Last weekend polls suggested 50 – 50 US split down the middle, with Bush opponents disapproving of his abysmal non-performance while supporters stayed loyal , thus heartening Republicans .It was a result of media manipulations by showing the President Bush , Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld ,with Condi Rice , even stacking some items for the poor in cartons .Would robot like repetition of ‘ staying the course’  assure the Americans , as it did after 9/11 and after every exposure of its failures in Iraq;  to find WMD’s , link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaida , sham transfer of sovereignty , January 30 elections and now the new Constitution fiasco .

London’s Guardian wrote,” Privately, conservatives also wonder how much sympathy white; suburban America - the crucial middle ground all politicians covet - will feel for Katrina's victims. One close-up observer describes what he suspects is a widely-held - if rarely articulated - view of those left behind in New Orleans: "They lived in a silly place, they didn't get out when they should, they stole, they shot at each other and they shot at rescue workers." If that's the view, then Bush won't suffer too badly.” 

This may be true because when criticized for US failures in Iraq and elsewhere in my articles , many enraged Americans accuse me that like the rest of the world that I am a loser .I then mail them ‘the Decline of the American Century ‘dated 11 September , 2002 .They come back with ‘ but we are superior culturally’ . I then try to educate them with my article on Eastern foundations of Western civilization (the later, Mahatma Gandhi thought would be a good idea).

Adrian Wooldridge, co-author of an excellent study on conservative America, ‘The Right Nation’ , says  "The big losers among Republicans will be the neo-cons," "The hubris of thinking that America could reshape the world, creating a democracy in hostile territory, when it can't even keep order in an American city - that hubris has just been punctured in a big way." Now the images of Katrina become foremost in the public mind, replacing 9/11 and the "global war on terror". Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, and the rise of the conservatives in USA, they have won the argument on reduce taxes (for the rich – which Bush has) and spend less (on infrastructure and services for the poor). After the fall of the Berlin wall, the neo-liberal model of privatization and deregulation - has been spread, often imposed on countries that resisted it, with a debate now in the European Union, where unlike UK, France and others insist that their social model is superior.

Katrina might reopen that debate in USA, the Mecca of neo-liberals and neo-cons .Perhaps there is an opening, for active government, for more taxing and spending on infrastructure and social welfare .This they have to do in New Orleans and the region. 

Conclusions.

What we see in New Orleans are remnants of historic exploitation and residues of slavery along with recent neglect of the poor and predominantly black people. 

Of course, nowadays exploitation of the poor is implemented in a more subtle way; through globalization, as it is implemented and foreign direct investment. In old days, the black slaves were herded by other black tribes in Africa. Nowadays U.S.-led West corporate barons identify, encourage and build local slave herders in poor nations as it is not necessary to transport the slaves to USA.  The modern equivalents of local herders are the quick rich US dollar Russian billionaires, Asian billionaires and others who exploit local slaves in sweatshops and industry in situ. It is called outsourcing and keeps the new slaves in check at home, who can be hired or fired, mostly in special export devoted zones.  Even during the later decades of Communist rule in East Europe, the corporate barons used cheap labor in these countries, short of US dollars, to outsource textiles and other products.

The system of slavery is older than human pre-history. Perhaps as the first instinct of commercial exploitation, human beings, instead of finishing off all the members of the vanquished tribes as collateral damage, saved them as slaves, as household domestics or as new auxiliaries for their fighting forces.  When human evolution progressed further, the slaves were exploited for economic benefits like farming and later plantations, especially in the New World, where the local population could not withstand the diseases brought in by the Europeans or the extreme hard labor enforced in the plantations.

In the Old Testament, slavery was taken for granted as part of the social order and a series of laws were developed regulating the treatment of slaves.  In the New Testament, there is no outright condemnation of slavery but based on the Jesus Christ’s teachings and his noble deeds, there was implicit criticism of the practice.  This however was not applied by Christians in the West until medieval times.  In Islam's holy book Quran, freeing of the slave is considered a pious act and was encouraged.

There were distinct differences between the slaving by the West and the Asians.  In the later case slaves could be like members of the family when working in households, maids after impregnation were accepted as full members of the family. In USA, the children fathered by white slave owners with their black slaves were very harshly treated .In the fighting forces, based on merit, slaves could raise to the level of Sultans, the rulers.  There were many slave dynasties in India, the Middle East and in Central Asia.  While it must be said that, in general, the Blacks came out badly but in the Arab and Turkish world there was no apartheid like system.  During my posting in Ankara in early 1970 s, black skin was considered beautiful, like black velvet, .Turks would recite poems on black eyes and black hair.  By when I returned in early 1990s, their zest to ape the West had led to an explosion of blonde haired (peroxide) Turkish girls especially in big cities.

Not that there were no rebellions by the black slaves in America or even in Arab lands.  In America they were crashed ruthlessly .They fared no better in Arab lands either .Before the American Civil War ( 1861–65 )  one historian found documentary evidence of more than 250 uprisings involving more than 10 black slaves, their main objective being personal freedom. There were put down brutally, many times with the help of spies from among them. 

Nowadays under the charade of globalization, the local millionaires and billionaire are the willing instruments for carrying out the exploitation of their own people. An array of studies have shown that globalization has not made spread wealth, instead it has made rich richer and poor poorer.  The myth of increasing wealth and distributing it to poor people by globalization was widely disseminated by corporate media after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Even now, there are all kinds of schemes to remove poverty, which is nothing, but to salve of the conscience of some Christian believers, who make charity donations, but most of it is used up by the so-called experts from the West, paid thousand dollars per day and other perks.
There is little doubt then the image, mostly created by its media of the US hyper power, which can do no wrong, now lies shattered. It created a quagmire in Iraq from where it does know how to exit with its honor intact and now this inapt handling of Katrina.

The edifice of the all-conquering capitalism was almost shattered in 1998.  In August/Sept, its very bastions were reduced to utter panic and incoherence after the collapse of East and South East Asian economies, the decimation of the ruble and the impending fall of the Brazilian economy. 

On September 8 , The Washington Post under the title “ Rethink Capitalism “wrote,’ What is frightening about the world's current economic troubles is a sense that rules we thought we understood don't seem to apply now. Until a few months ago, we thought we knew what a developing country had to do to join the ranks of the wealthy. We thought we knew how a Communist country could transform itself into a capitalist one. The general understanding was that as the world became more connected, it also would become more prosperous.

“Now, with Russia and much of Asia having crashed, with Eastern Europe and Latin America imperiled and with much of Africa going backward, the certainties of only a year ago seem far from certain.—‘Some other headlines around the same time were ‘Global Capitalism, Once Triumphant, Is in Full Retreat ‘by Robert J. Samuelson in ‘Newsweek‘. Reasons for its recovery still remain unexplained. However, many economists now warn again that with heavy deficits at home and abroad, not only US economy will go down this time but also it will take many others with it.

One of the explanations for surviving the1997 – 98 melt down could be that to begin with the wealth created in South-East Asia was transferred to USA and invested in mostly info- tech and high-tech companies.  This of course totally shattered economies of South-East Asia from which many have still not fully recovered. The wealth created by financial jiggery-pokery added little goods in USA. It was only a matter of time before the bubble burst, and it did.

The increased US productivity was injected by the info-tech technology, where it is still ahead of the world and in which the contribution made by expatriate Asians especially from India was a major chunk.  USA would have had to spend many tens of billions of dollars to train in technology that large number of bright minds at home, if it could find them in science and mathematics, the two disciplines in which even white Americans do very badly compared to Asians. It remains India’s massive contribution to US economic growth and well-being.

The danger to USA in medium-and long term would come from the reaction of minorities, specially the Blacks as a result of invasion of Iraq and their exposure to the reality of the world and the likely inadequacy of the US corporate elite to do justice in the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Mississippi delta. Blacks, Hispanics and other poor Americans have sacrificed much more in defending American policies in Iraq. If they're not satisfied with the reconstruction in the South USA, there would be rumblings of dissatisfaction, which would create problems.

Let us take an example from history. At the moment, the minorities including the Blacks in USA have the same status as of the dhimmis when the Arab power was rising.  Once the Arabs stopped fighting and started relying on slaves from Central Asia and elsewhere, they started losing power and control.  It is not going to happen tomorrow but the resentments could spiral into actions similar to the ex-Black sergeant sniper, who kept the capital city of Washington at bay for days or another black soldier who threw grenades into the tent of US soldiers in Kuwait just before the Iraq war. Black Americans have joined the armed forces in large numbers after the compulsory military draft was abolished. They and the Hispanics are now deeply embedded in the US armed forces.

What 11 September did, apart from bringing about many other fundamental changes was that those who feel repressed and persecuted, might take it as an example for revenge, which is doable.  It may not be on this massive scale and organization but a number of smaller terrorist acts could slowly lead to the erosion of the economic and political equations that compose the US elite now.

However, US are lucky that although informally segregated in churches and elsewhere, majority of the Blacks and Hispanics are Christians. Jazz music‘s spiritual base is Lord Jesus Christ and not Allah.
Nevertheless, conversion to Islam increased after September 11, even among Hispanics. Black American Muslims who now number 3 to 5 million remember many historic wrongs done to them. Of the 2 million Americans in prisons, two-thirds are non-white. Many feel oppressed by the white power structure and sentencing disparities, which too often fall most harshly on minorities. Islam offers brotherhood, dignity, and a sense of pride and solidarity, especially for non-whites. Thus, many, alienated and disfranchised, could become easy targets for radicals who preach violence, of overcoming oppression by jihad. Many black Americans have experienced maltreatment and dehumanization. Iraq, and now the Katrina aftermath would only re-open the old wounds. 

(Gajendra Singh., served as Indian Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in1992 -96. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the1990 - 91Gulf war), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies, in Bucharest. The views expressed here are his own

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