For the last week and a half I have grappled with a mix of emotions evoked by footage from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina in the USA. For the first couple of days I listened to the news on the radio and began to look only when the disaster was exacerbated by the burst levees. It was only then that the disaster took on a colour and that colour was Black.

Ijahnya Christian

I looked, I listened, I cried and I tried to contain my anger since it could be directed only at the television. Sorry folks, until that colour ceases to be problematic, the status quo will continue to position African people in contexts of dire poverty and therefore dependency not just on the African continent but also in the USA. I have never accepted the USA’s role as the moral police of the world but I naively did not think that what happened in Louisiana and Mississippi in particular after Katrina, was possible in the 21st Century. Not after Harriet Tubman, Sorjourner Truth, Athlyi Rogers, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Emmett Till and Rosa Parks and the millions of other ancestors. Not after the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s. Not after Malcolm X told those truths that I thought were part of those times. Not after Martin Luther King died for his dream. Not after September 11, 2001. Not when people still leave everywhere and head North in search of the Great American Dream. The unfortunate thing about the television coverage was that for the first couple of days the poor whites who were similarly affected were not seen in the footage of the throngs of refugees suffering in their own filth, living with their dead, and beginning to behave in ways that said, survival of the fittest. The insipid explanations from the Mayor up and the President down did not help and neither will the blame game after the fact if the condition of America’s poor is not about to change. The reporters themselves, sometimes in spite of their grief and embarrassment revealed their own colours and my people, true to themselves, once rescued found a way to have church.

Until Black stops being a problematic here as well as there, people like me will keep talking about it and will do everything possible to ensure that in the realization of the Anguillian Dream, our economic and social arrangements recognize equality in “otherness”, recognize that being not born here or not being English speaking does not make those who are different, lesser human beings. It is only now dawning on me why in 2001, the United Nations added Xenophobia to Racism and Racial Discrimination as a problem that needed to be confronted in a global conference. In Anguilla where we seem to be more xenophobic than other Caribbean people, if we are not careful we can organize our economy in such a manner that Anguilla will begin to be socially stratified along colour lines that have been here since the days of slavery. I do not want to be a prophet of doom and gloom but I do not want any of us to be blind either. In Anguilla, the word investment is usually preceded by the word foreign and this, coupled with the related experience of land alienation is already being recognized as a problem. When the foreign investor attains an almost monopolistic power that seems to cause our political leadership to dance to the tune of the investor, it is easy for the very changes we do not want, to entrench themselves in Anguillian society. I hear announcements from the Labour Department condemning the practice among developers of creating job descriptions and recruiting in such a manner that top positions in certain industries begin to take on a colour. The Department does not express its concern in this way but even casual observation will show what I mean. As Anguilla grapples with the challenges of the decision to import labour, if we do not deal with our own fears and anxieties and prejudices towards those not born here, we will end up with classes of workers living below the poverty line and therefore occupying the base of the socio-economic pyramid we seem to be creating. I have a feeling (and would like to be wrong about it), that in the US scenario, the condition of the Native Americans may be even worse than those groups who came later so in this too there is a lesson for Anguilla. Our young people who already seem to be losing their way will not be impacted positively in such a scenario. I therefore applaud the foresight of the government in its careful consideration and consultation with the people to decide the way forward in meeting Anguilla’s demand for labour. While the impact on all of Anguilla’s services and infrastructure is being noted, I have also recommended a process of public education to promote values and ideals such as tolerance of diversity so that we will not be guilty of breaches in human rights.

In addition to the social and economic revelations of Hurricane Katrina, there are some environmental lessons to be learned from the disaster. The first was one I thought would have been learnt from Hurricane Mitch’s impact on the Central American coasts and it is that the poor are always the most vulnerable. They cannot wait until all the right policy and sustainable development decisions are made and are therefore likely to rebuild the same substandard housing in the same high risk areas as before. I hear they are about to build a new and better New Orleans but I also understand why up to now, they cannot prise some people out of their homes in the disaster zones. When the rescue is all over and the plans for rebuilding begun, I hope that the recommended investigation will be held and I will wait till then to determine whether the accusations regarding the economic deprioritization of bolstering the protective levees, are true. If so, there are lessons for Anguilla. Given the recent attention to our coral reefs, I think we are learning these lessons and I truly hope we are, especially since we have not been that careful with our sand dunes. Of even greater significance to Anguilla, is a fact that has almost been obscured in the news from New Orleans, and it is the filling in of wetlands in favour of built development projects, thus reducing the natural catchments available. In the name of small size we have also done this. Let us hope that as we review our Physical Planning legislation, the matter of environmental governance and leadership will be borne in mind because with our best intentions for Anguilla’s development, the Anguillian Dream, can easily become as much of a façade as the American Dream.

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