Lessons as the acrid smoke of a tragedy clears

The deaths of 14 students and the injuries of no less than 50 others at a girl's school in Makkah has led to a heated debate as to who is to be held responsible for the accident.

The students were trapped behind the school's locked gates as they desperately sought to escape the fire that engulfed the building. The gate's only set of keys were with a school keeper who was not around when the fire broke out.

Initially, the fire was thought to have been caused by an electrical short circuit. There were also accusations that members of the religious group The Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, were partially to blame. This was because it is believed that they had obstructed the work of the civil defence.

A number of witness accounts, including those coming from the students who had survived the ordeal, say that members of the committee had refused to let male members of the emergency relief workers to enter the school, an accusation strongly rejected by Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz. The issue was covered in the Saudi press and drew strong criticism from numerous writers and commentators.

Abdulaziz Al Jarallah, in Al Riyadh, poses a good question: Should we have awaited for such a tragedy to take place to realise that school buildings are facing major problems, he wrote.

Indeed such a tragedy could repeat itself in other schools. It is not a surprise that some educational institutions have opted to use some rental buildings as schools. But what is strange is the negativity of the civil defence authority, the municipalities, and the Ministry of Health in dealing with these institutions. They have kept silent about what these educational institutions are doing, says Al Jarallah.

Such institutions carry out their business on the concept that schools are like sardine tins: students could be piled up in small rooms, villas and apartments in residential areas, says Al Jarallah.

The civil defence knows fully well that such schools lack every single measure of safety. Their gates are insecure, and emergency exits are non-existent, explains Al Jarallah.

In addition, the buildings from which such schools are operating are located in neighbourhoods with narrow streets that make any attempt for an emergency escape slow and difficult.

Furthermore, the electricity company knows very well that it turned a blind eye to the violations of a number of governmental institutions, especially these educational institutions, says Al Jarallah.

The ministry has allowed electricity generators, suited for the needs of 10 individuals, to be used by almost 600 students. It has not required the owners and operators of such establishments to implement any safety procedures that would protect the students from danger, adds Al Jarallah.

All such carelessness indicates the absence of the supervision and oversight by the authorities concerned in the country. This has led to complacency from a number of sectors to ignore all necessary procedures when it comes to operating such buildings, says Al Jarallah.

A number of people are rightfully questioning what went wrong and what has caused the unfortunate accident. The families of the deceased students have serious questions that officials have to answer, says Al Jarallah.

Those in society who care about the value of a human life have also posed their own question on this aspect. The biggest question of all, though, believes Al Jarallah, is why the supervisor of all this was not vigilant.

Yet it would be unfair to point the finger of accusation at any party at this early stage of the investigation, writes Dr. Abdulwahid Al Hameed. The main factor that everyone seems to agree on is the fact that the school, like many other buildings, operated from a rented building that is not suitable to be used as an educational setting.

These buildings lack the safety standards expected at any building. Many such rented buildings, haphazardly built, are on the verge of collapse and are definitely not capable of accommodating a large number of pupils, says Dr. Al Hameed. It, therefore, becomes a danger zone as hundreds of students resume their activities in them.

Though the issue of rented buildings being used not for their original purpose has been debated for long, it is unfortunate that such usage has simply been on the rise over the years, says Dr. Al Hameed.

The increase in population in Saudi Arabia has certainly led to an increase in the number of schools. But the fact that such schools have been using rented buildings for so many years is a problem that has to be resolved, from its roots, adds Dr. Al Hameed.

How can this be resolved? The solution is easy to provide. Jointly or separately, the government and the private sector should finance the building of schools according to architectural standards and designs of how schools should be built, says Dr. Al Hameed.

A joint venture between the two sectors is possible as such is the practice all over the world. Why don't we then learn from implementing such an experiment as well? concludes Dr. Al Hameed.

On the other hand, the accident sheds light on a bigger issue that faces Saudi society, believes Turki Abdullah Al Sudairi. It reflects how women are treated in an inferior manner and are equated with a lower form of life. Indeed, society views women as a 'source of evil'.

It is as if we men are a society of angels who pose no threat or are not sinners at all, says Al Sudairi. This is how we perceive women.

It is a reality that we come across and see practised in restaurants, shopping malls and even in how women are allowed to enter and exit their schools. Otherwise, why would the school's keeper, who happened to be away when the fire broke out, have the only set of keys to the locked gates?

Why were these keys not kept with an administrator so that they could have been used in an emergency, such as the fire? questions Al Sudairi.

Accusations by some parents that members of The Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice interfered and disrupted emergency efforts to rescue the girls are rightly put, says Al Sudairi. Are the members of this religious group more concerned over the safety of the girls than their own parents and families?

How could we call our Saudi society objective and straightforward in its dealing with internal issues when at the same time we see some Saudi women dress and act completely different to what they do in Saudi Arabia when they are abroad in the coffee shops of London's Knightsbridge and the Champs Elysses in Paris? questions Al Sudairi. These are acts that would certainly aggravate any parent as it strikingly contradicts the kind of behaviour that is prevalent inside the country.

What we are facing are two contradictory situations, says Al Sudairi. Such a situation is a challenge that could only be dealt with through education, enlightenment, and moderation. When reasonability is dropped, discussion and debate becomes useless, says Al Sudairi.