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| Editorial by Jimmy Margulies for The New Jersey Record |
In 2010 Philip Gourevitch addresses the often-ignored negative side of humanitarian aid in his article “Alms Dealers”. Briefly put, Gourevitch argues that humanitarian aid causes a business of peace and can actually perpetuate violence and prolong war because NGOs and the like make it beneficial to be in a war zone. I have often felt that NGOs have an evil side, as they seem to speak for a group of people without asking them what they want to say. Today in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, the business of peace does not hold all the blame. The media, which ignores the issue of the Cholera outbreak and instead pushes other more “trendy” forms of helping, should also be held responsible.
According to the World Health Organization, Cholera outbreaks threaten most developing countries. However, Cholera is easily preventable. Cholera is not present in countries with anything more that minimum hygienic standards. If a country has clean drinking water, than a country will not suffer from a Cholera outbreak. So, logically when an earthquake disrupts sanitation for Haiti and thus pollutes their water, cleaning their water should be the immediate concern. Yet, across the board in the media world, helping people clean their water was never mentioned. If one was to believe the media, money and NGOs are all that can help Haiti.
CNN, a reputable news source provided “Five Ways You Can Still Help In Haiti” on January 12th, 2011. The author, Natalie Angley, states the first thing Haiti needs is money, but really how can we know where this money goes in the capitalistic driven world we live in? The second way to help is to make personal hygiene kits, where Angley does mention that hygiene is important so a cholera outbreak does not occur. But there are two problems here. First, the fact that there already is a major cholera outbreak in Haiti is ignored and secondly that this kit is only catered towards the individual and discusses nothing about water. The hygiene to stop cholera needs to be community driven, and concerns drinking water. The third suggesting is to volunteer as a medical person or a non-medical assistant. This is an issue because the medical work is not preventative. In metaphor, Doctors Without Borders in Haiti are simply putting a Band-Aide over the dirty water instead of finding ways to provide clean water. The fourth way to help is by spreading the word through the Internet, but if the word is to help negatively, than this is useless. Finally Angley tells you to “Help Rebuild”, and if this urged you to help rebuild water supply, then this would be excellent. Instead she tells you to help rebuild shelters, which could help if the earthquake was the only “disaster” in Haiti, but ignores the problem of disease.
And from the right, Fox News boldly stated that a unified market with the Dominican Republic is “The Only Thing that Can Help Haiti Now”. In Michael Fairbanks’ article the responsibility of the average citizen to help and it instead turns to economics and money. Here the problem in Haiti has nothing to do with health, but everything to do with politics.
Clearly the media perpetuates the false consciousness of humanitarian aid and money as the only solution to disasters. The media over simplifies issues and pushes money. The Cholera outbreak is just an afterthought, and the media instead focuses on the almost glamorous NGOs like Doctors Without Borders, who in my opinion, and Gourevich’s opinion, do more help than good. If instead the media showed the strong need for clean water, would people have helped? Would cholera even be an issue? Or is the Media simply an extension of the current paradigm, where people only want to help in a western way, through money and the NGO? These questions are hard to answer, but one thing is for sure, something does need to change.
References Cited:
Gourevitch, Philip
2010 Alms Dealers. New Yorker Oct 11, 2010, 102-109.
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