why has their been such a poor response (donation-wise) to the pakistan floods?

[Anonymous]

just wondering why people think this is happening... its pretty clear this is major disaster on a scale beyond what has been seen revcently in terms of how much death will come due to disease, dehydration, starvation, and how much usable farming land has been totally lost...

as a pakistani-american, i an't figure out why its a ttotal non-issue to my non-pakistani friends.
of note, i donated significant amounts of money to katerina and haiti and i regularly donate to chhildren's hospital in DC, so I believe in helping all people in need; its not about "my" country or "my" people.

[Anonymous]

I understand your concern because I too noticed the lack of a big public outcry for Pakistan. I didn't even know that there was flooding, nor the extent of the flooding, until recently due to our family being on vacation and not keeping up with the news for a couple of weeks. Is the Pakistan govt seeking financial assistance? I have to claim ignorance becuase I only know what I read on CNN.com, etc. as I am a non-Pakistani.

[Anonymous]

Very valid question. I don't really know. I will throw out one possibility simply because it's influenced my response - summer vacation. We were out of town when the first news reports came in, and it still feels like one of those stories I'm just catching up on.

I'm sure that's just a minor wrinkle though; the rest of it probably involves a reasonable amount of distance that the average American has from any story involving a country ending in "stan". And I'm sorry to say, maybe some anti-Muslim prejudice thrown in to boot. I also have heard comments on phone-in radio shows from what sounds like folks outside the DC policy world saying things like, well their government shelters Al Qaeda so we shouldn't give them any more aid. I wonder if that's part of the discourse on the right-wing talk shows?

I am curious why the Hollywood crowd is ignoring this, because for better or worse I think the televised fundraisers and direct appeals from movie stars have a role in generating broader public interest.

[Anonymous]

I read an article that it was saturation - the earthquakes and other disasters, people can only take so much disaster in a small amount of time before the impact starts to lessen. Also someone did research that showed the images of pulling people out of wreckage in Haiti garnered a more intense/sympathetic reaction than flood images, for whatever reason.

[Anonymous]

1. It's far away
2. Donor fatigue (Haiti)
3. Current climate with the mosque thing in NYC, does not help that Pakistan is Muslim

[Anonymous]

I think part of it is that the media coverage hasn't been as extensive as it was for other natural disasters. Not sure why there hasn't been more coverage on TV, but I would guess that when people see images of people suffering they are more likely to connect and want to help.

[Anonymous]

I think it is a combination of the negative economic news that seems to be saturating the current media and that in may peoples' minds Pakistan = terrorists.

[Anonymous]

I didn't even know about the flooding until a few days ago when I happened to turn on NPR and they were discussing the same topic. People think Pakistan and they think Muslims and then they think Sept. 11 and terrorism. Plus we are in a recession.

[Anonymous]

Don't we already give them a ton of foreign aid, to the tune of 1bil a year?

Personally, I'm not too fond of giving money to a country that sponsors, supports, and nurtures terrorism and is chock full of madrasha's spewing hate to their youth. No thanks. There is no way of knowing of that money will make it into the hands of people who hate our way of life and who treat women worse than cattle.

[Anonymous]

Flood? What flood?

[Anonymous]

Bc although its sad, I dont actually care that much. We have so many problems in our own contry that we ignore, I like to contribute to the causes closer to me.

[Anonymous]

I was going to suggest it's the recession. I don't think people give as much when times are tough.

If you do want to give, I suggest you look at Islamic Relief USA. They already have the charity infrastructure in place in Pakistan and get help get relief there quickly.

http://www.islamicreliefusa.org/home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a combination of the negative economic news that seems to be saturating the current media and that in may peoples' minds Pakistan = terrorists.

As much as I hate to say it, I think this has a LOT to do with it.

But also, unlike, say, Katrina, we aren't getting the same level of media coverage of these floods and the images of destruction like with Haiti. It's been easy to ignore. And also, Pakistan=terrorists (not saying that's true, just saying I can see how that might be a very common perception).

[Anonymous]

I think it's because many people hate Muslims.
All the controversy over the community center, that everyone is calling a mosque is not helping things.

One of my friends who happens to be Muslim, was listening to fox news. She said " I can't believe Americans hate us so much".

[Anonymous]

op here - i kind of guessed all of the above reasons (minus the hateful racist comment from one poster - and 1 billion in aid is nothing), but its very sad for me, especially considering the people on this website seem to generally be well-educated, cultured, and diverse... as for the person who doesn't think its their problem b/c its far away... i think one of common perrceptions of America for people abroad is a selfish minority that controls the majority of the world's wealth, which has probably contributed to extremism. And I wonder if you also didn't contribute to Haiti, because it wasn't your country. And did you contribute to Katerina, because that's nowhere near DC? And do you contribute to children's hospital? It serves mostly black patients; if you're not black, should you bother, since its not your community or your problem? What happened to our global America?

unffortunately, starvation and the death that will ensue will only turn ordinary oblivious people (farmers) into targets for terrorists for recruitment. its the marginalized who are easy to recruit, you know? there's a great book called "spokesman for the despised" that sums up this theory really well.