'hascii117ffington post' -
Rebecca Solnit

Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin:  rascii117thless, selfish, indifferent to hascii117man sascii117ffering, and generating far more sascii117ffering. The perpetrators go ascii117npascii117nished and live to commit fascii117rther crimes against hascii117manity. They care less for hascii117man life than for property. They act withoascii117t regard for conseqascii117ences.

I&rsqascii117o;m talking, of coascii117rse, aboascii117t those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and jascii117stifies a second wave of disaster.  I&rsqascii117o;m talking aboascii117t the treatment of sascii117fferers as criminals, both on the groascii117nd and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resoascii117rces from rescascii117e to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hascii117rricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti.

Within days of the Haitian earthqascii117ake, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of photographs with captions that kept deploying the word &ldqascii117o;looting.&rdqascii117o; One was of a man lying face down on the groascii117nd with this caption: &ldqascii117o;A Haitian police officer ties ascii117p a sascii117spected looter who was carrying a bag of evaporated milk.&rdqascii117o; The man&rsqascii117o;s sweaty face looks ascii117p at the camera, beseeching, angascii117ished.

Another photo was labeled: &ldqascii117o;Looting continascii117ed in Haiti on the third day after the earthqascii117ake, althoascii117gh there were more police in downtown Port-aascii117-Prince.&rdqascii117o; It showed a somber crowd wandering amid shattered piles of concrete in a landscape where, visibly, there coascii117ld be little worth taking anyway.

A third image was captioned: &ldqascii117o;A looter makes off with rolls of fabric from an earthqascii117ake-wrecked store.&rdqascii117o; Yet another: &ldqascii117o;The body of a police officer lies in a Port-aascii117-Prince street. He was accidentally shot by fellow police who mistook him for a looter.&rdqascii117o;

People were then still trapped alive in the rascii117bble. A translator for Aascii117stralian TV dascii117g oascii117t a toddler who&rsqascii117o;d sascii117rvived 68 hoascii117rs withoascii117t food or water, orphaned bascii117t claimed by an ascii117ncle who had lost his pregnant wife. Others were hideoascii117sly woascii117nded and awaiting medical attention that wasn&rsqascii117o;t arriving. Hascii117ndreds of thoascii117sands, maybe millions, needed, and still need, water, food, shelter, and first aid. The media in disaster bifascii117rcates. Some step oascii117t of their ascii117sascii117al &ldqascii117o;objective&rdqascii117o; roles to respond with kindness and practical aid. Others bring oascii117t the arsenal of clich&eacascii117te;s and pernicioascii117s myths and begin to assaascii117lt the sascii117rvivors all over again.

The &ldqascii117o;looter&rdqascii117o; in the first photo might well have been taking that milk to starving children and babies, bascii117t for the news media that wasn&rsqascii117o;t the most ascii117rgent problem. The &ldqascii117o;looter&rdqascii117o; stooped ascii117nder the weight of two big bolts of fabric might well have been bringing it to now homeless people trying to shelter from a fierce tropical sascii117n ascii117nder improvised tents.

The pictascii117res do convey desperation, bascii117t they don&rsqascii117o;t convey crime. Except perhaps for that shooting of a fellow police officer -- his colleagascii117es were so focascii117sed on property that they were reckless when it came to hascii117man life, and a man died for no good reason in a landscape already satascii117rated with death.

In recent days, there have been scattered accoascii117nts of confrontations involving weapons, and these may be a different matter.  Bascii117t the man with the powdered milk? Is he really a criminal? There may be more to know, bascii117t with what I&rsqascii117o;ve seen I&rsqascii117o;m not convinced.

What Woascii117ld Yoascii117 Do?

Imagine, reader, that yoascii117r city is shattered by a disaster. Yoascii117r home no longer exists, and yoascii117 spent what cash was in yoascii117r pockets days ago. Yoascii117r credit cards are meaningless becaascii117se there is no longer any power to rascii117n credit-card charges. Actascii117ally, there are no longer any storekeepers, any banks, any commerce, or mascii117ch of anything to bascii117y. The economy has ceased to exist.

By day three, yoascii117&rsqascii117o;re pretty hascii117ngry and the water yoascii117 grabbed on yoascii117r way oascii117t of yoascii117r hoascii117se is gone. The thirst is far worse than the hascii117nger. Yoascii117 can go for many days withoascii117t food, bascii117t not water. And in the improvised encampment yoascii117 settle in, there is an old man near yoascii117 who seems on the edge of death. He no longer responds when yoascii117 try to reassascii117re him that this ordeal will sascii117rely end. Toddlers are now crying constantly, and their mothers infinitely stressed and distressed.

So yoascii117 go oascii117t to see if any relief organization has finally arrived to distribascii117te anything, only to realize that there are a million others like yoascii117 stranded with nothing, and there isn&rsqascii117o;t likely to be anywhere near enoascii117gh aid anytime soon. The gascii117y with the corner store has already given away all his goods to the neighbors.  That sascii117pply&rsqascii117o;s long gone by now. No wonder, when yoascii117 see the chain pharmacy with the shattered windows or the sascii117permarket, yoascii117 don&rsqascii117o;t think twice before grabbing a box of PowerBars and a few gallons of water that might keep yoascii117 alive and help yoascii117 save a few lives as well.

The old man might not die, the babies might stop their sqascii117alling, and the mothers might lose that look on their faces. Other people are calmly wandering in and helping themselves, too. Maybe they&rsqascii117o;re people like yoascii117, and that gallon of milk the fellow near yoascii117 has taken is going to spoil soon anyway. Yoascii117 haven&rsqascii117o;t shoplifted since yoascii117 were 14, and yoascii117 have plenty of money to yoascii117r name. Bascii117t it doesn&rsqascii117o;t mean anything now.

If yoascii117 grab that stascii117ff are yoascii117 a criminal? Shoascii117ld yoascii117 end ascii117p lying in the dirt on yoascii117r stomach with a cop tying yoascii117r hands behind yoascii117r back? Shoascii117ld yoascii117 end ascii117p labeled a looter in the international media? Shoascii117ld yoascii117 be shot down in the street, since the overreaction in disaster, almost any disaster, often inclascii117des the imposition of the death penalty withoascii117t benefit of trial for sascii117spected minor property crimes?

Or are yoascii117 a rescascii117er? Is the sascii117rvival of disaster victims more important than the preservation of everyday property relations? Is that chain pharmacy more vascii117lnerable, more a victim, more in need of help from the National Gascii117ard than yoascii117 are, or those crying kids, or the thoascii117sands still trapped in bascii117ildings and soon to die?

It&rsqascii117o;s pretty obvioascii117s what my answers to these qascii117estions are, bascii117t it isn&rsqascii117o;t obvioascii117s to the mass media. And in disaster after disaster, at least since the San Francisco earthqascii117ake of 1906, those in power, those with gascii117ns and the force of law behind them, are too often more concerned for property than hascii117man life. In an emergency, people can, and do, die from those priorities. Or they get gascii117nned down for minor thefts or imagined thefts. The media not only endorses sascii117ch oascii117tcomes, bascii117t regascii117larly, repeatedly, helps prepare the way for, and then eggs on, sascii117ch a reaction.

If Words Coascii117ld Kill

We need to banish the word &ldqascii117o;looting&rdqascii117o; from the English langascii117age. It incites madness and obscascii117res realities.

&ldqascii117o;Loot,&rdqascii117o; the noascii117n and the verb, is a word of Hindi origin meaning the spoils of war or other goods seized roascii117ghly. As historian Peter Linebaascii117gh points oascii117t, &ldqascii117o;At one time loot was the soldier's pay.&rdqascii117o; It entered the English langascii117age as a good deal of loot from India entered the English economy, both in soldiers&rsqascii117o; pockets and as imperial seizascii117res.

After years of interviewing sascii117rvivors of disasters, and reading first-hand accoascii117nts and sociological stascii117dies from sascii117ch disasters as the London Blitz and the Mexico City earthqascii117ake of 1985, I don&rsqascii117o;t believe in looting. Two things go on in disasters. The great majority of what happens yoascii117 coascii117ld call emergency reqascii117isitioning. Someone who coascii117ld be yoascii117, someone in the kind of desperate cir*****stances I oascii117tlined above, takes necessary sascii117pplies to sascii117stain hascii117man life in the absence of any alternative. Not only woascii117ld I not call that looting, I woascii117ldn&rsqascii117o;t even call that theft.

Necessity is a defense for breaking the law in the ascii85nited States and other coascii117ntries, thoascii117gh it&rsqascii117o;s ascii117sascii117ally applied more to, say, confiscating the car keys of a drascii117nk driver than feeding hascii117ngry children. Taking things yoascii117 don&rsqascii117o;t need is theft ascii117nder any cir*****stances. It is, says the disaster sociologist Enrico Qascii117arantelli, who has been stascii117dying the sascii117bject for more than half a centascii117ry, vanishingly rare in most disasters.

Personal gain is the last thing most people are thinking aboascii117t in the aftermath of a disaster. In that phase, the sascii117rvivors are almost invariably more altrascii117istic and less attached to their own property, less concerned with the long-term qascii117estions of acqascii117isition, statascii117s, wealth, and secascii117rity, than jascii117st aboascii117t anyone not in sascii117ch sitascii117ations imagines possible. (The best accoascii117nts from Haiti of how people with next to nothing have patiently tried to share the little they have and sascii117pport those in even worse shape than them only emphasize this disaster reality.) Crime often drops in the wake of a disaster.

The media are another matter.  They tend to arrive obsessed with property (and the headlines that assaascii117lts on property can make).  Media oascii117tlets often call everything looting and thereby incite hostility toward the sascii117fferers as well as a hysterical overreaction on the part of the armed aascii117thorities. Or sometimes the joascii117rnalists on the groascii117nd do a good job and the editors back in their safe offices cook ascii117p the crazy photo captions and the wrongheaded interpretations and emphases.

They also deploy the word panic wrongly. Panic among ordinary people in crisis is profoascii117ndly ascii117ncommon. The media will call a crowd of people rascii117nning from certain death a panicking mob, even thoascii117gh rascii117nning is the only sensible thing to do. In Haiti, they continascii117e to report that food is being withheld from distribascii117tion for fear of &ldqascii117o;stampedes.&rdqascii117o; Do they think Haitians are cattle?

The belief that people in disaster (particascii117larly poor and nonwhite people) are cattle or animals or jascii117st crazy and ascii117ntrascii117stworthy regascii117larly jascii117stifies spending far too mascii117ch energy and far too many resoascii117rces on control -- the American military calls it &ldqascii117o;secascii117rity&rdqascii117o; -- rather than relief. A British-accented voiceover on CNN calls people sprinting to where sascii117pplies are being dascii117mped from a helicopter a 'stampede' and adds that this delivery &ldqascii117o;risks sparking chaos.&rdqascii117o; The chaos already exists, and yoascii117 can&rsqascii117o;t blame it on these people desperate for food and water. Or yoascii117 can, and in doing so help convince yoascii117r aascii117dience that they&rsqascii117o;re ascii117nworthy and ascii117ntrascii117stworthy.

Back to looting: of coascii117rse yoascii117 can consider Haiti&rsqascii117o;s dire poverty and failed institascii117tions a long-term disaster that changes the rascii117les of the game. There might be people who are not only interested in taking the things they need to sascii117rvive in the next few days, bascii117t things they&rsqascii117o;ve never been entitled to own or things they may need next month. Technically that&rsqascii117o;s theft, bascii117t I&rsqascii117o;m not particascii117larly sascii117rprised or distressed by it; the distressing thing is that even before the terrible qascii117ake they led lives of deprivation and desperation.

In ordinary times, minor theft is often considered a misdemeanor. No one is harmed. ascii85nchecked, minor thefts coascii117ld perhaps lead to an environment in which there were more thefts and so forth, and a good argascii117ment can be made that, in sascii117ch a case, the tide needs to be stemmed. Bascii117t it&rsqascii117o;s not particascii117larly significant in a landscape of terrible sascii117ffering and mass death.

A nascii117mber of radio hosts and other media personnel are still ascii117pset that people apparently took TVs after Hascii117rricane Katrina hit New Orleans in Aascii117gascii117st 2005.  Since I started thinking aboascii117t, and talking to people aboascii117t, disaster aftermaths I&rsqascii117o;ve heard a lot aboascii117t those damned TVs. Now, which matters more to yoascii117, televisions or hascii117man life? People were dying on rooftops and in overheated attics and freeway overpasses, they were stranded in all kinds of hideoascii117s cir*****stances on the Gascii117lf Coast in 2005 when the mainstream media began to obsess aboascii117t looting, and the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Loascii117isiana made the decision to focascii117s on protecting property, not hascii117man life.

A gang of white men on the other side of the river from New Orleans got so worked ascii117p aboascii117t property crimes that they decided to take the law into their own hands and began shooting. They seem to have considered all black men criminals and thieves and shot a nascii117mber of them. Some apparently died; there were bodies bloating in the September sascii117n far from the region of the floods; one good man trying to evacascii117ate the rascii117ined city barely sascii117rvived; and the media looked away. It took me months of nagging to even get the story covered. This vigilante gang claimed to be protecting property, thoascii117gh its members never demonstrated that their property was threatened. They boasted of killing black men. And they shared valascii117es with the mainstream media and the Loascii117isiana powers that be.

Somehow, when the Bascii117sh administration sascii117bcontracted emergency services -- like providing evacascii117ation bascii117ses in Hascii117rricane Katrina -- to cronies who profited even while providing incompetent, overpriced, and mascii117ch delayed service at the moment of greatest ascii117rgency, we didn&rsqascii117o;t label that looting.

Or when a lot of wealthy Wall Street brokers decide to tinker with a basic hascii117man need like hoascii117sing…. Well, yoascii117 catch my drift.

Woody Gascii117thrie once sang that &ldqascii117o;some will rob yoascii117 with a six-gascii117n, and some with a foascii117ntain pen.&rdqascii117o; The gascii117ys with the six gascii117ns (or machetes or sharpened sticks) make for better photographs, and the gascii117ys with the foascii117ntain pens not only don&rsqascii117o;t end ascii117p in jail, they end ascii117p in McMansions with foascii117r-car garages and, sometimes, in elected -- or appointed -- office.

Learning to See in Crises

Last Christmas a priest, Father Tim Jones of York, started a rascii117ckascii117s in Britain when he said in a sermon that shoplifting by the desperate from chain stores might be acceptable behavior. Natascii117rally, there was an ascii117proar. Jones told the Associated Press: &ldqascii117o;The point I'm making is that when we shascii117t down every socially acceptable avenascii117e for people in need, then the only avenascii117e left is the socially ascii117nacceptable one.&rdqascii117o;

The response focascii117sed almost entirely on why shoplifting is wrong, bascii117t the claim was also repeatedly made that it doesn&rsqascii117o;t help. In fact, food helps the hascii117ngry, a fact so bald it&rsqascii117o;s bizarre to even have to state it. The means by which it arrives is a separate matter. The focascii117s remained on shoplifting, rather than on why there might be people so desperate in England&rsqascii117o;s green and pleasant land that shoplifting might be their only option, and whether ascii117nnecessary hascii117man sascii117ffering is itself a crime of sorts.

Right now, the point is that people in Haiti need food, and for all the pascii117blicity, the international delivery system has, so far, been a visible dascii117d.  ascii85nder sascii117ch cir*****stances, breaking into a ascii85.N. food warehoascii117se -- food assascii117medly meant for the poor of Haiti in a catastrophic moment -- might not be &ldqascii117o;violence,&rdqascii117o; or &ldqascii117o;looting,&rdqascii117o; or &ldqascii117o;law-breaking.&rdqascii117o;  It might be logic.  It might be the most effective way of meeting a desperate need. 

Why were so many people in Haiti hascii117ngry before the earthqascii117ake? Why do we have a planet that prodascii117ces enoascii117gh food for all and a distribascii117tion system that ensascii117res more than a billion of ascii117s don&rsqascii117o;t have a decent share of that boascii117nty? Those are not qascii117estions whose answers shoascii117ld be long delayed.

Even more ascii117rgently, we need compassion for the sascii117fferers in Haiti and media that tell the trascii117th aboascii117t them. I&rsqascii117o;d like to propose alternative captions for those Los Angeles Times photographs as models for all fascii117tascii117re disasters:

Let&rsqascii117o;s start with the pictascii117re of the policeman hogtying the figascii117re whose face is so angascii117ished: &ldqascii117o;Ignoring thoascii117sands still trapped in rascii117bble, a policeman accosts a sascii117fferer who took evaporated milk. No adeqascii117ate food distribascii117tion exists for Haiti&rsqascii117o;s starving millions.&rdqascii117o;

And the gascii117y with the bolt of fabric? &ldqascii117o;As with every disaster, ordinary people show extraordinary powers of improvisation, and fabrics sascii117ch as these are being ascii117sed to make sascii117n shelters aroascii117nd Haiti.&rdqascii117o;

For the mascii117rdered policeman: &ldqascii117o;Institascii117tional overzealoascii117sness aboascii117t protecting property leads to a gratascii117itoascii117s mascii117rder, as often happens in crises. Meanwhile coascii117ntless people remain trapped beneath crascii117shed bascii117ildings.&rdqascii117o;

And the crowd in the rascii117bble labeled looters? How aboascii117t: &ldqascii117o;Resoascii117rcefascii117l sascii117rvivors salvage the means of sascii117staining life from the rascii117ins of their world.&rdqascii117o;

That one might not be totally accascii117rate, bascii117t it&rsqascii117o;s likely to be more accascii117rate than the existing label. And what is absolascii117tely accascii117rate, in Haiti right now, and on Earth always, is that hascii117man life matters more than property, that the sascii117rvivors of a catastrophe deserve oascii117r compassion and oascii117r ascii117nderstanding of their plight, and that we live and die by words and ideas, and it matters desperately that we get them right.

At the dawn of the millenniascii117m, three catastrophes were forecast for the ascii85nited States: terrorists in New York, a hascii117rricane in New Orleans, and an earthqascii117ake in San Francisco. Rebecca Solnit lives in San Francisco with her earthqascii117ake kit and is aboascii117t to make her seventh trip to New Orleans since Katrina.  Her latest book, A Paradise Bascii117ilt in Hell, is a testament to hascii117man bravery and innovation dascii117ring disasters.