Unfashionable Disasters
 

It's fucked up; they reckon the death-toll following the cyclone in Burma is gonna reach 1.5 million, and yet, if I'm brutally honest, I really don't care too much about it. I SHOULD be, but I'm not. Christ, I'm not even THAT sure where Burma IS. It must be rubbish living in a country that no one gives much of a shit about.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31925

Speaks for itself..

It's really sad when we as young people become apathetic towards humanity. Kudos.

That about hits it on the head. It really is insane. I live in an information age and I'm sure I could tell you every detail regarding the Michael Jackson trial from a few years back, but I'd struggle to explain what the Bosnian civil war was really all about.

And yet a new zeitgeist is born when a little short of three thousand Americans die.

Really all can say is "you apathetic cunt" at the moment the toll is nearing 200,000 people, which is as many that died during the 06 boxing day tsunami in Myanmar. In less than two years this country has been absolutely devestated by natural disasters and prior to that decades under dictatorial rule.

So very true pbradley. I suppose power is now demonstrated primarily by having the ability to define that zeitgeist in one's own image.

Which only goes to prove that you, Terminal Pharmacy, are a better man than I. Now if you wouldn't mind explaining just what the issues were in the Bosnian civil war, I'd really appreciate it. Cheers.

More like defining the Weltgeist. The Burmese Volksgeist will surely change because of the event.

Yes, but how Burma recovers will be dependent largely on how those that define the 'weltgeist' think it should.

so which disasters do you care about then?

"The cyclone could be a paradigm-changing event for Myanmar, once of the world's most closed and repressive regimes, as the ruling junta has apparently decided to accept international assistance. On the other hand, the Al-Jazeera report notes that the junta has not given the green light to non-governmental organizations, and that it plans to go ahead with a May 10 referendum aimed at strengthening its repressive grip."

http://medianation.blogspot.com/2008...e-cyclone.html

Just because it doesn't happen in our back garden and right in front of us doesn't mean that the world isn't re-shaping around ourselves in the way it looks, its economy, its politics etc. Just because we think that everything happens around our own world doesn't mean that things don't take place elsewhere regardless.

whats worse about this whole situation is the fact that the burmese leaders dont really seem to care either and are slowing down the aid coming into the country and not accepting some or foreign aid workers thereby raising the death toll by many thousands.

i care because its actual people actually dying and seeing piles of dead bodies on the news and seeing pictures dead children makes me cry to be honest. i cant hear about a dissaster or tragedy and not think about the people affected or care about them. that might seem hippy or whatever but its just the way i feel.

There's been reports of soldiers charging Burmese affected by the cyclone for house clearing/repairing etc. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it turns out that the regime demands that people pay for the "free" aid.

"World cannabis shortage enrages demonrail666 - Paris Hilton flown in raise awareness".

A few weeks ago, I read "Burma Chronicles", a comic book by Guy Delisle about his experience in the country - he lived there more than a year. It is really an interesting read to know more about life in Burma. His wife was working for Médecins Sans Frontières France, so many parts of the book relate the difficulties that are encountering NGOs in the country.

At the end of the book, we learn that MSF France eventually decided to leave the country, as the junta forces them to work in regions that should not be priority regions because they are not conflict-ridden, not the most disadvantaged, not politically-discriminated, etc. whereas MSF France wanted to focus on the eastern part of the country, which has no health system, no doctors, no medication, and where there live minorities that are abandoned by the junta in power. For years, MSF has been trying to approach these regions building progressively national and local agreements, opening one clinic after the other towards the east (they are also trying to access those regions from Thailand, crossing the border illegally), but in the end they still cannot go where they want to go: so after all, they felt they became an accomplice of the junta and an instrument of discrimination.

After reading all this, I can imagine how humanitarian aid is currently manipulated or blocked by the junta...

And in the midst of this humanitarian crisis, here is the video clip that the television was broadcasting to encourage people to vote in the referendum to approve the state constitution (the junta insisted on not postponing the date of the vote in spite of the current situation):

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/video/0,47...1043204,0.html

last friday, on the news, they were showing warehouses full of full earmarked for Burma.

Burma wouldn't give the aid workers visas, so it's just sitting there.

fuck 'em.

Fuck who?