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Page 1: Belfast salvages Titanic as symbol of revival · the Titanic film and others, where women and children ... TH Chennai/ CITY Back_Pg User: comkn 04-15-2012 00:29 Color: CMYK. Title:

...CH-CH

20 THE HINDU SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2012CHENNAINEWS

STOCKHOLM: Imagine a giantship slowly sinking into thesea, with the men of coursestanding back allowing wom-en and children to board thelifeboats and themselves tobe stoically engulfed by thefrothy waves.

That idea of male chivalryat sea is however a completemyth, according to two Swed-ish researchers.

Mikeal Elinder and OscarErixon, economists at Uppsa-la University north of Stock-holm, have studied 18 of theworld’s most famous mari-time disasters since 1852 andfound that men have nearlyabout double the chance ofsurviving a shipwreck aswomen.

In popular culture“There is this popular cul-

ture myth promoted throughthe Titanic film and others,where women and childrenare led to the lifeboats and themen stand back,” Mr. Erixontold AFP on Thursday.

But in reality, he said, “itreally doesn’t usually go wellfor women in shipwrecks.”

Out of the 15,142 peopleonboard the 18 ships sailingunder eight different nationalflags when they went down,only 17.8 percent of the wom-

en survived compared to 34.5percent of the men, the tworesearchers explain in their82-page study titled: “Everyman for himself — Gender,Norms and Survival in Mar-itime Disasters.”

Case in point: when the Es-tonia passenger ferry headedfrom Tallinn to Stockholmsuddenly sank in the middleof the icy Baltic Sea in 1994,852 of the 989 people on-board perished, with only 5.4percent of women surviving,compared to 22 percent formen.

“I was shocked when I sawthe numbers from Estonia,”Mr. Erixon said.

In fact, out of the 18 mar-itime disasters studied, Mr.Erixon and Mr. Elinder foundthat while the survival rateswere about the same for menand women in some cases,women survived to a higherextent in just two cases.

The 2 exceptionsThe most famous maritime

catastrophe of them all — theTitanic — is one of the excep-tions to the rule: 70 percent ofthe women survived thattragedy compared to just a20-percent survival rate forthe men, according to thestudy.— AFP

Male chivalry at sea a‘myth’: Swedish studyBELFAST: For much of the cen-

tury since the Titanic sank,the story of the doomed linerhas been a taboo subject inBelfast, an unwelcome re-minder of industrial failureand bitter sectarian divisionin the city that built her.

Now, Northern Ireland’spower-sharing government,buoyed by 14 years of peace,aims to salvage the liner as asymbol of erstwhile industrialmight, hoping the Hollywood

glamour around its story cancreate an icon for a new, unit-ed city.

Cast as a monument to the1998 deal that ended threedecades of violence, a £97-mil-lion ($155 million) Titanicmuseum was opened by Ca-tholic and Protestant leaderslast month to mark the cen-tenary of the ship’s launch andfateful first voyage.

The museum’s 38-metre-high glass-and-aluminium fa-

cade redraws a skyline longdominated by the yellowcranes of Harland and Wolff,the Protestant-dominatedshipyard that built the Titanicand the scene of some of theworst sectarian rioting beforethe 1920 partition and beyond.

“For too long, perhaps morethan anything because of asense of profound sorrow, theTitanic has never been trulyremembered at home, but allthat has now changed,” said

Deputy First Minister MartinMcGuinness.

‘A new, better history’“These buildings... are being

used to write a new history, towrite a better history,” he said.Mr. McGuinness himself, longdespised by Protestant ship-yard workers for his role as acommander in the Irish Re-publican Army paramilitarygroup in the 1970s, recentlydiscovered that one of his rela-

tives had helped build the Ti-tanic.

The period around thelaunching of the ship was oneof the most turbulent in Irishhistory as Protestant industri-alists led a campaign to pre-vent the government ofIreland being moved fromLondon to Dublin.

The struggle led to sectarianbloodshed in Belfast, a civilwar in the south and facilitat-ed the carving out of a Protes-

tant-majority northeast,which remained part of Bri-tain, a decade later. Hundredsof Catholics were expelledfrom the yards during sectar-ian riots in the months thatfollowed the Titanic’s launch.

The ship’s sinking dealt ahuge blow to the prestige ofthe shipyard and the North’sindustrial legacy. Fearing badpublicity, generations sweptthe story under the carpet. —Reuters

Belfast salvages Titanic as symbol of revival

NEW DELHI: Nestled in a remotearea of Chhattisgarh, Janjgir-Champa is a town hardly any-one would believe to havesent a passenger for the luxu-ry liner Titanic.

Janjgir-Champa indeedsent a passenger, missionaryAnnie Clemmer Funk, whohad made this town herhome. She was among the1,500 who perished onboardthe Titanic on April 15, 1912.Annie was on her way to visither ailing mother in America.

Annie arrived in India as aMennonite missionary in1906 from America andserved in Janjgir-Champa onher mission. In 1908, sheopened a one-room schooland hostel for poor girls andtaught 17 students initially.She also learnt Hindi duringher stay. The school was laterrenamed as Annie C FunkMemorial School.

Not much is left of Annie’sschool with only outer wallssurviving the ravages of timebut her story is a legend inJanjgir-Champa.

All that is left of Annie’stime here is a small plaquewhich describes her brief butextraordinary life and hertragic death onboard theliner.

According to SarojiniSingh, the principal of SaintThomas school here, the me-morial school was runningtill 1960 but was closed soonafter.

Heartbreaking storyThe story of Annie is equal-

ly heartbreaking as that ofthe liner. From Janjgir-Champa, she reached Mum-

bai via rail and boarded aship for England. She was totake SS Haverford fromSouthampton for Americabut the ship was laid offbecause of a strike by coallabourers.

She was offered to changeher ticket for Titanic for £13pounds. Annie bought a sec-ond class ticket, whose num-ber was 237671. She alsocelebrated her 38th birthdayon the ship with her co-passengers, according to Ga-meo.org, an online encyclo-paedia on Global AnabaptistMennonite.

On the fateful night ofApril 14, Titanic hit the iceb-erg and Annie was alerted inher cabin. She soon reachedthe deck where passengerswere being put into lifeboats.

She was offered a seat in arescue boat when she saw awoman with a child.

As there was only one seatleft, the missionary decidedto offer it to the mother, thussaving two lives.

Annie rememberedAnnie is being remem-

bered in the U.S. on the100th anniversary of thesinking of Titanic.

A documentary titled Re-membering Annie Funk isscheduled to be screened inher home state, Pennsylva-nia, according to MennoniteHeritage Centre website.

British family historywebsite Ancestry.co.uk toomentions Annie’s name inthe list of 1,500 passengerswho died when the Titanichit the bottom of the Atlan-tic. — PTI

Chhattisgarh’sTitanic connection

Sherri and Mike Adgie of Atlanta, Georgia, pose before a reception on board the Titanic Memorial Cruisein the mid-Atlantic Ocean on Thursday. —PHOTO: — REUTERS

TH Chennai/ CITY Back_Pg User: comkn 04-15-2012 00:29 Color: CMYK