Quacks of quakes

Correspondent on Headlines Today:

"It looks like the people were not prepared for it."

The 'it' is the earthquake that shook the Delhi/NCR region over an hour ago.

It says the magnitude was 6.6. TV news anchors kept saying how large it was. Experts were woken up from their sleep. This was barely ten minutes after the tremors. How would they give accurate details?

Then, they were asked what people should do.

Here:

If you are living on a high floor don't go down...Come out in the open...Go under the furniture.

How can you come out in the open if you are not to take the stairs (lifts are out)? And if the building is shaky, why will the furniture not shake?

Most people would not have felt it if they were asleep. The others would have experienced it and sat still. But, if you switched on the TV then you would be told about aftershocks and how you were part of the Breaking News.

As for the lady who made the prophetic statement that the people were not prepared, all I can say is that perhaps they can have a panel discussion on how to expect such calamities. They can also go on a hunger strike for it.

Meanwhile, latest unreleased reports state that Nature has claimed responsibility for the quake. Nature's links with terrorist organisations are not yet known and a high-level inquiry will probe into any such alliance.

Japan's nuclear tragedy as opportunism

We told you so. It can affect us. Questions about nuclear power.

This has been the tone of the indepth analyses. Japan’s devastation by earthquake and the tsunami have been submerged beneath the discussions over the Fukushima nuclear plant blowing up and reports of leakage and radiation. As one who is absolutely against a ‘nuclearised’ world, I am afraid that the questions about atomic energy will be relegated to only certain countries in order to keep them in their place.

Even the most powerful nations can go wrong, but before talking about how Japan was told about the possibility of such an outcome given its earthquake-prone history there should have been some introspection. California is prone to quakes and has two nuclear plants; two others were 'retired'. Surely, they have measures to handle an emergency as would Japan.
 
The US administration that is among the first to land with a thud of commentary will not, interestingly enough, desist from providing nuclear energy in small doses at high cost with a lot of hoopla.

The Shiv Sena is also using the Japan incident to oppose the proposed nuclear power plant at Jaitapur, which has a French connection. There is already opposition to it for our own reasons, primarily the taking over of tribal land. By clubbing it with another tragedy, not only will there be foreign expertise involved in its setting up, should it take place, but also to ‘keep an eye on it’ later. This would be damaging at many levels.

I say this to transpose it against the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal. Did the world get concerned about how it would affect all of mankind when industrialisation from outside forces without checks and balances has caused greater devastation?

Just wondering…

Survival, Sacrament and the Marketplace

Making Haiti
Survival, Sacrament and the Marketplace
by Farzana Versey
Countercurrents, January 25, 2010

“I survived by drinking Coca-Cola. I drank Coca-Cola every day, and I ate some little tiny things,” he said. Wismond Exantus’s tale of survival conveys a larger lesson about charity franchising. As someone who worked in the grocery store in Port-au-Prince, where he was found after 11 days, his recollection of Coca Cola as opposed to “little tiny things” indicates that the miracle his brother spoke about could have something to do partly with this beverage and the conglomerate idea it stands for.

There are other ideas. His rescue took place as mourners wept outside the shattered cathedral for the funeral of the bishop; his family could not go to the place to save him because of looters, so they approached the rescue team. The looters are home-grown vultures; the saviours are outsiders.

We’ve been through the Pat Robertson viewpoint. Unfortunately, outside of his limited evangelism exists a larger one that sponges on similar thoughts. It is a ready market for do-gooders who may not express their religious fervour in such black and white terms, but the glorification of being blessed works just as well.

“I am a person who has been blessed,” said Jeremy Johnson, a Utah-based millionaire. “To sit back and relax and send a little money or whatever, it just made me feel ungrateful.”

Ungrateful about what? He was not responsible for the earthquake or for the delay in supplies reaching. He bought helicopters to fly essentials. In Jimani, which he has made his headquarter just across the Haiti border, he has set up a tent. Reports describe him with reverence for managing a “bare-bones operation”, dressed in frayed jeans (is this mandatory uniform or designer empathy?) where he sweats it out with only a small refrigerator providing energy drinks.

Strangely enough, his how to be a millionaire story is rife with fraudulent practices, but this, we are told, has not interfered with his altruistic work. He had earlier “provided a home for boys pushed out of a Utah polygamist sect”. And now he is in Haiti where, according to the Utah governor, people rushed to the helicopters for food and it became “really dangerous”. Therefore, Jeremy is a hero because he not only saves people, but saves dangerous people and those who belong to sects that are not morally up to much.

It is not surprising that he is working with Maison des Enfants de Dieu — Children of the House of God — orphanage to send these children to adoptive families. He has already managed 21 visas and transported them to the United States.

Apparently, bureaucracy was not an issue, although it is for his aid effort where he sees boxes of food on the tarmac. “As a result I even stole. There is a lot left to be done,” he said. This is precious, considering that the local looters were considered selfish and almost vicious.

Johnson is not a celebrity, so his compassion is not entirely driven by charity tourism. It is more about personal gratification: “My life is going to change from this, there is no doubt.” He is already planning the next move and has his shopping list of people who need to be set right.

Haiti, having overthrown the imperial yoke, has to allow itself into a numbing social colonialism and aid slavery. Seen as a tribal society it will now be refereed and guided by the superior Red Crosses. A while ago, I read this delicious comment by model Naomi Campbell when she was asked why she chose to raise funds for the UK flood and not for Africa: “I do Third World. I have been doing Third World since 1994.” One wonders about the expiry date of such vanity of the conscience.

Thirty-seven per cent of Europe’s population was destroyed by the bubonic plaque; ancient cities have been buried by volcanic eruptions. We have had El Salvador, Mexico, Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Indonesia — all victims of natural disasters, not to forget Hurricane Katrina and the fires in California.

These calamities have scientific reasons and imbuing them with fatalism makes a mockery of the spirit of enquiry that ought to look into the dangers manifest in our abuse of the environment. Such wimpy sentiments are merely geared to sneak out of political responsibility. Or sneak in political power through the backdoor.

Pat Robertson and the Eclipse

A doomsday quick-fix prophet on TV last night was holding forth on how the solar eclipse would muck up our lives based on our zodiac signs. After he had told us just how bad it would get, a godman sitting next to him asked us to place a pot and add things in it according to the level of muckery, recite some verses a given number of times and then maybe we would be saved.

It was appalling to watch this on prime time. Would children, who ought to look on such phenomena with a sense of wonder, be instilled with information? I would deem this x-rated because it affects the mind. Instead of seeing it as a natural happening and seeing it through at least some scientific prism, they are fed this rubbish.

There are two aspects to this:

1. We keep away genuine interest and believe everything in nature can have dire consequences.
2. The way it is projected, only one belief system was being promoted. I do not know whether Muslims and Christians have strong superstitions about these matters. There are ‘practical’ things I recall, which may or may not have any scientific basis. It is disturbing to see religion being pushed in this manner.

This brings me to Pat Robertson’s ‘Haiti deserved the earthquake because of its pact with the devil’. He obviously does not know about quakes in Los Angeles and how buildings are specifically designed to avoid tremors.

It is disgusting to see an island that was occupied by force by the United States, had several coups, became a slave to the French, and survived it all despite still dealing with debilitating poverty as some victim of voodoo.

Commentators have talked about racist overtones. Haiti, unlike good little black slaves, threw off imperialist shackles. If it was doomed, it was going to be on its own terms. Now the world, especially the big superpowers, cannot stand the idea of such obstinate self-respect on the part of people who are not supposed to be anything but dust underfoot. No ready theories are available, so the best one to pull out is the one with god. God has got to be White, so Haiti is in cahoots with the devil.

The logical question would be: If god is kind and all that, then why would s/he cause this destruction? If the devil is a real opponent of god, then why would the devil let it happen without putting up a brave fight?

What about natural disasters elsewhere? What about man-made calamities that we bring upon our fellow citizens, not to speak about other nations? What god or devil pacts are these about?

Meanwhile, Haiti’s hospitals have been destroyed and thousands are dying. It is an ongoing tragedy that needs to be addressed. Pop evangelism won’t get Haiti anywhere.

It would be easy to dismiss Pat Robertson, but he is not the problem. He is reflecting a problem that we have in some measure as societies on the brink of mental instability. You and I may not buy his thesis immediately, but it will register as something that someone believes. And this man has a huge following. He is dangerous because he thinks he is on god’s side.

At least the eclipse has the good sense to get off the sun after a while.