Four Structural Challenges in Natural Disaster Management in Iran

People around the world face natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, storms, tornadoes, fires, and monsoon winds. However, modern societies have found ways to predict and prevent these disasters (such as implementing strict building regulations) and also ways to reduce human and financial losses. Earthquakes, for instance, are among the natural disasters that cannot be predicted to the extent that timely warnings can be issued, but there are methods to mitigate damages after they occur. Have these methods been adopted in Iran? If not, what are the obstacles? In this article, I will set aside the issue of prevention and point to four main obstacles in disaster management after their occurrence, which relate to the structure of the government and social management. Centralized management in societies where democracy from below and local, provincial (state), and national management exist in parallel reduces human suffering and losses through a type of division of labor and coordination among these three layers. The role of the central government is only to the extent that local institutions cannot provide assistance, but they are the principal, and the central government is secondary. In Iran, there is only one type of crisis management, and that is at the national level, which always arrives late to the scene. For example, if the regions of Ozgaleh and Sarpol-e Zahab and the province of Kermanshah had parallel institutions to the central government for dealing with natural disasters after they occurred, the damages and human suffering would have naturally been reduced. It is natural that a local public organization, mobilizing all its forces and resources in the first 24 hours, which is the effective time for rescue and aid, can act more effectively than military or civilian forces whose deployment takes at least 24 to 48 hours. One of the conscious actions of the coercive forces of the Islamic Republic and the leadership institution has been the destruction of all volunteer organizations to transfer their responsibilities to the Basij. A local group of ten to fifteen people can save lives with a few rescue boats more effectively than a military battalion hundreds of kilometers away. The central government's unprecedented resistance in Iran to local and provincial management (elected by the people and relying on local taxes and resources) has made the Iranian people dependent on the central government in natural disasters, which: 1) its forces arrive very late at the scene; 2) considers political outcomes in sending aid (such as assigning distribution of resources to clerics and IRGC members to improve their image among the people); 3) engages in fruitless blame games and self-congratulation (such as blaming the previous government for the Mehr housing problems while this plan continued under Rouhani's government); 4) its institutions suffer from rampant corruption. In past earthquakes, we have witnessed the sale of relief supplies such as tents and blankets from the Red Crescent in the country’s black markets. Meanwhile, the possibility of politicizing aid and corrupting it at the local level is much less. Unfortunately, until someone in Iran speaks of local and provincial management independent of the central government and democratic (from Isfahan and Fars to Kurdistan and Ilam and from Hamadan and Gilan to Sistan and Baluchestan), which means reducing the central government, they are accused of separatism. The policy of destroying civil and volunteer institutions has been a conscious action of the coercive forces of the Islamic Republic and the leadership institution to dismantle all volunteer organizations to transfer their responsibilities to the Basij. The central government’s security perspective on any organizational activity has severely weakened civil and citizen volunteer institutions, which should be open to all regardless of religious, ideological, ethnic, party affiliations, and sexual and cultural orientations. The government has even taken steps to form and strengthen fake (state-created) civil institutions in the last two decades to counter independent civil organizations. Independent civil and social institutions are the frontline of society in facing the problems and challenges arising from human and social crises because governments, even in their multi-layered forms (national, state/provincial, and local), cannot effectively manage large damages. A local group of ten to fifteen people can save lives with a few rescue boats more effectively than a military battalion hundreds of kilometers away. Such groups, equipped with a few oxygen cylinders, first aid kits, or rescue dogs, and with a few days of training, can rescue dozens of people in the early hours from under the rubble of an earthquake or take them to the hospital. Emergency forces in democratic societies are mainly local and volunteer forces. There has been no sign of these organized volunteer forces in the aftermath of earthquakes in Iran (including the Kermanshah earthquake). The Islamic Republic, by fiercely opposing independent civil institutions with free and voluntary membership, has deprived the Iranian people of this frontline. Interestingly, at a time when the necessity of independent local institutions from the government and regime should be emphasized, the Islamic Republic is seeking to extend the Basij's nighttime patrols from nighttime disturbances in streets and squares to alleys and neighborhoods. Creating business opportunities for rent-seekers and intermediaries. If you travel to the areas affected by the Bam, Rudbar, and Manjil earthquakes or Ahar and Ruzqan ten years later (the author did this ten years after the Rudbar and Manjil earthquake), you will still see many Iranian citizens living in shanties and slums. The reason for this is not the lack of budget allocation for reconstruction but the allocation of these budgets to institutions and organizations like the Basij and IRGC (for rent-seeking and intermediary nurturing) and not to the victims themselves. Hassan Rouhani realized after forty years that people can build houses for themselves better than anyone else, but the mechanisms of the regime are such that budgets must be allocated to security and military institutions and the repressive organization to make them fatter and have a greater social presence, making people indebted to them. If you travel to the areas affected by the Bam, Rudbar, and Manjil earthquakes or Ahar and Ruzqan ten years later, you will still see many Iranian citizens living in shanties and slums. The reason for this is not the lack of budget allocation for reconstruction but the allocation of these budgets to institutions and organizations like the Basij and IRGC (for rent-seeking and intermediary nurturing) and not to the victims themselves. Why is the compensation for a person whose house has been destroyed not given directly to him at current prices, something that the Islamic Republic did in Lebanon after the 2006 war? Lebanese people, including Hezbollah members and others, could receive up to four hundred thousand dollars in compensation for their destroyed homes directly from the Islamic Republic, but a villager from Ardabil, Kermanshah, or Gilan is not qualified to receive the compensation and build his own house and shelter? In Lebanon, the Islamic Republic even paid for rent and furniture damages to Lebanese citizens, something that Western governments do after such damages, but Iranian citizens are treated as 'nobodies.' A show instead of management. The Islamic Republic is more of a propaganda show and a repressive and terror organization than a management system. Look at the series of actions taken after the Kermanshah earthquake. Even the clerics sent to provide assistance to this province take souvenir photos with the ruins, let alone the head of the government, who does not even get out of the car during his visit to the site (Sarpol-e Zahab) and does not consider anyone (who is grieving and has lost loved ones) worthy of a hug. His lies about the IRGC and Basij's aid are met with the attendees' shouts of 'Army, Army,' and the president's associates shout 'Sir, be quiet' to silence them. The affected people must watch these shows from afar, like a scarecrow, without receiving the necessary help in a timely manner. Dozens of independent reporters have reported in the days following the earthquake that aid (even water, food, blankets, and tents in the cold mountainous regions) did not arrive, but the government’s propaganda apparatus reports the presence of clerics, IRGC, and Basij with all its might. The Islamic Republic governs with religious bureaucracy (propaganda) and military bureaucracy (intimidation and threats) and not with human and social management to reduce human suffering. Because of this propaganda approach to the aid process after natural disasters and the concealment and untimely information dissemination, the rumor market (such as the earthquake being the result of a bomb explosion by the IRGC in underground tunnels) heats up, while scientific earthquake monitoring institutions have recorded this event as an earthquake. Part of the people who are constantly bombarded by propaganda have no choice but to counter the rumors.