Cambodia’s tragedy – some further thoughts (or a bit of a rant!!!) on the wider issues.
on So Now It's Cambodia (Cambodia), 27/Nov/2010 04:58, 34 days ago
Having just passed a group of Cambodians standing by the road next to an empty truck it looked as if they had been stopped by the police. They may have been stopped due to there being too many people on the truck– this is a common sight here. Maybe they didn’t have enough money for the bribe – sorry, I mean fine….were the police concerned for their safety???The following views are entirely my own gathered during the last year from a variety of sources and not being an expert, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any references to legal matters or information I have read in the media.Many see the police as fine collectors and not one of managing crowds of people effectively. To be fair, an attempt was made as our return from Sihanoukville on Monday was frustrated by road closures to limit traffic near the river, having learnt from the gridlock (which we“enjoyed” on our tuk tuk!) of last year.A common theme amongst us volunteers out here is Health& Safety. We think about it, discuss it and write about it on facebook and on our blogs. So why do we do this so much? I obviously have painful reasons for feeling strongly about this!(for those who don’t know, I fractured my ankle stepping into a pothole whilst walking on St. 19 in Phnom Penh 3 months ago!) and no one wants to be smart or smug or say I told you so after such serious and tragic events but a common comment here among the expats or volunteers is that we saw it coming or that it was an accident waiting to happen. Having said that, I don’t suppose many could have imagined the scale of the horrific events that took place last Monday.I know of volunteers who left the crowded streets of the water festival because they deemed them to be too dangerous– this was hours before the tragedy at the bridge. We chose not to go the main areas “because of the crowds”. Yet, thousands, maybe millions of Khmers didn’t feel it was so dangerous that they should leave the area and presumably the authorities didn’t see sufficient risk in the situationto do anything about it either. To be fair, the latest accounts are saying that some people panicked on the bridge because the mainly rural people who had never been on a swaying bridge before panicked and started jumping and grabbing electric cables to help themselves which then electrocuted them (although some sources deny electrocution took place). This, not surprisingly, caused further panic with devastating consequences.My first reaction was (after years of trying to manage groups of school children) why didn’t they enforce a one way system and maybe a phased departure? – but it may not be as simple as that.The very fact that we have remarked on so many amazing sights since coming here -which can be quite entertaining - is that so many of them seem to be tempting fate and putting people in unnecessary danger (we even have a book on Cambodian transport with numerous photos of a variety of forms of transport being pile high in gravity defying ways!). Yet it is“allowed” to go on.One of the volunteers in our group specialises in behaviour change. So, why do people take such risks and why is the infrastructure often so dangerous? What will it take to change this behaviour? Maybe this tragedy?Lack of information is one reason. I heard recently that volunteers speaking to Khmers found that they had never heard that smoking is bad for you and for the people around you when you smoke. I’ve just seen a report quoting statistics about the effects of passive smoking around the world – South East Asia suffering amongst the highest. The internet is widely available in Cambodia so this information must be as well. Maybe they’ve never heard that filling a truck with too many peopleand motos and people hanging off the back was potentially bad for you either! Maybe they don’t know that not wearing seat belts is potentially bad for you or drinking and driving, overtaking like maniacs or leaving electric wires exposed, not having any earth wires in the country or broken roadsand pavements, or cats on the bar in the kitchen or not washing your hands after going to the toilet, driving without lights at night, driving on the wrong side of the road to save time, vehicles in appalling condition that would be scrapped in England, are potentially dangerous for you - and so onand so on.It’s easy to sound “holier than thou” in all this and in the west we can be heard to complain about the “nanny state”, too many laws too rigidly applied, moaning about the police, the health service, having to spend money on an MOT, too many PC behaviours that drive you crazy… but there are reasons for this and we understand that there is an underlying care for our safety. Cynics might say this might not just be wholly caring, of course - some people just don’t want to be sued as we live in a liability culture!In England there is a culture of being held responsible for your actions whereas in Cambodia there is a culture of impunity. Traffic accident issues are often sorted out at the roadside, as far as I know– no long drawn out insurance claims. If you are powerful enough you are never liable! (so I’m told!). So who is responsible for this behaviour? Or to put it another way: who is responsible for changing this behaviour?You’ve probably got the answers yourself already. I am old enough to remember when drinking and driving and not wearing seatbelts in England were not offences and not in the public domain as being dangerous activities. I remember not liking the loss of freedom when having to wear a seatbelt in the early days - I think Jimmy Saville’s “clunk click every trip” campaign helped us all change our behaviour. Now, I am very aware of the risks I would be taking and of the legal consequences if caught.So what changed my behaviour? Clearly, public information campaigns in the media and the strong arm of the law ie. consequences for actions would be the main reasons. Similarly with smoking. Another of my hobby horses is the extent of smoking out here. I’m affected when smoke blows into my lungs from others smoking when I’m in a restaurant. EG. I’m drafting this article in a taxi on the way to Siem Reap from PNH. I had a lovely meal in Kampong Thom then a group of Khmer men sat at the next table and most of them lit cigarettes and one a cigar…. but it’s not just the Khmers who don’t know this is antisocial and harmful to health, the “borangs” do it as well! I regularly put a comment about it on the customer satisfaction sheet at the FCC in PNH after another lovely meal is spoilt by having to inhale other people’s smoke.One feature of Cambodia which appeals to some westerners (so I am told) is that it is a pretty lawless society. So it appeals to westerners who are tired of western restrictions on their behaviour. So, they must know about the issues surrounding smoking due to advertising and smoking bans (in Britain at least) yet resume the old behaviour as soon as they get a chance– so education or awareness can’t be the issue here. This brings me back to behaviour change and who is responsible for it.I’m not a sociology expert but it seems that we all need a combination of education and legal enforcement to persuade us to change our behaviour. The other much more subtle factor is, of course, social attitudes and acceptability. People are influenced by peer pressure. Witness the smoking ban in the UK – was it just the law that changed acceptable behaviour so effectively?Another cause of stress here (and not just for foreigners I believe) is the noise from weddings in the street. Everyone complains about them but no one changes them.All of this leads me to summarise that the lead has to come from the authorities. People need information about harmful behaviours but the authorities have the means to educate, inform and to enforce change. However, a huge factor in all this is if the authorities know about the dangers (including any of those listed at the beginning and probably many more) do they care enough to do anything about it???!!!I was surprised to read in an interview with a bystander at the bridge that he thought the police didn’t do enough to help the victims. It’s unusual to read this type of criticism and maybe the eyes of the world being on Cambodia for a while will shock the government into a more proactive approach to public health and safety. I, for one, certainly hope it does. However much some may say any individuals on the island should have been responsible for their own safety, nevertheless, they were caught up in a crowd situation and crowds have to be managed.In conclusion, the following weeks and months will be filled with recriminations and avoidance of responsibility from many quarters– indeed it’s already started, but it would be another tragedy for Cambodia if that’s all that happens and there are no lasting changes in behaviour here.I (and I’m sure millions around the world) hope that some good can come out of this tragedy. I didn’t ever expect to see and hear the Prime Minister, Mr. Hun Sen, crying in public during my time here. He’s also saying just how much he has been affected by seeing his people suffer in this way and vowsto learn from this. I sincerely hope that he follows this with a thorough review of health and safety in this beautiful country so that the quality of life and life expectancy is improved for all for many years to come. If he needs any advice - I’m sure there are plenty of volunteers!!!