I lost everything that I had – my belongings, my house, my cattle, my bedding, important documents. Yet, I think the 2010 floods was a great blessing as it taught me who are my friends and my enemies. I shall never vote again for the feudal lords. Our MPs, those who we gave our votes to, never came to see us after the flood, narrated Michael Semple in his book ‘Breach of Trust – people’s experiences of the Pakistan floods and their aftermath, July 2010- July 2011’ launched on Thursday, while quoting a flood victim, Baksh, a resident of village near Muzaffargarh.
A number of prominent personalities working in development sector, human rights activists, and public sector offices heads participated in the event in connection with the launching of a book, which highlights the dark aspects of 2010 floods and depicts the apathy of the incumbent rulers who did not learn any lesson from the previous disasters, resulting in a huge devastation caused by heavy monsoon rains during 2011.
Pattan – a development organisation in collaboration with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung published the 142 coloured glossy pages that Semple dedicated to growing awakening of flood affected women and men against tyranny and injustices and their untiring resilience to rebuild their lives. According to Sarwar Bari of Pattan, the report argues that people’s vulnerabilities are a creation of the failure of successive governments, including the current one.
“What the flood affectees and we as humanitarian actors, witnessed during the last 12 months and in previous disasters was extreme politicisation of humanitarian work by most MPs. Many sitting MPs were seen violating the UN Guiding Principles on Displaced Persons, the sphere standards and constitutional (1973) clauses.” He said, “The ruling elites have breached the trust and violated the dignity of the affected communities at a time when they were struggling for sheer survival.”
Bari said therefore it might be argued that the root cause of the boiling frog syndrome in Pakistan was the elite’s blindness to the rising temperature of the anger of the poor. “They (elites) have failed to realise their imminent end. Often, they were caught by surprise. This report is a wake up call,” he said. Semple, the author of the book, is a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, and has a long association with Pattan Development Organisation.
He has always loved being with the people. When the floods hit Nowshera and Charsadda on 29th of July 2010, he was right there, caught in the middle of it all, he spent nights with other people taking refuge from the flood on the motorway and continued working with the flood victims. In order to fully understand the situation one year on in 2011 in the scorching heat of June, he travelled along the Indus from Nowshera to Thatta and beyond. Along the left and right banks of the river, he visited many of the affected communities and interviewed many poor but resilient men and women.
The current report is a reflection on the 2010 floods, in the light of the experiences of affected communities and grassroots civil society in coping with the aftermath. It explains the floods from the perspective of the affectees. It considers what happened in the floods, why so much damage was done, how people coped, who helped them, what the lingering consequences are and what were the politics underlying the process. Several of the people, who described their experience of the flood, should be thought of as community entrepreneurs.
They are the ones who took the initiative to approach the district administration and aid agencies to mobilise assistance. To highlight the local nature of flood causes and effects, the report has disaggregated the disaster into eight distinct local floods, which together account for over 80 percent of the total people affected. One year after the floods the great majority of survivors had returned home and picked up the pieces of their lives.
Many had a long list of ways in which the floods had left them worse of. But they were, as before the flood, primarily dependent for survival on their own efforts and scant resources.
