Haiti.
What to say.
I was listening to Stephen Lewis, father in law of Naomi Klein and kick-ass international humanitarian in his own right, talking on the radio today (as part of CBC's National Day for Haiti, which was mostly a rehash of the last week's conversations with some added Canadian rock stars telling us to contribute to the relief fund) and he said that yes of course, it is completely normal for us all to feel numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the news coverage of the earthquake.
I was thinking, why would I feel any of those things?
My house didn't fall on my head.
I'm not from Haiti. I'm not trying to find out what happened to my family that I had to leave to come live in Montreal, to try and have a shot at a life.
My mother didn't die. My brother didn't have to dig his family out from under what's left of his house with his bare hands. My sister isn't lying under a sheet tent in a street with no food or water, waiting for an amputation when the MSF saws finally get through the 'bottleneck' at the airport. My dad isn't working a backhoe burying thousands of bodies in mass graves.
Obviously, I feel very sad for all the millions of Haitian people who are feeling numb, overwhelmed, and devastated by the earthquake. And supportive of all the brave kind people who are trying to help them.
But could we all get a little fucking real about this.
I spent the day shopping and getting my hair done.
Like millions of other western hemispherians.
Mostly today, I felt contented in a slightly sickening consumer-buzz kinda way.
Christ, I even put my dog in daycare.
To ease the guilt of leaving her on her own when I go out.
What makes me feel numb, devastated and overwhelmed at times is the fact that for the totally random reason of birth, I can do all of those things and for equally random reasons, billions of people round the world can't.
Ever.
Because if we all could do them, then there wouldn't be enough resources for it to happen. And me and all my privileged western hemispherian colleagues would not have such a nice time.
And so we have constructed a world in which we make sure they won't ever get off their knees enough to realise that we aren't so great after all.
I know Stephen Lewis knows these things.
A lot better than me.
So what in jaysus' name is he doing on the radio mouthing platitudes at us?
Because if he went on the radio and lectured us all on the unfairness of it all, we'd get mad and his foundation would lose funding.
It has struck me forcefully that the media coverage of Haiti is different to previous disasters.
For me, anyways.
When you think about it, go back to that Michael Buerk report from Ethiopia in 1984 that everyone my age remembers so well (because it resulted in Live Aid).
Bad stuff happened. You saw it on television. If you were in a house where there were newspapers, you read about it in detail. If those newspapers were broadsheets, you got some sense of why it was happening.
You got past the word HUNGER.
But mostly it was a narrative that hyped the unfortunateness of some poor people and the bountifulness of the rest of us.
Nowadays, it's a little more complex.
The news breaks on Twitter, it's reported on 24-7 rolling news, the videos are put up on YouTube, they're shared and dissected on Facebook and other sites, Google brings millions of opinions to your fingertips.
It's at the same time easier and more difficult to get past the word DISASTER.
Reading around the issue I am struck by how RIGHT everyone who is commenting feels they are.
The US ARMY ARE WRONG.
It's the Navy, was my impression.
The Aid Agencies ARE SURRENDER MONKEYS.
They`ve been outflanked by the speed of the military operations, was my impression.
The news media are DISASTER JUNKIES.
For a reason.
The Haitian government is CORRUPT.
Well, which G8 nation is propping it up.
Too many viewpoints for me to figure it out.
But the hum of the rest of us feeling good about throwing another couple of hundred onto the credit card bill is coming through loud and strong.
Thank Christ for that.... maybe it`ll help with the numbness.
Interestingly, a poll of Canadians found that 88% of them felt that the money they donated would NOT get to the people of Haiti.
But they are still leading the world in donations per head.
Tonight`s the big face off between the Canadian mega-fundraiser and the Yankee one. Which I have to go watch soon, because it is the thing to do in our house tonight.
I guess people are good, generally. But they cling to viewpoints for reasons of stability and that is not good, generally.
Hopefully the intersection of the two aspects of us will result in a new, better, Haiti at some point in the future.
Social media so far is not impressing me with its ability to clarify complex issues.
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