international relations

One Book a Week-46: “Road Fever”, Tim Cahill

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

After reading two intense, somewhat depressing novels, I decided to read a lighter non-fiction work. An article I read mentioned a tale of two guys, Tim Cahill and Garry Sowerby, who drove a GMC Sierra pickup truck from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in less than 25 days. I like adventures and the best vehicle I ever owned was a Sierra 4 by 4 Off Road. I sold it to a former student when I moved. It was still going strong at over 300,000 miles.

In order to follow along on their adventure, I dug out my atlas and followed their trip through 13 countries, finding cities, little towns, rivers, mountains. When they traveled in 1987, the only place with no road was the Darien Gap on the border between Colombia and Panama–today still no road and now famous for all the migrants who labor through this dangerous, swampy, jungle area on foot on their way north. Since no road there, Tim and Garry had to load the truck onto a container ship in Cartagena and unload it in Panama. They also rode on the ship as passengers. This lead to their meeting some of the most colorful characters on their trip.

Along the way, they meet all sorts of people, e.g. sadistic police, kind employees of international GMC, a weird consulate employee, and helpful women, describe them and the landscape in detail. Procuring the right documents and proceeding across borders is sometimes easy and sometimes grueling, again described in detail. Of course, political leaders, ease of travel, etc. have changed in many places–I’ve been to or lived in five of the countries they traverse.

Want to explore new places, meet all sorts of folks?? Then this is the book for you and a fun read.

One Book a Week-42: “Where There Is Fire”, John Manuel Arias

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Before and since my two trips to Costa Rica, I thought Costa Rica had miraculously escaped the Banana Republic fate of many other Central American countries. This historical novel enlightened me to just how wrong I’ve been and how some of this continues today–huge US agricultural corporations controlling much of the agriculture.

In the 1960s, large US corporations invaded Costa Rica and controlled large blocks of land to raise bananas and cause havoc among large segments of the population. To increase yields the American Fruit Company doused their giant, lucrative, banana plantations with Nemagon, a pesticide that causes cancer and sterility. The novel includes letters indicating that both this company and Dow, the producer of the pesticide, knew this, did nothing about it, did not inform workers (until they had no choice), and continued its use.

The novel contains the story of one family’s history who lived near the largest plantation, the father and grandfather who worked there, a devastating fire, and the effects of this company’s policies on several generations.

Note: As recently as last year, the BBC reported on the use of this pesticide and its effects on workers and people living near plantations where it is still being used. Online you can find numerous articles about how these practices (the American Fruit Company is now Chiquita) fueled neocolonial exploitation and drug cartels.

One Book a Week-23: “The Devil’s Highway”, Luis Alberto Urrea

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Even though the events described in this non-fiction work occurred exactly 22 years ago in May in southern Arizona, not much has changed except the nationality of the immigrants. Few Mexicans try walking across the Arizona desert these days. Now it’s mostly people from certain Central American countries, Venezuela, and various other countries, generally places where the climate of the Sonoran Desert is unknown.

In 2001, a group of men, mostly from the state of Veracruz, tried it. More than half died and the coyote who led them remains in prison. This book tells their story. It also describes in detail the networks that lure immigrants to attempt the long journey to the US border, who benefits, who gets paid, the geography and climate of the desert–a true tale of deceit, disillusion, desperation, and loss.

4000 migrants have died in the last two decades trying to cross the Arizona desert. This number equals bodies found; many tell tales of others whose bodies remain lost. 2021 saw a record number of deaths. 2022 data is not yet published.

Note: I like Urrea’s books and have read most of his novels. I recommend starting with “The Hummingbird’s Daughter”.

One Book a Week-13: Blue Desert, Celia Jeffries

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As an ardent reader who prefers what are usually referred to as literary novels and serious non-fiction, few books impact me deeply and emotionally like this one has. As soon as I finished it, I reread parts of it several times, then sat silently stunned.

After her family moves to North Africa for her father’s work, an 18 year old British girl, rescued by a Taureg leader, is believed dead by her family until she resurfaces years later at a Catholic “home” run by nuns in North Africa. She re-enters British society, marries, leads a relatively “normal” life while keeping a secret for decades. When she receives a telegram, “Abu is dead”, everything changes. Her past comes rushing back in unexpected ways.

The White Supremacist History of Tear Gas

/ Juliana Lightle / 4 Comments

One hundred years ago, a racist US General, Amos Fries, transformed tear gas from a wartime chemical into use against protestors. He loved war gases and saw them as the ultimate in US technology.  He advocated the use of tear gas against any form of civil disorder.  As head of US Chemical Warfare Services, he pedaled his favorite gas to private security firms, police departments, and the National Guard.  According to him, tear gas in the hands of the “White man can quell any uprising.”  He went on to talk about how White men are set apart from the Negro, Gurkha, and the Moroccan. In his effects were letters from the women of the Ku Klux Klan praising his efforts.

Today the tear gas he loved is used all over the world by tyrannical governments to control their people.

“All Children Are Our Children” by Carol P. Christ

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This is a rather long read the gist of which is this: what if “we were taught to love and nurture and be generous to others” and these were the primary values in the world rather than the current values. “What if we were taught to open our hearts to the world? Would domination, violence, and war be possible?”

Carol P. Christ's avatarFeminism and Religion

Carol P. Christ by Michael Bakas high resoultion“All children are our children.” As I was posting my recent blog about the shooting of black men by the police, these words came into my mind with the force of revelation. At the time I was looking at a photograph of Philando Castile, taken at his place of work. Yes, I thought, my heart opening: “he is my child too.” This widening of the heart is at the center of the maternal values of ancient and contemporary matriarchal cultures around the world. It is a feeling some of us who were mothered well enough or who mothered children—including children not our own—carry within us. Is this the healing balm our world needs today?

Maternal  values?  So many of us turn up our noses at such a “gendered” term. Perhaps we were not mothered enough in our families of origin. Perhaps we still feel un-mothered. Perhaps we don’t want…

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The WT Swimming Pool, Stereotypes, and Africa

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This afternoon I took three children aged eight and ten to the WTAMU (a local university) swimming pool, found myself a comfortable chair, opened my book, and proceeded to read.  When I looked up I saw this:

“This isn’t a democracy anymore.

It’s a Ricktatorship.”

These words boldly stood out in white on a black T-shirt.  For those not from Texas, the Rick to whom the statement refers is the governor of Texas where I live.  Between the two sentences was a photo of a cop with a gun pointed directly at me, the reader of the quotation.  Looking at the woman, young, unkept, no makeup, pimpled, overweight, I never would have expected her to adorn herself with this particular shirt especially in this intensely Republican part of Texas.  Then it hit me; I was stereotyping. I felt a bit horrified with myself.  How can you tell by the appearance of a person whether they are liberal, moderate, or conservative.  You can’t.

 

I went back to reading which was perhaps a mistake.  When it first became a rather famous book, I purchased Say You’re One Of Them by Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian writer-he is originally from Nigeria.  It contains five stories some quite short and some of novella length.  Why has it taken me so very long to get through this book?  These are not stories one can sit down and casually read.  This volume of searing, well written stories tells of immense horrors. The settings of the stories include various countries in West Africa, including Nigeria, and Rwanda, Kenya, and Ethiopia.  Today, I finally got around to reading the story from which the book gets its title.  Now I wonder how I can sleep tonight.  All the stories describe the lives of individuals brutalized by war, modern slavery, and ethnic and religious hatred.  All the stories are from the viewpoint of a child, the oldest of whom is sixteen.  Today’s story, the longest in the book, takes place in modern times in Nigeria.  If you do not already have some inkling as to Nigerian politics, the whys and wherefores of Boka Haram, the violence in the oil fields in the south, and the intensity of the rivalries and hatreds among the various tribal factions and Muslims and Christians, this story will both enlighten and horrify you.  The sixteen year old young man in the story is fleeing the north with many other refugees.  Although he is Muslim, his Muslim friends turn against him even though he had his hand chopped off for stealing a goat.  They think he is too moderate and does not hate Christians sufficiently.  The Christians with whom he is a refugee turn against him because he is Muslim.  His story is not uncommon.  Look at Syria, Iraq, the Congo.  The rest of the world needs to know.  Hatred and violence can occur anywhere.  What happens in a distant corner of our planet affects each and every one of us.

Amazon

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His milk chocolate, heavy lidded eyes stare at me from the

front of the magazine.

His cheeks display charcoal tattoos, a criss cross

design, tiny Xs on top, stopping where his nostrils flare.

His straight hair barely touches his shoulders.

not the black I expected, but the color of mahogany.

His eyebrows grow thin and wide,

no visible eyelashes.

His skin, color of morning coffee with two teaspoons of milk,

looks clear, smooth.

His full lips only slightly darker than his skin

do not smile.

He, a Kayapo Indian, continues staring.

He lives in Kayapo Territory, Brazil, land the size of

Great Britain and Ireland.

He plans to save it from the rest of us.

He plans to save us from our own worst selves.

 

SAM_1502

 

The Kayapo and other indigenous Amerindians have lived in the rainforest for millennia.  They and most environmentalists view their rainforest as a priceless haven for biodiversity.  Their Amazon remains a major defense in the fight against global warming and habitat destruction.  Fifteen per cent of greenhouse emissions, more than all the trucks, cars, buses, and planes combined, come from deforestation.  Although Brazil has slowed the deforestation rate by 70 per cent in the last nine years, last year saw a reversal with an sudden increase of 30 per cent.  Brazil also began construction of a network of canals, dams, and a huge hydroelectric project on the Xingu River in the middle of Kayapo territory.  The Kayapo and other Amerindians defeated a larger project in the 1990s. They intend to defeat this one.

The chief of the Kayapo, Megaron, knows what is at stake, not only for his tribe, but also for the rest of us, long term survival.  One  National Geographic article noted, “It is one of the richest ironies of the Amazon that the supposedly civilized outsiders who spent five centuries evangelizing, exploiting, and exterminating aboriginal people are now turning to them to save ecosystems recognized as critical to the health of the planet–to defend essential tracts of land from the outside world’s insatiable appetite.”

Kayapo success can be attributed to their ability to embrace some of the best of the modern world while retaining a strong sense of identity, culture, and traditions, all of which come from the forest.  As Megaron notes, “Before the white man, we were always fighting other tribes.  Not anymore.  We stopped hitting each other over the head and united against a bigger threat.”  For our own long term health and success, we can support them and hope they succeed.

 

Delighted to Support Desmond Tutu’s Forgiveness Challenge

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We need so much more of this in the world in so many places like Ukraine, South Sudan, Iraq, and Syria for starters. When individuals learn to forgive and realize their sameness far outweighs their differences, perhaps we can have peace.

Krista Stevens's avatarWordPress.com News

We’re humbled to bring you this interview with Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu about their new Global Forgiveness Challenge as well as HumanJourney.com, a platform for transformational ideas that Archbishop Tutu is co-founding with book and media creator Doug Abrams. WordPress.com is delighted to be a partner in this initiative.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho Tutu are trying to change the world with the Forgiveness Challenge. Get involved! Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho Tutu are trying to change the world with the Forgiveness Challenge. Get involved!

What is the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge?

The Forgiveness Challenge is a free 30-day online program developed to help people learn the practical steps to forgiveness so they can live with greater love and joy in their life.

How does the Forgiveness Challenge work?

Each day, participants receive an email from us that directs them to a new post on the website that presents an important insight into forgiveness and that offers them…

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