Most of us are aware that major floods covered parts of Pakistan over the summer. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon referred to the flooding as a slow-moving tsunami. Towns were destroyed, people were abandoned on newly formed islands, and everyone in the affected area was at risk of waterborne diseases — and these risks and damages persist. However, the media covered the catastrophe so poorly that I’d forgive people for not knowing the full extent of the flooding, which at one point covered one fifth of Pakistan and affected as many as 20 million people.
Hypocrisy abounds, as almost every major news source has published an article about the funding gaps that are preventing aid workers from providing necessary humanitarian aid, though they neglected to cover the flooding properly in the first place. The New York Times, too, is party to this hypocrisy. It published several articles about the funding shortages, and a sad total of 39 articles about the flooding in the first month of the disaster. By comparison, the Times published 168 articles in the month following the Haiti earthquake. That amounts to more than four times the attention granted to Pakistan.
The January earthquake was devastating to Haiti, but people around the world recognized the extent of the damage and, as a result, aid poured into the country. The generosity and compassion for the people in Haiti was truly awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, the flooding in Pakistan has received nowhere near this level of concern. An article on the website of France 24, a French news channel, pointed out, “It has taken over three weeks for the flood-stricken country to obtain just 30 percent of what [Haiti] received in three days.” There are, of course, many reasons for this, including donor fatigue, the slow-moving nature of the floods and concerns about terrorism and corruption. However, it’s hard to deny that poor media coverage is somewhat to blame.
An article in Foreign Policy magazine adds anti-Pakistani sentiment to the list of factors inhibiting funding, ultimately concluding that “the main reason that Pakistan isn’t receiving attention or aid proportionate to the devastation caused by these floods is because, well, it’s Pakistan.” We forget that while anti-Pakistani sentiment prevents Americans from donating, anti-American sentiment grows in Pakistan. Now is also the time to build a good impression, when our aid can help rebuild much of the infrastructure that was destroyed in the flooding.
The need for funding remains. As of Wednesday, the funding received covered only 30.7 percent of the United Nations’ newest requirements. With the inevitable slowdown in news coverage, we may unfortunately see a corresponding slowdown in donations, only two months into the United Nations’ 12-month recovery process.
Let’s not allow this interest to slip away here at Princeton. We can begin by examining the disparity that exists in our own treatment of catastrophic events. The Facebook group “Haiti Earthquake Relief - Princeton University” has a total of 975 members. Meanwhile, the group “Pakistan Flood Relief Effort at Princeton” has 98. Here we have a 10-fold disparity, demonstrating that Princeton students reproduce broader trends in humanitarian activism.
Though as students we are not likely to be big donors, we are informed and active, and in our own treatment of the flooding, we can perhaps model our work after our efforts to help Haiti. So please, be aware of what groups on campus are doing. Pehchaan, for example, is hosting and taking part in several talks and other events, ranging from a banquet with Todd Shea, an American humanitarian in Pakistan, to a “gumball initiative,” a joint effort with the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club, in which people are given $27 with which to make as much money as possible. All the proceeds go to Pehchaan’s fundraising efforts. You can also visit Pehchaan’s table in Frist Campus Center. Let’s do all we can to address this issue — to write about it, to talk about it and, most importantly, to do something about it.
Monica Greco is a sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y. She can be reached at mgreco@princeton.edu.
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