When I read Thomas PM Barnett's 'New Map' I was very much in mind of saying of Volvo-driving peaceniks that they would very well be for peace in Tibet, but would rip the 'Free Tibet' bumperstickers if GWBush would bother to send troops.
So now comes news that makes me pause. There is endless trouble in this big old ugly world, and Tibet has gotten way too much, and I now seem to grasp the whole of it. China has been bullying Tibet for as long as I can remember, and I've always thought of it as one of those smoldering conflicts which involve little skirmishes with perhaps a hundred casualties a year. Something like all the noise next to Israel, or perhaps the continuing harshness in Kashmir. But never have I bothered to pursue an accurate tally of the the dead in Asia. Yesterday however Prager put some numbers in my face that smack me like shiny kiddie bomblets.
As an aside, back in my 20s, as I was growing accustomed to my newly minted white collar comfort and Nordstrom wardrobe, I would be periodically annoyed by junk mail and telemarketers to my office. It was a novel sort of privileged bother to have some guy from Prudential Bache call me to ask if they could manage my 401K. But one of the solicitors was Amnesty International and for the sake of that moral cache, I opted in. Within no time I got my first official newsletter whose subject was Namibia, and I then discovered this new nation which supplied about half the world's uranium. It was essentially a territory of the pre-ANC South Africa in which blacks slaved in mines providing energy for a Nationalist Nuke and the electricty of the free world without so much as a vote or a decent wage. And so I was hooked and attempted to enlighten my colleagues about the tempests of Walvis Bay. Few cared, fewer still recognized my new vocabulary and geography and moderate outrage. I would go to black activist rallies and add my two cents about the travesty going on in a country the size of California that nobody knew.
And so began the beginning of my understanding that battles over Affirmative Action were small peanuts in contrast to world affairs. With my black network and college political associations, I was in the thick of the heated discussions of how evil corporations refused Affirmative Action bolstered by the hostile rhetoric of the second Reagan Administration and what bourgie Negroes such as myself on the inside owed the community on the outside. And yet when I spoke about the positive influence of American corporations that employed many many blacks in South Africa as part of George P Schultz' arrangement of Constructive Engagement, all I got were cold stares. American corporations giving jobs to blacks, taking them out of ghettos and making them bourgie in America: good. American corporations giving jobs to blacks, taking them out of ghettos and making them bourgie in South Africa: bad. I couldn't abide such twisted logic, and thus began my gradual estrangement with the liberal sentiments of the Talented Tenth who were stuck as targets bearing all the responsibility for political leadership in 'the' black community.
It wasn't long before I got my second Amnesty International newsletter. This time I read about shiny kiddie bomblets. In my life, never before had the horror of terrorism been made more clear to me. I can still remembering how my little bourgie life was shattered that day that I discovered them. Militants in Afghanistan made IEDs and attached them to small pieces of brightly colored plastic or mirrors - shiny things that small children would be attracted to. They made the little bombs less than lethal purposefully so that they would only maim and not kill. Parents would be reminded every day caring for their limbless children of their subjugation. Amnesty International saw, and now so did I.
It was more than I could stand. I had to unsubscribe. I could not maintain any sense of perspective as a young man trying to make my new purchase on the full benefits of American life, heretofore denied my own parents and still living grandparents. How could I be right if I gave my heart over to such concerns? After all, the work I had done to arrive where I was was not inconsequential. Nevertheless, I knew in my heart of hearts that I could never again heed the protestations of my American fellows who wanted to drive white collar automobilies cursing their blue collar jobs and the evils of Reaganomics that forced them to eat at hamburger instead of steak. Still, I closed my eyes to the big world. Maybe one day I will be master of enough of American life to make a difference, but today none of my volleyball and wine cooler buds, nor any of my red, black & green brothers in the struggle were prepared for Afghanistan and Namibia. Amnesty International was obviously for rich liberals, not for me.
And so this morning as I sit in my pajamas, I consider the moral consequences of giving my heart over to the concerns of Tibet, sick to death as I am over the minute points to be made over the character of Barack Obama. I have just purchased for my newly 13 year old daughter, an 8 megapixel camera for her birthday and drove her to school in my sock feet and BMW. My world is stable and amply comfortable if not prosperous. I don't take perverse pride in the moral oneupmaship of 'taking the right position' on a conflict half a world away. You'll not see those kinds of stickers on my Chevy. Nevertheless, as a writer, I have taken on certain responsibilities and they are basically to be perceptive and articulate. I cannot avert my gaze forever. But looking will not be an act to assuage any guilt. I simply know now what I know and that is that millions are under militant threat, and there are YouTubes out there with graphic scenes.
I am about to go there. I am about to look. I pause and reflect today on this last day of innocence.
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