"Este es un pueblo de mierda." -- Don Sabas, de la novela "El Coronel no Tiene quien le escriba" -- autor: Gabriel García Marquéz
Directly translated, that means:
"This is a town of shit." -- Don Sabas, of the novel "Nobody writes to the Colonel" -- author: Gabriel García Marquéz
That statement can be applied to this whole fucking country! I hate this country! The bureaucracy lasts long enough to see an immortal die. The infrastructure rivals that of a festering backwater. The commercial institutions are as generous as loansharks. Nobody speaks Standard English. We're supposed to be a former colony of England, speaking the Queen's English, but every time people here open their mouth, all the past Queen Mothers roll over in their graves... or mausoleum... whatever.
I hope I'm not confusing you all. I'm not talking about Iraq or North Korea or the USA. I'm talking about my own home island of Trinidad. I know I'm supposed to be continuing my debate on the war and shit. But fuck politics! One thing I hate about politics is how it divides people. I mean these days, the politicians say if you aren't for them, you're against them. Most of my readers are Trinis, which is cool, and they probably wouldn't care about what my opinion is with respect to America either way. For some Americans though... with this whole war thing, if you're against the war, you're against the troops... if you're against the war, you're unAmerican. For a non-American, you're anti-American.
Bullshit. Or should I say BUllSHit. Since when things were ever so white or black? Only in story books are the lines between good and bad so clear cut.
"The evil witch is the badguy - black. The princess/princess-to-be and the prince are the goodguys - white. Notice how the prince kisses the woman he loves AFTER the fairy tale wedding. The goodguys know that premarital sex is wrong. I bet the evil witch had premarital sex."
Anyways, if I'm anti-american, then Anna Nicole Smith is not a whore. Oops? Did I write that out loud? Oh, and if you don't know who she is, she's that fat chick with her own show on E!... Where she just walks around looking for a clue. Why the fuck is that show so goddamned popular? I bet it would be even MORE popular though if the editors would just stop cutting out the scenes where she's doing blow... or blowing... Whichever you prefer.
But I'm not anti-American. Not in this country. They don't call us little America for nothin. Me for example, American culture is an inextricable part of my life, American philosophy is an inextricable part of the way I think.
I love American movies... the good ones anyway.
I love American books... The local ones that they force us to read in school are good in their own right, but they deal with topics that are too serious to be considered entertaining and too common to be considered revealing.
I love American music. Me. I like ALL kinds of music. Local included. But my favourite is Rock, in all its forms (soft, alternative, hard, heavy metal... not death metal though).
The American government has almost completely severed Chruch from State. Finally! Somebody got it right! All citizens, of all ethnic and religious backgrounds cannot be completely equal unless this happens. This probably won't happen in Trinidad for the next 200 years though... IF then. There are too many bible-beating fanatics in this country for that to happen. Being an atheist in Trinidad is like being an albino at the Apollo Theatre. And the politicians know this... God forbid we give homosexuals evil rights. God might burn us to cinders like he did to Soddom and Gomorrah... And what the politicians want are votes. So act pious. Or be a Christian or a Hindu.
Probably the best thing to be admired about the Americans is their resolve. If something is bothering some Americans, some transgression, be it made by their government or their fellow American, they will act. They will protest, strike, run through Times Square naked with a banner trailing behind them... something! But they will make their anger known. So unlike Trinis who are perpetually afflicted with the nine-days mentality (not the same thing as the ten-days mentality by the way) where for nine days we will grumble and say how much something should be done, then promptly forget about it. Sometimes you Americans take your resolve too far though. My mom is an avid watcher of all those court shows.. The People's Court, Judge Mathis, Judge Judy... One time, I think it was on the People's Court, somebody sued someone else for $9.00... NINE dollars. What the fuck? I'm still going to school, but I can airmail them the money if they want it back that badly. I swear, some of you people go overboard... Like that man who tried to sue McDonalds because the food was fattening... That one deserves no comment.
But when it comes to things like the American government's position on foreign policy... Well... To get into the country was hard enough to start with, but now... Friends who have gone to America in the wake of 9/11 come back with horror stories about how they treat the foreigners at the airport... Especially those "random" checks where they pull out 10 "random" people, 9 of which *happened* to have muslim names. Apart from a couple of my friends who have muslim names, Donna Hadad, a local celebrity/comedian had gotten pulled out because of her Muslim name and was treated like shit. She made light of it though. Incorporated it into her routine. But that's a walk in the park compared to some of the other's I've heard.
For some Americans extreme American patriotism has increased, and now comes of as extreme arrogance. America's military, which was aggressive to start with (invading Grenada during their civil war, exacerbating a civil war in Chile and installing a dictator, General Pinochet, who is/was being prosecuted for extremely grave, extremely numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, assisting in the installation of Saddam Hussein himself in Iraq... this is not news people! This is in the history books)... now the military... well... Iraq..
*shrugs* Like my mom says:
"Peter pays for Paul and Paul pays for all."
A few guys with 9 consonants in their 10-letter long names and from a country most people can't find on a map comes in and kills a whole bunch of Americans and now the entire world feels the effects.
"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant." -- some Japanese soldier after the bombing of Pearl Harbour
Those extremists sure fucking did. Ah well.. Lots of people said it was inevitable. Nowhere can stay safe forever.
"Shit happens. Build a bridge and get over it." -- Mya Alexander.