A Victim in Myanmar, but of What?

My morning New York Times (8 May 2008) stunned me into an ultra-alert, awake state. A bloated body floating in a dirty swamp, arms extended to the heavens, as if calling out for mercy. The hard-to-look-at photograph is captioned: “A victim of the cyclone that hit Myanmar (Burma) last week.”

A colleague at LWR and I mused over this grotesque photo and thought about the meaning of “victim.” This unnamed person’s entire history on Earth is reduced to the word “victim.” Does his being a cyclone “victim” give anyone the right to plaster his half-clothed body as page one fare? We wondered aloud about some of the other things of which he was first a victim:

• of inadequate warning systems
• of no escape routes
• of being ruled by a military junta
• of the environmental destruction of mangrove forests that would have buffered the land from the raging sea
• of no resources
• of our indifference?
  

The latest reports fear that there are 100,000 more “victims,” perhaps neighbors, family-members, friends of this man floating in mosquito-infested waters. Malaria, which is also now raging in Myanmar, will turn a mosquito-bite into a death sentence.

My mind goes to the quarter million “victims” of the December 2004 tsunami and the millions more who are rebuilding their lives and their livelihoods. With joy, I've visited some communities where that’s happening: Accompanying Lydia, Hope Crushed, Traditional Architecture.

While hundreds of thousands of “victims” are teetering on the brink of life and death today in Myanmar, Lutheran World Relief is representing the heart of U.S. Lutherans, and your support is desperately needed.

We will accompany women, children and men who are homeless, sick and crying to find a road to recovery. And we will do this in a way that guards their dignity. For we know they are much more than mere “victims,” they are children of God, our sisters and brothers in the human family.

Please support this live-saving work.