Shame Of A Nation

The tragedy in the Gulf Coast states, in New Orleans, La., Biloxi, Miss., and other areas as a result of Hurricane Katrina has been devastating. Natural disasters of this proportion expose everyone to everything. The most powerful nation in the world was humbled by the power of nature.

It was as if the lid came off a cellar where we have been hiding all the poor people and the whole world saw the misery, the racism and the wretchedness in the pretentiously richest country on this globe.

It is rare in the annals of recent history for an entire city to be submerged by water and for a whole region to be wiped out. It showed how even so-called smartest planners could make deadly mistakes, not repair the levees in time and allow a whole city to flourish below sea level, next to a huge water reservoir.

The Bush administration that has been bragging and spending enormous sums of money during the past four years preparing for disasters of this and even higher magnitude was caught with its hands down, helpless in aiding its own people, exposing its utter incompetence to the whole world. But above all, the disaster exposed the ugly underside of U.S. society. It was as if the lid came off a cellar where we have been hiding all the poor people and the whole world saw the misery, the racism and the wretchedness in the pretentiously richest country on this globe.

The poor have always been around. The great magic of this culture has been to shield and protect that poverty from the gaze of others for a very long time. We let it fester, ignoring it, criminalizing it and letting it rot while those in the suburbs head to our cities for expensive dinners and Broadway shows and strolls in well-patrolled parks.

Amidst all the panicky news coverage of this event, there emerged a common link. Almost everyone – from respected journalists and mega-news organizations, to the common folks on the street – agreed that the scenes unfolding in New Orleans and Biloxi looked as if they came from the third world. The range and boldness of these pronouncements were astonishing. “American city becomes a third world nightmare,” “New Orleans Like the Third World,” “New Orleans the site of third world pestilence,” “Third World Scenes,” etc. were all too common descriptions. To top it all, there were frantic, seemingly sincere dazzled pronouncements that reeked of ignorance wrapped in patriotic garb: “I cannot believe this is America,” “I never thought this could happen in America.”

The gravity of the crisis is deep and even though another hurricane Rita did not pack quite the wallop that was feared, the ramifications of these events will loom large on the American psyche for a long time to come. One hopes that even as Americans rebuild from this crisis, it will leave some lasting revelations on them about the rest of the world and about the underside of their own.

It was a shock of revelation as much as a shock of content. And each one of us deserved to be hit by it.

Poverty has always existed in this country. Poor people have been disproportionately Black for a long time. Every city has pockets of the poor shielded on news shows; they never make appearances on TV programs and they are never part of reality TV. Theirs is not the reality we want to watch. The pristine picture that was, and continues to be, projected by Span magazine (remember that?) in other countries, including India (and through American cultural consulates) was never real either.

The great magic of this culture has been to shield and protect its poverty from the gaze of others for a very long time. We let it fester, ignoring it, criminalizing it and letting it rot while those in the suburbs head to our cities for expensive dinners and Broadway shows and strolls in well-patrolled parks. For all intents and purposes, the cities are dead in this country. They are alive in poor ghettoes, but that is a part no one wants to see.

If we recognized that poverty exists in this country, then the referring metaphor would not be the third world, but of your own neglected brothers and sisters, our own cities and neighborhoods and our own citizens.

The great “gift” of this disaster is that it exposed the barren cruelty of this hidden reality. This was not a war that could be controlled by embedding reporters. The 24-hour news networks, which could even follow a dog around the block on a slow news day, were energized by this opportunity. Anchors were hopping around on helicopters, with their roving special bureaus and safari shirts, right in the thick of this poverty, unveiling it to the world. It was a shock of revelation as much as a shock of content. And each one of us deserved to be hit over the head by it.

At least now we know that poverty is not patented in the third world. It is and has been a part of the fabric of this and every society. It is easy to point your finger and your camera lens to the third world to complete your vision of poverty, but it is equally easy to look beyond your noses as you make reservations for dinner and put on your golf shoes. If we recognized that poverty exists in this country, then the referring metaphor would not be the third world, but of your own neglected brothers and sisters, our own cities and neighborhoods and our own citizens.

The indifferent remarks by the president, his wife, his mother, his FEMA chief, his cabinet and the whole machinery, built precisely to take care of American citizens in the wake of any disaster of this proportion, all will go into the annals of American politics and humanity as some of the most disgraceful moments ever. They compete with Marie Antoinette’s arrogance and with Nero’s indifference.

The poor in the third world have always suffered from the selective ways in which we have looked at them. The predominant images from the third world have always been of disasters and tragedies. We hardly ever looked at anything positive in the third world. It damages our vision and shocks our sense of reality as we want to believe it. Giving the victims of our own deeds any humanity is insulting to us indeed. So we deny them that humanity. Once we have seen them as the poor, suffering, wretched of this earth, we do not have to muster the courage to look at them any other way. Now as disaster strikes us at home, we dig up our favorite images of the third world. This simply shows our lack of imagination in describing the tragic scenes in our own home. It underscores our insensitivity to those images that are tragic, not because they are from the third world, but because life is tragic, disasters are devastating and nature is playing its part.

A part of the third world is changing because our bombs are showing them what Katrina could do, borne out of the imagination of the powerful.

While we are at it, let us also look at other “tragic” images of the third world. There are genocides in the third world, often carried out by two-penny dictators who are encouraged either by our own training or emboldened by our deliberate neglect of their wrongdoings. These define the third world too. There are wars in the third world, most fanned or triggered by us. In these wars, we leave the third world in worse shape than we find it. We might want to compare the pictures of the third world before and after our bombs. Those indeed are images of the third world.

The third world also has images of pillaging that has occurred over hundreds of years. We have stripped their natural resources, their human resources, their minerals, and spices, gold, silver and yes, even plutonium. We hardly vast a backward gaze to see what it looked like when we left. But we watched their disasters up close. No wonder that is how we remember the third world. Looking at it any other way would remind us of our own criminal culpability.

BBC pointed out that the only difference between what happened in New Orleans and the third world is that a dictator in the third world would have responded better. That was, without a doubt, the understatement in this tragedy.

The world’s “superpower” with a big mouth and a big stick in its hand is weak in its knees. These are the people who want to dominate the world by using a “rapid deployment force” to contain the power of evil with brute force. The world of ideas never appealed to them. And, among these ideas, one could well have been protecting its own citizens.

The indifferent remarks by President Bush (“Out of the rubbles of Sen. Trent Lott’s house – he’s lost his entire house – there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”), his wife (“a lot of the same footage over and over that isn’t necessarily representative of what really happened.”), his mother (“these people were underprivileged anyway, so this is working out well for them.” – chuckling slightly), his FEMA chief (“I am going to fix a stiff martini and think about that.”), his cabinet and the whole machinery, built precisely to take care of American citizens in the wake of any disaster of this proportion – all will go into the annals of American politics and humanity as some of the most disgraceful moments ever. They compete with Marie Antoinette’s arrogance and with Nero’s indifference. Some gumption these people have pointing to the third world!

The world’s “superpower” with a big mouth and a big stick in its hand is weak in its knees. These are the people who want to dominate the world by using a “rapid deployment force” to contain the power of evil with brute force. The world of ideas never appealed to them. And, among these ideas, one could well have been protecting its own citizens. It is easy to destroy things; every child knows that. It is hard to build them. They cannot even get to their own people the aid they need despite the mammoth power they have aggrandized.

There were comparisons circulating on the internet between how Mumbai and the Indian Navy dealt with the recent wrath of the monsoon and how New Orleans and the U.S. agencies responded to Katrina. Details aside, it is sufficient to observe that the endurance and preparation of Indians was too good to be matched all along. Oh, and let us remember that there is no lid on poverty in Mumbai; it is plastered over the conscience of everyone in the world.

At least now we know that poverty is not patented in the third world. It is easy to point your finger and your camera lens to the third world to complete your vision of poverty, but it is equally easy to look beyond your noses as you make reservations for dinner and put on your golf shoes.

Split Screen
The president has delivered another one of his clarion calls for the war on terror (a term his administration has abandoned, then returned to again and again). It was eerie to see him speaking on terrorism on half a screen while on the other half, the new storm Rita was building. Needless to say, all the questions from reporters following his remarks were on the storm and the response to Katrina, hardly any about terrorism. The president asserted that the war on terror has to continue, because there are people around the world who see Katrina’s destruction and wish they had caused it. Against these people, he surmises, the war on terror we must keep marching on.

Well, there may well be people who want to cause that kind of destruction. And, it is not entirely your fault, Mr. President. Let us remember, however, that those who really want to and tried to cause such destruction are still running around mountains with their dialysis machines. Where is the war on terror being fought against them? But Mr. President, there are plenty of people here in your own country who look at the destruction caused by Katrina and wish you had helped them better, from start to finish. The rest of us watching that destruction wish you had been more competent, more alert and more compassionate in helping people.

The much-ballyhooed third world has changed. Some of it is producing terrorists now. By the thousands. The popularity of this government, to be specific, not of the American people, is at an all time low. The third world scenes now include angry people, deprived of their own dignity and place in the world, posing a threat to the security of common people here and there.

Mr. President, there are plenty of people here in your own country who look at the destruction caused by Katrina and wish you had helped them better, from start to finish. The rest of us watching that destruction wish you had been more competent, more alert and more compassionate in helping people.

A part of the third world is changing because our bombs are showing them what Katrina could do, borne out of the imagination of the powerful. There are no signs of that third world getting back to normal anytime soon, because we will be there for generations. Finally, there is still another part of the third world changing. It is now competing with the United States. It is becoming a formidable economic power, increasing U.S. dependence on everything from cheap labor and goods to talent. It looks at what happened in New Orleans and feels pity for the poor here, because it knows what poverty and suffering is. That world is learning lessons from the government response here and its policies abroad. It is about time to change that lazy rhetoric about the third world. There is no third world; it is here at home. Globalization is the new game, poverty included.