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Thursday, October 27, 2005

1000 times your worst nightmare

They suffered horrendous conditions following a natural disaster.

Sanitary conditions were appalling and help was not forthcoming.

Aid and evacuation were a long time in coming.

Food and water were scarce.

Could this be Pakistan? Well, yes, but I'm riled because it also appears to be Cancun.

I have little sympathy for the returning travellers who, on the news tonight, describe their experience thus:

"Imagine your worst nightmare. Then times it by 1,000."

No, no, no. You could not even conceive of the horrors of Pakistan compared to your cushy disaster-lite experience. People around you were not dying. You had a roof over your head and four walls around you. You did not lose generations of your family. You did not see your livelihood destroyed. You schools did not collapse while full of children.

You DID have a rough holiday. Yes, you did have some pretty grim sanitary problems. But, please, your experience will not leave you emotionally traumatised for the rest of your life. Your experience will rapidly turn into a wonderful dinner party conversation, and oh, how you will relish telling everyone about how you survived the horror while somehow ignoring the fact that while the media covers your wrecked holiday, they aren't covering the wrecked livelihoods of those in Pakistan.

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