Something Bad Has Happened: Help Us!

Many Westerners awoke on Sunday to hear the news that Cyclone Nargis was threatening to empty their pockets of small change. The storm devastated villages across Burma's south coast and, at the time of writing, estimates of 100,000 dead are not being dismissed.

It put me in mind of Boxing Day 2004 when, like a lecherous uncle, a tsunami came over and ruined everyone's Christmas. This was followed in the space of a few months by George Bush's bothersome Hurricane Katrina (which I take to have had the best celebrity endorsement, thanks Kanye West) and the Kashmir Earthquake.

It seemed, for a few, desperate and increasingly foreboding weeks that the earth was about to implode in on itself.

But, thankfully, the four horsemen never materialised, we were not struck like stone by the sounding of the rapture and beleaguered office underlings didn't call up their arrogant bosses and tell them exactly where they can shove their filing jobs.

What did happen was a lot less spectacular. Aid agencies and charities applied delicate pressure on the public to give generously to those unfortunate souls caught in a natural disaster. These were victims not of human error or conflict, but of something that could only be put down to divine providence. These disasters could happen virtually anywhere in the world; it is a cruel irony that they normally seem to occur where inhabitants are already struggling to get by. Or, rather, these are the ones that dominate the pages of Western newspapers.

As I awoke to the news of the Cyclone, I couldn't help guessing how long it would be before I'd be asked to help.

Within hours the appeals were rolling in, telling us how bad we'd feel if we didn't send a nominal amount of aid ("for just 1p a year, you could stop this litter of babies from being eaten by their mother", that sort of thing.) I am not averse to giving to charitable causes, but charities have become rather presumptuous of late.

Firstly, we help already. European and American leaders have pledged to give between $4 and $10million of immediate aid to the victims in Burma. Where does that come from? Why us, of course. And we don't have a choice; taxation sees this process occur completely separate from individual motivation.

Secondly, people in the UK and other developed countries are beginning to feel the pinch, what with rising fuel/food/Heat! subscription costs. Research has proved that, as people find themselves with less disposable income, they begin to forget about charity. "I know there are people dying of thirst in Sudan, but I've just had to pay £1.68 for little Gregory's organic yoghurt," middle-class Mums can be heard pontificating at the checkout of their local Waitrose. "We've all got problems," they invariably add.

Thirdly, if people do give to charity, they usually like to see where their money is being spent, or they may as well throw their piggy bank into the local canal. Apparently, Donkey sanctuaries are receiving more money than many supporting abused women - much to the concern of many obtuse philanthropists. It's not that we wouldn't rather help a woman than a donkey, it's just that we would rather receive press-release emails of fluffy animals than healing black-eyes.

Charity is an essentially selfish pursuit. Yes, you are helping people (or donkeys) less fortunate than yourself, but your doing so makes you feel better. Go on. Admit it. To misquote Matt Le Blanc, "There's no such thing as a selfless good deed". We don't actually want to make a difference: if we did, we might do a little more than occasionally delving begrudgingly into our pockets and pulling out a crumpled fiver to assuage a street-stalking volunteer with green hair and a pierced lip. We'd do some research. We might volunteer to work for a charity, or even go there and get stuck into the problems ourselves.

But we don't care that much. Just so long as we can go home, complete with fully-laden shopping bags and know that we've given (not too) generously to those poor, starving, desperately ill donkeys- sorry, humans - we are able to derive smug pleasure from charity.

The final and most obvious problem with charities and their campaigns to stop us being such bilious, self-obsessive consumerist slugs ("just 2p will ensure that little Michael will grow up to be the chairman of a successful, multi-national manufacturing conglomerate. Otherwise, he will be raped.") and that's competition. If we donated to every charity who had a witty or affecting billboard campaign, we would very quickly be in need of aid ourselves. Natural disasters occur, crops fail, earthquakes happen and domestic violence abounds. As a giver to charity, you need to be able to prioritise.

This is no different to the way that charities and newspapers tend to prioritise various causes and not others. A cyclone in poor Burma is more newsworthy than the recent earthquake in affluent Japan. Columnists have been plumping the concept of overlooking politics in the name of a humanitarian effort, but what hope have they - or anyone else who doesn't happen to have the surname Militarycommanderofburma, for that matter - of getting through where it matters? Such comments are no doubt well-intentioned, but it is not the democratic and English speaking West who need to listen, it is Burma's own Junta. They listen about as well as a deaf pensioner wearing noise-canceling headphones.

Equally, governments will jump upon the chance to give to the Burmese authorities, as there is something in it for them. With Burma's autocratic rulers refusing to budge and overcome personal grudges to accept badly needed aid, Western governments can appear magnanimous whilst promoting their brand of democratic administration.

Not giving to charity doesn't make you a bad person, but this is what charities will make you like as they yank on your heartstrings like a kite in a storm. Neither does giving to charity make you any more of a good person. But, by God, you'll feel better.

So go and give that tramp round the corner some money just for sitting there. 50p should be just about enough to set him up in a basically-paid office job and see him work his way off the streets.

The first supplies of UN food aid are only now beginning to trickle through to Rangoon, five whole days after the disaster. That is not the kind of instant satisfaction I'm after from a charity. I'm off to save some donkeys.