Highway Figure 8
:reprint of july 06 blog:
.
Twas luck that I caught the Live8 concert telecast of ABC5. Paul McCartney may have waxed prophetic by singing, for his finale in the Live8 concert, "The Long and Winding Road" -- the cyclical road, the Figure 8 route, where one ends up to where one has already been at any one point in the highway. That is, if one takes the cynical side of activism.
For decades now, radicals among us have screamed their lungs out and defaced walls to drive home a most reasonable point: debts breed poverty that breeds more debts that breed death (either from extreme hunger or extreme violence). No one listens!
Was it an American UN diplomat who said that aid, in forms of loans or grants is one sure way for a developed country to manipulate/control/subjugate third world countries and bleed them dry? Apparently, he who appointed this diplomat refused to listen.
Must it take rockers to rock the palace and for one moment make the kings listen and the bankers put down their balance sheets? But alas, the kings and bankers are entertained -- the music soothes their brains through their headsets. Their hearts remain hardrock with the high-decibel noise.
But pray, activists never give up any fight. Who knows, the long and winding road might really lead to the door of debt cancellation, and poverty might yet enter history. Or, McCartney's finale would simply remain a hit... yesterday.
Ah, Lennon... wish you were still around. In your own write, poor peoples' debts be written off.
"Writing off". The phrase brings to mind one experience I had a few years back in an Asean country, when one morning, I faced an all-Western panel of interviewers that included one obnoxious American lady who asked me: "How good a writer are you?" I tried to smile but I knew what came out on my face was a bit of a smirk. In a rather Pinoy-esque low key voice, as my right hand twirling a bic ballpen through my fingers, I replied: "I don't write when I have nothing to say. I guess, that's how good a writer I am."
Of course, I quoted Mao, but I was sure she hasn't heard of that maxim before. Had she played her arrogance to the hilt, she would have deduced that I always have nothing to say, ergo, I don't write. And with all malaise, she could have spilt it out in my face.
The interview quickly turned into a discussion on how things should be done in that aid agency/NGO/aid-driven Asian country. About grants. About debts. I even quoted Che Guevarra, who resented the fact that the Soviets loaned Cuba millions of dollars for the latter's development projects. Che lamented that the millions should have been given to their Latino comrades as grant. No more, no less.
Before long, I knew I had blown the big interview, and had lost the chance to tear up those "white-is-right" aid agency executives to pieces... in writing at that! Had I gotten the consultancy, this non-writer would have penned an evaluation report that is critical of this aid/loans-device of western imperialism and manipulation of third world countries.
But we all know that in all history, or in the history of usury, radicals are the first to be written off. But debts? Almost never.
For decades now, radicals among us have screamed their lungs out and defaced walls to drive home a most reasonable point: debts breed poverty that breeds more debts that breed death (either from extreme hunger or extreme violence). No one listens!
Was it an American UN diplomat who said that aid, in forms of loans or grants is one sure way for a developed country to manipulate/control/subjugate third world countries and bleed them dry? Apparently, he who appointed this diplomat refused to listen.
Must it take rockers to rock the palace and for one moment make the kings listen and the bankers put down their balance sheets? But alas, the kings and bankers are entertained -- the music soothes their brains through their headsets. Their hearts remain hardrock with the high-decibel noise.
But pray, activists never give up any fight. Who knows, the long and winding road might really lead to the door of debt cancellation, and poverty might yet enter history. Or, McCartney's finale would simply remain a hit... yesterday.
Ah, Lennon... wish you were still around. In your own write, poor peoples' debts be written off.
"Writing off". The phrase brings to mind one experience I had a few years back in an Asean country, when one morning, I faced an all-Western panel of interviewers that included one obnoxious American lady who asked me: "How good a writer are you?" I tried to smile but I knew what came out on my face was a bit of a smirk. In a rather Pinoy-esque low key voice, as my right hand twirling a bic ballpen through my fingers, I replied: "I don't write when I have nothing to say. I guess, that's how good a writer I am."
Of course, I quoted Mao, but I was sure she hasn't heard of that maxim before. Had she played her arrogance to the hilt, she would have deduced that I always have nothing to say, ergo, I don't write. And with all malaise, she could have spilt it out in my face.
The interview quickly turned into a discussion on how things should be done in that aid agency/NGO/aid-driven Asian country. About grants. About debts. I even quoted Che Guevarra, who resented the fact that the Soviets loaned Cuba millions of dollars for the latter's development projects. Che lamented that the millions should have been given to their Latino comrades as grant. No more, no less.
Before long, I knew I had blown the big interview, and had lost the chance to tear up those "white-is-right" aid agency executives to pieces... in writing at that! Had I gotten the consultancy, this non-writer would have penned an evaluation report that is critical of this aid/loans-device of western imperialism and manipulation of third world countries.
But we all know that in all history, or in the history of usury, radicals are the first to be written off. But debts? Almost never.
posted by totoy.c.c.perpeña | 5:46 AM
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