The Tsunami: In death, imperialism lives on

This paragraph speaks volumes. I have chatted with some about the apparent value place on lives there. The Caucasian bodies are being saved to be frozen, shipped to the Nordic Region of Europe and identified so people can have funerals, say goodbye and bury the dead. The brown bodies, the dark-skinned Asians, are being buried in mass graves so they do not pollute the water and cause disease.



"One of the most poignant sights of the past few days was that of westerners overcome with gratitude that they had been helped by the grace and mercy of those who had lost everything, but still regarded them as guests. When these same people appear in the west, they become the interloper, the unwanted migrant, the asylum seeker, who should go back to where they belong. A globalisation that permits the wealthy to pass effortlessly through borders confines the poor to eroded subsistence, overfished waters and an impoverishment that seems to have no end. People rarely say that poor countries are swamped by visitors, even though their money power pre-empts the best produce, the clean water and amenities unknown to the indigenous population."



The rest of the article is here:



And yet this time next year there will be wealthy Scandinavian/Nordic vacationers from the same Northern European countries lounging on the beach again, pay $.10 for what they know is worth $1.00.



Some justify the imperialism/racism, as someone told me, by saying that if the native of these underdeveloped nations were paid decent prices by wealthy vacationers for their services (the prices they would have to pay in any developed nation) the natives wouldn't know how to handle having money.