Metaphorically speaking, Italy has had its share of earthquakes over the past few years. After Berlusconi’s government was dissolved in order to make way for Mario Monti’s technical government, life was turned upside down with the introduction of new taxes, the eruption of financial scandals involving all major political parties, and the success of comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in the elections of February 2013.

Further, in May 2012, Italy was shook up in a more literal way. The Northern region of Emilia-Romagna was struck by a heavy earthquake, which was repeated ten days later. A year has passed and much has yet to be done. Nevertheless, during the anniversary, politicians and the media indulged in a triumphant rhetoric that highlighted the great commitment of citizens and institutions in the reconstruction of “Emilia” (the western and north-eastern part of the region, where the epicenter of the earthquake was based). A reconstruction has yet to begin, leading to an explosion of local grassroots committees consisting of people who were affected both by the earthquake and by a bureaucratic rigmarole. The state bureaucracy has complicated the lives of the locals, this in a climate of crisis and austerity. As the state has responded only to the degree that it serves private corporate interests, citizens were left to fend for themselves, repeating a historic pattern.

The Emilia earthquake represents the last in a series of natural disasters in Italy, which never really produced any progressive legislation capable of transmitting know-how to future generations. A law was first passed in the 1970s, in the wake of two catastrophes that drew wide media attention. In 1980, a disastrous earthquake in the mountainous Irpinia region (Southern Italy) further sensitized public opinion, leading to the creation – in 1982 – of the Ministry of Civil Protection. However, the national civil protection system originated only in 1992, whereas the first legislative decree that would give the Italian regions executive powers was created years later (for a brief history of civil protection in Italy see David E. Alexander, “The Evolution of Civil Protection in Modern Italy,” in John Dickie, John Foot and Frank M. Snowden (eds), Disastro! Disasters in Italy since 1860: Culture, Politics, Society, New York: Palgrave, 2002).

Rather than being focused on the prevention of catastrophes and the safeguarding of citizens, civil protection legislation in Italy has thus been subjugated to political games and economical lines of reasoning.

An earthquake that struck the Northern Friuli region, in 1976, played an important role in this process. For the first time, both the first aid and the reconstruction phases occurred on a more local level. As a consequence, the reconstruction of Friuli followed a logic which was also adopted after a 1997 earthquake in Central Italy: it consisted in the safeguarding of the original organization of the affected locations as opposed to relocation and decentralization, which had instead been applied in Irpinia in the 1980s and – more recently – in the city of L’Aquila, devastated by an earthquake in 2009. Here the Italian Civil Protection regained the hierarchical and centralized format of the pre-Friuli period, in line with Berlusconi’s attempts – throughout the 2000s – to expand the power of the head of government through the Civil Protection.

This reflects what Naomi Klein (2008) has defined “disaster capitalism” or “economic shock treatment”: the exploitation of the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks, such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks, in order to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. In The Shock Doctrine, Klein criticizes Milton Friedman’s ideas about the pushing through of reforms in the wake of catastrophic events, a mechanism that was also adopted by the Italian civil protection system. In the management of the Irpinia earthquake of 1980, for example, “modern” forms of living were pushed through, such as the widening of the typically narrow streets of the medieval towns so as to create more parking space. Similarly, the imposition of a specific way of life upon people marked the reconstruction of L’Aquila, in particular through the creation of New Towns. The latter consisted of a mass of buildings in a peripheral area for some 15,000 evacuees, creating lucrative building opportunities exploited by major companies supervised by the state, at the expense of local businesses. In addition, the New Towns strongly isolated people from the urban context and eliminated those collective places where people used to meet and socialize, resulting in the persistence of a sense of trauma.

The city of L’Aquila itself, however, has remained untouched. Four years later it is a ghost town, a future prey to real estate speculation. The reconstruction process has turned out to be no more than a political and economical bargain for the Civil Protection and for Berlusconi’s government, aimed as it was at accelerating “processes of privatization and the embezzlement of space, power, rights, nearly always to the advantage of a few, and profiteering choices at the expense of a democratic decision-making procedure.” (Stefano Ventura in Sismografie, Ritornare a L’Aquila mille giorni dopo il sisma, 2012, p. 20).

The L’Aquila case, then, reflects the incapacity and unwillingness of the Italian state to intervene adequately in similar situations, as also happened after the Irpinia earthquake, where “[s]elf-help was the only form of aid” (Alexander, p. 171). The absence of the state is indeed reflected in the fact that Italians have often had to find alternative solutions to natural disasters, such as self-help and volunteerism. Similarly, delay in bringing aid has been “a recurrent theme in Italian disasters” (ibid.): first aid after the Irpinia earthquake was delayed by 24 to 30 hours, whereas squanders and scandals in the reconstruction process earned it the nickname of “Irpiniagate,” contributing to a highly negative, collective memory of earthquakes in Italy.

Perhaps it was this memory that induced the mayor of L’Aquila to make the provocative statement – in a TV interview during the 4th anniversary of the L’Aquila earthquake, in April 2013 – about “disconnecting” L’Aquila from Italy if funds were not released for the reconstruction of the city. His anxiety reflects the risk that L’Aquila will end up like the Irpinia region or like Messina, the port city near the northeast corner of Sicily which witnessed massive emigration after a devastating earthquake in 1908.

In spite of the rigid and military control of the Civil Protection in L’Aquila, in the tent camps that were set up after the earthquake, a number of initiatives developed in which local inhabitants tried to gain a more active and democratic role in the reconstruction process, allowing them to become social actors in a bottom-up process. The grassroots mobilization in Emilia offers another example of this type of engagement. If a state fails to provide adequate civil protection and resolve bureaucratic problems, all the while promoting a false image of the reconstruction process, it is up to the people – as happens too often in Italy – to speak out and claim their rights.

In the wake of the trifecta of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his colleagues have donned the blue uniforms of first responders, suggesting they are working tirelessly. But despite his efforts to handle the biggest crisis in Japan since Hiroshima, Kan has not won the hearts of his countrymen, whose apprehension and distrust increases each morning when they turn on the news to learn of increasing radioactivity, the plummeting stock market, and the soaring death toll. As it turns out, blue uniforms are not enough.

History has taught us that disasters and mass emergencies can transform a mediocre politician into an inspiring leader. The 1944 San Juan earthquake in Argentina that killed more than 10,000 people, earned Juan Perón instant esteem, as well as a glamorous wife, Evita. Ten years ago, the rubble at Ground Zero in New York City transformed George W. Bush from an alleged illegitimate president to a folk hero shepherding the nation through crisis. For Kan, the challenges of Sendai have opportunities and pitfalls. But so far, Kan’s focus on the rubble has not brought the Japanese together in common purpose.

Where did Kan go wrong? To be sure, there is a Japanese cultural style, But nowadays politicians must be aware of new global expectations, which call for a man of compassion and empathy, a man of the people. Consider Wen Jiabao. Two hours after China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he jumped on a plane bound for the area struck by disaster. Soon he was seen walking around in the devastated community, telling children who were buried in a half-collapsed building that “Grandpa Wen is here with you.” The politics of emotion in action. Hundreds of millions of Chinese watched Wen shedding tears, angrily slamming his cellphone at slacking officials, and hugging wailing orphans. Just as Bill Clinton, Wen realized that a politician must feel your pain. As a result, the Chinese felt sheltered instead of afraid. A few cynics have called Wen “the best actor in China,” but many more see him as the father of the nation. Wen’s recent remarks about democracy even kindled the flame of hope in some political dissidents’ hearts. Is he acting? Maybe. But the performance works!

For all his skills, Kan learned little from China’s Premier, the now beloved “Grandpa Wen.” Kan urged people to remain calm, meanwhile muting his own reactions. This may work in times of trouble when the world is under control. Perhaps this was the Japanese style in a world before global media, but today it seems apathetic and passive. In the new Asia, Kan must express emotions on the public stage, by daring to show compassion and by “being there.” After a disaster of the current magnitude, a nation searches for a leader who can rally the people with inspiring words, with displaying sincere compassion, and reassuring the frightened with his presence. Disaster politics do not consist of bureaucratic responses but of performances facilitated by symbols and gestures. People desire a leader who is able to share and articulate their emotions. We want to find him or her in the wreckages and in the crowded shelters. When George Bush decided not to touch down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina something was forever lost.  In contrast, Wen Jiabao’s swift action was taken as a sign of the Chinese government’s concern, even while most rescuers had not yet arrived at the scene.

Political success belongs to the swift and to the empathetic. Before Wen Jiabao, there was also Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor,” who rushed to the World Trade Center on 9/11. Sadly, Kan better resembles  George Bush after Katrina than Guiliani after the terrorist attacks. Hovering above the decimation is no replacement for having mud on your shoes and radiation in your lungs. Kan did what politicians used to do. He managed. But he failed at what politicians must do now. He didn’t perform. When he finally decided to go to the area, blue uniform and all, it was too late. As the emotional atmosphere had changed, the rubble on Kan’s shoes did not produce a positive effect.

The one Japanese politician who has become widely admired is not the prime minister, but Yukio Edano, the spokesman of the Japanese government. His success rests on his red eyes: he has been so omnipresent that the Japanese people believe he hasn’t slept since the quake. Japanese Twitter users, moved by his devotion, now routinely tweet, “Edano, sleep!” This echoes the comments of Chinese online users about Premier Wen Jiabao, also believed to have worked around the clock after the Sichuan quake: “Please, Grandpa, get some sleep!”

When citizens tell a politician that he needs rest, he surely is doing something right.

When I first read Elzbieta Matynia’s response to the massive earthquake in Japan, I respected the sincerity of her judgment, but thought that it was a bit much. It seemed to me that actually the news reports I was reading suggested a much more positive story than the one she seemed to be reading. The earthquake was the most severe in recorded Japanese history, much more powerful than the devastating ones in Haiti and Chile. Yet the death toll seemed to be quite modest, a little more than one hundred people. This suggested to me the wonders of modern technology. As the father of an architect, I was proud of what humans can do when they put their minds to it.

Then the reports began to come in about the tsunami, reminding me, reminding us, the limits of human power in the face of a massive natural force. My decision to introduce Elzbieta’s reflections with the suggestion that perhaps thousands have been killed, even though at the time the estimate was still between one and two hundred, were sadly justified. Now in the video reports we tremble in fear at the power the devastation reveals. This clearly puts us in our place.

But it is the third dimension of the disaster, human and not natural, that is the most humbling. While the wonders of technology are revealed in minimizing the effects of the earthquake, the dangers of our technology are revealed in the still escalating nuclear disaster. It reminds us that we are capable of destroying our world, demonstrating the deadly potential of atoms for peace, along with atoms for war.

Indian Point Energy Center © Daniel Case | Wikimedia Commons

I feel compassion, perhaps pity, for the victims in Japan, something that we will return to tomorrow in a post on distant suffering. But given the powers of modern media and given that I write these reflections a few miles downstream from the Indian Point (Nuclear) Energy Center, the suffering doesn’t seem that distant.

As I suggested earlier, this requires political action, preceded by deliberation. Wise folk tell us that given global warming, we must use nuclear energy, such as Energy Secretary Steven Chu, but others warn that this is a power that ultimately can’t be tamed, more like a tsunami than an earthquake. Now is the time for informed deliberate debate.

The powerful earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan and the resulting tsunami has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people and caused widespread damage. We at Deliberately Considered mourn the losses.

Our colleague in South Africa, who is preparing to return to New York, sent the following note expressing her frame of mind. I post her thoughts as an expression of human solidarity. -Jeff

Pacific, this morning: Cry for Politics of the Earth

Whatever we have been arguing about recently, seems today like a petty politics. Forget about the petty politics within borders. Forget about the neighbor that might look different, and therefore feels distant. You and I and he and she need solidarity for the survival of humanity. I know that this sounds hopelessly pompous. Forget about it. Today’s news gives new meaning to the call to Save the Earth. It is a cry.

Today’s progressive politics should be about the right of the habitat not to be violated by its inhabitants — not to be destroyed — hence about the survival of the Earth and about a deep respect for the Earth, about the right to have a place to live and for it to be a livable place. We need a Contract with the Earth. It is a cry.