No news is not good news
The world keeps turning.
7 weeks on, it's very difficult to find a news story about Pakistan. We've reached 20.5 million affected -- 2.5 million more over the last ten days or so. But when you reach numbers like these, does it really matter? 2.5 million people... a massive emergency anywhere in the world... except here, where it's a drop in the bucket. Another day, another bomb blast, another 500,000 people fleeing their homes. I'm numb to it already, and I've only been here for three weeks. I can only imagine how mundane it has become to the outside world.
In Islamabad, however, the story is far from over. The humanitarian community is bracing itself for the potential (inevitable?) wave of bad news. Cholera is already raging, but it could get a whole lot worse. The newspapers mutter about coups and riots, though such talk is breezily dismissed by government officials. The big development donors are under massive pressure from their foreign affairs overlords to DO SOMETHING about Pakistan, to make sure it is not destabilized or further weakened in the face of the Taliban/AQ threat. Since shit rolls downhill, that means the donors are screaming at the aid agencies to DO SOMETHING, with little regard to what is actually possible.
In a way, I kind of hope Pakistan stays out of the news. If coverage picks up again, it will almost certainly be because something has gone terribly wrong.
posted by E @ 7:43 AM
1 Comments:
It's the numbers that are really difficult to fully realize. We've become so comfortable with terms like "Millions" and even "Billions", that they don't phase us at all. But when put into perspective (Imagine you start counting. You say one number per second. (Maybe you think you can count faster than this. On the small numbers, you probably can. But just try to say one number every second beginning at 'three hundred ninety seven thousand, four hundred and twenty seven'! Perhaps one per second is a little over-optimistic!)
At one number per second, it will take one million seconds to count to one million. (That was a tough calculation!) One million seconds is about 16,667 minutes, or 278 hours.
Suppose you consider it your job to count to one million. You are going to spend eight hours every day, just counting! Those 278 hours will take almost 35 days to complete.) it makes you realize how large a number, this innocent little million, really is!!
Post a Comment
<< Home