Paul Walker demonstrates how little we care about Typhoon Haiyan

Earlier this week the death of Paul Walker, actor of the Fast and the Furious films.

Aside from the irony in that Walker died in a car crash, which many thought was initially a joke given that his career was built on films celebrating dangerous driving and street racing there is also a sad irony in the reporting of Walker’s death, which has been protracted in the US, with coverage extending across most networks, newspapers and online for a week now. Repeating of twitter posts, facebook tributes, interviews and everyone vaguely famous who ever heard of him is plastered across the media. Even in Australia it has reached most outlets, although I’m sure I wasn’t alone in thinking “Paul who?”

Although it received brief mention, what has been largely overlooked is that Walker was an advocate for and co-founder of the charity Reach Out World Wide “ROWW is a network of professionals with first responder skill-sets who augment local expertise when natural disasters strike in order to accelerate relief efforts.” (http://www.roww.org/ ).

To compound the irony in that while you may have finally received one message you completely missed another, there is a planned fund raising drive to raise money for his charity. Fingers crossed there’s no vehicular-related injuries in this one…

(http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/car-enthusiasts-to-remember-paul-walker-with-charity-drive-20131203-2yooc.html)

… but I digress.

Typhoon Haiyan/ Yolanda has so far resulted in over 5700 deaths confirmed in the Philippines alone. With little fresh water, sanitation facilities and treatment of wounds available, that death toll is likely to rise significantly. Yet it did not receive even half of the media coverage that Paul Walker’s death did. I wonder if Walker would have screamed at the press and said you’re missing the point!

Is the reporting of some deaths and not others reflecting society’s apathy towards international tragedies, or is it the other way around- we don’t care because we don’t know? Presumably the latter was the logic in the stop the boats, turn back the boats, hide the boats approach to asylum seekers; if people don’t know about them, they won’t care.

Similarly, over 110,000 men women and children have been killed in the conflict in Syria this year, but it rarely receives a snippet.  Perhaps blame is attributed to these individuals because it’s a war, so the deaths of thousands of children are excusable?

The recent plane crash in Laos killed 49 people in being reported had a certain emphasis supporting this theory… 6 OF WHOM WERE AUSTRALIAN. These 6 people were… their lives… their families… their pictures… but what of the other 43?

Perhaps it’s because Walker was a “good guy” who tried to help others through his work with ROWW, but then what of the medical practitioners who were murdered in Somalia while doing aid work? Where were their stories?(http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id=68)

I think it’s more to do with compassion fatigue: there is so much going on in the world that people find it too overwhelming to care about everything. We package our lives into manageable portions, and only allow ourselves a certain amount of feeling that we perceive we have some control over to be able to cope with reality.

Last week when I met up with some friends for dinner, and they asked if I enjoyed my recent visit to my family interstate- among other accounts, I told them my stepmother’s cancer was noticeable, and that her incontinence meant there was a nappy to clean up; I was abruptly interrupted with “well that’s bloody depressing, I don’t want to think about that- can we talk about something else?!”. While my initial reaction was to think bitterly “Oh I do apologise if someone’s terminal illness and reality of slowly rotting in a demented near-quadriplegic state affected your enjoyment of dinner!”, but later I thought more about how avoidant so many people are, and I wonder how they’ll cope when their parents, friends and others get old and/ or sick. 

So I encourage those who find it difficult to package their hopelessness into financial dismissals they feel appease their first world problem of experiencing discomfort at having to hear about these issues: each time it arises, make a $20 donation to MSF; ROWW; Red Cross or whatever charitable organisation you feel will do some good, and say “There, I fixed it.”, tweet, facebook post or tell everyone about your altruism, tie a ribbon on your upper-middle-class white guilt, and close it until the next tragedy arises.