Columns & Articles

Articles by Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman

Santa Cruz Sentinel. Sunday, September 25, 2005

Like every one else watching the horror of romantic old New Orleans under water after Hurricane Katrina, I felt distress for the people displaced and the city ruined. Now that a few weeks have passed, it is time to discuss the city’s future. Can it—and should it—be rebuilt?

There is an even broader issue here that goes beyond New Orleans: do some of us have undue reverence for the past? Our world seems to be divided between people who believe in tradition: “Don’t change anything that our ancestors have established” and others who believe in change: “When times change, institutions have to change with them.” We have a Supreme Court in which there are judges on both sides of this issue. Some believe that the US Constitution is a living document that must permit changes as society evolves, and the others believe that all decisions must accord with the mindsets and intentions of the original founders.

I have a problem with the notion that our ancestors, no matter how bright, were more intelligent than we are and that nothing should ever change. I cannot believe that the Constitution should be frozen into an unchanging mode any more than religious texts should be literally interpreted, no matter how unsuited to modern thought. I know what my ancestors—both the Constitutional and Biblical ones--thought of women and slaves—and I think we have done better.

For those who want to rebuild New Orleans, there are some problems that they need to consider. First of all, according to the Economist, New Orleans had lost at least a quarter of its population over the past decade, therefore the trend can be assumed to continue—only accelerated by the Hurricane. Baton Rouge is doubling as New Orleans declines.

Second, sea waters are rising around the world and this is very bad news for a city that lies below sea level. With obviously more severe storms in the offing, New Orleans, even if rebuilt, will be inundated again.

Thirdly, as lovely as the French Quarter is, with its great appeal to tourists, it is just a matter of time before the termites and rats that infest the quarter bring it all down on the heads of the inhabitants.

And finally, the very energy resources (oil and gas) that make the region so economically valuable are responsible for the sinking of the city to its present level below sea level. The combination of petroleum extraction and the despoiling of the marshlands and barrier islands that used to protect the city is making the city unviable. We can patch it up, but the fix will not be permanent.

The petroleum industry is not permanent either. We are just on the cusp of an energy revolution that may make petroleum obsolete. Everything about New Orleans is fated for change.

Any historian will tell you that cities come—and go. The very first city-states in Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) had a great run until the irrigation systems that made them flourish turned saline and the river delta silted up. Later, Athens, the greatest city of ancient Greece, became a sad little town by the 19th century. Rome, which had a population at its height of several million dwindled some centuries later to a malarial swamp village. Modern cities around the world today with populations of millions (particularly those in Africa) are already falling apart and most surely will not be there in a century.

I can imagine the New Orleans of the future being like the restored gold rush towns of the California Sierras. There will be a small city that tourists can visit with a restored French Quarter and some other nods to the city’s history. Perhaps the citizens will demand that their original ecology be restored and the oil drilling stopped, so that the city can be above sea level as it once was. Perhaps. In the meantime, we will always remember a New Orleans that will never be that way again. We cannot freeze the past. Change is the human condition and the fate of cities. -------------------------------------------- 691 words Laina Farhat-Holzman is a writer, lecturer, and author of Strange Birds from Zoroaster’s Nest and God’s Law or Man’s Law. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.