The mammoth scale of the disaster in southeast Asia has cast something of a pall over the celebrations to mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next. That’s as it should be. We would be truly hard-hearted and complacent if we were to ignore it with the inevitable trite comment, heard from so many mouths, that life must go on. Of course it must go on, at least for those who are living – but blustering on with no emotion indicates that there is something lacking within, like the ability to feel empathy and horror at the plight of others.
It is the stories which involve children that are the most affecting, and which have been sought out by journalists at the scene to make the headlines. There was the Australian woman who told how, with her two children in her arms and the waters tugging at her, she had to make a decision to let one of them go so as to save the other, or have all three of them drown together. There can be few parents who heard that story without wondering what they would do in similar circumstances. It is a real-life Sophie’s Choice, this being the 1980s film in which the Polish woman portrayed by Meryl Streep had to choose whether to give her son or her daughter up to the Nazis. She gave up her daughter, thinking to save her son, but he too was snatched away from her by the SS, who laughed at her gullibility. I think that, put in the horrible position of that Australian woman, many mothers would have chosen to drown together rather than to cast one child away to save the other, and have to live with the knowledge for the rest of their lives, besides hiding it from the surviving child. She chose to let go of her five-year-old son, who couldn’t swim, and to save the younger one. The child she let go was eventually found, traumatised, saying that he survived by imitating “a dog in the water” – a happy ending of sorts, but one that comes with its own hideous difficulties. At his age, he is likely to have registered the fact that his mother let him go to save his sibling. This is going to make for tremendous psychological distress right into adulthood. It won’t be at all easy for her, either.
The Internet is replete with heart-wrenching messages from people searching for lost relatives. One of them calls for news of a lost baby: “He is one year old, can walk, and he knows his name.” I can’t imagine how these wounds will ever heal. There have been tales of incredible luck, too. Some call it a miracle, but that implies divine intervention and the hand of God descending to save the few while massacring the many. It’s just sheer luck. Some people had almost magical luck; others expired. The Woolner sisters from Malta, and their mother, somehow came out of the rush of water alive. The four young Maltese men who featured in the news here made a last-minute decision to leave one of the worst-hit islands just hours before the tsunami hit. Our fate is decided with just such split-second decisions, which shape the rest of our lives or simply end them.
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It is money that is needed for the relief effort, rather than clothes, blankets or what-have-you. The British Red Cross has announced that it wants the money with which to buy the things it needs to help these people, rather than donations in kind. This is by far the most practical approach. When donations in kind are made, huge teams have to be deployed to sort, sift and pack. Much of what is donated is unsuitable and has to be disposed of, eating up further man-hours and incurring costs. Air-lifting aid halfway across the world costs a great deal of money, and space in cargo planes – and even in containers – is very precious. It is not wasted on items that may or may not be used. Bear this in mind when making donations of blankets and clothes today at the Maria Regina School in Hamrun. As Peter Cordina, who is coordinating the effort, said in a statement, don’t use the collection site as your own personal skip.
People really give such rubbish that it makes one ashamed. If it’s only fit to be thrown away, then just throw it away. By giving it to a relief appeal like this one, you are only creating more work for the relief workers, who could be more usefully engaged elsewhere. I’ve heard all sorts of stories from helpers in other relief collections: cracked frying-pans, pots with food still stuck on, individual sanitary towels (the mind boggles – do they open up a packet and donate just one?), jackets with the buttons cut off (because the buttons might come in useful at home), jumpers with holes in them, broken shoes, crimplene mini-skirts (very useful in a camp for the homeless), bikinis, sheets stained with bodily fluids, and so on. What possesses people to give these things to charity? Indeed, why do they have them at home in the first place? Real giving isn’t saying to yourself “Thank God, now there’s somewhere I can dump my old trash with a clear conscience, instead of heaving it into some valley.” It means giving things that you use yourself, or might very well use if you had the opportunity. It means going out and buying something decent, or even better, donating the money to the appeal instead.
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The money is pouring in from all over the world. Governments are giving many hundreds of millions, but ordinary citizens have responded overwhelmingly to the call for help. Many, many millions have poured it, though even these will be nowhere near enough. You cannot very well look at what is going on and ignore it. It is during hideous times like these that international solidarity is evident. Despite borders, different languages and warring nationalities, we are all one in the face of humanity’s single, greatest enemy: killer nature. Human tragedy wrought by war forces us to take sides. Politics enters the equation. When more than 2000 people died in the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, debate raged as to whose fault it was. In the face of the common enemy of humanity, the international response is overwhelming. There are no politics in an earthquake; there can be no fighting a tidal wave. Frightened by the sudden, angry, vagaries of nature, we stick together. Even the Tamil Rebels are helping to bury the dead, and are commiserating with their mortal enemies.
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Donations to the Malta Red Cross Asian Appeal can be made in the simplest way possible, by sending a text message as follows: 50617354 for Lm1, 50618916 for Lm3, and 50619213 for Lm5. If you wish to make a larger donation, the Red Cross has two bank accounts for the purpose: HSBC 03314 337 1051 and Bank of Valletta 400 10344392. Caritas Malta is collecting money on behalf of Caritas International, for the relief effort. It has three bank accounts for this: APS Bank 0000 246140, Bank of Valletta 400 1397 1199, and HSBC 089 021 513 052. If you prefer to mail your donations, do so to Caritas, 5 Lion Street, Floriana, with a note that indicates the donation is for the Southeast Asia disaster fund.