The Victorian Bush Fires

As I wake up this morning the death toll stands at 173. I feel numb. There have been fires in Diamond Creek which is about 20 minutes away. It all feels so close, and yet still so far away. On Saturday we stayed in, closeted from the heat by our airconditioning units. For us it was a very pleasant sort of day, spent reading and sleeping. But then we hear that there are friends of friends who have died. Children have died. It is so horrific. 24 fires are still burning. It's not over.

Yesterday we saw the Slumdog Millionaire movie. Probably not the best timing. I hated it. I spent the whole time wanting to scream and/or throw up. I was extremely angry that a life so painful could be put on the movie screen for our western entertainment, or even just education. It seemed disrespectful.

I think what has made me most angry in the past few days is the sensationalism of some of the reporting. Describing the fires as hell on earth. The response of the Western world has also made me very angry. What Victoria is suffering is tragic, and the offers of help from the US and the UK are very heart warming, but what about the millions that die everyday in the third world? What about the people that die everyday in numbers far greater than 173, that we ignore while we live in cushy-western-lives. But somehow suffering is worse when it's Western suffering.

It seems to me we have a real opportunity here. Instead of glorifying Western suffering as worse tragedy than all of the unspeakable evils that go on every day, we have an opportunity to learn from this that we are no different from the millions that suffer everyday. We are just extraordinarily, beyond-all-measure BLESSED that we don't suffer day-by-day. We do not deserve suffering less than the third world, in our substance we are no different from them. Let's take what experience we have of suffering and use it to stand alongside those who suffer everyday. Let's be present with them. Let's stop ignoring the millions that die of hunger, AIDS, or under oppression.

If it's tragic that 173 Victorians have lost their lives, how much more tragic is it that in Africa a child dies every three seconds... that means it only takes 8.65 minutes for 173 children die. Let's mourn what's happening in Victoria, but let's also open our eyes to all the other suffering in the world. It's isn't just tragic if the victims are white and live in the west. Let's remember all those that die of starvation, the women and children who are sold into sexual slavery, the child soldiers, those that die of AIDS, the children who are abandoned on piles of rubbish.

God bless,
Bec