Famous grab headlines in tide of woe

As we struggle to comprehend the biggest natural disaster in our lifetime, it is chilling to see how the media tries to package the unfolding misery. Of the huge number killed, most are children, their names unknown to us, from poor families. But if one well-known film director loses his daughter and granddaughter it becomes dominant news.

Is it impossible to involve readers in human suffering without searching out the famous, or are we so committed to the cult of celebrity that even a catastrophe can be turned into a namecheck?

This is the season when the Haves leave behind their chilly homes in northern Europe and jet off to the sun to be waited on hand and foot by the Have-nots, be it the Caribbean, the Maldives, those lush beachfront hotels in Thailand or a super-chic diving resort in Indonesia. I've done it myself. But when a huge wave strikes a beach, it doesn't discriminate between workers and guests.

Tourism in places like Sri Lanka and Thailand has anomalies. Educated people must be concerned about whether their hotel is taking valuable water from farmers, about whether the staff who are so charming are paid decent wages, and who looks after their children while they look after you. I have stopped visiting some places in the world because hotels imported frozen food and did not support local food suppliers and fishers, and places where hotels were within stockades and patrolled by armed guards.

This tsunami has struck right at the heart of the paradise most Westerners see as a highly desirable place to visit.

And in many cases, tourism has supported local communities and brought benefits in jobs, decent roads and housing. But it has also distorted the price of land, put small farmers out of business, sucked up water for golf courses and given little back in return.

It has created ghettos outside luxury resorts where poor people hawk trash for tourists and where local people are marginalised, living on the edge of luxurious developments which often seem insensitively designed and out of scale.

But people willing to spend thousands of hard-earned dollars on a holiday are generally not the slightest bit interested in what happens in their patch of paradise once they have settled into their seats on the plane home. It sometimes seems as if every single bit of attractive coastline around the world is gradually being zoned for resorts.

Then one giant wave - and the devastation proves to be a great leveller.

In the 21st century, catering to holidaymakers constitutes an essential part of the economy in many Third World countries - presumably one of the reasons the Thai Government delayed a warning of the tsunami for almost an hour to protect the valuable tourist industry.

All tourism brings a downside as well as much-needed cash. But what do the thousands of young backpackers on a limited budget add to the Thai way of life? In my opinion, very little.

They haggle for cheap accommodation, buy drugs and fill up seats on the transport system that locals could be using. I don't buy into the myth that bumming your way around paradise does anything for the locals except encourage them to supply you with Coca-Cola and dope.

Tourists are the modern rapists of paradise, and if one positive thing could possibly come from the tsunami it would be the rebuilding of local economies so they are self-sufficient and not dependent on the whims of Western holidaymakers seeking raked sand, white fluffy towels and hot pebble massages.

The festive season reinforces everything about our cult of acquisition that drives us to buy more than we need and spend more in search of self-esteem. We work ludicrously long hours then "award" ourselves luxury holidays in the sun in places such as Phuket.

A travel agent friend has spent the past few days dealing with clients who are angry that their luxury mini-breaks have been disrupted by the forces of nature. All they want to know is where they can they go instead.

They couldn't give a toss about homeless villagers, missing parents or orphaned children. In their eyes they "deserve" a fortnight lying on a beach. And if the Indian Ocean is suddenly inconveniently full of the dead and dying, then what's available in Antigua, Mustique or St Barts? What about South Africa or Rio?

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is typical of so many. He hasn't interrupted his luxury break in Egypt by rushing to the Far East on a mercy mission, has he?

Even if Blair thinks his Government's relief effort is best directed from Britain, to continue with an expensive holiday in the sun when every news medium is full of pictures of the weeping and bereaved strikes me as the ultimate in tastelessness.

We cannot prevent natural disasters from occurring, and we should realise that as well as cash, the best we can offer is heartfelt compassion.

But if Blair cannot spare his precious time to make sure the British people are responding in every way possible, then what hope have we of changing a society that considers disasters only in terms of our own kind - rich, white pampered tourists or backpackers who can't be bothered to speak the language but want to get on down with the locals.

- INDEPENDENT