SUMMIT WITHOUT CITIZENS:
A personal perspective of the SPP meeting in New Orleans
I headed off to New Orleans with
some real sense of excitement as
well as apprehension. I had never
been there before and had no way
of knowing, except from reports I
had read, to what extent the city
had been rebuilt and if we would find
support among the local people. I can
tell you that what we found there was
shocking.
There are two New Orleans. There is
the New Orleans of legend – the night
clubs, the French Quarter, the gas
lamps, the blues. Here you will find
tourist shops and five star hotels and
restaurants and life that pulses all night.
Here, the money and the liquor flow.
Then there is the wasteland that lies
around this downtown core – so poor,
so barren and so deserted you would
not know you were in the same city. On
the second day there, a bus tour took
our citizen delegation from the three
countries to the Ninth Ward, one of
the areas that had been hardest hit by
the hurricane. What we saw there was
breathtaking: deserted and boarded-up houses, overturned boats and cars that
had been deposited in the only park in
the ward when the levee broke and were
still there two and a half years later, and
food banks set up in a couple of houses,
staffed by eager young people from
other states who came to try to provide
some relief. There are still thousands of
people made homeless by Katrina living
under bridges, and schools and hospitals
are boarded up and deserted. Standing
in the middle of this devastation
reminded me of tours I have taken in
the Global South on fact-finding trips. I
felt as if I was in a Third World country
rather than in the heart of the wealthiest
nation in history.
Local people told us about how hard
it was to get Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) relief; how
they had to pay the water and electricity
bills in their abandoned homes or be
taken off the grid; and that racial tensions
were high between the local black
population, suffering record high unemployment,
and migrant Mexicans and
other Latinos brought in to do the (modest)
rebuilding beginning to take place.
The only bright spots were the homes
being built with the private money of
Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt, but of
course, as Canadians, we despaired that
local citizens had to count on the kindness
of famous stars while government
stood by and did so little.
There was a Peoples’ Symposium, a
modest and moving event that brought
together musicians, activists and street
theatre in a local park to welcome us.
But this is a civil population clearly
cowed by state control and we were
asked before we came not to march or
attempt any kind of visible protest. The
reasons for this became abundantly clear
when the heads of state arrived and
the streets were cleared of people by a
massive security operation while police
motorcades sped down deserted streets
at heart-stopping speed to deliver the
politicians to their militarily secured
destination. I kept thinking what the
exorbitant cost of this Security and
Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit
would have done had the money been
used to rebuild the Ninth Ward. I stood
with my thumbs down as the motorcades
passed but I saw no other visible
signs of resistance. As one quiet local
activist explained to me, there are no
“citizens” left in New Orleans. There
are the people who wait on tourists,
many of them from “away”; there are
residents trying to rebuild their homes
and communities who get beaten and tear-gassed if they so much as march
in a peaceful demonstration against
homelessness; and there are the untold
thousands who have not been able to
return home at all. The people who are
doing well and making a killing are the
private developers tearing down slums
and putting up expensive condos in the
heart of deserted communities, and the
for-profit schools and hospitals moving
in to replace deserted public systems.
This New Orleans is the true face of the
Bush administration and the reason that
George Bush actually chose to showcase
this city and this agenda by having this
important summit here. Bush and his
corporate cronies are proud of what has
happened in New Orleans and want to
show it off. I think I was most offended
when, at the closing press conference,
George Bush looked down, winked at
the assembled reporters there and said,
“Isn’t New Orleans FUN?” He then
asked if people were “awake,” implying
that the reporters had partied all night
and were part of his little joke.
On the plus side, labour leaders from
all three countries came to counter
meetings to show the growing opposition
to the SPP all over the continent.
Particularly important was the two-day
meeting of energy workers from the
three countries, under the leadership
of Dave Coles of the Communications,
Energy and Paperworkers Union of
Canada, who are working together to
build a sustainable energy future for
North America.
Most important, we were there in
New Orleans to witness this travesty
of democracy and shameful display of
might and wealth. That our government
would be party to something as shallow
and ruthless as this empty summit
speaks volumes. As a Canadian I was
ashamed. As a human being, I was devastated
by what I saw and heard in the
“other” New Orleans.
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of
the Council of Canadians.
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