HURRICANE KATRINA: Prayers For New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina streaked across the southern Florida peninsula, turned north and marked a path to the heart of New Orleans. At the last possible moment, with catastrophic predictions filling the airwaves, it veered east, striking Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi. New Orleans, jewel of the south, was not spared. St. Bernard’s parish and the ninth ward is subsumed under ten feet of water, power is out, and the damage to homes, businesses and structures is yet untold but it could have been much worse.

Of course, we are concerned for all the victims in the path of Katrina. The forces that spared New Orleans (this time) brought death and destruction elsewhere. We must demand that our governments provide sufficient aid and assistance, knowing that they will not fail to answer the call. Our politicians are very good at confronting a crisis. It is one of the blessings of democracy that they cannot ignore the people in a time of need.

At this moment, however, my thoughts are with the city of New Orleans for I have known her embrace, albeit briefly, and she has won my undying devotion.

If you are a praying person, pray for the homeless, the destitute and the stubborn defenders of New Orleans. Pray for those confined in the New Orleans Superdome and Jefferson Parish. Pray for the birthplace of jazz, for a culture of tolerance that predates the American nation. Pray for Bourbon Street, Jackson Square, the St. Louis Cemetery and the tomb of Marie Laveaux. Pray for a city of a million unfathomable contradictions and mysteries, city of light and darkness, city of hope and despair, city of faith and godlessness, city of passion and unholy calm, city of blues and ragtime, city of jazz. City of jazz.

Of all the cities in America, New Orleans is the most ancient and the most international. It is a blend of French, Caribbean and southern cultures. It is where slavery was practiced ruthlessly and where former slaves were allowed to flourish. It is where every artist and musician must go to reveal the soul. It is where Robert Johnson and Louie Armstrong learned their trade.

If you have never been to New Orleans, go. Go as soon as it is possible to go safely. Go before the sea swallows her whole, before the French Quarter is a pictorial memory, before the shores of Lake Pontchartrain are no longer distinguishable, before the triumph, the glory, the profound gloom and sorrow of this mystical American treasure is swept away.

New Orleans may be a doomed city. Like Venice, Italy, it is doomed by its geography and the indifference of world governments to global warming, to melting glaciers, to altered ocean currents: We should have seen it coming. We should have recognized the signs years, decades ago, while there was still time to act. Some of us, in fact, did.

Tragically, it seems it may be America’s turn to pay the price of global climate change. Listen to the experts carefully. They may avoid the phrase "global warming" but they cannot but acknowledge that it is the rising temperature of the Gulf that has precipitated this season of extreme storms. It will not end with Katrina and Katrina does not begin to compare with the devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami. What more will we require to transform sympathy into action?

When there was still time, we should have done so much more. America was late in acknowledging the problem, late in accepting the human contribution, and even now, we stand virtually alone in refusing to sign on to the first modest effort to confront inevitable catastrophe (the Kyoto Accord). It is not too late to accept the challenge but I fear it is too late to avert a chain of tragedy.

For now, we can only pray that the damage can be alleviated and that we can recover the living, breathing miracle of creation that is New Orleans for another generation. We can pray that we have not lost forever the sacred womb of a nation and the sweetest, most enchanting of lovers.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON DISSIDENT VOICE, COUNTERPUNCH, ALBION MONITOR AND BUZZLE.

Random Jack
Jack Random's Blog