The monsoon rains hit Pakistan hard. Every year, it seems, there are reports of floods that wipe out whole villages, destroying agriculture and property, and human life. Particularly catastrophic were last years’ floods, which directly affected some 20 million people, killing 2000 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. The total cost of the disaster remains to be seen, as the floods destroyed produce and farmland, driving up the cost of food and leaving countless people with no livelihood.
Now it’s happening again, according to ABC, this time in the Sindh, with 60,000 homeless and up to 700,000 affected.
An evil person like Pat Robertson might claim that these disasters are “acts of God,” punishment for the fact that most Pakistanis are unlucky enough to worship the wrong deity. I hope everyone reading this can easily see the problems with that view.
A less evil person might not attribute such disasters to God’s righteous judgment. Instead, the cause of the disaster is morally neutral: no one is to blame for such a tragedy. Sh*t happens. Are we going to charge the water cycle with murder and mass destruction?
My personal view is the polar opposite of Pat Robertson’s. I agree with him on one thing: we can make moral judgments about the cause of the suffering, there are people and forces to blame. However, it sure as hell isn’t the victims’ fault. Rather than the righteous wrath of an affronted deity poured out on people who deserve it, the flooding in Pakistan is a perfect example of structural violence.
How can a disaster like flooding be seen as structural violence? The first clue comes from the ABC article itself:
British charity Oxfam released a report last month warning that the government has failed to take precautions against further natural disasters.
1) Lack of infrastructure exacerbates the suffering caused by natural disasters. Contrast the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and it’s obvious how important a factor this is. In relatively wealthier Chile, building codes are more likely to be enforced, and the quality of architecture tends to be greater than that which is available to impoverished Haitians. In the case of a river flooding, everything from levies to an advance warning system could greatly minimize the life lost and the damage done, not to mention roads for evacuation and transporting supplies and relief personnel. Yet little such infrastructure exists. [Edit: The worsening situation has been attributed to poor drainage systems, another example of insufficient infrastructure.]
2) People often live in areas threatened by natural disasters because they have no choice. “Poor populations… are more likely to be exposed to hazards from which the rich can remove themselves” (Schrecker, 2007). In Pakistan, it is common for a few wealthy families to control an overwhelming share of the land in a given area. Because of this, the poor are forced to live where no one else will: often in the path of disasters.
3) Disproportionate response by relief efforts. The 2010 floods were a bigger disaster than Hurricane Katrina, but the latter received far more attention and relief action. This was largely due to a) the difference in available resources in Pakistan vs. the U.S. b) the fact that Pakistan, as a globally marginalized country, receives less attention from the international media c) the messy confluence of aid, military support, and drone attacks that is the United States’ policy in Pakistan.
Now, these are all obvious indicators of the inequalities that intensify vulnerability to–and suffering in the wake of–natural disasters. But in order to turn them into moral statements, one has to accept the claim that inequality = injustice. Which in this case, I do, for one simple reason:
History.
The inequality that Pakistanis currently face is the product of a long history of exploitation. It has its roots in colonialism, neoliberal globalization, and local struggles for power and land. It is not the natural state of things, and it is not morally neutral. And when it takes lives, the only decent response is to denounce it as violence.
“Poverty is not written in the stars; underdevelopment is not one of God’s mysterious designs.” -Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
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Update: As of September 12, according to UNICEF up to 2.5 million children have been affected by this year’s flooding in the Sindh (via BBC).
