What Country in the World is the Riskiest Place to Live?
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Kojo Douglas
The Kavasseur
I think Qatar would be pretty safe.
Risky is a relative term. This particular article seems to be focusing on environmental disasters.
Well, I'd pose the question differently. I'd look into things like trauma, war, abuse, terrorism, etc. As well as environmental disasters, of course. I think you'd come up with a very different list of countries than Vanuatu, Fiji, Japan, etc.
I've lived in South Sudan before and been to villages that were there one day, and gone the next. Witnessed armed warfare over boundaries, had to hear the screams of women being raped by soldiers - I think that seems worse than an impending environmental catastrophe.
Like the Flint, MI water scandal. A man-made disaster. It's worse than a natural disaster, because people had power and they either acted or didn't act to destroy peoples' lives.
Risky is a relative term. This particular article seems to be focusing on environmental disasters.
Well, I'd pose the question differently. I'd look into things like trauma, war, abuse, terrorism, etc. As well as environmental disasters, of course. I think you'd come up with a very different list of countries than Vanuatu, Fiji, Japan, etc.
I've lived in South Sudan before and been to villages that were there one day, and gone the next. Witnessed armed warfare over boundaries, had to hear the screams of women being raped by soldiers - I think that seems worse than an impending environmental catastrophe.
Like the Flint, MI water scandal. A man-made disaster. It's worse than a natural disaster, because people had power and they either acted or didn't act to destroy peoples' lives.
Kojo Douglas
The Kavasseur
Somalia, India, Central African Republic, DR Congo, North Korea, northern Nigeria, Burundi, Eritrea, Honduras, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen... I'd say those are "riskier" places across the board.
verticity
I'm interested in things
Yeah, the article actually says Qatar is the 'safest' because a natural disaster hasn't happened there in a long time. But I wouldn't want to live under the repressive political system.
And @Kavasseur I think you are right: if you look at the actual harm done I would bet harm from man's cruelty to his fellow man would be much greater than that from periodic natural disasters..
And @Kavasseur I think you are right: if you look at the actual harm done I would bet harm from man's cruelty to his fellow man would be much greater than that from periodic natural disasters..
I cannot believe NZ is considered to be as risky as Aussie. Our biggest city is built on top of a massive volcanic field, our capital "lies within the earthquake-generating collision zone between two of the Earth's great tectonic plates, and sits on top of one of the zone's most active geological faults - the Wellington Fault". Our third largest city was nearly totally destroyed a few years ago by a massive quake. We've got heaps of active volcanoes. A pretty risky situation, I'd say.
However, we don't have any dangerous spiders or snakes, so maybe that's what makes Australia seem so risky
However, we don't have any dangerous spiders or snakes, so maybe that's what makes Australia seem so risky
verticity
I'm interested in things
It seemed remarkable actually, when Cyclone Pam happened last year I expected a lot of people to die, but the actual number of fatalities was very low. Probably because 1) They are used to cyclones, so know how to prepare for them, where to go to ride them out, and 2) Vanuatu seems like a society where people really care about each other and take care of each other.
Kojo Douglas
The Kavasseur
Also, I think living on the Arabian peninsula (in Qatar) would be environmentally risky if you didn't have air conditioning, access to clean water, and other variables that make it a livable place. And yes, I would not want to live under a repressive regime. I've had to do that a few times and it isn't fun.
Kojo Douglas
The Kavasseur
I actually did research on the Solomon Islands addressing this very issue. I'm a co-author on a paper about how traditional knowledge protects indigenous peoples from being overwhelmed by natural disasters: https://scholar.google.com/citation...J&citation_for_view=U8PvkdMAAAAJ:eQOLeE2rZwMC
I think people are generally altruistic and helpful. A few years ago I was sent to Japan to write about some post-Fukushima stuff and I remember reading all those stories about how wonderful the Japanese are when it comes to dealing with natural disasters (as opposed to people in other places, as it was argued). I found that suggestion suspicious so did a bit of research. I cannot find my own article (published 5 years ago) on this issue ,but here's a good one I agree with: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...of-the-panicking-disaster-victim-2245014.html
verticity
I'm interested in things
But you have those terrifying kiwi birds: I heard they can eat children and small animals.I cannot believe NZ is considered to be as risky as Aussie. Our biggest city is built on top of a massive volcanic field, our capital "lies within the earthquake-generating collision zone between two of the Earth's great tectonic plates, and sits on top of one of the zone's most active geological faults - the Wellington Fault". Our third largest city was nearly totally destroyed a few years ago by a massive quake. We've got heaps of active volcanoes. A pretty risky situation, I'd say.
However, we don't have any dangerous spiders or snakes, so maybe that's what makes Australia seem so risky
verticity
I'm interested in things
Well, as an American I just remember Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where the people in New Orleans were basically abandoned by the government. Truly a shameful episode in our history. Now a couple years ago there were floods here in Colorado, and people were great about helping out their neighbors during that; I think the problem happens when a group of people who are in a position to help is disconnected from or does not identify with the victims of the disaster.
Kojo Douglas
The Kavasseur
Yep. It's called environmental justice. There is a whole field of anthropology that studies the relationship between culture, society, and politics in responses to natural disasters. Many of history's biggest famines have been a result of political decisions and have often been intentional.
Have you read that article by Hari?
Do you agree with his assessment of the popular perception of what happened in NO?
"Yet there are a few examples stubbornly fixed in the popular imagination of people reacting to a natural disaster by becoming primal and vicious. Remember the gangs "marauding" through New Orleans, raping and even cannibalising people in the Super-Dome after Hurricane Katrina? It turns out they didn't exist. Years of journalistic investigations showed them to be racist rumours with no factual basis. Yes, there was some "looting" – which consisted of starving people breaking into closed and abandoned shops for food. Of course human beings can behave atrociously – but the aftermath of a disaster seems to be the time when it is least likely."
Zizek made a similar point (though he later swims into much more controversial waters):
"The events in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck the city provide a new addition to this series of “subjects supposed to…” — the subject supposed to loot and rape. We all remember the reports on the disintegration of public order, the explosion of black violence, rape and looting. However, later inquiries demonstrated that, in the large majority of cases, these alleged orgies of violence did not occur: Non-verified rumours were simply reported as facts by the media. For example, on September 3, the Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department told the New York Times about conditions at the Convention Center: “The tourists are walking around there, and as soon as these individuals see them, they ‘re being preyed upon. They are beating, they are raping them in the streets.” In an interview just weeks later, he conceded that some of his most shocking statements turned out to be untrue: “We have no official reports to document any murder. Not one official report of rape or sexual assault.”
The reality of poor blacks, abandoned and left without means to survive, was thus transformed into the specter of blacks exploding violently, of tourists robbed and killed on streets that had slid into anarchy, of the Superdome ruled by gangs that were raping women and children. These reports were not merely words, they were words that had precise material effects: They generated fears that caused some police officers to quit and led the authorities to change troop deployments, delay medical evacuations and ground helicopters. Acadian Ambulance Company, for example, locked down its cars after word came that armed robbers had looted all of the water from a firehouse in Covington—a report that proved totally untrue.
Of course, the sense of menace had been ignited by genuine disorder and violence: Looting, ranging from base thievery to foraging for the necessities of life, did occur after the storm passed over New Orleans. However, the (limited) reality of crimes in no way exonerates “reports” on the total breakdown of law and order—not because these reports were “exaggerated,” but for a much more radical reason. Jacques Lacan claimed that, even if the patient’s wife is really sleeping around with other men, the patient ‘s jealousy is still to be treated as a pathological condition. In a homologous way, even if rich Jews in early 1930s Germany “really” had exploited German workers, seduced their daughters and dominated the popular press, the Nazis ’ anti-Semitism would still have been an emphatically “untrue,” pathological ideological condition. Why? Because the causes of all social antagonisms were projected onto the “Jew”—an object of perverted love-hatred, a spectral figure of mixed fascination and disgust.
And exactly the same goes for the looting in New Orleans: Even if all the reports on violence and rapes had proven to be factually true, the stories circulating about them would still be “pathological” and racist, since what motivated these stories were not facts, but racist prejudices, the satisfaction felt by those who would be able to say: “You see, Blacks really are like that, violent barbarians under the thin layer of civilization!” In other words, we would be dealing with what could be called lying in the guise of truth: Even if what I am saying is factually true, the motives that make me say it are false." http://libcom.org/library/subject-supposed-loot-rape-slavoj-i-ek
verticity
I'm interested in things
I will admit I didn't read it, but, yes I am in agreement. The situation in New Orleans was charactarized in the media as total anarchy with mobs of [black] people roaming the streets. That perception was certainly part of the problem of getting timely help to the people there. And I am not surprised at all to hear this research saying that that perception was totally false. Nonetheless, a lot of people died in New Orleans, while the government and the rest of the country stood by. That is exactly what I am talking about.
nabanga
Kava Enthusiast
That's true, most of this type of newspaper article are based on statistics and are twisted in whichever way provides the best headline.I cannot believe NZ is considered to be as risky as Aussie. Our biggest city is built on top of a massive volcanic field, our capital "lies within the earthquake-generating collision zone between two of the Earth's great tectonic plates, and sits on top of one of the zone's most active geological faults - the Wellington Fault". Our third largest city was nearly totally destroyed a few years ago by a massive quake. We've got heaps of active volcanoes. A pretty risky situation, I'd say.
However, we don't have any dangerous spiders or snakes, so maybe that's what makes Australia seem so risky
Vanuatu has cyclones like the rest of the Pacific. Earthquakes do no real damage as everything is made from wood except churches and resorts.
I went to an exhibition in the Auckland Museum a few years ago that showed what would happen if Rangitoto blew up - that's a volcanic cone island that came out of the sea just 500 years ago, and is now a huge island in front of Auckland harbour.
If it erupted, and it will one day, the exhibition showed it will have the same effect as a nuke, wiping out all of the downtown area instantly and then further. It happened before in NZ in Taupo, less then 800 or so years ago, and the explosion was noticed in Europe.
I'd say NZ was way up there in dangerous places to live in terms of natural disasters rather than man-made ones, and the Christchurch quake was just a reminder.
Yes, the volcanoes section of the museum is quite scary. I can see Rangitoto both from my home and from my office and I sometimes think about that short clip from the museum
And yes, Taupo is worse. I think the last massive eruption was 1,800 years ago and it was indeed noticed in Europe (by the romans): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatepe_eruption
Kojo Douglas
The Kavasseur
Humanity's greatest tragedies have been self-inflicted.