http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2005/09/sec-050902-morgan.htmRestore New Orleans, Bulldoze Peoria
by Will Morgan
September 1, 2005
House Speaker Dennis Hastert's comment yesterday that much of New Orleans ought to be "bulldozed" rather than rebuilt on its below sea-level site exposes some of the ambivalence Americans have always felt towards the city of New Orleans. From the time of its acquisition it was not an "American" city. It was neither Ango-Saxon nor Protestant or White. Life in the place was basically Meditterrean and European, with long working pauses in the hot days and leisurely meals. Its politics were familial rather than democratic, its religion an almagam of Caribbrean cults and Catholcism. Its wealthest citizens were all of mixed races, Spanish and French, African and Creole, American Indian and Caribbean. But there was money to be made. The strategic importance of governing the trade at the mouth of Mississippi River outweighed all of the cultural differences between the Puritan Americans and the more relaxed attitudes of the natives of the Delta City. These differences persisted as the Americans arrived and began to build their great homes in the uptown section of town. Many Americans were seduced by the charm of this foreign culture, but others resisted, especially did they resist the notion, abroad in the city since its founding, that all races could live easily together and intermarry as they pleased. The pride and even arrogance of Louisiana Creoles was legendary. They believed themselves every bit the equal of the Americans and refused to cow-tow to any notion of "American Superiority". After Reconstruction the Americans came down even harder and passed laws which forced the segregation of the Creoles, who were thenceforth to be considered as no different from blacks. It is impossible to describe what a fissure this created in people who felt themselves to be culturally "superior" in every way to both the Americans and to the descendants of African slaves. Pioneers and early Americans knew this much about New Orleans: Those women were beautiful and the sex they offered was wonderful, but it would never fly to have this openly admitted and spoken of back home in Tennessee... so all in all, one was obliged to treat New Orleans as some kind of chip of Paris that had somehow dislodged into the Seine and had drifted across the Atlantic and through the Caribbean, attaching itself to the underbelly of North America. The near fanatical pride of the Creoles in the face of the American attempt to treat them no different than negroes seared these people's heart and soul. Indirectly it led to creation of jazz because music became one of the few careers open to those who had always cultivated music in their own homes as the essence of their 'Europeanization'. Yet the forced association of Creoles and Blacks also contributed to jazz since it had the ironic effect of causing the Creoles to listen more closely to early blues, to understand blues scales, to feel the power of the indivdual voice and the powerful rhythmic and dance inheritance of West Africa. Even so it was clear that no one was ever going to be able to bend the will of the Creole mongrels.
Imagine their arrogance in asserting their superiority, no only to the Americans but to dark-skinned blacks as well! The nerve! But now History has vindicated the almost insane pride of the Creoles. Practically all the original creators of Jazz were Creoles, from Sidney Bechet to Kid Ory to Jelly Roll Morton...and the list goes on...
This is the history of New Orleans and it goes some way toward explaining why a lot of America, especially the rock-bound puritanical streak of America, has always looked askance at this city and, even today, secretly wishes it to be swallowed under the waves. What is the explanation for these Frenchie low-lifers who are of basically no use to an Imperial state? The attitude of Speaker Hastert reflects a great portion of what old Protestant America made of New Orleans: namely that it was a den of sinners who ought to be confined to perdition's flames. That it was, or is, a city built in the wrong place and perhaps by the wrong sort of people. Yet what would America be without New Orleans? She would not have the slightest claim to the creation of anything original in the arts except a lot of corny copies of the "Old Masters'". Perhaps the fact that Herman Melville was an American citizen who had to publish his masterpiece Moby Dick in England might also be worth, at least, a footnote. But no, without the history of New Orleans, which is in turn, the history not of an "American" city, but of a "world" city, can account for what is claimed to be that most "American" invention--- jazz music.
more....
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
