collective tragedy

i haven’t posted about the tsunami and earthquakes in southeast asia because i haven’t really known what to say in the face of it all. having just lost a single important person in my life, i keep thinking about all those hundreds of thousands of people who are losing an important person or persons from their lives right now – the collective tragedy is monumental, and whatever shared energies exist must surely be torn through at the moment……

for me it is not only the scope of what has happened that makes it difficult to comment, but more importantly (to me in the western world) is the hypocrisy of the western response in terms of aid offerred (compared to the amount of money spent on the iraq war every day), and in terms of collective grief and media representation (when compared to 9/11). in any case – the person who blogs at stupid, beautiful lies has penned an obituary to western sorrow that i think is worth a read.