Like many of you on this listserv, I have been reading the many stories
about the tsunami, the lives lost and the enormous human suffering that has
resulted. There have been pleas for money for the sharing of resouces. Of
course, those of us with cash, medical knowledge and supplies should share
whatever we can. However, the situation also illustrates a much larger
social, political phenomemon.
Those of us in North America and presumably in Europe have early warning
systems in place. We have special emergency preparedness teams and the
resources to conduct annual simulations to ensure that plans can be carried
out. Yes, of course, disabled persons may often be invisible in those
processes, in the evacuation procedures and plans. BUT at least those forms
of organization exist in North America. Countries in the South, such as Sri
Lanka, India, etc do not have the same access. I think that it is incumbent
upon those of us in progressive movements for social change to ask why it is
that such social inequities exist in the first place. We need to determine
what we can do in the larger scheme of things. We must ask such questions
within the disability movement as well as in other arenas.
In reading historical accounts of colonialism, it seems clear to me that
those of us living in North America and Europe have benefitted from both the
natural and human resouces that we expoloited / stole from people in "third
world" countries. This continues today, for example, when American
corporations set up shop in places like India and pay much lower wages than
they could in North America. Until there is some sort of accounting of all
that was taken, we are perpetuating the charity model just as it has been
perpetuated against us. As I indicated, we should donate as much as we can
to folks suffering as a result of the tsunamis. I would never suggest
otherwise. BUT we must also examine the social and political context that
created such vulnerability to natural disasters in the first place. Lilith
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