When I first learned of the Japanese earthquake, I didn't think much of it after all, seismic activity in Japan is as inevitable as snow in Hanover. It was not until several days later that I realized the grave magnitude of the disaster. The earthquake, at first designated a 8.9 on the Richter scale, was eventually upgraded to a 9.0 a hundred times more intense than the one that struck Haiti. The quake and the resulting tsunami inflicted extensive damage to infrastructures caught in their path, including nuclear power plants. While the United Nations Atomic Agency initially reported positive developments in the nuclear shutdowns, the partial meltdowns, increased radioactivity and plutonium particles found outside some plants have spiked worldwide fears of radiation exposure. Although news of the crisis made its way through the Dartmouth community before spring break, it did not generate a lot of discourse much of our empathy, I suspect, was quashed by the looming presence of finals.
Dartmouth was not the only place that failed to react swiftly and meaningfully at the onset of the disaster. According to CNN Money, donations raised for the victims of the Japanese tsunami in the first seven days after the disaster lagged significantly behind those of other recent natural disasters such as the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
CNN suggests that this trend may be in part because "the devastation was not as immediately apparent as in other recent disasters." Indeed, despite the severity of the earthquake, the full extent of the tragedy in Japan was partly averted by Japan's strict building codes and state-of-the-art tsunami system. Yet such statements can hardly be of comfort to the more than 360,000 homeless refugees seeking shelter in the wake of the tsunami's destruction or fleeing from the threat of nuclear radiation.
Another popular rationale for the relatively small stream of aid is founded on the misperception that Japan, which has the third highest gross national product in the world, does not need our help. This generalization fails to take into account that Japan has yet to disentangle itself from two decades of recession and economic stagnation. While post-industrial Japan is clearly no Haiti, we cannot use this disparity to downplay the hardships of the Japanese refugees.
And while we recognize the natural disaster as a human tragedy, for many of us the knowledge may not translate into empathy or meaningful action. According to the author of "The Life You Can Save," Paul Singer, "our emotions are rarely disturbed by tragedies that occur to strangers far away with whom we have no special connection." A report published by the Chronicle of Philanthropy found that in the first week following each disaster, Hurricane Katrina, with 1,836 confirmed fatalities, and Haiti, with casualties estimated between 92,000 and 316,000, respectively drew around $514 million and $275 million in donations from Americans. Japan where the count of 23,000 declared either dead or missing is only rising received $87 million. As discomforting as our relative indifference to foreign crises may be, we feel intrinsically more obligated to help our compatriots than foreigners living halfway around the earth.
But we cannot allow ourselves to grow complacent. The gross disparity in these donation tallies highlights the gap between what we are capable of and what we have actually done to assist the victims. Clearly, we can do more.
One positive development from the Japanese earthquake is that the biggest private and corporate donations are coming from unlikely allies such as Taiwan, China and South Korea countries that have been scarred by occupation or war with pre-World War II Imperial Japan. If embittered enemies of the past can set aside their historic and cultural grievances to support the victims of the Japanese earthquake, then surely we can rise above our own indifference.
Most of us do not have a direct link to the victims we are not their keepers. Yet we cannot treat these victims as faceless statistics or allow the global diffusion of responsibility to inhibit our empathy. Despite the lack of mutual connections, we can all recognize the graveness of the victims' plights hunger, homelessness, fear and loss and make a contribution to support Japan in one of her darkest hours.
