Hurricane Katrina revealed to ordinary Americans -- and in clear relief -- the racism and cynicism of the Bush administration, writes Gamal Nkrumah In the wake of the catastrophic Katrina, United States President George W Bush seemed as keen to grab a place in history as Saddam Hussein. The deposed Iraqi leader devastated the natural habitat of the Marsh Arabs of the Tigris and Euphrates Delta. Bush was caught following in Saddam's footsteps: abandoning the African Americans of the Mississippi Delta. The contempt in which the Bush administration holds human life, at home and abroad, comes as no great surprise to America's long-suffering underdogs. Yesterday they were lynched, today they are washed away in cities that have metamorphosed into corpse-clogged cesspools. African Americans are angry. They don't want to be consigned to the same dread bin as the Marsh Arabs. They are speaking out, and are being heard. Thanks to the presence of non-embedded reporters in New Orleans tsunami-like images were broadcast around the world revealing the underbelly of the world's richest nation. For a week the African American citizens of New Orleans were left to their own devices, abandoned for no other reason than that they were poor. Bush might be spending time now in Louisiana and other states devastated by Katrina, but there is no escaping the cynical governmental response to the catastrophe, which was not only slow and inadequate but appeared deliberately to exclude blacks and the poor from the rescue and humanitarian relief effort. The response of authorities to the natural disaster that hit the Deep South was reminiscent of that of an impoverished Third World country -- it was shocking beyond belief. Scenes of havoc hit international headlines and people the world over concluded that the Bush administration doesn't care for poor or non-white Americans. It highlighted, as never before, the defining characteristics of America's callous, so-called democracy -- racism, militarism and elitism. America's Jazz capital, New Orleans, is virtually a sunken city in mayhem and chaos. The Gulf of Mexico coast is prone to periodic devastating hurricanes, and politicians are wondering whether it is worth it to rebuild the city. Perhaps, some even wonder, it would be better to relocate it away from the Mississippi. Regardless of what is ultimately decided, the catastrophe exposed the Bush administration as bankrupt and incompetent, perpetuating a sham that must give way to a just and more humane society, and soon. This is an area where angels fear to tread. American democracy must be seen to work for the weak and needy as well as for the rich and powerful. Otherwise, the credibility of American democracy will plummet further in the eyes of people all over the world. But this is exactly what has now happened. In this context, it is possible to detect two strong currents in public opinion that could be driving the next sea change in the world's perception of America. The first is the response of the international community -- that of Europe and Asia, but also poorer, less developed countries around the world. People worldwide care about ordinary Americans, especially those in distress. Poor countries like Sri Lanka, devastated by the tsunami barely nine months ago, and Cuba, a traditional foe of the US, are more than willing to give -- and give liberally, too. The Cubans were prepared to dispatch 1,000 doctors to relieve the suffering of poor and homeless Americans. The second sea change is the growing recognition that, regarding public services in particular, American officials must be seen to actively alleviate the worse impact of the crisis. The Bush administration must not be seen to be complacent and uncaring. The spotlight is now on America's poor and blacks. They try to survive, often don't, turn rebellious and then face white America's collective wrath. America is the most successful country, at least on the face of it. It is the richest, too. It should not need foreign aid. Yet, seemingly for the country's numberless poor, this is their only hope. Clearly, the richest nation on earth should care for its own disadvantaged and underprivileged if it is to earn the sobriquet of superpower. This doesn't seem on the cards. Condoleezza Rice, a native of Alabama, might be secretary of state, but the people at the bottom in Rice's home county will never get to the top. As the income gap between top and bottom has widened, racial tensions are on the rise. Katrina brought the injustices and gross discrepancies in living standards of contemporary America to the fore, and with force. It is a distinctly edgy moment for the neo- cons of Washington. Consequently, Bush has been staging many charity events for the victims of Katrina. Yet the Bush administration and local authorities have not yet produced any evidence that they have anything one could call a "plan". American authorities acted too late and they offered too little, if anything. They even have gall enough to say that if money is simply handed over, all the wrong signals are sent. The Federal Emergency Management Agency might now be seen as trying to reach out to the blacks and poor of Louisiana, but it is not enough to assuage people's anger and frustration. This is putting it politely. When quizzed on the probable death toll, which may well exceed 10,000, Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, defended his agency's incompetance by blaming the victims. "Unfortunately that's going to be attributable to a lot of people who did not heed the warnings," he told reporters. "I don't make judgements about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans." Meanwhile, the Christian Right, Bush's constituency, has not risen to occasion and behaved according to their vaunted ideals. As the old adage goes, charity begins at home -- seemingly not in America. There is every reason to distrust the Bush administration's motives. The delay and the pitiful inadequacy of the administration's response to this unprecedented tragedy forces one to wonder if they weren't in fact hoping for higher fatality numbers. Certainly the poor and dispossessed were left to fend for themselves. There may be other lessons to be learnt from Katrina's devastation. America's environmental policies and hyper- consumerist culture played a part, too, in leaving many of the American Deep South's poor at the mercy of the hurricane. America's profligate use of energy and its soaring consumerism have long been red-flagged by environmentalists as adding to global climate change, adding to the otherwise forceful ferocity of nature. And in general, an administration focussed on private profits at the cost of the common good would react in exactly the way the current one did. This is something the world might hear more about once the waters have subsided. The reconstruction of New Orleans and other urban and rural localities in the Gulf devastated by Katrina, then, must be seen as one step in a longer campaign against racism, elitism and militaristic recklessness in America. The worst aspects of America's current socio-political and economic modus operandi must be pushed into the past. If until now this message has been on the lips of anti-war, pro-environment and anti-globalisation groups abroad, it is now coming home. Katrina's ill winds swept up not only the poor and blacks of the Deep South, but unveiled for the world to witness what is so deeply wrong with Bush and his cronies.
