From a culture of war to a culture of peace

Bruce Kent, an active peace campaigner, currently vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Pax Christi UK and the Movement for the Abolition of War, wrote an article recently on OpenDemocracy.net entitled "From a culture of war to a culture of peace". The article is brilliant, the ideas fresh and original and the issue covered being of the utmost importance in today's overly militarised world. His article is a must read for all.

He touches upon the importance of developing a "consciousness of global citizenship" where high school pupils should be given a copy of the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He challenges governments in their role in peace and states that Bank Holidays should be replaced by more significant dates such as the signing of peace treaties. He encourages the celebration of peacemakers rather than war heroes and brilliantly concludes that "it is a task for all of us, if we are serious about building a culture of peace. Culture has to change. We are all part of the process of making that change happen".

Looting following natural disasters: Why?

The year 2010 seems to be the year of natural disasters. These past few months, an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 hit Northern Philippines, just a few days after an even stronger quake in Chile. Recently, another one in Taiwan. While Haiti is still recovering from its own major earthquake which took place near its capital Port-au-Prince in January, the Portuguese Madeira islands are struggling in the aftermath of major floods and landslides which occurred last month. A few weeks ago, heavy rains caused major mudslides killing nearly one hundred Ugandans, wiping out three villages in the East of the country. Chile experienced a second earthquake during Pinera's inauguration as the new President, following Michelle Bachelet's end of term in office recently.

Away from the obvious global warming debate and avoiding further comments on Borg Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist", which most of us have hopefully read by now, I am somewhat curious about the social analysis of what takes place within societies, affected by such disasters.

While the death and destruction resulting from these devastating natural phenomena are distressful, the instability, the looting and chaos in its aftermath, are of equally great concern. Haiti and Chile in particular, experienced serious occurrences of looting recently which begs the question: why does this happen and why in only some countries? Can we learn something about societies in their reaction to natural disasters? Are communities tested this way and what does this mean for policy-making?

Being an expert on conflict and post-conflict development, rather than having much knowledge of post-disaster recovery or disaster preparedness, I found striking similarities between post-disaster and post-conflict contexts: Power vacuums at both local and central government levels, lack of basic services, insecurity, sudden breakdown in social community structures, increase in informal and illicit economic activities, internal displacement and refugee crises, etc.

We often expect chaos and crime to result from conflict, however we seem perplexed when this happens during natural calamities, which are not caused by any man's malicious will, and which affects peaceful neighbouring communities. One would expect a sense of solidarity and national mourning, something that brings people together in their common struggle to survive the disaster, rather than the social unrest and looting we have witnessed.

With some further analysis and investigation, one begins to comprehend however, why this happens in some countries and not in others. Indeed, Chile and Haiti (as well as Southern USA during the Katrina disaster) are essentially quite unequal societies, with a distorted wealth distribution where a minority are privileged and the majority destitute or significantly more disadvantaged. According to the UN's Human Development Report in 2009, Haiti's Gini coefficient (which measures inequality and wealth distribution) was 59.5 (whereas 0 is perfectly equal and 100 unequal). In comparison, Norway's Gini was 25.8 and Belgium, 33. The United States was 40.8 (the highest for a developped country) and Chile, 52.7, also high relative to its GDP (as is the case for most Latin American countries).

The floods in the Madeira islands and the earthquake in Taiwan did not generate looting or widespread crime, both countries having significantly lower Gini coefficients and therefore more equal societies. Both Haiti and Chile in 2010 as well as the USA in 2005, relied on armed military personnel to ensure stability in certain urban areas, using force when necessary to prevent wide scale unrest and protect private and public assets from looting and theft.

While some studies suggest that levels of education also determine how a country's population reacts to a natural disaster, I am somewhat sceptical about such conclusions. I would rather lean towards the argument of inequality in the distribution of national wealth, lack of opportunities as well as social and economic discrimination, as a credible explanation for why social unrest and looting take place in some countries following natural disasters.

I would be curious to know whether disaster preparedness includes provisions for prevention and management of social unrest and crime in its aftermath, due to the fact that such preventive measures are indeed long term social and economic policies and reforms which need to take into account sustainable and equitable distribution of national wealth.

Just some thoughts...