Next week, I'm supposed to be attending a Trival Night held to raise funds for the Tsunami victims. Before I willingly eke out another dollar for this charitable event, I read this article in the New Yorker that made me think twice. Australians have already generously contributed over $10 million the the cause. I'm not saying there is ever a limit put out for something so altruistic, but unfortunately, charity has its own victims as well.
"Nearly 4 million men, women and children have died as a consequence of the Congo civil war. 70 thousand have perished in the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. In the year just ended, scores of thousands died in wars and massacres elsewhere in Africa, in Asia, in the archipelogoes of the Pacific, and, of course, in Iraq. Less dramatically, but just as lethally, 2 million people died of malaria around the world, and another million and a half of diarrhea. 5 million children died of hunger. 3 million died of AIDS, mostly in Africa...
The giant wave that radiated from western Sumatra on the day after Christmas destroyed the lives of at least a hundred and fifty thousand people and the livelihoods of millions more. A hundred and fifty thousand: fifty times the toll of 9/11, but "only" a few per cent of that of the year's slow, more diffuse horrors.
The routine disasters of war and pestilence do, of course, call forth a measure of relief from public and private agencies. But the great tsunami has struck a deeper chord of sympathy."
(Excerpt from The New Yorker, Jan 17 2005)
Guess the charity doesn't just end when the Tsunami does.
