The Post American World

Fareed Zakaria at the Commonwealth Club of California. What an important thinker, an asset to the intellectual life and conversation in America. Paraphrasing some of his thoughts:

There are enormous strengths in this society. We are the pluralistic model for the rest of the world. We attract more immigrants per year than the rest of the world combined. We, alone, in the industrialized world, will maintain our demographic strength, and chance to continue our competitiveness in the future.
American companies get this new world.
Washington does not. They continue to do what they do, impervious and arrogant to the workings of the rest of the world. To ourselves, we sit above. To the rest, we are simply not present.
Fareed sums up the current situation in the political world:

"Just as the world is opening up, we are closing down."

(discussing US-Indian relations)
"American relations are always strongest with they are not only state to state, but society to society. What is enduring are these deeper relationships. They seem much more familiar to each side."

Not Even a Glimmer of Hope

During my time in Ethiopia, I came across a small NGO with the name, A Glimmer of Hope.
In this case laid out by Paul Salopek, the glimmer is education, plain and clear.
Education is the only challenge to the entrenched act of child brides; girls as young as 6 years old are married off to older suiters in over 40 countries in the world. Education is the only glimmer of hope for breaking this imprisoning societal norm, that steals the youth, vitality, and health of so many girls in the developing world.
Salopek follows the story of Tihun, a 7 year old Amharic girl, before, during, and after the
arranged marriage she dreads like death itself; perhaps the young girl can see into the future; one that is bleak, with no options, no choices, a clouded dream.

"Tihun's short legs can't carry her away fast enough from the death of her childhood. Her wedding is five days away. And she is 7 years old."

Salopek continues,
"In the smoky villages of rural Ethiopia--some of the least educated communities in the world--the girls who step into crude schoolrooms are revolutionaries in braids...
The most far-reaching injustice of child marriage by far, however, is probably its most subtle: It pries millions of young girls out of school. Confined to their husbands' homes, and cheated of the benefits of education, legions of demoralized children worldwide are condemned to lives of ignorance and dire poverty from which they rarely escape, and which they endure with numbed desperation."

Education, the chance at enlightened thinking, the chance to break the cycle of imprisonment for these children around the world, is truly the glimmer of hope.

Aching Knees-Trip Journal

5.7.08 Asawa, Great Lakes Region, Ethiopia

One thing that has held constant through all the exigent, arduous, uncomfortable journeys that I have undertaken in so many countries is that, sooner or later, for better or for worse, they all come to an end.
No matter how much water is leaking on my shivering body from a broken window, hours on end; no matter how badly my knees and feet ache from pressing into the seat or body or obstruction in my vicinity; no matter how the absence of seat padding makes my posterior ache and moan; no matter the dust storms swirling inside the cabin as we bounce merrily down the chosen dirt path; no matter the driver or conductor, either born in the mold of Mario Andretti or a 95 year old grandmother, with no medium ground, ever; no matter the incessant stares and mobbing at the strange westerner, who surely has the means for better, faster modes of transport; they will all come to an end. For better or for worse.
I will bound out of the dusty bus park, taxi stand, or rickety airplane hanger, touts in chase, pack shouldered, gaze forward, countenance steeled, prepared for the unknown.



"However powerful the forces of history, the precise catalysts of change are often unpredictable. So, too, are its agents."
-Robin Wright, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is a also a prison."
-Henry David Thoreau

"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
-French Romanian Playwright Eugene Ionesco

Journal Excerpts, Ethiopia

The hands on my watch are deceiving me. They still hold as their infallible guide the hours, minutes, and days of the West; and surely there has been some mistake here, according to these little glow in the dark figures.
We were due to arrive at 12pm. It is now 3pm, and we are at least 2 hours from our destination, Addis Ababa.
Glancing to my left, the same stoic figure, dark complexion, red Nike hat, who has been sitting at my side since the dark, drizzly early morning hours bound us to our shared fate. I glance behind, unperturbed, smiling even, the masses crammed in the back of the vanlike refugees in the hull of a boat, still there, swaying with the curves of the freshly paved asphalt.
Adjusting, too slowly it now seems, back into the pseudo-reality of time, deadlines, appointments, and plans in the realm of the developing world. How easy to adjust the other way! Stepping off the plane back in New York City, my gait adjusts in the gate; slowing is a far more daunting task.
I curl my toes, utilizing the full wiggle-room between the floorboards, my bag, and the boy's feet which are wedged in next to mine, in even more precarious a limbo.
The countryside continues to roll past; verdant fields, round, peaked huts clustered, the odd dusty town, clapboard buildings; this is Africa.


"By the end of the 1980's, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power."
"In 29 countries, over the course of 150 elections held between 1960 and 1989, opposition parties were not allowed to win a single seat."
-Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of 50 Years of Independence

Faranji Frenzy

FARANJI FRENZY (NOUN): the shouts of "You! You! You! You!" which raise the hackles of of travelers (Faranji); it can also take the form of screaming, giggling, shouting, or snickering children. Like begging, there is no clear response. Ignoring it, or, even better, treating it with humor is probably the best answer. If you're waiting for a bus and become a captive spectacle, trying to communicate with locals usually breaks the animal in a zoo feeling. You may just transform the howling mob into delightful and charming individuals. Although you're never likely to get used to faranji frenzy, at least feel thankful that it's almost never aggressive or hostile.
--from The Lonely Planet Ethiopia/Eritrea

Excerpts from my Journal

5.3.08 Gonder, Ethiopia ("Africa's Camelot")

"Mister! Mister! Remember, this is Africa!"
The young man, who had just entered into my periphery, had said something that struck me, and I stopped walking, abandoned my predetermined destination, for something less concrete. The young man's words struck me as idiosyncratic, coming from a soul who has probably never left this small town, and almost certainly never left this large country and this larger continent. What point of comparison could this point of view possibly developed from? Or did it not develop at all? Was it simply a catchphrase, something said without thought or consequence? Were the words an excuse, a cop out, an invalid attempt at explaining why I was being accosted by marauding children, screaming for money, for pens, for whatever might be hanging around in my pockets?
I looked down into the eyes of the child pleading with me for one Birr, two Birr; I sternly said no, accompanied by the universal language of the scowl. I wondered to myself where this mentality stems from; the mentality of handouts, the unrealistic expectations of treasure from complete strangers, simply because it appears that they come from a different land, wear different clothing, have a different shading of skin. These expectations, this singular action in the broader perspective, is devastating on the fabric of society; it breeds complacency and stagnation; it kills growth and real development before it has a chance to begin.
Is the mentality derived from the modern-day colonialists, Westerners driving around (or, rather, being driven around) in their ubiquitous white Landcruisers, prowling the streets in most towns, saviors of the destitute, multipliers of misfortune, parasitic organisms implanted into the heart of the country, feeding on the juiciest bits, growing fatter by the day? Most of the aid impact and footprint is seen, to the unassuming eye, in shiny white trucks and sleek new offices, packed in nicely next to hobbled slums, erupting like pimples in the land of need.
It devastates me to see this end result of foreign handouts, whether from organized groups or from individual tourists, handing out pens to children. There is nothing more detrimental than handing out that first pen to the first child and walking away with an altruistic smile. This act echoes and resounds and magnifies. Self reliance is essential; self reliance from the top down; a capable government setting a reasonable, responsible, precedent; something so very rare on this continent.
These people have been living, surviving in an often harsh and brutal landscape since the dawn of man; what can they learn from our experts in white chariots that has not already been passed down from their elders? The issue is the abandonment of the consistent learning of the past for the dependency of the present and the unknown of the variable future. The will and ability to survive in these environments in absolutely humbling; for what its worth, I know for sure I could not do it. I would weep and cower if our shoes were switched. The abandonment of these survival traditions in favor of the newest trend coming out of the West, or the newest batch of free supplies being dropped off by truck, is what hurts.
"This is Africa!"
What should be a positive statement, a symbol of pride, detailing perseverance and continuation, the will to move forward, progress; instead being used to explain, as an excuse for, a macabre and humiliating, situation.
I do not have any answers. Only a humbled observation.

Simplified

"EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel agreed that 'the policy of charity hasn't worked' because it has come off as 'paternalistic' towards Africa."
-AllAfrica.com 5/28/08

(This is a startlingly large, and exceedingly clear, admission in the larger context of the past and ongoing charity 'industry.' The realities on the ground, the attitudes of dependency and expectancy that have evolved hand in hand with the growth of international charity, masking a deevolution of the purpose, and enigma. There is no question-this is an industry, and a very lucrative industry for the host country government as well as those lucky enough to be directly involved in the operations. But for the beneficiaries and the people on the periphery- I can not find a tremendous amount of positive, and certainly nothing "sustainable.")

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to naught.
-Rudyard Kipling

Not Even a D-

"The World is Failing on Human Rights"

A minor story on today's BBC news; a side story of mankind at a critical juncture, an afterthought in a time of seismic motion (pun and no pun, both intended). According to Amnesty International's 2008 State of the World's Human Rights:

"...people are still being tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries.
In at least 54 states they face unfair trial and cannot speak freely in at least 77 nations... "

The thing that really struck me was the size of the sample; my mind tends to immediately wander to the outer edges of information. The applicable bookend put things in troubling perspective: the sample size was 150 countries. 1 to 150. In more than half of the countries sampled around the world, people are being tortured or ill-treated. This makes torture and ill treatment the rule, not the exception. This is a troubling state of affairs, to say the least, in 2008; 60 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in the UN. Another stark reminder of the ineffectiveness of the United Nations in so many critical areas. Yes, there are flash points and exceptions and outliers; Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, the other pariah states are never expected to confirm to norms of decency; but increasingly, world powers are reverting back to cruel behavior, a de-evolution of mankind and society, a troubling move backwards into the future. This sample does not include most of the really redoubtable offenders; states with barely functioning governments, who exist only to empower themselves and provide zero public service and thus zero regard for human rights or decency.

According to Amnesty International:
"Despite increased economic growth in recent years in many African states, millions of people continued to live without access to the basic requirements of a dignified life, such as adequate housing, education or health care. Political instability, armed conflict, corruption, under-development and under-investment in basic social services all contributed to the failure to make economic, social and cultural rights a reality for men, women and children across the region."

The rule, not the exception, in so much of the world. Basic societal stability achieved not through equity and opportunity, but through violence and repression. This is an all encompassing mindset that follows the facile path to power; actually developing and empowering citizens requires far greater degrees of work and dedication than simply empowering thugs with crude weapons and impunity. Amnesty's report adds:

"Police and other law enforcement officers were rarely held accountable for serious human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and other ill-treatment. Such impunity prevailed in many countries including Angola, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Law enforcement officers frequently used excessive force in countries including Benin, the Republic of Guinea, Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Incidents of excessive use of force were often not investigated, even when people were killed."


"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

-Margaret Mead

"Nothing Will Ever Change"

--Robert Mugabe


The same man who shelters mass murderers such as Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former genocidal ruler of Ethiopia, has been unleashing a path of terror on his own people for the last 28 years. The man with a self-proclaimed "Degree in Violence"
clings tenuously to power in a disgraced and ruined nation, once one of the most prosperous on the continent; now, an empty shell, ravaged by continued torment. Often in the African press and in op-ed pieces by some confused writers, Mugabe is still presented as a hero to the poor, a land reformer who is fighting for the people, an anti-colonial anachronism. He has done nothing but enrich himself and his clique for the duration of his rule; the list of atrocities that can be directly attributed to his word is simply too large to list. How anybody could dream of defending this monster in the year 2008, after reading or researching any history of this country is astounding.



Mugabe, the great freedom fighter, breaker of colonial rule, on dealing with dissident political and ethnic groups in the province of Matabeleland, in 1984:

"We have to deal with this problem quite ruthlessly. Don't cry if your relatives get killed in the process. Where men and women provide food for the dissidents, when we get there we eradicate them. We do not differentiate who we fight because we can't tell who is a dissident and who is not."

"In Mugabe's drive for a one-party state, at least 10,000 civilians were murdered, many thousands more beaten or tortured, and an entire people were victimized."
-Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa

Politically, nothing has changed since the early 1980's in Zimbabwe; economically, the only change has been for the negative. The NYTimes continues on the present situation, with eerie similarities to the past,

"Beneath their defiance, though, lay raw fear as the country’s ruling party stepped up its campaign of intimidation ahead of a presidential runoff. In a conflict that has penetrated ever deeper into Zimbabwe’s social fabric, the party has focused on a growing roster of groups that elude its direct control — a list that includes the Anglican diocese of Harare, as well as charitable and civic organizations, trade unions, teachers, independent election monitors and the political opposition."

I hope something will change. For the future of this country, now in ruins; for the future of Africa, sitting so precariously on the edge of the past and future.

Photos, Impressions

Yemen Photos

Yemen 2008

Ethiopia Photos

Ethiopia 2008

Beginnings and Ends

My journey began on a cool, crisp night in the loftiest capital city of a vast continent, Addis Ababa, or "New Flower," in Amharic, one of the main local dialects. A city so full of contrast that the excesses begin to cancel each other out, create barricades and blinders that are internalized and vanish into reality. The capital city of an ancient nation with a tortured modern history: war, brutality, ideological persecution, famine, nepotism, cronyism; the good, and all the bad, that can be imagined. A struggle of extremes, a struggle born by the smallest factor in the equation of state, the people, the citizenry.

The driver sped down the darkened road; billboards, some half-lit, seemed like alien apparitions, displaying their alien wares. My window cracked, absorbing the freedom of the unknown, stretching my lungs after 24 hours of recycled air at 34,000ft. The first hints arrived promptly in the dark night; smallish figures streaming towards the baby blue cab, arms and hands outstretched, palms turned up, mouths open; I turned my head inwards, looked at the driver as he looked at me; smiled a weak smile, a defeated, knowing smile. I wanted the smile to convey that I'd been "here" before; that my passport was stamped with many visas, that this was old hat for a wizened travel veteran; but it didn't; it only conveyed sadness at the most familiar sight in the world, well, maybe second most familiar, after the red and white Coca Cola script. I would grow more accustomed to both sights, calloused even, I regret to say.

Ethiopia is a land of incredible promise, a fantastic and colorful history, and like so many others in the region, an unfortunate present. The only African country, other than tiny Liberia and its array of misfortune, to not be colonized; it should be the promise, the textbook case condemning colonialism, the shining light, the exception to the rule. But it is not. The country is mired in the same unfortunate situation as are so many others, regardless of the Union Jack or French Tricolor flapping in the historical wind. This is a land where people still live and die, prosper and perish, on the whims of the rains, the whims of the government, the whims of their own particular, yet capacious, calamities.

The city is not a uniform canvas; the city is pockets of modernity, glimpses of the present, amongst rolling hills and valleys of slums. To the untrained eye, it is half-finished, long abandoned construction sites, old tattered orange tarps still flapping in the relentless wind that whips up the dusty streets. It is parallel worlds of haves and the many more have nots, the fortunate few who have escaped the traps, either through blood or toil; the fortunate few and the unfortunate masses, living side by side, in worlds that never connect. Parallel lines stay parallel, this is a rule of mathematics, and in life, in many places. To my eyes, the sheer inequality in figures between the governed and governing should have resulted in anarchy and overthrow; but the people stay in place, humbled, resigned.

Great energy can be felt along the commercial areas of Bole Road, Churchill Avenue, the offices looming down over wide streets, peddlers peddling, hawkers hawking, shoe shiners shining. Buses and taxis, beggars and businessmen, alive with movement, with purpose of action. Great animation driving towards an unknown future.

But it wasn't the energy that struck me; it was the aforementioned parallels of life buzzing next to each other, waiting next to each other in the same traffic, affluence not being able to buy everything, I snicker to myself. The lines here are so much farther apart than anywhere I've ever seen; the bottom line scraping so low to the ground that the friction ripped at my heart soul; it burned every time that outstretched hand was thrust into my attention, those peering eyes searing into my soul.

The parallels are not only breathing; the idiosyncrasies are omnipresent, like the wide grin on the face of the leperous child walking in lockstep behind me. A country that exports electricity to its neighbors cannot keep the lights on in its towns for more than a few hours per day; a nation that espouses regional stability is constantly at war with its neighbors; a nation with the funds available for making death a reality cannot manage to salvage life in lean times; a shining light of anti colonial independence, with its hand constantly out for help.

My first night in Addis Ababa, I took in the festive, carnival atmosphere of the Piazza Area, where my guide book had landed me. Streets clogged with old Russian taxis, men, and the fumes of alcohol; mixing with the loud thumping of local musicians and generator-powered fluorescent lighting. The mood was intoxicating; the women working the loud rooms with mischievous grins, eager to grab drinks for the lubricated men; barstools greased with the sweat of so many, drinking away their fortunes, for better, or for worse.I stumbled back to my small guesthouse, an anachronism in itself, puzzled, buzzed, feelings which would plague the rest of my time in the country.

The Fate of Africa

I have recently finished reading Martin Meredith's masterpiece on African history, "The Fate of Africa: A History of 50 Years of Independence." In the meantime while I reconcile my own perspectives on the subject, here is the summation of his book, the final paragraphs of a 50 year, exhaustive historical study; the basic fact that this is how the book concludes, in this tone, with these words, is devastating; much of my personal observations follow in the same line.

"...the sum of Africa's misfortunes-its wars, its despotisms, its corruption, its droughts, its everyday violence-presents a crisis of such magnitude that it goes beyond the reach of foreseeable solutions. At the core of this crisis is the failure of African leaders to provide effective government...for the most part, Africa has suffered grievously at the hands of its Big Men and its ruling elites. Their preoccupations, above all, has been to hold power for the purpose of self-enrichment...

Time and time again, its potential for economic development has been disrupted by the predatory politics of ruling elites seeking personal gain, often precipitating violence for their own ends. After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have become hollowed out. They are no longer instruments capable of serving the public good. Indeed, far from being able to provide aid and protection to their citizens, African governments and the vampire-like politicians who run them are regarded by the populations they rule as yet another burden they have to bear in the struggle for survival."

The ending of this work, physically, mentally, and emotionally, runs chills down my spine.

We have seen the same, time and time again. The same cycle of violence, the same cycle of mismanagement, the same cycle of suffering. For every promising start, there is another "vampire," holding onto power with complete disregard for his citizenry. For every economic success, there is another catastrophe, wrought by man or nature. 

The way to the future is forward. It is the people, the people who have suffered and remained in stifling quagmire for so long, who will walk this path, with or without the malevolent or benevolent hand of the ruling class. It is these people for whom I have hope. 

(Nothing in Words)

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible."

T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

"Democracy is about differences-and they are bound to flourish once disparate sides of society are really free for the first time to speak and make their own specific demands."

Robin Wright