December 8, 2003
Different Worlds - Different Glimpses: Part 3
By Mathew Maavak
Mr. Maavak can be reached at qannai@hotmail.com
This is the final part in a three part series. Here are the links to: Part 1 Different Worlds - Different Glimpses and Part 2 The Interrogation
The Gun-Lined Highway
(This is fast becoming a study in ethnology, bigotry and violence. After all, I am in the American South!)
Already flustered by the effusive welcome at the Forth Worth/Dallas airport, I was expecting the same gracious hospitality elsewhere in Texas. It made matters more divine that Dallas was an “oil capital”, glamorized by the 70s TV series whose characters deserved seraphic halos not entitled to the real things.
My host Nathan summarized my first impressions of Texas. “Everything comes big here!” For someone known to have read thousands of books – he is only 38 – and whose apartment is stacked ceiling-high with the classics and opuscules of knowledge, that statement barely scratched the surface. The Texan obsession for things big is generally a phallic-dictated substitute for self-inadequacy. You find similar tumescence of the collective ego elsewhere, like that 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, the finest curio of cockeyed engineering.
Meals of any kind came in large portions, the cars were bigger, and the cables channels profligate while shopping is opiatic enough to get your mind off life’s needless irritants. One doesn’t want to hear news of dying Americans in Iraq when a Nike goes for under 20 dollars. People here have mastered the art of mall-hopping to get the best discounts. It is true that the prices are greatly slashed but so are precious hours that could be devoted to learning why shopping is addictive. Yet, the capitalist game can vex any traveler pressed for time and money. A search for a prepaid SIM card proved elusive. One telecom operator reportedly offered them but nobody was sure. My cellphone was now useless. One night after returning from a dinner, I had to call up Nathan after having missed his apartment unit by inches, floors and then blocks several times. There was a gas station nearby but the phone booths were vandalized. A lady on the station’s night shift was kind enough to lend me her cellphone. My SOS call was answered by the personal appearance of Nathan a few minutes later. I have yet to visit a developing country where prepaid SIM cards were not easily available.
Patience is needed to get acquainted with US coins. Like Texas, size doesn’t correspond with value and it’s difficult to distinguish a quarter from a dime, as the initiation period can take weeks, hastened by one or two gaffes. One can fritter away a 20-dollar note here instead of the lowest bill, and that’s why they have the words annuit coeptis. “He hath smiled on our undertakings?” And who may that be? The god of big things?
Even in Texas, Asian immigrants manage to blend in. You can find enterprising restaurateurs who had fled an Indo-China moonscaped by the precursors of our Daisy Cutters that once buried the million bones of women and children. They can be forgotten but every suspected American remains, even teeth plucked out for lack of Colgate, in that area has become a bargaining chip for concessions. If anyone even attempts to think that the US government considers the splintered remains of its dead soldiers sacrosanct, try reading the mainstream news and its current coverage of Iraq.
Among the upper scale of immigrants, the more sensible MIT grads from India are finding Europe more salubrious. For one, Continental airport staffs have enough global savoir-faire to realize shades of brown doesn’t translate to terrorism. The nouveau riche, on the other hand, loves the US for epicurean reasons. They can bear them all. Back home for visits, they can prattle about their space-age laptops, Aiwa TVs, Timex watches and a 10-dollar Baron Philippe de Rothschild (2002) chardonnay. These things are not found elsewhere you see…
One can enjoy Dallas, and Texas as a whole, provided you have a fascination for the absurd. From the balcony of my apartment, two eyesores popped out. One was a giant billboard advertising a gun show and the other was the airport where I was given the red carpet reception. I need to digress a little here. Just a week back, a Malaysian Chinese colleague returned from New York and was surprised that his luggage was neither checked nor X-rayed, like mine. But then, he didn’t get that NSEER stamp either, or a four-hour interrogation on his first visit. Racial profiling doesn’t happen here; it is only meant for terrorists. That’s why Timothy McVeigh-like screwballs might find incendiary pastimes more facile post-Sept 11.
Observing the airport, I knew how possible it was to carry explosives in my luggage, and couple them later with pre-set hardware to shoot down those hovering Boeings. After being trained with similar “skills” as those stupid American generals in Iraq, the security flaws were downright shocking. There are hundreds of possibilities. The following is one. It was the minority staff that deliberately caused all my problems at US airports. They weren’t Arabs, for sure, but what better way to connive over contraband material and people –some of them kins I suspect - than by focusing endlessly on suspected terrorists? Forget drugs, there are tons of technologies being smuggled out by those who don’t look Middle Eastern. Check the latest the Tiger Economy tech manuals and discover that piracy is complete down to the last typo error. Technology follows a progression; it’s not built in a day. It’s time for Bush’s paymasters to remind him of the loss of countless billions, and for a moral effect, American jobs and taxes. This is the least damaging scenario at any US airport I can think off. I guess it will be easier now for Chinese nationals to steal Silicon Valley secrets. It’s more difficult to find such cover scoops on Time. Later on, you might read the same old story of how certain technology has passed on to Pakistan, Al Qaeda and “rogue states”. Of course, Far Eastern criminal syndicates are finding this period to be a boon, helped greatly by airport security personnel who are “doing their duty”.
Sense is not a forte of the American government; the nation is a flawed artifice, best exemplified in Texas. The New World had to create a new culture and a character template from scratch. Rome was indeed built in a day. Things haven’t changed much since 1776. The underprivileged, persecuted and dregs from Europe couldn’t impart much in terms of philosophical refinement. This void was naturally filled with a culture of cowboys and injuns, guns and duels, crass capitalism and bastardized music that needs Valium or something stronger to tolerate. A chasm thus emerged between the lilts of Mozart, sensible social contracts, rule of law instead of duels, and a plurality that gradually developed in Europe, right through its tumultuous state-forming period. How this group of early Texan immigrants, preponderantly German, had lost touch with their mother culture is a complete mystery. Many retain their German names; others anglicized it while the original Anglo-Saxon denizens combine to make Texas a distant Teutonic outpost. The best Aryan traits vanished; the more minatory ones remained, generally, intact. It is aggression, bigotry and violence. A German once remarked of their Gothic bigheartedness. Americans “conception of life are determined by a greedy shopkeeper’s outlook and who love none of the loftiest expressions of the human spirit.” Does this ring true? The man’s name was Adolph Hitler! Try not to agonize over this statement made by someone whose only lofty taste was debatably Wagner or the VW beetle. However, German soldiers were long back warned of approaching Yankee GIs, as they “were once young German boys who crossed the Atlantic during their teens.” The Teutonic psyche displays no sympathy for weakness, fatality strikes when you lose the upper hand. Calling a spade a bloody shovel can be complex maneuver. How can America and Nazi Germany mix? It can. One-time enemy villains can become national heroes later. Wernher von Braun sent up man to the moon after raining V2 rockets on London years earlier.
Contrived cultures find it hard to match the works of Socrates or the Napoleonic codes and here Carl Gustav Jung’s concept of archetypes, according to my interpretation, finds an almost textbook validation. When you have a Wild, Wild West culture, existence is marked by its myriad crudity, something that will be bequeathed to your progeny. No amount of churches in a conservative Texas can redeem this curse, which can ironically be corrected if “you give to God what is God’s, to Caesar what belongs to him” – a clear separation of state and divine values. Instead of Christ’s advice, you only find perversions of virtue, the delineation blurred, and Caesar apotheosized. In the end, murderers, cowards and liars get elected to power, enrapturing military chaplains to besiege the Lord to “help us kill ‘em” in Iraq. The Seventh Heaven awaits! If the mainstream American church is more obsessed with Solomon’s treasures than his wisdom, you can’t expect much else from the military-industrial-political and what not complex.
The site of too many churches in Texas was actually depressing. Why? Coz they have yet to understand the meaning of Hebrew and Greek words like Gehenna, Sheoul, Olam, and Aión-Aiónios. They can’t explain these three scriptures – Lam 3: 31-33, Romans 8: 35-39 (notice the significance of the word death?) and1 Pet 3: 19-20 - out of hundreds of supporting ones. They find themselves trapped in contradictions instead of being liberated by contexts and linguistic nuances. Instead of eternal redemption for every soul, the Germanic hell has become a central Christian message. If you think this is heresy, ask any Jewish rabbi about hell, and then ask another the same question. Observe if they agree. Even evangelists seem to hate the now profaned Christian message. Hell-mongering firebrands keep attaining higher spiritual states like whore-mongering and money-laundering, the stuff tabloids thrive on.. Attend any Pentecostal church and ask yourself whether it breeds fear or hope? Like Bush’s terrorism bogey, the miracle churches command obedience by invoking perdition, though the fire and brimstone message is unlikely to be preached during tithing time. During this interlude, which can last as long as the sermon, there are plenty of smiles and a reminder that prosperity depends on your tithes. With the exception of pharisaical hypocrisy, you can’t find any specific mention of tithes in a New Testament of let’s see…27 books? God needs that money and so does your government. He wants sacrifice, not mercy! See any difference here? Same everywhere, in every religion and government…
Does this mean that this land is one of mentally challenged cowboys? One of the most exceptional men I have ever known is a Texan named Charles Slagle. Even after becoming an evangelist, the conventional image of his God and faith tormented him, culminating in a near fatal episode. It was only at the brink that he understood the forgotten message of the bible. Read Charles’ website at www.sigler.org/slagle and you’ll know how a flock can be shackled by the “truth”. Now, ponder how US domestic policies reflect Augustinian doctrines or the piety of Charles Finney, a hero of many modern US evangelicals.
Unlike Finney, Charles Slagle was greatly tormented about the “us four and no more going to heaven club?” Lets take the Jungian explanation instead of scriptures. Charles is descended from a German aristocrat named Johan(n) von Slagle. That could be von Schlagle or the famous literati von Schlegel family. A gifted pianist, he is the only evangelist I know who writes Christian messages O’ Henry-style. And as for his humanity and lifelong rebellion against religious abuse, I can only attribute it to his pedigree, which had a head start in literacy, education and cerebrations that are more likely to jounce about in a mind concerned with wealth, power, hedging and perhaps aesthetics. Back in the old days, that mind belonged to an aristocratic. These are passed along to the progeny, producing peacemakers, duds, black sheep and thinkers. Later I will meet another kind Texan with a similar background. And the most exceptional woman I had met is my American sweetheart, a descendent of Theobald Wolfe Tone - that famous Irish patriot who opposed British savagery. Is this a case for elitism? Well, Christ’s disciples were crude fishermen and they did set the world ablaze didn’t they? Choose this day whether you want to ruminate or be a ruminant. Violence is fertile in the dung of bovine existence.
After three days, it was time to visit my relative Joe in Austin. Since I was into this history stuff, he recounted eventful spots along the route. “Remember what happened in Dallas in 1963?” Why, of course! The Zapruder footage! John F. Kennedy is still better known for his tainted sexual escapades abroad than for his alleged attempts to do the sacrilegious –clean up the government! A reckless enterprise since the god of big things will never suffer this. There was a common denominator in Joe’s historical commentary along the route. They all dealt with guns and violence of sorts, the most prominent one being Waco and the famous massacre atop University of Texas’ landmark tower. But guns don’t kill people, people do.” Lee Harvey Oswald got his mail-ordered, a cheap one that was startling in its accuracy, sufficient to win the Olympic gold medal by any long shot. Still, we can’t carry them on planes. I wonder why? Its people who kill after all…
The class distinction in Texas was stark. Asians and Whites command wealth and education while Hispanics form the lumpen strata. Whether by design or accident, this community has effectively committed economic suicide by its “proud” fixation with the Spanish language. Hernan Cortez was more loveable than any Aztec emperor. The problem really is not Spanish, but a crackpot attempt to make it a parallel official language. This doesn’t work. Try noticing Christian minorities worldwide. They are generally better educated and mobile, and have long understood the inestimable portal called the English language. It smoothens education and makes them the ideal bridging community. A good number of Arab journalists on the Western side of the Middle East are Christian, and so are many of their top professionals. Two of the greatest Arab intellectuals this century were Edward Said and Khalil Gibran, Christians who excelled in English and understood the West. During WWII, there were indications that Japanese Quakers, a highly privileged lot then, did their best to avert war and get a fair deal for Japan. They were ideally suited to this task. Even tyrants realize that bridges should not be burnt. The Chaldean Tariq Aziz was probably the only Iraqi who could say unpalatable truths to Saddam’s face. Others paid with their lives for this. Anomalies yet occur. Any post-war, genuine US-Japan amity was effectively obliterated by Fat Man’s headlong plunge on Nagasaki’s Roman Catholic redoubt of Urakami, killing 40,000 people. This bellyful of plutonium created a two-mile long crater, a feat befitting its fissile obesity. The catholic schools I attended kept surprisingly silent about this “accident” of history”. Then again, the Pope ranks condoms higher in the litany of evils.
The University of Texas is a wonder. Like everything else here, it is huge and boasts of over 50,000 students, the biggest in the country. Appearances can be deceptive and this ivory phallus is worth a study. Breeze through the classrooms and you’ll hear didactic lectures for post-grads. I suppose the geography major starts off with a representation of the globe. Yes, it is a sphere. In the second semester, you might learn that it is in fact an oblate spheroid. Some of these students might go on to chart navigation routes during future bombing missions in Afghanistan. Gone are the days when a general’s bark is met with the question, “but where is Afghanistan?” The fat Mother of all Bombs (MOAB) now relies more on intelligent binary codes rather than the less technical, four-lettered coordinates. I did drop into a few departments, for different reasons. But there was one conundrum even eminent professors couldn’t solve. I have a Master’s degree from UK’s renowned University of Leeds. There was a problem. I was given a direct MA admission, without having a bachelor’s degree. “Do I qualify for a PhD here?” There was shock, disbelief or perhaps suspicions of fraud. No American student does that, or in their opinion, can do that. Some groped for a solution but finally it seems the university rules disallowed it. I feigned umbrage, pretending that American fatuity wasn’t obvious even to the unschooled. “But my university is listed alongside Cambridge and Oxford in the Russell group”- a cluster of institutions that doesn’t depend on Ivy for pretensions of quality. They said no, it was not possible. I had to take an undergraduate program before I qualified for a doctorate. I looked crestfallen and angry, bellying a germinating plot to enter the Guinness Book of Records under the category “The first student in the US to do an undergraduate program after having attained a Masters, for the same program” (Note: Even Cambridge allows direct MPhil admissions based on merit, intellect and work experience). If you know English alphabets and enough basic knowledge, you can bypass two-year American masters programs for a one-year quality course in the UK. The under funded universities there prefer quality education to virile facades.
We go back again to the University of Texas. It is an ethnic staat im staate. The cornucopia of blondes would have goaded any Reinhard Heydrich to fake a drawl. Hispanics students were relatively few, no doubt helped by affirmative action. The Austin American- Statesman says there is a definite improvement here. Asians, who once formed over half of the post-graduate population at US campuses, were predictably milling about in smaller numbers. You can’t blame Sept 11 and humiliating experiences at airports alone. The application process at US universities takes around 18 months, entailing a sheer torture of paperwork and documentation. Plus, there are these stupid exams called SAT, GRE and GMAT that tests your elementary school math skills. No such problem in the UK- an application can be processed and approved in one week by a discerning faculty member. Mine was!
I know Indians who are beginning to prefer European universities to MIT. There are better prospects and monetary rewards as you get to be a salaried lecturer in most places while doing your doctorate. And of course, you don’t get threatened with “detention” by a cowboy janitor for passing through a side entrance marked ‘exit’. You only take this calmly when you need to expound on the mechanics of stupidity and bigotry at America’s largest university. At the rate things are going, the foreign student demographics will change, with Chinese nationals who can’t understand terms like “lower end of the market” waltzing into Harvard Business School (I personally met a bloke who achieved this). Who needs the GRE anyway? Many smart American students can’t attain this, as they understand “lower end of the market” too well. They unfortunately belong to that category! All the while, American taxpayer money subsidizes the exotic yearlong vacations of young Israelis, after completing their national service. It doesn’t matter that US soldiers are dying, or can’t afford an escapade to the Interiors of Kulu, India, where one can seek real transcendental peace through the magic of charas, a panacea for the war weary that regularly battles for top spot at Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup festival.
For those dead and dying US soldiers, the Texan media pays reverential tribute by rhapsodizing over the Austin City Limits Festival and flimflams that are somehow more important than the war in Iraq. Dead Texan soldiers get a mention or two. There is one cruel word for this. Stucke! You reap what you sow; you regurgitate vile cuds when you cease thinking!
Dec 8, 2003
Copyright © Mathew Maavak, 2003