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Nepotism
Makes the Political World Go Round
Les
tribunaux militaires pour juger les Talibans sont anti-démocratiques.
RELIGION
AND THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
Vladimir to
Fidel: Drop dead
HAITI TEC
What to do with
Bin Laden?
Fighting
the Forces of Invisibility
Multiculturalism
and Multilingualism in America
We'll
go forward from this moment.
Nepotism
Makes the Political World Go Round
Nepotism. "Plus cela change, plus c'est la meme
chose," or the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Nepotism is alive and well all over the globe. In Miami-Dade County in Florida
where I live, one has to be blind not to realize that's the name of the game.
Manny Diaz, the newly elected mayor of Miami, is Cuban-American. According to
the Dec. 1 edition of the Miami Herald, Diaz is "filling his eight-person
staff with mostly young Cuban-Americans whose families are either friends with
the new mayor, or who worked on his campaign."
Nepotism was flourishing in the past and is still vibrant today in Haiti. I had
the opportunity to experience it with governmental administrations in
Port-au-Prince. It has always been a question of being a clan member first,
which decided whether you landed a government job.
In the 1950s, I had a guilty conscience of being chosen at age 23 as an attache
to the Haitian Embassy in Panama and was in charge of consulate affairs in
Panama and Costa-Rica. Many people were critical of my age, experience,
competence and my privileged connection to an important political figure - my
father, Charles Fombrun. He was a political mentor-adviser-senator to presidents and was
president of the Senate during two administrations. He served as under-secretary
of the Interior, minister of Public Works, secretary of state and ambassador to
France, England and the United Nations. His political career spanned 50 years,
from Dartiguenave to Duvalier pere.
Though my critics' points were valid, they were politically
motivated. The dialogue was sustained through class warfare against my clan by
the less privileged. Job qualification, which should have been a
main issue, was secondary. The qualifications consisted mainly of being fluent
in English and Spanish. Besides two years of schooling in Havana, I had been
exposed to the world through travels since age 15. Though the staff
of the president's palace guard was pushing the son of another influential
figure by delaying the delivery of my commission, I received the official
nomination papers from the president of the republic, Gen. Paul Eugene Magloire.
I do not claim to have been the best candidate, but my qualifications were
acceptable.
I still can't believe I took this position, which paid very
little, had
no benefits except being a professional reception attendee, a cookie pusher and
no future because of volatile changes in administrations.
The succeeding government of dictator Francois Duvalier beat most records of nepotism by naming his 18-year-old son as his successor and
president-for-life.
Ironically, people who criticized my modest nomination became staunch
supporters of both Duvalier regimes.
And the sadness is that since the fall of Duvalier in 1986, nothing has
changed in the clan system to the detriment of the country.
"Ote-toi que je m'y mette," or move out so I can move in, is still the
modus
operandi. Not being in the inner circle of the Aristide government it is
obvious from candid observations, that most government jobs are given to the Lavalas
party members.
In America, there are 70,000 resumes vying for about 3,000 presidential
appointments in the U.S. government. George W. Bush, a son of a former
president, "has turned to the families of prominent Republicans or the
otherwise well-connected to fill a variety of jobs in his administration,"
according to writer Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press.
Let's look at a partial list of presidential nominees:
· Strom Thurmond Jr., the 28-year-old son of 98-year-old South Carolina
Senator Strom Thurmond, was named U.S. attorney for South Carolina.
· Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, was named chairman of
the Federal Communications Commission.
· U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Kan., is promoting his son, David Bunning,
35, for a lifetime job as a federal judge. He is expected to be confirmed
"despite falling a little short of the experience recommended by the
American
Bar Association," according to the Miami-Herald. He may have been by now.
· Janet Rehnquist, daughter of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was named
inspector general at the Health and Human Services Department.
· Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was named the top
lawyer at the Labor Department.
My hero President Kennedy did the same, naming brother Robert Kennedy as U.S.
attorney general and brother-in-law Sargent Shriver as director of the Peace Corps.
President Clinton played the nepotism game for Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall by naming his son, John Marshall, as a U.S. marshal and then promoting him to head the Marshals Service. Clinton also hired Thurgood
Marshall Jr., as an aide.
Regardless of the qualifications of the above nominees family ties are persistent undercurrents. Kinship counts, it always has, and may always
prevail.
- Carl Fombrun can be contacted at carl@fombrun.com,
www.fombrun.com, or by
fax at (305) 270-3799.
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Les
tribunaux militaires pour juger les Talibans sont anti-démocratiques.
Auteur: Gérard Bissainthe
Les tribunaux militaires pour juger les Talibans sont anti-démocratiques.
Il n'est ni démocratique, ni républicain, ni humain d'accepter sans protester
que les États-Unis se proposent de juger qui que ce soit, fût-ce le plus grand
criminel de l'Histoire, par des tribunaux militaires, qui sans avocats, sans présence
de journalistes ou public civil, auront le
pouvoir de prononcer sans appel des sentences de mort. C'est pour cela que pour
ma part je tiens à dire, utilisant aussi ce forum, que si cela a lieu, ce ne
sera rien d'autre qu'un lynchage. Je tiens à faire remarquer qu'il y a environ
deux mille ans un certain Jésus-Christ, devenu ennemi public No 1, fut condamné
à mort dans un procès scandaleux, juste pour certains, inique pour d'autres.
Mais au moins son jugement avait eu lieu en public et non à l'abri de tous les
regards. Quel que soit le crime dont a pu se rendre coupable Bin Laden (et je
n'ai jusqu'ici aucune garantie que je n'ai pas un être cher victime de la tragédie
du World Trade Center), il a droit en tant qu'être humain à un jugement
démocratique.
Si nous lui nions ce droit, je ne vois pas à quel titre nous irons protester
lorsque des Musulmans lapident des femmes adultères ou pour reprocher à qui
que ce soit d'avoir procédé à des exécutions avec des brigades de la mort.
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RELIGION
AND THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
Religion rules most countries, and it is definitely a religious
war that theUnited States is now facing. America should face this reality since
it has supported other countries with its similar religious beliefs and
customs.
As for a little country such as Haiti, western civilization did not accept
the Vodou religion entirely and did its best to suppress it with Catholicism,
Protestantism, Adventism and many other denominations of the western world.
Missionaries of those faiths still thrive in Haiti. While growing up
in the1940s in Haiti in a Catholic school, run by European priests and
brothers,Vodou was a no-brainer. Most Haitian school children going to
Catholic schools were brought up that way. This is a reality. This climate
of intolerance has changed.
In the United States, the same bigotry exists, if not openly but covertly. There
is a different scale for the treatment of people based on ethnic and religious
background.
In Miami, the Santeria religion is considered foreign to what
America is all about; and it's mainly because of sacrifices of animals such
as in Vodou. As for Islam, it's relatively a new religion on American soil,
and as Americans become more familiar with the religion, they may become
comfortable with it.
The main exposure that Americans have had with the Islamic faith lately is with
fanatical mobs in the Middle East. These images have spoiled it for their
fellow worshippers. Muslims live very peacefully throughout the world,
including the United
States. Muslims working for UNICEF whom I have known and socialized with, brought a good deal of aid and assistance to African countries. They are
long-time Muslim friends with blond hair and blue eyes,
indistinguishable in the U.S. population.
The founders of the American constitution wanted to be free of religion. Even
in those days, they saw the ravage of religion among the people on this planet.
Over the years, we have witnessed in the United States the dominance of the
Christian religions in politics, education and customs. They have not always
been victorious in their quest to impose their will because of America's
diversity.
The solution may be to go back to the founding fathers' desire
of keeping religion private. If not, what's happening in most of the Middle
East and other parts of the world due to religion, may very well become the
same poison in American life.
A small sample of headlines shows religious warfare all over the world: Hundreds
of Christians take shelter in barracks after riots in Nigeria; Radical
Muslims massacre 16 Protestants; Religious riots in Nigeria leaves hundreds
of dead; Persecuted Christians in Laos; Christian pastor arrested in Vietnam;
Colombian Evangelical lawyers survive murders; Pakistan Christians fight
against apartheid in election system; Two Christian leaders arrested by Saudi
Arabian authorities; Serbian religious freedom law draws fire from Protestants;
Eight Christians released from Laos custody following shock treatment;
Christians held in Brunei; Hong Kong church leaders in fear; Bangladesh
mass stirs fear. And the beat goes on.
One still can believe in God and have no religion. Although not profoundly religious,
I found myself defending God against the religious faithful when the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked. They all wanted to know
where was "their god." My answer was that "the
gods" were present. On those four flights, there could have been 1,000
passengers, and yet there were a total of 266 people. In my way of
thinking, "the gods" were there. Further, in one of those flights,
"the gods" gave the passengers strength to fight the hijackers. The
WTC could hold more than 50,000 workers that day, but more than half were
not present. Thanks to "the gods." The top of the towers could
have toppled when they were hit, instead of imploding, and many more innocent
lives would have been lost. Thanks to "the gods."
Where were "the gods" on Sept. 11? They were among all the New
Yorkers of the world giving them strength to continue.
Carl Fombrun can be reached at carl@fombrun.com,
http://www.fombrun.com, or by fax at
(305) 270-3799.
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Vladimir to
Fidel: Drop dead
Russia's decision, announced last week, to shut down a huge
spying station it built 38 years ago near Havana, confirms what practically
everyone in the world has already recognized: The Cold War is over and so are
Cuba's and Fidel Castro's days of prancing on the world stage, pretending to be
major political actors or even annoying sideshows.
Everyone recognizes that except Washington, where the impoverished Caribbean
island remains a chronic obsession consuming the minds, time and budgets of
dozens of American policy-makers. Indeed, Otto Reich, the Bush administration's
nominee to head the State Department's Western Hemisphere section, is among
those afflicted with an incurable Cuba fixation.
Instead, President Bush ought to take a cue from his Russian colleague,
particularly in this new and frightening age of international terrorism. Cuba no
longer matters in a strategic sense, and it's time to abandon the failed Cold
War policies of economic embargoes and perpetual confrontation with its
senescent dictator.
News about the Russian decision could not have come at a worse time for Cuba, or
delivered in a more abrupt manner. Over the past several years, Russia has
abandoned several big-ticket projects, including a half-finished nuclear power
plant. Russia paid $200 million a year in rent for the spy station, and Cuba's
rattletrap economy needs all the dollars it can get from wherever.
It was also a unilateral decision--the news came through an envoy to Castro, who
was left sputtering helplessly.
The Russians were not reticent about the reasons for closing a spy station in
Cuba and another one in Vietnam. Money is short. There are more worthwhile
projects to spend it on. As one official tartly explained, the $200 million a
year Russia spent on the Cuban spy station could buy 20 military spy satellites.
Moreover, as Putin repositions Russia in the world, the relationship with the
U.S. is far more valuable than propping up the Castro regime. Indeed, Congress
had demanded the Russians dismantle the offending spy station. Putin gladly
delivered.
The next move is up to the U.S. As some in Washington have suggested, Cuba ought
to be dropped from the countries that sponsor terrorism. That's an old chestnut
now of highly dubious validity.
Beyond that, the U.S. should lift the economic and travel restrictions on
Cuba--for our benefit if nothing else. Midwestern farmers need new markets and
trade, and so do other U.S. exporters. Anyone in the U.S.--including
Cuban-Americans--also ought to be free to travel to the island with minimal
restrictions.
Most of all, the U.S. needs to focus its economic, diplomatic and military fire
on real terrorist threats. Cuba's sad, 42-year regime poses no real threat to
the U.S.--or anyone else for that matter--except to the people on the island who
are forced to live under it.
Published in the Chicago Tribune
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HAITI TEC
Community activists in South Florida and responsible members of
the Haitian elite in Haiti are rising to the challenge. Congratulations are a
must for the bearer of good news, reporter Yves Colon, who wrote the Sept. 30
article in the Business Money section of the Miami Herald. He wrote an
interesting story on high technology in Haiti and its relation to the Haitian
community in South Florida. The informative piece filled two full pages of the
Herald, one of the nation's top daily newspapers that also is read worldwide.
In brief, Haiti Tec is a trade school built by an alliance between South Florida
and Haitian business people in Haiti. It has been in the works for the past
year. As it's well known, the Haitian community in South Florida is socially and
politically active so it's a pleasure to read that "the small,
predominantly light-skinned Haitian business elite has taken to heart criticism
over the years for its hands-off-attitude toward the development of their
poorer, and black, fellow citizens."
Times are changing, and when progress is achieved, gratitude should be
acknowledged on the Haitian and the American side. American philanthropists were
brought in and the military-run U.S. Southern command donated warehouse space in
Haiti for the trade school.
Carl Fombrun can be contacted at carl@fombrun.com,
www.fombrun.com or via fax at
(305)270-3799.
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What to do with
Bin Laden?
Killing him will only create a martyr. Holding him
prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release. Therefore, I suggest
we do neither.
Let the Special Forces, Seals or whoever covertly capture him, fly him to an
undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex change
operation. Then return "her" to Afghanistan to live as a woman
under the Taliban .
Unknown author
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Fighting
the Forces of Invisibility
By Salman Rushdie
Tuesday, October 2, 2001
NEW YORK -- In January 2000 I wrote in a newspaper column that "the
defining struggle of the new age would be between Terrorism and Security,"
and fretted that to live by the security experts' > worst-case scenarios
might be to surrender too many of our liberties to the invisible shadow-warriors
of the secret world. Democracy requires visibility, I argued, and in the
struggle between security and freedom we must always err on the side of freedom.
On Tuesday, Sept.11, however, the worst-case scenario came true.
They broke our city. I'm among the newest of New Yorkers, but even people who
have never set foot in Manhattan have felt its wounds deeply, because New York
is the beating heart of the visible world, tough-talking, spirit-dazzling, Walt
Whitman's "city of orgies, walks and joys," his "proud and
passionate city -- mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!" To this bright
capital of the visible, the forces of invisibility have dealt a dreadful blow.
No need to say how dreadful; we all saw it, are all changed by it. Now we
must ensure that the wound is not mortal, that the world of what is seen
triumphs over what is cloaked, what is perceptible only through the effects of
its awful deeds.
In making free societies safe -- safer -- from terrorism, our civil liberties
will inevitably be compromised. But in return for freedom's partial erosion, we
have a right to expect that our cities, water, planes and children really will
be better protected than they have been. The West's response to the Sept. 11
attacks will be judged in large measure by whether people begin to feel safe
once again in their homes, their workplaces, their daily lives. This is the
confidence we have lost, and must regain.
Next: the question of the counterattack. Yes, we must send our
shadow-warriors against theirs, and hope that ours prevail. But this secret war
alone cannot bring victory. We will also need a public, political and diplomatic
offensive whose aim must be the early resolution of some of the world's
thorniest problems: above all the battle between Israel and the Palestinian
people for space, dignity, recognition and survival.
Better judgment will be required on all sides in future. No more Sudanese
aspirin factories to be bombed, please. And now that wise American heads appear
to have understood that it would be wrong to bomb the impoverished, oppressed
Afghan people in retaliation for their tyrannous masters' misdeeds, they might
apply that wisdom, retrospectively, to what was done to the impoverished,
oppressed people of Iraq. It's time to stop making enemies and start making
friends.
To say this is in no way to join in the savaging of America by sections of the
left that has been among the most unpleasant consequences of the terrorists'
attacks on the United States. "The problem with Americans is .
. " -- "What America needs to understand . . . " There has been a
lot of sanctimonious moral relativism around lately, usually prefaced by such
phrases as these. A country which has just suffered the most
devastating terrorist attack in history, a country in a state of deep mourning and
horrible grief, is being told, heartlessly, that it is to blame for its own citizens'
deaths. ("Did we deserve this, sir?" a bewildered worker at "ground zero"
asked a visiting British journalist recently. I find the grave courtesy of that
"sir" quite astonishing.)
Let's be clear about why this bien-pensant
anti-American onslaught is such appalling rubbish. Terrorism is the
murder of the innocent; this time, it was mass murder. To excuse such an
atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that
individuals are responsible for their actions. Furthermore, terrorism is not
the pursuit of legitimate complaints by illegitimate means. The
terrorist wraps himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives. Whatever the killers were
trying to achieve, it seems improbable that building a better world was
part of it.
The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a
great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer
just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system,
universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals,
women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing,
beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are tyrants, not Muslims. (Islam is
tough on suicides, who are doomed to repeat their deaths through all
eternity. However, there needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslim everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many
violent mutant strains. If the West needs to understand its
Unabombers and McVeighs, Islam needs to face up to its bin Ladens.) United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves
not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse
that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a
no-brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the
World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um,
I'm against that.
But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend?
Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the above list -- yes, even
the short skirts and dancing are worth dying for?
The fundamentalist believes that we believe
in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while
we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must
first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public
places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity,
water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music,
freedom of thought, beauty, love.
These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by
the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them. How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized.
Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.
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Multiculturalism
and Multilingualism in America
Bridging the gap with an English weekly, the " Haitian
Times", is a noble cause and a needed one in the Haitian media. While of
course taking advantage of this new media, Haitian-Americans should make an
effort to keep all the same, their original roots and traditions alive.
We have seen it as an example in the Hispanic community in South Florida where
it has paid off, and the leaders of this community are fluent in their mother
tongue and the English language. Although understandable, it is a serious
mistake for immigrant parents from Haiti not to keep their children aware of
their roots while assimilating with their new country.
Haitian roots are being explored by Cuban author Mayra Montero
in her new fictitious novel " The Red of His Shadow." Her previous
novel "In the Palm of Darkness" was also set in Haiti and both books
are full of creole sprinklings dealing with occult themes. In 1972 Montero left
Cuba at 19 for Puerto-Rico and considers herself a " pan Caribbean."
During the First and Second World Wars, the United States made the mistake
nationwide by encouraging isolationism from its citizens. Immigrants who came
mainly from Europe in those days had to adapt quickly to the English language in
order to blend into the system. In the Second World War however, American
Indians were asked to use their language by the U.S. government, as a secret
communication code to combat the enemy .
With the aftermath of the 9-11 catastrophy in the U.S., the Director of the FBI,
Robert Mueller, went on nationwide television, offering employment to
Arab-Americans fluent in the Arabic language to help in the fight against
terrorism. Although English is the official language, the United States needs as
well all other languages, in order to survive as a superpower in this new world
order.
Immigrants' children for the most part were brought up in the
English language and the mother tongue put on a back burner. Due to this
national lack of vision many children of immigrants lost their original
cultures. Languages like Italian, Irish, German, French, Polish, Irish took a
back seat in American society.
A vast majority of Europeans speak more than one language, compared to many of
their descendants in America today who speak a limited English only, and are at
a disadvantage in this global economy. God forbid if you had a German name in
America during the First and even Second World war, or for that matter a
Japanese one in the Second World War. It was strongly suggested that you "americanize"
your name and lose the accent if you had one. For the Japanese it was even
tougher, due to their ethnicity. Today America has progressed to the point
where the Director of the FBI is of German extraction, and the Architect
of the World Trade Center, a Japanese-American, by the name of Minoru Yamasaki.
Some members of the Jewish faith immigrating to New York, changed their names
for three principal reasons: religion, national origin, and adaptation to
a new country. Other immigrants had no choice. Their names were changed for them
automatically at a port of entry like Ellis Island,
N.Y, due to misspelling, or an Immigration officer's whim or carelessness.
America in its isolationist spirit was then anti-foreign and it was not
appropriate to speak a foreign language although this has certainly been a
country of foreigners from Germany, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Ireland,
France, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Poland, and others, mainly from Europe. Some
immigrants and children of immigrants today, want to shut the door on the
newcomers. Let them be reminded that the only native American is the original
American indian.
In the 1960s the tide began to turn and immigrants came from Africa, the Middle
East, Asia, Latin America, and a multitude of other places. Europe was no
longer the main supplier of citizens to the U.S. To quote African scholar Molefi
Asante, University of Temple, Philadelphia : " There was a time the United
States was a microcosm of European nationalities. Today, the
United States is a microcosm of the world."
Due to recent evil acts against America today, Muslim Americans from the Middle
East are facing tough times in the United States, because of the people and
organizations tied to terrorist groups in this troubled part of the world. Some
Islamic centers in the U.S. and Canada have been threatened, attacked, and anger
is directed directly at them, just like it was done to the Japanese Americans
following Pearl Harbor.
The Director of the CIA declared on CNN that it was "pure idiocy" for
Americans to go against any specific ethnic group in this country. After all
some can be of service to the cause of anti-terrorism. And consider this as per
the latest news:" Terrorists will change tactics once sky marshals are put
back on planes, pilots are armed and baggage is made safe." Covert
Intelligence will become a most important tool, and for this, Americans speaking
the tongue of the terrorists will be a great help to the FBI and the CIA.
President George W. Bush visited the Washington Islamic Center
and pleaded for tolerance. "Those who feel like they can intimidate our
fellow citizens to take out their anger do not represent the best of America.
They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed" said
Bush.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien made it clear that this intolerance was
unacceptable in Canada where there is a large Middle Eastern population.
"We are all Canadians regardless of race, creed, color, and culture. The
enemy is terrorism," he said.
As often stated the great majority of the six million Muslims in this country
are law-abiding citizens. Some who may be guilty should be arrested and
prosecuted, their organizations disbanded and their members deported.
Discrimination against people of the Arab-Muslim culture and religion is counter
productive.
With the new tide of immigrants America is becoming a multi-cultural society
where many languages are spoken and accepted by the mainstream. Some of those
original children of immigrants from Europe find themselves at a disadvantage. A
case in point, there are opportunities in the marketing field where people in
order to be successful in their job, must speak the
tongue of those being surveyed. There are many jobs in the airline industry
where more than one language is essential. Those jobs are mostly in
international airports where travelers of different backgrounds and languages
abound. Well, native Americans of two or three generations in this country
speaking only English, find themselves less equipped vis-à-vis first generation
native Americans, who were exposed to other languages and cultures, while they
were growing up. Thus the national campaign for " English Only " was
born which George W. Bush aiming for the crucial Latin vote, wisely changed to
" English Plus".
English is definitely a very important language as the statistics show.
" Throughout the world there are more native speakers of Spanish and
Chinese than there are English, but English is the world's dominant second
language by far: 350 million people speak it as their mother tongue; but more
than a billion as a second language. English is the language of the Internet, of
movies and music, of air traffic controllers, and captains at sea. It is
essential to international business, the means of communication between Japan
and Brazil, Germany and Egypt" as reported in the latest news.
One must realize that the world is changing and its languages too. Said Larry E.
Smith, an expert on international English and a linguist: " Widely spoken
languages fragment into dialect, then into new languages, as Latin did into
French, Italian, Spanish and others. And this could be the future of
English."
Although Singapore's leaders have begun the " Speak Good English
Movement" due to a patois called Singlish, getting rid of it may be tougher
that it sounds. English is one of four official languages that also
include Malay, Mandarin, Chinese, and Tamil. " We are learning English so
we can understand the world and the world can understand us" said Lew Kuan
Yew, Singapore's senior minister. " It is therefore important to speak and
write standard English." It is not an easy task.
The lesson to learn from all this with Haitian-Americans is to keep their
culture as a base, but expose themselves to all other cultures in order to be
competitive. " Le jeu force a couper." Cultural translation from the
French: We got to play the game.
We are living in a global economy where American businessmen are learning
Japanese and Chinese. Where native Americans wishing to do business with
Brazilian business people working in Miami, enroll more and more in Portuguese
language classes. Every day in my daily contacts in South Florida three or four
languages are most of the time required in connecting with others for business
or social relations. Language is basically a communicating tool.
It gets to be second nature to switch from one language to another. My personal
experience in America for the past 55 years has been just that with a fluency in
four languages. And those languages influence each other, have changed, and will
continue changing. We already have what we call Spanglish and Frenglish in
Florida with this melting pot of Hispanics, Haitians, French Canadians, and
Newyorican having to do with Puertorican Spanish from New York. With some
African-Americans it's Ebonics.
In my working days many times I got the edge on a job due to
French, Spanish, and yes, Creole. "Grenadie a l'asso, sa ki mouri zafe a yo"
i.e.: Survival of the fittest.
Looking at my crystal ball ,the future in this world, regardless of the
divisions and complex problems, is multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, and
inter-dependence of one another on a global scale. That will be the only way to
cope and like writer Carl Frederick said: " The key to our universe is that
we can choose" and I would add attitude with aptitude is everything.
I believe that history will not repeat itself, like when
Japanese-Americans were sent into concentration camps in the Second World War in
these United States. America is at war presently, and the obvious targets
are members of the Muslim religion and of the Arab culture in the Middle East,
with close to 6,000,000 of them residing in this country.
The incarceration of one ethnic group, would be a signal
to all the others that a similar fate may face them. In the beginning of a
new century my bet is that this will not happen.
As I frequently wrote, unless unforeseen events, America is
slowly but surely becoming a multiracial, mulicultural, multilingual nation.
And that's the way hopefully it will be, a microcosm of the world.
Reading the "Desiderata" found in an old Saint Paul's Curch, dated
1692, let's remember that " with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world..." and America is leading the way. God bless
us all.
carl@fombrun.com
http;//www.fombrun.com fax: 305 270-3799
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We'll
go forward from this moment.
By Leonard Pitts
An African-American
The Miami Herald.
Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001
It's my job to have something to say. They pay me to
provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul.
But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the
only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed
to the unknown author of this suffering. You unspeakable bastard.
What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade
Center, our Pentagon, us?
What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that
you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family
rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless.
We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop
cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a
cartoon mouse.
We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material
goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of
blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, peace-loving and compassionate.
We struggle to know the right thing and to do i And we are, the
overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving
God.
Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak.
You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that
cannot be measured by arsenals.
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still
grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to
make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood
blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel.
Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death
toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the
history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world.
You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.
But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall.
This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone
hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental
pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force.
When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any
cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.
I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I
think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with
dread of the future.In the days to come, there will be recrimination and
accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen
and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.
We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too.
Unimaginably determined.
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our
character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this
day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as
Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that
we cherish.
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe
you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case,
consider the message received.
And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't
know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.
But you're about to learn.
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