From Xico

Amos Moore should be alive today to see this published correction to African and American history

In this week's New York Review of Books, Howard W. French reviews several recent books of African history which very successfully banish the common and incorrect stereotypes of the African past that many Europeans and USAers have held: that Africa was "primitive", without states, etc.  I have known this.  I have a Master's degree in African History from the University of Minnesota where the research we were exposed to made this clear.  Nonetheless, I heard nothing at that time about Africans in the Americas before slavery.  There has been a lot of quite reasonable speculation about the possibility that Africans landed on the coast of the Americas a long time ago, but none that has been, as far as I know, acknowledged by "main stream (white?) historians. The book that finally presents this in a way that legitimizes it is  The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages by François-Xavier Fauvelle, translated from the French by Troy Tice, Princeton University Press, 264 pp., $29.95. Our friend here in Xalapa, Amos Moore, one of the very few black Americans here, had read huge amounts on the subject and talked about it with increasing weariness to his skeptical friends.  So here from The Golden Rhinoceros is some documentation for him to add if he exists in some netherworld where he can read it.  I still miss Amos more than I can say. 

The most intriguing story in Fauvelle’s book comes from the kingdom of Mali in the early fourteenth century. More than a century and a half before Columbus’s voyages, a Malian ruler named Abu Bakr II was said to have equipped an expedition involving two hundred ships that attempted to discover “the furthest limit of the Atlantic Ocean.” The expedition failed to return save for one vessel, whose survivor claimed that “there appeared in the open sea [as it were] a river with a powerful current…. The [other] ships went on ahead but when they reached that place they did not return and no more was seen of them.” Some modern historians (Michael Gomez, Toby Green, and John Thornton, among others) have interpreted this to mean that the Malian ships were caught in the Atlantic Ocean’s Canary Current, which sweeps everything in its path westward at about the same latitude as Mali.

Abu Bakr II supposedly responded not by abandoning his dreams of exploration but by equipping a new and far larger expedition, this time involving two thousand ships and with himself in command. That was the last that was seen of him. We know of this story only because when Abu Bakr’s successor, Mansa Musa, was staying in Cairo in 1324–1325 on his pilgrimage to Mecca, the secretary of the chancery of the Mamluk Dynasty asked him how he had come to power and recorded his reply. There are no other traces of Abu Bakr’s attempt. (New York Review of Books, June 27, 2019 issue).

Bernie vs. Hillary: Yes Bernie Can

In their usual condescending way, in their Sunday Review, the editors of The New York Times dissed Bernie Sanders and chances he might have to get things done if he were elected president.  I wonder just how effective Hillary would be: how many enemies she has; who would cross the party divide to support her; what her big corporate donors would do if she turned on them out of principle, say to stop fracking or to do away with privately financed prisons. First of all, in that very same New York Times you can find an article offering some insight into Bernie´s effectiveness here.  Furthermore here is a summary of some of the things Bernie could do without having to get the support of Republican legislators:  http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-bernie-sanders-solutions-would-dramatically-improve-wages-poverty-and-inequality

In their editorial in the Sunday Review, the Times said that Revolutions are bottom up, not top down.  This is silliness. Revolutions have LEADERS who often are the ones who give form to the inchoate yearnings of the people. In the US, I don´t think Sanders means a Cuban-style revolution, but rather movements that give voice to the very legitimate claims people have about the dominance of corporate wealth in our economy, about climate change, about unequal chances.  I don´t trust Hillary to help these voices make changes.  

 

 

 

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Dear President Obama, About Aid to Central America

Dear President Obama,

I read a couple of days ago that you were going to seek a billion dollars in non-military aid to Central America in projects designed to reduce the need for people to emigrate.  Although it sounds more humane than sending military aid, aid in the guise of economic and social assistance can backfire pretty seriously. The unfortunate tendancy of diplomats and politicians and the like is to associate in other countries with their counterparts. I suspect at least in some ways, these officials have more in common with each other than with the rest of the people in a country.  Mr. President, you seem to have a real liking for President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and have offered him support without having any real understanding of his position in his own country.  What you really should do in the case of not only Mexico but Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras is first learn about the country away from the leadership.  A bridge to that knowledge could be Peace Corps Volunteers.  I think the Peace Corps was pulled out of Honduras a couple of years ago, but there remain blogs by some PCVs on the web.  Just look up Peace Corps Honduras.  Guatemala still has Peace Corps, and the web provides some good entries into its experience there.  Same with El Salvador.  I was quite surprised to find out there were Peace Corps Volunteers in Mexico, where my husband and I have lived for eight years.  Having been in the Peace Corps way back in the 1960s, we both would vouch for the fact that at least some of the PCVs have clear-eyed views of the countries they are serving and could even help people from Washington find their way around away from the diplomatic circle. Find some in a variety of situations.

Another thing to understand is that you can't really just suddenly understand the political situation.You might  talk to Carlos Slim about the politics in Mexico.  He's an interesting, odd man who is also very rich. Sometimes he tops Forbes's list of the richest people in the world.  He also owns 17% of the New York Times where there have been some interesting developments regarding Mexico recently. In Mexico, where too many journalists are killed, some nDonetheless remain who would provide excellent insights into power and corruption here. You could start with Carmen Aristegui and Denise Dresser and Roger Ackerman, among others. I translate articles once a week for a site called Mexico Voces: Where Democracy and the Drug War Collide. You can Google the address.  I think journalists in Guatemala, etc. might do the same.

What you also have to understand is that NGOs often have great limitations.  They come in with a vision of what they want to do and all too often trample over local people who understand quite well how things are going.  The local people also often have very good knowledge of what their needs are:  ask them to help you decide what to do.

American economic beliefs are harmful to a lot of people here in Mexico and Central America.  Yes they need education and jobs, but most of all they need to belong to their communities and to be interested in helping them and their families.  I don't think it is good to just lambast the present, but indeed, jobs which uproot people and make them leave for distant places where jobs in Mexico exist in large factories or cut out local potential and cause people to feel they must migrate don't provide good aid.  An example of this is I think farming.  Mexico used to be self-sufficient in corn at least, but the competition from NAFTA products has made it too difficult to earn a living farming corn in Mexico for many people.  Industrial pig raising in our state has put local pig farmers out of business.  The waste from these plants has sullied local water supplies.  Good economic aid might be pilot agricultural projects that exist in a local community that has good resources for farming: good soil and water, for instance.  You might want to get in touch with Robert Hunter Manson at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Veracruz, for instance. His email address is [email protected].

Then there is the problem of crime.  It isn't just going to go away if you rip out people's crops or enlarge the police force, and certainly it isn't if you bolster the military.  I don't have any contacts in this area, but I'm sure you could find some.  It is absolutely critical to understand at least a little of how crime has poisoned the wells.  

I could go on and on and on, obviously, but this is a start.  I want you to know that I deeply love Mexico.  It is a wonderful country, full of cultures and art and history, and a lot of other stuff. It has not benefitted from the US helping greatly to militarize the problems caused by drug gangs.

As my grandmother would have said, "Don't go throwing good money after bad."  And I know you are extremely intelligent, in fact intellectual.  We very smart people often misjudge a situation because we draw connections before we really have some of the important facts.

Most sincerely yours,

Esther Buddenhagen

Colonia Ursulo Galván

Xico 91240, Mexico

 

Ecuador, Finally a Glimpse

Jim and I went to Quito, Ecuador for a week at the beginning of October.  It was my birthday present. We really have been kind of sticks-in-the-mud, uneasy about new travels.  I am not good at waiting for a trip already planned for.  It is a bit easier if there is some little sense of obligation attached to it, but Ecuador, just for fun?  I got a little tipsy one night and said to Jim, "Let's do it." And because it is so horribly easy to make reservations and so forth online, I just sat down and made two reservations for round trip travel to Ecuador.

We were certainly not there long enough to form any meaningful impressions of the country, but here are some superficial impressions.  It seemed much more European than our experiences of Mexico.  The colors were paler and it was more orderly.  Of course, if you know me, you know this is not how I am.  But I did like it.  We stayed in a very small hotel called Hotel Relicario del Carmen.  You can see pictures and read reviews on Trip Advisor here.  It was right in the center, across from a military museum.  The Center of Quito has World Heritage site status.  This does not mean that it is overprettified or artifical.  A lot of people work in the Center and live there and eat there so it feels lively and well-used.

Below are some pictures of El Centro stuff:

This was in the military museum which is housed in a grand building whose exact period I don't know.  The exhibit of photos on show when we were there dealt with a successful military coup in the 1920s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The grand stairway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some photos and explanation of the coup attempt.  You can, by the way, click on these images to make them bigger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More photos from the era of the coup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                 A picture I took  of Jim and me in a mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                               The blue door of our little hotel.Please look                                                                                                        at it on Trip Advisor!  We really enjoyed it                                                                                                                        and had some adventures in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's all for now because I HATE trying over and over again to fix the picture inserting thingy on Typepad.  It NEVER stays the way I want it for more than two pics!

Kenin Malik on Immigration

First off, I want to tell you that Kenan Malik is a great thinker and writer.  AND he writes so easily, so fluidly, that he carries you along through tough subjects.  Here I am posting a link to a post on his blog, which is called Pandaemonium, on politics and immigration in Europe, especially England.  I didn't think much about the similarities between European and US attitudes until recently.  They are not so different.  Malik kind of comes out of left field with his ideas (or from outside the box?)  Basically he feels that outsider parties gain strength because insider parties no longer speak to The People, left or right or neither, and that all parties make it hard not to be anti-immigrant.  Please do take the time to read this compendium of several of his articles.

   

Images stolen from Google.

My grandparents (my father's parents) were immigrants in the early twentieth century.  My mother's parents' families came from mostly England and Ireland (I think) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Just for your information.  Therefore I am a mongrel, and it's interesting to be a mongrel.

PLEASE read the Malik article!

Leaving Quito, Ecuador

We have just returned home from a week's very interesting vacation in and around Quito, Ecuador. This trip was our first vacation together in many years.  Last time we traveled together we went to Boston to see an eye specialist because of Jim's glaucoma.  THAT was definitely not a vacation.  

On our trip home, we we found heightened bag checking in both Quito and Mexico City.  In Quito, Jim was called downstairs somewhere to have his bag searched while we were waiting at the gate.  (Actually, it turned out to be my bag, but no matter)  According to Jim, the inspectors went through the giant bag of the woman ahead of him with meticulous care.  By the time they got to Jim, it was almost flight time and they were far more cursory.  Nonetheless, he had to go through the whatever you call it that you have to walk through for security yet again.

In Mexico City, it took a very long time for the baggage to make it onto the carousel which it did in fits and starts. While we waited, we watched as inspectors, often with the assistance of the owners, unloaded luggage carts brimming with suitcases and carryons.  The  inspectors went through all this stuff with the proverbial fine-tooth comb.  One woman had packed all her belongings  into an awful lot of plastic bags. Inspectors opened each one.  I was impressed with how polite and amenable everyone was. Passengers helping with difficult knots, lifting clothes out of their piles, and so on.  I wondered how the same scene would play in New York.  But there was still more.  In Mexico's airports, you push a bright red button after your bags have gone through the X-ray machines.  If it turns on green, you are actually free to go.  If it turns red, you have to go to a customs inspector to get your stuff combed through.  I wondered if the people whose bags had already been picked apart had to face this additional obstacle.

The day before we left Quito, October 6, a newspaper headline announced that the President Rafael Correa was supporting the release from prison of a couple of thousand drug mules.  A new law now treats them "more as vulnerable people exploited by cartels" than as hardened criminals. 

Apparently this was also seen as a slap in the face of the US umm war against drugs (We're not supposed to call it a war on drugs anymore).  More important than any gesture against th US I think is that the government, which describes mules as mostly poor and uneducated, often women who are single mothers or sex workers or drug addicts, is acting compassionately.  A side note to all of this is that a number of the mules are from Spain, people who could not get jobs in the terrible climate of Spanish unemployment.

And in the interest of fairness, I would like to note that in the US, Eric Holder, departing Attorney General, also has condemned the brutality of aspects of the what shall I say, the government's effort to remove temptation from people who can't do it themselves.

Living in Mexico, it is hard to ignore drug crime-related issues, but I was completely oblivious to the presence in Ecuador of any problem.  In El Centro Histórico, police in lime green vests were quite numerous, probably so obvious in order to reassure tourists.  The warnings about crime centered on what you might expect in any dense city, namely pickpocketing and purse snatching, among other things.  One peculiar (and a bit scary) activity was spraying something in the face of potential marks so they'd pass out and the thief could take everything.  Taxi cabs had been scenes of crime, so now you can tell when you are getting a legal taxi.  It will have big black numbers on doors, special plates, and, inside, tiny cameras.  In any event, we never felt in any particular danger.

But, we did wonder if all the excessive searching, especially on the Mexican end, was due to the release of the mules. And we wondered if the US was pressuring Mexico to watch flights from South America with special attention.  The US does not walk softly; it stomps around in big boots.  And it seems to consider much of Latin America drug territory even though it may be softening its rhetoric.  A fuller description of the situation can be found here.  It is worth following the link for an understanding of President Correa's personal interest in drug crime.

This is not about Diego and Henry (yet) nor more about Freud and Netanyahu (yet), but it is about the continuing sin of racism in the US by Juan Cole, one of my favorite bloggers.  It has some dramatic numbers about black arrests, etc.  Inequality lives on.

Please read it.

 

 

Historians Protest the Carnage in Gaza

In today's La Jornada, Adolfo Gilly reports that American historians who are members of the organization "Historians against the War" have been circulating a letter to President Obama and members of Congress.  I feel like being extremely sarcastic about the fact that haven't seen this mentioned in the US press...I mean, who would find HISTORIANS newsworthy in the US?  In any event the signarutres include famous historians and just ordinary folks like me.  The text, from the the Historians against the War is below:

In the face of the ongoing carnage in Gaza, members of Historians Against the War are circulating the letter below, with an initial list of signatories. We encourage you to sign it and to quickly forward this message to fellow historians. As our numbers grow, we will seek opportunities to publicize and to forward to relevant officials.

We deplore the ongoing attacks against civilians in Gaza and in Israel. We also recognize the disproportionate harm that the Israeli military, which the United States has armed and supported for decades, is inflicting on the population of Gaza.

We are profoundly disturbed that Israeli forces are killing and wounding so many Palestinian children. Desperate conditions in Gaza resulting from Israeli policies have made effective evacuation of war zones virtually impossible. We regard as unacceptable the failure of United States elected officials to hold Israel accountable for such acts.

As we watch the death toll mount and observe the terror of the trapped inhabitants in Gaza, we call upon you to demand a cease-fire, the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and a permanent end to the blockade so that its people can resume some semblance of normal life. We urge you to suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes.

As historians, we recognize this as a moment of acute moral crisis in which it is vitally important that United States policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict change direction.

Gilly concludes his article saying, "Let me note the sternness and restraint of the language of this document which continues to be  valid now more than ever since that Benjamin Netanyahu, forced by world conemnation to interrupt his offensive, declares that it was justified and proportionate and that Hamas is responsible for the war crimes of Israeli leaders."

If you are interested in signing a protest letter without finding the next window asks you for money, this is your letter.  You don't actually have to be a historian.

Mexicans and the Gaza Conflict

To read that in the US somewhere between 51 and 57% of Americans support Israel in this current onslaught of violence in the Gaza strip, and even worse, only 14% "sympathize with the Palestinians is pretty shocking as I sit here in Xico, in our colonia.  I haven't spoken directly to my neighbors about this, but I am pretty sure the most of the sympathy lies with the Palestinians. The support is not strident. In newspapers horror at the terrible destruction of lives and landscape dominates, and not just in La Jornada.   This is a link from today's Jornada of an Israeli attack that hit a street where two ambulances had arrived to rescue victims.  It is very graphic.  Maybe you all should watch it, but beware, nothing is hidden from you.

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Amurricans (or as a NY Times blogger called them/us, Amerks) exercising their rights:

  Foto Ap

Go Rick Perry Go!

Below you can find my translation of pieces of an article by several news agencies: Notimex, ap and Reuters which appears in today's La Jornada.

First a slight Rick Perry detour. 

Here is a photo of Rick Perry in glasses.

Perry may or may not need them,  but I suspect this pair is purely cosmetic.  There is no evidence of lense distortion of the eyes. Not even a tiny bit. They don't even magnify his eyes a bit the way glasses for presbyopia (older people's trouble seeing close--he surely needs some at 64. But he wouldn't want to wear THOSE in public). And you'll notice they are the um trendiest sort, the kind EVERYONE on TV is wearing.  Maybe he got the idea from Sarah Palin. 

On Sunday, Perry attended church at Clear Lake Evangelical Church in Iowa.  Notice the church is in Iowa.  In 2012 Perry soared and then crashed in Iowa.  At this church, according to the Washington Post, "He came for redemption.  . . . .  Rick perry held his arms across his torso and swayed as the choir sang. . . . He bowed his head while the pastor preached about 'God's perfect plan of salvation.'"

The Washington Post says that the border crisis "gives Perry an animating issue placing him at the forefront of Republican politics." The article goes on, "After church. . . Perry spoke about the influx of young immigrants in front of about 100 conservative activists who sat rapt inside a hot and steamy airplane hangar here.    When the governor said the words ´'securing the border,' he clenched his left fist, flexed his bicep and leaned his body forward. He paced side to side with a wireless microphone and no notes, bending his knees for emphasis. He looked like a Texas A&M football coach giving the aggies a pep talk.

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"'I will tell you this,' he added, his voice growing louder.  'If the federal government does not do its constitutional duty to secure the southern border of the United States, the state of Texas will do it!'"  

"The activists rose to their feet and cheered.  Perry had scored a touchdown."

This is one of those situations where if I didn't laugh I'd cry.

 As I said, the following story is from a joint effort by news agencies in La Jornada. The translation is mine.

"Yesterday Rick Perry announced the deployment of a thousand soldiers in the National Gard on the frontier with Mexico to reinforce the security in the midst of a human crisis without precedent, in the face of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors, the majority coming from Central America.

"The governor, a possible aspirant [I wish this were a joke.  Maybe a running character on Saturday Night Live if it still exists] for the Republican nomination for president, said that in recent months the security measures on the border had been seen to be overwhelmed by the arrival of some 57 thousand unaccompanied child migrants crossing into the US between October and June.

"The governor maintained that cartels and criminal gans were exploiting this situation in order to engage in trafficking in people and drugs.  

"Perry said that the National Guard troups would work together with state agents from the Department of Public Security to guarantee security to all residents.

"The soldiers will also help to combat the drug cartels and to dissuade the foreign criminals from entering.

. . . .

"Perry, critical of the White House response to this crisis, said that the State has the responsibility to act in the face of 'the vain words and empty promises' of the federal government. 

Democratic legislators accused Perry of militarizing the frontier.  'Militarization is the wrong reponse to the arrival of these children,' said Joaquín Castro, a Congressional representative [from San Antonio]I continue to hope that our state  can give a measured more useful response than to send armed soldiers to welcome the children seeking refuge from the violence," he said.

The chief of police of Cameron County [the southeastern most county of Texas, across the border from Matamoros.  It includes Brownsville] Omar Lucio said that he didn't know if the troops would arrive at that part of the border and asked what benefits it would bring in case it did.  'These people are trained for war, not for police work,' he asserted. . . 'I think the money would be better spent if it were given to agencies in charge of enforcing the law near the frontier.'

"More than 3 thousand agents of the Border Patrol operate in south Texas.  Perry has asked Obama on many occasions to send the National Guard to the border. "

+ + + + + +

And just so you can get further acquainted with this man Rick Perry who is governor of Texas and apparently still hoping to run for President, listen to him at athe Conservative Political Action Conference  of the United States this year in Washington DC.  

  

Good grief.  I hope you recognize what a fantasyland this man lives in with his followers.

 

And here are some pictures taken from La Jornada of kids.

 

 

A child at a demonstration in California. (Reuters)

 

An immigrant minor rests under a train in Arriaga, Chiapas, on his way to the US frontier (Foto: Alfredo Dominguez)

 

A child in a processing center in Texas. (foto AP)

 

Two small Central Americans play in a refuge in Tapachula [Mexico, I think.] (foto: Alfredo Dominguez)

These kids could be anyone's kids.  They don't need a system that batters and bruises them.