Highlights of the past few weeks, Part 1

Back in the  motherland! Buenos Aires, that is. After two weeks of travel, it’s nice to be back in this strange city that is slowly starting to feel like home away from home. We spent our first week of travel in Porto Alegre, Brazil; took an overnight bus to Foz de Iguaçu to take advantage of what must be one of the world’s greatest natural wonders; and finally left Foz for Asunción, Paraguay, where I spent the past week.

For the sake of time, I’m just going to give a few highlights from the journey (and the night before departing – one of the most epic evenings of my semester!!!!)

1. Argentina-Peru soccer game: Victory Argentina! The night before leaving for Porto Alegre, the fifteen students in our group made the trek to River Stadium – showdown between the national teams of Argentina and Peru. How awesome was it when Palermo scored the final goal in the last minute of the game, rain pouring down, stadium flooding, all of our group soaked through to the bone… Never so drenched in all of my life (except for MAYBE the time Iwent horseback riding in Canada on our Montana mission trip – 3 hours of horseback riding in the midst of a downpour). Anyhow, the best part of the game was the crazy fans. Not exactly Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, but still pretty ridiculous. Everyone, drenched, jumping and climbing the metal caging, all of us shouting “Vamos Argentina!” Then, of course, walking miles back to the Subte (subway) in the midst of a torrential downpour… ¡Una experiencia inolvidable!
2. Our plane nearly crashing during our landing in Porto Alegre, Brazil: I really thought my life might be coming to an end, There was a huge storm setting in as we landed – I think we were trying to beat it, but not so much the case. Hail, lighting, etc. It’s a miracle the pilot landed that tiny plane. Not much more to add here.
3. Brazilian food: From the nicest gaucho restaurants to small,  cheap sidestreet cafés, Brazilian food is out of this world.  Pão de queijo (special cheese bread), paçoquitas (the closest thing here to peanut butter), fantastic meat… I have no regrets about eating like a cow in Porto Alegre. One night, we went to a traditional gaucho restaurant with a show, and a friend of mine stood on stage while the “gauchos” whizzed iron balls right by her head, grazing her ponytail and drawing “oohs and aahs” from the dining spectators.
4. La Bodeguita: Worst boliche (club) of my life, located in Porto Alegre. We walked in after dinner one night, having been heavily solicited by the Bodeguita bouncers who promised free admission. Well, we were six of ten people total in the club. Although we stayed for no more than five minutes, that was long enough for my friends and I to jump on the deserted stage and marvel at the utter lack of excitement in this dud of a club.
5. Bearded Santa: One of our beloved guides in Porto Alegre, this tipo (Bearded Santa) was a 68-year old man with long white hair and a beard that dwarfed his small mouth. Tall and lanky, Bearded Santa made quite the impression. The best was his lecture on Brazilian art and culture our last day in Brazil: “I am about to tell you something that will explode IN YOUR SOULS in fifteen years!!!” Then he delivered a rather interesting (?)theoretical talk on historical linkages and told us he didn’t remember 1968 because he was a college student in Boston Commons… What a character. An excellent guide, but most renowned for the exploding souls comment.

Time to head out, but I promise Paraguay highlights soon!

Ocupar, Resistir, Producir!

Exhausted is the first word that comes to mind when describing my current state. Last night was a late night, and 24 hours later I am feeling its repercussions. Granted, I also made it through the entire day with no coffee! I think I’ll cede to my caffeine cravings tomorrow…

I promised to leave less time between blogs, so here’s another update. Right now, my seminar class is looking at the economic history of Argentina – pretty interesting, considering the country has tried (and failed at) almost every economic model imaginable. After the state-induced growth of the mid-30s through early 70s, the military dictatorship began to implement more market-friendly policies. With the nineties came mega privatizations and parity between the Argentine peso and US dollar. The parity, or convertability, of the currencies was intended to put an end to rampant hyperinflation, and in that it succeeded. Nonetheless, convertability is sustainable only in the short-term – as in 2 years max. Argentina maintained the parity for ten. It was a recipe for disaster.

In 2001, convertability had become a stranglehold on the Argentine economy. Why invest in or buy from a country with an extraordinarily overvalued currency? I’ll skip to the important part: when convertability came to an end and Argentina returned to a floating currency, the peso-dollar exchange rate jumped to 3:1 overnight. Savings were slashed to a third of what they had been during the convertability period, and Argentina’s middle class was up in arms. December 2001 saw five presidents in a period of 20 days, and no one knew what would come next.

Anyhow, against this backdrop was the worker’s movement. With all of the privatizations and arrivals of multinational corporations, many Argentines were left without work or without pay. Owners of factories, declaring bankruptcy, attempted to liquidate all assets and pocket the money despite the fact that they hadn’t paid their workers (or their taxes) for months (years?) – all of this right under the government’s nose! This is where it gets interesting: Refusing to let the owners get away with this, the workers banded together and occupied the factories. “Ocupar, resistir, producir” (occupy, resist, produce!) was their motto, and the right to work was their cause. In time, many of the factories worked with the state to have the factories expropriated and handed over to the workers themselves – hence the name fábricas recuperadas (recovered factories).

Yesterday (Tuesday) we visited a metallurgic factory (ex-La Baskonia) in the Buenos Aires Province and learned about how some 90 workers “took” the factory in 2003 and made an allegedly unprofitable enterprise profitable again. Today, we visited another factory, this time of the textile industry, and learned about how the workers at Brukman “took” the factory at the height of the crisis in 2001. Both factories now operate as cooperatives – it’s like communism from the bottom-up, not top-down like it’s always been implemented throughout history. Everyone earns the same pay, and there are no “bosses” or “owners.” Former blue-collar workers now assume all administrative and budgetary tasks, handle negotiations with other companies, etc. It’s really cool, but my early summer reading tells me this really isn’t super sustainable… (thanks, Ayn Rand).

The cooperative system seems to be working rather well right now, based on what I’ve read in class, as well as seen and heard in the actual factories. I just don’t see it as contributing much technologically, plus I cannot begin to imagine the liability issues (with regard to edifices, safety conditions, etc.) in an ownerless enterprise! Still, there is definitely something to be said about the right to meaningful work and what that can mean for an individual and his/her family. In both the recovered textile factory and the recovered metallurgy factory, machines were very labor-intensive – definitely not what you’d see in the super-modern and uber-efficient factories that have given a significant impetus to the neoliberal model. Oh, the trade-offs!

I don’t really know why I’m writing this entry. I’m not sure if people are actually interested in Argentina’s recovered factory movement, but I find it very interesting, especially coming from a state that’s been hit extremely hard by the closing of factories due to increasing mechanization of labor. “Ocupar, resistir, producir!” in the States? I don’t think that would go over too well. If they’re still debating private property vs. right to work in Argentina, I can only begin to imagine the hostility of a similar debate in the USA right now…

I am, in fact, alive!

It’s been far too long since I’ve updated this blog, and my sincerest apologies for this. There’s just so much fun to be had in Buenos Aires that it’s easy to push blogging to the back-burner. Selfish, yes… I’ll try to be better about sharing with everyone what amazing opportunities I get to take advantage of in South America!

Since my last post, we’ve done so much!!! I’ve developed a fascination with the oh-so-controversial Eva Perón, around whom I could focus an entire blog entry about political philosophy, resource distribution, and women’s rights (just to name a few). We visited the Eva Perón Museum last week, and I left thoroughly satisfied with what I saw and heard. If anyone feels inspired, you should really check out Eva’s speeches from the late 40s!! Such an interesting way of speaking to the  masses. Okay, I’m getting sidetracked and time is short. Onto the next thing…

For those of you who don’t know much about Argentine history, there was a terrible dictatorship that controlled the country from 1976 until 1983. During that time, over 30,000 individuals (intellectuals, leftists, and anyone suspected of having communist ties) were “disappeared” – i.e. tortured, killed, raped. Many bodies were dropped from helicopters into the ocean, hence the term “disappeared” (desaparecidos) used to describe victims of the regime. At the height of the repression, the madres (mothers) of the desaparecidos began protesting in the Plaza de Mayo, located at the heart of the city. The Madres of the Plaza de Mayo are acclaimed internationally for their courageous efforts to bring an end to the military regime and establish a more just state. The madres still march today to share their message at home and abroad. However, since Argentina made the difficult transition to democracy, the madres have split into several groups, with some madres taking on the political ideologies of their lost children and others preferring a more politically neutral dialogue.

Last week, my group visited the Asociación de las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (one of the more radical lines) and talked with the vice-president of the organization. Very interesting, and I managed to rile her up a bit by asking about what her organization “wants” from the United States. Because of the United States’ role in supporting the dictatorships in Latin America during the Cold War (before the Carter administration), there’s still a lot of bad blood towards the United States here… Her response? Nada. No military bases in Colombia, no intervention in Honduras, etc. I didn’t press her much farther, but it was interesting to gauge her reaction.

Nightlife continues to be fantastic. I’m learning how to nap – I don’t have much of a choice considering that Argentines like to GO out at 3 and come home at 7 in the morning, at least. Not a problem for me, considering my nocturnal tendencies. Lots of dancing in the boliches, or clubs, and quite a few offer shows on certain weeknights. My friends and I went to a transvestite and break-dancing show last Thursday – it’s apparently a must-see for the tourists? I will not go back. Aside from that little stint, I’m really enjoying the the festivities!

On Saturday, I went with my madre and her friend to Tigre, a small river town about an hour outside of the city proper. Beautiful. The pictures say it all, and considering I am running out of time before Spanish class, I am going to upload photos and call it quits. I promise more posts and more details soon!

This city is nocturnal…

And I love it! The Buenos Aires schedule is right up my alley. Dinner is eaten later here than in the United States, and it’s not uncommon for people to go out for coffee or ice cream at 11 or 12. Bedtime? Let’s just say my natural clock is in heaven here.

The tendency to gather late at night affects the rest of the day’s schedule, leaving more time for socializing, napping, relaxing, etc. between the work day and dinnertime. Sure, some might argue that the extra hours of sleep at night have their share of positive side effects – beauty sleep, de-stressing, physical health… I’d beg to differ, however. I’ve never been a huge advocate of the prescribed 8-hours of sleep of night, and Buenos Aires is simply reinforcing this. People aren’t rushing to get to bed! Instead, they’re happy to sit and talk for hours, take their time at meals, make time for friends and family, and enjoy personal space. A lot of people do this in the United States, especially in small towns, but I think the tendency – especially in cities – is to prioritize work and sleep over personal sanity and valuable relationships. I’m extremely guilty of it: When given the choice between studying one hour more for a test, going out for late-night Wendy’s with my sister, or just getting an extra hour of sleep, I sadly would say that the random family outing would probably be my last choice. The pressure to perform well at school and on the job can be so overwhelming that it’s particularly tempting to take family and friends for granted. Not so much the case here.

I’m sort of going off on a tangent here, but I have really been impressed by the high regard with which the people here treat relationships. My madre’s ex-husband, their son, son’s wife and four-year-old grandchild meet every Sunday afternoon (ALL afternoon) for tea and conversation. Family ties are strong and always a priority. Observing this here has been a neat wake-up call for me, making me realize how degraded family structures have become in the United States. I’m lucky to come from a family that embodies the “kin comes first” spirit, but I think that it’s increasingly more difficult to run across this attitude in mainstream America. When we stay up late, it’s generally for work, studies, or a favorite television show. Here, people stay up late to go on midnight strolls and catch up face-to-face with friends. Personally, I find it healthy and well worth the difficulty waking up to the alarm in the morning.

More in line with the title of this entry, I’ll give a quick update on Buenos Aires nightlife. Any guidebook will tell you that people stay out LATE here. Fair statement, although I might argue that it’d be better to write that people stay out EARLY. As in six or seven in the morning. People are still arriving in clubs at five! It’s absurd, but kinda cool! It’s living in the moment at its finest, and I’m excited to have until December to take advantage of the extended waking hours. Naturally, this means sleeping in later on Saturdays and Sundays. Once again, this has been just fine by my natural clock.

Speaking of late nights and sleeping in… Since I can’t exactly sleep in tomorrow morning, I’d better tie up this blog entry. Our classes officially begin tomorrow, and I’m really excited about the material. Spanish classes will be particularly relevant, as I am in great need of a refresher in castellano grammar! ¡Buenas noches, Buenos Aires!

**I wrote this blog at 1 AM on Sunday evening (8/31). No Wi-Fi in the apartment, so I’m posting on Monday (9/1) morning!**

Palermo!

This post will be quick, but hopefully the takeaway will be clear: Buenos Aires is AWESOME!! My group arrived in the city Thursday morning, spent Thursday night in a hotel, and traveled all over the city on Friday afternoon. Yesterday (Friday) evening, we moved in with our homestay families. My madre, Mirta, is fantastic. I have my own room, and our apartment has a balcony that overlooks Calle Cabello. I’m located ten minutes (walking) from IDES, where most of my classes take place.

I finally caught up on my sleep and woke up rather late today. I spent the remainder of the morning and most of the afternoon exploring the area, and a friend and I had a chance to go jogging through several parks and gardens in my neighborhood, Palermo. I promise to upload photos of the area, my apartment, and my friends soon!

Estancia Don Manuel

Hola! I write this blog with a much more positive attitude than I had 36 hours ago… I’ve met up with my group from SIT, and the loneliness factor has since declined exponentially! There are a total of fifteen students from universities across the United States – UNC-Chapel Hill, Stanford, Claremont-McKenna, Wofford, and several other liberal arts colleges. We have three full-time SIT staff persons, two of whom hail from Buenos Aires and the other a native Chilean. I’ve enjoyed getting to know everyone, and I have a strong feeling this will be a GREAT semester!

The Interior of the Estancia

The group convened at the Buenos Aires international airport on Tuesday morning (thankfully, I made it safely and smoothly from the hostel to the aeropuerto!), and we traveled from the airport to an estancia, or ranch, in the Buenos Aires countryside. Don Manuel Estancia, where we spent last night and will stay again tonight, is beautiful! There are stables, a pool, a polo field, volleyball courts – it’s like a summer camp in Buenos Aires! Our hosts have been wonderful, welcoming us with open arms and being very patient with our limited Spanish abilities.

The grounds at our estancia

Side note: I’m really excited – I just figured out how to insert photos successfully into my blog!!! Anyhow, we leave the estancia tomorrow (Thursday) morning, and will spend Thursday night at a hotel in Buenos Aires. This was supposed to be our first taste of the city, but I guess I sort of weaseled my way into La Capital a day in advance, hence my random and  I’d like to think adventurous stay at Hostel Estoril.

We move in with our homestay families Friday evening. I can’t wait to see where I’ll be living! Classes start next week. The next few days are primarily occupied with orientation activities, safety and health overviews, group bonding activities, etc. It’s very relaxing, but I’ll definitely be ready for the bright city lights by tomorrow. There’s not much going on in the countryside…

It’s beautiful here. The weather is perfect – mid-70s day and night. Jeans and t-shirt weather, although one could comfortably wear shorts. A few students in our group have been brave enough to jump in the pool here at the estancia, but those of you who know me well won’t be surprised to know that I stayed dry on the sides.

A few brave souls actually dove in... I did not take part.

We’ve been eating extremely well. We had an asado (steak meal) yesterday for lunch – different variations of meat that just kept on coming, with potatoes, salad, and fruit cocktail for dessert. Dinner consisted of delicious spinach empanadas and flan with dulce de leche (a sweet caramel-like topping that Argentines put on everything!). Breakfast is generally coffee, bread, and jam or dulce de leche. In the afternoons, we take a light merienda or cafecito that is similar to breakfast. Lunch today was, once again, multiple courses: several leafy salads, a potato salad, roasted potatoes, and a chicken dish. We had a tiramisu-type dish for dessert.

All of this having been said, it’s gorgeous out and I’ve been eating an amount that merits a nice afternoon jog around the estancia. Adios!

Jet-lagged, sans caffeine, and clearly not yet proficient

Tonight will more than likely go down in the books as one of the most random of my life. My lone night in Argentina. Why am I here tonight? I think it’s a combination of several reasons, the most important being a slight hunger for something adventurous, independent, and out of the ordinary. I’d argue I’ve done a fair job of getting myself out of my comfort zone – spending my first night halfway across the world all by myself, sans travel companions and tour guides, has been a challenge. It’s also been a learning experience and a great way to break into the city.

Flying in, Argentina (or my window-seat view of it) seemed one thing: flat. Maybe I was expecting the sharp, staggering hills of Rio de Janeiro, or else the bright city lights that light up the sky on a late-night flight. Not today. I arrived early this morning, after a long and sleepless direct flight from Washington, DC to Buenos Aires, and the rising sun lit up miles and miles of flat green land. Cattle country.

Customs was simple enough. I had no problem whatsoever getting through, and if anything I think they were really lax with me because I was flying solo, and clearly not Argentinean – if my blonde hair didn’t give me away, my feeble attempts to speak porteño Spanish surely did. From there, I managed to get the best exchange rate in the airport and reserve an official airport cab (no scamming allowed…) to my hostel.

I tried to take it all in on the cab ride. The traffic was not as overwhelming as I’d been led to believe. Nor was the poverty as striking. I’ve been told not to compare destinations, but I always ignore that advice: My first impression of Buenos Aires reminds me more of Rome than Rio de Janeiro. Buenos Aires lacks Rio’s breathtaking landscapes and incredible hills, but it also lacks the notoriously visible hillside slums-favelas-that you can spot from the plane as it lands in Rio.  I’d been told countless times that Buenos Aires is a European city South-American style, but I still assumed it would approach a Brazilian metropolis more so than Paris or Madrid (neither of which I’ve actually seen, which sort of renders this whole argument irrelevant) – what I found was beautiful architecture marred by one undeniable feature: dilapidation. I guess that’s the consequence of years of economic turmoil, instability, and neoliberal restructuring, all layered on top of a rich, Iberian colonial history.

I’m frustrated with the language. I am having a really tough time with the Argentine “vos” and the peculiar way of pronouncing “ll” and “y” here. Granted, it’s been twelve hours and I’d do well to remind myself that practice, after all, does make perfect. Nonetheless, jet lag and difficulties in communicating to purchase a phone and a computer charger (of ALL the things to forget…) left me exhausted. Needless to say, my Spanish vocabulary expanded rapidly in order to make the aforementioned purchases…

The hostel experience has been a refreshingly pleasant one. Hostel Estoril is beautiful, with colorful rooms, not-so-reliable Internet, friendly staff, and visitors from all over the world. I’m embarrassed to say I double-booked a two-person room so that I could have it to myself, but I didn’t want to have a stranger sharing a room with me my first night in Argentina. Some, including myself might call me paranoid, and I admit it was an unnecessary precaution, but I don’t regret the decision. It’s been a straining and stressful 24 hours, and I’m enjoying the relative peace and quiet in my private room. The room itself is very nice with a balcony overlooking the Congreso building. I have yet to see the building up close, but from a distance it saddens me that this beautiful historic building has become so neglected-looking. After a summer in Washington, I cannot imagine our White House or Capitol with a weed at the far end of the lawn, much less a rugged-looking paint-job.

 Exhausted, yes. In fact, I wasn’t going to blog but figured I should record my first day and first impressions, as negative as they might be. Once again, I’m jet-lagged, sans caffeine, and frustrated with my feeble Spanish (which only gets worse as my energy levels decline), and I’m calling it a night soon. But what a day it’s been! I mustered up the energy to grab pizza with some fellow guests at the hostel – a couple from Canada and a guy from Australia – and heard all about the glories of universal healthcare and the endless problems of the United States. Still, cool company, good food, and fascinating surroundings. I cannot wait to see what the semester has in store!

Close to Full Circle

If it wasn’t clear already that the terrorism unleashed upon the United States on September 11th has come full circle, making its dreadful presence increasingly known in the Middle East, then the events that took place today in Iraq should remove all final doubt.

Like most people, I find the headlines monotonous and tragic. I don’t know if the front pages of despair come more from the headlines themselves or from the fact that I see the same themes rearing their ugly heads again and again. Read:  3, 15 , 56. 172 dead in blasts/bombing/(insurgent)attack(s). Retaliation. Sectoral violence. Rebels. Extremists. Death. Destruction. For a journalist writing on the array of conflicts in the Middle East, a Thesaurus of Depressing Terms would sadly be of use. It’s an ironic lesson in creativity, in innovation: put it in the passive tense, active tense, change the verbing around so that there is some day-to-day and year-to-year variation in the stories covering what has become a permanent conflict zone.

Today’s New York Times article, “Major Attacks in Baghdad Reveal Iraq’s Vulnerability” by Sam Dagher, was particularly upsetting to me. Huge blasts in Baghdad, calculated by groups yet unknown but likely affiliated with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and its cohort, the Islamic State of Iraq, killed nearly a hundred and wounded six-hundred more. These initial figures, like most, will likely only augment if and when rescuers make headway sifting through the structural and human debris.

More than other attacks, this one to me is reminiscent of September 11th in that extremist groups are targeting symbolic symbols of power (in this case the Foreign and Finance Ministries in Baghdad) and in doing so killing innocent civilians. Asymmetric warfare at its finest and most disgusting. Islamic extremists that first took out their hatred halfway across the world, bombing and killing thousands of unsuspecting Americans on September 11th, should realize that their actions gave further impetus to a trend that uplifts hatred and negates all possibility of peace and reconciliation.

America’s positive or negative presence in Iraq aside, the simple fact remains: extremism operates globally and locally, and its presence in one place merely fuels counter-extremism in another. One act of terror opens up the proverbial can of worms that no one seems to know how to weld back together. Hatred proliferates, the violence continues, and the headlines remain the same: monotonous and tragic.

My hope? America has left Iraq to handle security on its own. That makes today’s strike one that hits closer to home, one that marks what could be one of the lowest point in Iraq’s modern history. For the Iraqis – moderates and extremists alike-, there is no third party to blame, and I have faith that the forces of moderation will prevail in calling for a security force capable of preventing future attacks like today’s. My feeble hope comes from the very fact that acts of terror make us all – Americans and Iraqis alike – eager for a peaceful future (relatively) free of attacks. Perhaps the events of today will serve as the catalyzing factor that converts that eagerness for peace into action.

Searching for Dignity

Today, I had the opportunity to attend yet another intriguing discussion on U.S.-Cuba relations. Author and professor Lars Schoultz came to the Wilson Center to speak on his latest book, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic. Clearly the U.S.-Cuba relationship is dysfunctional. Why? America is (or was) a rational country, and we generally adopt a pretty pragmatist approach towards foreign policy. Well, Cuba is the exception.

Fifty years of U.S. Cuba policy have gotten us nowhere. One would think the utter failure of the embargo to induce regime change in Cuba would lead to a rethinking of that policy, but it hasn’t. We always here about the business, national security, and electoral interests underlying U.S. policy towards Cuba, or any country for that matter, but Schoultz goes a bit further in explaining why it is that the United States has adopted again and again ineffective Cuba policies.

U.S. policy on Cuba is not just about investment, national security, and electoral politics. It’s about an underlying “mental software” that has framed U.S. attitudes towards Cuba since the two countries first encountered each other. In terms of sheer size and numbers, the Cuba doesn’t matter to the United States. In other words, Cuba (and the rest of Latin America) is of relative unimportance to the U.S. We’re clearly the stronger country, and there’s only so much our neighbors to the South can do about that (although I personally think this could change in the next few years with the rise of my beloved Brasil). Schoultz gave an example of this view among policymakers of Cuba’s historic unimportance to U.S. interests: In response to accusations by Castro that newly inaugurated Reagan was a “threat to world peace,” U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig responded thus:  “You just give me the word and I’ll turn that f***ing island into a parking lot.”

I’ll come back to this in a minute, as it inspired the title of this blog. In the meantime, I’ll finish summarizing Schoultz’s  presentation.

So what is this underlying “mental software” that drives the United States’ irrational policy towards Cuba? In addition to believing that Cuba is relatively unimportant (and easily convertible into a parking lot), there’s also the idea that Cuba needs to be “uplifted” by the United States. From the U.S. perspective, the Cubans have never been able to “uplift” themselves, reflecting the U.S. view of Cuba as a “retarded” branch of the human species. Schoultz backed this up with a few quotations made by foreign policy officials throughout history and noted that even though today’s politically correct environment doesn’t permit such blatantly racist remarks, the underlying belief in Cuban inferiorty is still there. I agree, but I think it’s changing – one of the perks of globalization.

The problem with all of this is that Cuba doesn’t necessarily want to be “uplifted” by the United States. Of course, this is only one perspective in the debate. I’m fairly convinced. If the U.S. “uplifts” (i.e. induces a regime change favorable to U.S. interests) Cuba through institutions like U.S. Agency for International Development and National Endowment for Democracy, Cuba doesn’t get to grow up. Cuba is stripped of its ability to act of its own accord. Granted, this is the very situation that exists under the Castro regime, but it seems fairly apples to apples to me. For the United States to essentially handpick a Cuban leader and propel him to power through legitimate, democratic elections (like we’ve done throughout the Middle East), we’re adopting another favorite U.S.  tactic: the band-aid. My guess is a new ruler, backed by the U.S., would rise to power with high hopes and popular support, excitement about liberal democracy, and hopes for economic development under a capitalistic system. Then, something would go awry: the economy won’t grow fast enough, hurricanes will hit, the U.S. will decide to finally start supporting human rights across the board and refuse to support Cuban industries, etc. etc.

I know I’m being pessimistic, but the “institutionalization of the White Man’s Burden” that Schoultz’s talked about far more eloquently than I am doing here is something I see as counter-productive. It discredits democracy, because democracy is something that has to come from the ground up. You can’t have a dictator who sets up a democracy – it doesn’t work that way. If the Cubans insist loudly enough on a democratic regime, they’ll get it one day. And with it they’ll get the dignity they’ve been searching for for so long.

Dignity is a key word here. I’ve read a few articles on different developing countries and the one thing that shows up again and again is this search for “dignity” on the part of emerging countries. Dignity doesn’t come with handouts. It doesn’t come with aid. It doesn’t come with U.S.-imposed democracy. The U.S. can certainly facilitate change and acquisition of “dignity” in other countries (and at home, although that’ll be a later blog), but it can’t deliver “dignity” wrapped in a pretty box with a red, white, and blue ribbon. If it were that easy, we wouldn’t have the security issues we face today.

Dignity comes from pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. That’s how the United States rose from backwater to superpower in the course of several hundred years, and it’s time other countries started looking to that for guidance. It’s time for the U.S. to export its successful model of setting high standards, recognizing great potential, and capitalizing on opportunity. Nowhere in that model is there anything pertaining to waiting around for someone else to “lift us up.” I think the United States would do well to remind itself of this, especially given current circumstances. In the meantime, I also don’t think it’s a bad idea for other countries – especially developing countries ready to take off – to give this model, this pursuit of DIGNITY, some thought.

What Iran Inspired Me to Do

This will be a short post for two reasons. First of all, I’m exhausted. Secondly, I really want to finish another Persian lesson! In light of the fascinating events in Iran at the moment, I’ve decided to teach myself the Persian alphabet (and eventually language, ideally)… By the way, if anyone has any clarification on whether it’s more correct to call it Persian or Farsi, I’d welcome the suggestions. I keep finding conflicting reports.

A favorite advisor of mine (shout out to TOP!) has been encouraging me to study a non-Western language for quite some time now. I’d planned to study Arabic after my wonderful experience in Dr. Kimball’s Islam class, but then Summer 2008 in Brazil came along. I decided to spend more time focusing on my Portuguese, and I put learning a non-Western language on the backburner.

Then, last Sunday, I found myself rather caught up by the CNN Reports on Iran. It’s like Tienanmen, only 10 years later and in a different country… I think we’ll be talking about these events often in the years to come. Well, Iran is interesting – a modern state with a religious government that, at least until recently, seemed somewhat compatible with democracy, especially when compared to neighboring secular regimes in the region – , and the Farsi alphabet is cool, and I love languages, and I wasn’t really in the mood to see any museums… So, I decided to start my non-Western language studies. I love it – learning a new alphabet is like linguistics and jigsaw puzzles all in one, two things I shamelessly enjoy.

This breaks up my Latin American focus. However, I feel like I’m getting plenty of Portuguese practice at my internship, and spending next fall in Buenos Aires, Argentina is sure to help with my Spanish. I like the novelty of a new language, and what better place to look at right now than Iran?

Being in the capital is just SO exciting! It makes me want to do and learn so much!!! Yesterday, I heard Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza of the Organization of American States speak at the Inter-American Dialogue. Tomorrow I have an Israel-Palestine Peace Advocacy Project kickoff meeting – an issue I know far too little about. Next Tuesday, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is visiting the Wilson Center. Later that day, I’m planning to hear author Daniel Erikson talk about his recent book on Cuba.

My only complaint about all of this is that it involves extra time on the DC Metro, which has been flat-out miserable since the tragic events that occurred on Monday. If I didn’t have to wear high heels all day, and if I lived within the actual District, I’d opt for walking…