I would be remiss if I neglected to lay down some thoughts given that it is the fourth anniversary of Al Qaeda’s attack on our homeland — and also given the status of hundreds of thousands of our brethren in the Gulf Coast. At this time last year I began to consider America’s mortality, and I think my thoughts are still as germane today as they were then.
In August of last year, a massive power outage swept across the Northeast and millions were without electricity. Throughout the region, skyscrapers were rendered unusable (people could not get to the 64th floor easily or quickly by foot), thoroughfares impassable (no traffic lights meant much more traffic), and cities uninhabitable (without refrigeration and fresh water pumped in, people simply could not continue to reside in them indefinitely). In this moment, we were provided with a glimpse into the future; this is how a civilization in decay and disrepair (perhaps our own civilization, one day) might live.
While all of this was occurring, by sheer coincidence I found myself in Córdoba, Spain, a city that shows these same scars centuries of a civilization in decline. Though many history books might not mention it, Córdoba was the greatest cosmopolitan city in the world just over 1,000 years ago–the New York City of its times.
During the time of Islamic rule, as the seat of the Muawiya Caliphs, Córdoba was the largest city and embodied the most sophisticated culture and the most developed bureaucracy in Europe. […] The 10th century Caliphate of Córdoba was the largest, culturally the most sophisticated polity in all Europe (link).
As I walked through the Mezquita–the Great Mosque–which was at the focal point of the immense Moorish Empire (a highly tolerant nation in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side in peace and prosperity), I realized that at the same time the denizens of New York and countless other cities and towns in the Northeast were gazing upon our great buildings which were then just as dead as the mosque I was in. With our failed system unable to provide the necessary power, our great buildings were about as useful as the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Coliseum, or the Mezquita.
This was a wake up call for me. Getting a glimpse of what our country might be like a thousand years on as I stood in the greatest building in the capital of a once great nation like our own, I could not help but be aware of our mortality as a nation.
The images out of New Orleans this month have been more akin to those of the most indigent swaths of Southeast Asia than any part of America in recent memory. The initial response to Hurricane Katrina was underwhelming (to put it lightly). And although the government is beginning to respond with tens of billions of dollars, it is incumbent upon all Americans to think about what exactly our social contract entails.
No country can prevent every danger, whether it is the natural variety that hit us in the Gulf Coast just two weeks ago or the man-made variety that hit us just four years ago. But a country’s viability is dependent on swift and effective responses to such catastrophes when they occur.
If we truly want America to live and thrive for decades, if not centuries to come, we must not only examine what went wrong two weeks ago — as we did following the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania — we must decide what role our government will play in protecting us from the worst. We must ask questions.
Do we want a government shrunk to the point at which it can no longer protect us? Or do we want a robust government that can effectively deal with the unforseeable and forseeable problems of tomorrow?
Do we want to bankrupt government to the point at which it can no longer help the most downtrodden at their greatest point of need? Or do we want a government that has the resources necessary to help each of us when we need it the most?
Do we want our Presidents to represent the 50.1 percent of us necessary for election or reelection? Or do we want our Presidents to govern in such a way that benefits and respects all Americans, regardless of their partisan leanings?
These are all serious questions that we must answer in order to ensure that America succeeds in the years to come. Our conversation began four years ago, but we must continue it today and in the future so we can maintain this great country through our lifetimes and the lives of our children and grandchildren.
originally posted to my blog at Basie.org
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