Too often Americans disregard the rest of the world and worry only about problems that have a direct effect on them. Domestic issues like Hurricane Katrina receive countless hours of news coverage and dominate U.S. discourse. In what was one of America's greatest natural disasters, over 1,300 people died and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. However, the number of deaths pales in comparison to the number of deaths other countries annually sustain due to similar disasters. What happens in the rest of the world seems to be of little importance to the average United States citizen.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina hit, we still find ourselves immersed in the disaster. People act like it is the only disaster to hit the world, yet in reality hundreds of thousands of people have died from natural disasters in the last few years:
• 3,300 from a flood in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and four months after that 3,000 more were washed away in Tropical Storm Jeanne.
• 26,000 from an earthquake in Iran.
• 2,200 Algerians perished in an earthquake.
• 1,000 buried in the Philippines when a mud slide engulfed an entire town. A city vanished from the face of the earth, à la Pompeii, and little was said about it.
Other events occur with such regularity that an exact number of deaths is hard to determine. For instance, thousands of people die each year in China and India from floods during monsoon season. The AIDS epidemic in Africa kills over 3 million people and orphans 14 million children each year.
Of particular interest is the earthquake that rocked Pakistan last October and resulted in 87,000 deaths and 3.5 million homeless evacuees. That earthquake occurred one month after Katrina hit the United States. There is a tremendous difference between 87,000 deaths and 1,300 deaths, yet Americans are completely ignorant to this disparity and essentially do not even realize the significance of such a catastrophe. America had problems finding places for thousands of Katrina evacuees to live, so how can a less economically developed country such as Pakistan supply homes for 3.5 million evacuees? Quite simply, they cannot and most of us do not worry about it.
These disasters and epidemics occur and millions of Americans seem to be oblivious to such events. It does not help that the media gives little exposure to these disasters, but ultimately the media is a direct reflection of what people want to see. We too often do not want to know what happens overseas. Or, more precisely, they just do not care. At the end of the day, Americans only care about what affects them directly.
Americans, much like they overlook overseas terrorism, neglect to comprehend the staggering number of deaths worldwide, and this ignorance towards others is appalling. It is true that we provide aid to countries that are in need, and we are often the leading international body to provide it. However, there is a lot more that can be done. Hurricane Katrina brought disaster upon America, yet the number of deaths that it caused is vastly less than what the rest of the world sees on a continual basis. Thousands die worldwide and we seldom take notice.
Adam Seston is a junior majoring in history. Send comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
