The Tsunami: Sea Change or Back to Business-As-Usual?

by Mina Hamilton

The tsunami catastrophe will be a defining event for the 21st century. There will be other catastrophes in this century. What will be defining about this one are both the image and the reality of the response. How did the West, particularly the US, respond? Did we quickly tire of the grisly images? Did we go back to business-as-usual? Did we dole out some band-aids and then forget about the suffering? Or did we jump in for the long haul? Did we help fishermen replace crushed boats? Did we rebuild matchstick houses, cratered roads and collapsed bridges? Did we help create a functioning medical system? Set up trauma counseling? Train teachers? Build schools? Did we funnel aid to the people, instead of a corrupt military?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Hamilton0110.htm