April Ends
Marcia Ball celebrates piano night; Dr. John accompanies her on guitar. Warm beer, alligator Po-Boys stuffings, sloppy wriggling butt cleavage and too many tattoos spill onto the dance floor. Everybody will get some tonight. Some will get more than others. I used to miss it. Now that I don't, I'm afraid that soon I will not even care that I don't miss it. I played Jazz fest a couple of years ago. It was the Folk Heritage Tent and I only strummed my acoustic for a group of Cajun dancers, but still, I played Jazz Fest.
What I have now replacing those moments are moments which I never would have imagined I'd look forward to. Bopping around Exhibition Road in Bahrain a couple of weeks ago, I gave money to an old man squatting in a doorway. He wasn't begging. That's forbidden. What isn't forbidden is squatting in a doorway being rail thin and looking frightened.
It isn't forbidden to accept hadiya (a gift). But for my money it wasn't a gift. It was a purchase. I wanted to buy from him a little dignity. He had more than I. I lost mine in a tangle of sheets back at the Al Bustan Hotel. I don't mind shouldering my share of the white feller's burden as long as there's something in it for me.
As the afternoon dims to twilight, ...story (cont.)As the afternoon dims to twilight, a familiar, reassuring voice consoles her. It is her mother's voice, recalled as the voice of happiness not hopelessness, of comfort not despair.
The voice comes from behind her, spoken softly the way she remembers it when her mother used to braid her hair. The voices whispers, "Now is the not time to neglect our successes. Look outside. There's going to be a full moon tonight."
Outside the Box"The phrase "passive resistance"; often gives the false impression that this is a sort of "do-nothing method" in which the resister quietly and passively accepts evil. But nothing is further from the truth. For while the nonviolent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong. The method is passive physically, but strongly active spiritually. It is not passive non-resistance to evil, it is active nonviolent resistance to evil." Martin Luther King
Less than six weeks after leaving Jeddah, a gun battle broke out in that "more open, western friendly" city on the Red Sea. The revolt may be plodding along, but it hasn't been put down. The Ministers of Interior tell the Imams to tone down the sermons, and they have. Last night on Saudi Television Two I watched an Imam in Mecca giving his Friday sermon with an English translation voice over. (You'd be surprised just how reasonable these sermons are).
He was surrounded by members of the security forces. The Imam condemned the killings and promised that the killers would "go to the fire" not paradise for murdering innocent Muslims. He basically said that killing innocent people Muslim or Non-Muslim was evil, but emphasized that one was more evil than the other. The biggest losers in all of this once again are the Palestinians. I pray for them and hope that soon a charismatic leader of a serious passive resistance movement will emerge.
Gandhi only had black and white news reel footage for PR. Martin Luther King had only three networks and grainy evening footage of German Shepherds attacking the marchers in Selma. If a child is willing to die for the cause anyway, then let him stand up to an Israeli tank--just be sure CNN is there when the tank does him. Sooner or later, a generation will ask for only one thing: a chance to prosper. Meanwhile, along the coast from Kuwait to Oman, far-sighted governments continue to serve as model states for prosperity.
(story continued) Her heart raced. She kicked o...(story continued) Her heart raced. She kicked off her blanket and pushed herself out of bed. She stepped into a pair of unlaced tennis shoes. There were still slivers of broken glass scattered about the dresser that she hadn't swept up. Her hands were shaking.
Somewhere behind the wall, in the dark spaces of pipes and tangles of wiring, she could imagine the skeletal body covered with thick dust and lifeless eyes looking to her for justice. The police had come when she'd called them.
The neighbors had explained to the police that the baby wasn't theirs, they'd only been helping a friend by caring for it, that the infant belonged to colleague who had been preoccupied with packing for a move, that she'd since returned to Cairo with her husband and her baby.
Last night the desert tried to retake the city.
Last night the desert tried to retake the city. The cries of wind blasted through unsealed gaps in my windows like peals of thunder. I dress for work, take the elevator to the ground floor and begin my daily rounds. Whether or not it will be a day to remember or one quickly forgotten has yet to be determined. Last night I dreamed about a flood.
Tidal waves like Roman phalanxes drowned a small fishing village. Taxis and cars of every make, model and size rushed to join the traffic jam on the main artery to town. The sun shone dolorously yellow.
Men in orange jump suits chatteled about tending to weeds and litter. Other men hosed down sidewalks or sat in front of the bakala markets with their newspapers, taking note of the latest enraging body counts. Some of the dead used to be young. Some used to be old. For some the future was the promising land. For others home had become a hostile, foreign country. Here is where we are.
This place has been made for us (not this "place" as land, an area of the world with a name, a flag and borders, but the place that makes us who we are today). Let's lose ourselves in the howl of the wind and the yellow sky.Let's remember those things which
She stretched out on the bed, becoming hyper aware as she analyzed the various members of the committee.
The committee was now fully in session. She was not alarmed. They required particular attention but each member was patient and always spoke in turn. At times, they could be demanding. When she was a child, she decided to give them names and assign them to various duties. This created order and organization that has since been hallowed and consecrated by the passing of time.
So Go the MaoistWhen I took Therese to Kathmandu we spent many hours each day with a waiter from our hotel. This is how I've always acquired guides and translators when bopping around third world shit holes.
I refuse to go to an agency only to have a guide who insists on dropping in to see his many cousins and uncles who happen to own shops displaying over-priced trinkets. Here's the drill. On the first morning after arriving,.
I and my Belle de Jour first visit the hotel coffee shop. There is always going to be a waiter who has a good working knowledge of English; he wouldn't have the job otherwise. Unlike the agency's scroungers and baksheesh hustlers, these fellers have always shown me the real thing, their home and at the end of the day, they are eternally grateful for earning 10 US dollars for four hours work. His name wasn't Ganash, but I'll protect him and call him that. For five days we used him as our guide, he wore the same white shirt and black trousers, his waiter's uniform. I've used Ganash as a translator several times since and I can't recall ever seeing him in anything else.
On this trip to Kathmandu, the Maoist rebels had made headway in their need for proper weapons. A year prior to this visit with Therese, I'd gone alone to spend New Year's Eve at the New Orleans Café in Thamel where I have over the past six years taken my Martin guitar to have a good jam session on stage with the owner and his friends.
At the time, the Maoists' arsenal consisted of single shot rifles cobbled together from pipes; most had only Ghurka knives and clubs. They were laughably referred to as a terrorist organization. Since that trip, they'd successfully raided several remote army and police outposts and were now carrying ancient Lee Enfield rifles swiped from the soldiers and security men they'd killed. Bush had recently given the Nepali government 29 million dollars to fight "terror" The Maoists are not really Maoists, that is, they have no support from the Chinese government; in fact, they have absolutely no support from any outside country.
It's a bonafide old school peasant revolt and they don't stand a chance. I wanted to find out more about them. So in between shopping expeditions, visits to stupas at Swayambhunath, Boudhanat and our daily constitutionals up the 360 odd stairs to Monkey Temple, I asked Ganash many questions about the rebels. My first question was how did his government spend the 29 million dollars?
"Yes, Dai, it is like this" – Ganash called me Dai—Nepali for "brother" (Therese was Didi—sister), "many countries give Nepal money for many things, for schools, for hospitals, for roads, for the military." He spoke in the usual hushed tones of a man who has been conditioned to believe that it is possible someone with a gun could be listening. "If some country like US give Nepal ten dollars, the government. . ." he put his fingers to his mouth as though he were about to eat a pinch of rice, "Nine dollars go" he opened his mouth and made a slurping sound."One dollar goes to Nepali people." According to Ganash,
Nepal had become an economic outpost for Indian, Kashmiri and especially Tibetan merchants. The way he described the Tibetan take over of commerce in Nepal reminded me of the Cuban exiles bolting to Miami and rebuilding that city in their own image. Nepal was a buffet table and many ravenous multi-national corporations had beaten a path there to take advantage of its unregulated free market. The Maoist seem to be carrying the banner for those who see themselves as true Nepali, that is the Kirati, Newars, Magars, Gurungs, Thakalis and Sherpas.
These people had dick and they had to beg for that from the outsiders. According to their spin on their history, neither the Tibeto-Burmans nor the Indo-Aryans belonged "Why it is that many Tibetan people live in a house with ten rooms," Ganash quietly asked me as we walked to Monkey Temple one morning, "and my family lives in one room? So go the Maoists." Ganash would never say whether or not he was a Maoist or if he wanted to join the Maoists, but he was certain that if they were to succeed in their aims, then his people, the Nepali would be living in the ten room houses.
On our last day in Kathmandu, after we'd been to Bhaktapur where we spent a morning on the roof of our hotel passing out pads of papers and paint to a group of street kids, after our visit to Chitiwan where we didn't go on an elephant safari, but we did manage to take one of the beasts as a taxi from the village to our resort, we returned to Kathmandu.
We wanted to buy Ganash something that would help his family, you know, give a man a fish, feed him for the day, but teach him how to fish, feed him for a lifetime.I wanted to buy him a Kalashnikov and battle dress uniforms. We refused. Instead we bought his wife a foot pedaled Singer sewing machine.
What I have now replacing those moments are moments which I never would have imagined I'd look forward to. Bopping around Exhibition Road in Bahrain a couple of weeks ago, I gave money to an old man squatting in a doorway. He wasn't begging. That's forbidden. What isn't forbidden is squatting in a doorway being rail thin and looking frightened.
It isn't forbidden to accept hadiya (a gift). But for my money it wasn't a gift. It was a purchase. I wanted to buy from him a little dignity. He had more than I. I lost mine in a tangle of sheets back at the Al Bustan Hotel. I don't mind shouldering my share of the white feller's burden as long as there's something in it for me.
As the afternoon dims to twilight, ...story (cont.)As the afternoon dims to twilight, a familiar, reassuring voice consoles her. It is her mother's voice, recalled as the voice of happiness not hopelessness, of comfort not despair.
The voice comes from behind her, spoken softly the way she remembers it when her mother used to braid her hair. The voices whispers, "Now is the not time to neglect our successes. Look outside. There's going to be a full moon tonight."
Outside the Box"The phrase "passive resistance"; often gives the false impression that this is a sort of "do-nothing method" in which the resister quietly and passively accepts evil. But nothing is further from the truth. For while the nonviolent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong. The method is passive physically, but strongly active spiritually. It is not passive non-resistance to evil, it is active nonviolent resistance to evil." Martin Luther King
Less than six weeks after leaving Jeddah, a gun battle broke out in that "more open, western friendly" city on the Red Sea. The revolt may be plodding along, but it hasn't been put down. The Ministers of Interior tell the Imams to tone down the sermons, and they have. Last night on Saudi Television Two I watched an Imam in Mecca giving his Friday sermon with an English translation voice over. (You'd be surprised just how reasonable these sermons are).
He was surrounded by members of the security forces. The Imam condemned the killings and promised that the killers would "go to the fire" not paradise for murdering innocent Muslims. He basically said that killing innocent people Muslim or Non-Muslim was evil, but emphasized that one was more evil than the other. The biggest losers in all of this once again are the Palestinians. I pray for them and hope that soon a charismatic leader of a serious passive resistance movement will emerge.
Gandhi only had black and white news reel footage for PR. Martin Luther King had only three networks and grainy evening footage of German Shepherds attacking the marchers in Selma. If a child is willing to die for the cause anyway, then let him stand up to an Israeli tank--just be sure CNN is there when the tank does him. Sooner or later, a generation will ask for only one thing: a chance to prosper. Meanwhile, along the coast from Kuwait to Oman, far-sighted governments continue to serve as model states for prosperity.
(story continued) Her heart raced. She kicked o...(story continued) Her heart raced. She kicked off her blanket and pushed herself out of bed. She stepped into a pair of unlaced tennis shoes. There were still slivers of broken glass scattered about the dresser that she hadn't swept up. Her hands were shaking.
Somewhere behind the wall, in the dark spaces of pipes and tangles of wiring, she could imagine the skeletal body covered with thick dust and lifeless eyes looking to her for justice. The police had come when she'd called them.
The neighbors had explained to the police that the baby wasn't theirs, they'd only been helping a friend by caring for it, that the infant belonged to colleague who had been preoccupied with packing for a move, that she'd since returned to Cairo with her husband and her baby.
Last night the desert tried to retake the city.
Last night the desert tried to retake the city. The cries of wind blasted through unsealed gaps in my windows like peals of thunder. I dress for work, take the elevator to the ground floor and begin my daily rounds. Whether or not it will be a day to remember or one quickly forgotten has yet to be determined. Last night I dreamed about a flood.
Tidal waves like Roman phalanxes drowned a small fishing village. Taxis and cars of every make, model and size rushed to join the traffic jam on the main artery to town. The sun shone dolorously yellow.
Men in orange jump suits chatteled about tending to weeds and litter. Other men hosed down sidewalks or sat in front of the bakala markets with their newspapers, taking note of the latest enraging body counts. Some of the dead used to be young. Some used to be old. For some the future was the promising land. For others home had become a hostile, foreign country. Here is where we are.
This place has been made for us (not this "place" as land, an area of the world with a name, a flag and borders, but the place that makes us who we are today). Let's lose ourselves in the howl of the wind and the yellow sky.Let's remember those things which
She stretched out on the bed, becoming hyper aware as she analyzed the various members of the committee.
The committee was now fully in session. She was not alarmed. They required particular attention but each member was patient and always spoke in turn. At times, they could be demanding. When she was a child, she decided to give them names and assign them to various duties. This created order and organization that has since been hallowed and consecrated by the passing of time.
So Go the MaoistWhen I took Therese to Kathmandu we spent many hours each day with a waiter from our hotel. This is how I've always acquired guides and translators when bopping around third world shit holes.
I refuse to go to an agency only to have a guide who insists on dropping in to see his many cousins and uncles who happen to own shops displaying over-priced trinkets. Here's the drill. On the first morning after arriving,.
I and my Belle de Jour first visit the hotel coffee shop. There is always going to be a waiter who has a good working knowledge of English; he wouldn't have the job otherwise. Unlike the agency's scroungers and baksheesh hustlers, these fellers have always shown me the real thing, their home and at the end of the day, they are eternally grateful for earning 10 US dollars for four hours work. His name wasn't Ganash, but I'll protect him and call him that. For five days we used him as our guide, he wore the same white shirt and black trousers, his waiter's uniform. I've used Ganash as a translator several times since and I can't recall ever seeing him in anything else.
On this trip to Kathmandu, the Maoist rebels had made headway in their need for proper weapons. A year prior to this visit with Therese, I'd gone alone to spend New Year's Eve at the New Orleans Café in Thamel where I have over the past six years taken my Martin guitar to have a good jam session on stage with the owner and his friends.
At the time, the Maoists' arsenal consisted of single shot rifles cobbled together from pipes; most had only Ghurka knives and clubs. They were laughably referred to as a terrorist organization. Since that trip, they'd successfully raided several remote army and police outposts and were now carrying ancient Lee Enfield rifles swiped from the soldiers and security men they'd killed. Bush had recently given the Nepali government 29 million dollars to fight "terror" The Maoists are not really Maoists, that is, they have no support from the Chinese government; in fact, they have absolutely no support from any outside country.
It's a bonafide old school peasant revolt and they don't stand a chance. I wanted to find out more about them. So in between shopping expeditions, visits to stupas at Swayambhunath, Boudhanat and our daily constitutionals up the 360 odd stairs to Monkey Temple, I asked Ganash many questions about the rebels. My first question was how did his government spend the 29 million dollars?
"Yes, Dai, it is like this" – Ganash called me Dai—Nepali for "brother" (Therese was Didi—sister), "many countries give Nepal money for many things, for schools, for hospitals, for roads, for the military." He spoke in the usual hushed tones of a man who has been conditioned to believe that it is possible someone with a gun could be listening. "If some country like US give Nepal ten dollars, the government. . ." he put his fingers to his mouth as though he were about to eat a pinch of rice, "Nine dollars go" he opened his mouth and made a slurping sound."One dollar goes to Nepali people." According to Ganash,
Nepal had become an economic outpost for Indian, Kashmiri and especially Tibetan merchants. The way he described the Tibetan take over of commerce in Nepal reminded me of the Cuban exiles bolting to Miami and rebuilding that city in their own image. Nepal was a buffet table and many ravenous multi-national corporations had beaten a path there to take advantage of its unregulated free market. The Maoist seem to be carrying the banner for those who see themselves as true Nepali, that is the Kirati, Newars, Magars, Gurungs, Thakalis and Sherpas.
These people had dick and they had to beg for that from the outsiders. According to their spin on their history, neither the Tibeto-Burmans nor the Indo-Aryans belonged "Why it is that many Tibetan people live in a house with ten rooms," Ganash quietly asked me as we walked to Monkey Temple one morning, "and my family lives in one room? So go the Maoists." Ganash would never say whether or not he was a Maoist or if he wanted to join the Maoists, but he was certain that if they were to succeed in their aims, then his people, the Nepali would be living in the ten room houses.
On our last day in Kathmandu, after we'd been to Bhaktapur where we spent a morning on the roof of our hotel passing out pads of papers and paint to a group of street kids, after our visit to Chitiwan where we didn't go on an elephant safari, but we did manage to take one of the beasts as a taxi from the village to our resort, we returned to Kathmandu.
We wanted to buy Ganash something that would help his family, you know, give a man a fish, feed him for the day, but teach him how to fish, feed him for a lifetime.I wanted to buy him a Kalashnikov and battle dress uniforms. We refused. Instead we bought his wife a foot pedaled Singer sewing machine.
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