SU’s lukewarm response to the Haitian crisis: an essay on Redhawk apathy
Published: January 13, 2010
Updated: January 14, 2010
Imagine if you will this hypothetical scenario. At 12:05 a.m. PST on January 12, 2011, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake has hit the Puget Sound region. The effects of the earthquake have affected the entire Olympic Peninsula and has stretched as far as Vancouver, BC. However the brunt of the earthquake has devastated the Northwest’s most populous city Seattle, WA. Hours after the disaster, Mayor Mike McGinn in Spokane, who was flying into Seattle at the time and had his flight diverted, says that initial reports are accurate and that the city of Seattle is completely non-recognizable. “Downtown Seattle is nothing but rubble, if not underwater” he says to the dismay of the world. There will be no estimate on casualties until the morning.
At 8:00 a.m. EST, President Barack Obama addresses the nation in the tatters of Olympia, WA alongside Governor Christine Gregoire. The President and the Governor ask for a moment of silence for those who have been lost. The President issues a speech that galvanizes the nation and pledges relief efforts from all 50 states as well as federal emergency relief in the form of FEMA and the Unites States Armed Forces. Governor Gregoire issues the first estimate of casualties, upwards of 500,000. At 12:45 p.m. PST, relief efforts reach “ground zero”, the Central District, which includes Seattle University. There are no standing structures left on the former campus save the few low-lying buildings such as the St. Ignatius Chapel and the Admissions Building. Hundreds of students have been trapped in the rubble for hours without food, water, or medical support. It may be days before they are rescued, and many are feared dead.
Yes, this situation is highly improbable if at all possible, but it has happened in the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti. Seattle University has always prided itself as a “global community” and highlights this institution’s Jesuit emphasis of “social justice” especially on a global scale, therefore I was shocked this week when there has been little to no response from the students and faculty over what is shaping to be one of the worst natural disasters of the 21st Century. To bring the Haitian earthquake to scale, Hurricane Katrina killed just under 2,000 people, with close to 800 missing. The Haitian government has issued an estimate ranging toward 100,000 deaths in a nation of merely 10 million.
If a disaster of this scale happened in the United States, I ask: would the response be the same? What about France, Germany, Britain? The simple answer is no. When any disaster strikes the western world, whether it is natural or man-made, everything grinds to a stop from our economies, to our newspapers, to our blogs. If a car bomb blows up in Paris its on the front page of every newspaper in the world, with streaming live coverage on the cable networks. If a car bomb blows up in Baghdad, your lucky to find a reference to it in the back pages of the Guardian.
I understand that apathy in the western world is not new or shocking, but apathy on my “socially just” and “globally aware” campus is both new and shocking. In the wake of this tragic and effecting crisis, Seattle University has no response, no statement, no humanitarian mission, no mass dedicated to thousands who have died including long time catholic social justice advocate Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, not even a Facebook group. We say as a campus that we care about the world and see it as intricate part of our community. We march for gay rights and an end to domestic violence. We hold speeches and banquets on racism, poverty, and genocide, yet we are unable to stand up when one of the poorest nations in the world needs our help?
Fr. Sundborg is able to rally thousands of donors and supporters for D-1 athletics and the new “state-of-the-art” library both multi-million dollar endeavors, yet he and ASSU President Jesse David are unable to galvanize this campus community and their supporters to help millions of people in need? It is truly disappointing to me that this university spends time and money ensuring students merely attend a men’s basketball game, and seems both unable and unwilling to devote the same amount of time and energy toward a humanitarian crisis that is occurring within our own hemisphere.
If there is one thing I have always taken away from Seattle University it is in the intrinsic belief of the dignity of the human person. Every human being within Haiti deserves as much dignity and respect as I receive as an affluent American college student. My life is no better than any other life, therefore my community is no better than any other community. I will treat the crisis in Haiti as if it happened in my home, in our Seattle. Let us remember that University of Notre Dame of Haiti, located in the capital Port-au-Prince and a fellow Catholic institution is in ruins tonight. Their students trapped without food, water, or medical supplies. What will we do as a community to help them?
* UPDATE: this is the e-mail sent today (January 14, 2010) by Fr. Sundborg to address the Haitian earthquake victims:
“Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Friends,
As members of the Seattle University community we are heartbroken and overwhelmed by the tragedy that has been inflicted on the people of Haiti by the earthquake. Reports flow in by the hour of the damage, death, and suffering of the people of the poorest country of North and South America. Each of us, I am sure, has known that the Haitians are citizens of the poorest country of our hemisphere, but this tragedy brings home to us their reality as our sisters and brothers in dire need. We seek to respond as best we can, however ineffectual or miniscule we might feel our response is. Yet we must respond as individuals and as members of this university with its special commitment to the poor.
We can respond educationally taking this reality into the heart of our courses and studies with our fellow students and colleagues, seeking to ponder and to know what it asks of us to know, to be, and to do. We can respond humanly by an outpouring of our generosity and personal sacrifice, empowering those on the ground in Haiti to provide rescue, food, water, shelter, medicine, etc. We can respond spiritually with our prayer, our placing of our brothers and sisters in the hands of the compassionate God we believe in. Each of us can respond in our own personal way unique to us and we can support one another at this time as a community. In any case I call on all of us to respond as the persons and the university community we are.
I am grateful to Sean Bray, Social Justice Minister in Campus Ministry, for accepting my request to be the point person of our university to help coordinate our response and our communication at this time. Sean’s email address isbrays@seattleu.edu and his phone number is 296-6079. Please contact him with any suggestions or requests you would have and also let him know any ways you can advise and help him. I have asked Sean to communicate with us in the coming days about how we can respond and can join together in other ways. He will be a point person for our communication of developments. Thanks, Sean, from all of us! We are also exploring if there are ways we can join together with the community of Gonzaga University at this time in how we act as Jesuit universities.
Today (Thursday) the 12:05 Mass in the Chapel of St Ignatius will be offered for the people of Haiti. I invite you to participate. Tonight the Thursday evening student Mass at 6:15 will be celebrated in the Ecumenical Chapel in Campion in order to accommodate students who want to come together to pray and to worship in this time of tragedy. I invite students to gather in that Mass. For the next two Sundays the full tithes of the 11:00 am and 9:00 pm Masses will be given to Catholic Relief Services and Jesuit Refugee Service for their emergency work with the people of Haiti among whom they work.
If there are students, faculty, staff, or friends who have special connections with relatives or friends in Haiti, I hope they will bring them to the attention of Sean Bray so that we might support them.
Thank you for attending to my message to you at this time. It is a great consolation for all of us to be part of a community of our care and of our mission at this time. May we know one another’s personal prayer and support.
Affectionately,
Stephen V. Sundborg, S. J.
President”
Imagine this in your hometown:
I was expecting to see Lynch somehow affiliated with the post. Oh controversy.
Anyway. You are certainly correct about Western media and related attitudes. Not even the 2004 tsunami was really picked on by American media like Katrina was and that was a comparison of a few thousand to near a quarter of a million deaths. I’m sure I hear references to Katrina even these days (rap songs, anyone?) and never do I hear one about the 2004 tsunami.
It simply comes down to what impacts our lives. The disaster in Haiti has not and will not impact the daily lives of 99% of Americans. Katrina caused a lot of distress directly on the lives of many Americans and the proximity allowed the people of this nation to understand the suffering more clearly but only with regard to themselves.
As for your criticism of SU specifically… let’s be realistic here. We all know that Fr. Sundborg would not be able to rally an equal number of donors to take an interest in Haiti– no one else in any similar social position probably has the ability either. It’s Haiti. It’s not the U.S. A lot of people, the majority, in the U.S. simply feel sorry for those in Haiti but do not care much more beyond that. Simply look at volunteer and donation rates among Americans– we generally lack much care for social justice.
And sure, you’re in the right place to assume that the students and faculty should do something a little more with regard to the disaster. It’s Seattle University. However, how many students actually assume an active role in social justice right now? Well, they’re busy doing their own thing which probably doesn’t involve Haiti. As for everyone else? Well, they’re probably not going to. I certainly think faculty could somehow involve Haiti into a related class discussion but for us to expect something new out of SU student behavior so far is simply being unrealistic and lacking understanding of the nature of college students despite what we hope for with regard to the school’s mission. I don’t doubt the school’s mission or doubt its ability to change the lives of some of its students or think it’s wrong– but I know that college students are often lazy, pressed with studies, unfocused, and like to party and goof off with their free time.
As for me? I don’t take an active role. I don’t participate in any efforts directly. I don’t help teach kids to read. I don’t work at a shelter. Well, I don’t volunteer at all currently and I haven’t in over a year (I was forced to for a class). But at least I donated $5 to UNICEF through Google’s link about Haiti and how to help (http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/). And ya know what? That’s more than what the majority of the people in this nation have done. Sure, it’s shameful but it’s just being realistic.
Ryan,
As much as I agree with you, that the disparity between the western world and Haiti is far and it is horrible that such a tragedy occurred in this world. I cried today when I read about Monsignor Miot. The horrible nature of this tragedy is not even one I can hope to understand.
As far as SU response goes, it has been under a week. I am impressed that Fr. Steve sent out a response as fast as he did. An event like this is shocking for the whole world and as much as we can try to help those in need and do something about it and be men and women for others the University is not the place that is supposed to make instant responses in a world that already moves so fast.
These programs/vigils/events do not simply happen. It takes the hard work of students, staff, and faculty to put them on. I would agree that the response could be better no doubt and I wish more people on campus would get involved. But there are people working overtime to try and get things in motion. If you would like to get involved contact Sean Bray get with the students working to raise awareness, and help raise funds.
Please get involved, help us plan something, we have already events in motion and are trying to give a coordinated response that is effective and can make a difference. Talk to your friends, get them to come to the programs that are put on. Help out in those programs, write about it, blog about it!
But before negativity, positive. Try and help us to make a difference.
(Also, the email by Fr. Steve was not written to the victims of the earthquake, but rather the Seattle University Community)
Dear Ryan, While I do not disagree that people should do as much as they can to help the people of Haiti; I find your remark of apathy on the part of the Western World is unfounded. The US is sending 10,000 soldiers to help with aid, the UN(which is made up of a lot of Western Nations is also sending thousands), The US government has also sent millions, the EU is sending about half a billion in aid. When I looked up multiple different newspapers, the front pages of every American newspaper and online newspaper has something about Haiti. There has been millions dollars donated on behalf of large American companies like: wallmart, microsoft etc. There are ways for individuals to send texts that donate to the Red cross, there are restaurants in Seattle that donate their profits over the weekend to relief efforts in Haiti. Now I understand if you see a problem with the amount of money, or the way the relief effort has been executed , but to cry apathy from the Western World is not in line with reality. Now in terms of the school’s response, thats another issue.
I’m glad that the media is covering all the diasters of the world to make people aware of the needs of many people of Haiti and the need of support any way. I’m glad that people are stepping up and giving a hand to another human being. It is sad that it took a natural diaster to get people pour their hearts and money to country of Haiti. Where were these people 6 months ago or even a year ago to help the people of Haiti and i hope it will continue after the media goes away from this natural diaster.