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Wikipedia human stampede numbers
Today's news brings us a tragedy during the Hajj. But before you dismiss this as (a) a long way away involving (b) a bunch of people who are not co-religionists of yours, let's contextualize this a little. How does this event:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/middleeast/stampede-hajj-pilgrimage/
Compare to other crowd tragedies?
Wikipedia summary found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes
Today's incident is included at the end. Working our way back, we can find a worse incident here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Al-Aaimmah_bridge_stampede
"these groups themselves often encourage high turn-outs at religious events to prove the relative strength of their sect."
If you are wondering (as I did) why that 2005 incident didn't register in your brain, that would be because we were all hyper-focused on Katrina at the time (and probably rightly so).
Rather than dismiss this all as Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus, let's stop a moment and consider the current visit to the US of the head of another very large monotheist, patriarchal religious group. A lot of people admire many of the statements of the current leader of this group, _even while he is busy canonizing a man who [feel free to offer a qualifier here] committed genocide_ (how anyone can justify a favorable opinion of someone who is moving Junipero Serra along the path to sainthood is beyond me, but the human brain is a flexible instrument, suited to an incredible variety of tasks). But you know? That dude is head of a large religious group.
Let's tone that all down.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/middleeast/stampede-hajj-pilgrimage/
Compare to other crowd tragedies?
Wikipedia summary found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes
Today's incident is included at the end. Working our way back, we can find a worse incident here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Al-Aaimmah_bridge_stampede
"these groups themselves often encourage high turn-outs at religious events to prove the relative strength of their sect."
If you are wondering (as I did) why that 2005 incident didn't register in your brain, that would be because we were all hyper-focused on Katrina at the time (and probably rightly so).
Rather than dismiss this all as Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus, let's stop a moment and consider the current visit to the US of the head of another very large monotheist, patriarchal religious group. A lot of people admire many of the statements of the current leader of this group, _even while he is busy canonizing a man who [feel free to offer a qualifier here] committed genocide_ (how anyone can justify a favorable opinion of someone who is moving Junipero Serra along the path to sainthood is beyond me, but the human brain is a flexible instrument, suited to an incredible variety of tasks). But you know? That dude is head of a large religious group.
Let's tone that all down.