A PATRIOT DIRGE: A Call to Arms

Global Activism
Requiem New Orleans

Katrina was a call to arms. Every activist in the western world witnessed a pause, a freeze, a silencing of time, and stood in rapt attention. Here was a nation at war, inflicting crimes and atrocities on innocent peoples abroad, yet it stood down when its own people were suffering.

September 11 finally had an answer and her name was Katrina.

Sara Kent was in Paris when Katrina buried New Orleans. She had just visited a memorial to the communard, a turn of the century failed attempt to liberate France. There, where nine citizens of the republic were lined up and gunned down, lilies grew and the story of human sacrifice was told.

Sara was a citizen of the world. After the 2000 election, she cashed in her earnings as an attorney at law and became an artist. She tended to the Bohemian in writing, drawing, painting, sculpting, and so was drawn to Paris and Prague. Everywhere she went she found cafes, pubs and taverns where political discourse thrived.

She remained active. It was in her blood. It was in her art. She was in Vienna when September 11 came down. Like all of her brethren, she gasped at the horror of destruction and death and again at the horror that would follow. She was in Amsterdam when the invasion of Afghanistan was launched. She was in Prague when the neocon warlords of the Bush White House built their case for war with Iraq. She uncovered documents that helped reveal the lie of a secret meeting between Iraqi agents and Al Qaeda extremists. She was in London for the largest antiwar gathering in recorded history.

Sara was profoundly disturbed by how little their efforts made an impact on the governments that were supposed to represent them. Like Rome, she turned away from overt politics in despair. Unlike Rome, she did not seek refuge or atonement in isolation; she sought redemption in art.

Sara’s art was always political. She did not guide her work in that direction; it simply emerged. She reflected the duplicity of feckless leaders, the shameless greed behind lofty ideals, the nameless dead and massive destruction in the name of freedom, justice and democracy.

For three days, she did nothing but watch the citizens of New Orleans suffer and survive as they exposed the lie of government compassion. For three nights, she did nothing but listen to jazz and commiserate with fellow Parisians, native and expatriate, who felt a deep and enduring kinship with the city that defined America’s soul. For three days, she cursed CNN and extolled public officials to do something, anything, to deliver water, food and medical supplies. For three days, she felt a rising anger and shame at being an American.

On the fourth day, she contacted Amy Goodall, an activist she met in London, to ask what she could do. Amy painted a grim picture, explaining what was happening in the states. They had sent many teams to New Orleans, builders, carpenters, electricians, organizers, doctors, nurses, skilled volunteers but all were turned back at the gates. The media was dead wrong on one key fact: Security forces were there but they were not charged with helping or protecting the people, they were there to keep help out.

Something was going on in New Orleans that was rotten to the core. If Sara wanted to help, the best thing she could do would be to head an investigation and legal team. She was afraid that the poor people being evacuated to centers all over the country would never be allowed to return. She was afraid that the insurance companies would steal people’s homes and property. She was afraid that the land cleared by Katrina and the defective levees was already reserved for other purposes. The poor were being evicted without just compensation.

As they shared their thoughts and tears over the suffering people of New Orleans, the subject turned to common acquaintances, most notably Roman Mason.

"He’s back," said Amy, "and he’s on fire."

"Maybe the best thing you can do is call Rome and come home."

They talked about old times and better days. They talked about the changes in their lives, Amy’s marriage and Sara’s art. They talked about politics and they talked about New Orleans. Conspiracy theories were thriving. Anything was preferable than believing the apparent cold-hearted truth: that the government did not care.

Bush was a second term president accountable to no one. That he and his people did not care about blacks was obvious, that they did not care about the poor was clear to anyone who looked beyond the rough façade of a little rich boy who never worked an honest day’s labor in his life. New Orleans brought it all home.

Even now, on the fourth day of suffering and neglect, their token appearances in the ravaged region, the president’s pledge in Jackson Square, with the statue of Indian killer Andrew Jackson, the man who singularly enforced genocide on the Cherokee nation, rang shallow and false.

Did it matter? Historical ironies were lost on a people that did not know history.

They talked until there was nothing more to say, then they cried a river of tears, wished each other well and said goodbye.

Sara went into a deep depression. All the emotions she held back or channeled into her art came spilling forth. She had taken a vow to leave politics behind her. She was an artist now. She was committed to the cause from a different perspective, one that did not require collaboration with others.

She knew the moment she put down the phone, her life was evolving once again. She knew that she would return to the states and the low down universe of political and legal manipulations. She knew she could not remain above the fray. It was a call to arms and she could not refrain.

Expatriates around the world and activists at home were hearing the same call and answering in their own ways. Sara’s was after all not that different from Rome’s way. She would dive into the liquid depths of darkness, morbid, terrifying darkness. She would hit rock bottom and descend further, darker and lower than she had ever dove before. She would shed her skin like the fabled serpent and she would emerge stronger, larger and ready for battle.

She knew the way forward but she did not fear for the people of New Orleans, the lower ninth ward, Gentilly and St. Bernard Parrish, would comfort her. They would suffer together and together they would survive. Together, they would build the strength and unity of survival. Together they would construct a bridge to the land of hope and promise.

If they did not succeed, they would die knowing they did everything in their power, everything in their collective imagination, everything that could be done to find the light of justice and build a better world.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (Crow Dog Press) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (Dry Bones Press). HIS NOVEL THE KILLING SPIRIT AND NOVELLA NUMBER NINE ARE POSTED ON BUZZLE.COM.