When Katrina hit the Gulf states in the USA, media showed scenes of looting and desperation and was quick to say that these were scenes seen in the third world. Actually, there may be much to learn from the third world with regards the rebuilding process.

The hurricane left chaos in its wake. Hundreds dead and property worth millions destroyed. Numerous large towns and cities were left paralyzed. Some are still paralyzed – more than a week after the hurricane. For this to have happened in India or Pakistan or Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or some other African or Asian country, it would have been believable. But it happened in the USA.

Hmmm.

Katrina also raised numerous questions in its wake. After spending billions of dollars in disaster preparedness, the USA was not ready to respond to a disaster in one metropolis area and its hinterland. Will it be able to respond to wider security threats as its claims suggest? More importantly, is money enough to respond to large scale security issues or do we really need for multilateral cooperation?

There were also questions about the media’s portrayal of the people of New Orleans and elsewhere affected by the floods in the wake of the hurricane. For one, these people are not ‘refugees’ as the media has been saying but citizens of the USA with rights to federal programs.

Pictures of black people ‘looting’ stores raised many questions. First was the racist angle. As important a question was about the question of looting. When people are starving and there is no response from the state vis-à-vis food or other necessities, and there sit locked stores full of food, is it unethical to break open those stores to get at the food? In my opinion, absolutely not!

In describing their experience with the floods , two emergency workers from San Francisco who were stuck in New Orleans talked about people who ‘looted’ private boat yards to rescue others, who ‘stole’ cars so that they could get people out. They were the heroes.

We have seen across history that even the most ‘sophisticated’ people can turn into beasts when their environment turns inhuman and their survival is threatened. The looting and fighting for food is not intrinsic to the third world or to black people. We have seen similar stories from war torn Europe or the USA during the civil war. It is unfortunate, then, that the media chooses to focus on the looting and the people who looted instead of asking why, in today’s modern era, in the wealthiest nation in the world, a situation was allowed to evolve that made humans turn to beasts. Who were responsible for this and how can this be prevented? Unfortunately, this media will not ask those questions.

Since 11th September, 2001, the mainstream media has portrayed the police as an agency that can do no wrong. In their first hand account, these emergency workers wrote of the high handedness of police who were more interested in breaking up groups trying to collectively survive the disaster (for law and order reasons!) than providing for rescue help. Similar stories were reported elsewhere (counterpunch, commondreams, etc).

Perhaps this is the first learning from South Asia. In Sri Lanka, after the Tsunami, very little of the relief was provided by the government. Even though civic society took time to organize, it was civic society groups that delivered. In India, it was civic society groups that had begun active clearing of bodies and delivery of relief before the government took action – and in India, government action was indeed quick.

Similarly, with the recent floods in Mumbai, it was civic action that provided relief. Street vendors went around distributing free food in affected areas. Civic groups carried rescue missions using sophisticated machinery like inner tubes.

A federal system with billions of dollars at its disposal was ineffective. And civic society, never having faced such a situation, took time to figure out how to react. It took me a little time to articulate for myself that even the most powerful government in the world with billions and billions of dollars cannot replace an active and observant civic society or citizen’s groups that know how to look out for each other and react to their needs.

Now, it will be interesting to see how the rebuilding process unfolds. Following the Tsunami in Sri Lanka and India, the poorer communities are being moved away from the coastline in the name of safety while this land is being given to resorts, shipping companies, large fishing companies, etc. When these poorer communities base their livelihoods on fishing, this move is becoming a death knell. In India, protests have been partially successful.

In Sri Lanka, the Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN) has become a consortium of large companies that are basically looking out for increased profits. But civic society groups are watchful and active. Fisherfolk unions – World Forum of Fisher People – etc are actively looking to a counter such take over.

In the USA, large sections of New Orleans have been moved away into refugee camps. Clearly, a significant number will not return. How will the city be rebuilt? Whose lands, whose rights will be taken away? Where will the poor live? What access will they have to livelihoods, schools, transportation to their jobs, etc?

American civil society has done much to help in the wake of Katrina. Much more than the federal government with its billions of dollars, hundreds of personnel and helicopters, gunships and armed cars has not.

But a bigger role awaits – how will New Orleans be built. This is the most significant learning from South Asia.

A community based collective – Community Labor United – has already given a call: "The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants.... We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans."

The citizens of the USA must back them.

Sanat Mohanty (sanat.mohanty@gmail.com) was born in India, is a scientist and works with communities in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and with movements in India. He is the editor of www.thesouthasian.org and the author of “An Elephant Named Sustainability”.

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