The Tsunami of Human Relief
In the wake of the recent tsunami that has taken (at last count) nearly 150,000 lives abroad, the world’s relief organizations and governments have stirred millions of dollars into action, propagating rescue efforts on a massive scale and beginning the process of understanding how we might better prevent such disasters in the future. It is a noble effort whose human face is remarkably photogenic, its causes rooted entirely in the unknown forces of nature, its definition of victims spiraling out from the Asian coastlines and engulfing all those who value life in the face of inescapable oppression.
And if you think this is another editorial encouraging the gay community to stand up and donate money to the relief funds nationwide, think again.
Donating your money provides invaluable support to those in need, and pouring out financial assistance is an admirable activity for those who feel the frustration of inactivity; in lieu of racing to Asia to help directly, write a check to Oxfam or to the International Red Cross. I’ve done it myself.
But as a race, and in particular as Americans in the post-MTV generation, it is our attention-deficit disorder that has risen to the task, and not our cultural or political intents - and it is vital that we comprehend the difference. Our focus swings where our most invasive institutions - in particular the mass media - directs it, and too often we forget that our media are driven by factors whose relevance equals and in some cases outweighs objective coverage: profitability and editorial follow-the-leader. We read newspapers and watch television in an alarmingly non-analytical, increasingly abbreviated form. We accept the social mores of Hollywood in lieu of the fundamental accountability of human ethics. We allow our government to dictate our nation’s moral imperatives, rather than insisting that our nation’s leaders govern according to the principles of a people in touch both with their brave history and their tremendous promise. America’s dollar drives its noble institutions. This month it drives us all to a tsunami relief effort. It’s good TV.
Even as our minds and wallets open to the tragedy on the Asian shores, a film opens in Boston that precipitously exemplifies the fact that such goodwill is so often force-fed. "Hotel Rwanda" reminds us that ten years ago the world witnessed a human catastrophe on a scale eight-times the size of the tsunami of December 26th... and did absolutely nothing. Those headlines were buried beneath the O.J. Simpson trial; our media dished us up a serving of a celebrity scandal, and left ignored the taking of lives on a massive scale. Why?
Ratings, darling. Sex sells. Celebrity sells. Scandals move newspapers. Tsunamis provide incredible visuals. And this nation’s largest increase to capital expenditures has been allocated to a war whose roots trace back to the most visually arresting images of this century: the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Three thousand Americans lost their lives that day.
In terms of life cost: terrorists cost 3,000; the tsunami 150,000; the Rwandan genocide a cool million. And hold on a second... it appears that three million people died of AIDS in 2003. Where is the capital expenditure to effectively handle that global crisis? Why are the severe cuts to AIDS funding, propagated by the media-led misinterpretation of the "manageability" of that disease, not the story of the week? We live in a capitalist society founded upon a democracy, where during our very best days the will of the majority indirectly decides how the nation’s resources will be spent based upon the mass attention of our baser fascinations, and on our very worst days the will of those in power utilize well-oiled public relations mechanisms to influence those who are easily led.
As a minority whose very rights are at the mercy of those same fascinations and those same engines, we would be foolish to internalize them, even selectively. I hear gay voices on the street and in editorial channels urging each of us to prove that gay people are part of the human race by donating money to the relief efforts in Asia. These are not the grandstanding statutes of freethinking individuals, and these are not the reasons to donate your money. Give so that lives can be saved or freedoms won, not because you believe your money can make a political statement on behalf of gay people everywhere. And choose the recipients of your cause according to what you believe, not what you are told.
