Kashmir's forgotten quake

In a week of news dominated by Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, it was probably hard to notice the aftermath of the year's worst natural disaster: the Kashmir earthquake Oct. 8. So far, the death toll stands at about 41,000, which makes it the deadliest natural disaster since the December 2004 tsunami in South Asia. Relief efforts are staggering along with weather and terrain hampering efforts (not to mention the fact that Kashmir is among the most disputed territories on earth).\nSo where's the attention? Surely American tragedies like Hurricane Katrina deserve coverage simply because of proximity and political influence, but America has essentially turned a blind eye. There are plenty of international political reasons, particularly because India and Pakistan, the two countries most affected by the quake, have been adversaries since they formed in 1947. Regardless, the muted response from the U.S. media, government and people has more to do with a perceived superiority than any political reality.\nDespite New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's early estimates of tens of thousands dead, Hurricane Katrina did not kill any more than 2,000 people. Such a loss is significant and heart-rending, especially for those who believe that the strongest country on Earth should've been able to do more to stop the carnage. Yet if 79,000 brown folks die in a place that sounds more like sweater material than a geographic region, we don't bat an eye. To give an idea of the magnitude of that death toll, all IU campuses combined enroll 78,063 undergraduates. Imagine if every student on an IU campus died in a cataclysmic event. What kind of reaction would America have?\nThree thousand Americans died in a terrorist attack, and we declared war on terror. God knows if 79,000 Americans died in an earthquake, we'd declare war on plate tectonics.\nWhile we sit on our hands, hundreds of thousands still sleep outside waiting for aid that cannot reach them. The World Food Program estimates that 500,000 people have received no aid at all, while 2 million people have been left homeless. The Economist called America's reaction to Katrina "the shaming of America." But the squalor of the convention center in New Orleans is nowhere near as far-reaching and devastating as the damage in Kashmir.\nI guess my question is this: Where's Kashmir's benefit concert? Where's the wristband that says "I aided the Oct. 8 earthquake relief fund"? And with the tenuous diplomatic situation between Pakistan and India making it harder for aid to reach survivors, why wasn't the United States striking a deal between the countries to allow free movement across the de facto border as soon as it happened? \nThe unfortunate political situation in Kashmir shouldn't mitigate our response to the disaster. If anything, the increased direness of the situation demands our immediate attention. I implore anyone who reads this to seek more information about how to aid victims of this catastrophe. If we expect others to care when disaster strikes here, we must shirk our "America First" attitude. They might not be Americans, but every Kashmiri victim has a mother, a father, a family, a dream. Surely that must count for something.