“SURVIVORS were still trying to leave the city on Saturday...corpses lay in the streets...the sick huddled in the shade or rested on cots...food and water grew scarce...dead bodies sagged in wheelchairs...bodies floated in muddy waters washing lazily over submerged pickups and campers...corpses were being eaten by rats as they decomposed on city streets.
Barefoot women cradling naked screaming babies, everything they owned on their backs, limped west with nowhere to go...residents reported hearing burst of sporadic gunfire...the city was becoming lawless.
With no power, the nights were dark and the streets were unsafe...looting, muggings, and rapes...acts of desperation and acts of depravity were rising at an alarming rate...unless the rescue is speeded up, the death toll might reach 10,000...extra troops, including paratroopers and Marines, are being sent in to aid...”
Such images of devastation unfortunately have become familiar to us over the past few years in Iraq. What made these images even more shocking now was that they were taking place in America. Americans, especially, are appalled and surprised by the degree of destruction and helplessness: “Disease, germs,” one woman, Claudette Paul, said, covering her mouth with a cloth, her voice smoldering with anger. “We need help. We don’t live like this in America.”
I agree, nobody — anywhere on earth — no matter what the reason, should live like this. Another man adds, “It’s hard to watch pictures of any American going through this.” I agree, it is hard to watch any human being suffer such tragic conditions. My heart goes out to every victim of Hurricane Katrina. The injured, the homeless, the hungry and the deceased are all in my prayers. I offer my condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in the disaster.
Some reactions to the catastrophe show just how fragile our ties as human beings have become. I have heard some say they believe that the hurricane was God’s vengeance for what American foreign policy has done to Iraq. I have read that others see it as punishment because the US forced Jews out of Gaza. Ironically, many of those happy to watch such destruction claim to do so for religious reasons. Such people forget that religion — all religions — teach compassion and humanity above anything else.
Humanity and religion, both, dictate that we reach out to those suffering today. The victims of Hurricane Katrina deserve our sympathy, compassion and help no less than those any other place in the world. Human life is human life regardless of religion, race, or nationality. This is our chance, as a Muslim nation especially, to show the world the real essence of Islam. In the wake of the hurricane I read that dozens of nations and national organizations have offered aid to the US. I sincerely hope that my country leads the Islamic world again with its compassionate and generous gestures.
Hurricane Katrina has already taught the world many lessons: First and foremost it has shown us all how easily powers beyond us can humble even the strongest nations in the world. It has also shown us how “quickly the thin veneer of civilization can be stripped away,” as The Daily Mail of London put it. Katrina also taught us that devastation and tragedy know no race, religion or nationality — and so should not compassion. “It really makes us look very much like Bangladesh or Baghdad,” said David Herbert Donald, the retired Harvard historian of the Civil War and a native Mississippian.
I hope that Katrina can teach the world one more lesson: Humanity is our greatest bond and our only hope for a better world.
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