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mahnmutThe e-coli outbreak in Germany from last week is an interesting case casting light at the ethics of risk management. See, a very scary bacteria, thought to be carried by the very food we eat whenever we feel like taking a healthier option (i.e. salad vegetables, OMG) has led to a major scare that has given a blow on many of Europe’s farmers and caused them enormous financial troubles. When we look closer at this situation, the numbers don't quite hit home why exactly consumers and regulators across Europe (and especially in Germany) have reacted so hysterically: of course it's sad and depressing that 26 people have died so far from the E-coli outbreak, but on the other hand we can hardly even remotely talk of a pandemic. I'm aware that "people are just not some numbers at your screen", but that's not the point. It's just that the number still looks negligible in comparison to Germany’s 3,651 fatalities in road accidents annually (in 2010). So, banning Spanish cucumbers - sure thing, why not! But touching the fundamental right of Germans to speed without limit on the Autobahn? No way, no one even thinks about that*.
* A minor point, but German Autobahns are safer than the French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and US highways despite the difference in speed limits. Granted, speed could turn out to be a minor factor in road accidents (although clearly a higher speed results in a more serious impact). In the UK most road accidents and fatalities occur below the speed limits and are more related to other dangerous driving, or driving too fast for the conditions, which is not the same as "high speed" per se.
OK, fair enough though - food is surely one of those things that does raise the risk perception more than almost any other. That's understandable. But one of the more curious things about this particular outbreak was the initial culprit they chose: cucumbers (especially as attention eventually turned to those evil little bean sprouts). But of course it wasn't just any old cucumbers (still less German cucumbers). It was the Spanish cucumbers that were instantly blamed. Why? Because the German market is flooded with Spanish vegetables, that's why. In a continuously integrating EU economy, suddenly a poor little vegetable becomes the carrier of nationalistic identities and accusations, hu? I don't think things are that simple.
There's something rotten about cucumbers, one has to admit. In the German context, the vegetable has once before been at the center of a rather black-humored joke just in before the unification in '89. Back then, the German satirical magazine Titanic opened with a picture of "Zonen-Gabi" (Gabi from the East) holding up "her first banana": a cucumber, peeled in the style of a banana. This of course was to make fun of the chronic absence of exotic fruits in the East during the time of the Wall (such things like bananas were available there only around Christmas, as our resident East Europeans could confirm). So the cucumber became an epitome of the split national identity that divided the unifying halves of the country at the time. Here, look for yourselves:
Poor little cucumbers have also been at the center of many jokes about the famed regulatory frenzy of EU bureaucrats across Europe. Allegedly, there are norms that lay out not merely how long, hard and green a cucumber must be but which even stipulate the degree of a cucumber's curvature (WTF). For example, at maximum, its arc can be no more than 10 mm per 10 cm length. GOT IT? Imposed on poor Polish or Czech farmers before their countries were accepted to the EU, these regulations made the vegetable a symbol of the hegemonic power of Brussels and the nearly totalitarian zeal of regulating even the smallest little detail in people's lives. All symbolized by, yes, CUCUMBERS! So you can imagine what additional charge this modest vegetable has for Europeans.
Further, exactly how political the innocent little cucumber could become was demonstrated nowhere more strongly than in Iraq. According to The Telegraph, a few years ago the Al-Qaeda leaders in Anbar province allegedly banned women from buying cucumbers because they considered them to be "male" vegetables, and therefore in violation of religious law (I kid you not). On the other hand, tomatoes were totally fine for women to buy because they were considered female. Got it??
Well surely, if we were to do some more research on the cultural history of cucumbers, who knows where we might end up? Still, who would've thought that the lowly green cucumber could be such a storage of ethical values and such a powerful a tool for inter-cultural conflict (or maybe cooperation?) So, next time you're at the grocery, remember to take a second look at those cucumbers! There's so much more to them than meets the eye. Got it?
* A minor point, but German Autobahns are safer than the French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and US highways despite the difference in speed limits. Granted, speed could turn out to be a minor factor in road accidents (although clearly a higher speed results in a more serious impact). In the UK most road accidents and fatalities occur below the speed limits and are more related to other dangerous driving, or driving too fast for the conditions, which is not the same as "high speed" per se.
OK, fair enough though - food is surely one of those things that does raise the risk perception more than almost any other. That's understandable. But one of the more curious things about this particular outbreak was the initial culprit they chose: cucumbers (especially as attention eventually turned to those evil little bean sprouts). But of course it wasn't just any old cucumbers (still less German cucumbers). It was the Spanish cucumbers that were instantly blamed. Why? Because the German market is flooded with Spanish vegetables, that's why. In a continuously integrating EU economy, suddenly a poor little vegetable becomes the carrier of nationalistic identities and accusations, hu? I don't think things are that simple.
There's something rotten about cucumbers, one has to admit. In the German context, the vegetable has once before been at the center of a rather black-humored joke just in before the unification in '89. Back then, the German satirical magazine Titanic opened with a picture of "Zonen-Gabi" (Gabi from the East) holding up "her first banana": a cucumber, peeled in the style of a banana. This of course was to make fun of the chronic absence of exotic fruits in the East during the time of the Wall (such things like bananas were available there only around Christmas, as our resident East Europeans could confirm). So the cucumber became an epitome of the split national identity that divided the unifying halves of the country at the time. Here, look for yourselves:
Poor little cucumbers have also been at the center of many jokes about the famed regulatory frenzy of EU bureaucrats across Europe. Allegedly, there are norms that lay out not merely how long, hard and green a cucumber must be but which even stipulate the degree of a cucumber's curvature (WTF). For example, at maximum, its arc can be no more than 10 mm per 10 cm length. GOT IT? Imposed on poor Polish or Czech farmers before their countries were accepted to the EU, these regulations made the vegetable a symbol of the hegemonic power of Brussels and the nearly totalitarian zeal of regulating even the smallest little detail in people's lives. All symbolized by, yes, CUCUMBERS! So you can imagine what additional charge this modest vegetable has for Europeans.
Further, exactly how political the innocent little cucumber could become was demonstrated nowhere more strongly than in Iraq. According to The Telegraph, a few years ago the Al-Qaeda leaders in Anbar province allegedly banned women from buying cucumbers because they considered them to be "male" vegetables, and therefore in violation of religious law (I kid you not). On the other hand, tomatoes were totally fine for women to buy because they were considered female. Got it??
Well surely, if we were to do some more research on the cultural history of cucumbers, who knows where we might end up? Still, who would've thought that the lowly green cucumber could be such a storage of ethical values and such a powerful a tool for inter-cultural conflict (or maybe cooperation?) So, next time you're at the grocery, remember to take a second look at those cucumbers! There's so much more to them than meets the eye. Got it?
