Tsunami proves we don't have friends overseas, we have interests

Since the tsunami disaster in Asia and Africa, I have been intrigued by these questions:

If there is an all-powerful God, why did this terrible event occur? Linear logic suggests that if there is a compassionate God, this type of evil would not happen.

One might then ask if there is a powerful evil force that contends with God as ruler of the creation. If so, did this “evil one” win out in this case?

Many Jewish, Christian and Muslim authorities see natural disasters as signs from God as punishment for mankind not living in accord with religious values and morality. One Saudi Arabian Islamic preacher stated that the tsunami was God’s punishment for the Muslims of South Asia allowing nude tourists (read Westerners) to frolic on the beaches. Last year, after a devastating earthquake in Islamic Iran, a popular conservative Christian minister in the United States contended that this disaster was God’s wrath on that nation for not collectively accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The comments by both preachers are indicative of how selectively religious partisans view the world and always believe that God is only on their side. Think how the human disaster of Saddam Hussein continues to plague the Muslims of Iraq or how California and the Midwest are currently in the grip of record snow, ice and floods.

Islam is the only religious, scientific or philosophical worldview that designates all human occurrences and processes as signs from God. As the late Dr. Ali Shari’ati wrote in his book "On the Sociology of Islam:" “The Qu’ran assigns positive scientific worth to the signs; it does not consider them illusions, or veils over the face of truth. On the contrary, they are indications pointing to the truth, and it is only by means of contemplating them in a serious and scientific fashion can one attain the truth, not by ignoring them and thrusting them aside.”

Or consider this secular explanation. The tsunami disaster was not just a human tragedy of unbearable magnitude or simply a matter of fate. Rather, the loss of life could have been dramatically reduced had the technology and scientific capabilities of the developed world been utilized in the Indian Ocean and South Asia.

According to a team of Columbia University researchers, “The Sumatra earthquake was no surprise, geographically speaking. And global networks of seismometers operated by the developed world were able to locate the earthquake and quickly characterize its potential to unleash a tsunami; all within a fraction of the time it took for the wave to cross the Bay of Bengal. Agonizingly, despite years of discussion, the relatively inexpensive water-based sensors needed to sense and tract a tsunami were not in place. Neither was the comprehensive response infrastructure necessary to use available warnings.”

Moreover, these authors, whose article appeared in the Horizon section of The Roanoke Times on Jan. 9, concluded there were no technical barriers to developing a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. A similar system has been in place in the Pacific for more than 40 years. They suggest that it is relatively cheap to beef up civil defense mechanisms to evacuate people living in the path of typhoons. It seems to me, that given the existing knowledge about disaster management, it is man’s sin of omission -- not God’s wrath -- that is the fundamental cause of the large loss of life.

Students in my seminar class this semester are learning about boundary-scanning for environmental “cues” and “signals” and how leaders should react to alerts that potential threats or opportunities exist. Is it a course in Islamic theology? No, it's Organization Theory & Sense Making. Indeed, management science has progressed to the point where it is a widely-accepted axiom that recognizing and responding to environmental cues in an organization’s operating environment is key to maintaining efficiency and productivity. Here, contemporary management studies have caught up with ancient Islamic thought.

The Columbia researchers complain that developed countries like the United States chronically underfund the use of technology that would improve the safety and living conditions of those in less developed countries. The economic cost to prevent disasters like the tsunami are far less than attempting to recover from these environmental calamities. The researchers also ask a valid moral question, “Should it not be axiomatic that there is a human right to knowledge and technology for all?” The answer, of course, should be yes. However, that is not the political or economic reality of the global village.

The tremendous loss of life from the tsunami did not occur because of an act of God, but because of man’s selfish desire to control knowledge. Religions teach that perspective is a gift from God for all of humanity to share. This primitive desire to transcend the natural order is what the Greeks called hubris. And, while hubris has triggered some of mankind’s most outstanding achievements, it knows only one conclusion -- tragedy. The hubris of Western politicians in developing a tsunami warning system in the Pacific Ocean to protect Hawaii and California but not a similar system in the Indian Ocean to protect the poorer nations of South Asia and Africa is tragic --to say the least.

When the Asians and Africans eventually understand that causalities from the tsunami could have been minimized by inexpensive technology that has been around for decades, they will be both angry and vengeful. Many, driven only by hate and desire for retribution, will become prime candidates for Osama bin Laden’s army. Despised and mistrusted globally for our collective selfishness, we will learn first-hand why oppression is worse than death.

Hopefully, all of these “signs” will lead the developed world to utilize inexpensive, pre-emptive investments that direct knowledge to poor communities around the globe. This will lead to more universal goodwill, and a reduction of Western hubris, than battalions of Marines landing with thousands of tons of relief supplies after preventable loss-of-life has occurred.