A lot of commentary today pounced on the scene of that big, beautiful cruise ship pulling into an idyllic lagoon just 45 miles from the death and destruction in Port Au Prince, Haiti. Everyone it seemed, wanted to swat that big softball of righteous indignation, served up in that blatant contrast of the haves and have nots, between the privileged and the deprived,...and in the west end of Haiti today, between living high and not living at all.
The few defenders of the odd scene, tried to make the case that the ship could have easily cruised on to the next island stop, which would have only deprived the Haitian locals there of making their normal sales of food and drink, and all of the trinkets that tourists always spend money on. Money that Haiti desperately needs, whenever and wherever it can get it, and that the loss of that would only punish them more.
It is a fact today that a portion of mankind is very fortunate, and that a larger percentage is much less so. Moving that ship to another port, if only for a few weeks, would not have changed that fact one iota. So what would be the point? To make the fortunate of the world feel a little less guilty? Yeah, maybe. And exactly how would that have helped the people of Haiti? Not at all.
I would therefore like to suggest that maybe it's not a bad thing at all to show the stark contrast of that pristine ship against the backdrop of Haitian suffering. Perhaps it has caused more than a few to rethink the scene, the symbolism of it, and our priorities. "In your face" is sometimes the only message that works.
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