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We will forget Haiti

Lucy Kippist

by Lucy Kippist

04 Feb 09:08am

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Filed under: Aid, Haiti Earthquake, Poverty, Third World, Un

17 comments

Just once I’d like to see a celebrity, the kind that make a lot of fuss about pledging money to a cause like Haiti, to follow through.

It doesn’t matter which one. I just want to see them turn up again a few months-even a year- later to check how things are going. After the camera’s been turned off and around the time we’ve all started to forget how badly we cared about it.

Because that will happen - it happens every time. And many of us won’t even realise it because the images that fill our minds now of the devastation and the screaming, hungry children will be replaced by something else. Maybe even something in our own lives. 

But wouldn’t it be great if at that moment Mr or Ms Famous would charter their private plane right back to a place like Haiti and walk around the streets that their money helped rebuild, and say “hello”.

Maybe they’d visit the families they’re so worried about. Or pass through wards of the hospitals as they’re slowly being built. They could even give another donation to boost morale and prop things up when they get hard again, because they will.

In their book Philanthropcapitalism Matthew Bishop and Michael Green argue that people with a high power status, like celebrities, have the power to make great changes in the world if they put as much effort into the organisation they’re throwing their money into as their careers/business.

Bill Gates is used as a positive example of someone doing exactly that and his wife Melinda “travels the world so that she can understand what a cheque from Seattle is actually accomplishing 10,000 miles away.”

So while the celebrities busy themselves with that, why can’t the rest of us do something about our readiness to forget. We may not have the money to fly to out to Haiti and pass through the rubble, but we can learn to open our eyes.

The Huffington Post recently posted a photo essay of seven of the world’s “other” great humanitarian causes to encourage their readers to keep their minds in check.

And while the still images of places like Sri Lanka, Bangledesh and China are heart wrenching and horrible,  they’re also a strange kind of placebo.

Because what they present is a reality that’s far away from our own. And it’s a reality that seems to imply that this kind of all-consuming tragedy only ever happens to someone else - somewhere else.

And that’s just not true.

In three days time we’ll recognise the first anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires where approximately 173 Victorians perished and hundreds more lives were destroyed.

Just yesterday 2000 Australian farmers rallied at Parliament House against proposed changes to their property rights; a group whose extended exposure to the pressures of drought has seen as many as 1/6 now face serious mental health issues.

And on the first day of parliament for 2010 Kevin Rudd reneged on a Sorry Day promise to the Indigenous population to make his “Closing the Gap” statement; an update that promised insight into the national Indigenous community.

This is a community who last year had the highest rate of children in protective custody; three percent of it’s population suffering from rheumatic fever (a disease that no longer exits in the “developed” world) and an average male life expectancy of just 67 years of age.

I’m not suggesting we turn our back on Haiti but with stuff like this happening in our own backyard, instead of choosing to forget, shouldn’t some of our well-meaning energy be re-directed.

Follow me on Twitter: @lucyjk

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17 comments

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    • Jessie says:

      10:57am | 04/02/10

      I would actually like to feel less guilt about things. Don’t get me wrong I care what is happening to people both near and afar but I cannot help all the time, or even most of the time. I barely have money to live day to day life and I cannot give any of that away. I give a few dollars here and there to donation bins but that is about all. And I wish I had the time to go and help, truly . . .but I don’t.

      I lend my signature to petitions I agree with and I listen. But there are so many terrible thing happening in the world. I wish the best for them and I am glad these celebrities are lending time and money they can afford to the cause.

      It doesn’t bother me so much that they may not be back in a year or two, because at least they are doing something. And to be honest . . .in a year or two there will probably be a new tragedy that people need money for. So any help they can get in the initial stages I think is a good thing.

      Reply

    • A says:

      11:01am | 04/02/10

      The reason people are celebrities is because they are always in front of cameras… if they do go out of the cameras they arent celebrities anymore and nothing would change…

      Reply

    • James says:

      11:08am | 04/02/10

      I love the way that celebrities think it is better the make music so that we can all donate money, rather than cutting out the middle man and spending some of their vast fortunes.

      Reply

    • fluffy says:

      11:24am | 04/02/10

      the world turned its back on haiti ages ago, but let the USA fix haiti, they broke it.    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6

      and we dont have to ignore people in need of help in order to solve our own problems, its not the haitians fault, or the congolese, that we cant close the equality gap with indigenous australians.. we just need to want to.. i think some of our not so well-meaning energy ( useless illegal wars of aggression ) should be re-directed.

      Reply

    • Pugilist says:

      12:34pm | 04/02/10

      Philanthropy does wonders for a celebrity’s career. And think of all that networking at the sing-alongs.

      Reply

    • BT says:

      01:56pm | 04/02/10

      As the link fluffy posted explains, the US did indeed create the poverty Haiti is currently experiencing and bear the responsibility of reparation. Institutions such as the US dominated World Bank and IMF fund so called “foreign aid” projects to “develop” these nations, and created horrendous debt and poverty as a result - with absolutely no accountability for their actions without anyone even questioning where the money goes. We in the “West” have been raping Third World countries to fund our lavish greedy lifestyles for centuries - all in the name of “aid”. If you want to help Third World nations, cease giving foreign aid. Most of it never reaches the people it is meant to help, it is simply a means of the West infiltrating resource rich nations, creating new market opportunities and taking their profits in the process. Read David Sogge’s “Give and Take”, explaining the Aid Industry and what it is really about.

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      03:11pm | 04/02/10

      Sheer garbage.

      This sort of hate propaganda against Western democracies only makes them less likely to contribute.

      Give up the mindless hate, and consider humanity instead.

    • BT says:

      04:52pm | 04/02/10

      Eric, I am considering humanity. Do some research. And maybe get a degree in Social Science. Then get back to me.

    • formersnag says:

      05:14pm | 04/02/10

      for once Eric you are wrong on this one. Aid, both foreign & domestic has been dominated by loony, left, bleeding hearts. they treat symptoms, never cure the disease & most of the money goes to corrupt despots or is eaten up by “administration”. the best example being the plight of our own aboriginal people, billions of taxpayers dollars spent, for 40 years now & nothing to show for it but bloated bureaucracy.

    • Eric says:

      05:37pm | 04/02/10

      Uh, no. I have done my research, and your guilt-inducing claptrap is simply guilt-inducing claptrap.

      Third world countries are responsible for their own conditions. Ignoring this simple fact means condemning them to repeat their problems in perpetuity.

      Only when the world recognises the real causes of poverty, will the real solutions become apparent. You are blocking this process.

    • MarK says:

      12:40pm | 05/02/10

      Sogge is not against helping/giving aid but the they way thigns have been done, you have failed to serperate Joe blogs giving to disaster relife, from NGOs implementing effective long term developemnt projects, government directed foreign aid and the likes of the IMF/World Bank and their path of destruction. Joe Citizen stopping all giving wont stop the taking.

    • BT says:

      02:09pm | 05/02/10

      MarK, what you are saying is true, and I think a lot of people are sincere about wanting to help those in impoverished nations, however my point is that people give their hard earned cash, willingly or as part of foreign aid spending allocated by government, without any accountability for where that money goes or how that money is spent. It is difficult to explain the complexities of the Aid Industry in a short paragraph though, so you will forgive the lack of substance but for the most part NGO’s are simply part of the industry and therefore problem too. I worked in one of the biggest aid agencies in the world, I couldn’t find anyone working there who wasn’t white. No refugees, no minority groups, just average white middle class Aussies or Brits working in very nice offices located in the heart of the CBD.

    • Lou says:

      01:57pm | 04/02/10

      “I’m not suggesting we turn our back on Haiti but with stuff like this happening in our own backyard, instead of choosing to forget, shouldn’t some of our well-meaning energy be re-directed.”

      I whole heartedly agree. The circumstances (third world) in our own country is something that needs dedicated attention and funding, instead of finding a tragedy overseas to focus on. It’s all a lot easier to look overseas, nice and removed, don’t have to feel too bad about it all. While it isn’t as easy as throwing a bit of money on it, I believe that through unity, and focus, reconcilliation, and improvement in the living conditions for ALL Australians is possible.

      Reply

    • Marina Go says:

      04:37pm | 04/02/10

      I have donated to the Haiti cause because as a human being with far greater means, how could I not? I have also been drawn to The Smith Family’s call to sponsor a child in our own backyard who needs someone else to pay for school shoes and lunch money. As a human being with far greater means,  how could I not? Why do we feel the need to choose? The less fortunate need our help regardless of where they are barely surviving in the world. Great that some celebrities are altruistic but this shouldn’t just be their burden.

      Reply

    • Ingrid says:

      07:42pm | 04/02/10

      Celebrity philanthropy, or celanthropy (the academic term), is far more than about giving money, it’s about leverage, pressure application, creating awareness and exposure. Just a sign of the times, albeit an unfortunate one. Nonetheless, to dismiss it as easily has been done is to ignore some of the amazing achievements and awareness created through celanthropy and philanthro-capitalism in the past. Instead of bitching about it, how about working on strategies to use the zeitgeist in the West to help create a better future where possible?

      Reply

    • g says:

      11:27pm | 04/02/10

      I doubt celebrities are any more guilty than the rest of Western society when it comes to ‘compassion fatigue’ in the face of epic disasters. They just have a lot more cash and presuably a lot more time on their hands. Western audiences are subject to constant saturation of tragic images without any background or true understanding of the context of the images we see from these events.

      It’s all too easy to say “oh my God, how horrible”, then go back to eating dinner and maybe throw 50 bucks at the 1800 donation number hotline on the telly because you know, you care.

      More often than not natural disaster events of the scale in Haiti are made worse through the lack of basic infrastructre in place that we take for granted in our country. When a town in Australia suffers a three-day black out and flooding following a cyclone it results in communties outraged that they had to chuck out all the steak in their freezer because of our “sub standard” emergency and electricy services. There is a blatant double standard that rears it’s ugly head when disasters like the earthquake in Haiti occur which are brushed over and forgotten by Western governments and international bodies like the IMF and WB.

      We have it good in our country and if people truly believe they can make a difference by donating a bit of cash then go ahead, I’m sure it’s better than doing absolutely nothing. But it’s going to take an awful lot more than donor aid to level the playing field to give countries like Haiti and other poor nations the chance to recover without living under the thumb of Western aid.

      Reply

    • Bill says:

      10:13am | 05/02/10

      It’s quaint that the mega rich impose on the not so rich to donate.  It’s eases their mind to ‘spread’ the guilt.

      Reply
 
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