The 921 earthquake caused not only the collapse of mountains, the appearance of giant fissures in the ground and the destruction of our living space, but, perhaps more importantly, the collapse of social networks, and disruption of order.
For those who survived in the disaster areas, everything around them must have seemed to be in a state of near-destruction. Not only were public services (water, electricity and telecommunications) cut off, but even the supply of food and the management of waste became difficult. These problems manifested themselves particularly seriously in areas of high concentrations of people, such as cities.
The contemporary state system, its administrative mechanisms, and labor specialization were established as today's life-support system. However, since this system was thoroughly disabled in the wake of the disaster, it seems unable to switch itself back on. Far from reacting with positive energy to rebuild society, many people appear to be completely lost just adjusting to primitive living conditions.
Even though the system is now gradually being put back on-line and post-quake reconstruction work is underway, the system seems unable to leave behind a fragmented analytical process which operates via a regular administrative mechanism and specialization of labor.
The system is therefore unable to closely meet the needs of the disaster areas or provide a reconstruction blueprint. What the people need is a comprehensive regeneration of their communities.
Only individualized, flexible, and localized designs -- not based on standardized and fragmented administrative and professional concepts -- can adequately deal with the problems.
Since the circumstances of individual households differed before the quake, their losses suffered during the quake were equally disparate.
Their expectations for reconstruction are naturally different. The conditions of each tribe, community, city, and town is unique.
For the sake of efficiency and convenience, administrators tend to adopt a uniform approach for matters such as the disbursement of compensation, certification of damage, and the drafting of reconstruction measures.
Today's administrative concepts are based on a "bulldozer approach," under which individuality is wiped out, and little room exists for respecting feelings and the needs of the people.
On the other hand, due to the general promotion of the concept of the community in recent years, most administrators and professionals are now able to accept and respect localized differences and work with a bottom-to-top operational approach.
This attitude gives hope to flexibility in reconstruction policy design. Hopefully, positive contributions from the private sector and the local community can be maximized, especially by Dr Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠-? who heads a private consultancy group, and Chiang Ping-kun (|?
To truly pursue a bottom-to-top operational approach and have community participation in reconstruction, the administrative organs, professionals, scholars and private organizations must reach out to touch the lives of community members and help them achieve autonomy through efforts such as community reconstruction committees.
Professionals do not necessarily represent local communities. In fact, they may be deemed by local communities as government agents. This would make community reconstruction even more difficult.
The employer of professional organizations should be the local community, rather than whoever controls administrative resources. Ideally, all reconstruction proposals should come from the local community.
Professionals should not only help implement these proposals, but -- even more importantly -- think about how the communities could pool public resources for reconstruction.
It should be individual communities who control supply and demand of reconstruction resources, while the central and local governments remain as the executors of policy.
If a system of this nature cannot be designed, then it would be difficult to implement community autonomy or a bottom-to-top operational approach.
Within a short period of time, many private and professional organizations have poured into quake-devastated areas. Theoretically, there could never be enough individuals and organizations to satisfy such a great demand.
Therefore, if these groups and individuals share a strong enough consensus, the situation should not be complicated by competition among them.
However, once these organizations leave, disappointed communities may have little choice but to seek help from government-appointed groups which tend to overlook the need for community participation.
The construction professionals operating in the quake-devastated areas come either from the business or academic community and are more than likely funded by public resources.
They adopt a top-to-bottom operational approach, which does not leave much room for collective coordination by the private sector. At the end of the day, their modus operandi can only result in a loss of community focus.
The only hope left would be in voluntary non-profit organizations and governmental organizations. These groups should enter quake-devastated areas to help communities get back on their feet and seek the needed manpower and financial resources for social and professional services.
Their work could then be taken over by local community organizations and government bodies providing the needed public resources.
Only in this way would the reconstruction be closely tailored to the needs of the community.
Chen Chi-nan is the dean and a professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Chiao Tung University.
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