一早起來, 看電視說新奧爾良裡, 颶風救援部隊與災民展開槍戰, 至於為什麼會有槍戰則完全沒有解釋, 聰頭說, 好像美國近年的彊屍片一樣, 一夜之間突然出現很多彊屍, 彊屍與人之間, 突然展開血戰.
已往的彊屍片, 彊屍是少數階層, 衣著光鮮, 飲紅酒, 是剝削人民血汗的貴族, 新近的彊屍片, 彊屍大批地出現, 衣衫襤褸, 破破爛爛, 他們化成彊屍後, 行屍走肉, 見人就咬, 沒有主體, 死不足惜.
回到新奧爾良, 颶風過後, 遂變成活死人谷(land of the dead), 後來查看網上資料, 新奧爾良原來是美國的第三世界後花園, 在墨西西比, 有20%的人口是貧窮人口, 有錢的人在颶風過後隨即逃離, 剩下來的窮人黑人則要面對斷水斷糧和霍亂痢疾等傳染病. 20,000人被困於新奧爾良的 superdome, 當直昇機前往疏散時被擊退.
詳見: Margo Kingston:
America will wake up - this lack of both judgment and compassion is
nothing but the true colours of a regime that holds only contempt for
the poor South, the working poor, and the poorly connected who are
unable to pull the dollars from their own pockets to guarantee an
escape from hell.
此外, 布殊以反恐的語調說: 不容許暴亂在災區發生, 並下了革殺令 (shoot to kill); 正如 dawn of the dead (2004) 中的白人退役軍人般, 對彊屍殺無赦. 面對著這革殺令, 災區暴民在搶劫的時候, 當然帶上槍械, 在別人未解決自己前, 先解決這些執法者.
Army Times 於9月2日, 把新奧爾良的搶掠定性為 insurgency, 有即有組織的叛亂, 而軍方已接到命令要用盡各種方法奪回城市 (見 boing boing):
"This place is going to look like Little Somalia,"
Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard's
Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops
under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission
from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome.
"We're going to go
out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get
this city under control.
We're here to do whatever they need us to do", Sgt.
1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard's 1345th Transportation Company.
有一個澳洲災難的生還者(1974年颶風Darwin吹襲Sydney)問了一系列很值得深思的問題:
On the ground in Darwin stores opened their doors, food and drink
was given to anyone who needed… no need to loot it was given away!
People were the first priority not property. The survivors pulled together, pooled resources and helped to protect the weak.
為什麼災民要去搶? 為什麼財產比人命重要? 又令我想起 dawn of the dead (2004), 那些沒有變成彊屍的人, 把自己鎖在一個 shopping mall 中, 射殺彊屍! 當彊屍 / 貧窮被視為一種無可救藥的疾病時, 拯救變成沒有意義, 只能盡量避免自己成為彊屍, 並阻止彊屍進入自己的領域.
其實新奧爾良一直存在著被水淹的威脅, 在颶風到來前一兩天, 已經有預報說這是40年以來最大的風暴, 有錢人一早就作好準備, 但政府卻沒有為窮人做好防災措施, 而事發後, 政府又有意隱瞞造成 land of the dead 的因由, 好像一切都是偶然的, 但事實是:
New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by
the storm surge of a class-five hurricane. Civil defense officials
conceded they had ten thousand body bags on hand to deal with the
worst-case scenario. But no one seemed to have bothered to devise a
plan to evacuate the city's poorest or most infirm residents. The day
before the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, New Orlean's daily, the Times-Picayune,
ran an alarming story about the "large group…mostly concentrated in
poorer neighborhoods" who wanted to evacuate but couldn't. (詳見 poor, black and left behind)
很多目擊者把墨西西比形容為巴格達般的戰場(詳見 Martial law in Mississpi: Baghdad, New orleans), 從美方的角度看, 兩地的主角均是貧窮的黑人: 在伊拉克戰爭裡, 大部份被徵召入伍於前線打仗的是貧窮的黑人, 當國內災難發生時, 這些貧窮的黑人則被遺棄於水深火熱中. 在巴格達, 黑人士兵要對平民開槍, 在墨西西比, 他們則變成群屍面對著被槍殺的 shoot to dead 威嚇.
圖片來自 Spiegel online