[Radix] Re: Radix Digest, Vol 105, Issue 1
Marla Petal
mpetal at imagins.com
Wed Jan 28 11:05:42 PST 2009
Thanks, Fred,
The journalists implied that poverty and ignorance were main causes -
except that the parents, poor peasants, felt absolutely sure that IF
they had understood the mortal danger their children were in, that
they could have come up with any additional resources needed to make
the school safe. And Ye Zhiping, a lone school principal, knew enough
to identify shoddy construction and demand that local authorities
provide the resources to retrofit the school.
The journalists were thwarted at every turn in their attempts to learn
more - and alas this is exactly what we have all been denied the
opportunity to learn. Ironically, the truth would likely bear out
exactly what you say. But, it was government that kept journalists at
bay and enacted a law forbidding any public discussion of the shoddy
school construction (as well as any misuse of aid funds and a couple
of other things). It was government that failed to invite
international scientific reconnaissance, bulldozed the evidence, and
tried to buy off parents. If they had been more open and circumspect,
in all likelihood blame would have been widely shared (as it was in
Turkey after the Kocaeli earthquake, when all the blame had been
distributed, it lay absolutely everywhere: ignorance, consumer
pressure to build cheaply, clientelism, poor/ignorant design,
contractors skimming building materials, suppliers substituting
inferior products, builders having no idea how to detail or why, no
professional site inspection, no building regulation... and by the
way there were reasonable building codes long in force!
Marla
On Jan 28, 2009, at 7:32 PM, Frederick Krimgold wrote:
> Dear Marla,
> I applaud you passionate comment on the failure of school
> consttuction in Szechuan. However, "shoddy" construction can result
> from ignorance, incompetence, poor judgement and/or corruption.
> Terry seems to lay it all to corruption of an authoritarian system.
> Is that what the courageous journalists found to be the case? Was
> the shoddy construction the result of criminal intent? Was material
> stolen or adulterated, knowingly? Was there and inspection system
> that was corrupted?
> In cases that I am familiar with, the problem is often ignorance or
> poverty as much as corruption. Poor design, poor construction and
> poor materials are often the consequence of ignorance and poverty
> rather than criminal intent. i feel that it is our job to attack the
> ignorance and poverty as well as the corruption.
> Public support and active involvement in safety and regulation of
> construction is a force that needs to be mobilized in parallel with
> more formal regulatory approaches.
> Dr. Frederick Krimgold
> Director
> Disaster Risk Reduction Program (DRR)
> Virginia Tech
> Advanced Research Institute (ARI)
> 4300 Wilson Blvd., Suite 750
> Arlington, VA 22203 USA
> Main: 703-528-5500
> Direct: 703-387-6033
> Fax: 703-528-5543
> Email: krimgold at vt.edu
> Web: www.ari.vt.edu/DRR
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 28, 2009, at 11:30 AM, Marla Petal wrote:
>
>> Terry - Thank you so much for bringing up a painful and important
>> issue. On the one hand I share your pessimism. On the other hand I
>> think that even the most authoritarian regimes respond to pressure
>> from their populations (witness significant progress in school
>> safety in Uzbekistan). So it seems to me that it is our ethical
>> obligation to find ways to express our solidarity with the
>> grassroots efforts to contribute to disaster prevention. Surely we
>> cannot be of real professional or expert support if we use the
>> guise of diplomacy to justify total silence.
>>
>> The first time this hit me between the eyes was at IDRC in Davos
>> this past year is when the Sichuan earthquake experience was being
>> reviewed. Amidst a good deal of congratulatory remarks about the
>> earthquake response, there was NO MENTION of the terrible toll
>> taken by shoddy school construction.
>>
>> It wasn't until the last day of the conf. in a special session,
>> with only 100 people left, that our Chinese colleagues and others
>> finally took the stage. One of the presenters had a couple of
>> slides of disinformation on school impacts which he hurried through
>> with obvious embarrassment (one hopes because of the transparent
>> lies they contained).
>>
>> I could well understand the horrible quandry and vulnerability of
>> our Chinese colleagues, and had no desire to put them on the spot.
>> But I was livid with the rest of our colleagues for completely
>> failing to raise questions or make any kind of diplomatically
>> worded or even condolence statement of any kind. Their total
>> silence struck me as either total indifference or crass livelihood
>> protection. The silence of our "professional" and "expert"
>> colleagues in the face of blatant disinformation, the collusion
>> with the re-writing of history by the authorities strikes me as a
>> betrayal of all of the bereaved parents and their dead children.
>>
>> I think that Walter Hays and myself were the only ones to break the
>> silence. Both of us, independently, did exactly as you suggest - we
>> tried to put our shame into a collective and universal context of
>> failure to prevent disaster. We said that this has happened and
>> will happen elsewhere. (It isn't hard coming from the U.S. to cite
>> our failures in Katrina or to refer to the worst earthquake - the
>> one yet to come in California). And we tried in some modest way to
>> value truth-telling a pre-requisite for involving communities in
>> the hard tasks that they must take on (like monitoring school
>> construction). (While in China, I also tried to invoke their own
>> historic strengths to suggest that bereaved parents could be
>> engaged as "barefoot architects and engineers" becoming partners in
>> monitoring school construction practices - providing an opportunity
>> to turn anger and grief into a commitment to the next generation.)
>>
>> Indeed we do need people to live and fight another day - and we do
>> need some of us to remain persona grata and to visit China. And
>> when we get there we need to meet parents and school principles and
>> support their advocacy efforts.
>>
>> I would like to suggest, that in some kind of 'diplomatic' and
>> subtle means of redress that we collectively nominate and campaign
>> for School Principle Ye Zhiping to be given the Sasakawa Award next
>> year. In addition to validating his courageous leadership and the
>> importance of school safety, it would also validate the tremendous
>> service done by just a couple of courageous journalists who took
>> great risks to uncover the truth, even while bulldozers were fast
>> at work to plow it under.
>>
>> So as a result of this posting, I may never be granted a visa to
>> visit China again. Hopefully someone else who goes will convey our
>> collective condolences to parents and assure them of our solidarity
>> in making sure that every new school is a safe school
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Marla
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 27, 2009, at 9:00 PM, radix-request at ecie.org wrote:
>>
>>> Send Radix mailing list submissions to
>>> radix at ecie.org
>>>
>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>>> http://ecie.org/mailman/listinfo/radix
>>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>>> radix-request at ecie.org
>>>
>>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>>> radix-owner at ecie.org
>>>
>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>> than "Re: Contents of Radix digest..."
>>>
>>>
>>> Today's Topics:
>>>
>>> 1. Follow up & thanks on China disaster meeting
>>> (T.G.Cannon at greenwich.ac.uk)
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Message: 1
>>> Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:29:43 +0000
>>> From: T.G.Cannon at greenwich.ac.uk
>>> Subject: [Radix] Follow up & thanks on China disaster meeting
>>> To: radix at ecie.org
>>> Cc: terrycannon at blueyonder.co.uk
>>> Message-ID: <20090127152943.a2ufkztu28swgwgw at skye.gre.ac.uk>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes";
>>> format="flowed"
>>>
>>> Dear RADIXers
>>> This letter is mainly for those who responded to my call for
>>> advice on
>>> how to deal with the presentation I gave last week on the Chinese
>>> earthquake. The meeting was co-hosted by Fondation Madariaga and the
>>> Chinese embassy to the European Union, and the Chinese ambassador
>>> was
>>> there along with many other officials. Two Chinese disaster
>>> specialist
>>> also spoke. You can see the programme and presentations at:
>>>
>>> http://www.madariaga.org/events/events-2008/46-2008/159-chinas-ability-to-cope-with-natural-disaster
>>>
>>> and see my Powerpoint.
>>>
>>> Because the issues are of general interest to RADIX, I am sharing
>>> these thoughts, but I do especially want to thank Ben Wisner, George
>>> Kent, Terry Jeggle, James Lewis and John Wiener for their
>>> substantial
>>> messages to me. (Apologies for not responding individually to you,
>>> and
>>> I hope I have not left anyone out).
>>>
>>> It really helped to have your thoughts, though I think it would open
>>> up a very good if we were to discuss on RADIX the issue of how we
>>> deal
>>> with our approach to governments that have significant authoritarian
>>> tendencies. That is why I am sending my response to the list: this
>>> is
>>> a very general issue.
>>>
>>> While I came to the view (as a result of most of the comments from
>>> the
>>> above) for this meeting that I should be ‘diplomatic’ and "engage"
>>> with the officials in Brussels, and that the approach should be
>>> one of
>>> supporting reform and reformers, I still have very serious doubts
>>> about whether that will actually have an effect.
>>>
>>> I realise that part of the problem with the Chinese regime is that
>>> it
>>> does not respond to external pressure, seeing it (in a parallel
>>> way to
>>> Mugabe and some South African ANC ministers) as imperialist attacks.
>>> So how should outsiders comment on Chinese repression?
>>>
>>> One of my approaches at the meeting was to make it quite clear
>>> that I
>>> am not criticising China in isolation from critical comments that
>>> could be made about many other countries. I started by talking about
>>> Hurricane Katrina as an example of bad government, and when I
>>> spoke of
>>> corruption (re schools that were not constructed properly) I
>>> emphasised that this has to be seen in much a wider context. For
>>> this
>>> I mentioned the recent global financial crisis as a product of (in
>>> effect) corrupt behaviour in western banks, the British Aerospace
>>> corruption (linked to the UK government) over arms sales, and the
>>> Common Agricultural Policy as an example of a policy designed to
>>> deny
>>> development to the poor and support the already rich – institutional
>>> corruption if you like.
>>>
>>> When I mentioned rights, and the essential need for civil society to
>>> be enabled in relation to community-based disaster preparedness, I
>>> emphasised that this was in order to allow citizens to HELP the
>>> government to ensure that the government fulfils its remit of
>>> protecting its own citizens. Civil society can therefore be part of
>>> the process by which government achieves its goals against
>>> corruption
>>> at lower levels, rather than a threat to government.
>>>
>>> All this came after a rather positive account of the emergency
>>> response effort of the Chinese government (AND ordinary people), so
>>> that it was in context.
>>>
>>> I don’t share the optimism of most of my advisors that engagement is
>>> the best (or only) route. While many Chinese may themselves be
>>> uncomfortable about repression (including that related to the
>>> earthquake and other disasters), what has engagement achieved over
>>> the
>>> past two decades? See below on the Olympics; the doctor who blew the
>>> whistle on SARS has regularly been placed under house arrest around
>>> June 4 each year in case she makes some other kind of protest.
>>>
>>> The bereaved parents who started a law case against local
>>> governments
>>> that oversaw school construction have had their case dismissed. The
>>> human rights lawyer Huang Qi who acted for some parents to make
>>> other
>>> claims was imprisoned last May, and is still in prison, accused of
>>> betraying state secrets (a catch all and indefensible accusation).
>>> He
>>> is seriously ill, and has been offered release only if he gives up
>>> his
>>> human rights activities.
>>>
>>> (Relating to the Olympics, the government had agreed to improve its
>>> reputation to allow civil society activities during the Games. It
>>> designated four areas in Beijing parks for people to hold
>>> demonstrations – for which they had to make an application. As far
>>> as
>>> I know, none were ever permitted. Two women in their 70s who applied
>>> to hold a protest about the demolition of their homes were arrested
>>> and held without charge. Others were harassed.)
>>>
>>> Some of my advisors argued that I should not make links between the
>>> collapse of schools and corruption and repression with other recent
>>> issues (toxic baby-milk, Amur river chemical discharge, SARS, AIDs
>>> scandals
>>> ). I understand that this approach would have made it
>>> difficult or impossible to make a supportive engagement to “work
>>> with
>>> reformers” in the system who also share these doubts. BUT the issues
>>> are all linked by the type of power that is operating in China,
>>> and I
>>> cannot see how we can avoid analysing and criticising this form of
>>> power and how it links to disasters.
>>>
>>> Given that part of our role (our duty) in RADIX is to make such
>>> analysis, how should we then relate it to action (and words) to make
>>> the analysis have an effect? This for me is the key missing link,
>>> and
>>> I am not convinced that “engagement” is an effective translation of
>>> our analysis into action.
>>>
>>> So this is where we need a debate on RADIX at least, to fathom out
>>> how
>>> we should do this.
>>>
>>> I am not against the idea of engagement if it can be shown that it
>>> works, and that it is preferable to making loud critical remarks (in
>>> order to achieve reduced vulnerability). But I am far from
>>> convinced.
>>> Engagement and support to reform and reformers is very similar to
>>> the
>>> position of the British (and other western)government on countries
>>> like China, and in my view it is in danger of becoming a cop-out. Is
>>> there a RADIXal version of engagement?
>>>
>>> At the end, the Ambassador commented that he enjoyed my presentation
>>> very much!
>>>
>>> best wishes
>>> Terry
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> University of Greenwich, a charity and company limited by guarantee,
>>> registered in England (reg. no. 986729). Registered office:
>>> Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, Greenwich, London SE10 9LS.
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>> This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> This mailing list is provided by ECIE.ORG for RADIX
>>> To post a message, send it to: radix at ecie.org
>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe:
>>> http://ecie.org/mailman/listinfo/radix
>>> See more information about ECIE: http://www.ecie.org/
>>> Radix - Radical Interpretations of Disaster:
>>> http://www.radixonline.org/
>>>
>>> End of Radix Digest, Vol 105, Issue 1
>>> *************************************
>>
>> Marla Petal
>>
>> mpetal at imagins.com
>> Home +41 22 740 2704
>> Mobile +41 76 240 8474
>> Skype: shmarla
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> This mailing list is provided by ECIE.ORG for RADIX
>> To post a message, send it to: radix at ecie.org
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe visit:
>> http://ecie.org/mailman/listinfo/radix
>> See more information about ECIE: http://www.ecie.org/
>> Radix - Radical Interpretations of Disaster:
>> http://www.radixonline.org/
>
Marla Petal
mpetal at imagins.com
Home +41 22 740 2704
Mobile +41 76 240 8474
Skype: shmarla
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.ecie.org/pipermail/radix/attachments/20090128/2a345a22/attachment-0001.htm
More information about the Radix
mailing list