Dwarfing The Tsunami - A Warning
by David Edwards
January 12, 2005
"Civilisation exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice." (Will Durant, historian)
Festive Depression
Curious things happen to the British public around Christmas. The weeks and months leading up to December 25 are characterised by a manic focus on consumption, materialism and unrestrained hedonism. The Season of Good Will actually sees more alcohol-fuelled violence on our streets, more family strife, and raised levels of suicide. One in two people suffer from "festive depression" after Christmas, the Guardian reports, with 51% of Britons suffering in some way following holiday excesses. ('A merry Christmas - but not such a happy new year,' Sandra Haurant, The Guardian, December 9, 2003)
For many Westerners, then, the tsunami of December 26 struck at an extraordinary time and place. A catastrophe that left millions with nothing occurred exactly as Westerners were over-indulging in everything. The waves that killed 150,000 brought hell on earth to many of the places we think of as paradise.
Empathy for the victims was doubtless increased by the dramatic, televised nature of the disaster, the involvement of large numbers of Western tourists - a number of journalists were themselves holidaying in the area at the time - and by the fact that these are indeed much-loved tourist destinations. Indonesia, in particular, is also a major economic and military ally of the West.
Certainly no one should imagine media corporations are suddenly guided by selfless altruism. Jacques Steinberg reported in The New York Times:
"In mounting their public-relations campaigns, however quietly, the networks were mindful that whatever the drop in network television viewership in recent years, people tend to flock back at times of crisis. And this story, like the Sept. 11 attacks or the capture of Saddam Hussein, offered that rare chance to try to recapture their interest." (Steinberg, 'Reporting Live From Hell: TV Scrambles for Glory,' The New York Times, January 10, 2005)
Likewise, leading British and US politicians - in actuality war criminals still at large - eagerly swooped on the chance to divert public attention from the ongoing, man-made catastrophe in Iraq, and to recast themselves as humanitarians bringing aid, fair trade and justice to the Third World.
Full Article.... http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=7007
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