Culture can be defined as the predominating attitudes and behaviour that characterize the functioning of a particular group or society. This may include belief systems, religion, (ancestral) traditions and values, modes of expression and community structures and functioning. Cultural attitudes can differ from person to person, region to region and country to country. Death is not only a biological phenomenon but also a sociocultural event with resultant behaviours, ceremonies, rituals and beliefs (Bahar et al., 2012). Attitudes surrounding death are more deeply rooted in some cultures and a disaster may therefore have long-term implications if inappropriately handled without due care for cultural sensitivities. Appropriate actions by the Government to identify and inter the victims according to locally accepted traditions can further stimulate economic recovery and community reconstruction. Invaluable lessons for both disaster management and victim identification have been learned in the aftermath of the 2004 South East Asia tsunami.
Due to the variation in cultural attitudes, best practice guidelines to incorporate cultural behaviours in disaster victim identification (DVI) are not widely described. The Interpol DVI guide states that “(…) the specific religious and cultural needs and national idiosyncrasies or laws and directives of the Member States must be taken into consideration during an operation, but will not be discussed any further in the explanations of the Guide. It is also not possible to deal with all conceivable operational scenarios”. As stated in the Interpol guidance, national laws and directives need to be followed although the guidance acknowledges that application of international standards should apply in multinational DVI operations. Many of those member countries are faced with a complexity of group structures involving tribal, indigenous, ethnic and remote communities. While it is recommended to compliment the Interpol best practice guidelines with Standard operating Procedures (SOP’s) and Memorandums of Understanding (MoU’s) between collaborating parties, not many reports have been published on specific cultural problems encountered during international DVI operations.
Religion is a key force behind the way the community or society interacts with notions of disasters (Reale, 2010). Religious organisations and leaders are frequently involved in important community dynamics and power structures, providing health services, education and emergency relief and those bodies understand the local culture and speak the local language. Disasters may be interpreted as an ‘act of god’ or revenge from evil forces with bloated unrecognisable bodies (often referred to as ‘monsters’) used as ‘proof’ of supernatural intervention and punishment for sins committed by affected communities or sinful behaviour of foreign tourists. Following the 2004 Tsunami in South-East Asia for example, locals, unfamiliar with post-mortem processes, interpreted the facial changes as a sign of superhuman intervention and ‘dehumanisation’ of the victims (Merli, 2009). Indeed, much of those responses find its origins in the lack of awareness of post-mortem processes or the causation of natural events.
In remote (particularly poverty-stricken) areas, forensic awareness may be limited and the need for proper identification procedures poorly understood. If a disaster occurs in small communities, locals may retrieve the bodies and bury them according to local burial customs. State-ordered burials of disaster victims in mass graves out of misguided fears of health implications caused by decomposing bodies have led to much public resistance. Bodies and body parts may be removed as quickly as possible and/or identified visually by relatives and handed over on-site without appropriate identification and documentation procedures. Indeed, secondary and tertiary identifiers according to the Interpol standards are still seen and accepted as primary identifiers in many global regions. Additionally, the Interpol standards may be endorsed at the ‘top-level’ (e.g. Governments or central police authorities), the disaster response may not be recognised at ‘low-level’ remote communities who still rely on traditional ancestral practices in dealing with disasters. This has been increasingly recognised by NGO’s and local organisations and this has led to initiatives to raise awareness of disaster management in remote tribal communities mainly in Africa and Australia. Forensic and coronial practices may cause considerable distress to indigenous peoples who may have no societal or religious mechanisms for dealing with the consequences of such investigations (Byard and Chivell, 2005). Most religions and cultures find autopsies acceptable under special circumstances such as for the purposes of identification or to investigate the causes of an accident. Religious leaders may issue a decree (fatwa) to approve specific autopsy procedures, rituals and burial arrangements to deal with the special circumstances of a disaster. It is also not uncommon in certain countries that bodies remain unclaimed by relatives, placing an additional burden on mortuary capacity and local authorities to arrange the disposition of those remains. Remote communities are more than often dependent on local resources to sustain their livelihood, e.g. fishing or livestock. Following (natural) disasters and resultant loss of income and livelihood, stories of looting, theft of bodies from local hospitals for ransom, and grave robbing have been reported.
The importance of rituals and proper burial is embedded in many religions and form part of the healing process following a sudden loss. Spirituality and religiosity give individual guidance on how to behave and assess a situation, what action should be taken, as well as what and how coping strategies to be selected to address the situation. Superstitious and spiritual phenomena are commonly encountered after disasters such as the 2004 Tsunami and 2010 Great Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. The presence of ‘spirits’ of those who died, has had profound social and economic effects in terms of the mourning and healing process, ante-mortem data collection, rebuilding communities, and tourism. Performance of proper burial and body rituals are therefore of pivotal importance to overcome those fears, even in the absence of a missing person’s body which may never be recovered.
Disasters in areas of conflicts may pose additional problems for the recovery, identification and repatriation of local and foreign nationals. In this respect, similar issues may arise in collapsed and failed States where no or hardly infrastructure is in place to handle large-scale disasters. NGO’s, religious organisations and leaders may be able to mediate between parties. Periods of truce between fighting factions may be initiated to manage a disaster, for example the agreement between Philippine Government forces and Maoist rebels following Typhoon Bopha. Additional problems in conflict areas may arise if bodies of the victims are used as a negotiation tool or for ransom demands. Regions of (post-)conflict are characterised by deep distrust in the Government or local authorities and this may lead to difficulties in ante-mortem data collection. The Interpol guidance does not address those issues, particularly when dealing with disasters in conflict areas. Additional recommendations are needed to deal with the presented issues above. Guidance from religious organisations and NGO’s with extensive experience in working with remote communities may prove beneficial to address cultural sensitivities.
Abstract of oral presentation: presented by Dr Jan Bikker at the 2nd Annual Forum for Disaster Victim Identification, Royal College of Pathologists, London
References
Byard, R.W., Chivell, W.C. (2005) The interaction of death, sorcery and coronial/forensic practices within traditional indigenous communities. Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine 12 (5); pp. 242-244.
Merli, C. (2009) Religious interpretations of Tsunami in Satun province, Southern Thailand: reflections on ethnographic and visual materials. Svensk Religionshistorisk Rsskrift. 14; pp. 154-181
Reale, A. (2010) Acts of God(s): the role of religion in disaster risk reduction. Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 48, October 2010.
0 comments:
Post a Comment