Sunday August 22, 2010
Why the reluctance to help?
By Jim Taylor
There is no longer any question that the floods in Pakistan are the worst natural disaster in recent history. Depending on sources, between a third and a fifth of the entire country is under water; between 14 and 20 million people are affected.
Even at the lower estimates, more people have been affected than the combined total of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the earthquakes and landslides in China, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
And yet international aid has been disastrously slow.
As of last weekend – just prior to Canada pledging an additional $30 million in aid – the whole world had raised $229 million for Pakistan. Compare that to $3.3 billion for Haiti, and $6.2 billion for the tsunami.
The per capita support is even more revealing. The Globe and Mail calculated that the world contributed $1,087 per affected person in Haiti, $1249 per person in the Indian Ocean tsunami. But just $16 per person in Pakistan.
Why so little?
Negative impressions
Experts in charitable giving suggest several possible reasons: fewer immediate deaths, an unfolding disaster instead of an instant catastrophe, Pakistan’s poor public image, phobias against Islamic fanaticism….
It’s certainly true that there have been fewer deaths – so far – in Pakistan than in other disasters of the last decade. Around 2,000 people have died in the floods.
But the big death toll will come later. When 14 million people have only floodwater to drink, cholera and dysentery will flourish. With farmlands flooded, seed reserves soaked, and roads and bridges destroyed, starvation will spread.
It’s also true that unpredictable disasters earn more sympathy. Earthquakes and tsunamis strike innocent victims without warning. People could prepare for floods, some might argue, especially for floods caused by regular seasonal monsoons.
I suspect those people have never experienced a monsoon deluge. I did a cursory check for literary descriptions of monsoons without finding what seemed to me an adequate portrayal.
When the heavens open
So let me share a childhood memory. I was about six, I suppose, playing in the shade on our verandah. The ground outside was baked as hard as concrete, cracked and crazed in the heat.
Then the temperature dropped. Massive roiling clouds blocked the blistering sun.
And the heavens opened. Looking back now, I can understand why the first creation story in the Bible refers to the heavens as dividing the waters below from the waters above.
Because when the rains came, it was like ripping open the belly of an ocean suspended overhead.
The deluge blotted out the horizon, the distant hills, even the trees across the road. Bare earth vanished under brown water beaten to a froth by huge raindrops.
As I watched, the water rose. Until it covered the bottom step.
A monsoon can dump six inches of rain in an hour.
And that, in short, is what happened in Pakistan. Winds picked up water vapour from the sun-heated Indian Ocean. Moisture-laden clouds drove inland over the low-lying Indus River plain. As they’re driven to higher altitudes, they cool. The jagged peaks of the Himalayas rip their guts open.
As Frankie Laine once sang, “Oh, Noah, didn’t it rain!”
All that water funnelled down the Indus River and its tributaries. It ripped up villages, smashed bridges, launched landslides. When it swept out into the fertile plains, it flooded farther than the eye can see.
And the monsoon has not ended. Still more rain is coming.
Lousy image
Now, it’s true that Pakistan has a lousy PR image. Corruption at all levels of government makes the Mafia look squeaky-clean by comparison. Politically, Pakistan has been called “the most dangerous country in the world” — a rogue nation with no compunction about peddling its nuclear technology, a paranoid nation with a twitchy trigger finger. In its 63 year history, it has had four military coups.
But it’s hardly fair to blame the ordinary flood victims for the nation’s political indiscretions.
They could be held partly responsible for Pakistan’s divided alliances. It claims to be a Western ally, while serving as a base for Afghan Taliban. The mountain tribes along the Afghan/Pakistan border are almost indistinguishable from each other.
Pakistan also hosted the madrassahs, schools that teach fanatical devotion to Islam.
While that’s unfortunate, it’s understandable.
Pakistan was founded as a religious refuge. At the partition of India, 63 years ago this month, some eight million Muslims fled India to start life anew in Pakistan. Up to one million died in sectarian killings.
People who have faced death for their faith tend to be a bit fanatical about it.
Out-flanked
Meanwhile, we in the western nations are missing our chance – again.
News reports suggest that the most immediate aid and relief has come from Islamic extremist organizations like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, condemned by the UN as a front for terrorists. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, they’re also a vigorous social agency. And they have no hesitation about proselytizing for their cause as they rescue people, distribute supplies, and provide medical aid.
The second most visible aid comes from Pakistani army.
By the time it’s all over – if it ever is – I suspect the Pakistani people will be even less favourably inclined towards wealthy western nations than they have been until now.
If we cannot swallow our misgivings and help them, they may be right.
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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Your Turn
Last week’s column about the unstated axioms that underly any system of logic – especially that of Prime Minister Stephen Harper — was rather cerebral, so I didn’t expect many letters. But those that came were thoughtful and interesting.
Joan Mistretta, writing from Hammondsport, NY, had this to say: “One’s first reaction to Day’s ‘Twisted Logic’ (could be the name of a musical group) is to laugh, but the long term effects of such lack of thinking are, of course, not funny. Two comments: 1) You didn’t mention the extent to which prisons have become big business and 2) One of the things which contributes to the discouragement of progressives (dare we call ourselves liberals?) here in the U.S. is that Canada appears to be more and more solidifying our worst traits. Makes us fear there is no hope for the world.”
Vern Ratzlaff, who calls himself “a disgruntled Mennonite from Saskatchewan,” (and who probably grew up with axioms similar to those I suggested might be held by Stephen Harper) simply said, “Good stuff, Jim.”
Cliff Boldt sent me a couple of Internet offerings that more or less confirmed my views – including a document in which the far-right publication Conservapedia described Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as a liberal conspiracy.
A dissenting voice came from Freda Stewart in Calgary. “Your column on logic left me with many mixed feelings. You were doing ookay until you started listing Stephen Harper’s faults, but then I am an Albertan and he is my M.P. I agree with his stand on abortion because both my professional training and upbringing have given me a wholehearted belief in the sanctity of life. My sympathy lies with those who feel the need for an abortion, but [when it is] too freely available, often abortion is used in place of birth control, which is why I believe firmly that safe methods of birth control should be available no matter the income level.
“Regarding Stockwell Day — in a perfect world we should not need jails. But then we should not have criminals either. Our church is big on justice which should include all kinds of justice. Home invasions that damage people and property, rape and assault; and the drug industry, are so common anymore that they have become accepted and there is little in the way of recompense to the victims. The perpetrators stand in court and weep, blaming their parents, their upbringing, their foster home… Too often the judges fall for this instead of seeing damage caused to the victims.
“As to logic — my dearly beloved son-in-law is an engineer & economist, super brilliant. My daughter and I will approach the same issues on gut instinct, come unlogically to conclusions in half the time his logical steps allow him to arrive at the same decision. Sometimes logic is just worrying an issue to death.”
Tom Simper took aim at Stockwell Day: “Stockwell Day is a joke. When he was treasurer in the Alberta gov’t he decided a flat tax was the only correct way for taxation. When he presented his figures and said that the taxes would be less, the accountants jumped on him so quick because in fact the lower income people would be paying a higher tax under his system. He just did not know how to apply math.
“Now his logic is identical — there must be more crime not reported, therefore crime is up and we will incarcerate those unknown criminals even though they do not exist. Perhaps he figured that the long census form would be in place and all those who did not comply were criminals and Day would now have the inmates to fill his new prisons. Unfortunately, it seems that all conservative logic is based on the same premises. Woe is us.!”
Kevin Clarkson leaped to my defence (re the letter accusing me of being “a left-wing lunatic”): “From one ‘left wing lunatic’ to another, I would like to tell you that I very much enjoyed your article on the long form census, and I also believe in gun registry. In fact, I don’t think the registry goes far enough – there should be even tighter controls, in my opinion, on the number and type of firearms a person can own.
“Regarding Mark with no last name (perhaps ‘Bush’?), no one concerns me more than someone that is so completely and totally closed-minded and unwilling to consider other opinions or possibilities. He is so threatened that he creates his own facts to support a distorted view of history, and then resorts to childish name calling as if it were a valid point in the debate – that is very sad!
“Keep up the great work Jim. You always challenge me and I look forward every week to receiving your articles.”
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NEW PARAPHRASE AVAILABLE
I write paraphrases so that I can understand the Bible. And one of the most bewildering books, for me, has been Revelation.
Then one day my minister suggested that I was reading it wrong. I was concentrating on the prophecies, the interpretations of the visions, the explanations of the symbols. I should be reading it as a verbal painting.
Without most of the speeches and proclamations, Revelation turns into a massive visual tapestry, an epic narrative. In most of my paraphrases, I have tried to replace archaic metaphors and images with more modern ones, and to replace desert based illustrations with some that we who live in more northern climes might find more familiar. I have not done that this time. I have simply excised the blather that gets in the way of John’s magnificent panorama of rebellion and victory.
I’m offering this paraphrase of Revelation on the honour system, the same way as my other paraphrases (except for Psalms, which you have to order through the publisher). If you want to examine my paraphrase of Revelation, just write me. I will send it to you as a Microsoft Word file. If you decide you want to keep the paraphrase, you send me a cheque for $5 Canadian; if you decide it’s not worth that much, just delete the file and send nothing.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
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For other web links worth pursuing, try
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Alan Reynold’s weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap,”
- Wayne Irwin’s Model T Websites, a simple (and cheap) seven-page website for congregations who want to develop a web presence.
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not terribly religious, but they are fun; write [email protected] to get onto her mailing list.
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