Stephen Gerard Dietemann Design

Americans don’t know very much about the rest of the world. A majority seem content to believe that people living outside the United States world are either ‘evil doers’ or denizens of several ‘picturesque’ theme parks like England or Ireland. Ask Americans about the governmental structure of even our allies and you will likely draw a blank stare, not so much a ‘I don’t know’ stare, as a ‘why would anyone care?’ stare. As the old joke in Europe goes: What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Answer: Multilingual. How about two languages? Answer: Bilingual. How about one language? Answer: American (United States that is).

It seems clear to me that without wars most Americans would never feel the slightest compunction to learn anything about their neighbors in the global community. In at least this sense, that scion of American royalty, George W Bush, really is a regular guy. It might be some sort of secret Republican strategy, this international ignorance: I still laugh thinking about Ronald Reagan’s reference while standing next to our then ally, President Doe of Liberia (another one of those current, where the hell is that place? place) as ‘Chairman Moe’ (sadly, Mr. President, it seems that Chairmans Larry and Curly were unable to attend) Indeed, if it hadn’t been triggered by the monstrousness of 911, it would have been almost comical to watch the vast majority of Americans try to figure out what an ‘Afghanistan’ was, where such a place might be located and, of course, why some of them would want to do such a horrible thing to us. Serious-faced news anchors would, like school teachers bringing the slow kids up to speed, point to maps and give a minute or two of the country’s history. Stock footage of tattered villages, smiling, toothless men, usually armed to the teeth and, of course, colorfully dressed, desperately poor peasants flashed on our screens. What is usually not said, or said very quickly, is the United State’s role in the mess. ‘Blowback’ is the term used by the spy agencies to describe the effect of weapons turned back on the sender; we all know way more about ‘blowback’ these days than we ever wanted to. For instance: you know those surface-to-air missiles so currently focusing our minds when we think about flying the friendly skies ? Yup: we sent a lot of them to the radical Islamists to fight the Soviets. And how about those shoulder launched grenades killing our soldiers one by one in Iraq these days: we supplied a lot of them as well. And why did we know that at some point Saddam Hussein did have WMDs? Yup, again: we gave them to him when he needed to get rid of a lot of Iranians fast. You can almost hear the American suppliers asking themselves as they turned the weapons over : ‘Hey, what’s the worse that could happen?’ Lucky for us, the WDM have very limited shelf lives. Sadly this is not the case with the other arms.

But the big question remains: why did they fly those planes into the towers? After you’ve had your fill of right-wing bluster concerning the ‘evil ones’ deep hatred for our basic goodness or discourses on the intrinsically violent nature of Islam (as if any religion could cast that stone) you might take another look at those two minute television lessons concerning the offending nation(s). Does the video tape reveal well fed, properly housed people? Do the children look healthy? Are there sewers? Is potable water available. What is the life expectancy? Infant mortality? Add to these things the high probability that the United States has interfered at some point with their choices and resources, even undermining, or trying to undermine, democratically elected governments as was the case in Iran, Chile, Nicaragua, South Vietnam and Brazil to give only a few examples. Even if we generally receive, at best, sanitized versions of American actions in other parts of the world (and increasingly at home, I might add) that doesn’t mean that the people in those countries don’t know. And even if they don’t what is going on (and, amazingly, until recently the world generally considered the United States an affable giant), it must be increasingly clear that the imbalance existing between our prosperity and their poverty is unsustainable if we desire a peaceful world. Some things just can’t be ignored or ‘spun’.

That brings me to my modest proposal. In 1729 Jonathan Swift proposed – ‘For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being A Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public’ – that the poor children be eaten. Of course, his intent was not the promotion of cannibalism but rather, to focus the English public on the deplorable conditions of the Irish poor at the time. As is the case today, the many Irish poor of Swift’s era were virtually invisible to the prosperous English. Today, however, it is increasingly clear that the have-nots will not be content to remain invisible, and they have the arms to make us listen. Still, the problem remains: how to wake Americans (the new English) up before it is too late? I propose that on the site of the destroyed World Trade Center a typical Afghan village be constructed, stone by stone, stick by stick. Visitors could merely look, or, for a few dollars, live in this village, but only exactly as the average Afghan lives: no clean water, very little if any electricity, and only be permitted to eat what they can scrape from the ‘land’. A real adventure, the ultimate ‘reality television’. The press would be free to provide updates on the inhabitants recovery from hepatitis, cholera, diarrhea, with family-friendly articles on how the children are doing with close-ups now and then of their skinny little faces.

My only worry is that after a while, and a few ugly, disheartening deaths, Americans would lose interest, stop visiting and never get to see the rage on the faces of those remaining in the village.