Trains packed with volunteers arrive at tourist town of Guangfu, days after typhoon sent millions of tonnes of mud and water crashing through its streets
Students, monks, and retirees. Gym bros, migrant workers, mums and dads with their children, even tourists. As a crowd of hundreds disembarks from the train a crowd of people cheer “jiayou”, a chant of encouragement which translates to “add oil”.
Dubbed the “shovel supermen”, they have come to Guangfu in their tens of thousands, as volunteers ready to help after a distant typhoon burst a natural dam and sent millions of tonnes of water, mud and silt crashing through the streets.
Clearing up the mess is going to take the labour of some tens of thousands of Taiwanese. Sure, they can mediate it through government and the efforts be collected through tax. Or they can turn up with shovels and gumboots and do it directly.
But clearly this would be done better if proper attention were being paid to diversity, equity and inclusion, no? To gender equity, to raciual discrimination and so on?
Yep, that’s right, it should be government. Can’t have the peopl just truning up and solving problems now, can we?
Depends which branch of government.
Yay for community and people doing it independently.
And you definitely want to keep the bureaucrats out with the dei and paperwork and regulations…
The military, on the other hand, is the ideal structure for dealing with things like this. The military is the experts at logistics – move a large number of people and materiel to a place and then get them to do things that need doing quickly.
Pah
The very definition of Modern Slavery
Don’t forget Health & Safety. Can’t be using the wrong shovel or lifting with your back.
What like the Amish building complete “Tiny House” settlements in a matter of weeks, only to have local government officials comdem them as “Not Meeting Code”. Never mind that the poor bastards who had their homes swept away by floods would dearly love a proper roof over their heads…