Red, Right and Blue - 01/21/10

I must begin this column with a quick apology. To anyone who read my last column before Christmas break, I am very sorry. Unlike most conservative youths whom I know, I fulfill the Republican stereotype of being very bad with a computer.

My roommate likes to tell stories of my inability to use iTunes. In a moment of computer-related stupidity, I sent the wrong version of my column to The Campus and that is why it looked as though I am unable to speak or write English. I have since been taught how to replace a file, so I hope your faith in me may return in time.

On another and much more serious note, there is one event which demands our attention, our concern and our sympathy far beyond any other. The earthquake that rocked Haiti is one of the most terrible events which many of us have ever witnessed.

As much of a cliché as it may seem, these are events that should show us the unimportance of national borders and different languages, much less political parties, compared to the common humanity whose pain we see on every Internet news site and newspaper cover as we go about our lives. The earthquake killed countless people and left thousands more homeless, destitute and in intense need of humanitarian aid. Whether you believe in the chaos of nature or the incomprehensible will of a god, it is something which no human agent, no government, political organization or group of experts could control.

Now, in the aftermath, we must concentrate on what can still be done, rather than what we wish people would do or whether their motives are pure.

Government officials, politicians and political theorists have argued for decades about the question of what one country’s government owes to citizens of another. For example, should America, undeniably one of the most powerful and financially able countries in the world, interfere in the civil war of Somalia or the genocide in Rwanda? These questions and others like them must come with a political agenda, ideology and a look towards the future of all countries involved.

Aid to Haiti does not bring the same complicated and political questions, and therefore should also be devoid of political backlash, bragging or berating. This is not to say that no political calculations go into the transport of massive amounts of goods which are expensive to obtain and problematic to deliver, but these are not the usual political questions. These do not involve enemy combatants or international treaties. Instead it is a question about aid to a country where the very ground has been ripped up under the feet of its people.

In the last few days there have been articles and blogs on both sides that have tried to politicize the disaster. On one side, there is the comparison of relief to Haiti with relief after Katrina.

People calculate the various death tolls, the rate of relief and try to compare the Bush and Obama presidencies. On the other side, there are those ready to criticize President Obama for capitalizing on the promises of aid. Hurricane Katrina was a truly terrible event which ended by raising political questions.

But the true horror of it was not in the arena of the political, but in that of the human — the human loss of life. The same is true on a much greater scale here. In a recent address, former Presidents Bush and Clinton asked for people to put aside their political differences and together attack the much more serious devastation. For once I can actually say that I agree with them both.