Happy Thanksgiving Mr R!

Happy Thanksgiving Mr R!

It was a pleasure to meet you a few months ago, and I dearly hope that your first American Thanksgiving is a happy day, when you can join me, join the nation and anyone anywhere who wants to participate, in giving thanks for the good things in our lives. I am thankful for the chance to meet you and your wonderful family. I am thankful for the chance to (hopefully!) teach you all some English, although your daughter already speaks impressively well.

I am grateful for the wonderful people at the International Rescue Committee, and the noble work they do, important in the best of times and crucial when things are running off track, when a small percentage of people abroad are pursuing inhumane agendas, and too many people here are doing the same. Violence and intolerance; intolerance is violence.

I am grateful that my country is still the sort of place people would want to come to. I believe we have been welcoming too few, but I am grateful and hopeful that we are moving in the right direction.

My patriotism

I am grateful that Obama is a much better example of our country than some of the people who want to take his place. For a long time in this country, people would sometimes compare each other to Nazis but it was always overblown and inappropriate, since at our worst, we were far from that vile. I have to apologize that you have come at a time when the spokescreature for half the political establishment is actually advocating Nazi policies (and citing Nazi fake statistics to scare up the paranoia required for the abdication of one’s mind and soul.)

But please don’t be scared, as off track as some of my nation is at the moment, I cannot believe we would ever actually pursue a Muslim database, or close your places of worship, or any of the other headline-grabbing idiocy with which our lowest element is currently hijacking attention in their competition to see who can be the least intelligent, the least sane, the least humane.

The only database she belongs
in is a list of happy humans

They are not this country. We have nutjobs, just like everywhere else! Come on over to my place, and we can shake our heads in disgust, laugh in disbelief, and shiver in fear. It will look like we’ve invented the world’s weirdest dance move. For a moment. Then we can move on, come back to earth, connect as humans in a beautiful corner of the world, and give thanks. That is required on this day. Turkey is optional.

PS. But cranberry sauce is obligatory, so since you, your whole family, and all of your friends are welcome in my home, just let me know how much I should make. Happy Thanksgiving!

I thought it was just a photo

I wasn’t expecting a lesson in male privilege. I thought I was just decorating. But one of the candidate photos was from a late night wander through September streets of Venice, complete with its ancient arches, golden light, and salt-faded nostalgia for an age that might have been greater, must have been horrific, but undeniably had flair. It’s not the most interesting photo, but I like the reminder of that unique city after dark, the quiet shifting of its sirocco air, and the sense that you’re seeing Venice itself wake up after the humans have gone to bed. The question was with human silhouette, or without?

It’s not a very romantic silhouette. If a woman in a gown had been walking home, that would have been better. Or a gentleman, paused with the yellow light on the brim of his fedora. This was some schlub with a daypack and an awkward gait. Hardly romantic, just right place right time.

So I posed the question to my lady. “What do you think of this one?” I gave her a moment to look. “And with the figure, or without?” I clicked over for comparison.

Bangkok was at its best after dark

Normally her first response to these questions is pursed lips of consideration, but this time she flinched. “Oh no, those are creepy.” I was flabbergasted. How so? They’re sepia-textured memories, or tilting recollections, maybe boring, but not creepy.

“No, they’re definitely creepy,” she informed me. “They’re walking home alone at night through empty streets with lots of dark doorways and alleys, hoping you get home safely.”

Because why not wander the closed market of a border town?

When I walk around a city late at night, as I love to do, and pass a darkened doorway, my thought is probably “Is there a photo here?” if I notice it at all. I don’t think “Is there someone in there about to jump out and attack me?” No one wants to live in fear, but choosing not to is much easier for me, through no effort of my own. The stakes are just lower. If I’m wrong? I lose my camera. Maybe a black eye. I am not forced to confront the thought that the very sanctity and safety of my body might be taken from me, by a monster that actually exists.

Okay, Havana is safer than my kitchen, but still.

The difference between my lady’s perspective of that midnight street and my own was a shock. But that’s the problem, the disparity is so...quotidian. Ubiquitous and insidious. I try to be aware of my privileges, in the hope that awareness is an important step towards extending them to everyone, but the manifestations are sneaky and constant.

So did I print the photo? No. I don’t need to post an image of menace in my everyday life. But I do hope I can take the lesson, repeated as often as it takes, that we have not yet reached our goal.

Step by step.

[Did I post too late on Friday? It's here.]

The good thing about terrorism.

Here’s something you already knew: the Dark Ages were F’ing brutal. I’ve been studying those terrible centuries for my job, and they were worse than I realized. Someone doesn’t like you and says they saw you talking to the devil? You’re probably going to be burned alive. Sometimes slowly, on a pile of dried feces, maybe after they rip your tongue out. (These were all Christians, by the way.) There are lots more examples, worse ones, but let’s move on.

It was a privilege to be in El Salvador to witness their election
last year, and congratulations to Myanmar in their fairest
election in a quarter century.

Back then, each town, family, and even guild often maintained their own armed force, and violence was the point of entry into the political process. You basically had to be violent in order to have a voice. Violence was assumed. Normal. And life was terrible. Then, magnificently, over the course of multiple centuries, we created a world in which political violence became nearly absent. (In parts of the world, that is. The parts where I’m sitting, and you most likely are too.)

This accomplishment should not be taken for granted, lest we can forget that we’re living in the safest time and place in human history. That gratitude and perspective are essential in combating terrorism. For millennia, violence was random and rampant, with no accountability or even reason. Then nation-states arose, and for a while they went to war, supercharged by the mechanization of murder. Now, with rare exceptions, Vladimir, nations do not invade each other anymore. We transfer immense amounts of power through entirely peaceful means. Our elections are still far from 100% fair, but they’re a helluva lot better than settling inheritance by the sword, as was the rule for centuries, in kingdoms, families, and even monasteries.

"All" Muslims are whatnow?

Now, in this peaceful world, where vast numbers of people cooperate on a basic level, terrorism has found a new potency by virtue of its exceptionality. If religious nutjobs killed twenty people in 1215, it wouldn’t have made the papers, partially because there were no papers, but also because it wouldn’t have been particularly interesting. Terrorism only exists when we’ve gotten used to safety. That’s the good news, that we’re actually incredibly safe. The bad news is that in our strength, we face the risk of being toppled by a relatively insignificant threat.

Because terrorism is the technique of the weak. It belongs to those groups who know that they cannot win, cannot even fight a real battle. They are weak, so all they can do is provoke you, hoping that in your response, you will make them strong.

ISIS wants a religious war, Muslims versus everyone else. That is not the current reality. They are a small minority, massively disapproved of, even in Muslim countries. Everyone hates them. And they’re weak. Yes, they took over a lot of territory very quickly, but it was territory that was barely held by anyone else. And at the time, the people thought (as they always do) that “The new guys will be better!” That illusion didn’t last long. (My lady and I heard a similar story about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, when people, unhappy with the status quo, welcomed a change, until they saw that the news guys were worse. Then it took a few years to get rid of them.)

ISIS wants us to lump all Muslims together and blame them all, and they want us to “protect our freedom” by sacrificing it. They want us to reject refugees, and so far, 30 Republican governors and one Democrat have come out strongly in favor of ISIS. By opposing the victims of ISIS, they are effectively aligning themselves with it.

Is that how we will respond? Will we do exactly what ISIS wants us to do, and be manipulated into hating the wrong people? Will we take our anger and fear, and turn them into mistrust and segregation, and in so doing, work far more effectively than ISIS ever could towards creating the Islam vs Everyone Else war that they seek?

Responding to Paris. Islam is not the problem.

Inside a mosque in Malaysia

What can one say about what happened in Paris last week? How to adequately address this manifestation of humanity’s darkest potential? I’m not sure how to do it well, but I’ve seen some examples of how to do it incredibly poorly.

So, as John Oliver said: “after the many necessary and appropriate moments of silence”, I want to shout that this, as all of these incidents, is not a situation of Islam versus The West, nor Christianity, nor democracy, nor anything else. This is a case of Extremism versus Human Decency.

If you’ve met any Muslims through any medium other than TV “news” you know that they are people. Not terrorists, not extremists. People. Just like you and I. I wish I could take anyone who says differently with me to my class, where tables full of Syrian, Iraqi, Rohingya, Eritrean, and other refugees show me the true face of human kindness, the profound depth of human decency. They are solidly on “our side”. The talking heads of the TV networks on the other hand, seem solidly on the side of extremism. The danger of that is insidious and shameful.

Being a boy in rural Turkey

This misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict is what allows “our” government (and its business interests) to pursue the “War on Terror.” The tragedy of that strategy goes far beyond my ability to express. You can not go to war with Terrorism. It is an idea, not an opponent. It’s like trying to dry your clothes by spraying them with the garden hose. It only makes the problem worse.

We’ve seen, time and time again, that “our” bombs don’t just land on extremists. They land on innocents, and bystanders, and angry people, and sad people, and markets, and schools, and hospitals, and weddings. For every extremist “we” kill, we create a dozen more. We’re standing in the sun, hoping it will cure our sunburn.

Somewhere in Tanzania

You already know this. Every child knows this. Little Jimmy says Tommy is a doodoo head. The other kids aren’t so sure, Tommy seems fine to them, though he doesn’t share his potato chips very well. Then Tommy comes up and punches Jimmy in the face. Now everyone agrees, Tommy is a complete asshole.

It would be funny, except we do that with missiles.

So how should we respond? That’s the challenge of our age, to somehow improve the rampant inequality that fosters this anger, the widespread lack of education that allows extremism to take root, and most of all, the profound absence of hope for any better option that makes someone pursue the type of indiscriminate violence that I believe is fundamentally against our human nature. We don’t want to kill, but if you saw only bleakness ahead for your children, what wouldn’t you do? And as if that isn’t difficult enough already, we will have to do it, for an extended period, even in the face of the ongoing attacks that are already growing. It seems an impossible goal, but given the world’s capacity to generate wealth, I bet we can do a step or ten-thousand better. Call me an optimist.

Growing up in Diyarbakir

But for starters? How about we stop making things worse? We stop blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few. (We can talk another time about the truly insane quantity of violence perpetrated by each of the religions of Abraham, but for now, do the Westboro Baptists represent Christianity?) We can acknowledge that Islam is only a religion, not a personality type, and certainly not a psychological dysfunction! Once we stop actively producing more terrorists, we can start to heal the deeper wounds that are producing them in the first place.

Not terrorists. Just people. Good people.

I’d like to give it four years. Just one presidential term. Instead of spending billions of dollars on bombs to kill Middle Easterners, we spend it helping those people who want to help themselves and each other. Pour ourselves into peace and improvement, instead of death and Halliburton. If you think there is no one left in the Middle East who wants peace, wants safety, wants a better world for their children? Then you’ve been watching the wrong TV.

Myanmar and America politics, only one to like

Goatherd on the tracks in Myanmar?
That's a job I wouldn't mind talking about.

“I think we should talk about politics,” I suggested to the table of tour members, bored senseless with the American conversation of what you do for work.

“Oh, but wouldn’t you rather be friends?” A woman responded, half joking. Maybe a quarter. Heads around the table nodded their agreement, and we discovered that Bill was an accountant.

I get it. It bums me out, but I get it. And given how much more important politics is than what we normally talk about (unless Game of Thrones really affects your life) this kinda boggles my mind, so I’ve grabbed a few theories to explain it.

Not your enemy. Not anyone's enemy.

3. Things seem so screwed, talking about them depresses me. (I get that. But what if ignoring problems is an implicit endorsement of them?)

2: I don’t understand politics and I’m scared that if we talk about it, you’ll find that out. (Chicken or the egg?)

And my number 1 reason why I think Americans are scared to talk about politics: We’ve forgotten that disagreeing with each other doesn’t friggin mean we’re enemies. You can still be friends with people you disagree with. And personally, I think you should be friends with people you disagree with. That might help our impasse, and lessen the ease with which we demonize and ridicule those with other opinions, instead of understanding and connecting with them.

So I’m delighted that Rick Steves encourages his guides to talk politics with tour members. And I’m going to. With frequent disclaimers that they’re just my opinions, and that I respect differing viewpoints, yada yada yada, and I’m sure I’ll get cases (like the one in Rome) where people look at me and their eyes indict “Oh. You’re one of them.” Who want to take our guns. Who want to demean the sanctity of marriage. Who want to give our jobs to the ___s.

Daily life, somewhere between Yangon and Mandalay

But what about when teaching refugees? Should I talk politics with people whose politics might have gotten them killed, and gotten their families killed? Probably not.

But when I have so many students from Myanmar, and that country is having its first apparently/relatively fair election in 25 years, I just have to ask something. And that one particular student is such a positive, friendly, open guy, and he speaks English so well, I just had to ask him a question that’s been lingering since I visited Myanmar in 2013.

I stopped by Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday. It was fantastic.
But why were the shirts in English?
(About 100 languages are spoken in Myanmar. Oh.)

 “How do you feel about Aung San Suu Kyi?” He looked at me, slightly bewildered. “I heard, in Myanmar, people say that she is kind of more for foreigners than Burmese people.” (Kind of like how the Dalai Lama is the outside world’s representative of Tibet, but inside the country the Panchen Lama is often more significant.)

My student summed up politics in so many countries. “We like her. Because she’s the only one to like.”

So as the Republicans continue to search for the most insane viewpoints, the most profound misarticulation of reality, and the worst possible responses to it, and Hillary tries to squirm out from under the perception that she’s an intelligent, dedicated diplomat who is basically just another politician, I am left loving Bernie Sanders. Of course, the more I hear from and about him, the more I love him, but still, he’s the only one to like. Wouldn’t it be great to have more than one good option?

I wonder if I can get a table full of Americans to talk about that one.

A visitor in my own land, for a moment

The first announcement was so bland and polite. “The eastbound train on platform two is going out of service. Please do not board this train. It will be departing momentarily.” The crowd of would-be occupants leaned in, wanting to pounce. But with the doors closed, the semi-broken BART train was impregnable, they could only stand and stare.

“The train on platform two is ready to depart, please move back from the yellow line. So it can depart.” Mild irritation leaked from the control room through the speakers, but the crowd continued its irreverent looming.

“We got another train waiting in the tunnel right behind that one, people, but it ain’t going nowhere until you all move back behind the yellow line.” Slight roils in the crowd as people stepped forward, onto the yellow line, to see who was holding things up.

It was all just another moment in Bay Area Rapid Transit, uninteresting to natives, but I was not yet in those familiar shoes. I watched the semi-functionality through the lens of Paris’s excellent metro system. And when the next train arrived, and people just HAD to get on even after it was packed, blocking the doors and ignoring the announcements of “There is another train right behind this one. We have four trains in the next ten minutes. Please do not block the doors.” I watched it as a participant in Germany’s polite people-moving procedures, balanced by the memory of fighting my way into Sri Lankan third-class compartments.

I could visit this place

I stood there, an American in America, but viewed the perturbations and public percolations through the lens of a visitor. Not being part of the crowd, everything they did was demonstrative.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but I usually find my culture shock in the grocery store. The expanses of food, a surplus of success unimaginable to 99% of the humans who have ever lived. With air conditioning and pleasant music (and sometimes porn!). And all processed and packaged, distant from the soil and your hands. And the ankle-deep irritation in people pushing to get their Fat-Free Greek Yogurt, creamy and luscious and decadent but hold the calories cuz this is America. I feel like an alien anthropologist, observing their crankiness while they live The Dream Life. I feel no scorn, but love these strange humans, just as I loved the Venezuelan demonstrators, the Zambian church-goers, the Nepali schoolchildren, and the Burmese street vendors. It’s easy to feel affection, from a distance.

But this time I hadn’t returned from the developing world, so it wasn’t our ease that astonished me. After six weeks in Western Europe, it was our difficulties. Our cheery little BART-that-could, working so hard for so long at a task so large and so thankless, with so little maintenance and so much controversy, compared to the efficiency of a more collectivist continent. Bunch of socialists. Arriving on time. Pish!

It’s not a matter of superiority (ex: Charles de Gaulle Airport, photo, which is blows, compared with SFO). I’m not bagging on America (put your flag rapiers away). It’s obvious to me that there is no best country. It’s all just humanity. Fascinating and ridiculous. Doing its muddling best. But when nothing is automatic or assumed, and nothing belongs to me, everything is more visible, and riding home becomes a cultural experience. It’s wonderful.

But there’s a price to the power of the witness. The first week, not quite reconnected yet, conversations with friends can be slightly stilted, and the stimuli of the day leave me feeling...unfinished. Still hungry. Stability has a muffling effect, the ease of the easy and its reduction in vibrance. But this phase is finite, and mundane irritation is tragically easy to reacquire, but during the transition I feel like a traveler held in place.

But home is a steady thing. It grows over and into my consciousness. It takes about a week to put down the mindset of movement and take up the perspective of permanence. But soon I can feel the streetplan spreading around me, sit quietly with friends without the need to say “What have you been up for for the last two months?”, and remember all the marvelous details that evolve when you’re in one place for a while. Rock climbing with friends, a variety of tea options, and clean laundry all the time! And tonight, I’ll have dinner with friends, in a place I know well, at a time I can predict. And that’s a beautiful thing.

But first, I have to go to the store. I hope there’s no one blocking the particular tortilla chips I like. That annoys me so much.