11
‘If we possess our why of life we can put up with almost any how ’. F r i e d r i c h Ni etz s c h e
If disaster interventions do not consider the role of religion they are missing a very important point. SO says DR Claudia Merli, an anthropologist at Durham University who has witnessed firsthand how people use religious ideas to frame disasters in an attempt to put order back into their lives. Despite the secular views of those who inhabit the richer, more developed and technologically advanced parts of the world, religion still plays a fundamental role within societies. Religion influences what many people wear, what language they speak, the food they eat and most of all how they perceive the world. In times of disaster and crisis people use religion in a variety of ways from social and political control to assisting humanitarian aid efforts, but also to cope with the hardships they face when so much around them, such as the people they love and their homes, have been lost or damaged. Yet despite its pervasive influence, risk research tends to overlook or ignore the role of religion in interpreting disaster. During catastrophe there are often few, if any answers as to why it may have occurred that are available to those most affected. Thus religious ideas are used to inform disaster victims’ sense of purpose in life. Religion is an important stepping stone for many disaster-affected communities, allowing them to surpass immense obstacles.
For others it can be used as a tool to maintain political dominance. Furthermore, religious ideas or philosophy not only serve as a ‘coping mechanism’, a way for people to put things behind them and move on with their lives, they also set the tone and setting within communities prior to a disaster. Religion forms an intricate part of the social, psychological and cultural makeup of a ‘natural’ or ‘technological’ disaster to such a degree that it seems inseparable from the actual physical event. How does it influence the impacts of disaster and what should governments, NGOs, researchers and emergency aid workers know about the role religion plays in the lives of communities they are providing assistance to? How should religion be considered when designing policy to assist less developed countries that may have few material resources to prepare for, or deal with large-scale hazards, such as an earthquake or volcanic eruption? Researching disaster means more than looking at statistics about the local populations affected and more even than understanding the physical nature of the hazard that led to it. For those impacted, it comes down to their cultural identity and what disaster means to them. While natural scientists resort to scientific explanations as to how a disaster occurred in order to make sense of the event, those affected often use religious, cosmological ideas to make disasters intelligible. It is also for this reason that they are able to adapt to the aftermath of a disaster and begin to pick up the pieces of their lives. /// CONTINUED