STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

Perspectives: the debate is open 265refusal of complexity, danger, uncertainty, or power sharing in any form, oris there an opposite risk of general apathy which stifles both short-termprotective reactions and the formulation of specific demands in the longterm?Intuition says that nothing can be considered obvious in this field. In orderto remain prudent - and to nudge the powers that be into action - it seemswise to assume that a crisis situation could indeed sweep away what waswrongly assumed to be the invincible status quo. If any voice of prudenceshould be borne in mind, it would be that of Maurice Grimaud, who watchedthe implosion caused in France by the events of May 1968: "The Frenchgovernment looked like a puppet show. Official declarations no longercarried any weight. The surrealist protest slogans of May suddenly madethem appear even more irrelevant than Latin" (3 b).To instill some stability in this uncertain world that can be ratherapproximatively referred to as the public, resolute action must be taken toprovide information and help people assume responsibility. For many years,the problem of the citizen's role has been ignored - the underlying convictionwas that the less the public knew about existing problems, the less likely itwas to create new ones. Recently, as we have seen, attempts have sprung up toincrease so-called preventive information. This is intended to teach citizenswhat behavior they should adopt when confronted with a serious accidentsituation - most often it consists of staying indoors and waiting to follow theinstructions to be transmitted by the public authorities over the radio. Butthese efforts should go much further.The Mississauga accident was a case in point: the most problem-freeshelters were those run by volunteer organizations, such as the Red Cross orthe Salvation Army, that already were in regular contact with public powersand had developed solid working relationships based on their provencompetence.Clearly this is the only way out: with a well organized citizenry and astrong community life, the body social would not be left adrift, so to speak,when the authorities found themselves overwhelmed by the crisis and itsdifficulties; it would not become a fragmented, unstructured mass, withoutguidelines, ready to be led into any adventure that promised to run counter tothe proposals made by authority figures (including the press and the experts).A clear contradiction emerges here: on the one hand, risk, vulnerability,and crisis demand that society become more strongly organized and that newforms of solidarity develop. And yet everything seems to indicate that oursocieties are becoming especially impoverished in this area.Solitude or solidarity? The first choice is garnering an ever-growingnumber of votes, thereby transforming our societies into scattered, rootlessmasses that are highly vulnerable whenever they are put to the test. Thisoffers Crisis a fantastic environment in which to evolve. Should thesetendencies persist, there may come a time when attempts made by a crisis unitat the height of the storm to regulate the situation will suddenly seem astragic and ridiculous as someone trying to fight his way out of quicksand.