As I watched glued in horror shocked by the unfolding devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on my television screen, a myriad of thoughts flooded through my mind. Habitually, whenever I have thought about America it has always been in a political context. Somehow, nations in my mind’s eye are defined by their government’s aspirations to a much greater degree than the individuals that compose them.
I know that away from that perspective, Americans are truly warm fuzzy generous human beings. I have innumerable wonderful American friends with whom I banter, concur and often beg to differ.
What struck me that day was just how it is so very easy to forget the basic qualities that constitute each and every one of us and serve to bind us together irrespective of creed, color and nationality.
We share a lot more in common than we would care to admit. How terrifically sad it is that it takes a calamity of such epic proportions to make us realize this staggeringly simple reality. Heartbreaking tales of individuals whose lives will be changed forever as a result of this disaster still ring in my ears. The old man who didn’t have the strength to drag his wife to higher ground watching in stunned helplessness as she let go of his hand and was swept away into a ferocious eddy of water saying, “I love you. Be strong.”
The little girl who clutched her teddy bear sobbing inconsolably, “I need my mummy.” She begged and implored absolutely bewildered, “I just need my mummy!” The woman who had lost all three of her children increasingly devoid of the hope of finding them alive. The list relentlessly goes on. A future classified dossier in the making detailing accounts of personal catastrophes, remarkable acts of heroism and divinely inspired miracles.
This could have happened anywhere. The very fact that such a calamity took place in the mightiest nation of the modern world just goes to amply demonstrate how fragile and vulnerable we truly are. It verily has been a humbling experience for all of us. After all, we have long been afflicted with the dangerous and utterly fallacious belief that we are masters of our own destiny. We have managed to convince ourselves, in spite of our inherent weaknesses and fallibilities, that we can subjugate whatever we choose in order to fulfil our selfish machinations.
It is at times like these that we need to engage in a reality check en masse to correct such spurious and unfounded perceptions. Such disasters present us with the unique opportunity to address the oft-neglected issue of the sanctity of life; in spite of where that life came into existence.
It is imperative that we relearn lessons from these debacles and come to terms with the fact that human suffering is human suffering regardless of how it is felt or out of which conditions it is borne.
Apropos such incidents also go to show how in spite of all our differences, we can still look past them and unite in the face of adversity. The scale of human tragedy, as witnessed by the people of New Orleans this week, has no adequate measure.
The misfortunes of the Iraqis and Palestinians too knows no bounds. For how can intangible suffering be quantified? Is it sufficient to gauge it in the numbers of dead or injured? Or would it be more appropriate to qualify anguish in terms of monetary loss and material devastation? What we often overlook when counting up the dead and assessing the scale of destruction is that every individual affected came from a home and family that would in turn be affected in a far more pervasive manner than we can ever begin to imagine, leave alone evaluate.
It was evident that the people of New Orleans had been left behind much before the government’s botched attempt at relieving their misery. I for one was taken aback at the realization that such poverty exists even within the United States.
Perhaps if the powers that be were more interested in the plight of their own people as opposed to expending their resources in nurturing conflicts in far away lands, the appalling state of affairs that their people endure would not have to exist.
There are far greater truths that remain untold than body counts and insurance appraisals. There are people all over the world who suffer daily not due to a circumstance as unavoidable as the vicissitude of the elements of nature, but because of the lust for power that negates the very essence of the spirit of human dignity.
This is the bitter-sweet irony of an incident such as Katrina for it sees us engage in blatant double standards. We lament the tragedies that are preventable and yet we simultaneously instigate and perpetuate those that can so easily be stopped. Wanting to make a difference is never enough. Making the difference is ultimately what matters.
— (Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)