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involved. The character of the "Good
Samaritan" is all but forgotten in the dim
recesses of the mind - and the thought
of putting it into
practice
is commonly
ridiculed.
lt's a cold world, getting colder all
the time. Only a few pay attention to
world disasters. Fewer still seem to
note the ominous trend or take any
warning from past, present or projected
cataclysms.
An earthquake, for example, took the
lives of over 70,000 human beings
recently in Peru. Nearly a miUion others
were made homeless in minutes. The
nation
of Peru will be 15 years or more
just recovering from the economic
effects of this one disaster. And Peru is
a poor country.
Tragedies Figbting for Headlines
Half a world away in the good old
USA - or in blessed Britain - it is
difficult if not impossible for the aver–
age person to have more than a passing
sentiment of sympathy for the suffering
and dying miUions of the masses of
Asia.
Somehow it seems uoreal. Certainly
little individual thought is given to the
effect
of these faraway tragedies on
unknown peoples. Floods, hurricanes,
droughts, tornadoes, earthquakes, dis–
ease epidemics al! swarm over the pages
of our newspapers daily, fighting each
other for a headline! People usually
don't bother reading the details becausc
they are irritating or upsetting. The
average American, in fad, would prob–
ably have a difficult time putting his
finger on the globe at the first try and
coming within 500 or a thousand miles
of Pakistan - that is, even if he realized
it was a country!
The American way of life has taught
us to thiok of the world in varying
degrees of self-centered concern. First
comes yourself. "Take care of yourself
because nobody else will," seems to be
the common motto - and of course it
becomes more true the more people put
it into practice. Next
in
concern comes
your family, your block, your street,
your school, your team, your city, your
county, your state, your country. By the
time you go beyond the shores of your
The
PLAIN TRUTH
own nation the amount of innate con–
cero for the lives of individuals on for–
eign shores has become miniscule, if not
entirely missing.
The BIG Tragedy
The greatcst tragedy of al!, it seems,
ÍS
a tragic Jack of WORLOWIDE
COil·
sciomness
and WORLDWIDE
comcience.
This struck home as never before with
the handling of this recent Pakistani
disaster. The weight of half a million
Pakistani lives lost was totally
over–
balanced
in U. S. newspapers by the
weight of the lives of seventy-five foot–
ball players and fans in a domestic U. S.
BtlY
,~f
BENGAL
air crash! Life is indeed cheap - other
lives that is - and the farther those
lives are away from you the cheaper
they become !
The very method the news media
took in filling the public in on the
details of this tragedy is illustrative of
what is
miui11g
from an in-depth
understanding of world events and a
true compassion for the lives of
all
fel–
low human beings. True, the words
tragedy and disaster were used. But as
the death count rose and the tragedy
swelled to vast proportions, newsmen
were busy delving into the records. Up
carne comparisons with the past which,
when all put together, seemed to put
this current, preseot, living, agonizing
disaster with pregnant portents for the
future, neatly into a niche with other
past disasters as
if
it were already cold
history.
December 1970
All sources were quick to point out
that this geographical area, jammed
with human life as few areas on earth
are, is located in what is popularly
termed "cyclone alley" - that this area
has been hit by nine deadly cyclones
in
the past ten years ( ho hum) - that
in
1965 alone, in three storms, 67,000 per–
sons lost their lives! Digging further
into the gruesome statistics it was
quickly discovered that about a hundred
years ago, in 1876, a similar disaster
occurred in the same area and killed
sorne 300,000 persons! To further ease
the impact, it was dutifully reported
in
sorne newspapers that the world's
worst
disaster on record ( ignoring or dis–
claiming the Biblical account of Noah's
day) occurred in 1887 A. D.: a flood
took 900,000 lives along the Hwang
Ho River in Cbina's Honan Province.
For those few who read this far, they
perhaps sadly shook their heads and
turned to what they hoped might be
more promising news on the sports
page, which would indicate
their
team's
success in its latest struggle against the
other
team.
If
a similar cyclone and tidal wave
had struck New York or London, Syd–
ney or San Francisco, there would have
been many tens of thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of deaths. For
thosc of you who live in those cities,
thiok for a moment about a Pakistani,
reading in bis daily newspaper sorne
small blurb about the death of half a
million Americans, Britons, Aussies who
perished
half a wo,.Jd away
-
ho hum.
Worldwide Consciousness
We're all on this planet together.
And what each of us does,
does
affect
all the others - particularly where
national conscience is concerned. Teas
of thousands in Iqdia and Pakistan read
The
PLAIN TRUTH. We are
concerned.
We are
au·are,
and are trying to make
as many others aware as we are of
the monumental problems, the deadly
serious trends, the tremendous cry of
human need the world over. Picase
share that outgoing concern with us -
rise above this impersonal world,
become personally concerned with help–
ing humanity in every way: Humanity
desperately needs that help! O