[Davros]

This a piece from my local paper today - the thread title is the same as the article tiitle. A pity I couldn't copy it electronically - my apologies for any typo's I might make.

It's Shared Humanity, Stupid

Author : Nick Miller - "West Australian" Newspaper Jan 8 2005

Deep thinking comedian Douglas Adams once wrote about the way the average human being tackles a big problem. He said we go through three stages: survival, inquiry and sophistication.

For instance : What can I eat? Why do I eat? Where shall we have lunch? Like all good jokes, it's funny because it's true. Take the Boxing Day tsunamis. It's almost two weeks now since the world changed - again.

The first week was pure survival - and not just for those directly affected by the tragedy. Waves of images hit our shores, accompanied by shocking stories of pain, loss, heartbreak and hope.

TV viewing figures soared as we tried simply to understand : what happened? We absorbed the barrage with big hearts, and responded simply by giving money. Enormous loving amounts of it, followed by plans to raise more.

Emotional survival.

Soon we moved onto stage two: inquiry. Scientific boffins told us that the force of the earthquake wobbled our planet like a top and the tsunamis slowed its spin (as if we needed to know). We asked: What caused the waves? Could they come again? Is there anything that can stop it happening? How can we help in the meantime?

All questions well worth the inquiry.

In the second week though the reactions have been getting pretty sophisticated, moving into stage 3. And this is where we really need to stop and take a step back and be very very careful.

The ball started rolling with Sydney's Anglican dean Phillip Jensen. "(These) disasters are part of His warning that judgement is coming," Mr Jensen reportedly said.

The Chief Executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Amjad Mehboob, also reportedly said the tsunamis were God's will. Even more disturbingly in devastated Bandah Aceh the radical Islamists have begun a recruiting drive. "What is the lesson God has sent us with this tragedy?", one cleric asked from his manret loudspeaker. "Why not in America where there is so much vice and prostitution? People tend to forget God when they enjoy, and that is why God sent us this tragedy."

To be fair, many other religious leaders have denied seeing the hand of God at work on Boxing Day. But humanity's most creative and dangerous instinct is the one that makes us see patterns. Something in our minds sees a face in a cloud, or helps us guess a movie whodunnit. It drives us to chase meanings and causes - sometimes where there are none.

Ironically, the more aggressive of atheists have used the tsunamis against God, given the well worn philosophical Problem of Evil a new paint-job by asking "if there was a God, how could he let this happen? This is just as offensive as using a natural disaster as a recruiting drive for religion. In my opinion it is just the wrong question to ask when thousands are suffering and dying.

But the bad taste didn't stop there. World Vision chief Tim Costello, an otherwise sane, sober and admirable fellow stepped over the line on the radio this week when talking about the Australian Government's promise of $1 billion is aid to Indonesia. I don't have the exact quote, but he said the aid grant had once and for all solved the debate about whether Australia is part of Asia. That the nation had finally come to terms with our place in the region. "It's our region, that's where our future is, our kids are going to learn these languages, and are going to trade with them," he said. He may have thought he was making sense. He was in fact piggy-backing a loaded political opnion on a simple act of generousity.

I don't pretent to know Mr Howard's mind, and I don't claim to trust all his motives. He is however a keen reader of th public mind, and when he decided to give all that money to Indonesia it is a fair bet he was doing it because we the public would want him to. That doesn't make us a part of Asia, either geographically, politically or metaphorically. My wife and I gave the neighbours a Christmas present. That doesn't make us part of their household, it just means we like them. Australia's gift (half of which is a loan) to Indonesia will probably bring our countries closer together, but it doesn't say anything about our shared cultures, just our shared humanity.

Various other opinion writers have tried to hijack the tsunamis in service of their personal crusades. In a newspaper opinion piece Richard Butler manages to link the tsunami to reform of the United Nations, an end to a global focus on national security and a better management of the environment. In the later case he seems to be drawing a tenuous, uttery unscientific link between the tsunamis - caused by earthquake - and the other environmental problems such as global warming and deforestation.

Similarly some radical green wierdos in the United States have directly pinned the tsunamis on our mistreatment of the Earth, complaining about "wounds to the planet's heart" as if this immense tragedy was the planet's way of saying "please recycle your plastic".

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonon made much more sense when he talked about nature at Thursday's Jakarta summit. "Humanity is frail and vulnerable to the forces of our natural environment", he said. And instead of looking for a wider meaning or message, he simply asked for money for an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system.

At the extremes of nuttiness, some bloggers in the US have blamed terrorists, suggesting bizarre conspiracies and hidden nuclear weapons. "I figure by now Man has the ability to effect 'natural' causes", one such twit wrote to an online discussion forum. "Even as far back as the 19th century scientists such as Tesla had formed theoretical models for creating earthquakes. Terrorists were responsible (for the tsunamis)".

It's no coincidence that many commentators have found a meaning in the tsunamis that matches perfectly their long pursued causes and beliefs. In reality these tsunamis tell us little about God or Asia or even the environment. But they can tell us a lot about ourselves. At least in part, they tell us that we are often too quick to read messages into some random tragedy. Some people should just shut up and send more money.