I would be remiss if I did not give one last diatribe, a final burst of cognizance and punditry, so that we can start the new year behind with something on our minds (besides a few glasses of champagne). I had been writing a post about our election, and I suppose I still have a few things to say about American politics, but it can all wait for 2005. What has happened this past week in Asia has changed my priorities and my attitudes — and it should change yours, too.

As I sit in my well-heated home in coastal Connecticut, it is hard to fathom the carnage and madness that has enveloped southeast Asia. I’ve met many here who are simply pushing it from their minds; for them it is a bad dream, a reason not to read the news for a few days. And that horrifies me.

The immediate relief operation will cost roughly $500 million, but more will be needed in the days, weeks, and months to come. Kofi Annan wants a sustained, long-term commitment to relief, in no small part because he has watched countless UN-sponsored relief missions wither away for lack of prolonged funding. Jan Egeland, a UN Humanitarian Affairs bureaucrat, set off political fireworks by calling American contributions to tsunami aid ‘stingy’. Donor nations have been pushing and shoving to out-donate one another after the fracas.

The ‘stingy’ routine is getting tired; by this point, everyone knows that America’s government contributes a smaller percentage of its GDP than Norway. Everyone should also know we still donate more hard cash to international development than European nations ever could. I think it’s nonsense for Bush to give only $15 million, and I’m glad Egeland lit a fire under his ass (Colin Powell recently announced we will donate an additional $20 million to relief efforts).

But I can’t help but cringe at all this, because it seems that we’ve lost sight of a fundamental value: individual responsibility.

Private donations, from both individuals and organizations, account for the lion’s share of international aid flowing from America. For every dollar our government gives, We The People give several, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The more we talk about relief efforts as the exclusive realm of large governments, the more we separate ourselves from personal responsibility. In times like these, when a crisis has struck humanity to the core, we in the West should not be sitting back and insisting it’s someone else’s problem to deal with.

$15 million is not a lot. If 150,000 working people donate just $100 each, we’ve got $15 million covered. If every American set aside just 2% of their next paycheck and donated to relief efforts, imagine how much we’d give. I’m not going to do the math, so take my word that it’d be a lot. Al-Jazeera reports that individual donations have already topped $20 million. Pfizer alone has given more than $2 million. This is proof that small numbers add up, and that individual donations—whether $10, $100, or $10,000—go a lot farther than you’d think. It is proof that if we, the richest nations in the world, want to make a difference, we shouldn’t wait for our politicians to do it for us.

I’m challenging everyone who has read this far to get out a credit card or check and donate now. Take the money you were going to spend on an iPod, and put it towards feeding a child whose parents were swept out to sea. Take the money you would’ve spent on new clothes, and instead help pay to rescue a village trapped by debris. Pay for vaccines. Pay for food, for makeshift shelters, for emergency hospital equipment. Pay for clean drinking water.

Charity should not be about governments and bureaucratic politics. Charity is about humanity; it is about people rolling up their sleeves and helping each other.

As I write this, the death toll in southeast Asia has soared past 100,000. Entire communities are missing; many countries are devastated. These tragedies show us how truly ephemeral life can be, but they also show the depth of human compassion; events like these transcend politics and borders. They are opportunities for every last one of us to sacrifice, to give up something of our own, and in doing so, benefit the lives of others in ways we can only imagine. I, for one, never miss a good opportunity.

Happy New Year.

To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one’s own, is ever the beginning of one’s real ethical development.
— Felix Adler

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