Floods in Australia… but what about the others?

Floods are rampant worldwide just at the present. There has been one disaster after another between the flooding in the northern Australian state of Queensland, South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines. The spectre of the 2010 Pakistani floods in everyone’s minds. One wonders how much more flooding the world can take, and at the extent of our collective capacity for endurance.

Actually, it isn’t the collective the world is concerned with here precisely. I’ve barely heard a televisual or newsprint word about the situations in South Africa, Brazil or the Philippines, but a lot about Queensland. The thing is, while things are terrible in Queensland, the state is getting a lot more attention in the international media than are those three nations.

Sadly, the difference between South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines and Queensland illuminates a split between countries who are considered worthy of attention and assistance whenever disasters happen, and those who are not. If you’re from a developed, rich country with a white majority, the world – and its media – see you as more worthy of attention. If you’re not, you’ll be a thirty second jumble of images on the evening news in someone else’s loungeroom. Queenslanders’ stories are being reported as those of individuals with lives that are being disrupted and threatened. Those in the midst of the other disasters are getting the usual treatment: quick images of silent, hopeless faces in a monolithised experience. Australians get to be people, everyone else symbolic.

There are people I care about in Queensland and I live in New South Wales, the state to the south. Believe me, I care a lot about minimising the terrible impacts on Queenslanders and on those in northern New South Wales and Victoria who are also affected. I understand why the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the country’s most prestigious newspapers, has been turning up outside my place covered with pictures of flooded Queensland for days now. That’s to be expected, and I hope that the spirit of mateship that is held to characterise this nation comes to the fore in supporting Queensland.

What I cannot abide is that I’m not hearing about people elsewhere, and it’s not as though wider coverage of what they are going through has to come at the expense of Queenslanders. People everywhere matter, and I want to act in solidarity with all those who are my fellow humans, not just my countrypeople. That kind of nuance is possible, and the consumers of world media are quite capable of caring about more than one set of people at a time.

Natural disasters are never just natural ones. How they play out for regions, countries and individuals is very much about the particular socio-economic situation where the flooding occurs. If you haven’t got sufficient stable buildings, evacuation procedures, means of communication, food and medical resources, not to mention plain old money, you are going to be devastated when a disaster comes; what happened in Haiti showed the world that quite starkly. There’s a substantial human dimension to these disasters, and it has its roots in the sapping of some nations’ resources and economic opportunities at the expense of others. The effects of colonialism aren’t over in a single solitary formerly colonised nation.

Happily, Queensland has the kind of infrastructure, emergency disaster funds, and support to see it through. We can probably rest assured that Queensland is going to be okay. It’s the exception. Here in Australia, regardless of its large (majority white) South African migrant population, there is heard barely a word about the deaths of upwards of forty people in South Africa. Over fifty people have died in the Philippines and over 630 in Brazil. That’s not to mention all the people who have been injured and been made homeless, all the flooded farmland, the billions of rand, pesos and reais needed to rebuild. We’re talking about the displacement of six thousand people in South Africa, one hundred thousand in Brazil, and 1.4 million people in the Philippines. I just wish that the devastation of those from poorer nations wasn’t valued less because they are poorer.

It’s terrible that all these disasters have converged at once, and in the midst of the anniversary of the Haiti disaster, too. It’s a critical week in sorting out who actually won November’s election and, facing down the continued cholera epidemic, the situation in Haiti remains dire. I only know that these things are happening, however, because I actively seek out non-Western media sources and those outside the mainstream. We (the consumers of my context) are all so bombarded by that which the mainstream media thinks we care about that I know more about sports stars’ relationships than matters of actual world importance. That’s sickening.

I’m not making a new complaint, I know that. We all know that news items aren’t given attention relative to impact. But it’s simply and truly sad that I have to point out that this is the case for something as devastating as these natural disasters.