Rebels have always been a favorite of mine. They cannot be ignored, whether it's the teenager deliberately staying out past curfew or the revolutionary hero. We've got Martin Luther King Jr., Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, James Dean, Gandhi, Emiliano Zapata, oldies like George Washington and Lewis and Clark, and contemporaries like Lady Gaga. The rebel mindset incorporates defiance, stubbornness and a dose of crazy, but most importantly, a vision. And to reference the popular Apple ad that raises a glass to the ""round pegs in square holes,"" the rebels are the ones who push the envelope and end up changing the world, just because they think they can.
In the case of national and international disaster relief organizations, the rebel mindset is a necessary one. Currently, large aid organizations and bureaucracies have a top-down organization that is influenced by politics and liability reservations, resulting in miscommunication that costs lives. Their reactions and adaptations are too slow to respond adequately to human suffering due to nuanced middle management, inaccurate information, and preoccupation with risk.
These inefficiencies are starkly illumniated by the massively destructive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, as well as the tragic chaos that was Katrina, where these inefficiencies are starkly illuminated.
Bureaucratic departments and organizations like the American Red Cross hold a significant place in disaster relief and can be extremely effective in the effort to prevent more casualties and to rebuild communities. The Red Cross' record donations gathered through text messages and millions of dollars spent by international governments for aid are astonishing and necessary. The actions international governments and organizations eventually take deserve credit for their long-term humanitarian progress, record donations, number of volunteers and sheer life saving. But something needs to fill the gap between the initial disaster and the time it takes for large-scale aid to sift through their fears, debates, and miscommunications to finally send relief to disaster victims.
Hope lies in the private autonomous sector, the rebel whose innate sense of human decency ignores restrictions and politics in favor of offering immediate aid. For disaster victims, minutes matter. And when each minute is different from the last, they need seasoned first responders who can adapt. Private sector organization is dynamic, fluid and horizontally structured to respond to disasters immediately, without waiting for the political go-ahead or liability debates.
The model for immediate disaster relief needs to shift away from bureaucracy and toward these small semi-autonomous groups that ignore the media's warnings and push past hesitations. Dispatching teams of individuals with expertise, including medical professionals, first-response teams and a military with a protective background would provide more valuable assistance, especially when working directly with locals. In the past, businesses that organized themselves in this way offered more efficient and direct relief. When Hurricane Katrina imploded America's Gulf coast in 2005, Wal-Mart provided water and aid before FEMA organized any form of efficient relief. Currently, there are teams of individuals adapting this organization and creating a new model for relief to challenge traditional methods. This model allows innovation and quick decision-making, something that gets lost among the multi-layered bureaucratic structure.
In contrast to James Dean's rebel-without-a-cause mantra, the rebels defying bureaucratic structure––both governmental and non-governmental––have, in my opinion, the most worthwhile cause possible. And that is the cat-clawing motivation to preserve human life: the belief that everybody deserves a chance and the sense of urgency to alleviate the suffering of fellow human beings. Big-aid organizations are falling short in their humanitarian efforts, and a change is necessary. Who better than a rebel to initiate a revolution?
Melissa Grau is freshman intending to major in secondary education and communication arts. Please send all responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
