Dear Bono....

The year 2004 marked a period in our history where the media eagerly delivered to us some horrifying images. Some images portrayed violent forces of nature while others depicted the abhorrent depths that people could stoop to. At a time when the new Iraq War was new and the eyes of the world had become all-too-familiar with the exhilarating images of soaring missiles and the desecrated palaces and museums of Baghdad – the unthinkable happened. In April 2004, the humble audience of the ‘civilized’ world found themselves sick to the stomach from what was an assault of imagery from the deplorable treatment of Iraqi detainees at a Baghdad correctional facility.

Audiences were bombarded with graphics of modern-day prisoners-of-war made to endure some of the cruelest acts imaginable. America’s 60 Minutes II program broadcasted pictures of the detainees at Abu Ghraib prison being made to perform all sorts of humiliating and dehumanizing acts on fellow inmates. Prisoners were forced to form human pyramids, fellate other prisoners and kneel before the jaws of snarling military guard dogs. Hooded Iraqis stood on platforms ─ jumper leads attached to their genitals while others posed for photos with their bodies covered in human excrement. I remember one image printed of what appeared to be an emotionless detainee lying flat while now notorious US soldier Charles Graner stood over him grinning from ear-to-ear whilst motioning the thumbs-up sign. Initially thinking this Iraqi must have got it easier than the others, I soon realised he was dead.

While there was much anticipated public outcry over the Abu Ghraib saga, for many of us it was overshadowed strangely by a sensation of sorrow, amazement and hopelessness rather than anger. What sort of planet were we living in? And what sort of animals were these people – committing such acts on fellow human beings? This was supposed to be a war against terror. These were our armed forces; our protectors; public servants and essentially fit and proper persons to have been qualified to enlist. They were eligible to write us character references when we needed jobs; they were supposed to represent good and were probably looked upon as heroes in their hometowns. It was possible to comprehend one bad egg in the mix – but these photographs illustrated more than one or two bad eggs. When the Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999 I remember wondering what remarkable odds there were to find one person to commit such a heinous crime let alone two.

The abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib Prison made us question the world. After seeing what went on there, anybody with any aspiration towards making the world a better place had every right to question whether it was really worth tending to. I certainly remember believing I understood the world less after seeing those images. Particularly after the invasion of Iraq had been as unpopular, controversial and brutal as it was. Many opposers shared the mentality that if there was going to be a war – it should at least be done efficiently and effectively. Australian journalist, author and pacifist, Geraldine Brooks, acknowledged in an interview with Andrew Denton that while she supported the invasion of Iraq for the freedom of the Iraqi people, she was horrified to see that the Americans "did not even have the wit to place guards on the museums".

And the media were the messengers of this story on Abu Ghraib like a family dog dropping a human thigh bone at his master’s feet. While the newspapers and television stations were nobly showing us images of what was an incredibly important story, we were not really sure we wanted to see them. It was hard news alright but it was even more sinister than a serial killer caught on tape. These were not heartless serial killers – whether you supported the war or not, these were supposed to be our representatives of the ‘free world’. They were supposed to help people. All hope should have been lost after Abu Ghraib. No amount of resilience could have kept us strong enough to overcome such realities. In Sudan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo such atrocities happened every day but heck, the ‘developed world’ isn’t the Sudan or the Congo. We’re not supposed to be taking part in acts that even animals would not engage in.

It was all too much to take. The story of Abu Ghraib should have taught us we were beyond redemption; that our perception of the civilized world was not so. Even if we were not individually responsible for these crimes, the mere plausibility these acts could be wished upon other human beings was enough to lose all faith in the planet we call home. But at least something made sense. The billion lives in this world left to perish each day from a lack of basic essentials was not taking place because helping them couldn’t be done; it was now likely because helping people was not in our nature. Perhaps after a few thousand years of evolving, we were only just beginning to work out that the human species was biologically not only a selfish race – but a cruel one. Why else would this go on?

Parallel to a picture painting a thousand words – a government report can sometimes offer even more. Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh’s striking article Torture at Abu Ghraib published in The New Yorker on May 10, 2004 – included a description written by General Antonio M Taguba who conducted a military investigation into the abuse under the orders of Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. The report lists some of the abuses including:

"...breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees, beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

You know a big news story when you end up with journalists interviewing journalists. In Michael Krasny’s interview with Hersh on October 8, 2004, Hersh went on to explain the differences between western and Middle Eastern motivators.

"We operate on guilt, (Muslims) operate on shame…The idea of photographing an Arab man naked and having him simulate homosexual activity, and having an American GI woman in the photographs, is the end of society in their eyes."

But now there was every reason for shame to infiltrate the lives of the free world. A hideous thing had been going on. But was what Hersh saying in fact, right? Do westerners operate on guilt after all? Usually Catholics are painted with that brush, but does the rest of our bourgeois capitalistic DIY-obsessed Sandra-Bullock-loving society work this way? If so, then how could we let 15,000 children die each day from hunger and how could we let many thousands more die from simple diseases we can shake off like the flu or diarrhoea or fevers. If only these children were receiving the vitamins and minerals we take for granted then they would be able to live through these simple bouts. But perhaps Hersh is right, perhaps we would feel guilty about these injustices and perhaps we would be compelled to demand for these injustices to cease, if we were in fact aware they were still going on and we were aware that they were not impossible to fix. What we saw in Abu Ghraib bestowed enough guilt and enough shame in us to last us two lifetimes.

But then eight months later something even more horrible took place. While a third of the world was at war; a billion people were dying from hunger; more than 150 governments were exercising methods of torture; and our planet had just been issued an expiration date from climate change – the unthinkable happened. On December 26, 2004, Boxing Day – an earthquake measuring 9.4 on the Richter scale erupted beneath the Indian Ocean causing a sweeping tidal wave that blanketed Asia and the Pacific. It was the biggest tsunami the world had ever seen and its almighty power sequestered the lives of some 230,000 people. It was official that now even God had turned against us.

What made the Boxing Day Tsunami feel like Armageddon was that although the location of the wave was specific to the Indian and Pacific regions, it impacted nearly every country in the world. Boxing Day as we know takes place in the peak season for holiday travel, and foreigners from all over the globe venture to the coastal regions to sun themselves at Christmas. And in an age of terrorism, fear and paranoia, no terrorist could have chosen a more opportune location for an earthquake to take place than where it did. And there would be no better time to reflect on this event than the information age where we could watch and replay the destruction from every angle.

Sri-Lanka, Somalia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Burma and many other countries were absolutely pulverized by the floodwaters. And then after the deluge, disease hit with cholera, typhoid, diphtheria and hepatitis sweeping through the battered towns and taking one more opportunity to massacre strong-willed survivors. Even those able to outrun the water were hit with being displaced, losing their homes, losing their children or losing entire families. How would you even start over in life when there is nothing to start rebuilding with alongside the burden of debilitating sorrow from lost loved-ones?

But then immediately after the commotion, the response from the rest of the world was manic. As usual, when natural disasters strike, governments unsurprisingly feel obliged to help mop up the mess, or at least contribute to financing for mopping to take place. But this time it was different. From the staggering images being broadcasted onto our televisions, we safely sat in our living rooms and watched the dangerous floodwaters suck life into its surge. We frantically racked our brains for loved-ones holidaying overseas. And as if paying off a crooked cop, the humanitarian pledging went into overdrive.

In Australia, the newly re-elected Prime Minister John Howard was only too happy to give away AUS$1billion from his piggy-bank to conveniently help his country’s trading-neighbours. Even the shadow foreign affairs spokesman who later became opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, applauded the government’s contribution, stating that an Australian Labor Party government could not have done more. He is now the current Prime Minister. And with images like the ones we had been confronted by, there was little dispute from Australians over the audacity in which their government had been parting with their hard-earned cash. If anything, Australians wanted to do more.

And because there were so many vacationers from all over the world, it wasn’t only the neighbouring countries of those affected by the tsunami who felt compelled to help. The generosity was global. Once the United States were fully aware of the damage inflicted, it increased its initial contribution of US$35million tenfold, with the Canadian Government coming close to matching this figure. Germany gave $US660 million, the Japanese – a charitable $US500million. Norway and the Netherlands confused the whole disaster with a wedding, each giving an identical US$183 million making sure they didn’t outdo each other. Even the tellers at the World Bank in Washington were able to scrape together some US$250million for the tragedy. The response was more than generous it illustrated some redemption.

And on top of our government’s humanitarian aid came donations from corporations, charities and other non-government organisations (NGOs). People in their living rooms were making the most out of this tragedy. We were watching telethons, attending concerts and listening to big-named celebrities we last saw contesting drug offences on Entertainment Tonight telling us to care. We got to advertise our franchises and small businesses by sponsoring aid efforts and we got to see Midnight Oil strap on their guitars for one last gig. The benefits from the tragedy were enormous. And unlike the atrocities that took place at Abu Ghraib prison, we were no longer helpless in a time of crisis. We were needed; we were indeed helping; and we were alleviating the masses of guilt we regularly operate on.

We learn two things from this unreserved generosity from our planet. The first is simply and fantastically, that people are kind. Contrary to the intuitions we deduced from high school bullying and the Abu Ghraib saga, human beings had proven to be a species blessed with empathy and kind hearts. But saying this is not to turn the practical task of identifying motivations of change into anything soppy or sentimental. The astonishing scale of financial humanitarian aid we saw from all corners of the globe displayed an irrefutable amount of sympathy. There was a willingness to help proving unconditionally that our planet is, in fact, occupied by people who bear characteristics of kindness. It also proved that citizens of democratic countries were electing into power, governments who would not ignore countries in times when they needed help.

My instinctive cynicism will not even surface after reports that US$3.5billion in promised government funds has been deathly slow in reaching some affected regions. While this is true, it is overshadowed by the reality that hundreds of millions of dollars in donations are still being handed over to Asia by both individuals and charities. Rebuilding is still taking place and the economic impacts, especially in many fishing villages, has been long-drawn-out. Unfortunately to the cynics, myself included, there is still a general consensus that people do not want to see their fellow people miserable. While this might seem like a "Captain Obvious" category of a finding, it suggests that if people were fully aware of the destruction currently taking place every day from the effects of famine, the collective personality trait in that willingness to help would undoubtedly be revisited.

However, it would not be fair to ignore the controversy surrounding the billions of dollars, pounds, yen and euros promised that are yet to reach tsunami victims. Five years on and thousands of people are still without homes after their displacement from the earth quake. People who were already poor to start with, are now with nothing – with hundreds of thousands of fishermen and women without boats or equipment. Reservoirs have been contaminated with salt water from the ocean and the tourism earnings of a normal two-year period diminished considerably. There has still been very little work done on infrastructure and half the money in aid has not even been spent. Even former US President Bill Clinton came out and announced rebuilding had been too slow.

And the snail-like pace our bureaucrats have been is not surprising. I’m sure many of the homeless would have been happy to fill out the appropriate forms for the appropriate aid had their pens not been swept halfway across to Madagascar by now.

But I refuse to believe that civilians and non-government organisations had promised aid and failed to keep their word. And they hadn’t. While Sri-Lanka complained in late 2006 that they had received no aid from foreign governments, they conversely reported to have received numerous donations from charities and individuals overseas. In the UK, the public donated a staggering ₤330,000,000 – a contribution figure far greater than that of the people’s own government.

In 2006, The International Red Cross (IRC) came under fire by the United Nations for failing to remain on target in rebuilding 50,000 homes in Indonesia, Sri-Lanka and the Maldives. UN spokesman for housing Miloon Kothari attacked the Red Cross in saying:

"It really should not take this long to build permanent housing. I do not accept this explanation that it is going to take four or five years or in some cases, seven years. I know how long it takes to build a house."

Kothari is obviously no stranger to a bit of do-it-yourself reno work at home. He probably even has a great veranda or Queensland room out the back he lent a hand on along with half a dozen other projects he’s yet to get around to doing. However, the IRC needed no one to help defend them, emerging from the scathing remarks with an honest justification nobody would continue arguing; they were doing the best they could. And in relation to charities overall, The Disaster Emergency Committee stated publicly on December 18, 2006, that they were fortunately on target; a positive result from the NGOs.

But it has been five years since the Boxing Day Tsunami so the world can be forgiven for forgetting all about it. Seldom do we hear how nations are going these days or provided with updates on what anyone is up to in relation to rebuilding. And unless we are looking for ideas on cheap holiday destinations we wouldn’t care to do any research ourselves. But why do we find ourselves less interested now than we were before? We proved caring enough to contribute aid back then in the most desperate of times in need. So why do we not proactively retain a keep-me-posted mentality?

The second thing we learn from the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid is also quite simple. We have already worked out that fundamentally, people are kind. This means we are different to plants with thistles and cats and OH&S inspectors and parking officers. This is a good thing we have learnt, it suggests that there is hope for our children and that we can make a difference in the world and that we should be positive about life. From what we saw being done at Abu Ghraib prison we were entitled to believe there was no hope. The second most important thing we have learnt from the Boxing Day Tsunami is that as a people, it is vital that we see things in order to believe them.

I have no misgivings in saying that the images of the floodwaters that swept across Asia were some of the most frightening that have ever been broadcasted through my television set. There was something so chilling in watching those muddy waters billowing through the innocent streets we once might have visited. Towns previously minding their own business were being ambushed by furious black waters carrying debris that showed no reservations in ripping people to shreds. The ever-increasing death toll that rose to 230,000 was enough to give people nowhere near the affected regions, nightmares that would resonate for their entire lives.

And most importantly, every casualty was innocent that day. No one is ever to blame for a natural disaster. The tsunami had everything that makes a truly unforgettable moment in history. Even the chance nature of the event falling on an international public holiday contributes to its immortality. The words are as memorable today as September 11 or Desert Storm or even the once not so formidable girl’s name, Katrina. For the coastal regions in Asia, it was a bad day to say the least, however, for journalism, it was absolutely grand. It was a spectacle with pictures that captivated the world. It wasn’t a news story, it was a symphony. Nothing had to be told, the footage spoke for itself. It evoked enough emotion from people to have them question the end of the world. It evoked enough emotion to see representatives of governments handing over billions of dollars in humanitarian aid as if paying for penance. It was no different to handing your insurance company the actual surveillance footage of your car getting stolen. And there was no denying that something ultimately gruesome had occurred.

And while the death toll continued to climb in Asia, another death toll rose in the same region. On December 26, 2005 – 25,000 people died from starvation. On December 27, 2005 – another 25,000 people died from starvation. On December 28, 2005 – 25,000 more people died from starvation. However, there are no images of these scattered people on their last days on earth. We did not see what the birds and other animals did to their bodies after their last breaths. We do not see who buries them or mourns their loss. And these multiples of 25,000 people continue to perish.

However, we have seen similar images before on the TV in the World Vision and Oxfam commercials. We have seen them numerous times however unfortunately we are no longer shocked. We are not necessarily desensitised as they still upset us, but they do not move us to a distraught disposition anymore. It is almost as if we have accepted defeat in making a difference. And now that we have seen the fearsome horrors of the black drowning floodwaters, very little will evoke the same emotion inside of us again. Our shock scale barely registers for anything once we have seen people throw themselves out of the World Trade Center or have watched the American government’s neglect towards Hurricane Katrina victims. Tragically we seldom become as emotional over a news story anymore unless it is new or close to our homes or hearts.

While humanitarian aid appears to be the only measure employed to help combat extreme poverty, the opportunities deriving from micro-finance have also played a significant role in rebuilding a post-tsunami Asia. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have coordinated emergency relief with much success, granting small loans to people throughout the developing world. As pledges from nations had taken so long to turn into liquid assets – some people were utilizing the option of attaining micro-credit from an MFI to replace perhaps a destroyed fishing boat or buy a vehicle for transport to restart a business. And as the tourism industry was bound to take a plummeting dive, those relying on tourism as part of their trade needed to embark on new ventures.

Microcredit was first put into practice in the developing world by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. In the mid to late 1970s microcredit began allowing poor people to acquire small loans enabling self-employment. It was the first time when people with nothing (and especially not a good credit history) could attain credit such as $1000 to be able to buy a rickshaw to start a transport business or $400 to repurchase fishing equipment or $100 to buy a cow and so forth. These grants are not donations, but very much loans – with an interest rate of around about six per cent. Hundreds of thousands of tsunami-affected men and women (but mostly women) have benefited from the economic system of microcredit. Although it is unfortunately not available to everyone needing it, microcredit’s success has been a shining example of how the developing world only needs a push to make their way onto the bottom rung of a ladder of self-sustainability.

Microfinance institution, Opportunity International’s UK branch includes a case study on its website on Indonesian man, Sabarin Ubit. The story is written as follows:

"Five months after the deadly tsunami wiped out his home city of Banda Aceh, Sabarin still cries as he talks about the day he lost his two-year-old son to the wave. On that day he held tightly onto his son’s hand, until a piece of wood hit his own hand and severed the boy’s lifeline. Sabarin was swept onto a roof a long way from his home. Later he learned that his wife and eight-year-old daughter had clung to a mango tree and survived.

"The loss of his home and livelihood pales in importance in comparison to losing his son, but Sabarin has other family members to feed and house, and he knows he must find the courage and hope to look to the future. For five years before the tsunami, Sabarin and his wife had sold assorted household items through a small shop run from their home. Several weeks after the tsunami they came up with a plan to make ice-cream to sell around local neighbourhoods. This would at least start them on the road to recovery.

"Through Opportunity International, Sabarin obtained a loan for 7.5 million rupiah (approximately £500) and was able to buy a tricycle and equipment to transport the ice-cream, pay rent and have working capital for the small business to grow. Sabarin and his wife now work seven days a week, selling ice-creams for 2000 rupiah (15p) to adults and 1500 (10p) to children. On a good day he sells 300,000 rupiah (£20) of ice-creams, with a weekly net income of around 900,000 rupiah (£60). He is well able to repay both principal and interest on the loans and he plans to buy a second tricycle for his brother as the business develops."

While we have read the story of Sabarin, it must be acknowledged that it is in fact women who have become far more eligible for microfinance loans. Thirty years of microfinance has shown us firstly that loans granted to women are repaid more frequently than men and secondly, the money used from those loans goes on to benefit the entire family. These loans are either approved or canned in perhaps the same method of fairness we might see in sky-high driving insurance premiums for crazy-ass younger drivers. While it might seem men are being given the rough end of the stick by MFIs – it is irrefutable women have been significantly empowered by microcredit – gaining respect and stronger socio-economic status and considered of greater importance in their local communities.

And although it might sound like the punchline to an economist’s favourite joke, 2005 was in fact scheduled by the United Nations as The Year of Microcredit. And there could have been no better time to raise awareness of the achievements microfinance was accomplishing throughout the developing nations. Despite the overwhelming and unprecedented level of generosity illustrated by the world, the 12-months following the devastating tsunami was a period of frustration, as the speed at which aid was reaching affected areas was deathly slow. With the key word being deathly, most deaths taking place in the immediate aftermath of the deluge was from a lack of urgent medical supplies. Whether it was good luck, a twist of fate or a gift from God, The Year of Microcredit brought awareness of an alternative to the guilt-easing deeds of blindly giving aid.

The five goals for the 2005 Year of Microcredit were set in collaboration by the United Nations Capital Development Fund and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and outlined as follows:

1. Assess and promote the contribution of microfinance and microcredit to the Millennium Development Goals;
2. Increase public awareness and understanding of microfinance and microcredit as vital parts of the development equation;
3. Promote inclusive financial sectors;
4. Support sustainable access to financial services, and
5. Encourage innovation and new partnerships by promoting and supporting strategic partnerships to build and expand the outreach and success of microcredit and microfinance for all.

The year could be attributed to relieving poverty considerably (under the circumstances), meeting the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals, achieving financial sector growth and giving the matter enough magnitude to make it onto the G8 agenda.

And while the media has us believe through lack of news coverage that extreme poverty is a problem found only in the pits of Africa – the tsunami news coverage showed us very different. With the media’s rather generous couple of months of tsunami-aftermath reporting – we were able to see some pretty stark images of countries with staggering populations. While a measly 34.7 per cent of India’s population currently fits the bill of living in extreme poverty – we also have to consider that 34.7 per cent of 1.1billion is a lot of swollen Indian bellies. Math was never one of my strong subjects at school but that equals to roughly around 382,000,000 people. While extreme poverty is rampant in Africa and Asia it also majorly affects regions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Carribean.

The last place we will see extreme poverty thrive is in the developed world. Australians would never allow extreme poverty to run amuck in the lucky country, and with a country of only 22million – even if it did exist, with the current welfare system in place, it wouldn’t be too hard to shift those Australians into moderate levels poverty fairly quickly. The British would find permitting extreme poverty ghastly unsavoury and Northern Americans would only just start an inevitable war on famine. The United States were handed on a platter a taste of what third world status is like for its unfortunate southern region. Those poor 1,800 innocent people who died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina could have heroically been prompts for the ever so powerful US government to show some empathy for other poverty-stricken regions. I mean let’s not forget, Katrina was just a glimpse of what other countries have to go through every single day. Instead, the local, state and federal US administrations used every ounce of energy they had to deny its alleged racism; cover up its alleged failure-to-act; and await the controversy’s passing.

Famous rapper and former lover to that gold digging bitch, Kanye West, contributed to the disaster’s controversy by deviously using a benefit concert televised on NBC to criticise the Government’s sluggish response to Katrina victims. Despite the telethon’s producer Joe Gallen promising no celebrities appearing on the program would be censored if they were to make any political comments, West found himself being cut short after a lengthy rant that ended with "George Bush doesn’t like black people". Reading from a prepared script with comedian Mike Myers, West ignored what he was obliged to read, going on to say:

"I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a white family, it says, 'they're looking for food’. You see a black family, it says, 'they are looting’. And, you know, it's been five days (since the hurricane victims received government help) because most of the people are black."

While none of West’s message was entirely articulate and tended to lack credibility, there was no doubting he had just scathingly slammed the television networks over their news coverage. Little did Kanye realise himself that if he wanted ample time on television to project his grievances, he should have kept his attacks solely on the US government. This however was not the first time West had been outspoken. At the Philadelphia Live 8 concert, West said that AIDS was a man-made disease placed in African communities to kill them off. Not an unwelcome thing to hear among the goody-two-shoes and edgeless milieu of a benefit concert but undeniably stupid all-the-same.

Unfortunately we have seen the opportunities we could have gained from Hurricane Katrina buried by its controversy. A big difference between the Boxing Day tsunami and Katrina as far as natural disasters are concerned (despite the severity of course) was that in Katrina, accountabilities were able to be deciphered. The tsunami was a great tragedy but it was a tragedy so severe that it overshadowed its criticisms. The speed at which humanitarian aid has reached the affected regions has been slow but forgivable. Plus, the story has almost ended in good spirits with the world knowing they have done the best they could possibly do to help. Katrina ended with the sporadic emerging of politicians who shamefully revealed ways the disaster could have been handled better. The tragedy also happened in America’s backyard so criticisms were bound to remain harsh. Tsunami victims however, like those affected by extreme poverty, are a mere distant cousin. They are without a voice. Their aid was a triumph despite a lack of knowing how they are really doing now.

But from these fascinating news stories, we have been allowed to see what real misery can look like. And by witnessing misery on television and reading about it in our newspapers, the kinetic energy starts to turn potential. We become sympathetic and moved. We question accountability and how dire situations can be avoided. The power of the media is so dangerously unmeasured that we are unaware of its own strength. Even reporters are unaware of this immense vigor. From the stories that erupted from Abu Ghraib we were cursed with a world sick, in pain and beyond redemption. And like a modern-day Christian disaster-movie based on the Old Testament, came the black muddy floodwaters of the tsunami that sacrificed the lives of many. The crisis forced us to unite again. It attacked our weaknesses and milked our sympathies through the media. The Democratic Republic of the Congo never had this sort of coverage, nor did Rwanda or Sudan. But when new images arise and can outshock its title-holders such as those from the twin towers and the Vietnam War – we can expect to be motivated once again to bring about change.