Arab stampedes!

[source26]

I dont know why, maybe the overcrowding and overpopulation but lately stampedes in the arab world have started to be a major cause of death:

Most large one was in Bagdad killing hundreds last week.
Each year stampedes in Mecca at the haj also kill anywhere between tens and hundreds of people!

also yesterday:

5/9/05
BENI SUEF, Egypt - A fire that began when an actor knocked over a candle on the set of a play ripped through a crowded theater in this central Egyptian city late Monday, sparking a stampede of audience members and killing at least 29 people, survivors and officials said.

The fire spread quickly across the set, which was made entirely of paper and had been ringed with candles. Panicked audience members trampled each other trying to get out the one available exit door, which at one point was partially blocked by a piece of wood that fell during the blaze, survivors said.

[Azazel]

Holy $51t!!!

[Yuval]

Interestingly, the Arab world tends to be a very rhythmic place where things follow a very strongly recognized order and pattern. Millions of cars make their way through Cairo every day with little navigational tools on the road and almost no traffic lights. Still they mostly make it safely through the hectic town.

If such events as these stempedes become more common, it could possibly point to a restlessness within Arab communities at the moment, and I mean restlessness in both the deeper sense and in the simplest, most physical sense: The horrible disaster in Bagdhad can be easily linked to this: the people were terrified by the rumor of a terrorist in the crowd. Don't forget that Bagdhad has been a very deadlyand dangerous city since the American invasion. It is tense both on the surface and beneath the surface.

The Egyptian event can also be linked to bad conventiuons in Egyptian construction. buildings don't have fire escapes and such horror is almost inevitable if a fire breaks out. This has little to do with Egypt's being "Arab" and more to do with it being "third world." It would be wise to check and see how many stempedes take place in other overcrowded, developing countries.