January 11, 2005Disaster ReliefIn view of Powerline's extensive quote from Diplomad, In Jakarta, aside from flags at half-staff, we have seen no signs of mourning for the victims: while employees and dependents of the American embassy spent their holiday loading trucks and putting together medicine kits, the city's inhabitants went ahead with New Year's parties; nightclubs and shopping centers are full; and regular television programming continues. At least 120,000 of their fellow countrymen are dead, and Indonesians hardly talk about it, much less engage in massive charitable efforts. The exceptionally wealthy businessmen of the capital -- and the country boasts several billionaires -- haven't made large donations to the cause of Sumatran relief; a few scattered NGOs have done a bit, but there are no well-organized drives to raise funds and supplies. I point out this description of domestic disaster relief in its infancy, from the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, especially the following: Supplies and donations (both military and civil) began coming to San Francisco from all over the country, even arriving before the fires ended. Train boxcars filled with donations carried signs such as "For the California Sufferers, From Denver, Colorado, More to Follow." The Southern Pacific Railroad reported 1,800 carloads of relief supplies that came into the city in a single month. At first, I figured the curious absence of numbers and activity from the Indonesian and Sri Lankan governments was an illusion, that of course those numbers were just rolled into the economic damage headings that we see, that they must be working feverishly on behalf of themselves. Alternately, maybe it was the response of a people who wanted to respond, but just didn't have the structure to do so. Now, I'm not sure what to make of it. Posted by joshuasharf at January 11, 2005 06:46 AM | TrackBack |
|