The Oddity That is Human Nature

By now, people the world over have heard and are aware of the devastating earthquake that leveled the island nation of Haiti a few weeks ago. In that time the world has responded with tremendous kindness by dispatching rescue teams, collecting donations, and doing anything and everything that they can to try and improve the situation in the already impoverished nation. It seems that people everywhere are reaching out to help Haiti in whatever way they can. But what this episode has also highlighted are some of the lighter and darker aspects of human nature.

Take for example the incident that was covered by CNN on Friday of last week. A reporter and his cameraman were filming what they believed to be the arrest of three men in Port-Au-Prince who were accused of looting when several shots rang out. When the reporter and crew looked back to the scene again and were shocked to see three men laying on the ground. Upon investigating they were shocked to see that the three men had been wounded (one fatally) for doing nothing more than taking a bag of rice that had fallen from the back of a truck. One of the wounded men stated that the truck driver had given the rice bag to the men while another stated that the rice had simply fallen into the street but regardless of the reason why, what is most disquieting is the fact that the police officer involved felt that such a level of violence was necessary to maintain the peace and to prevent looting.

It's sad to see that while on the one hand there is a desire to maintain peace and order amid the chaos of the aftermath, it's not worth it if it is going to result in violence on the part of authorities. Not having been to Haiti or (fortunately) having never experienced such a disaster it is hard to say what anyone's reaction would be but I'm sure we could see similar things happen virtually anywhere in the world. It's easy for us to sit thousands of miles away and speak out against the violence and the seemingly random acts of violence in and around Port-Au-Prince but we can never know what it's like unless we go there. I'm not trying to justify the acts of the police officer (whose commisioner arrived on the scene shortly thereafter to condemn the attack) but one can see how different reactions are based on where we are in relation to the disaster.

We all feel the need to help in some way when we see suffering somplace. It's hard to imagine people not being affected in some way by seeing footage of starving families and injured people staring at the remains of their homes. We see these images and we see them as an impartial observer. Seeing it on television takes it out of that sense of reality for me in some ways. But in seeing the results of this recent shooting in Haiti, that reality did sink in and I began to wonder why the reporter didn't act to do anything. Seeing injured people on the ground, rather than zooming in to film the individual, put the camera down and render assistance. It's clear that it wasn't a serious threat so why not help? Why do their only duty and report the news? People should want to do something.

In Hollywood there was certainly an outpouring of support when George Clooney managed to gather a veritable plethora of entertainment talent to gather funds to aid in Haiti's resurgence. But for every group attempting to do good you also see people who are trying to justify why we shouldn't do anything or to look at our nation's actions with cynicism. People like Rush Limbaugh were particularly vocal in telling the nation that no more aid should be sent to Haiti since we already did so much for the nation. Ministers from France come out and start claiming that the US isn't helping so much as coming in to occupy the country. Is that what these people really think? Is that what they really feel? Are they of the opinion that the work our military and aid organizations are doing over there is for political reasons?

To be honest, what political leverage is there to be gained by aiding Haiti? Is Haiti an important nation on the UN Security Council? Does it have a vast army that could certainly help us in our efforts in the Middle East and Asia? Does it have vast oil reserves that could help us drive down energy costs? It has none of these things so then why bother helping? Because it is the right thing to do. Certainly one could argue that one political reason for helping Haiti is to improve the standing of the country after years of discontent following the invasion of Iraq but by the same token, what was President Bush's motivation for helping Indonesia after their devastating tsunami a few years ago? Nothing more than doing the right thing. Let's end the cynicism and do the right thing. It's what I have always felt made our nation great.