Reflection on the Nepalese Earthquake

I feel very devastated by this recent Nepalese earthquake and the suffering of those beautiful, noble people, so many of whom in the last war did so much for England and gave their lives for us, and all the aid we’re offering is 5 million pounds. Seems stingy to me. Maybe the government will offer more… I quickly emailed my good friend who lives there, a beautiful priest whom I first met at Kuala Lumpa airport and we’ve been buddies ever since but I haven’t yet heard back and hope and pray he and his family are still alive.

It feels that our planet is so angry with us for all the damage we’ve been doing to it over the years, and the great tragedy is that it always seems to be those who have least and who are poorest, who get most bashed. In Nepal, thousands died because they couldn’t afford to build earthquake proof houses. As I write, the casualty list is over 5,000.

I’ve recently come across a new word: extractivist. The world is in the throes of an extractivist mindset, which is an economic model based on believing we can go on removing ever more raw materials from the earth, i.e., a nonreciprocal, dominance-based relationship with our planet. Just as we men can tend to “objectify” women, so can we do – and we indeed do – the same thing to our planet, that is, we use her for what we can get out of her without taking any consideration of her soul. But don’t lets just blame our capitalist system.

Playing the “blame game” never gets one anywhere, and we forget that the same disregard of our planet also happens under socialism and communism. E.g., China’s a huge extractivist polluter and the people there are paying the price with their lungs. Indeed, this whole mindset can be traced way back to Francis Bacon who, in the 1700’s, was credited with convincing Britain’s elites to abandon all notions of the earth as a ‘life-giving mother’ we should respect and reverence, and instead suggested we be her dungeon master. And we’ve been pretty good at that game.

William Derham a clergyman and philosopher followed this up by writing in 1713 that “we can, if need be, ransack the whole globe….travel to the furthest ends of this world, to acquire wealth”. Wham bam thank you ma’am; It’s just what we’ve been doing all those years and now our planet is fighting back!

Update:

Thank goodness! I received an update from my friend and he is okay, but his situation is far from:

We are safe by God’s grace and protection. Well, our present church building is creaked or almost gonna be broke down. Our village churches have no buildings and believers houses have been collapsed. We are in a deep tragedy and morning. Many of our believers have no place to stay and even no foods and medicines.

Our government is not reaching those emergency places. Therefore, we need at least 200 tents, the provision foods, medicines too with cash support. Therefore, we would like to request you all to pray with us and help for our victims whatever is possible.

Please lets request people to help for our victims and injured people. Anyone can help with prayers whatever. We have been praying and helping people since a few days. We have our non-profit Christian organization which is government registered as NGO.

You can contribute or help directly to this:
Bank Information for Help
Nepal Bangladesh Bank
Bhainsepati, Branch, Lalitpur Nep
AIC:- 004079671S
World Teach Nepal
Swift Code:- NPBBNPKA
Pastor David Kumar Muktan CEO-President-World Teach Nepal

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