INTRO | HIGHLIGHTS | FEATURES | PHOTO STORIES | FOCUS | INTERVIEWS | PERSPECTIVES | BIOS
2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
Dr Claudia Merli saw the aftermath of disaster through
the eyes of Muslim and Buddhist communities impacted
by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which devastated the
countries of Indonesia, India, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
During her field research in Satun, a province in southern
Thailand impacted by the tsunami, Merli discovered that
not only did people explain the disaster in terms of divine
retribution, for example, or the response of nature to the
actions of humanity that damage the environment, but that
these religious understandings of what occurred underlay how
the catastrophe was managed and perceived by the wider
community.1
In Satun the majority of the population is Muslim, but
includes a large Buddhist community. Merli found that
in some ways different religious ideas about the disaster
overlapped, but they were also dissimilar in other respects.
For example, all forms of Buddhism are non-theistic,
meaning they do not believe in a central God or divine
force that governs the actions of humanity. In the religion
of Islam, however, Muslims believe in one God who is both
compassionate and vengeful.
According to Merli, NGO workers and local government
in southern Thailand are very inclusive of local religious
communities in organising relief assistance. Both Muslims
and Buddhists would work together in assisting their
communities to recover during the aftermath of the tsunami
disaster. ‘There wasn’t a clear divide between Buddhist
NGOs helping only the Buddhists and so on, it really was a
communal effort to help the local communities. At the same
time they were defining each other’, says Merli.
During her field research, Merli discovered that Muslim
and Buddhist communities would define each others’ ideas
about how they would explain the disaster. For example, the
Buddhists would say the Muslims thought of the disaster in
terms of divine retribution and the Muslims would say the
Buddhists thought of the disaster in terms of karma. While
the tsunami disaster could be understood in terms of karma,
Merli says Buddhist monks in southern Thailand explained
the cause of the disaster as according to natural forces of the
planet. Some Muslims, however, did see the tsunami as a
form of purification or cleansing of sinful places.
Divine retribution is well-known in the Quran. Islam invokes
responsibility of an all knowing and supreme deity (Allah),
who punishes those who commit sinful acts through balaq or
annihilation. Unfortunately, this may include harming those
who are innocent.
In contrast, the Buddhist law of karma views retribution in
terms of individual and collective action. There is a relevant
story in the Quran. After asking Allah why, when the wicked
are punished, the innocents are also harmed, the prophet
Musa (Moses in the Bible) squashes a group of ants when one
stings him in the foot, but of course at the same time he also
crushes the ants that did not sting him. Muslims in Satun
resorted to what is known as a ‘theodicy’, a way of reconciling
the existence of a good and merciful God with the existence
of unjust human suffering. Merli learned that theodicies in
Satun were directly related to the local context of the postdisaster situation.
Muslims in Satun believed that the tsunami was purifying
the sinful or ‘dirty’ places of the areas impacted. Local
interpretations of the tsunami include the cleansing of
defilement, such as illicit sexuality. For example, many
parts of Phang Nga province that were severely damaged
by the tsunami also attracted the majority و