Page 4 - DIVA_No.23_2006

a Editorial

the Tsunami. Daifour. the famine in the Sahel. the hunicanes Katrina
and Wilma-just to name a few. Most recently, it was the ten-ible eaithquake
in Kashmir. where the victims were numbered in the tens of thousands.

Natural disasters and other catastrophes happen evei'y day. Unfoitunately, not
all of them receive media coverage, and if they do it comes too late. I remem-
ber a friend telling me about an African drought in the 1980s. A Minister from
an African counti'y had knocked on my friend's door telling him that the coun-
tiy would be facing widespread starvation among the civilian population. The
Minister said sadly: "It is not until photos of our starving children and dead
bodies make the headlines in the media that the international community will
stait to move". Regrettably, this proved to be ti'ue. Tlie tragedy had in fact been going on for more than a year befo-
re the intei'national media staited to feature it, leading one to ask: "How many lives could have been saved if the
huinanitai-ian agencies liad come in a year earlier?"

Humanitai-ian workers repoit that the central problem remains the same today as it was then, namely how to draw
public attention to these catastrophes. "How are you going to mobilize the media to talk aborit the catastrophes,
some which are totally forgotten. Let us just mention the situation facing the liandicapped and disabled persoi'is in
many places around the world?" As if this were not enough, there is a new phenomena arising, namely the jaded
interest in certain on-going catastrophes.

"How on earth can you 'sell' an on-going stoi'y?" a colleague jorirnalist asked one day as soon as I tried to talk
about it. I hear coinments like: "Oh, starvation in counti'y X again." It is true that some of these tragedies have been
going on for foity years or longer, and yet the situation has not shown signs of improvement. It is understandable
that the general public is unmoved when hearing about tlie same problems over and over again. It becomes almost
as it were normal for these people to suffer-and yet it should not be like tliat.

There ai-e ceitain aspects that are, neveitl'ieless, rat)'ier positive. 'i)Vhen it comes to disaster prevention, much work
has been done and iinpoitant progress has been made in ceitain fields. For instance, quite a lot of work has been
carried out on the reconstruction of schools and houses in seismic zones so that they are "eaithquake proof'. Why
does this not happen on the inatter of starvation? Is it a lack of political will, or is it simply due to the lack of resour-

ces?Soinetiines,in a cynical mood, I wonder WIIYwe tend to think that soinehuman beingsarewoith morethan

others. This is like the quote froin George Orwell's Animal farin: "All animals are equal but some
animals are inore equal than others." The questions are nuinerous and the answers few.
It was only the Tsunami that woke people up; the reason was quite simple-a lot of tourists were among the yic-
tims and all of a sudden people realized that they would not have survived if they had been on holiday there.
So what can we do? Perhaps the simplest answer is to care more about tlie people around us. An African proverb
states: "You need two hands to wash properly". Today it might be me requii-ing assistance; tomoi'row it might be
you. So if we all care more about each other, nO inatter where we come from or what colour our skin is, I think that
the world be become a better place for all of us to live in.
Neveitheless, despite-or even because of-these gloomy tlioughts, I wouldlike to wish you all a Happy New
Year
Mari(