Monday, November 07, 2005
*Making a stopover at Safeway after work. While at the till, I notice a fundraising sign for Hurricane Katrina.*
Faraz: Its been a while since the Hurricane passed. Don't you think you should start collecting for the earthquake?
Till Lady: The what??
Faraz: The earthquake?? 80,000 dead?? A whole town buried like it never existed!!!
*blank stare is the only response but then after a moment of deer caught in the headlights look, replies*
Till Lady: There's so many disasters happening these days and its hard to keep track of all of them and post up for donations.
Faraz (in his head): Yes, it must be sooo hard to check the news and watch the suffering people. I mean can't those people space out their deaths so we in Canada can keep up with them!!! Don't they think of anyone but themselves sitting all homeless and dying of starvation.
I wonder how much time she spends watching Entertainment Tonight and American's Next Top Model but when it comes to large scale deaths around the world, its just too hard to keep up with!!
Faraz: Its been a while since the Hurricane passed. Don't you think you should start collecting for the earthquake?
Till Lady: The what??
Faraz: The earthquake?? 80,000 dead?? A whole town buried like it never existed!!!
*blank stare is the only response but then after a moment of deer caught in the headlights look, replies*
Till Lady: There's so many disasters happening these days and its hard to keep track of all of them and post up for donations.
Faraz (in his head): Yes, it must be sooo hard to check the news and watch the suffering people. I mean can't those people space out their deaths so we in Canada can keep up with them!!! Don't they think of anyone but themselves sitting all homeless and dying of starvation.
I wonder how much time she spends watching Entertainment Tonight and American's Next Top Model but when it comes to large scale deaths around the world, its just too hard to keep up with!!
Faraz Ahmed 9:37 p.m.
6 Comments:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051027/QUAKECANA27/TPInternational/?query=pakistan+earthquake
I'm not criticizing the government's reaction (though the aid still doesn't match the magnitude of the disaster).
The response of the ordinary people is what amazes me. I don't expect fundraising drives but is keep up with what is happening too much to ask??
Makes you wonder how many of them know of Rwanda? Bosnia? Sudan?
The response of the ordinary people is what amazes me. I don't expect fundraising drives but is keep up with what is happening too much to ask??
Makes you wonder how many of them know of Rwanda? Bosnia? Sudan?
We're quick to get very prickly when someone doesn't know about our disaster in our country but we pay little heed to the disasters that happens in many other parts of the world.
"Oh, a tiny island drowned in Micronesia? Oh seriously..." and so on.
"Faraz: Its been a while since the Hurricane passed. Don't you think you should start collecting for the earthquake?"
You can claim that you keep on top of disasters but what it comes down to is that the Pakistan Earthquake is especially salient since it's your nation. And just because the Pakistan earthquake is more recent, why does it make it that people can't collect for Hurricane Katrina? The tragedies which the ghettosized, marginalized blacks of America suffered in N. America will need recompensation for years to come.
You may rebut and say that your statement of "you should start collecting for the earthquake" doesn't say anything about stopping collection for Katrina but it's essentially implied.
Also, I didn't know of the Pakistan earthquake until a day or two after the tragedy even though I'm fully immersed in the Muslim community. My opening home page is google (not msn.com) and I don't watch TV. When you're studying and not interacting with people too much you'd be amazed at how quickly one can get cut off from the world.
Hence, one shouldn't make assumptions about others. That someone is watching ET and thus doesn't have time to care about the victims of this tragedy or that.
Another sad note is that humanity always springs to action when sensational disasters occur. Yet, the deaths which occur from suicides, drug abuse (due to a global society which creates depression at unparalelled rates in history), alcohol, on-going decade old civil wars in the jungles of Africa, the AIDS epidemic, and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots far surpasses the deaths from sensational tragedies. Even if one is not concerned with numbers but about the "suffering" (as if there's a way to quantify suffering) one could very convincingly argue that there is nothing like the suffering of a young girl in Central Africa whose father was killed in front of her eyes, whose mother was raped, and who is now starving in the middle of a jungle clearing with nothing but an AK-47 at her side which can do nothing to feed her.
Don't get me wrong. My duas are with the Pakistani victims but we so often focus on our own tragedies without realizing it. The Muslim community (consisting mainly of Pakistanis) has come out in droves to donate millions to the Pakistani tragedy. The sound crickets chirping in an empty and soulless night was the fanfare which went along with earthquakes in other nations in the Muslim Ummah such as Turkey & Iran.
"Oh, a tiny island drowned in Micronesia? Oh seriously..." and so on.
"Faraz: Its been a while since the Hurricane passed. Don't you think you should start collecting for the earthquake?"
You can claim that you keep on top of disasters but what it comes down to is that the Pakistan Earthquake is especially salient since it's your nation. And just because the Pakistan earthquake is more recent, why does it make it that people can't collect for Hurricane Katrina? The tragedies which the ghettosized, marginalized blacks of America suffered in N. America will need recompensation for years to come.
You may rebut and say that your statement of "you should start collecting for the earthquake" doesn't say anything about stopping collection for Katrina but it's essentially implied.
Also, I didn't know of the Pakistan earthquake until a day or two after the tragedy even though I'm fully immersed in the Muslim community. My opening home page is google (not msn.com) and I don't watch TV. When you're studying and not interacting with people too much you'd be amazed at how quickly one can get cut off from the world.
Hence, one shouldn't make assumptions about others. That someone is watching ET and thus doesn't have time to care about the victims of this tragedy or that.
Another sad note is that humanity always springs to action when sensational disasters occur. Yet, the deaths which occur from suicides, drug abuse (due to a global society which creates depression at unparalelled rates in history), alcohol, on-going decade old civil wars in the jungles of Africa, the AIDS epidemic, and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots far surpasses the deaths from sensational tragedies. Even if one is not concerned with numbers but about the "suffering" (as if there's a way to quantify suffering) one could very convincingly argue that there is nothing like the suffering of a young girl in Central Africa whose father was killed in front of her eyes, whose mother was raped, and who is now starving in the middle of a jungle clearing with nothing but an AK-47 at her side which can do nothing to feed her.
Don't get me wrong. My duas are with the Pakistani victims but we so often focus on our own tragedies without realizing it. The Muslim community (consisting mainly of Pakistanis) has come out in droves to donate millions to the Pakistani tragedy. The sound crickets chirping in an empty and soulless night was the fanfare which went along with earthquakes in other nations in the Muslim Ummah such as Turkey & Iran.
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone mentioned that the only reason for this post was because I’m from Pakistan.
How would we think of someone who has not heard of 9/11? Like it or not but it does speak volumes about a person who does not know the world around him/her.
Because unless you are living on two cents a day with ten kids to feed, there is more to life than just working at Safeway or Suncor while your knowledge of Pitt-Jolie relationship is detailed enough to write a Ph. D. thesis on.
How would we think of someone who has not heard of 9/11? Like it or not but it does speak volumes about a person who does not know the world around him/her.
Because unless you are living on two cents a day with ten kids to feed, there is more to life than just working at Safeway or Suncor while your knowledge of Pitt-Jolie relationship is detailed enough to write a Ph. D. thesis on.
In the Western media, there's a vast ocean of difference in terms of how salient something like 9/11 is compared to "another earthquake in an uncivilized Muslim country" (the way the media essentially sees it).
If you think that something like an Earthquake in Pakistan is comparable to 9/11 in terms of how aware people in the world are about it, then you are the one who knows little about the world around you.
If you think that something like an Earthquake in Pakistan is comparable to 9/11 in terms of how aware people in the world are about it, then you are the one who knows little about the world around you.
Some of us choose to live with the status quo while others do their best to make the necessary changes.
And if that means posting it on our blogs where a handful of people will read it and even will less will heed it, then so be it.
It's not the results I'm worried about but rather my intention.
And if that means posting it on our blogs where a handful of people will read it and even will less will heed it, then so be it.
It's not the results I'm worried about but rather my intention.