In the first days of January, George W Bush summoned his father (the ex-president), his brother (the future president?), and even Bill Clinton (the ex-president and maybe the future ex of a president), directing them all to assist revving up America’s response to Asia’s tsunami. Seldom has so much star power been so superfluous. Even before the stars were activated, a spontaneous emotional earthquake had occurred somewhere deep within the western psyche, and a tsunami of money had begun rolling towards the Indian ocean. By 3rd January, one week after the disaster, private US donations amounted to over £87m; Britons had given £100m; Germans had come through with £107m. On 6th January, the New York Daily News, a gossipy tabloid not known for its interest in global poverty, plastered the number $103,474 across its front page—the amount the paper’s own appeal had raised in a 24-hour period.
Why this incredible response? There has been much talk of Christmas spirit, and of westerners’ ability to identify with a tragedy that killed western beachgoers. But there was something deeper at work here, and something quite ironic too. For the generosity reflected the unspoken feeling that this crisis stood apart from other crises in poor countries. The tsunami was unlike Aids, which seems to spread relentlessly because developing country leaders won’t challenge sexual taboo and social prejudice. The tsunami was unlike the murderous wars in Sudan or Congo, for which the blame can be laid even more clearly at the feet of local leaders. The tsunami was not even like the general problem of global poverty, which most people reasonably believe is tied up with corruption and bad policies, making it at least partly impervious to western assistance. Instead, the tsunami was a simple act of nature. It bubbled up from the sea, and laid waste to half a dozen countries; it had nothing to do with human greed or cowardice or corruption. And so westerners responded generously, confident that an uncomplicated, unpolitical disaster could be swiftly remedied with charity.
This was a return to a simple vision of disasters, one that has been mostly absent since the first postcolonial relief effort in Biafra in the late 1960s. Bob Geldof conjured the same vision in Ethiopia briefly in the 1980s: the simple images of starving children swept away the complicating political context, and the money flooded in.
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