Helping Haiti

When I heard about a Royal Caribbean luxury cruise ship docking at a Haitian port — so its passengers could frolic in the sand — just a few days after the devastating earthquake, I was reminded of my favourite surreal movies from the 1960s: Godard’s Weekend, with its wickedly funny digs at the empty-headedness of the privileged classes, even in the face of tragedy (“You can’t bear us screwing on the Riviera while you have no money!” yells a rich young woman at a tractor-driving peasant after a crash between their vehicles kills her boyfriend); Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel, in which upper-crust sophisticates gradually turn into savages, slaughtering sheep and barbecuing them on a makeshift fire in a fancy dining room.

The news — and the imagery it called forth — was like something dreamt up by a staff writer working for a satirical newspaper. The ship’s decision seemed instantly worthy of condemnation: wouldn’t any sensitive person be instinctively repulsed by the idea of tourists cavorting about near the site of freshly created mass graves? But look beyond the visceral surface of the debate and things get more complicated, even philosophical.

Setting aside the question of bad taste, is this specific macabre situation really all that different from the human condition in general? That’s the core of a discussion raging on various message-boards. “I just can’t see myself playing in the water and eating a b-b-q lunch while a 100 miles away there are survivors looking for food and water,” says a passenger on the Cruise Critics forum (http://bit.ly/c2gCNN). But a commenter on a Times Online blog (http://bit.ly/6uvSFz) asks, “How far is far enough? If 100 miles is too close, what about 400? What about those of us enjoying our organic croissants and fair-trade coffee in London? Should ANYONE enjoy life on this planet — much less waste money on SUVs, boats and designer clothes — while millions of children are dying from aids, malaria and malnutrition?” Others attempt to look at the practical side of the situation: “Does it help Haiti to put more Haitians out of work by stopping cruise ships visiting unaffected areas? I doubt it.”

Celebrity involvement in relief efforts is a source of much ambivalence too. The day before the Australian Open began, I watched the world’s leading tennis players laughing and fooling about during a “Hit for Haiti” benefit (http://bit.ly/7xj3yW). The event was flippant and carefully manufactured to give adoring fans a jolly time — the players wore little microphones so the crowd could listen to them banter — but its purpose was dead serious. (With some luck, it’s even possible that the large funds generated will be well-utilised!) Even so, a few commenters at Pete Bodo’s TennisWorld (http://bit.ly/bLaz11/) expressed “ickiness” about the fact that the players were having such fun. You can’t please everyone in a situation like this.

But an even more controversial “Haiti aid” initiative was the sending of solar-powered Bibles to help grieving survivors deal with their loss. Religion-baiters have been scathing in their criticism of the scheme. “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Give a man religion and watch him starve to death, praying for a fish,” snarls a poster on the Slashdot website (http://bit.ly/awKkwD), while another on Buy Solar Power Now (http://bit.ly/8VjSK3) points out that “these people don’t need ancient fairy tales, they need shelter, medicine and thousands of bags of food”. But as always, nutcases have the last say. “There is something far worse than starving to death, and that is going to Hell for eternity,” explains a proponent of the solar-Bible-as-relief idea. “If even one person could be rescued from that fate, it would be more valuable than all the bags of food in China.” I think a few Haitians might disagree.

[The author is a freelance writer]