Melville Cooke

George Bush doesn't care about black people!

- Kanye West, live on NBC, September 2, 2005

So, as witnessed yet again on Monday, four scrawls or keystrokes have become the grieving preserve of the United States of America, as through the power of national television broadcast to an international audience 9/11 has come to mean only the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

It must be noted, though, that in all this breast-beating the date is not owned for mourning by the U.S.; it means something else for other persons. The Palestinians will look to 1922, when the British mandate on their land was enforced, paving the way for the refugee camps and Israeli incursions. The Chileans will remember 1973 and the overthrow of the Salvador Allende-led socialist government, with the support of the United States, which led to the murderous rule of Augosto Pinochet.

Some South Africans will remember 1976, when Steve Biko was beaten to a pulp. Officially, he died the day after, but in reality his life had already been extinguished. The Jamaican music fraternity, as well as the country at large I would hope, should recall 1987, when Peter Tosh and Jeff 'Free I' Dixon were murdered in Barbican.

Hurricane Katrina

Then there was September 11 last year, after Hurricane Katrina made it a double for the predictions of worst possible disasters in the USA. (The earthquake in San Francisco is yet to come). Many people will not associate September 11, 2005, with any specific disaster in New Orleans, as by then the flooding had already happened, the Superdome had been cleared and the rescue crews were at work (did someone say finally?)

Some will remember it was the day before the day George Bush actually visited New Orleans after the disaster, but I remember it for one of the supreme ironies of the entire fiasco.

It was a day on which a flight of dogs lifted off from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to begin 'Operation Pet Lift'. The canines were on a Continental Airlines flight chartered for about US$50,000 by Texas oilman tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine.

Now, I have nothing against dogs. I have nothing against a wealthy couple spending a small fortune (by us working stiff standards) on reuniting woofers with their woofees. I do, however, have a serious problem with dogs getting better treatment than people, especially black people.

And if the United States government leaves people, especially black people, in the equivalent of a desert (heat) over an ocean, for days on end, then shuffle them into an airport to wait up to 15 hours for a flight to destination unknown, but a private couple can manage to pack Fluffy and Sparkie on to an air-conditioned plane to be reunited with someone who loves them, something is very, very, very wrong.

(I wonder if the pooches had in-flight service and if they gave them the pre-flight instructions. You know, "this flight takes us over water ...".)

Grief monopoly

Those of us who watched Spike Lee's 'When The Levees Broke', which aired on HBO recently, will have a better idea of what the residents of New Orleans, predominantly black, went through and are still going through, as families remain split due to the relocation.

The attacks on the U.S. five years ago were terrible. However, they do not give America and Americans a monopoly on grief, and certainly not a stranglehold on outrage. It is not a resource to be milked for warmongering and sympathy mileage, much as an oil well is exploited for all the wealth it can spout up.

And still some thoughts on Operation Pet Lift linger. Did the dogs all ride first class? And were they all potty-trained?

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.