Not Caring About the Right Countries [World Disasters Discussion]

[DrgoFx]

I'm pretty sure that judging this as the Escapist, a discussion over whether or not donating to Japan was necessary has probably come up. In all honesty, I'm trying to vent here and see if this topic is actually worth discussing since none of my friends wish to discuss, and those that do just agree with me and the discussion lasts for two minutes.

In March of 2011, Japan was hit by a series of massive Earthquakes and Tsunamis, well known to anyone on the internet. In response to this, a large group of people donated to help fix this event. In October of 2010, a hurricane had hit the island of Barbados for the first time in fifty years. No one was prepared for it, no one expected it, and a lot of damage was done to the small island country. Now nearly a year later for Barbados, the country is back up on it's feet, only because of the help from the American Diplomats stationed in the country. Half a year later, Japan is fine too.

Why am I bringing these two up? Massive donations were sent to the country of Japan, a 1st world country, to help with their disaster. Japan has dealt with Earthquakes and Tsunamis, these might have been big but they get them every day. They know how to handle themselves. Yes, the nuclear plants were in melt down but they handled that fine as well.

Barbados is a third world country, only a short two - four hour flight from Miami and is the chosen vacation spot of many American Celebrities. Rihanna, although who here cares, is a native to Barbados and participated in the Island's holiday festival last year. Barbados had no help from any other country in the world. Most of the residents had never been in a hurricane, much less lose their homes to one, and there wasn't that much help for anyone. The country managed to gain support not from the United States, but the United States diplomats stationed in Barbados. US Diplomats spent a good chunk of their savings to help an entire country. I've been to the embassy, there's no more than 80 diplomats here, this is a small post.

In short, I think the American people, or hell the entire world, is too stubborn to notice a problem in any country unless it's "too damn funny" [Gaddafi] or it's a well known country [Egypt and Japan]. In my eyes, that's wrong and me as a humble human being that's barely made his way out of his parent's home, I can't do much.

tl;dr: People notice problems in countries either well known or if the event is so large it's seen from Mars. Is this wrong or not?

 

[Colour Scientist]

How is the Gaddafi ordeal "too damn funny"?

I don't think that's true at all. The amount of continuous aid that goes to the poorest parts of Africa, or India(such as Calcutta) is staggering. Not to mention aid that went to natural disasters in countries such as Haiti, Thailand, etc...

The world usually does give a substantial amount of aid to countries in trouble, just not every country warrants a single release from Simon Cowell. Just because it's not heavily publicised doesn't mean it's not there.
Also, most countries nowadays aren't exactly shitting money so sometimes there isn't that much to spare given copious amounts of debt.

 

[wooty]

If its something you can help with, then I will help to the best of my ability. I gave money to the Japan disaster because I love the country and its people, I always get treated with respect and have a ball whenever I go there.

As for things like Libya, what can you do? This wasnt a disaster, it was revolution and the western nations were helping in their ownway according to what the rebels wanted, they didnt want money or food, just air support.

But as for only paying attention to the big disasters, thats normal as the big disasters are easily seen, tiny amounts of suffering are harder to get noticed or reported to the world and so go unaided.

 

[Liberaliter]

The world gives aid to most if not all countries that read it, but what is reported on is a different thing entirely. Hence the fuss over Japan and lack of over other nations.

 

[Mace Tulio]

Let's just say that the horn of Africa is in absolute turmoil, through both armed conflict and famine, but no-one seems to notice (at least not in Australia). The media always prioritizes what it sees as most worthy, it's an unfair system, but at least some things are covered.

 

[suxturdman]

I see people write about the media and it's way of prioritizing, which is only a half-truth. The reason they may choose to report more on Japan over for example Barbados is because everybody knows Japan is far greater state of business for other countries than Barbados who depends alot on tourism. There for it's not strange that other countries want to help rebuild Japan since a catastrophy there could affect the whole world.

Me on the other hand chose not to, since they slaughter so many dolphins and whales.

 

[DrgoFx]

How is the Gaddafi ordeal "too damn funny"?

Have you not seen the numerous amounts jokes about GADDAFI? Not Libya, just Gaddafi.

The basic point I was trying to make was that major issues in the world go over look because of two reasons: No one cares about said country and/or No one has heard of said Country. Half of the American people have never even heard of Libya, and to this very day, even though it was on the news, a small amount of US Citizens know of the existence of Bahrain, let alone possess the ability to pronounce it right.

As for anything else, I might have simply just made a big deal out of nothing, but it still makes me a bit uneasy. And yes Mace, I am aware of the issue in Africa. I lived in Joburg for two years of my life and actually give a shit about the country because it actually needs help.

 

[Trasken]

honestly with the economic cluster-fuck that is going on right now i can't be bothered to care about others

 

[Knife]

I don't think there is any difference between the two and both should have gotten help. But to be honest I haven't heard a thing about the hurricane in Barbados, to be completely honest I've never even heard of Barbados up untill this thread. The problem here isn't that we don't care about helping a third world country and prefer a country we are familiar with but rather that we can't help solve a problem we are unaware of. I'm certain that if the media was atleast half as loud about Barbados as it was about Japan then people would contribute no less. The individual people can't go out of their way and tackle all of the world's problems, they need to work as a group to make any kind of meaningfull contribution and they can't do that if they aren't organized. If those diplomats would simply go to the media and tell people "Hey, there is this island here that really needs help" it would help much more than their individual cash. It isn't that hard to spread awareness and its the first thing you need to do in such situations.

Basically the world is too damn huge for everybody to know everything, the slip up here from what I understand was on the part of the media/people not contacting the media.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Have you not seen the numerous amounts jokes about GADDAFI? Not Libya, just Gaddafi.

The basic point I was trying to make was that major issues in the world go over look because of two reasons: No one cares about said country and/or No one has heard of said Country. Half of the American people have never even heard of Libya, and to this very day, even though it was on the news, a small amount of US Citizens know of the existence of Bahrain, let alone possess the ability to pronounce it right.

As for anything else, I might have simply just made a big deal out of nothing, but it still makes me a bit uneasy. And yes Mace, I am aware of the issue in Africa. I lived in Joburg for two years of my life and actually give a shit about the country because it actually needs help.

So, your point ultimately is that people need to watch the news more? I thought it was about aid? I am confus.

 

[mikeysnakes]

Well as someone who lived through the March 11th earthquake, there are a few different feelings I have about this issue. The first being that western media seriously blew the nuclear plant out of its proportion. BUT the tsunami were where most of the people had died. Yeah sure we have special plates in our foundations but in this case it mostly only saved the lives of office workers, whilst wooden buildings were fucked. Also most of the tsunami walls were largely ineffectual, and cities all along the entire east coast of Japan were washed away. Also with the earthquake, some septic tanks were pushed up out of the ground and roads completely annihilated.

But it's also made me well aware that while this hit "Japan" it really only really hit East Tohoku and Kanto coastline, and there was still an entire country ready to send aid within itself, days after. So my first point is how large was the damage area, and loss in Barbados? Secondly, the only aid I heard about the Japanese government receiving was mostly in the form of scientists and instruments to help measure and deal with the power plant. Thirdly, do recall that Japan is used as an extremely major US Base with both Yokosuka and Okinawa, so many of the armed forces who helped out were already in Japan at the time.

Finally however, I would like to say that what you bring up is an apt point of "1st world" society and the attitude they hold towards South American countries in general. And I think it's fucking awful, but that attitude is held towards many countries.

Also just to add, Germany did the exact opposite of helping by having tabloids put out sensationalist articles about Fukushima Daiichi so their industries' nuclear reactors would sell better to third world countries. I'm still waiting for my nuclear death cloud to come over Tokyo, german press!

 

[surg3n]

honestly with the economic cluster-fuck that is going on right now i can't be bothered to care about others

This.
It's not like there are super-rich countries these days who can afford to deal with their own problems and give aid to others. In Britain we give aid like it's going out of fashion, yet we are having to shed a lot of public sector jobs, our pensions are getting to the point where they are worthless, and it's not looking like it'll get better anytime soon.

I give to a childrens charity, I'm not at all interested in funding another countries recovery while my own country goes to shit. Everyone knows someone who could benefit from charity, maybe it's time to turn our generosity inwards and leave other countries to their own devices.

 

[Apollo45]

I'm guessing you mean Hurricane Tomas?

I heard about it in passing, and while it might have caused some damage, there weren't more than 100 fatalities from it. It was also only a category 2 at its strongest point, and was barely hurricane strength when it passed over Barbados. I'm not trying to downplay the deaths here by any means, but compare <100 people spread over the entire Caribbean versus a tsunami that killed over 15,000 people in a single country. Towns that were there before the tsunami were completely and totally gone afterwards: nothing left but a few layers of rubble, and certainly nothing resembling a building. There were cases where more than half the people of towns were missing after the earthquake. I hate to say it, and again, I'm not trying to downplay any tragedy that occurred, but the Gulf Coast of the US gets worse hurricanes than that every year. I've been through a couple of them, and they're not fun, but they're certainly not anything compared to what happened in Japan.

If you want to get a real look at what happened, beyond rather bland news updates that were airing, read through this: http://www.japaninreality.com/2011/03/tohoku-earthquake.html
And if you want to know more, read through a few more posts in March.

They're still dealing with increased radiation levels in their water, over 100 times the typical standard. The Japanese government is being forced to change regulations concerning that just so that normal life continue, even now. Passing out water bottles in affected areas is still common, and who knows what will happen in the future. And that doesn't even compare to the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean in 2004, which got a lot of publicity and aid as well.

So, while I can see where you were coming from with it, and will admit that smaller countries do get less attention when disasters occur than larger ones, the fact of the matter is that if a tsunami went through Barbados and killed 15,000 people, we would hear about it, and would certainly send a ton of aid, just as we did to Japan.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

imho this thread pops up a day to early. Let's face it, in the mind of a vast majority the fate of first worlders weights much more than just another poor soul in a forsaken country. We shrug of news about yet another massacre in africa with hundreds to thousands mutilated, raped and killed ("where's the news l0l"-some random internetperson). But a dozen westernersa dead by a bombing clog the newschannels for weeks and everyone and his dog states his condolences. And in less than 24 hours the hole hypocritic story starts anew.

 

[Radeonx]

A big reason is because we're all first worlders, so us giving a shit about third worlders when we have our own problems is unlikely.

Is it unfair? Probably, but there isn't much we can do about it.

Although, I would like to point out that the Haiti earthquake proved that we do care about the lesser known places when shit gets super real.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I see the OP point, but it's unfortunately how the world works. Our friends and families live in a different reality to strangers in our country, different again to strangers in a country we like, and different again to strangers in one we don't.

It's much easier not to care about the problems of nameless, faceless people far away...though, this gets really nasty when in order to avoid feeling guilty about not doing anything about other people's problems, we convince ourselves they don't have any, or are lying about them. This can lead to massive outrage when someone else tries doing something about them, either because we feel they are undeserving of help due to not having problems, or they threaten to make us admit we are lying to ourselves.

 

[jonyboy13]

Because helping third world countries has no political value. "Hey Japan, remember the huge donation we gave you to help you with the earth quake damage?... Yeah... We gonna need to use your military bases for a while." Is more useful than actually helping anyone or saving people.

I'll refer to the monkey sphere here. Helping them doesn't help us so we don't care. Same reason we don't really care about the millions dying in Africa every year. Yes, we say it's bad, and it is, but we don't do anything about it. At best we donate a ridiculously small amount of money that won't really help.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Because giving a shit about people living in the third world when you live elsewhere is an excellent example of a first world problem.

 

[Scout Tactical]

As an isolationist, I do not advocate supporting foreign nations through donations.

Thus, I didn't donate to either Japan or Barbados, and while I certainly would never try to stop people who wanted to donate from doing so, I would also support candidates for office who would discourage US relief funds across the world, particularly to Africa and Asia.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Because people like Japan for the weird shit they give us. Nobody gives a fuck about Barbados or Haiti.

People were terrified their source of anime or cars or computers would be destroyed by Earthquakes. Barbados and Haiti didn't give shit to the world. So the world didn't care.

I know, this is a horrible generalization, but it is a big reason why the general public at least felt more sympathy towards Japan than other victims.

I mean, did you see the Escapist or Valve put together any relief fund activities for Haiti last year? Nope. Japan gets hit? OMYGODWENEEDTOSENDHELPNAOW! reaction instead. And Japan pretty much cleaned up the mess on their own. Haiti is still in the shitter in comparison.

The reaction time for the Japan disaster was incredibly fast, with help being mobilized within a day or so. Then look at Haiti. It took Canada's First response aid calling out other countries for not moving fast enough to get people off their asses and start helping.