Deep Field (25 page)
In the context of Australian and European angst over asylum seekers—especially those arriving by boat—it is precisely this inability to see a fuller, more complex humanitarian picture, a lack of appreciation perhaps for the concept of humanity itself, that leads to a continuation of suffering. Ironically, it is often the spirit of generosity and enquiry that is most evident in the societies whose people are on the receiving end of natural disasters, conflict, or at the forefront of climate change. If anything, this is what humanitarians can bring back to their homes and their own societies—an answer, perhaps, to Bertold Brecht’s stark poem about humanitarian assistance, in which a man at the corner of 26th Street and Broadway in New York, collects money to provide beds for the homeless.
It won’t change the world
It won’t improve relations among men
It will not shorten the age of exploitation
But a few men have a bed for the night
For a night the wind is kept from them
The snow meant for them falls on the roadway.
I would like to thank Eamon Evans for being an early guide to the publishing industry and Rose Michael at Hardie Grant for her patience, encouragement, and willingness to take a chance. Penelope Goodes has been a talented editor and helped turn what risked becoming an essay into a book. Special thanks are due to the staff of the Swinburne Institute for Social Research for their ongoing support and for being a sounding-board for much of the material in this book.
Parts of the Pakistan section appeared in
Griffith Review
35 ‘Surviving’ as ‘How to Survive an Earthquake’; parts of the Sudan chapter appeared in
Granta
117 ‘Horror’ as ‘The Mission’ and in
Gesher
2012 as ‘Homage to Darfur’.
Tom Bamforth is an Australian aid worker whose writing has appeared in
The Age, Granta
and
Griffith Review
. He experienced the 2005 Pakistan earthquake first hand while on an archaeological tour and has subsequently worked in natural disaster and conflict areas in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and Kashmir, Sudan’s Darfur states, the Philippines’ Mindanao region and across the Pacific Islands.
An SBS Book
Published in 2014 by Hardie Grant Books
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Copyright © Tom Bamforth 2014
Cataloguing in publication data is available from the National Library of Australia
Deep Field
eISBN 9781743581797
Design by Peter Daniel
Cover image courtesy of Getty Images
CIA World Factbook Political World Map courtesy Wikimedia Commons