Three Scenes of Rainy Season in America By Do Kh.
Translated by Do Le Anhdao
First published September 7, 2005 at www.talawas.com


Scene 1

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
(“House of the Rising Sun”, trad., as played by The Animals)

The first day after the category 4 hurricane Katrina entered the Louisiana gulf. At an abandoned Wal-Mart in New Orleans the masses help themselves to unattended merchandise and choose their preferred products. No one fights over the goods, everyone openly selects different merchandise to put in shopping carts. The scene is festive but lacks music, the sort usually playing in stores and shopping malls.

An MSNBC television reporter stops a little boy in the store, about 12 years old, with a blue t-shirt hung over his shoulder and another pink t-shirt in his hands.

Reporter: This doesn’t seem like a good color for you.

The little boy looks at the camera and returns the t-shirts.

Reporter: People take whatever they want. There seem to be no police to stop them. If you are looking for the police, they are currently in aisle number 3.

At aisle number 3, the shoe section, of three lady police officers in uniform and pushing a shopping cart two walk away at the sight of the reporter and the third, with the camera right in her face, reluctantly mutters a greeting.

Police officer: I’m doing my job…

Reporter (mockingly): Choosing shoes?

Police officer (embarrassed): Preventing looters!

Reporter: People are looting all around you.

Police officer (irritated): That’s rightsir (turned her back and mumbled) and you are too…

Reporter: I’m not taking a thing.


Scene 2

Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell

Go go go Johnny go
Go go Johnny go
Go go Johnny go
Go go Johnny go
Go Johnny B. Goode.

("Johnny B. Goode", Chuck Berry)


The fifth day, that is, the first day of the National Guard’s arrival in New Orleans to clear the Superdome, refuge for more than 25,000 (who moreover take care of their own food, water, security, elders, children and injured without needing any help from the government). At the center, there are five to ten thousand more people, in the city, maybe seventy thousand or thirty thousand, no one knows how many, some dead of thirst or hunger, some murdered, some simply drowned (it’s a hurricane), also no one knows how many are left, two or five or ten thousand. Air Force One lands a helicopter in Biloxi, an abandoned and devastated town.

Bush walks towards two victims of the hurricane, a wandering mother and daughter.

The mother: We’ve lost everything, everything, there’s nothing left!

The president hugs the mother and child.

The mother: My daughter needs some clothing!

Bush (kisses the child’s forehead): Be strong, the Salvation Army is coming!

The Salvation Army is a religious non-profit organization, whose ability to help in this area cannot be disputed, but still it isn’t the US Military. During last week, even though the world could have confused the tragic scene previously described in Louisiana/Mississippi with something that happened in Congo or Sierra Leone, in that case the story would have been different, the president of an African country would not have reacted in the same manner, he wouldn’t have transferred responsibility to a private organization but would have given this poor family a couple meters of fabric (printed with his own portrait) or given them a few bucks (deducted from his own Swiss bank account). This is proof, despite what anyone else has to say, that the United States is different from the Sudan or Somalia.

The old women with the baskets on their heads, the children with the sacks in their hands, the exhausted bodies waiting for death are merely a superficial layer to this tragedy, as are the floating bodies on the streets. This act of God in America isn’t a disaster in Africa even though Bangladesh offered them both 50,000 USD. El Salvador offered to send military to help in restoring order and Cuba 1,100 doctors with 26.4 tons of medicine. Bangladesh understands hunger, as everyone knows, and El Salvador excels in maintaining order. As for Cuba, when in 2004 hurricane Ivan hit the island at category 5, the government evacuated 1.5 million people threatened and though 20,000 houses were destroyed no one was hurt. But Cuba does not have the office of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency, as part of the Department of Homeland Security) with Mike Brown as its under secretary, who served the International Arabian Horse Association for 11 years before he was fired, and was asked to join FEMA by a schoolmate, the former under secretary of FEMA (2001) before Brown replaced him (2003).


Scene 3

Good mornin' America, how are you
Don't you know me? I'm your native son
I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans
I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done
("The City of New Orleans", Steve Goodman, as sung by Arlo Guthrie)


On the sixth day after hurricane Katrina hit, the president of Jefferson County in New Orleans appears on national television. Aaron Broussard had prepared to speak of his feelings on the federal government’s abandonment of the Katrina victims. However, when asked about his own rescue ability as county president, he is less articulate. It turns out that Broussard has a mother who lived in a retirement home and on the first day when she asked for help he replied that there would be help immediately. She had to call him again on the second day, and the third day, maybe the elders often repeat themselves because they are old and confused. On the fourth day it was the same and the fifth day no change. On the sixth day, she …drowned! After the press recounts this much of the matter to the county president he starts bawling like a child, yelling to the reporters “Why don’t you shut up!”

His example is not unlike the situation of a son who took his mother to Charity Hospital in New Orleans. This elderly woman needed breathing support but the hospital had lost electricity for three days, was now filling up with dead bodies, and wasn’t accepting anybody. The son announces, “I do not want my mom in this suffering”and removes her tubes without need for the debate involved in the case of Terri Schiavo (Mrs. Schiavo had been breathing by tubes for a long time; when her husband asked to let her go, the church as well as Bush declared their opposition and announced that it would be against God’s will). “God will come if we can wait”(as stated by Condoleezza Rice in Alabama) but the son was too much in a hurry. Left behind was only the dead body of the mother waiting on the stairs of Charity hospital, perhaps to entertain the teeth of some bored dogs.

Examples of local government officials getting hysterical in front of the public and on the media are numerous. The mayor of New Orleans yelling, “bring your ass here”to the federal government. The police chief declares, “I don’t fucking want to tolerate this.”A Louisiana senator even exclaims, “If they start to speak, even Bush, I’m gonna punch them, I’m serious”. The press representative at the New Orleans police department says nothing and kills himself. The conflict is that state government, local and city government were in charge of the hurricane and receive all the blame; while President Bush praises FEMA, Department of Homeland Security lists their own accomplishments and the Department of Health advises the public to watch out not to catch a plague.

God is to be blamed of course but don't forget the public. They didn’t evacuate in time, they were even too lazy to go to work, they liked unemployment so much that one-third of the population didn’t own a car. One-fourth of the New Orleans population lived in poverty and didn’t want to get ahead (generally by investing in real-estate, buying stocks, or building the city). They didn’t have enough time to jump when the water got up to their ass, even though jumping is a specialty of blacks. They accused the government of racial discrimination in crisis! The US government isn’t guilty of racial discrimination, only of class preference.

At last, on the seventh day after Katrina hit, there is some good news. Halliburton, although currently in Iraq, has been assigned by the US Navy to rebuild the destroyed cities.

While he was in town, all pilots and aircraft were grounded (he’s the president). According to Representative Melancon, that stopped three tons of rescue goods from being delivered and ceased all other air travel.

The US Military, please do not confuse with the Salvation Army, is busy in the Middle East.

Bangladesh is a poor country, and the US is a country that recently offered the Sharon government two billion USD to successfully remove 9,000 Jews who illegally occupied land. In the end, each of these immigrants received a monetary amount of “compensation”for their returned land, ranging from 200,000 to 450,000 USD.

In 1980, the El Salvadorian government was already excellent. When Bishop Oscar Romero had barely made inappropriate declarations, he was assassinated. There’s no worry in this government’s ability to control a few looters.

In terms of “managing”political opposition, everyone knows that Castro’s government is no less effective in preventing hurricanes.

The guests of Fairmont Hotel, despite room classifications, were all equally evacuated during the first days of the crisis. On the fifth day, the National Guard established a post at the Superdome to evacuate 700 guests and employees of the Fairmont Hotel, without regard to skin color.

Note on the author

Do Kh., poet and editor of the leading Vietnamese-language poetry journal, Tho, was born 1955 in Hai Phong, then known to the outside world as North Vietnam. He grew up in Saigon, then known as South Vietnam. He has lived since in France and in California.