On Haiti

An OpE I did for a local student paper... on Haiti

Here is the good news, this commentary won't be accompanied by photos of a crying black baby or a maimed granny. I'm sure those few who have watched TV programs other than ET or TMZ will have noticed that an earthquake hit Haiti a week or so ago, killing scores of people and destroying much of what was left of the dilapidated infrastructure of the country. I don't know whether you cried while helplessly watching the tragedy unfold. I did.

And yet, much of the mayhem that ensued outside Haiti sickened me in equal proportion. There we had aid agencies vying desperately for our hard earned cash. It goes without saying that they were all 'leading' or 'spearheading' the efforts in Haiti – when clearly there wasn't much leadership to be seen for about a week. It seems their TV commercials were faster produced than the actual humanitarian response. What's news? The aid industry is immensely lucrative. The monies donated in the aftermath of the tsunami in Southeast Asia have still not been spend. Do-gooders are still living off the interest generated from our (well, mea culpa, I did actually donate at the time) donations. Worse still, a lot of the donations will go this time around to ideologically motivated do-gooders. Religious organizations trying their best to convert Haitians to their particular ideology rightly see a unique growth opportunity. And yes, before you ask, they will donate rice and build a well. Their multi-colour brochures will show you that much, just in case you had any doubts. There will also be a generous amount of images of black babies randomly splashed across their fund-raising literature. The cash you're going to send will to a significant extent be utilized to grow their infrastructure and ideological power-base in Haiti, including for instance the building of schools aimed at indoctrinating Haitian kids in their particular religious beliefs. You can see how successful they have been, when you watch Haitian folks on the telly, who have lost EVERYTHING, and who thank their 'creator' for being alive, as opposed to BLAMING their 'creator' for inflicting that much pointless suffering even on innocent babies. The 'creator' inexplicably even managed to sink the local Cathedral together with his local CEO, it seems. So, here's my first message to you: Do NOT donate to aid organizations that also have an ideological agenda that goes beyond providing aid, unless you also happen to believe that abusing the desperation of the Haitian people in this manner is fair game. Be more discerning with regard to who gets your hard earned money.

Well, from what I gather from the news today, the gazilion $$ international effort aimed at rescuing people from the rubble translated into 150 or so people rescued. Good for those who were rescued. However, it is worth pointing out that the same $$ amounts could have preserved many more lives – even in Haiti – if they had been used differently. There is another important lesson in this and my second message to you: Ask yourself – before you donate – whether, in catastrophic circumstances and in terms of lives preserved, your particular donation, no matter how large or small it is, is likely to make the largest possible impact. Not every aid program is as good as any other (e.g. an US based aid organization's request that we donate for solar powered audio bibles seems frivolous). The same do-gooders cashing now in on Haiti have withdrawn any assistance from Somalia, a desperate and hugely violent country with about the same population size as Haiti. Darfur slipped off the do-good radar, and the list goes on and on and on. Shame Anderson Cooper couldn't make it there. I wonder whether we REALLY need a natural disaster a year to spur us into humanitarian action? What does this tells us about our common humanity? Nothing too confidence-inspiring, this much is certain.

Last but by no means least, do not loose sight of the bigger picture here. The same earthquake in Japan would not have led to tens of thousands of deaths (possibly many more than that). The reasons for the large number of deaths are directly linked to the poverty in that country. Building standards have been low to non-existent. The last hurricane that destroyed large parts of Haiti led to negligible international aid efforts. Nobody cared. And yet, a simple case for reparations can be made in favour of Haiti. Countries like its former colonial masters as well as the USA have interfered with the country's governance throughout its history. Surely this wretched nation is owed compensation for the damage the colonial powers' policies have caused. Compensation that is morally owed as opposed to a result of Bono type do-gooding. It will be interesting to see whether those countries that are largely responsible for the plight of the Haitian people will step up to the plate and do what needs to be done in order to repair the damage their policies have caused. Or will 'aid' be all that is left, organized by window-dressing organizations such as the UN (and its fleet of Toyota land-cruisers) and of course the international do-good industry.

Good ol British hypocrisy

There it is the land of the free, the defender of freedom of thought and speech, notorious for tolerating people with quirky habits and beliefs... that is, unless you're criticizing Islam. Why did I add hypocrisy in the title of today's post? Well, there's different standards for different people. A notorious, rightwing Dutch MP by the name Geert Wilders called the Koran a 'fascist book' in an anti-Islamic video some time ago. As we know by now, many Muslims respond to this sort of stuff with mayhem - you know, burning effiges of people who are not Muslims, killing other Muslims while they're at it, that sort of thing. So, one arguably over-the-top and offensive statement by Wilders leads to an even more problematic and out of proportion response by Muslims. Wilders, an EU citizen, wanted to visit the UK but has been banned by the UK Home Office on the grounds that his presence would threaten 'public security'. So, the presumed Muslim response determines whether one of Islam's critics may enter the country. It would follow then that the more out of proportion Muslims' responses to critics' views of that ideology is, the less likely it is that people who publicly hold such views would be permitted to enter the UK.

Here's the bit that really interests me in this: The UK Home Office also permits Caribbean singers to enter the UK, even though these shady characters routinely call for violence against gays and lesbians in their songs (including the murder of such people, just for good measure). It seems to me as if gays and lesbians are well advised to go on the streets, burn cars and create a lot of mayhem, because according to the screwed logic of the UK Home Office, that would then constitute a sufficient reason for not letting such 'artists' enter the country. If on the other hand you protest peacefully, 'public security' is not threatened and people advocating violence against gays and lesbians may freely enter the country.

QED

ps, in case you care to find out... here's an ineresting piece Russell Blackford wrote on the same issue: http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/02/geert-wilders-refused-entry-to-uk.html

More news from the world's largest gay male organisation, the Vatican

The German Jesuit priest Hermann Kugler labelled the Roman Catholic Church the largest transnational gay organisation that he is aware of, and criticised the organisation's continuing hypocrisy when it comes to the matter of homosexuality.

So without further ado, as my weekend entertainment contribution, here's a cool undercover stint Italy's La 7 TV channel has undertaken. They followed a male teenager's travails in gay internet chatrooms. He successfully managed to pick up a whole bunch of Catholic priests, including a character belonging to the Vatican's senior management, some Monsignore Tommaso Stenico. He meets the boy in his office and tries to pick him up. So he asks the teenager whether he likes him etc. Anyway, true to Catholic form he got fired, and true to Catholic form he denies being gay. He claims he only dated the boy to counsel him (hence presumably the question of whether or not the boy finds him attractive...).

If this all wasn't so sad, it probably would be funny. The ethical question, of course, arises, whether it's acceptable to publicly 'out' closeted gay men such as Mr Stenico. I do subscribe to the view that such men become fair game when they publicly engage in homophobia promoting activities. This is something Mr Stenico would routinely do as part of his job in the Roman Catholic Church's senior management structures. So, in a sense, outing a hypocrite is probably a legitimate kind of activity.