Hurricane Katrina, the massive hurricane that nearly destroyed the city of New Orleans, and the United States’ War on Terror, which includes many shortcomings such as Islamophobia, are two events interconnected in their consequences. This is demonstrated in Dave Egger’s book “Zeitoun”, a cautiously non-fictional account of a middle-class Syrian-American family man as he struggles in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and is wrongfully imprisoned under terrible conditions under the inaccurate pretense of being affiliated with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Zeitoun faced such horrific circumstances for simply being Syrian (ie. from the Middle East and its “terrorist” countries). And although the reader is never privy to the story of Zeitoun that continues after Egger’s book, the man celebrated as a hero is now a very different person from his shining literary portrayal.
Victims of abuse can become abusers themselves. Although this is not always the case, abuse can be perpetuated by a vicious cycle. Zeitoun undeniably suffered abuse in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a result of the influence of the War on Terror on how the United States viewed those of Middle Eastern descent. He was arrested and imprisoned by those who ascribed to the narrow mindset of the War on Terror and whose role was meant to be of aid to those who suffered from the devastating hurricane, and his experiences may have set the stage for his eventual “downfall”. While Zeitoun’s wife Kathy has noted that there had been prior instances of abuse, subsequent news coverage of his arrests suggest that this abuse worsened, and he began abusing not only his wife but his children as well.
In Zeitoun, we may see an example of a cycle of abuse taking form in an abnormal way, with Zeitoun’s anger at the systemic oppression and betrayal of the institutions meant to protect him materializing in a case of domestic abuse.