Understanding September tragedies

When I think back on the events of September 11, 2001, I find that I don't have too much to say. I remember feeling isolated by the thought that in the great march of time and history, if this day were the worst for our nation, we should feel blessed.

In 1998, the floodwaters rose in Bangladesh. The event was considered the worst flood the modern world had ever seen. Over 1,000 people lost their lives, and as I started my research for this article, I started looking at image after image of the floods that have plagued Bangladesh again and again and my source of admiration for the character of your people began to manifest itself.

When I watched the videos and the photographs of the flooding, I expected to see looks of horror and resignation, instead I saw looks of determination, and even some smiles. Clearly, in the midst of tragedy, what I saw were the faces of people as far from nihilism as a culture could get. People were happy to be alive. It made me think about things from a different perspective, and it really made me understand and appreciate the problems of your nation.

Here in the United States, we tend to view each tragedy as an indictment of our liberty. Each time some incident occurs, we place restrictions on ourselves in the hopes of preventing the tragedy from ever happening again. At the same time, these restrictions mean we often abandon the principles of our founding fathers.

After an isolated shooting in a high school, we censor students' writings in many school districts, prohibiting them from writing about violent themes. In the case of September 11, we create a Homeland Security Department — begin using the word Homeland, a paranoid term defining something that needs to be locked down and protected.

We use the words "Patriot" and "Liberty" to create laws that would have made our founding fathers cringe. "Patriot missile? Patriot Act? Our actions, when branded with the name reserved for the combatants in the American Revolution, The Patriots, more closely resemble the actions of the British occupiers than they do the ideals upon which my country was founded.

But the main point is that when tragedy strikes, we declare war against it. We have wars on drugs, wars on poverty, war against terrorism. You name it, we declare war against it.

Meanwhile, as I watched footage from the many floods your nation has faced, so much came clear to me. All the problems with the road systems, the crumbling infrastructure, and the chaotic nature of things can be at least in part be explained by the fact that Bangladesh is a flood plain. Flooding also may explain the tolerance for incessant infighting among the political parties. Despite the corruption, the infighting, and all the obstacles that a more objective political system would be able to overcome, the people hunker down and do their best to survive another day. We had one isolated bad day. For those who live on a floodplain, September tragedy is a way of life.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the population of Bangladesh. As I researched this article, I see a new angle on this problem. Because I am an American, I think like an American. We may overact to disasters, but we really never want problems to repeat themselves and will do everything in our power to assure that they don't. So what might the American solution be to the cycle of September tragedy?

We probably would have declared a War on Flooding.

As I researched this article, I noticed that many of the solutions to Bangladesh's flood problems have already been implemented in Holland, and even in ancient Tenochtitlan. Many of these solutions were low-tech, and created on a household-by-household basis. In Holland, monasteries began to build "terps", or elevated areas dredged from the riverbeds, thus deepening the channels and raising the habitable land at the same time.

These terps we re-enforced with mounds of seaweed and reeds, which, as they decomposed, provided an island-like a shallow levee which could then be continually filled with silt from the dredged canals. These canals then channelled the potential floodwaters past areas of habitation and further along the alluvial plane, thus creating a system where river-borne soil would naturally accumulate and create more footholds for more terps.

In the Dutch system, harnessing the wind's power allowed pumps to run which kept the terps dry.

So, here's my very American "Never again!" solution to the flooding problems in Bangladesh. First off, it involves minimal government intervention. It simply involves the government not saying "no".

In the United States, when we want to move the population, we do something called "Homesteading". With this system, families were allowed to own 160 acres of land, which was an area suitable to sustenance and bringing food to market. Certain conditions had to be met in order for the homestead claim to be established. Anyone could claim a homestead grant, but had to live on the land for five years and make very specific improvements. The Homestead Act assured that anyone over the age of 21, including freed slaves, could "prove up" their land, build a shelter, and sustain themselves, living there for more than 60 percent of the year.

The Homestead Act allowed individuals, by their own incentive, to change their destinies. While corruption abounded and 40 percent of the farms failed, the program was one of the most successful in American history, and the Homestead Act's provisions lasted from 1862 to 1986, although several Midwestern states still offer programs that give away land, most notably Kansas and Nebraska.

The idea is to offer land on uninhabitable alluvial regions the ability to create their own terps. Initially, a levee system would be created for a central structure and commercial area, which might attract volunteer builders, such as a mosque, that may have its own resources and services, just like the monasteries did hundreds of years ago in Holland. For potential family farmlands, I would do things differently. In order to secure a deed to the reclaimed land after five years, a farmer would have to use dredging and either terp or chiampa-building techniques to raise a central living area a certain number of feet above sea level.

From that central terrace, the land would drop twice, once to an inner barrier, and then again to the land's natural level. The largest part of the acreage would remain at its natural level, but canals deep enough for water traffic would be dug between the properties. At the borders of the properties, water-loving trees and other plants would be required. When these conditions had been met, the land would then be connected to the canal system. When the floods come, these border acres would be submerged, but silt would be trapped, fertilising the fields, and allowing the farmer to fertilise and raise the higher ground. Windmill-driven pumps could keep the land around the homes dry, and keep excessive water away from crops.

Unlike Holland, Bangladesh has a unique geological advantage. Bangladesh is blessed with a billion tons of silt carried annually into the country from India, Nepal, China and Bhutan. If homesteaders were to collect and use this silt to build a system of canals and farms, supported by a central school and mosque, perhaps the government would lack the power or the political will to usurp or destroy.

What would the reaction to a War on Flooding be? I suspect that the promise of free land would inspire the most industrious and hard-working of poor to take their chances and become the shock-troops in this battle.

We can learn from each other. We Americans must learn to be more circumspect, and that we should not overreact to isolated incidents, especially when such overreaction compromises our freedom. And perhaps Bangladeshis could learn from us as well, that sometimes declaring war against a common enemy may create consensus and allow political parties to cooperate.

In either case, I pray that our resolve remain untested by tragedy.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", teaches the native art of oral tradition storytelling.