Natural Disasters can help too
Daniel Jung
Professor Tanya Rawal-Jindia
Literary Response to Disaster and Repression
May 31, 2018
On September 2017 in Central Mexico a 7.1 earthquake kills over 200 people and topples buildings. A 8.1 earthquake happened a week ago off of the southern coast of the country and killed at least 90 people according to CNN. Buildings in Central Mexico collapsed and many were trapped under the collapsed buildings.
The Shock Doctrine, written by Naomi Klein, is what we will be focusing on. She wrote about the aftermath of New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Klein was able to interview people and see the situation as one of the residents who lost their homes. According to USA today this Disaster happened on August 2005 claiming 1,800 lives and made over 11,000 people live in shelters and trailers. One of the worst disasters in United States and the most costly disaster. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/08/24/timeline-hurricane-katrina-and-aftermath/32003013/
If we look at the aftermath of the 2 disasters side by side, we can see that there are some similarities. In both disasters there was a a lot of damage and death which made people unite. To rebuild New Orleans, they had to have helpers and volunteers to build back to their former glory. Shelton Alexander, a survivor of the Hurricane, said, “When we all was living in FEMA trailers nobody was richer than anybody. Everything was wiped out, everything was pretty much damaged and destroyed, and so everybody was back on the same level.(Doctrine,6) According to Quartz media, civilians sprung into action as soon as the ground stopped shaking. Neighbors started collecting broken pieces of concrete in buckets; pedestrians took up the job of directing traffic. They would often create human chains to speed up the process on rebuilding. We see there is Unity in both Disasters afterwards, to save lives and to rebuild.
There is another similarity which was corruption. There was corruption after the Disaster for Katrina and there was corruption before the Disaster Mexico. In the Shock Doctrine, they mentioned that while everyone was in shelters, Republican Richard Baker had said “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” Afterwards the wealthiest developer for New Orleans, Joseph Canizaro, made a similar comment. He said we can finally have a clean slate and have much more opportunities here for New Orleans.(Doctrine,4) They continued to plan that week so that it created a small safe city with lower taxes and regulations. Jamar a, survivor, said, “you could almost forget the toxic stew of rubble, chemical outflows and human remains just a few miles down the highway.” Klein said that the only thing Jamar was able to think of were not the clean slate and fresh start, but the people who shouldn’t have died.
Edgard Sánchez Ramírez, wrote, WE ARE not cursed, nor do we suffer from divine punishment or mere natural disasters, but from the consequences of a savage capitalism and the policies of the governments that defend it. He said that Just after September 7, when the first big earthquakes hit southern Mexico, the Senate announced it had opened a bank account to collect donations to support survivors in Chiapas and Oaxaca. Not one Mexican citizen had donated to their cause. This shows how corrupt their government is. In Mexico 94% of the crimes are not reported or investigated because of low public confidence in the rule of law.(Socialistworkers.org) Today, Mexicans have rarely seemed so united in solidarity, and certainly never so connected via social media. (dallasnews) They would use social media to bring food and water to the places where the people needed it. The earthquake happened in the year that they caught 3 former state governors. They were charged of corruption that senior government officials took bribes from Odebrecht, Brazilian construction company. María Amparo Casar said, “I think the earthquake will be a watershed moment, catalysing people’s anger and disappointment at the party system and politics in general . . . and channeling increased demands for greater vigilance against corruption.” (https://www.ft.com/content/4c1d8dba-a9d9-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97)
Unlike the Katrina Disaster, Mexico Disaster had actually helped the people have voice in where they are placed. In New Orleans there were corrupt people trying to take over right after the disaster, before many could say bye to their friends and families. Mexico has always been corrupt, at least the government has. This Disaster as bad as it is, has helped Mexicans unite more than ever. This will hopefully propel them to have greater vigilance for corruption in Mexico and to use the power of social media to tell the world about what they are going through.
