DAVOS, Switzerland - The Swiss Alpine ski resort of Davos has never suffered a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which left 1,326 people dead and 6,644 missing after passing through the southeastern U.S. city of New Orleans last August.

In fact, the cultural, social and climatic differences between the cities are so vast that they seem to share almost nothing in common, except perhaps for the fact that both attract large numbers of tourists.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson hugs Tany Harris a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 30, 2006. During a walk through of the lower-income, mostly black neighborhood that for months has showcased some of Hurricane Katrina's worst destruction, Jackson and a group of local legislators and activists announced their intention to hold a massive march and demonstration on April 1 to protest government policies and proposals.(AP Photo/Bill Haber)

But according to New Orleans community activist Jay Arena, there is another common link that the two cities share: the power exerted by politically conservative, economically neoliberal power elites.

Davos is the host city for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering of the world's political, economic and business elites, described by Arena as "a group of unelected, unresponsive, unaccountable capitalist elites meeting in private" to chart out the future of the entire planet.

This process is strikingly similar to the Bring New Orleans Back Commission established by Mayor Ray Nagin to oversee post-hurricane reconstruction efforts, Arena told IPS.

Many have criticised the mayor's commission as being highly stacked with business leaders and real estate developers. As a result, Arena noted, people like real estate mogul Joseph Canizaro, "one of the biggest contributors to the (George W.) Bush administration," will now have the power to make plans that will affect "the lives of tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans."

"And at the same time, they try to co-opt some community organisations and labour unions to legitimise their criminal enterprise," he added.

Arena, a member of the C3/Hands Off Iberville Coalition, founded to defend public housing in New Orleans, was one of the keynote speakers at The Other Davos, a "counter forum" to the WEF meet organised last week in Zurich by the Swiss affiliate of ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens) and other anti-globalisation civil society organisations.

Arena said he was glad to accept the invitation from ATTAC to speak in Zurich because "we consider our struggle an international one."

"What happens in New Orleans will have great implications on how the city is rebuilt," he noted, but at the same time, "it will have great implications for working people around the world."

"We want the solidarity to support people fighting for justice and against racism around the world," he stressed.

Arena and other community activists in New Orleans "are involved in a life and death struggle at the grassroots level to allow working class people, black people, to return to this world treasure known as the city of New Orleans."

From a cultural point of view, New Orleans is "the most African city in North America," Arena maintained. The unique traditions that draw visitors to the city - including the music, food, and other cultural expressions - were largely created by working class people, and especially black working class people.

It was the predominantly black, working class areas of New Orleans that suffered the greatest destruction from Hurricane Katrina, forcing their residents to take shelter elsewhere, and according to Arena, "the ruling elites are doing everything in their power to prevent them from returning."

One of the most controversial recommendations made by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission was a proposed four-month moratorium on rebuilding, allegedly to ensure that neighbourhoods have the "critical mass" needed to prevent large areas of empty, derelict houses.

But critics of this measure believe it is aimed at keeping the city's poor, black residents from returning, in order to grab up their former neighbourhoods for redevelopment.

This situation has given rise to a "life and death struggle," Arena said, because "the people are the city, and if they don't come back, it will be the death of New Orleans and all that it has been."

What is happening today in New Orleans, he maintained, is an example of "ethnic cleansing," and it is a process that both pre-dates Hurricane Katrina and extends to many other parts of the United States.

There has been a concerted effort by the real estate and tourism industries and other key business sectors to drive out black and working class communities in cities like Chicago, Washington and Miami, as well as New Orleans, and public housing in particular has been under attack as part of this scheme, he said.

Arena cited the example of the St. Thomas housing development, a 1,500-apartment public housing community along the riverside in New Orleans.

In the 1990s, during the Bill Clinton administration, this entire community was destroyed, and in its place only a handful of public housing units were built, alongside spacious, high-rise apartments that black, working class people cannot afford, he reported.

"We saw that as one example of class and ethnic cleansing, moving out poor, black, working class people from the centre of the city," said Arena. "And we see now that they are using the hurricane as an opportunity to do what they did to St. Thomas to the whole city of New Orleans."

Arena accused Mayor Nagin and his commission of not only wanting to drive out public housing, but also showing no interest in rebuilding neighbourhoods that were predominantly made up of black and working class residents.

Instead, he maintained, they would prefer to bulldoze these neighbourhoods and leave them as green areas, turn public housing developments over to commercial and industrial uses, and replace public schools with high-priced private schools.

On the positive side, as the intentions of the city's elites have become more clear, "the lines are being more clearly drawn, and so there are more people standing up and speaking out," said Arena.

Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service

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