Dramatic Departures

It is apparently the season for sad or quirky stories about the need of notable numbers of people in different places to end it all in dramatic public fashion. A Time article I chanced upon in my dentist's office related the sad effect on all concerned of those British folks who throw themselves in front of trains every year.

There are plenty of ways to commit suicide, but few more public than turning a multiton moving train full of passengers into a bullet. Last year in the U.K., 194 people killed themselves on the tracks of mass-transit systems, with some 50 of those choosing the sooty tunnels of the Tube. New York City's subway averages 26 suicides a year. In Paris, 24 died on the tracks of the Métro last year. While it is a fallacy to imagine any suicide as a solitary act--even the tidiest affair leaves survivors stricken--death by train is a particularly declaratory form of killing oneself. It makes the act a form of theater--for the driver, watching it all from behind his windshield, and for the rest of us.

On May 16, I posted a short piece, NYC: The Mysteries of the Suicide Tourist, about the pilgrimage many people make each year to New York City to make the last desperate, dramatic gesture of their lives--most often from one of the city's impressive and convenient heights. If you must give fatal expression to despairing failure, depression or nihilism, if your definition of the meaning of life--or the need to announce its failed meaning--calls for such terminal public declarations, then I suppose you may as well do it in as splashy, attention-grabbing a manner as possible. And as if these were auditions for limited numbers of more satisfying roles in the hereafter, there seems a predictable yet unseen and unscripted queue constantly forming and moving these desperate folks to center stage locations in London, NYC, and many other places.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827064,00.html

Unhappy America

Most of us in America are unhappy these days, many of us for some years now. We're unhappy about lots of things: political, international, economic and quality of life things, and more. But, as long-time American sympathizers and cheerleaders, and from their position of some distance and detachment--the British weekly The Economist apparently thinks they see this more clearly than we do. This week's lead article in their "Leaders" section briefly chronicles our unhappiness as they see it.

Of course, we have our own perspectives. And a great many of us by now feel that many of the reasons for our unhappiness have been authored by George W. Bush and his administration, and most of the others have developed on his watch. It's hard to imagine that a president and his team could make that many serious mistakes--acts of commission and acts of omission--that could visit so much harm and have such a debilitating effect on our country, and on the confidence and well-being of our people. The list is too long to competently engage here, with all the aspects and implications of his Iraq War, fiscal and economic policy, presumptuous "unipolar" approach to diplomacy and our former global allies and partners, and his blind eye to the need for protective business and environmental regulation, among many other things. Of course, he's had almost eight years to do his worst--and that he has done, obstinately bulldozing through one wrongheaded, dull-witted initiative or position after another, without any apparent later sense of accountability for whether they have proven wrong or ineffectual. He just denies and defends.

(And John McCain appears to offer just more of the same.)

But not everything that is wrong is Dubya's doing. Sharing that place of ignominy are our Senators and Members of the House of Representatives--although theirs are more often acts of legislative omission than commission. Those would include major issues with our social security, heath care and education systems, among others. And Wall Street and the banking industry have again proved there are no limits to their hubris, greed and unaccountability--and the negligent self interest, or worse, that motivates them to cavalierly place their own financial gain above the health of our American economy. Their unregulated avarice has now visited upon us one of the worst financial crises and housing collapses in modern times.

But, the in the end, the Economist believes we will likely learn from our mistakes, and American ingenuity and resolve will again win back the day. God willing. The area that seems to concern them most, however, is our misplaced concern and wrong attitude toward the economic threat of emerging Asian countries, especially China.

The economic gap between America and a rising Asia has certainly narrowed; but worrying about it is wrong for two reasons. First, even at its present growth rate, China's GDP will take a quarter of a century to catch up with America's; and the internal tensions that China's rapidly changing economy has caused may well lead it to stumble before then. Second, even if Asia's rise continues unabated, it is wrong—and profoundly unAmerican—to regard this as a problem. Economic growth, like trade, is not a zero-sum game. The faster China and India grow, the more American goods they buy. And they are booming largely because they have adopted America's ideas. America should regard their success as a tribute, not a threat, and celebrate in it.

Many Americans, unfortunately, are unwilling to do so. Politicians seeking a scapegoat for America's self-made problems too often point the finger at the growing power of once-poor countries, accusing them of stealing American jobs and objecting when they try to buy American companies. But if America reacts by turning in on itself—raising trade barriers and rejecting foreign investors—it risks exacerbating the economic troubles that lie behind its current funk.

Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn from the problems they have caused themselves, and come back stronger. Some blame others, lash out and damage themselves further. America has had the wisdom to take the first course many times before. Let's hope it does so again.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=11791539

Fidel Castro: "My Life"

Now in his December days, Fidel Castro offers his last account, his last statements, on one of the most interestingly consequential lives lived on the 20th-century geopolitical landscape. In The Nation, Greg Grandin reviews at length this new memoir, My Life, presented in the form of a long interview distilled from over a hundred hours of conversations with Le Monde diplomatique editor Ignacio Ramonet. And according to Grandin, Ramonet's ambiguously sympathetic presentation of Castro and Cuba does not disappoint.

Castro shares with Ramonet interesting details about his life from boyhood onward. And while he does not clarify or augment what little is known about his controversial role in the contentious and violent student politics of his university days, he is quite candid and revealing about much else. But he is unrepentant and unswerving in his continuing defense of his Marxist-Leninist line and his oppressive half-century of totalitarian rule in Cuba. He is clear that he believes his country's accomplishments in education and health care, advances in science and medicine, justify the oppression Cuba has endured under him. But, to all the intrigue and violence, to all the contradictions in his ambiguous social idealism and repression of Cuban dissent and markets, to all the disappointments of the Cuban social experiment, Grandin must respond with questions about the legacy of Castro's revolution and his rule:

The circularity of My Life's narrative is not just that Castro reconnects with postwar social democracy but that many of the problems that plagued Cuba prior to the revolution have returned, including sex tourism, race-based economic inequality and corruption, which partly explains Castro's rehabilitation of the good-government crusader Chibás. The most damning criticism that can be leveled at a revolution is not that it is repressive but that its repression was for naught. It's an indictment Castro himself raises, at the end of his interview, the only moment where his certainty gives way to something sounding like exhaustion: "How many ways are there," he asks, "of stealing in this country?"

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/grandin

A History of Hooch [and those who drink it]

A short, informative and amusing book review in New York Magazine hawks a new book on the history of man and his social relationship with alcohol. Here's a short pour from it:

True to form, Iain Gately's new book, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol, posits its subject as the lifeblood of the world. Booze has presided over executions and business deals and marriages and births. It inspired the ancient Greeks to invent not only democracy but comedy and tragedy. It helped goad America's Founding Fathers into revolution.

Click below for the full review:

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=A+History+of+Hooch&expire=&urlID=29577780&fb=Y&url=http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/48320/&partnerID=73272

Our Fence. Our Answer.

With awe and pride, dismay and shame, or total disinterest, you may now lift your gaze upon the not-so-great American fence. Follow your inclination. But regardless of how you feel about it, and whatever it is or will become, it reflects what America is becoming. It is totally ours.

China has The Great Wall. It's an enormous achievement and enduring testament to ancient China's resolve, resourcefulness, industry and commitment to the defense of its civilization and protection of its people. In Mandarin, it is called Chang Cheng, or long city. And given its design, materials and craftsmanship, its breadth, height and length, it did indeed function as a city or home of sorts for the many who manned it and defended their country on it. And they turned back would-be conquerors on many occasions in its history. It is a wonder of construction and a statement of early civilization to the world.

Then there was the notorious, ignoble Berlin Wall. More functionally basic, crude, actually, in its design and materials of construction, it was nonetheless imposing as a barrier to keep East Germans and others to the Soviet East from crossing into West Berlin and freedom. And while many died amid gunfire trying to make that crossing, about 5000 made the dash to a new life and lived to enjoy it. It's stature and standing with posterity lies not in the wonder of an enduring edifice, but in its complete destruction: a symbol of oppression, a barrier to freedom, rendered a long, dusty pile of debris as the winds of freedom blew West to East. It's destruction was a relief and a statement for freedom to the world.

And we have a fence, of sorts--a fence we are still cobbling together, a piece here, a piece there, of different designs and materials, a rude, utilitarian effort to be sure. I mean, a wall is monolithic, substantial and imposing--and it stands for something understood, or at least clearly stated. So, it's hard to even call our fence a wall. And it's such a patch-work quilt of a fence, at that. And somehow its unimpressive, ignominious appearance seems appropriate for the sentiments that inspire its building. But it's still our fence. We wanted it.

So, to what great purpose has this not-so-noble fence been erected? To what great principal of freedom, honor, fairness, justice, or defense of the poor or weak? Will sublime sentiments and statements of enlightened American identity grace statues and monuments raised to this all-too-pedestrian work? Or, is it possible that--perhaps--its greatest purpose and the most enduring principle will someday be found in its destruction, too. For it is unlikely that this rude fence will ever be spoken of in the same breath as Concord's rude bridge. And it's also unlikely that the great French-American lady or these great American sentiments will be found anywhere near the fence along our Southwestern borders:

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

--Emma Lazarus, Statue of Liberty

I know, you call me idealistic, and more, unrealistic and impractical. But I ask you, When did we stop thinking, seeking better answers, and solving problems? When did we stop defending the historic first principles of this great American experiment of immigrant peoples seeking freedom and democracy? When did we start thinking about walls, protectionism, and isolation.

In truth, I know, there have always been those among us who have quickly lost their progressive spirit of invitation and sharing, and turned to supporting exclusionary policies and protecting what is now theirs. Fortunately, the welcoming sentiments of the grateful and hopeful majority have always defended and advanced the foundations of our identity and our strength. Until now.

Something has changed--dramatically, frighteningly--in recent years. I recognize in our approach to illegal immigration and our Southwestern borders the same thoughtless, blunt-force approach and answers that led us into the Iraq War and our arrogant, self-defeating approach to diplomacy with friend and foe alike. Again we are giving up the high ground of principle, of well-informed, thoughtful answers that serve both the American community and the world community.

But I do recognize the need to police and protect our borders, particularly this long open border with Mexico. I do recognize the problems with illegal immigration along that long border, and the need to address them. And as this Time article chronicles, parts of the fence, properly placed and manned, can be reasonably effective. I just wish this fence was not the answer. I don't like what it stands for. And I am not alone. In fact, as reported in an Economist article, many Americans along the border, especially the Texas border, question whether it isn't all just an over-reaction. Certainly, high-tech surveillance could replace a lot of that fence, and produce a less denying, more welcoming image of the new America.

Regardless, I agree that to some extent, portions of the fence may be part of the answer, but not the most important part. The real answer requires reformation of our immigration policies and procedures, and better information available about the opportunities that await aspiring immigrants.

We know that most immigrants come to the US for work and the opportunity for a better life. And of the 12 million-plus illegal aliens now in the U.S., the vast majority are gainfully employed. We know, as we are again witnessing, that when the economy is weaker, and jobs and opportunity do not welcome them, illegal immigrants often return home. These simple facts tell us an enormous amount about the need for changes in policy and procedures:

• Our current immigration policy does not adequately consider the growing demands of American employers for increases in the workforce, increases that only immigrants seeking work can fill. Among those groups most strongly supporting the need for immigrant workers--whether legal or not--are American employers. And since many who come through Mexico illegally come only for work, not citizenship, a substantial guest worker program would seem to serve the interests of all.

• A credible, on-going process of polling potential employers and estimating potential employment of immigrants should be a basic element that informs our immigration policy and the setting of quotas.

• That same information should be provided through clearinghouses and public media to Mexico and all countries of potential immigrants. For surely far fewer of these desperate souls will take the substantial risks of illegal entry during those times when it is clear that jobs and opportunity do not await them. And when jobs are again on the ascendency, a process of legal immigration that accommodates many more potential workers might be considerably more attractive than illegal alternatives.

• A good and fair policy would extend the increased opportunity across an appropriate range and number of countries, including Mexico.

• Lastly, for those among the 12 million illegal aliens who seek legal status, there must be an attractive and workable process of amnesty and legalized entry. Let's be realistic. Our employers need most of those workers, and there is no effective and financially feasible way to deport them all. They have just been a convenient political issue for populist demagoguery. Of course, they would have to make the appropriate commitments to bring themselves reasonably into conformance with fair, achievable expectations for legal immigrants: whatever is practicable, whatever is right.

But there are many clever people whose responsibility it is to be better acquainted with the details of all this than I. Surely they can fashion still better answers than these. But who will act on them? Where are our statesmen-leaders? As all this resolves itself, or not, I leave you with some thoughts expressed in my essay on illegal immigration, "Strangers, Different Folks" in my Cassandra's Tears series:

What we shouldn't do, what we can't do, is be moved by the disingenuous voices with narrow cultural or ideological axes to grind, or the opportunistic demagogues with political ambitions. Look past these angry, misleading people with their own selfish, xenophobic and exclusionary goals. Think past their rhetoric that is intended to stir, inflame and divide people. Be the great people of promise, opportunity and community that we have the potential to be and often have been. ...Only if the pose we strike is as welcoming as it is practical and realistic can we minimize the problems that inevitably arise.

Our heart for people and community, like my faith, calls us to reach out to the strangers, the different folk, to invite them and welcome them in. But there will be complications. There will be issues of our national need or ability to assimilate, practical limits on how many we can welcome and the conditions of the invitation. Nevertheless, we must hold tight to that impulse, that leading, toward an open mind and welcoming spirit.

Darfur & Beyond: Africa, Tribalism, Genocide

The Darfur region keeps changing, with rebel groups and the government interests of Chad and Sudan now represented there or working through there. It's changing, but not for the better. It is now a crossroads and staging area for those insurgent and government interests, but it is the refugees who continue to suffer and die there. And yet, the Darfur region, Sudan and Chad are merely part of the larger, continuing history of African conflict and genocide.

Yes, the refugee camps and refugees are still there, to be sure; and squalor, hunger and death are still the realities of life for them. "Beyond Darfur," a recent article in Foreign Affairs, sets the table for its thesis by first describing the horrors we've heard of so often and understand too well: the atrocities, the genocide carried out in western Sudan's Darfur region by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias. This "ethnic cleansing" of marginalized African peoples by the controlling Arab Sudanese peaked in 2003-04 and has claimed at least 250,000 lives and driven over 2 million more to the refugee camps where the poor conditions continue to claim lives. And while the disagreements and skirmishing goes on, the article warns of new dangers:

But while this crisis simmers, the larger problem of Sudan's survival as a state is becoming increasingly urgent. Trends more ominous than even the carnage in Darfur could bring the country far more bloodshed soon. Long-standing tensions between the Arabs, who populate the Nile River valley and have held power for a century, and marginalized groups on the country's periphery are mutating into a national crisis once again.

The 1980s saw millions of Christian and animist Africans killed in the south of Sudan as the Arab Sudanese National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum subdued the south's non-Arab Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). With the mediation of other countries, a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was finally reached in 2005. But renewed conflict and disagreement between the SPLM and the NCP over agreed oil revenue sharing and steps toward political autonomy threaten the fragile 2005 agreement. There have been skirmishes and the amassing of armies at the makeshift borders. And while mediators are again desperately at work, peace and hope stand on poor footing, indeed.

Meanwhile, Chad threatens Sudan from the west. An Economist article chronicles an audacious, if foolhardy, attempt by a rag-tag group of rebels located in the Darfur region to attack Khartoum. And, amazingly, they were almost successful. A convoy of trucks and munitions and a few thousand rebels somehow managed to traverse much of Sudan undetected, or at least unopposed. But as they approached Khartoum they were engaged by the NCP and turned back, having absorbed considerable losses. But they were encouraged by their near success and, unbowed, vowed to attack again and succeed. But the real story, the unsurprising story for those closer to the realities of the region, was that those rebels were backed and supported by Chad, which has its own contentious history and ambitions with regard to Sudan.

And these disagreements and skirmishes between Khartoum's Arab NCP and southern Sudan's SPLM, on the one hand, and among the NCP, Darfur rebel groups, and Chad, on the other, continue unabated, notwithstanding existing agreements and ongoing third-party mediation. Sudan does indeed appear on the brink of disaster.

But if only that were the extent of the dark, dispiriting warring and genocidal campaigns on the Dark Continent. The Economist's most recent sections on the Middle East and Africa have been dominated by articles detailing or updating the warring or violence in other African countries--which often, directly or indirectly, appear to involve disputes or historical animosities between various African tribes. My post of 4.11.08, "I and My Brother Against My Cousin," addressed the role of tribalism in the Middle East and the evolution of terrorism, but doubtless finds general application to Africa's warring and genocidal history as well.

Robert Mugabe's violent and destructive rule of Zimbabwe continues the oppression and killing of his opposition, while ignoring the economic damage he has wrought upon the country and its people. The only opposition presidential candidate brave enough to oppose him was soon run to ground and Mugabe, brazenly, ran an election in which he was the only candidate left standing. And then after declaring an overwhelming victory based on what he said was the democratic expression of the will of his people, it was reported by TV news outlets that he hurried to a conference of African leaders, exultant in his self-congratulatory statements and supremely arrogant in his bearing. And for those few among his fellow African leaders who would criticize him or call for him to step down, he challenged in response that only those among them with "clean hands" had any right to question his standing or his methods. Voices muted, the African Union conference moved on. And there are indeed practical limits to what the U.N. or the rest of the world can or will do.

The Congo, another site of long-term violence and genocide, was reported to have improving conditions, but not good [although by fall, new fighting had broken out between government forces and rebels backed by Rwanda--and attrocities were increasingly being reported]. Although now past, Kenya's most recent violence assures it's place among Africa's dangerous places. South African xenophobia has turned to violence against refugees from the Congo, Zimbabwe and other nearby countries where oppression and murder are still a way of life. Apparently, there are few places to find safe haven or to hide. And then, can we possibly forget Rwanda's years-long genocidal conflict, and Uganda, too? Just to name a few.

Yes, perspective is called for. Africa is not the only place where the shadowed face of genocidal agents and their killing fields are found. Many other genocidal perpetrators and occasions of genocide take their place, however perversely, alongside the history of the progress of mankind, as if to remind us of what we are always capable of becoming. Just a few such examples of the last century would include the Russian pogroms, the Holocaust perpetuated by the Nazis against the Jews, Gypsies and others, the Khmer Rouge killing fields in Cambodia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. And those are just a few of the more notorious and publicized.

There are many, many more to be found around the globe and across time. They usually emerge, run their horrific course--often for years--then are resolved in some incomplete fashion, but offering at least a measure of stability. But in Africa, it seems to be part the continental identity. There always appears to be one occasion or another of warring, genocidal aggression between African tribes or countries playing itself out. And most often there are multiple violent situations unfolding concurrently.

It's always sad, dispiriting, and unclear to consider how the world's citizens can proceed wisely in serving best the interests of all involved, or potentially involved. So troubling to me has been this continuing recurrence of man's ultimate inhumanity to man that a couple years ago--after a presentation I made to my Council on World Affairs study group on the subject--I spent some time writing about it. In my resulting essay on genocide, "Never Again" in the Cassandra's Tears series, I observe that:

I had remained naively confident that the world had meant it when it collectively said, 'Never again'...

But I have learned. And in my more despondent moments, a cynical, resentful view emerges. All the impotent declarations appear more a dark charade of teasing, empty promises and false hopes played out against a cruel and denying reality. They are empty because no assurances are possible; they are false because all reasonable hope has been rendered futile by national and geopolitical realities. And the cruel, denying reality is perpetuated by the exploitative, populist demagoguery of those ultimately bent on the dominating regional power that enables 'ethnic cleansing': hatefully rationalized, unrepentant, ethnic or sectarian mass murder.

But with considerable resignation, I also had to acknowledge the implications of that reality:

But please, excuse this rant, the flailing outrage of my savaged naivety, the resentment of my flagging hope. Most of the time, my view is more balanced, tempered by the realities and responsibilities of nations in world-wide society, and informed by the more difficult lessons of my faith. I have learned that controlling or stopping the principals and agents of genocide is most often a frustratingly, dishearteningly complex matter...

...frequent have been the unsatisfying cases where the complexities, barriers to success, and the likely cost in lives lost by intervening forces, dictated reasonable caution, going slowly. In those cases, intervention was most often pursued through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and the use of political or economic sanctions or incentives. Unsatisfying responses, yes, and often of limited effect. And the necessary analyses are unavoidably cold, clinical critiques of trade-offs, costs and benefits, of national self interest...but the practical questions must still be asked, the wiser voices heeded, however unsatisfying the answers. Doesn't it all make you sick with grief?