Wave Money

The recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean and its devastating impact on Southeast Asia and surrounding regions has prompted a massive relief effort. With the death toll now estimated at 150,000, the hard work of recovery is well underway. Countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia, two of the worst affected areas, are seeing their local relief agencies, militaries, and charities being stretched to their limits in an effort to clean up the mess left behind and start rebuilding. Fortunately, and not surprisingly, international aid organizations and generous donations from citizens of rich western countries have contributed greatly to the relief effort. Yet what is sadly shocking, however, are the liberal handouts coughed up by the rich world’s governments. The United States has pledged $350 million in assistance and President Bush even donated $10,000 from his own pocket. This begs the question: why?

The American people are certainly not stingy as is evident from their generous giving to tsunami relief organizations (although their donation total is significantly less than the smaller Germany). However the American people’s government was accused of being just that when it initially announced that U.S. relief aid would total a measly $15 million. U.N. Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland started a controversy when he chastised certain unnamed countries (read: U.S.) for their miserliness. In response to this comment and when other nations began to increase their own aid money, the U.S. reconsidered and upped the ante to $35 million. Not much later this figure would see a tenfold increase to its current $350 million amount. It seems that the United States was shamed into drumming up more cash. Many of you are probably wondering, “How can one shame the world’s sole superpower into doing anything? I thought the U.S. does whatever it wants to and doesn’t give a damn what other countries say about it.” While this has become increasingly true under the Bush administration, the highly unusual nature of this disaster is to blame for the United States’ untypical behavior. This is a case of “competitive compassion” where countries bid to overshadow one another’s generosity. Since America couldn’t let itself be seen as stingier than the rest of the world, especially when the Bush administration is desperately trying to mend fences with old allies, so it opened its wallet.

Where, one might ask, was the donation line after the deadly earthquake in Bam, Iran in 2003 or 1999’s “super-cyclone” in India? And I don’t recall rich countries being shamed into doling out money for the millions of victims of Africa’s numerous wars over the past decades. The main difference between those disasters and the tsunami is that the former affected, and continues to affect in the case of Africa, rather isolated pockets of poor people. Why should the U.S. government much care if a few thousand Iranian hillbillies are left dead or homeless? They are of no strategic interest and they don’t spend much money at Starbucks or McDonald’s. In the eyes of the government these people are, at best, none of our concern and at worst, expendable.

The tsunami, on the other hand, killed not only lots of poor brown-skinned foreigners, but also many rich white westerners. The beaches of Southern Thailand especially are a prime destination for Europeans and to a lesser extent Americans. This is the reason that the world’s media has been attuned to this disaster in such detail. If Bam, Iran had been a hot tourist spot for Americans does anyone really believe that the U.S. government would have spent the equivalent of $190 per victim of its earthquake as compared to $2333 per victim of the tsunami?

The United States has historically been the rich world’s miser. Out of the 22 richest countries, it consistently ranks dead last in the percentage of its gross domestic product that is allocated for international aid. Critics point out that this statistic does not take into account the other ways in which America spends its money to aid foreigners, such as militaristic interventions. After all, can you really put a price on the masses of Iraqis who daily take to the streets draped in American flags to spontaneously celebrate U.S. generosity? But back to reality, keep in mind that even backwater North Korea has given $150,000 to aid the victims of the tsunami. I’d like to hear someone come up with a theory to explain that.