On the other hand, Iraqi scenes of killings and insecurity show also that being able to conduct war does not necessary infer an ability to maintain peace. Now also, Katrina comes in to raise lots of questions acknowledged by the current President George W. Bush.
Accused of imperialism by some, seen by others as fighting the just war of Counter-Terrorism USA acknowledged role is still bringing a lot of controversies and discontentment around the world.
Our effort today is to look at the questions Katrina raises about America and par ricochet about each and every country's capacity to read, plan and manage natural disasters. This quest, for sure, will not be apologetic but does not aim to be doleful. It aims at raising some issues and preparing us to find sustainable solutions to prevent natural disasters and also to manage man-made ones.
VERBA VERSUS RES
A lot has been said already. But what are the main revelations brought by Katrina? Someone had the audacity to compare the New Orleans’ anarchy to Darfur! We felt uncomfortable with this comparison; we felt that the two are incomparable to Katrina. At least that an African failure could not be compared to American mess! But it depends on from where we stand to look at this disaster. The fundamental difference is that one is man-made or started by human beings who are expected to be reasonable and the other is a natural disaster or caused by nature, by Mother Nature. My concern here is HOW DO WE READ, PLAN AND RESPOND TO A DISASTER WHENEVER IT IS MAN-MADE OR NATURAL? How are we preventing a disaster caused by men (which we expect to be reasonable as stated by Aristotle) or by our mother nature (who is blind)? Can someone look at the New Orleans situation and compare it to Darfur in terms of politic empathy, mismanagement and lack of ethical commitment? Can we compare the despair, anarchy and state insensitiveness of these two parts of region?
A lot has been said about the disaster in New Orleans, whose 67% population is black and whose budget was cut by 44 millions to profit to the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) despite its dangerous location below the sea level. Let me put it differently. Mutatis muntandis. What if this disaster was in Wisconsin? Could we expect the same level of mismanagement? What if this disaster happened in Detroit? Would it have been mismanaged like in New Orleans?
My deep feeling is that human life should be respected and protected. It is the role of our modern States to foster this fundamental right and to make it real. Why is it that this Credo was not respected? Where did we go wrong and what should we fix so that it does not happen again?
New Orleans is another illustration of America's paradox:
“South Louisiana is the anchor of America's Energy Coast, securing more than three-quarters of U.S. offshore oil and gas production -- a greater share of our nation's energy supply than even the kingdom of Saudi Arabia accounts for. The ports of south Louisiana, including New Orleans, are America's gateway to the world, handling more than 20 percent of U.S. imports and exports each day, including more than 70 percent of all grains as they move from farms across the nation to markets overseas. And 40 percent of the seafood consumed by Americans each year comes through coastal Louisiana!” (1)
SUSTAINABLE POLICY
If the Tsunami took us by surprise, Katrina was predicted and was preceded a year before by the Hurricane Ivan. Ivan confirmed that New Orleans should be re-built and protected at a cost of 14 billion dollars. This proposal was not approved by the Government who found it too expensive and maybe not worthy. Today, analysis says that we will need 200 billion dollars to rebuild New Orleans whose water has become very toxic and contaminated. The question may be “Should New Orleans be rebuilt at the same location or be relocated?
The rich and prosperous Companion town of Pompeii was buried by the volcano Vesuve in 98 AD. Today, Katrina has shown us that we have to be prudent and read signs she sends to us.
Seniors citizens were abandoned in their bedrooms; sick people were left in their rooms of hospital rooms by usually dedicated personnel. Policemen did not have any choice rather than protecting and saving their own life and their families. Katrina has revealed that when one's life is in danger there is hardly place for heroism. Emmanuel Kant's ethics of duty has been defeated because there was no policy to sustain act of heroism or ethics of duty.
LEVELS OF COORDINATION FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL
Created by President Carter, the Federal Emergency Management Association's motto is “Helping people before, during and after disasters." (2) The Federal Emergency Management Agency is tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and militating against disasters. So do we read on the mission statement of the agency that became part of the Bush created Department of Homeland Security since March 2003?
9/11 was a man-made disaster. It was an attack which revealed a breach in the Homeland security system of America. A homeland security problem should be tackled at the security, intelligence level. Preventive actions can be taken; strong intelligence system should be put in place. Strong collaboration and flow of information should be passed among key levels of national organizations and institutions. But the Federal Emergency Management Association does not stand alone. It is true that the legal fact of putting the city under siege alerts immediately the federal institution to step in and to come to the rescue of the local institution. We did not see it on time and as expected! Katrina reveals systemic dysfunction between federal, provincial and local structures or institutions in America and may be in our democratic nations.
It is the City's responsibility to plan for evacuations in time such as Katrina. Also the city had records of people who are really needy in time of disasters. The City knew full well that it had a large population needing shelter that could not evacuate (otherwise, Mayor Nagin wouldn't have ordered people into the Superdome). But the City failed to have the necessary water, food and other supplies stocked and on hand to take care of those people. This is setting up shelter 101 and is something that could and should have been included in the shelter plan. We saw the photos of the buses which could have been used to evacuate people sitting idle. What did the Mayor do? How did the municipal government collapse so strongly? And when the city was under siege, why did the federal responses ot come on time!
Weber has convinced us that bureaucracy is the key for efficiency. That's why our system has become very bureaucratic. But do we still have the spirit behind Max Weber's sociology of bureaucracy?
RACIAL POLICY
When African leaders behave badly towards their own citizens and are sponsored and supported by western countries, champions of democracy and good governance, one can be astonished that good example are not duplicated and imposed upon pairs by droit d'ingérence. On the contrary, it looks like bad leaders from developing countries have strong supports from their western pairs in the name of non interference. Eyadema was a patent example and so was Mobutu. So is Kagame whose government has committed crimes against humanity, crimes of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The same attitude has been revealed in America through the Katrina hurricane. Black communities are hit, no one cares. No one cares to assist them immediately when they are deprived and impoverished by nature. No one cares! No one cares when it is time to care.
Since no one cares, we understand the state of anarchy into which the area sank: a crime, homicide, rapes, looting, despair and acts of barbarism.
Media has been a clear demonstration of the ambient racism in the world despite the last World summit against racism which took place in Cape Town, Africa. (3) Media have been reporting only comments on black people. After almost a week of starvation, those who went to take food from stores were differently portrayed. Blacks were looting, Whites were taking bread! The same point, two interpretations revealing the state of racism in our world. When Kanye West says it loudly, we hypocritically say he is being an extremist. But who is the hypocrite? Kanye West who truly says the message sent and is well perceived or the one who sends the message and who does not want others to talk about it.
We like their blues and jazz and hip pop but we don't like them! We have seen images of very disturbing emotions. We have seen Devonta, a six year old kid, saving five other children younger than him who he did not know. On the other hand, the government who has means, resources and power did not send relief when expected, did not plan when alerted. National mourning day and prayers were decreed. Prayers which talk but which don't walk is not Christian. The country was already under national mourning when Dr. Condolezza Rice was shopping ostensibly in Manhattan while her community was deprived of simple water! Private gesture, social interpretation! It reminds one of the Mississippi floods of 1927. (4)
POLITICS AGAINST EFFICIENCY
America has the most political patronage in the world. Mike Brown before his appointment as head of the Federal Emergency Management Association was, until last year, the head of a horse breeding association. He did not have any qualification or competence to take this position. But, since this job is a political patronized position, he got it. Since 2000, the Federal Emergency Management Association had its budget cut and senior officials have been forced to retire or have gone to other agencies. This has undermined the Federal Emergency’s capacity to respond effectively. Political patronage facilitates corruption in the American system because most of the people are appointed in public services without respecting the United Nation’s Convention Against Corruption which requires a public service being selected upon “merit, equity and aptitude”. (5)
Public servants should be well trained, educated and having the Wilsonian mission of improving human condition. This vision for humanity should be proportionately compensated so that public servants are appreciated and envied both for their positions and their jobs and outcomes, and for what they stand for in the society.
JUST SOCIETY AND MOVEMENT FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE
What is a just society? A just society is the one whose priority is welfare rather than warfare. A just society or welfare society does not privilege bureaucracy bungle over humanity and fairness. A just society or welfare society looks for a democratic government whose democracy goes beyond electoral exercise and stiff principles. New Orleans was abandoned a long time before the Hurricane. So are American cities like Detroit in Michigan! And since, le malheur ne vient jamais seul, Katrina hits to tell us more about. America's society, a society which does not care about the poor, the orphans and those wretched of earth who happen to be mainly blacks! Is it by accident?
"I know that our planet is fragile, and that natural disasters like the one that recently assailed our American neighbors are a brutal reminder of that fragility. And we have seen so many lose their possessions… and as is universally the case in such circumstances, we have seen emerge entire segments of a population among the most destitute, men and women who had nowhere to go. Dispossessed, with no points of reference, facing sheer devastation, even utter dismay. Such images we have seen before — from Darfur, from Haiti, from Niger. And this time they came from New Orleans, from the margins of an affluent society.” (6)
America's sense of patriotism should really go beyond liberals and republican etiquette. America is most respected for his sense of patriotism beyond colors, states, municipalities, positions, genders... Patriotism calls upon citizens to serve, politically and professionally, the country at a moment of need by good civil service that is equally as compelling for the nation as is the Katrina disaster for New Orleans. Nationwide progressive movement for good governance can really save and bolder American patriotism which will continue to be seen as a model for modern democracies.
This can be possible only if our Institutions are more relevant in our world, ie helping us to go from state of nature to state of right. (7)
SCIENTIFIC SOLUTIONS TO HALT HURRICANES
Hurricanes in the Atlantic, Typhoons in the west Pacific and Cyclones in the West Indian Ocean, these huge rotating storms will continue to haunt our days and tranquility. Since we are aware of this, we have to find a scientific way to resolve them or to slow their speed. This can be done only if we get a deep and measurable, then predictable understanding of these storms which are causing tragedy among us. We must control them, instead of leaving them destroying us. We have succeeded to make rain fall when scarcely needed, why not to slow hurricanes velocity? We have succeeded to send spacecraft in remote areas of the galaxy. We should succeed to halt the hurricanes. We have a challenge over our heads, over our economies, over our lives, over our cultural understanding of natural disasters, over the traditional power of our intelligence. It belongs to us to show, as DR Martin Luther King Jr. was saying that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy”.
Europe has come out with a global policy including structural measures such as dams, river canalization and diversions, protection dykes, artificial flooding areas, plant and habitat engineering, and also non structural measures such as precautionary building, flood plain zoning, regulation and insurance, forecasting and early warning systems. Katrina calls for solidarity, mutual understanding, humanity and unity to make lives better on our planet. Let us find how!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ross Hoffman, Controlling Hurricanes in Scientific American, September 2005 www.sciam.com
Mark Fischetti, Drowning New Orleans in Scientific American, October 2001 www.sciam.com
Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, part III, chap. 6, pp. 650-78.
Immauel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals.Pleaide (2000)
European Environment Agency, Report 21 in http://reports.eea.eu.int/Environmental_Issues_No_21/en/tab_content_RLR
John McPhee, The Control of Nature, Strauss & Giroux (2003)
John M. Barry, Rising Tide. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Simon & Schuter (1998).
« return.