Hurricane Katrina
14 September, 2005
By Ahmer Muzammil
O.C (Orange County) is a beautiful coastal town in California. It is one of the most affluent communities of America. I was watching this program on MTV and they were showing a feature on a birthday party of a 16-year-old girl from O.C on which her father spent about 200,000 dollars. On one damn birthday, 200,000 dollars and that’s probably not even the most extravagant Birthday party in that town. As with any other rich communities of America, most of the residents of O.C are white.
But let me categorically say that this is not about white, black or brown. This is about the "Have’s" and the "Have Not’s", if this "Katrina" catastrophe had hit any influential town of America, I can assure you without a shadow of a doubt that it would not have taken 5 days for them to receive a bottle of water from the richest government on the face of this earth. I am at a loss of words at how barbaric, inhumane and inconsiderate the response of the American government has been towards their own citizens.
A poor country like Bangladesh responds to floods and comes to the aid for its citizens better than the only super power of the world. Someone needs to tell Cheney and Rumi that New Orleans is not a town in the Middle East somewhere. It use to be that the politicians would at least shed crocodile tears for the sake of political correctness, but I guess even that fake decency is too much of a burden for these parasites. Give them credit for not being hypocrite at least.
For the past 2 weeks we have seen the horror stories emanating from Gulf coast. There are unconfirmed reports of 10,000 casualties. Analyst and relief workers on ground claim that the figure would be much higher once the water recedes. There are one million so called "Refugees" in their own country. I swear the terms that American establishment come up with are a true hallmark of their cold and cunning personalities. Consider "shock & awe" as another example. The monetary cost for this disaster is estimated at 150 billion dollars. The war critics are asking a valid question that this inability of the American government to address this calamity in a timely manner is due to the "worthy conflicts" that they are involved in all over the world. Consider this, George W. Bush just last year turned down a budget proposal to strengthen the levies that gave away and resulted in the lives of 10,000 people and devastation of millions. However when the same administration is asked that it rub salt to the wound when you have million dollar dancing-balls in celebration of the election victories, while troops in Iraq are deprived of bullet proof waists due to budget restraints. Their response, that’s what the troops are fighting for, the American way of life. Come Again? The troops are putting their lives in danger so the president and his cronies can throw a million-dollar party? Are you kidding? How do they know? Did they had some kind of a survey where they told the American soldiers in Iraq that the reason you are putting your life in danger and your family’s livelihood in jeopardy is because we in the Washington can throw "Wicked Parties". I truly doubt it.
I also believe that American-Muslim community should rise to the occasion and help their countrymen and women in this time of need. We have adopted America as our home by choice and it is our religious and moral duty to lend a helping hand in this horrific disaster. I am pleased to hear that ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) along with other Muslim organizations have pledged to give 10 million dollars to help out in this t ime of need. So I hope the Rush Limbaugh’s and Michael Savage’s and Pat Robertson’s of the world would at least not call for all the Muslims of states to be kicked out anymore. Who am I kidding; they’ll probably find a negative angle in this as well. Once a bigot, always a bigot.
There is a widespread belief among the rest of the world especially in Pakistan that the only way you can reach the top in America is if you have real talent and experience in a relevant field. FEMA is the primary agency responsible for addressing and dealing with emergency catastrophes. You would think that the person who would be appointed as the head of this organization would be someone who would have some experience in dealing with emergencies. You would be wrong. Wrap your mind around this little nugget now; the Director of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) primarily has 2 qualifications that landed him this high profile job.
1. He is a very close friend of the Bush’s
2. He used to be a Horse-Judge.
You might think I am joking but this guy literally judged horses for living before becoming the Director of one of the most important relief agencies of America. What does judging Horses has to do with FEMA? Your guess is as good as mine. The morale of the story? You could never go wrong with being friends with the Bush’s.
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