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www.hopedance.org
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| <back | home In New Orleans lives were destroyed by nature, in Afghanistan and Iraq by people by Jurriaan Kamp, Editor of Ode Magazine The images we often see: Poor, mainly black people with a sad, defeated look in their eyes sitting alongside a road or in an airport terminal or emergency shelter next to a couple of bags containing a few belongings. Where? Their eyes tell us they barely know themselves. Wherever it is, it’s far from home. Another photo shows their simple accommodations back home, now in ruins. Their city has sunk. Even more images tell us it will be a long time before they can rebuild their lives. Other stories report unimaginable grief, misery and desperation. They make us realize that even a wealthy and powerful country is vulnerable. New Orleans is suffering and – through the media – the world is suffering with it. The images we rarely see: Even poorer people surrounded by rubble and dust, staring out of vacant eyes at the lifeless bodies of family members and what was once their home or village. People living on the edge of subsistence in places where water is scarce and the sun a daily enemy. People who have no voice at all in international politics. People whose lives have been destroyed by cruel violence from the sky against which they couldn’t possibly defend themselves. If there were more photographs, you would see not only death in their eyes, but often powerless rage and sometimes desire for revenge. Afghanistan has suffered and continues to suffer. Iraq suffers every day. And that suffering, affecting so many more people, goes largely unnoticed by the world. The difference: New Orleans is America. New Orleans counts. The lives in New Orleans count. Afghanistan and Iraq are pieces of land that are part of a battle of international political interests that change with time. Lives in Afghanistan and Iraq don’t count. In New Orleans there are hundreds of victims. In Afghanistan and Iraq there are many thousands. And perhaps the biggest difference: New Orleans was destroyed by nature. The suffering and loss there may have been prevented by building better dikes or providing better assistance, but it is still a natural disaster – a force against which people are sometimes powerless. The destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq was due only to people. To bombs. Violence. And people could have prevented that violence. Should have prevented it. It pains me to see that the most vulnerable in New Orleans were the ones affected. But as I watch the flow of images portraying their devastated lives, in my mind’s eye I see those never shown, of people a hemisphere away, for whom not even a bus was sent to take them to safety, days after being struck by man-made evil, people for whom there are no shelters, care or attention. That difference hurts, because it is a difference that threatens peace and a better future. (www.odemagazine.com; reprinted with permission) <back | top^ |