Well, I’m just going to say it. I don’t care whom I offend. I AM AGAINST TSUNAMIS.

It’s just horrible, really; tens of thousands of people dead, more missing, and many more likely to die of injuries and disease. It got me thinking about September 11, not that horrific events need to be compared necessarily, but it’s the last thing I can think of that seemed to have such a big, world-wide impact.

It made me wonder which is more awful, violence from terrorism or violence from nature. They’re both awful, of course, but they’re different, and I imagine it affects victims and communities differently. In a terrorist attack, you get the sense that the victims were specifically targeted because of something they or the government that represents them did (weak logic, sure, considering the massive civilian death toll surrounding 9/11, but it still implies a motivation. Also, let’s not forget the death toll among Iraqi civilians that continues today. It wouldn’t be a long logical leap to call this war an act of terror. But anyway.).

But nature is morally neutral. There’s nothing those thousands and thousands of people did to motivate the attack. Hell, they weren’t even living in “tsunami country,” whatever that is. Tsunamis are incredibly rare in that part of the world. Sri Lanka, one of the nations hardest hit, is a veritable microcosm of world religion–Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam are all well-represented. And yet, it wasn’t religious or political tension that took a giant swipe at their little country.

What on earth do you do when your planet turns against you? I can’t imagine the horror those people are facing. Not only have they lost their mothers, their fathers, their children, they’ve lost their entire communities. They can’t mourn and heal by holding their children’s toys or smelling their spouses’ pillows. Their homes are gone. The toys and pillows are gone. Their neighbors’ houses are gone. Nothing can ever be close to normal again for the survivors. There can be no lawsuits, no follow-up wars to appease people through vengeance, whether misguided or not.

Geez. This is depressing. My phone just rang, and it was this perfectly nice woman I work with, and it was hard to have a work-related conversation with her because I was all upset from thinking about the tsunami.

Here’s a good website (thanks, Denny) that has information about charities, if you’re interested in donating.