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September 20, 2005
"On Guilty Knees"
Special thanks to Prof. Hammer Ferenc for bringing this to my attention:
A columnist for the Croatian daily Slobodna Dalmacija chooses to draw an interesting parallel between the issues of Katrina's devastation and its effects on the social fabric of the United States--and the issues relevant to an European audience.
"Katrina revealed what the real image of the USA is-- derision of the poor and its 2/3 African American population who did not vote for President George Bush...They are being perceived as state's excess baggage on which nobody's private interest can be made profitable."
He goes on to criticize the Bush Administration for its ideological principles in governing, rather than dwelling on what he perceives to be the requisite leadership "local leaders omitted," by using the oft-cited statistic of a 17% rise in poverty under his tenure. His argument is equal parts racial tract and class thesis.
But the insight comes in his last paragraph in which he launches a host of questions: "How much do Europeans really care for the Roma? Are the buildings in Paris filled with immigrants burning down just because they are worn out? Is everybody in Croatia running to the help of those aforementioned Roma, who live in settlements that have been without water, electricity, and sewage systems for roughly a decade?"
Posted September 20, 2005 12:56 AM
Comments
Excellent post.
The interesting exercise here is precisely to compare the difference in risks, and ways of approaching the problem (because they affect perceptions of the U.S. on a key issue) without forgetting how others actually deal with their own problems.
Posted by: Panchis ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/worldandus/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 20, 2005 11:11 AM
It is especially interesting because of Croatia's present struggle with the question of how much responsibility it has towards people who do not identify as ethnic Croats (which is, one desperately hopes, a very different question than what we face in our own country.) The writer's decision to "ethnicize" poverty - and to see a natural analogy between African-Americans and Croatian Roma - rests on a discourse of paternal responsibility towards the Other rather than common citizenship.
Posted by: Emily at September 21, 2005 02:06 PM
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