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By Emilio Palacio

September 4, 2005

Original Article (Spanish)

I have never been to the pyramids in Egypt, nor to the Parthenon in Athens, nor to the Great Wall of China, but once in a while I tell myself that despite my advanced age, I still have time and perhaps someday I will have the opportunity to travel to the places that I dreamed of in my youth.

At this moment I can no longer say the same about beautiful New Orleans. No longer will I will be able to visit the French Quarter in summer and see celebrities on the trolley shouting out of the window at each other, or fanning themselves in the heat. Nor can I look forward to visiting the great old neighborhoods of brothels where Louis Armstrong sang, and be reminded that despite everything, this is a wonderful world where friends give each other a hand, and in the end, rainbows shine for us all. New Orleans has disappeared, perhaps forever - because even if they rebuild her, she will be a different place. The people haven't had a chance to visit will never know what it was like to listen and dance with her in French, English and Afro-American.

The destruction of New Orleans will affect us all far more than we might have imagined, because what has begun to come to light is that the U.S. is no longer the United States of World War II, when it could muster provisions for two or three international battle fronts; nor is it the United States of the Cold War, when it organized an impressive airlift to maintain West Berlin for an entire year without flinching; it is not even the United States that fought in Vietnam, when helicopters delivered to its soldiers everything they needed: bullets, napalm, condoms and marijuana.

The complete disaster of the delayed rescue of New Orleans must not be blamed on the ineptitude of George Bush, a mediocre politician with no perspective or long-term vision. The disaster has deeper causes.

Today's best electronic devices are not made in the United States, but in Japan. The most impressive economic growth is no longer that of the great power of the North, but that of China. Paris, Berlin and Madrid no longer make their case to Washington, but to Brussels. Hugo Chavez mocks the White House, but the O.A.S. cannot expel him, as it did with Cuba. The truth is that today, being a "great friend" of the United States is no guarantee of anything.

Please understand, I am not saying that the United States will stop being the greatest world power in the short term. No nation on earth has the technology, the military power and the economic might to replace it. But that, indeed, is the bad news: that the greatest world power has aged, it is in decline, and at the moment we do not know who will replace it.

The same thing happened after World War I, when England abdicated its place as queen of the world and no one was in a position to take her place. For almost three decades (between 1918 and 1945) the world remained without direction: in the interim the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, fascism seized Europe, Stalinism was installed in Russia and Latin America remained adrift.

I believe and I hope that this time it will not be the same. Yes, as human beings we learn from history. But every so often we sustain a mighty blow, like the one in New Orleans, and we remember its lessons.