Post by Chips on May 9, 2008 14:08:41 GMT 9.5
Morality among the wreckage of Cyclone Nargis
The international community should be rubbing the Chinese Government's nose in the debris strewn across Burma. Beijing's support for the Burmese junta has done much to sustain a regime whose latest display of apathy towards its own long-suffering citizens must be made its last. China's stomach-churning "big coming-out ceremony" should be used as an opportunity to bring into sharp focus not only the injustices committed against Tibetans but also Beijing's complicity in the oppression and murder of people beyond its own borders. Start writing those placards.
Houston Ash Kurrajong
In the tsunami of 2004, the Australian Government pledged $1 billion in aid to Indonesia. After Cyclone Nargis, the pledge is $3 million. This says we are studiously ignoring the fate of the Burmese people in the hope that their military dictators will somehow go away. The military junta has gone precisely nowhere since it seized power in 1962. The current approach has done nothing but add to the misery of the Burmese.
Should we consider instead breaking taboos and engaging with the people of Burma? Let's start with a few more zeros on our pledge. If we have to deal with the junta, so be it. The alternative is to leave Cyclone Nargis's victims to their fate - surely the greater of two evils.
Justin Buckland London (England)
The amounts pledged to help the cyclone victims by the rich nations have been pathetic: €200,000 from France, $NZ500,000 from New Zealand and only $US250,000, initially, from the US.
Australia should lead by example and donate much more than $3 million. Forget about the military junta in power. Help the victims directly.
Cilla Tey Mulgoa
Every time a tragedy of this magnitude occurs, I am left wondering about the Australian policy on adoption. Yet again there are thousands of orphaned children needing food, love and a home. And yet none of these children ever finds its way to the loving, affluent homes across Australia. They end up in orphanages, at best, in their own country or other Western countries, such as the US, but the cost and the red tape mean they never come here.
I understand the need for cultural sensitivity and for countries not to send their future overseas, but it is hard to imagine a child is better off confused, hungry and alone than in a loving Australian home.
Monique McDonell (Willing adoptee) Narraweena
It's good to see the US responding with such urgency to the crisis in Burma. What a shame it did not respond with the same passion towards its own people after Hurricane Katrina. It seems ironic that the US has been so quick to condemn the Burmese military's response to the crisis when, as the richest country in the world, it failed to comprehend or act on the devastation at home.
Michele Brooks Bellevue Hill
The international community should be rubbing the Chinese Government's nose in the debris strewn across Burma. Beijing's support for the Burmese junta has done much to sustain a regime whose latest display of apathy towards its own long-suffering citizens must be made its last. China's stomach-churning "big coming-out ceremony" should be used as an opportunity to bring into sharp focus not only the injustices committed against Tibetans but also Beijing's complicity in the oppression and murder of people beyond its own borders. Start writing those placards.
Houston Ash Kurrajong
In the tsunami of 2004, the Australian Government pledged $1 billion in aid to Indonesia. After Cyclone Nargis, the pledge is $3 million. This says we are studiously ignoring the fate of the Burmese people in the hope that their military dictators will somehow go away. The military junta has gone precisely nowhere since it seized power in 1962. The current approach has done nothing but add to the misery of the Burmese.
Should we consider instead breaking taboos and engaging with the people of Burma? Let's start with a few more zeros on our pledge. If we have to deal with the junta, so be it. The alternative is to leave Cyclone Nargis's victims to their fate - surely the greater of two evils.
Justin Buckland London (England)
The amounts pledged to help the cyclone victims by the rich nations have been pathetic: €200,000 from France, $NZ500,000 from New Zealand and only $US250,000, initially, from the US.
Australia should lead by example and donate much more than $3 million. Forget about the military junta in power. Help the victims directly.
Cilla Tey Mulgoa
Every time a tragedy of this magnitude occurs, I am left wondering about the Australian policy on adoption. Yet again there are thousands of orphaned children needing food, love and a home. And yet none of these children ever finds its way to the loving, affluent homes across Australia. They end up in orphanages, at best, in their own country or other Western countries, such as the US, but the cost and the red tape mean they never come here.
I understand the need for cultural sensitivity and for countries not to send their future overseas, but it is hard to imagine a child is better off confused, hungry and alone than in a loving Australian home.
Monique McDonell (Willing adoptee) Narraweena
It's good to see the US responding with such urgency to the crisis in Burma. What a shame it did not respond with the same passion towards its own people after Hurricane Katrina. It seems ironic that the US has been so quick to condemn the Burmese military's response to the crisis when, as the richest country in the world, it failed to comprehend or act on the devastation at home.
Michele Brooks Bellevue Hill