Wednesday, January 12, 2005
God and the tsunami
Monday morning public radio broadcast interviews with several religious leaders considering how disasters such as the recent tsunami could be compatible with their faith. That evening the ABC Evening News aired a report on the same question. Responses varied from "God doesn't micro-manage the Universe," to asserting that the victims had bad karma, which could date from a previous lifetime, to we'll understand God's purpose in the hereafter. See, for example, Was God in This Disaster? by Rodger Kamenetz writing for Beliefnet.com.
In a subsequent segment on the aftermath of the tsunami disaster, public radio aired a report about the risk of substantially more loss of life due to the spread of disease caused by unsafe drinking water. That report noted that 85% of the people living in the areas affected by the tsunami had never had access to clean water. The report went on to note the grim statistics of the large numbers of deaths that routinely occur in that part of the world from diseases we have long known how to prevent.
In short, many more people, and especially children, than were drowned by the recent tidal waves routinely perish at the rate of one life every 15 seconds. Because these deaths are scattered in geography and time, they have escaped the attention of most of us who are not at risk.
If the tsunami offers a "message," it could be to get us to pay attention to the plight of others. Disaster relief that provides a reliable source of clean water to people living on the shores of the Indian Ocean, would save more every week than the death toll of the recent disaster.
Jeffery D. Sachs, writing in Time magazine, notes that disasters often hit the poor the hardest ["The Class System of Catastrophe", January 10, 2005].
In a subsequent segment on the aftermath of the tsunami disaster, public radio aired a report about the risk of substantially more loss of life due to the spread of disease caused by unsafe drinking water. That report noted that 85% of the people living in the areas affected by the tsunami had never had access to clean water. The report went on to note the grim statistics of the large numbers of deaths that routinely occur in that part of the world from diseases we have long known how to prevent.
In short, many more people, and especially children, than were drowned by the recent tidal waves routinely perish at the rate of one life every 15 seconds. Because these deaths are scattered in geography and time, they have escaped the attention of most of us who are not at risk.
If the tsunami offers a "message," it could be to get us to pay attention to the plight of others. Disaster relief that provides a reliable source of clean water to people living on the shores of the Indian Ocean, would save more every week than the death toll of the recent disaster.
Jeffery D. Sachs, writing in Time magazine, notes that disasters often hit the poor the hardest ["The Class System of Catastrophe", January 10, 2005].
"The rich, unlike the poor, can afford to live in fortified structures away from floodplains, riverbanks and hillsides. The rich, unlike the poor, have early-warning systems--seismic monitors, weather forecasts and disease-surveillance systems. The rich, unlike the poor, have cars and trucks that enable them to leave on short notice when a physical disaster threatens."As a society, we respond generously in the face of disaster, but we have not paid nearly enough attention to making tragedies less likely in the first place. Sachs writes:
"Almost three years ago, the Bush Administration signed a pledge, the Monterrey Consensus, to 'make concrete efforts' to provide 0.7% of national income in assistance to the world's poor. Currently, the U.S. provides less than one-fourth of that pledge, just 0.15%--a mere 15 cents out of every $100 of U.S. income. If the U.S. raised its level to 70 cents we would save millions of lives and enable many more to escape their poverty and their extreme vulnerability to natural disasters. Currently, our military spending outpaces our development aid by roughly 30 to 1."If we are going to create a better future for ourselves and everyone else, wouldn't it make more sense to invest more in quality of life and less in destruction? Sadly, even the seemingly generous pledges that governments make are seldom realized.
"The Iranian city of Bam, for example, where an earthquake killed some 30,000 people in December 2003, has so far seen only $17 million of the $1.1 billion in aid pledged by foreign governments at the time of the disaster... In Afghanistan, donors pledged $2 billion in 2002 for the first crucial year of rebuilding. But Afghan officials said the country saw only a fraction of that, $90 million" ["How Much Will Really Go to the Victims?" Time, January 17, 2005].The $4 billion pledged to aid tsunami victims should be enough for short-term relief from the immediate crisis, but it will take a larger sustained effort to reduce the risk of future mass disasters. The recent tsunami could become a turning point in our history if we decide to use the tools of modern communications technology to insist that our governments back their pledges with actual spending, and if we can sustain our compassion beyond the drama of cataclysmic events and resolve to relieve the everyday deprivation that afflicts the majority of our race.
Murph 12:58 PM