Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Too Far Away to Care
Upon watching "Ghosts of Rwanda" I was thinking about US humanitarian efforts since 1994. There have been numerous events that required international humanitarian aide; nevertheless, the US has only interevened in a handful of them. From the tsunami devastation in Indonesia and Thailand to the genocide in Darfur, we have seen very little US involvement. Yet in Haiti, US funding and support keeps pouring into the country. Why the difference? Yes, I know that there are definitely political strings attached, but the American people as a whole seem to care about Haiti more than Darfur. Is it that, even in a shrinking globablized world, distance still plays a major role? Would a genocide in Africa affect us as much as a genocide perhaps in Guatemala? There must be many confounding variables that we don't take into account when deciding what we care about.
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I agree with your line of thinking. I also think that one of the confounding factors is that of the nature of the disaster. Darfur was a war, a conflict ect. It is hard for third parties to empathize because, as in all wars, there are at least two sides and that makes it difficult to identify with a single party viewing them as the victim.
ReplyDeleteIn Haiti, the disaster was not man made and so it is easy to see Haiti as a victim and empathize with them.
Bill Clinton approaches this idea in the Peterson readings when he was quoted as saying "Unless human tragedy is caused by natural disaster then there is no such thing as a purely humanitarian enterprise"
You are very right. I concur.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree somewhat with Porter's claim. I believe that, and this may go along with Jesse's comment, Darfur brings back memories of Somalia and thus, makes it really hard with the setup of the American government, to send in troops to help resolve the conflict.
ReplyDeleteRegarding non-military aid to Darfur, I go back to the quote by the Congress member to the Rwandan human rights activist that "the US does not have friends, it has interests" this pretty much sums up the view of the world that the global powers have. In that it is a chess board where pieces have to be moved so the player (the nation) can win in the end. Thus, US non-military aid is also dictated by whether it serves our interests, aid to Haiti makes sense because it is in our sphere of influence, not just because where it is physically but also because it offers foreign policy advantages. Darfur or Sudan for that matter does not meet this criteria and thus it is not on top of the list for aid.