I just watched a talk on TV5 –one of the most famous French TV channels- conducted by the journalist Philippe Dessaint on hurricane Katrina and the causes of the disaster. Specialists and journalists attest, explain, and comment the disaster that hit the area. Some of them are Robert Pingeon who represents the Republican Party in Europe; Nicole Bacharan, a professor at Science Politics in Paris; Thomas Sancton, an American journalist born in Louisiana; Hervé Le Treut, a climatologist; and Xavier Guilhou, a specialist in crisis management. I will only mention three aspects that I found interesting to share with the rest of the class.
First, there is China’s perception on the efficiency of American emergency relief and the comparison of these two countries. China, an ever growing market with a heavily centralized government, is highly effective in emergency relief while the US government has failed to respond adequately to New Orleans disaster. China’s government was able to evacuate 1 million people three times before the typhoons hit the areas while the US government –FEMA- has taken many days before evacuating victims from the city. Is the success of China in responding to emergency due to the heavily centralized government? Or is it just the habit of typhoons over the past decades that prepared the emergency team to respond effectively? The habit may be a possibility in my view. At the wake of Hurricane Rita hitting the coasts of Texas, is the US prepared to carry on effectively emergency relief? While China has a successful emergency system it lacks a compensatory system, which the US has.
Secondly, the tragedy has pushed to question the sustainability of the war on Iraq. The main reason is the heavy budget allocated overseas -$5 billion dollars are spent every month on Iraq; a war of choice- and not the lack of military staff (or the death toll of American troops) on US soil for emergencies -within 48 hours of the tragedy 63,000 soldiers and 350 helicopters were deployed in the area. It will take $200 billion dollars to rebuilt New Orleans. The US government will have to cut its spending or find alternative ways to rebuild the city.
Finally, I want to mention the racial aspect of poverty that America has been facing for many generations. Two third of New Orleans population is black. The poor emergency relief has increased the already existing belief among some of the people in black communities – the singer Kayne West is an example- that the US government and President Bush are racist. Whether or not this is the case, the US government and Bush need to take into account this institutionalised racial poverty and find ways to lift the black population out of poverty. It is time for the US government to look within its borders and see that some parts of its country are as poor as third world countries. New policies could not come at a better time since it is the year of fighting poverty around the globe. However, the type of poverty is different from Africa’s poverty. The US poverty comes from the slavery legacy and thus the government must fix it by giving true status (for a lack of a better word) to black people throughout the US. Ending segregation was not a way out of poverty and neither is affirmative action since most black people are not competing with white people on the same level.
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