Editorial

By Paul Schratz

As if the devastation and death from the Myanmar cyclone wasn't horrendous enough, we're now witnessing how man often excels at taking what's wrong in the world and making it worse.

Instead of coming to the aid of its people the way parents would their children, the military junta in that country has turned inward in its desire to maintain its grip on power, shunning the outside world.

For a week it provided negligible aid to its people, while refusing to allow international rescue and relief efforts into the country. Aid agencies were forced to stand by in frustration at the border, waiting for visas to enter the country.

What is being played out in Myanmar is an ideal illustration of what Pope Benedict XVI was talking about when he reminded the United Nations that states have a responsibility to protect their citizens.

Sadly, Myanmar is only the latest celebrity disaster in an ongoing litany of tragedy around the globe. These sorts of events typically command world attention for a time, like the southeast Asia tsunami. Then the crisis, and awareness of international emergencies in general, fall off the public radar.

In a recent dispatch, Catholic Relief Services of the U.S. noted there are more than 100 countries around the world where ongoing relief is needed.

Some of the need, like Myanmar, stems from natural disasters, but crises are frequently compounded by the behaviour of individuals and governments, again like Myanmar.

In that country, international aid sat at the country's doorstep, with the UN and other aid agencies watching in dismay as the junta maintained its wall of control at the expense of its people who were succumbing to starvation, dehydration, injury, illness, and disease. There is every possibility that the government's own inaction and obdurateness will contribute to more deaths than were caused by the initial natural disaster.

In other countries, poverty and destitution is rampant not so much from nature as from political instability. Dictatorships and coups have left Haiti the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, with hunger so widespread that the locals use the word "klorox" to compare their constant hunger to the feeling of drinking bleach.

Many desperate countries already confronted by acute poverty are finding added pressure being put on them, thanks to the soaring cost of food staples. The doubling and tripling in the price of necessities like wheat and rice has resulted in what's been described as a "cascade of hunger."

Much of that economic pressure is resulting from a well intentioned effort to reduce dependency on petroleum products by turning agricultural produce into biofuels. Around the world, generous government subsidies are encouraging farmers to divert crops to fuel rather than food.

Again, man's own behaviour is problematic. Environmental concerns are a valid consideration, but they mustn't come at the expense of bread for the hungry, particularly when the results are becoming catastrophic in so many countries.

In Ethiopia, for instance, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity are facing a 20 per cent increase in demand for services, with more and more women, children, elderly, and disabled now homeless and living on the streets, unable to buy the food they need.

Natural and other disasters will always exist in this broken world, but the power to reach out to our neighbours in one way or another is within us all. As a start, Canada can ensure it's doing everything in its power not to contribute to actions that afflict the needy. It can do everything it can to influence others to do the same.

In the longer term, however, it's essential that the world reflect on Pope Benedict's call for states to protect their people. No father would give a serpent to a child asking for a fish, said Jesus. The tragedy is that many governments are doing just that.