Acts of God and Money
snichols, like all her fellow internationalists, has been interested in the tidal wave of money pouring into the regions most affected by the tsunami. Why, we all have been asking ourselves, not the Sudan, not AIDS in Africa?
Many have speculated that there is something more neutral, less political, less haunting about a "natural disaster" or "act of god" than genocide or massive death spread through the disease of ignorance.
But something else interests snichols about this--first, that this is proof positive of billions of latent dollars lying there, unmoving, untapped, ready to be mobilized by the right emotion. Second, that we believe there is a distinction to be drawn between one act of god and another. That we believe that one disaster is "natural" and the other isn't.
It matters not whether you want to tag the tsunami as an act of man (global warming) or AIDS as god-made (has all the earmarks of the"great and terrible" god of the jews). The fact is that acts of man are acts of god and vice versa. If there is a god or a spirit, it is clearly in the fabric, the cellular structure, the very stuff that connects us all.
And one large ripple in the blanket throws back massive money and another doesn't--why?
We must shift universal consciousness to recognize these as the same so that we know a disaster when we see one.
While I understand the desire to find deeper or more complex answers to soul-searching questions, you need to look first to the simple and obvious. The Tsunami was a single catastrophic event that killed nearly 150,000 almost instantly. It is very easy to see the benefit of cash donations. Big tidal wave, give cash, people rebuild, all done. The catastrophe that is AIDS in Africa has been taking place over a long time, with no end in sight. While they could certainly use a massive infusion of donations, it isn't as clean and neat as the single-event catastrophes are. With all the cash in the world, the AIDS crisis in Africa isn't going away anytime soon. It's not a clean and neat transaction. Same for the genocide in the Sudan. Americans can't understand it, can't see how money will help, know that even if a lot of money is given the horror will continue, view it as basically hopeless right now, and so don't feel compelled to give (not to mention that no former president is on t.v. urging them to give donations to the Sudan or Africa).
ReplyDeleteGod's got nothing to do with it.
(though for a lighthearted, amusing, blasphemous take on God and the Tsunami, read this from Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/2112083/)
Vince Marchand