29/12/2004 12:21:47 pm
Will We Learn From the Tragedy? The tragedy following the tsunami in Southeast Asia gets worse by the hour. Now, the death toll has reached 67 000. Media tells of a horrifying place where rescue operations are far too limited. One might ask what had happened if such a tsunami had taken place outside Western Europe. Would our far wealthier societies have been much more efficient in handling the catastrophe? My spontaneous reply would of course be yes; free and prosperous societies have great resources to save lives and care for the survivors. But I also suspect that the difference would have been smaller than one might expect. It all has to do with human risk aversion. People everywhere act as if unlikely things will not happen at all. We smoke tobacco, drive cars, climb mountains and protect us from terror in far too limited ways - until disasters strike. The richer parts of the world are not very prepared for the dangers of nature either. Saying this is not to be cynical or claiming that we should never take risks. My point is that we should learn from disasters like this. And if that is to happen, we have to remember how easy it may be just to go back to business as usual after some time when the worst memories have faded.