Do disasters matter more when victims look like us?

[shereads]

Remember Bangladesh? I remember news of a disaster with a death toll in excess of 100.000, in the early 1990's, but I don't remember there being a record-breaking global relief effort comparable to what we've seen this week in response to the tsunamis.

Question: Would last week's disaster be receiving so much attention and so many immediate offers of help from governments, corporate donors and individuals, if many of the victims hadn't been white, middle-class, English-speaking tourists from Europe, Britain, Australia and North America? Would we be more likely to intervene in the Sudan if they reminded us of ourselves?

<tosses lit match into haystack and signs off>

 

[BlackShanglan]

I can't really see that race or class play much of a role here. The vast majority of the victims are poor local people, and they will certainly (as they should) receive nearly all of the aid. I remember the disaster in Bangladesh as well, and I think I would suggest a few alternatives as to why we might not remember the same massive aid outpouring:

1) It was ten years ago. Our memories are likely to be thin at this point, and for some of us, the people we were ten years ago may have been less aware of international news and relief efforts than the people we are now.

2) The Internet helps a great deal both in raising money and in spreading news. Nearly all of us have access to a great many more news sources than we did ten years ago, and people are making a more conscious effort to use the Net in fund-raising efforts.

3) In the States at least, I'd argue that there is an increased focus on disaster aid and fundraising post-September 11th. One of the only good things to come out of that was the wave of goodwill and determination to help on the part of vast numbers of ordinary people. Having realized that they can do that, many wish to do so again; having realized that people like hearing it reported, news outlets choose to report such things intensively.

4) The Sudan comparison I think a poor analogy to the tsunami disasters. In the latter, there was a single, natural, and limited cause, now over. We know who needs aid, what kind, and where, and the governments of the areas needing aid are in active cooperation. In the Sudan, the government is actually helping to create the disaster, the problem is ongoing and military in nature, and none of the main players really wants to let aid through. These are very different situations.

Shanglan

 

[Songcatcher]

<tosses lit match into haystack and signs off>

You are sooo stylish, delish!

 

[shereads]

Googled it.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0001441.html

April 30, 1991, southeast Bangladesh: cyclone killed over 131,000 and left as many as 9 million homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and water-borne disease.

http://www.case.edu/med/epidbio/mphp439/Disaster.htm

Bangladesh: floods, in 1987 and 1988 affected 70 million people, in 1991, Cyclone killed 138,000 people, 1970, wind and storm killed 300,000 – 500,000 people.

 

[Songcatcher]

Torture.

 

[Liar]

To add to Sher's list, the three year drought that hit the Horn of Africa states 99 to 01 killed about 1,3 million people.

I know there was some pretty damn massive donation drive and a lot of engagement here about that. Can't say if ti was more or less than now though. It was a more drawn out process.

I don't remember much about the -91 disasters mentioned. I had just hit puberty and couldn't think straight back then.

#L

 

[Guest]

I think a massive increase in live news coverage has an awful lot more to do with it than the nationalities/race/whatever of those involved. Seeing those faces beamed into our living rooms, and hearing the harrowing stories of those involved - whatever nationallity they are - has made it seem so much more real and close to us, than any huge natural disaster ever before.

Yes, there was quite a lot of news coverage of the Bangladesh disaster, but nowhere near the amount there has been with this one. There has also been a lot of footage shown, by way of amateur video recordings, as the waves hit.

Another factor, I believe, is the time of year. I believe most of us have been even more generous because this happened right on Christmas.

This is the age of the internet, too, which adds in a lot more factors: the world seems a lot smaller place, donating money is easier, finding out information is so much easier, too.

 

[shereads]

I'm not sure it's a racist response either, Shanglan, but I do think it makes a difference when people who remind us of ourselves and our neighbors express their grief on camera. Tourists are a small fraction of the dead and missing, but if numbers alone were responsible for the emotional pull of a disaster, there would have been a bigger response to the Iran earthquake. Is there anything more likely to elicit sympathy than the suffering of people who look, speak and dress like us? Tourists are the ones whose interviews on the nightly news are bringing this home to us, and I suspect that if they were dying in large numbers in Sudan, it would make a difference.

I can't really see that race or class play much of a role here. The vast majority of the victims are poor local people, and they will certainly (as they should) receive nearly all of the aid. I remember the disaster in Bangladesh as well, and I think I would suggest a few alternatives as to why we might not remember the same massive aid outpouring:

1) It was ten years ago. Our memories are likely to be thin at this point, and for some of us, the people we were ten years ago may have been less aware of international news and relief efforts than the people we are now.

2) The Internet helps a great deal both in raising money and in spreading news. Nearly all of us have access to a great many more news sources than we did ten years ago, and people are making a more conscious effort to use the Net in fund-raising efforts.

3) In the States at least, I'd argue that there is an increased focus on disaster aid and fundraising post-September 11th. One of the only good things to come out of that was the wave of goodwill and determination to help on the part of vast numbers of ordinary people. Having realized that they can do that, many wish to do so again; having realized that people like hearing it reported, news outlets choose to report such things intensively.

4) The Sudan comparison I think a poor analogy to the tsunami disasters. In the latter, there was a single, natural, and limited cause, now over. We know who needs aid, what kind, and where, and the governments of the areas needing aid are in active cooperation. In the Sudan, the government is actually helping to create the disaster, the problem is ongoing and military in nature, and none of the main players really wants to let aid through. These are very different situations.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

There has also been a lot of footage shown, by way of amateur video recordings, as the waves hit.

Hadn't really thought about that, but I think you're right. It's not just tourists giving TV interviews and searching for their missing loved ones, but tourists with video cameras. Watching the waves hit, hearing the panic in people's voices, has made this seem terribly personal.

 

[Songcatcher]

terribly personal.

Life is.

 

[C's Button]

My .02 cents..

No, it does not matter what the victims look like. We have had several horrible disasters in non third world countries in the fairly recent past. September 11th. The train bombing in Spain. The hurricanes in the Caribbean and the US this summer. The first big disaster I can remember of my lifetime was the Bangladeshi cyclones. I do not remember anything really big before that. (I was around 9-10 ish then, so it is not a case of being too young to remember.) Compassion is a learned response. Percentage-wise, it seems that more people in the past 5 or so years have been hit with personal tragedies on a catastrophic scale and that has made them more compassionate as a group.

Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

 

[Bridget69]

I don't think it has to do with nationality or economical class either, but rather because of the evolution of media sources since then. I also agree about how people have become more conscious about grand scale tragedies since Sept. 11th.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I suspect that if they were dying in large numbers in Sudan, it would make a difference.

I can't agree. The Sudan is a man-made catastrophe of a completely different stripe. There, it's not simply a question of dollars; it's a question of how to get humans to stop killing each other, which it a very different and much more difficult problem. Food and medecine can be used for a band-aid solution, but the real problem is political and military, and no amount of aid money will fix it.

Similarly, I would argue that with Iran, a notoriously xenophobic state, the question in most people's minds was probably not "should I donate?" but "are they actually accepting any aid?" In the case of the recent disaster, the stricken countries have immediately requested aid (with the exception I believe of India, which said it would be equal to its own difficulties), and many have a history of working fairly openly with aid agencies. One is more likely to donate when one knows that the donation is wanted and will be accepted.

As for whose pictures we're seeing - perhaps we are viewing different news sources. Nearly all of mine have been pictures of people who appeared to be locals. I would guess that interviews tend to be more dominated by English-speaking people because an English-speaking press doesn't need translators to get the interviews to press.

On the issue of who looks like or doesn't look like us and how much we donate - I can only say that the only person for whom I know figures contributed both to the September 11th charities (look like us, live in our country) and to the tsunami fund (don't look like us, don't live in our country), and gave substantially more to the latter cause.

Shanglan

 

[minsue]

I have been asking that question for years, Sher, and the answers I come up with never cease to leave me teetering on a precipice, abject despair on one side and fury on the other.

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Do disasters matter more when victims look like us?

I have been asking that question for years, Sher, and the answers I come up with never cease to leave me teetering on a precipice, abject despair on one side and fury on the other.

I've done abject despair, and if I were you I'd go with fury. Provided there's no other alternative.

 

[oggbashan]

Bangladesh 91 - As I remember it there was a massive appeal in the UK and a considerable response.

UK/Holland 1953 North Sea floods - a significant response from people who didn't have much in the first place. The UK and Holland were still recovering from WWII. Yet people in those countries gave time, money, clothes, whatever they could. Both countries received significant aid from the US, from US forces on the ground and from both the US government and the US public.

I think the difference is as has been stated above. In 1953 television was a rare and expensive luxury. In 1991 amateur video cameras were heavy and expensive and unlikely to be in the affected areas of Bangladesh. Even if they were, distribution of images had to rely on the large media organisations.

9/11 was different. Video cameras were commonplace so multiple images of the event were available and could be uploaded to the internet.

This earthquake/tsunami shows that the internet has come of age. If you have a cell-phone, a laptop and a camera you can theoretically upload real-time images from the top of a tree as the flood waters swirl around you.

If a picture equals a thousand words, a live video feed must be worth many more.

When I was young(er) a disaster in Indonesia might get a couple of hundred words in a quality newspaper and be ignored by the scandal rags. Now myriad TV channels and all the newspapers can pick and choose dramatic colour pictures and fill screens/pages with harrowing detail. It is the flow of information that has changed, not the nature of disasters.

Og

 

[hunting_tiger]

I don't think that we have tears for every disaster that happens around the world every year.

It is easy to relate to deaths from something you have experience of no matter if it is vacations, dancing at a club, sending your kids to their first day at school or going to a theatre.

It is more difficult to understand that lots of kids still die every day because they don't have clean water.

You don't have to be Einstein to understand that the willingness to give to charity is affected by the fact that fellow countrymen has lost their lives but it also affected by all the amazing stories you hear from survivors.

Sri Lanka may be a poor country but that didn't stop them from giving a helping hand to tourists. I saw a family of four that had been invited to the house of a local villager and been given food and a bed to sleep on over the night until they could go to the airport. We have heard the same stories from Thailand and others tell about locals that takes off their shirts and give them to tourists that need them more then they do.

It is simple to me ... They gave us a helping hand when we needed it.

Can we let them down now when they need us desperately ?

 

[Guest]

 

[oggbashan]

Before radio and television, newspapers were the only means of spreading bad news. In the 19th century there were massacres in the Balkans by Turkish troops. A major appeal was launched in the UK and raised substantial amounts of money for the women and children. That was exceptional.

In the UK until the 1890 Education Act the ability to read and write was a priviledge. Only those who could would know about events beyond their immediate circle.

Even during the 1950s a murder or disaster 100 miles away would not be known unless some feature made it national news. Now if a teenage girl disappears in mysterious circumstances somewhere in the UK a large proportion of us will be informed within hours. CCTV images of attacks and robberies in locations remote from us can be seen in our living rooms - and I haven't mentioned the Internet.

I think the response to an event is more likely to be influenced by the availability of video than any other factor. We don't see women being raped in Darfur. We just see talking heads speaking a language we don't understand with a bland voice over. If we were to see actually what these women have seen and endured then our response might be greater.

The impact of images has been known for years. During the 1st World War the real images of war were censored. The photographic images of the American Civil War had shown the politicians just how powerful the response could be. If the population of Europe had been able to see in their living rooms in live stereo sound and Technicolor the reality of the trenches of the Western Front and the horror of the way their sons and brothers were dying I don't think the governments of the day could have survived.

There are places in the world where video is difficult to produce and live and difficult to get out of the country. Those are the disasters we won't support because we don't know the detail.

Og

 

[minsue]

I don't think that we have tears for every disaster that happens around the world every year.

Some of us do.

 

[shereads]

Sri Lanka may be a poor country but that didn't stop them from giving a helping hand to tourists. I saw a family of four that had been invited to the house of a local villager and been given food and a bed to sleep on over the night until they could go to the airport. We have heard the same stories from Thailand and others tell about locals that takes off their shirts and give them to tourists that need them more then they do.

Yes, I was impressed with all the tourist accounts about hotel staff who made it their business to get the guests to safety, when they must have been dying to know what was happening to their own families and homes.

I know what you mean about not being able to cry for every disaster. As Pure said in another thread, we wouldn't be able to function if we didn't live in denial to a degree. 30,000 children die each day from malnutrition-related and water-borne disease. It isn't news. If it were, there might be a public outcry and a focused international effort to solve the most basic problems of the 3rd world: nutrition and clean water.