In the Face of Extraordinary Sufferring... Haiti

[fazzle]

In January of 2010, the island nation of Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake. As of this writing, estimates put the death toll at 140k, but that number will likely increase as a result of disease, starvation, injury deaths and violence. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2010/haiti.quake/

At a fundamental level, there is something very raw about the Haiti quake, shared by the tsunami in Indonesia, that engenders a different view of the question "What now?" Haiti was, by truly any measure, a wreck before the earthquake. To fall from 'very low' to... what? That is the raw-ness of the tragedy. The poor of Haiti are, in economic terms, not much poorer. But the extraordinary suffering foisted on the people, people whose government, infrastructure and way of life were in no way set to bear such a burden, truly raises the question "What now?"

In the face of extraordinary suffering, what should be the world's response? The answer "aid" is truly unsatisfying. While millions of dollars, possibly billions will flow into Haiti, it will serve to mitigate the suffering of those left alive and, hopefully, rebuild to a level near the pre-quake world. But what else is the world to do? Occupy and build from the ground-up? Create a multinational emergency response team, able to deploy anywhere in the world in 24 hours? Who would fund it? Who would use it?

In a conversation with a friend the other day, while watching coverage of the relief efforts, he commented "Well, I guess three countries in the world won't hate us now. Kuwait for the gulf war. Indonesia for the tsunami and Haiti for the earthquake." His comment sat oddly with me, acknowledging both its truth and the terror of it. Has it really become the system in the world that nations should decry the developed states, until, in the face of extraordinary suffering (or invasion in Kuwait's case), they 'need' the developed countries to assist them? And does that possible fact put serious strain on the idea that you mitigate, look to prevent, extraordinary suffering merely from the moral imperative to do so and not as a way of engendering, even for a brief while, goodwill?

I can but ask, what do we do when confronted by the reality of the randomness of great suffering and pain?

[Galactic]

This isn't really a reply to Fazzle's post. Just another thought.

It takes effort to wrap your head around a large-scale tragedy that isn't unfolding in your immediate world. Scanning a front page, reading a website, catching a newscast can only give you so much of an idea -- even if they're excellent reports, which many of them aren't.

Many people, myself included, are used to processing superficial stories given superficial treatment by news outlets.

You might retain some facts and figures, but to try to feel and comprehend the pain and degree of suffering requires some time and active effort, a different level of reading. It's not necessarily an easy thing to do. I don't know what percentage of people actually try to do that.