little difference in situations like the above.
If, however, you have an area where the people have been working to make a good life (maybe they are very poor by our standards, but they are seen as generally industrious), where the government is and has been relatively stable, where the community is mostly cohesive and calm, where we think we sort of know the people and locale, and especially where the catastrophe is not of their own making, then we are willing to go all out to help, no matter what their color or religion or type of government - because we think our assistance will do permanent good, good that will last.
For good or for bad, that's just the way it is, Mr. Koppel.
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Same topic, but different application, the landslide in La Concita. On a high emotional level, I have personal sympathy for the people who lost family members. On a deeper logical level, I have no sympathy. They all knew the hillside was a danger when they bought their houses! They had been petitioning the local government to terrace the hillside (refused - too expensive). There was a large farm on the top that irrigated. The homeowners had been trying to get the government to tell the farmers they couldn't irrigate. An overhead view shows a large rectangle of houses squished right up against the hillside. Further from the hillside, there's very little construction.
Know why? Because the land was much cheaper there, precisely because it was known to be dangerous. So they all bought and built because it was cheap. The farm had been there, and had been irrigating, long before the houses. They bought and built anyway. Because it was cheap. They could afford a fancier larger house there than anywhere else. So now it caught up with them. There are tradeoffs. They bet and they lost. Too bad they bet their children's lives.
I get so annoyed with people who buy a house next to an airport, because it's cheap, then have the nerve to complain about the noise, and start (and win!) campaigns to force planes to go through dangerous takeoff and landing gyrations. They knew the airport was there when they bought the house.
When we lived in St. Louis, I stood on a bridge and watched whole houses floating down the river, even in small floods. The land along the river floods every few years. Always has and always will. And yet people build homes on that floodplain and want sympathy (and compensation) when the house floats away. Since they can't get flood insurance, they appeal to the government, and they actually do get federal and state funds to rebuild. Over and over. Where do they rebuild? On the floodplain. Because it's cheaper.
I have no sympathy for them. And I don't think my flying safety, my taxes, or my insurance premiums should be sacrificed to fix things for these people. And if my house burns down because the firetruck couldn't get up the driveway, I want no sympathy, and expect no concessions, because I accepted that chance when I didn't prepare the snowthrower for the winter.
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