A ‘Broken Society’?

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Speaking in Kent yesterday, David Cameron talked about Britain’s ‘social recession’.

His point followed the trial of two brothers, then aged ten and eleven, who subjected two other boys, aged nine and eleven, to what was described as a ‘sadistic’ attack and who have been sentenced to an indefinite period of detention.

In some respects, this morning’s papers may give some backing to what Cameron said:

A woman has been jailed for three years after subjecting her son to ‘enduring’ cruelty by pretending he was severely ill so as to gain publicity and financial rewards; a mother and her brother have been jailed for life for the murder of a man they tortured to death; and the man behind one of the biggest gun smuggling operations in the UK has been jailed for thirty years.

None of these, plus other similar stories in today’s newspapers, make for easy reading, but I don’t think they point to a ‘broken society’ as inferred by David Cameron.

If that were so, people wouldn’t offer themselves as foster parents, volunteer to help those who are disadvantaged or do any of the other things that aim to help others. More importantly, people wouldn’t feel the revulsion that is so apparent from their reaction to such stories.

While people do these charitable things and react with such generosity to disasters such as the one that has engulfed Haiti, British society is not yet broken.
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The Tragedy Of Haiti

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Words are futile when it comes to the tragedy of Haiti, a country that for the last couple of hundred years has fallen victim to colonialisation, coups, take-overs, superstition, gang violence and obscene levels of corruption. Clearly the country doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with a fraction of what happened a week ago, and thank heavens that the international community has rallied round and is doing their best in difficult circumstances to sort things out. Thank heavens also for the millions of ordinary people who are making donations to the various relief funds.

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and are camped outside in makeshift and unsanitary conditions. Many, if not most, lost members of their families along with their livelihoods in just seconds. At this time, around a third of the population is desperate for water, food and shelter and already mob violence and looting has emerged as desperate people try to survive in what is still a living hell in parts of the country.

The number of reporters that seem to be on the ground at the moment is somewhat surprising. You have only to scan the news channels and newspapers to get idea of their numbers, and I have heard one commentator say that, while their presence brings the plight of Haiti into the public eye, there does seems to be a lot of them. Where are these reporters staying and who provides their food and drink?

Another surprise is that just sixty miles away from the centre of this disaster, cruise ships berth at Labadee, a privately and heavily guarded resort owned by a cruise line, where passengers enjoyed watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market. Even though the cruise line has pledged $1 million dollars to relief efforts as well as giving water, canned and other foods, you have to wonder whether such calls are appropriate at a time when bodies lie in the streets not far away and where the country is on the brink of anarchy.

But, given the immensity of this disaster, which the UN says is far worse than that of the tsunami, these questions may be trivial by comparison. The important thing is to help the poor people of Haiti get water, food and shelter and some stability.
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Beware of Fraudsters!

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I suppose that in any situation where there is the possibility of a quick buck being made, the fraudsters crawl out of their grubby holes.

So it is more than sad that a number of agencies have felt it necessary to warn people about the emergence of false websites and fake charities claiming to organise or to fund relief efforts in Haiti where hundreds of thousands of people are in desperate need of help and where the death roll is now reckoned to be as much as 200,000.

The advice has to be to donate only to known organisations and not to respond to appeals from unknown sources and especially those received by email.

It is sound advice which should not deter anyone from doing their bit, however small, to help the unhappy and very needy people of Haiti.
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Hell On Earth

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As one who was once involved but unscathed in an earthquake, my heart goes out to the victims of the one that hit Haiti this morning.

An earthquake, certainly one of magnitude 7, is hell on earth and especially when it hits during darkness. There is the initial quake, toppling buildings in an instant and killing hundreds of people. Strong aftershocks then follow, again causing more damage to weakened buildings and killing yet more.

The power goes out and, with it, all light and communications. Frightened people cannot see properly to find survivors, chaos will reign for a while and there will be a strong instinct to stay out in the open for days on end while the aftershocks continue. Shops and stores, such as they are in that troubled country, will have been demolished and food and water difficult to get. What resources are available will be quickly grabbed. Hospitals will be overwhelmed.

Once daylight appears, I expect the various relief forces will quickly appear and some semblance of order will follow. But order in this hell on earth cannot help those whose relatives and friends have been killed or maimed or whose properties have been demolished. It cannot help, in the short-term at any rate, those whose livelihoods have suddenly been destroyed.

And it cannot help frightened people get used to the thousands of aftershocks and tremors that will follow for weeks on end in which gut instinct will suggest that another earthquake is upon them. That feeling of insecurity, overwhelming at times, is not to be underestimated and nothing can be done to soften it until the tremors disappear.

We are so far away from this latest tragedy, and there is little we can do at this distance to help except make donations to the relief funds that will surely be set up.

But we can try to understand the plight of the people of Haiti at this time and sympathise with them with all our hearts. It must surely be hell on earth.
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