Apocalypse Now

In the face of an event like the Tsunami disaster in South East Asia, words truly are inadequate. Merely to watch the pictures of the tragedy unfold was deeply shocking and moving. At home, in the comfort of your armchair, there was a grotesque awareness of the complete impotence that is the lot of the disengaged observer in times of mass crisis of this kind.

There was a feeling of empathy too, for those who were victims of the earthquake and the tidal wave that followed it. But far stronger was the sense that we were placed in the role of spectators at someone else’s catastrophe. A horrible sensation – and yet to complain about it seems rotten and farcical, considered against the tortures that people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and elsewhere in the region have had to endure.
Try to imagine being plunged into a nightmare of that kind. There is no saying how you might respond. There is no knowing how you would cope – if indeed you were among those fortunate enough to survive. Whole villages erased. Children left stranded. Bodies piled up like matchsticks. And the terrible need for food, water and shelter of those left behind to rage against the elements.
There are heroic stories, of course, that unfold in vast dramas like this. Personal testimonies that would break your heart. Scenes that will forever live in the memory.
The aid agencies have moved in, as they do. Some of the individuals involved in mounting the relief effort will themselves perform incredible feats. A kind of healing will begin, that may just work for some, or even a lot, of the people directly affected. If things go badly with the relief effort, the catalogue of misery will expand. If they go well, the scale of the further loss of life will be limited. Knowing that, there is a real imperative to do as much as possible to effect this outcome, and generally to assist with the re-building of communities and of lives.
None of this will come easy. Money is needed, as well as support and labour. In the short term, it is to the credit of people in this part of the world that the response from them has been so positive and so obviously well-intentioned. But a sense of proportion will be vital too, an instinct as to how much – or how little – to intervene and how best to hand responsibility for the reconstruction over to local communities. A new kind of imperialism is certainly not what is needed.

Meanwhile, as we stagger, punch drunk, through the aftermath of the Tsunami, there is a need for clarity about the wider issues. I want to highlight a couple of these here.
The first relates to a mantra that has been repeated over and over again – that this is a natural disaster and therefore that nothing could have been done to prevent it. Of course this is true, in that the tsunami was the result of a natural phenomenon, over which humans can never hope to have control. But the scale of the disaster that ensued from this natural phenomenon is a different matter.
It is possible to examine the effects of natural events like earthquakes and tidal waves, and to put in place systems and controls with the aim of limiting the impact that they will have on people and on buildings, if and when they happen. It is done as a matter of routine in California, where the danger of earthquakes is ever present. But it costs, and in places where poverty is endemic and regulation is weak, few if any of the necessary safeguards are applied.
The same is true of early warning systems – which, in the case of the latest tsunami, were clearly inadequate. Indeed, in some cases, they were neglected or deliberately not provided, in a way that was close to criminal.
These are issues that might be addressed in the wake of the Tsunami, with the objective of creating as many safeguards as possible against an event of this kind having the same catastrophic consequences ever again.
It has to be borne in mind that there is a downside, for ordinary people, in introducing regulation that might make it impossible to get back to where they were before the disaster – and that would need to be taken on board in any response. But it is not enough to simply pass off the horrendous cost of the tsunami, in terms of loss of life, as purely a natural phenomenon when there is clearly more to it than that.
The second point worth highlighting is made by Bob Geldof in his reaction to the tsunami in this issue of hotpress, when he points out that there is a disaster of equivalent impact, in terms of loss of life, in Africa every week. This is a truly staggering fact and there should be no hiding from it.
Only a fool would suggest that there is an easy solution to the cocktail of poverty, disease, starvation and war that blights different parts of the continent of Africa to different degrees. Debt relief is an immediate goal that, at least up to a point, seems to make sense. Targeted aid would also make a difference – as long as it is effectively targeted, and in countries where the political will exists to make full use of it on behalf of the people.
Most compelling, perhaps, is the need to provide medicines to combat AIDS. And, in parallel, to find a vaccine which would free us all, and those places in Africa most affected in particular, from the long term spectre of AIDS-related suffering and death.
With this in mind, the UK Chancellor Gordon Brown wants to explore the possibility of getting scientists across the globe, for the good of humanity, to put commercial interests aside, in order to allow them to share research, in the drive to find a solution, sooner rather than later, to the blight of AIDS.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, but if it can be done, it will represent a huge step in the right direction. It will only happen if the political pressure is immense. But the terrible truth – terrible especially considering the new challenges that the tsunami has created for us all – is that there is no more important project in the world right now.