No, this isn't a sick joke...
Sixty miles from Haiti's devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.This brings up a moral dilemma:
The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean International, disembarked at the heavily guarded resort of Labadee on the north coast on Friday; a second cruise ship, the 3,100-passenger Navigator of the Seas is due to dock. (Guardian)
The decision to go ahead with the visit has divided passengers. The ships carry some food aid, and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to help stricken Haitians.
But many passengers will stay aboard when they dock; one said he was "sickened".
"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.
But you can sit on a luxury liner and do it?
Another passenger goes even deeper:
"It was hard enough to sit and eat a picnic lunch at Labadee before the quake, knowing how many Haitians were starving," said another. "I can't imagine having to choke down a burger there now.''It's hard on the guilty conscience, but they still do it. Now, it's not just the grinding poverty that plays on the minds of the vacationing revelers, but dead people stacked up like cord wood.
They paid good money for this?
"Friday's call in Labadee went well," said Royal Caribbean. "Everything was open, as usual. The guests were very happy to hear that 100% of the proceeds from the call at Labadee would be donated to the relief effort."Yes, it all went well. No desperate Haitians scaled the resort's 12-foot walls demanding food and water from the sunning vacationers.
"In the end, Labadee is critical to Haiti's recovery; hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood," said John Weis, vice-president. "In our conversations with the UN special envoy of the government of Haiti, Leslie Voltaire, he notes that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each callWe firewall ourselves off from so much human misery, in our own cities and in faraway lands. Every now and the the wall is breached and we come full face with humanity in crisis.
You can take a vacation from reality, but reality is still there...
5 comments:
I just wanted to add that they are also dropping off much needed food, water, and other medicine, supplies there. Hence the reason for going there.
I know it sounds dumb, but when you think about it, they were going near by anyway, so they may as well make themselves useful. .
It does sound bad but as Mal said they were bringing supplies. I myself would not have gone ashore though. As to the ones staying onboard, you have to remember they are the passengers not the Captain so no real choice but to be there. I am sure nobody bought a ticket with knowledge of an impending Eartquake months in advance.
That is a fine example of being on the horns of a dilemma. I think that if it was me who bought a cruise ticket ahead of time, and the earthquake struck, I would have gone into the earthquake area and made myself useful, but that is me.
I really don't think I could have come close to enjoying a barbecue and a cocktail knowing that there was so much misery and suffering so close by.
Good Rev.
I understand your desire to help but doing so in such a situation would land you in some international trouble and the Cruise ship Captain and passengers in an unnessesary dilema.
Internationally with passport/visa laws.
Then the cruise ship, it has to account for everyone on it's passenger list before leaving port. I dare say you would be found,returned and confined to your quarters until such time you could be handed over to the proper authorities.
I posted this because, as Reverend Gregori say, it is a dilemma. On one hand you can be like one of the passengers and say it "makes you sick" thinking about drinking cocktails while people are dying on the other side of the wall, but somewhere, someone is dying... all the time...
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