Centuries Covered in One Day

ONE DAY, FOUR COUNTRIES
From VijayaVarman II to Annadurai, Comrade Anna of Dravida Muneta Kadakam, the pan Dravidian movement based in Madras, India.
It is IX Century, an Immigrant South Indian King, possibly a Tamoul Prince, founded what later became in all its glory---ANGKOR, on the shores of the unique and large fresh water lake in south East Asia, Tonle Sap, near the current day city of Siem Reap.
It was a retracing of their steps; they followed the monsoon winds and sailed back and forth between South India and Burma, Malacca, Annam…among other routes, including Southern Indo Chine (a colonial term)
Two great contributions from TamoulNadou (as it is called in the XXIst century) to Annam!
Theravada Buddhism, which had a centre in Tanjore in TamoulNadou.
By the time VijayaVarman II had begun the dynasty in Cambodia, the language Tamoul had been a written language for centuries, if not millennia, with a flourishing literature (in fact it has one of the oldest recorded literatures). The written scripts of Burmese, Thai, Lao and Khmer all have Tamoul origins!!!There are engravings in Tamil at Angkor Wat!!
This memory is occasionally seen in some faces of the Khmer people, especially children.
Tamouls in Malaysia are mainly children of indentured labourers who were brought over by the British masters to tap rubber in the XIX century.
The Tamouls in Singapore are part of the laptop totting IT Tamoul crowd around the world...
The original Tamouls are of course in Madras, whose name now has reverted back to its original Chennai, in TamoulNadou.
This journey through memories of centuries, which took months to complete a few years back, now has been done in one day, by a humble Jew of Cuban Soul, French heart and Australian Passport.
0600 left the hotel of Brother Maung Maung in Siem Reap in Cambodia
Through Kuala Lumpur, Low Cost Terminal and International Terminal, to Johor Bahru Airport at the mouth of the Malay Peninsula, and with the help of Buses and Metro and crossing Border Posts and Immigration Points to the Budget Airlines Terminal of the Changi International Airport in Singapore,
To take a Tiger Airways (the Tamoul Tigers? A coincidence?) to Madras,
Ending up in a wooden cot of the hospitable home of a good Brahmin friend at Nanganallur, a suburb of Madras, close to the hour of midnight.
Started this year, 2008, this month of January, in the Mayan Indian Town of Merida in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico
Then
Miami, Los Indios, a long flight from Dallas to Tokyo connecting to Singapore, a bus to Kuala Lumpur to Bandar Seri Begawan and other towns in Brunei, connecting at KL to the hotel run by Brother Maung Maung in Siem Reap in Cambodia, and now to Madras…in India
Madras to Bangalore
Premier Book Store, one of the best in India for books on all topics
Bombay Store for silk scarves and other gifts for friends
Khadi Bhandar for Kurtas to wear to give lectures in the West..
Bangalore to Bombay and then this flight to London, this evening London to Paris..
Ha! Here ends my journey for the month..
Home, comfort and Love, nourishment and encouragement!

Malaysian Dilemma Explained by someone who loves Malaysia

The purpose of the trip to Asia in December had been, Food,Friends and Far East. I had gone there especially to see and spend time with Nga in HoChiMinh, Ko Maung Maung in Siem Reap, Srinivasan in Cennai, Jen in Kl..Everything turned out perfect. Lots of Good Food, as always.
I didn’t know what would be the purpose this January advernture to Asia. The Astrologer in Bangalore told me in December: the stars are not very favourable until May. Interpreting that to my cultural vista of the world, I decided I would travel until May and then concentrate on other aspects of my life later..
I set off 16 January 2008, on a very cold day , from the reservation of the Indians that I work with, a comfortable flight with American Airlines to Tokyo and connecting with Northwest Airlines to Singapore, arriving there feeling relaxed and even more relaxed at the user friendly airport of Changi.
From the beginning, I had the premonition, nothing would go as planned, and that itineraries had to be changed. A visit to HoChiMinh was postponed, I was in no mood to spend a weekend at a beach area, eventhough my good friend Nga had already procured a Visa on Arrival for me.
Tried to get hold of the old lady who looked after me during the first two years of my infancy, now living in some anonymity near KL in Malaysia. No avail. Uncontested telephones and undecipherable messages in the handphone number that I had dialed.
So, I shall go to Brunei. Negara Brunei Darusalaam, the official name of this Sultanate in Borneo.
A place of innocence in memories, made me realize what I had become and what I might have been. Grateful to Brunei.
Cambodia was a catalyst. The affections of Brother Maung Maung. The surge of Siem Reap. The development of Siem Reap is very different from that of Singapore or Kuala Lumpur or even HochiMinh. For in Siem Reap, small it may be, the taste has been well blended. European elegance is blended with Cambodian charm without either of them dominating or giving away their character. Cambodia with its recent history of horror and sacrifices, is telling us, yes it is possible, without slogans or catchy phrases (like Berisan 2020), yes, it is possible (si, se puede), to build your body back from the skeleton you had become.
It is there after a very emotionally satisfying visit to Brunei, that I realized that this January trip could be termed Resolution Trip, resolution of some conflicts , some of which perhaps are even generational.
Malaysia to which I am umbilically connected but cut off before it could influence me in any fashion, was the last issue to resolved after this trip to Brunei, which brought back such pleasant thoughts.
I am not a Malaysian Indian, eventhough local people ask for me directions in Johor Bahru, as it happened recently at the Senai airport, I politely told the elderly Indian lady that I could help her in Havana but not in Johore Bahru.. Native American Indian wisdom always comes to my rescue when I need it, and it does arrive..
The explanation to my personal dilemma, was to look at Malaysia differently.
It came in the person of a Chinese Malaysian, somewhat unconventional, whom I met in Siem Reap on this trip.
If the Chinese were allowed a free reign in Malaysia, as they were in Indonesia and are in Thailand, the local Malays would be discriminated against and oppressed and in the end and become violent. You only have to remember what happened in Indonesia in 1965, when aided by a demagogue, Aidit, the local people cut the throats of up to 500 000 chinese people, adults and children and friends and colleagues, any one who happened to be Chinese.
Like the banned song Negarakku (a Chinese rap by a Malaysian Chinese now exiled to Taipei), Malays need the Chinese for everything, but they cannot compete. But they too aspire to a better lifestyle, rather than the poverty they were assigned to for centuries. They will do anything to improve their lifestyle, isn’t that natural and human?
They need the Chinese, so murdering them en masse is not an option
They need the government which uses them as pawns, the Malay Dilemma by Mahathir, talks of this option of preference to Malays
This policy of Bumiputra preference was instituted in 1970 for a period of 20 years, to give equality and preference to Malays so that they can catch up with the Indians and the Chinese.
20 years is too short a period of time, to take an agriculturally based people and ask them to run modern industries. You set them up to fail and fail they would. Just look at Malaysian Airlines and then turn around and look at Tony Fernandes (an Indian) and Air Asia, which in three years has changed the face of tourism in south east asia. In Malaysian airlines they show the direction of meccah when you are flying them from Buenos Aires to Cape Town (why in the hell are they plying this route, just to let the world know they exist?)
Malays would obey, wear top to bottom desert gear, listen to Imams about a liturgy so foreign to them.
But this Malay preference has solved the Dilemma.
Since 1969 there has not been any riots of any sort in Malaysia
It is a peaceful country where the richest man is an Indian, a descendant of a Tamoul labourer.
Chinese are doing very well. They know what needs to be done to get businesses done so they go by it. So what if they have to pay a Malay for a certificate of ownership, Chinese are used to much worse landscape than that through their illustrious history.
Social inequalities exist, Malays are in the majority not well educated, are selling noodles at bus stations, but their lifestyle has become better, they live better and they can aspire better and they can go abroad to study and they do come back ( Indians and Chinese students tend not to come back)
The ending is a peaceful one. A peaceful country, slightly absurd claims and self importance. At the Davos meeting in January 2008, India and China was worried about the decline in the economic hegemony of USA but the Prime Minister of Malaysia boldly states that they are not dependent on US economy any longer, a rather naïve statement from a politician but it suits the malay to hear that they have done well and now they are free of any foreign economic influences for their good life.
When you think about it, life in Malaysia is more peaceful, less violent than: Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand and more interesting than in Singapore, and it is more equitable than in Cambodia and Vietnam and perhaps even less corrupt than these countries.

This discussion in Siem Reap about Malaysia with my new friend from KL. Felt very good after the conversation, felt that someone had given me a gift to remove some conflicts whatever their origins in my mind.
As if the Indra with thunderbolt in his right band depicted at the gates of Bantey Srei temples in Angkor, something suddenly hit me, strongly, I felt a cloud of apprehension about Malaysia had lifted off my mind.
After this trip to Asia, I feel much more Whole than before. Some dark patches, mainly Brunei and Malaysia has been cleaned and now they shine. I have not changed. My heart is Parisian, My soul is Cuban. My passport is Australian. I am a Jew loyal to Israel. I am a medical anthropologist.
Someone asked, what is medical anthropologist. For those interested, this is my reply:
Medical Anthropology is a mode of interpreting and analyzing, to assist social scientists and epidemiologists/medical doctors to focus “the diverted gaze of medicine to the body”, of anthropology to the rituals and symbolism, on Structural violence in societies, especially among those who are marginalized in those societies, to understand oppression and suffering in open or closed societies as a source of violence, and expressed as diseases in the body.
Travelling is definitely a part of this attempt to analyze, assist, the wider perspective than just the simple, selfish perspective of living or surviving, sobrevivir like we say in Cuba.
I am interested in Living and not Just surviving.. perhaps it is the luxury of our times.
Good night to all of us, as I write this sitting on a wooden cot, brought here by the hospitable Brahmin friend of mine from madras who met my incoming flight from Cambodia (via Kl, JHB and SIN) A little hungry, close to midnight, but no one had died just because they missed a meal, many meals missed would damage but one, in no way. I am sure my Brahmin friend will take me to a nice vegetarian restaurant with smiling Tamoul waiters tomorrow morning (which he did)
I complete this missive on 30 January surrounded by my new books from Premier Bookstore in Bangalore, at home in Paris.
I am content for more than one reason.
This trip, unstructured at the beginning, had been very meaningful.

Meilleurs voeux de Merida 1 Jan 2008

It is the first of the year, in the morning at a nice hotel in Merida, Mexico, after a satisfying breakfast.
It is a good time to think of dear friends, scattered far and wide, and as a testament I am sending this to you, to let you know I was thinking about you on this wonderful morning. It is midnight in Hanoi, way past midnight in Singapore, it is approaching midnight in Rangoon and Siem Reap, people in Bangalore and Cochin are preparing for bed.. the french are getting ready for another night of jolie, in Miami my sister is getting the lunch ready for many who would come to the house, in australia, there is custom among some to drink champagne on the afternoon of the 1st, and they would be deeply asleep in a bubbly dream, my hocank and kickapoo sisters would be busy with their chores at home, my brothers and sister in the western part of the united states, will be getting ready for their morning, heady with the new years day.
I heard that in Hanoi, someone or other is preparing tea for me.. I am impatient to return to HoChiMinh City where they adore Cubans..
A table set for me in Malacca for a genial breakfast
in Cochin, the jolly chef is preparing his Idlis..
My colleagues in the UmonHon country, friends for a lifetime, are as busy as ever, on this day, tuesday, 1st of the year 2008, another holiday and another few hours more with the families. One of the UmonHon would soon come with me to Siem Reap, where my dear friends are waiting with freshly cooked Burmese curries and a patient is waiting for me to bring some medications..
The hills of Haifa are always alive in my heart, let schmulik take me to Osfiya for some druze food..As Sefardi Jews from Arab countries say: May Allah bring you Mazeltov..

I am content to think of the people who have entered my life, have unselfishly contributed to it, make it a pleasure to see them and spend a few minutes or hours with them.. new friends from Warszawa, Lublajna, and memories of Brasil and Argentina..

La Habana, Cuba is never far from my mind, my dearest friends of years and new delightful friends who light up my life. Cuba is the recurring gift in my life, never distant in my heart and always giving. Like Australia, Cuba has become HOME to me, I consider I am part of the past and present and future of Cuba.

In the canvas of my mind, each of the faces rotate through, in slow motion, allowing me enough time to recollect the sweet moments together.

Like I have learned to say recently, Bonne Annee et meilleurs voeux pour 2008!

Chico and Chucho at Hotel Allison Genesis, Kuala Lumpur

An open minded traveler attracts human interactions

The lunch was sumptuous. Sera Nyonya Restaurant at Hotel Equatorial in Malacca. Chef Bong and his assistant Yenny. Ohtak, Lychee Asam Boi, Cili ayam with fragrant beans. Very attentive staff.
Came out to the tropical air. A little humid. Slight drizzle. A beat up taxi pulls up. I want to go to the Bus Station via Hotel Puri to pick up my luggage. I will give you 15 ringgits. He looks at me and nods. I get in.
He is Malay, born in Malacca and lives right in town. The car is truly a beaten up car. Much like one of the taxis of Havana, only slightly better. The door knobs don’t function, dust has collected in spaces. An odour of yesterday hangs in the air. The usual Muslim exultations on the dashboard and the glass, now cloudy with age.
We started talking, in broken English and his good Malay and my good English and broken Malay, we could communicate, so what else. He was surprised to know that Tesco and Courts are all foreign companies... He thought they were Malaysian! Poor guy…but happy...He wanted to know whether I had visited any of the supermarkets, which came as a surprising question, but I suppose he was trying to find something in common..We drove towards the central station. He said, good buses lah, and cheap to KL... that turned out to be true, the buses are very cheap, 2 euros for the ride to KL. As I came out of the car, he asked, when are you coming back? Soon, Lah, I said imitating a local accent which is rather soothing. Take my mobile number, and he gives it to me. Hajji Ismail is his name, so this rotund Malay in an old beat up car had been to the Hajj and how nice of him to give his mobile phone number. I will call him the next time I am in Malaysia; in fact I might call him from USA... and say Hello to surprise him…
I am extremely lucky, and I believe the Good Luck Star of the Taxi drivers follow me everywhere since I have been lucky with taxi drivers in all the continents... from Accra to Zanzibar...
The traffic jam in KL is beyond description. There is decidedly a third world (developing country) look to it, more beat up cars... we are let outside the Pudu Raya terminal, because it will take the driver many more minutes to manoeuvre his vehicle into the terminal just 200 meters away. Taxis are waiting but none of them are interested in short rides so disappointed faces look elsewhere. A driver feigns ignorance when I ask him about Allison Genesis Hotel, but quotes 15 ringgit as his fare which in itself was not bad. I said 10 ringgits, he looks away but a old Chinese with a tuft of hair growing out of a mole in his neck is interested, I will take you for 12, he said, but just for fun, and a throwback to my Mizrahi ancestry I say, ten ringgits, he tries some more but invites me into his car, which is not a taxi but a small car, in better shape than Hajji Ismail. On the way over, the traffic is horrendous, we are unable to move. We talk, this time I can’t even speak broken Chinese and his English is strictly Broken...but communicate we did... By the time he left me off in front of the Allison Genesis Hotel, he has agreed to come and wait for me in front of the hotel at 6 45 am tomorrow to take me directly to the airport, for half the price of a normal taxi..
It is 8 pm. In one hour my friend JC would arrive, in the meantime I am going for a walk if it is not raining outside... I can see the twin towers of the PETRONAS towers from my room. The night is dark outside even in this city clogged with cars whose red brake lights cut through the darkness.
When I was trying to check in at the hotel, a very pleasant young man called Ikhval was trying to help me, couldn’t find my name under reservations, usually happens because of the variations in my name. A well built mulatto with a frail Chinese lady comes in, talks to the clerk.. Tell the people to come and listen to the crazy brasilian drummer.. That caught my ears.. Voce de Brasil? I asked him and we began chatting in Brasilian Portuguese, I was surprised that I could hold a conversation. He is the artist in residence at a place called No Black Tie and will be giving concerts with his band of local artists, but MPB, brasilian music..Eu moro na Cuba.. I said to him, and he said: was listening to Chucho Valdes last night.. in person? No it was recorded music but it was as if chucho was there.. we were laughing and I showed him my collection of Brasilian videos on my ipod.. I mentioned Chico Buarque and a smile appeard on his face.. I began humming que tu sera sera.. the song made famous by Chico Buarque.. So at the lobby of the hotel Allison, in front of puzzled malay clerks and visitors, Valtinho and I began singing Chico Buarque’s song and he being a singer knew the word and I knew the tune well enough to hum along.. I truly got a kick out of it..
That is how, ladies and gentlemen, my evening in KL began. As I was finishing up filling up the hotel form, JC called to say she would be at the hotel around 9 pm…
It is 1 pm in Paris, where I would normally have lunch at la Defense on work days .. it is 7 am in La Habana and Baracoa, where my affections are kept warm by my friends…
La Vida es un sueno..

8 pm in Kuala Lumpur, Ciudad Capitolio de Malasia, 12 de deciembre 2007

Friends, Food and Far East

FRIENDS, FOOD AND FAR EAST
TRAVELS OF DR SUDAH YEHUDA KOVESH SHAHEB
DECEMBER 2007
Shuttling between La Habana, Cuba; Miami, Florida and Paris, France, in addition to participating at professional conferences, this year 2007 had been full of travel. But the travel times did not include visits to Friends in far flung places. In these modern times, our friends are scattered around the globe, we maintain contact with them with email and VOIP and video/message/messenger, it brings their voices, and their presence into our lives. Yet it is not the same as breathing the same ambience and sharing a meal together. I am too busy for my friends have never been my excuse, so I planned a short trip, short in time but large in distance, to visit some special friends, leaving Paris and arriving back in Miami ( my two affections and residences, the third is Havana, of course ) in a matter of just 11 days. Little did I realize that all stopovers would be to meet friends brought closer after 2003, friendships made during my other trips to their countries.
I am writing this on 28th November 2007 in Miami, Florida. The first leg of this journey is not part of the Friends tour, since I am going form one home to the other, eventhough special friends wait for me in Paris. And not to mention, special food.
Called the Vietnamese Embassy in Paris, only to be told that the tourist visa takes one week to process ( you wonder why?) and that an express visa could be issued in just three days for 90 Euros. This made me think of the various places and expediency of obtaining Vietnam Visas.
Singapore, same day service, through travel agents (Burmese Chinese who run a travel agency in Singapore). Cost 60 sgd
Over the counter service, done within one hour, in PnomPenh, Cambodia. Cost 20 usd
Embassy of Vietnam in Havana, Cuba. One day service. Cost 25 usd
Embassy of Vietnam in Buenos Aires, Argentina. One day service. Cost 25 usd.
I have on three different occasions received visa on arrival which involves sending your details ahead of time to a travel agent in Vietnam and within a few days you get a letter clearing you to board the plane and when you arrive at HCMC or Danang or Hanoi, you stand in a separate line and get the visa stamped on your passport. The cost of the visa is the same 25 usd but the travel agency may charge 25 usd additional. They demand payment before they would request the visa on your behalf. Friends in Vietnam usually advance the cash and I repay them when I get there.
I contacted this time, my dear friend Pham Thi Nga, as I was going to HCMC just to see her. Received an immediate reply saying that she would wait for my passport details scanned and emailed to her and that a friend of hers would get me visa on arrival at HCMC in four days. Since I do have four working days before I leave Paris to Cennai on my first leg of the journey, I will scan and email her my passport details today. Hopefully I will get the e-visa. Cambodia now issues e-visas on line, so there is no problem. I do not visas for Singapore and I have a five year tourist visa to India in my passport. If I decide to go to Malaysia, I don’t need a visa either.
Why do countries require visas? Cant be security reasons. If it is just financial reasons why not just issue them electronically? In Asia, I need visa now for DPRK, China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Bhutan, India but not Hongkong or Macau. I don’t need a visa for Sri Lanka and I have not travelled to Bangladesh or Pakistan, so I don’t know the current situation.
Sister Jacqueline in Miami has promised Jamaican Curried Chicken for tonight, so it is a promising start of a trip.

Where am I?

WHERE AM I?
When you order a coffee at one of the elegant salons in this city, the capital of a country that produces no coffee, a tasty morsel of melted chocolate comes in a glass thimble. Where the pure cacao comes from, I am not sure, could it be from Baracoa, my beloved village in Cuba? Or Ghana?
Tourists by the hundreds mill around ornate edifices of 17th century in this 19th century city. I cannot figure out any words in a popular language here which sounds more like a sore throat. I particularly enjoyed the Exhibition opened today, depicting the culture of the maritime conquest of Muscat, Porto Novo, Hormuz, Cochin, Malacca, Molukku and Macao, by people referred to as Ninbars (the southern barbarians) by the warrior lords of a hermetic archipelago. I thought of Dr Tan, founder of the Zheng He museum of Malacca!
Now the Quiz:
And the prizes are: Dinner at NonYa Restaurant at Hotel Equatorial prepared by my friend Chef Bong, the best Nonya food I have ever tasted. ( airfare and accommodation not included)
In which countries in Africa and South America, something similar to the language I was trying to decipher, spoken?
Consolation Prize: Lunch Buffet at Palms Restaurant at Metropolitan Hotel in Ernakulam, the best Kerala food you would ever taste in your life.(airfare and accommodation not included)
Which are the SIX plus FOUR islands in the western hemisphere where the natives of this country may be understood?
Bonus Questions:
1. Prize is dinner at my favourite restaurant in Buenos Aires, La Bodeguita with a bottle of Rutini Malbec ( airfare and accommodation not included)
Name a poet from the country in South America in question, but he wrote in an Asian Language.
2. Prize is Roti Canai with Teh Tahrek at the place of your choice in Kuala Lumpur.
In which hill will you see tombstones in the language in the quiz or name other places in Asia you may have seen the tombstones in that language?
Special Question:
Cuban Dinner in Miami, with Cortadito either at La Carreta or Versailles in Calle Ocho.
Name a descendant of this language speakers who has made a name for himself, writing well in another language, and he lives in Canada?

Globalization will not eradicate Prejudices
Competence, Efficiency and Education will!
Or Why we need Israel to train security agents worldwide.
Rainy end of October day. 0730 AM. Steady drizzle. Not intense but constant. Air France Cabin Stewards on strike. Do you know how the Airlines are making lots and lots of money? Pay the staff less and offer no services at all. Budget airlines with Budget salaries, Air France in its arrogance ignore their clients..Transatlantic traffic is its highest in years, but try to find a good fare or value for money!
Today by a stroke of luck, I am flying American Airlines AA, just seven days after arriving from Miami on Air France AF.
Radio announcer, while in the taxi: since 6 am, this morning, all flights of AF has been cancelled, since they are not sure who would show up for work. A friend who had a flight to Boston on AF had to take a bus overnight to London, stay at the airport until 5 pm to catch a flight to Boston. Ah Well..
A very competent taxi driver. Middle aged. French. Used his blue tooth telephone to contact the base and then took it off, to concentrate on the road, full of cars heading for Charles de Gaulle Airport CDG
40 minutes through the drizzle to CDG. Unlike younger drivers, no chatting on the phone, trying to save time and be safe, to get me on time for the flight to Miami MIA. Thank You.
Taxi Drivers
The worst ones are of course in MIA, fresh out of the boat immigrants, less conversant with the local geography and language (which is Spanish rather than the star spangled English), more than once I had to give directions to the taxi drivers, to common place addresses such as 107 avenue. Don’t worry, hopefully I would help one of their children to get into medical school, such is the life in the Americas..
Bangladeshis in New York, Eritreans in Washington DC, Togolese in New Haven, Congolese in Bruxelles.. this great metaphor for displacement, and movement, as if they are constantly in motion. But not so in Argentina, where the locals are in a hurry to emigrate, but the taxi drivers are not displaced Bolivians, carton collecting Peruvians but Portenos who know their road well.
Bienvenidos a Miami y las Playas. Good Luck to you, Mate..
CDG is not an user friendly airport. By now I know the layout. AA has, like most other airlines, special security lines for its Elite Frequent Fliers, I stood behind 7 or 8 middle aged to older Europeans and Americans, men and women.
I looked at the two desks where the security checking was taking place.
My heart sank!
Two distinctly Tamil (generic term to describe a native of Southern India or Northern Sri Lanka, their faces etched with the millennial miscegenation with the indigenous tribal people of India) faces- possibly, immigrants from Pondicherry, Sri Lanka or Ile Maurice, they looked much more Sri Lankan to me, certainly not the French locally bred ( don’t mean colour or face, there are plenty of Tamils from Ile Reunion or Pondicherry who are very French)
And they were being Trained!
I overheard the young Tamil girl ask a Spanish couple, she was checking
Where were you last week?
What are your plans from Miami?
And she took a full 20 minutes to check, a well dressed Spanish middle aged businessman with an elegant wife, flying Business Class to the USA!
Where are the Israelis when we need them?
Her pair, the pre diabetic Tamil lady to her right, fared no better, if anything only worse.
She was in the process of interrogating a Japanese Businessman. Asking for papers and other identifications. Humiliating, if you ask me.
Then she interrogated a pink lady, an elderly French lady, whimsically dressed in pink, flying first class nevertheless.
The Line inches forward.
This is incompetency.
Check their frequent flier status. Check their profession. A middle aged Japanese businessman with a Platinum Card from JAL is no threat to George Bush. He is possibly rich enough to buy the entire township of Pondicherry!
I was behind a gay American, young with a musical instrument in case, we could only guess what it might be, stylishly dressed. He went to the young Tamil girl on the left, while the prediabetic one was still asking stupid questions of an American couple.
This line is a special line for people who are Frequent Fliers, not your once in a while fliers, and certainly no one has a name vaguely resembling Ahamed or Mohammed.
While I mentally prepared myself to be interviewed by the prediabetic Tamil faced lady, a third security desk arrived
I was next in line
Viola, she nods in my direction
A middle aged, French Lady, who looked as if she knew what is supposed to do
My heart felt light at her sight
Elated as I walked towards her, full of cheer and in a good mood.
Having escaped the constructed curiosity of people without curiosity.
Seven or eight relevant questions from the French lady
No more than five minutes
And I was through the security
I am a Platinum Elite FF on AA ( and also on Skyteam)
What does it mean to tell a recent immigrant from Ile Maurice about the dinner I had the previous night?
Is this an arrogant attitude? Is it victimization of helplessness? Is it racial profiling?
I have always had dark skin, the people I belong to call Israel home, my passport is from Australia and I serve the underserved and marginalized of the populations in the richer countries
I have never felt discriminated or marginalized, eventhough I could make a case for it..
For people grown up under gentler societies, a difference is understood of class, culture and poverty. American Indians do not identify themselves as Poor, nor with other “minorities” who are poor, because they do not consider themselves poor, materially may be, certainly not spiritually.
Of the many countries I have lived in or have had intimate associations, I would say the most racist has been Jamaica (the majority population of Blacks), and the legislated racist state of Malaysia.
All of us are only two to five generations removed from poverty and lower class upbringing, unless of course, you belong to one of the other ancient civilizations: Arab, Ottoman, Persian or Moghul….(all paradoxically Moslem)
A little lesson in European Civilization, with Food as an example.
Cutlery is considered a metaphor for superior dining in the west. It is a recent import there. Knife was necessary but not used for eating. Fork was the main instrument of eating in the west, it seems to have been a Byzantine innovation, was introduced to England in the 17th century via Italy. ( did you know that Italian was the language Ottoman and Arabs used to communicate to the Infidels of the West, not French and certainly not English)The English word Fork comes from the Italian “forchetta”. No mention of “fork” in the plays of Shakespeare even though Ben Johnson mentions it in one of his plays, this new device to eat with. ( he died in 1637)
Compare this to the cultural wealth of Persia. Abu Ishaq or Bushaq, known as Bushaq i-at’ima, Bushaq of Foodstuffs (late 14th century or early 15th century Shiraz, Iran), a poet, dedicated most of his literary output to writing poems about food. Among his major works, Kanz-al-ishtiha or Treasure of apetite.
There you are..
So the sigh of relief of seeing a middle aged, competent, French security agent at CDG line for Platinum Frequent Fliers cant be a blind adoration of the culture she belongs to, symbolically or metaphorically,
But,
A sense that her efficiency would be helped by her relevance of her life to the career she has chosen.
Comparing to the professionalism of Israeli security agents, on a recent flight to Tel Aviv, all of them young Israelis, men and women, post military service obviously educated. And this was not at TLV airport but at the El Al check in counter at CDG. Cultural Congruence and cultural relevance.
Globalization is giving rise to a Fraud, seeping into our lives, poisoning us slowly.
Made in China has more meaning now, Thai, Japanese, cuisines offered by Chinese immigrants ( also Korean immigrants) in Paris.
(I am writing this as this AA flight is taking off, most of the AF planes are on the ground, it is still drizzling)
Hotel receptionists at fashionable chains, unaware of the local geography much like the Haitian taxi drivers in Miami, in Bruxelles, in answer to a general enquiry, I was told: Sorry, I am not from here. Honest but not helpful.
Then there is wholesale Mimicry, young IT men and women, becoming rounder as they abandon saris for Jeans, marching towards their early deaths, eating with forks and knife , wasting their newly found buying power at KFC’s, McDOs!
I met a Bengali recently, mentioned to him, some well known writers in English from his subcontinent: Ghosh, Mishra, Tejpal. He was unaware of any of them, but strangely enough he has heard of Indian writers who have made a name for themselves in the west, like the Bengali Indian, Jhumpa Lahiri.
Girls/Boys, immature beyond their years, in Malaysia and Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in the Far East (the Japanese like to have flings with foreigners but prefer Japanese partners for themselves when they choose one), looking at laisons with westerners as an escape from their intellectual and emotional poverty
1104am Paris Time. AA 63 takes off . 6 04 am in Miami (yet to change the time). Constant Drizzle accompanying as the ageing aircraft 767-200 lifts orr
Every single seat is taken.
I would like to see the English being English ( there are no Black English, only Black British). This does not negate the benefits of a million poles coming into England in the last few years. Europe needs 20 million educated people, as immigrants- from within and outside the European Union.
Every one is envious of Australia’s record of attracting quality immigrants, it is because Austalia since 1966 has had an immigration policy based on what is needed in Austalia rather than the dicatates of whimpy politicians or right of the spoon politicians pandering to the agricultural and political interests. Australia has the highest rate of qualified immigrants. Europe and America, for the sake of political correctedness, has attracted immigrants, perhaps not all of them well suited for the economy of their present day industrialization.
Despite the fact that I have lived in 8 different countries, I have never migrated anywhere. I have chosen well: Israel for emotions, Australia for legality, as far as my nationalities are concerned.
Now learning to liven France!
Another Decade, Another language…
Perhaps that is why I have strong attractions to the countries which have strong native identities: Cuba, a strong political and cultural identity and Myanmar, a stong religious identity.
No McDOs, No KFCs, Best Buy, Quick etc etc in either country.
Is it a mere coincidence that both countries are subjected to Sanctions and Embargo by the USA?
Is it a good thing after all, being boycotted by USA
Visit them, before they visit you..
We have to stop thinking in terms from the past: skin colour, cultural origins are no longer handicaps if you don’t want them to be, or give the other a chance to do so.
My Father, Olah Ha Shalom, once said to me, quoting Chou En Lai: for us to get ahead, all of us must get ahead together.
South Africa rencently gained the Rugby 2007 title. Not a single player was Black. Everyone rejoiced except the Politicians, Mbeki, and the Sports Minister who said: this is a country of blacks, 80 %, so there should be positive racial quotas in sport..
This is al-Qaida kind of militancy. We cannot regain the Moslem grandeur of the Past, but the future is before us to plan and bring into being our dreams of what was lost and what is possible. All of us are capable, in culturally superior ways of each of us, to achieve but it is up to us, as individuals to find strength in that culture, by first of realizing what is the true culture, rather than cultivating on e in some one elses image. Build more ovals at Black schools, Mr Black Mbeki, bring education to the Black children, along with sports, so that they can excel in computer as well as Cricket. So that in the 2020 Rugby games, an all black S A team can hope to defeat the allblacks of Aotearoa..
Where did I begin?
Where have I ended up?
10 minutes into this 9h30 minutes flight to MIA. AA Lounge at CDG is a sham, compared to the Virgin Lounge at LHR (the best I have seen) or the AF lounges at CDG( the French do it in style)
The Virgin Lounge had full service breakfast, a bistro, where you could have salmon fume.
AF lounges at CDG have multiple magazines on all subjects, champagne flowing freely
AA Lounge at CDG had Frito Lay chips and USA Today.
Ah! Well!
But the boarding process was smooth and I look forward to the company of my sister in Miami. I might even get something nice to eat which I am not expecting on this flight, AA 63.. Alors!
Today is 29th October 2007
Tomorrow fly into Omaha and then on to South Dakota
Miami, Denver and La Habana
I would have the pleasure of other “tamil” security agents in Miami, Houston and Paris and elsewhere..
I have always welcomed the security inspections at La Habana. They are much better at it … Experience I suppose. Not as good as Israelis. For whom security is life, rather than a career..
Mazeltov to my Brother Ricardo
Mazeltov to Shimon and Avital..
Arrived MIAMI 3 20 pm. Got out of the plane at 3 25 pm. Cleared immigration 330. 340 was already on the AVIS bus taking me to pick up my Rental Car..
As suspected, sister Jackie furnished Jamaican Curry, Chicken and Rice, Peas and Pappadams and fresh Lemonade.