Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts

Monday, January 18, 2010

Bringing Haiti Back to Life


Haiti, as a Caribbean island with its post-colonial heritage and ethno-linguistic medley may have allured most of us as a vacation spot in the past. Devastation caused by the recent earthquake however has left it in the thick of violence and turmoil causing a trample to rescue and relief. While the pictures and videos of Port-au-Prince show a demolition similar to a war zone, it is yet more bereaving to see lives still struggling for subsistence. The situation in Haiti appears wilder and much intense compared to San Francisco’s earthquake in 1989 that made quake resistant approach California’s answer to earth’s seismic actions.  For America investing on post quake groundwork was viable even in the 80’s, which for Haiti seemed futile even in the 21st century. Such vulnerability of a nation seems no different than the susceptibility to crisis poor families face around the globe even as I write this post.

Haiti today has staged some important questions. To begin with, it has posed that advancement and opportunities in select few nations of the world may not be an answer to eradicate global poverty. Secondly, progressive change has to be a unanimous force where each developed nation is responsible to share its abundance to fill dearth in its third world counterparts. Most importantly, it opens us to the fact that giving, compassion and benevolence should not be the ideals of charities or humanitarian aid organizations alone. Like the Red Cross, United Nations, Doctors without Borders or many other relief organizations, humanitarianism should be a state of mind, which can help us connect with our global brothers and sisters. Such moral responsibility and empathy exists in all of us. As our inner voice, it shakes us when we see people around us aching or a poor innocent nation bleeding. This conscience as our core and also the heart of a nation motivates us to help and pull out Haiti from its current stand still.

Helping Haiti would be spreading hope and sharing uncountable smiles that certainly would go miles in resurrecting a damaged nation. Your donation to Doctors without Borders shall help Haitians bounce back and also build resilience to face quake aftermaths. As a source of strength, helping Haiti shall give the people more than just bread and butter. It shall give life back to a nation and spring joy once again across the Caribbean. Such pleasantness shall be a gift of affection and inspiration, as a nation is not just build on structures alone, it is also founded and grounded on emotions.

Copyright (c) 2009-2010 Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy:  ning.com


Saturday, January 16, 2010

Building Hope for Haiti Again


Recent tremors on the Haitian turf are more than just a calamity. These shocks are nature’s one among many signs to mankind as its face-off with the macrocosm. While I am perturbed on the enormity of this catastrophe, I feel such ruckus is more than an augment eye opener. Sometimes it may even look like a nature’s time out to us. Such natural disasters and many others speak deeper than just being earth’s scientific currents that can shake mankind. Dreadful and distressing, yet in a unique manner they caution humanity. Robert Creamer’s article on Huffington Post, ‘It Is Our Moral Responsibility to Help Haiti-And Its In America’s Interest’ seemed to share this in an idiosyncratic manner. He writes about how Haiti was starting to dream through socioeconomic changes and infrastructural prospects and how badly it stands now amid turmoil. However, a ray still exists when he says that Haitians have not lost hope, which is a blazing lesson that an injured and agonized nation can teach us all. 

Also, Robert’s resurrecting theme in his article, in a way, is an alert that we shouldn’t have to wait for a crisis to happen in order to recognize the cognizance of global unanimity. Why does an earthquake have to motivate us to reach out to the world’s poorest nation? And how many of us even knew this about Haiti before? As a rescue mission, most countries today are at Haiti’s beck and call but what happens when the situation normalizes. Are we going to internalize and learn something this time or will it be slowly fading away like the Tsunami crisis. In my view, a ‘help is on the way’ action should not be bounded by such calamitous events. Such thinking should rather be reinforcement for change locally and globally to appreciate the distinctiveness that each of us or each nation has to offer and the synergy that we can create together. This is also a facet that Robert Creamer shares when he encourages America to rebuild Haiti for the price of few CEO bonuses or F-22 fighters. His words unfold us once again to the law of co-existence. Working towards minimizing the poverty gap, starting with individual effort in our neighborhood or community can slowly be motivational for fellow countrymen. Similarly, encouragements towards collective contribution in human and intellectual development on a global scale are potential ways that can rebuild Haiti and also hope for other poor nations around the world. Such humanitarian state of mind and state of a country as a social contagion can certainly echo change and navigate us in a new direction.

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy: XOZ/Flickr