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September 20, 2005
“No society is immune”
Most of the stories published about Katrina and its aftermath in the foreign media are very critical of the U.S., and in particular of President Bush and his Administration.
Some notable stories, though take a much more careful approach.
Early on, The Irish Examiner told its readers:
“The first thing worth remembering is that, in the chaos and the looting, we are seeing not just America in crisis, but the drama of humanity everywhere.
A special case can be made that New Orleans, at the best of times, is a sad and lawless place. [...]
No society is immune. Once disaster strikes, two things happen. The survival instinct gets the better of some people and they do all sorts of things to make it through alive.”
Conservative essayist Guy Sorman ran a more analytical piece in the French Le Figaro.
“Bad news for the anti-Americans: the United States are not the Atlantis and they will not be more engulfed by hurricane Katrina that they have been wiped out by the 9/11 attacks.”
The reason, he says can be found in its history and in today’s vibrant civil society and market forces.
According to Sorman, local and State authorities are as responsible as the Federal Government for the failures in Katrina’s aftermath.
Republicans, he writes, have already chosen a “minimal State”. But, with Francis Fukuyama they think that “a free society requires a strong state.”
Is this the whiff of a contradiction?
Not at all. Sorman calls for a “Security State” that leaves social, cultural and educational issues to charitable foundations, local institutions and the market. He then concludes:
“The hurricane strengthens this neoconservative vision of the State: at the center heightened security, while everything else goes to civil society and to market.”
This is one example of how perceptions of what goes on and what is said in the U.S. can be part of the political and ideological debate in Europe… and elsewhere.
Posted September 20, 2005 12:02 AM
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