Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami has shown the awesome power of nature and our essential helplessness before these titanic forces. When an advanced country like Japan is laid low in a few seconds, how can less advanced countries hope to cope?We live in a age which aims to not only reduce risk to a minimum but preferably eliminate it altogether. It does not matter which country we live in or what our income/economic/education/whatever background is. Natural disasters particularly are often viewed as a affront to our vaunted technological achievements. However, when a natural disaster does come, it frequently demonstrates the limitations of our technology.
Natural disasters often also serve to highlight national characteristics. All the footage that I have seen of the survivors shows that there has been no panic in the aftermath. Yes, thousands of people are missing. Yes, those who have lived through this trauma are desperately searching for their loved ones. But there has been no looting, no rioting, not even a show of anger as far as I can tell. Something fairly similar was also seen in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake. Unfortunately this is often not the case in third world disasters.
Why is this so? I believe that the reaction of the survivors in an earthquake is conditioned by their economic, political and especially social circumstances before the event. A kleptomaniac government will necessarily encourage distrust amongst its citizenry in order to facilitate its stealing. This distrust will tend to carry through into the aftermath of a natural disaster which then means that every person will tend to look out for their self and their immediate family. The citizenry of a government which does not encourage such distrust will tend to stick together and help each other out even if the government cannot. So in Japan, we have political and social circumstances which tend to encourage people to trust each other and the government. Since people expect each other to behave in a proper fashion no matter what the conditions, we don't see rowdy, violent, desperate behavior. I think the dignified manner in which the survivors of this catastrophe are behaving should serve as an object lesson to all of us everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment