Friday, September 26, 2008

Tit for Tat

A few quick comments on the situation in Bolivia. The first and most obvious topic is the political tit for tat of ambassador expulsions and declarations of non-compliance with the drug policy.

Actually a question. What would have happened if a foreign ambassador to the US met with armed groups who later attacked US government facilities? Suddenly being declared persona no grata seems trivial. It's an important question because we tend to measure our actions in foreign countries by a different standard than the actions of foreign countries in the USA. We tend to forget that a place like Bolivia is a sovereign country with a democratically elected and very popular leader, whether you like him or not.

And in a context that ambassadors past never met with Evo before he was president, one can't just say the ambassador's job is to meet with everyone. Meeting with the opposition leaders is a definite and aggressive act.

Not that I think the Bolivian government played their hand wisely - a whole range of escalating pressures on the US State Department might have achieved the goal of getting the US to back down on its support for the opposition, without as much drama. But it was justified, and Bolivian politics are all about the drama.

btw, I sent a complaint to American Airlines asking why they had taken a political stance on the social unrest and what their position had been in 2003 when Goni was thrown out of office - whether that was also the government's fault. I haven't heard back from them yet.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

American Airlines condemns the Bolivian government

I got stuck in Miami. I seem to be the representative barometer for political tensions in Bolivia. When I travel, somebody will take over an airport. (or forget to buy jet fuel, but that's another story).

So I wasn't that surprised my flight to Bolivia was canceled due to civil unrest - we'll use the neutral term rather than say because "armed protesters took over the Bolivian airport." But I was a little surprised that the airline took an overtly political position on it.

Three separate employees told me (and I heard another tell another customer) that it was the fault of the Bolivian government. Now four people in three separate locations on two different shifts did not make that up on their own. Somebody told them to say "It's the government's fault."

Now, I wish I could remember what they said when the cruceƱos took over the airport, installed their own manager and the manager promptly tried to charge American Airlines an extra $2,000 airport fee in cash that morning (American, properly, pays through bank transfers), but they can't possibly prefer that kind of treatment to Evo's treatment.

And I was pretty damned annoyed that they would insult my political perspectives out of the gate as a company policy.

Why it's shocking

I think I've put together a piece of the puzzle about why I find my (re)introduction to the US so jarring every time I come back here. Airports are one of the places where most of us (at least most educated white people from rich backgrounds) are most exposed to the repressive aspects of state apparatuses (uniformed guards who look at our bags and our shoes and our medicines). Take out your computer) and constantly reminded to be afraid of the "terrorists" - through announcements about your bags, and parking and all of that stuff.

Where else would it be okay for uniformed government employees to strip off our shoes and jackets. It's not. It's precisely the kind of government oppression that we cite in other countries as evidence that they are repressive dictatorships. Leaving aside the questions of why "they" need to keep us fearful and what that does to us, why smart people who I respect seem to have drunk the cool aid, how long the history of using some imagined threat to keep us scared, how deeply the what other groups have been used to represent that threat (communists, blacks, drug-dealers, etc), I realized that this is always my first and last impression of the US whenever I travel here.

Sure, I managed to watch the television nightly news and catch a short allergy season report - complete with labcoated experts and biologists pointing at plants - about someone who was scared because she was walking down the street and started sneezing heavily - sandwiched between pharmaceutical company adds - and get my daily dose of fear.

But I can turn that off any time I want to. I can't leave the country - or come back should I want to ever - without the heavy message that I am at risk and that the government is hear to protect me. "They" pepper me with this message of fear every time I walk in or out the door, lest I forget to be afraid while I'm in Bolivia. It's literally the first and last thing I see when I travel to the states and that's' part of the reason it's so jarring.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Perspectives

Went to see a movie with a great friend from high school. We saw a documentary about the french guy who tight-rope walked between the twin towers in 1974, when they were finishing up the construction of them. Wild story. Beautiful documentary.

What struck me though, is that my friend, who lives a yuppy life in DC and is working for the government, etc. and I had such different reactions to it. I think it says a lot about where each of us is, not just in our personal lives, but also where each of us lives and what we see on a daily basis ... what advertisements we see, what news filters into our heads, how the people act around us and all of those intangibles that are around us all the time.

I saw the film and I saw a story about aging, about moments in our lives that we can never go back to, about changing, and, to a certain extent, about healing. I saw a blueprint for dealing with our national sorrow and reaction to the attacks on the twin towers and a path for healing.

He saw a blueprint for planning a terrorist attack.

It may not be a conspiracy, but it's no coincidence.