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South Asian Tsunami Disaster - Reflections
Human history is marked by its abundance of disasters of every nature – large scale disasters such as wars and genocides, and smaller ones (dwarfed in comparison but still deadly) such as plane crashes and ship wrecks. Many of these disasters are caused by our thirst for violence, while others are catalyzed by our obsession with technology. Of all theses tragedies, however; it is the natural disasters that have the biggest impact upon our lives, and leave the deepest scars in our hearts. The past three weeks have been a traumatic experience for the whole world – South East Asia was devastated by an underwater earthquake that caused massive tidal waves that destroyed everything in their paths, claiming casualties as far away as the east coast of Africa. It is at these times of peril that we must pause to reflect, and think about not only the fragility of human life, but also the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
When a major natural disaster strikes a part of the world, especially when that part of the world is a developing region that has been completely devastated, it is the duty of humanity to offer help in the name of not only amity and comradeship, but also as a way of helping other members of our species overcome a crisis. What does it mean it be human? Are we just a member of the animal kingdom like a single star of a galaxy, or are we something more? It has been said that the distinguishing difference between us and other animals is our willingness to sacrifice our short term personal benefits in order to better a community (i.e. an ape will eat a banana it finds, but a human might give it to a sick person, thus enabling him or her to survive). It is this trait that enables us to work together and achieve the level of cooperative society we have today. Alone, a human is not the strongest, fastest, or the most agile creature of the Earth, but working together, we have achieved what no other species has managed to achieve – literal world domination.
What does this mean, and how does this affect us and the victims of the Tsunami disaster? As an analogy, humans are like bees – we are fragile creatures who do not have the physical strength of other animals. Living alone, bees would be picked off one by one and eaten by spiders, eventually disappearing. Similarly, a solitary human would never survive in nature. Humans and bees, however; share the common ability to cooperate with others of our kinds. We work together to create cooperative societies in which each individual has a job designation, thus increasing efficiency and providing safety for everyone. Both humans, and bees to a lesser degree, take advantage of this concept of cooperation to ensure our survival as species. This, however; is where the similarities end. Unlike bees, which fiercely defend their hives against bees of other colonies, human cooperation extends to a much greater, global degree. It is this that has enabled us, as a species, to achieve what the bees would never achieve.
As an extension to the idea of cooperative societies, it must be noted that religion plays an important part in the survival and flourishing of human beings. In any cooperative society, there exists what are known as “freeloaders” – individuals who use the generosity of others to their advantage, and do not put anything back into the system (such individuals are common in modern society). It is argued that instead of “religion/God giving birth intelligence”, the roles are reversed – it is our intelligence that called for the need of religion. Religion, or more plainly, our conscience, is a way of punishing the freeloaders of our society with the notion of an inescapable higher power that will punish those who commit various sins (i.e. greed), and reward those who do good. It is thus argued that religion is the result of our need for a way to limit the inefficiencies of a cooperative society.
It is undoubted that these evolutionary psychological traits play an important role in our willingness to help the victims of the Tsunami disaster. Regardless of our motives, however; we must realize that there need not to exist a motive for our actions – what is important is that we, as people, must place ourselves in the positions of others, see the desperate need for help, and contribute in whatever way we can in order to benefit others of our global community.