How the times have changed, or not....mostly not

When I read about the tragic factory fire in Bangladesh I immediately felt I had heard the story before. The story I had heard before was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York. The Triangle fire happened in 1911 when 146 women and children died in a fire. Over 100 years later the factory fire in Bangladesh killed 112 (and counting). This was not the first fire that happened in either factory and it also wasn’t the first catastrophic factory fire in either area. The Triangle factory had exits to the street, but they were all locked. The Bangladesh factory had exits to the lobby, but none to the outside.

Days after the fire family members were still frantically trying to identify the charred remains of the victims. So many of the deceased were burned beyond recognition that the only hope the family members had was identifying a small scrap of clothing or shoe. Some considered themselves lucky to find the broken, unburned remains of their daughters who chose to leap from the window in order to avoid the flames. Newspapers in 1911 were filled with stories of these unlucky women, who were unfortunate enough to work in a society that did not value their lives enough to protect them.

Both fires were called one of the worst/most tragic/devastating fires in their area. What makes it the most devastating? Neither incident was the first fire, leading to death, the area had had. Are they ranking fires by death toll? Every death should be tragic/devastating/ the worst. These fires could have been easily avoided. Both factory owners knew the risks. They had seen firsthand what could have happened, but they made their avarice more important than human lives.

At the time of the Triangle fires the leading political party ignored requests to reform the system. Women were not allowed to vote, and because the garment industry mostly employed women, it was seen as a women’s issue. What’s Bangladesh’s excuse? One hundred years later and the world is repeating itself.