Tsunami Perspective

I've been getting what is actually fairly polite hate mail for my coverage of the 12/26/04 Sumatran earthquake and tsunami so far, with several people taking exception to my pointing out that:

• terrorist sanctuaries were the hardest hit areas;
• the media claim of a lost generation was sensationalism, not fact;
• this is not the worst natural disaster in human history, or even of the past 30 years.

Where was the global outcry and pledges of support when 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered? Where is the indignation as Muslims in Darfur continue to rape and murder their way across Sudan with over 100,000 dead and no end in sight?

Why is this earthquake so much more cared about on the world stage than the one exactly one year before that killed tens of thousands in Iran? My guess is that all this sudden interest wouldn't be nearly as intense if thousands of light-skinned Europeans hadn't died as well.

So my critics can call me cynical (among other things).

But they shouldn't dare imply that they are somehow more caring or a better person when they finally decide to contribute when it is finally convenient for them, or suddenly in their societal interest. They've ignored greater preventable human tragedies in the past decade alone.

I think they have a word for that.