In wartime, in time of disasters, and in personal life, sometimes it is the unexpected picture that just breaks through whatever wall of personal comfort is holding the chaos out of your mind. I heard conversations in the aftermath of Katrina, for instance, about why people had NOT scraped up a donation for the Red Cross: “You know, it is a tragedy, but really, those PEOPLE should have known better and left in time.” Yeah, cause everyone can just do that, of course. The person saying this went on to say they did give a donation to a group that was rescuing animals in New Orleans, “Because animals have no choice, you know?”
That much is true to a heartbreaking degree. Animals have no choice when either mankind or nature decides to upend their furry, hairy, finny, feathery worlds. But are people never innocent? I have a nasty sneaking suspicion that people who are capable so far as personal resources are concerned, sometimes don’t reach out to help other people for a couple reasons. First of all, I think they run from the very images out of fear—that somehow they themselves could be so vulnerable to horror and tragedy. They can’t/won’t help because they can’t bear a minute’s thought of being part of that suffering body of mankind—so to keep their personal exemption card unstained, they do nothing. Second, I think they often enhance this comfort zone by rationalizing that people somehow deserve to be miserable. And well, sometimes that may true, but I will argue just enough with the existential idea sometimes put out—that no innocents exist —to say there are ALWAYS innocents and choiceless sufferers. And I will endevour to aid in such situations because I won’t stint in relieving whatever allegedly “deserved” suffering is going on at the cost of those innocents suffering alongside. I simply don’t have the necessary presumptuous nature to credit “deserved” with meaning negligible or ignorable.
But, of course, animals ARE innocents always. And the images of animals in misery always grabs all but the most wretched hearts in an absolute stranglehold. So, for all who think it might be permissible to “not give two shits about the Iraqis” let me just post a picture by the estimable Zoriah to give those dried up hearts a squeeze. To everyone else, I apologize for the gratuitous violence to our already pulverized-to-tenderness hearts. That miserable starving bit of fur in the soldier’s hands IS representative of what Iraq is enduring….
(The image is from this blog: http://www.zoriah.net/ )
