The cultural dimension of disasters

The cultural dimension of disasters

Koen Meyers
Jakarta

The earthquake and tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004 has caused more
than two hundred thousand victims and evoked a tremendous impact
on the livelihood systems of coastal communities in the region,
i.e. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South India, Thailand and the
Maldives.

The warning regarding the disaster came too late or not at all
for many coastal communities. One of the main reasons attributed
to the high death toll was the lack of an Indian Ocean Tsunami
Early Warning System (EWS) to detect tsunamis and warn coastal
communities. Despite the strong commitment of many countries
towards the establishment of tsunami warning systems, major
issues regarding the level of preparedness for future similar
disasters still need to be addressed.

An important component of the EWS is the presence of
communication infrastructure to ensure that the end receiver will
obtain a timely warning. However, such infrastructure may be too
expensive and not available to many coastal communities in the
region.

Other issues related to operating the EWS in developing
nations include the risk that a top-down warning will not
generate the expected outcome at the community level. Even if
people are warned about disasters, they might hesitate to
evacuate or take necessary precautions due to their livelihood
situation. The choice communities have to make in leaving behind
and risking the loss or damage of their limited belongings is
often a decision which involves putting at risk the future of
their livelihoods.

Taking into account the situation of coastal communities in
the region, community education and awareness is therefore the
most important component of disaster EWS. One important aspect
often overlooked in disaster preparedness related education is
the power of local culture in raising awareness and preparing
communities.

An example often used to promote the importance of education
as a component of the EWS is that of a 10 year old British girl
named Tilly Smith who studied tsunamis in geography class at
school and recognized the warning signs of the receding ocean in
northern Phuket, Thailand. Though the case, which was picked up
and widely exposed by the media, stresses the importance of
education, more "local" and "appropriate" cases of successful
disaster reduction strategies like the one in Simeulue often
remain relatively unknown to the broad public.

The low death toll on Simeulue Island, which is located very
close to the Aceh earthquake, is related to an "ancestral
experience" in 1907, when an earthquake generated a tsunami and
killed a large number of the island's dwellers. When the
earthquake hit the island on Dec. 26, 2004, the inhabitants of
Simeulue left their houses to observe the sea water level. When
they noticed that the seawater was receding, the community
immediately started evacuating to higher grounds.

Many other communities in the region have shared similar
experiences, in which the disaster became embedded in the
community's collective conscience and transformed into folklore
and customary practices. As many communities throughout the
region have been living in the disaster-prone areas for over
thousands of years, their cultures have been exposed to major
natural disasters.

Historical disaster experiences have been incorporated in many
still-existing local perceptions in preparing and dealing with
disasters that often consist of efficient self-help strategies,
as proven by the Simeuleu case.

The two channels through which grassroots culture interprets
and deals with disasters are folklore (e.g. legends, songs,
memorials and stories) and customary practices (e.g. settlement
patterns, architecture and resource use). Folklore is in this
case a product of a cultural interpretation of a disaster and is
used within that setting as a popular tool for people to "learn"
about disasters.

Examples as the biblical story of Noah are very old tools in
advertising the dangers of flood to a broader public. In the
region, the Hindu Puranas tell the story of a great flood in
which the ancestor of humankind Manu was saved by an incarnation
of Brahma the Lord of Creation, or in later accounts Vishnu, the
Lord of Preservation, appearing as a gigantic fish that towed his
boat to safety.

The 1927 Mississippi flood experience was translated into
Bleus songs like When the Levee Breaks, Tallahacie River Blues
and Risin' High Water Blues. In Siberut, Mentawai archipelago,
West-Sumatra, Indonesia, there is children's song with lyrics
about an earthquake and a tsunami. However, the song lost its
meaning over time as societal changes have led to the erosion of
traditional knowledge and it was not until the recent tsunami
that UNESCO staff working in Siberut started reinterpreting and
fully understanding the song and using it as an awareness tool.

The word "Teteu" in Mentawaian means both grandfather and
earthquake. Local people thought the song told the story of an
angry grandfather, whilst in actual fact it simply describes a
detailed picture of what happened during an earthquake and
tsunami. Many songs and stories, which are found in communities
all over the region, reflect societal and individual experiences
with disasters and are passed on to new generations.

Disaster-inspired cultural products of the everyday are made
and consumed by grassroots communities and play therefore an
important role in shaping knowledge of people. Most people learn
about disasters and disaster behavior through cultural products,
underlining their educational value in raising awareness of
people.

These products are the interpretation of disasters and are
often conceived in such way that they allow an easy understanding
and response to disasters without having to experience them and
without a basic scientific understanding on disasters. These so-
called popular representations of disasters and related responses
are often more effective in raising community awareness than the
information disseminated by emergency organizations.

The second channel through which grassroots cultures interpret
and deal with disasters is customary practices and knowledge. Due
to historical exposure to disasters, communities have learnt
important lessons and developed strategies to anticipate, reduce,
mitigate and respond to disasters.

The disaster-derived practices and knowledge are open to
adaptations over time community experiences change as well as the
social, economic, political, cultural and natural environment of
the community.

The first level of understanding is a conscious understanding
of the practices and knowledge, allowing people to derive
specific -- often life-saving -- responses and actions when
facing a disaster. A good example of such conscious understanding
is the case of Simeuleu where people can read the signs of a
coming tsunami.

Due to its immense scale, the December tragedy had a
significant impact on community perceptions regarding disasters.
The collective conscience of many communities affected by the
tsunami is thought to have been seriously influenced by the
event.

The writer is a consultant for UNESCO Office in Jakarta.