Shortly following the official announcement of Biden’s victory, our Central America Task Force gathers for its meeting. The joy here is a bit more restrained. All wondering how the countries these people come from or work in and all care about will fare in a new administration. The major fact impact al the countries is of course the hurricane. In Nicaragua, Puerta Cabezas is all but destroyed. Aid to tjhe regional’s forbidden and the Ortega government diverting the aid like Somoza after the earthquake. In the resistance, La Alianza and the Coalicion seem to have split on economic and class bases. The Alianzacistas feeling they would do better with Trump. Efforts are underway to try and restore the working agreement. Tens of thousands have died of covid while only 1300 are recognized, the government continues it be in denial and testing (around $200) beyond the average person’s capacity. ‘Foreign agency” and “cyber security” acts have clamped down on civil liberty. Election reform is taking place in advance of the 2021 election but not at the executive level. The second harvest has now been lost and a food crisis looms. Increased land demands for beef are eating into the rain forest.
Guatemala is experiencing landslides. Villages are cut off from communication. Government corruption hinders aid. The effort to control covid disintegrating with no access to testing in the villages. The whole situationwill continue forcing people north. And covid makes accompaniment impossible. And the Covid crisis has increased stress for activists.
In Honduras, there is flooding in the San Pedro Sula area.There too crops wiped out. Efforts to build for tourism on the Atlantic Coast are impacting the Garifona Community.
In El Salvador, there has been a showdown between the government and the independent digital journal El Faro over its investigative journalism resulting in a crack down., Covid has hit hard. After a late summer dip, new cases are now spiking to nearly 600 a day.
There is of course hope for a more humane approach to the region. We need or start with the tens of thousands of Central Americans stuck in covid infested encampments on the Mexican side of the border unable to exercise their internationally recognized right to an asylum hearing. And every factor we’ve heard about will just keep pushing them north.
11/9
and vote they did....
along my trek
Sunday morning I sleep later than I wanted to.I go out to buy my Sunday Times for my ritual of coffee and pastry and news but the papers are gone. I begin a determined search, not wanting to give up. And between Harlem at 135th Street and the Upper West Side at 71st, covering nearly six miles back and forth, not a single Times. All gone. The ironic thing is, I was not looking for a souvenir. I want the magazine for the crossword puzzle.
Family medical crises are complexly complicated by covid making decisions about travel and chlldren and quarantines
Get your Biden Harris t-shirts here
Last night’s celebrations have left Bar 9 completely out of chicken wings for my Sunday night gig. Even though the cub bans “political music,” I dedicate Johnny Nash’s “I can see clearly now the rain is gone” to yesterday’s victory.
I notice that the one thing the election crisis did was to delay the annual day after Halloween appearance of Christmas decorations. I saw thefirst ones going up yesterday.
Obviously, the first thing our “underground” group talks about is Biden’s choice ofKamala Harris as running mate. Joel says voting against Biden -Harris would be like voting against Bilbo Baggins and Frodo.The Eye of Sauron is raging in the land.Steve P maintainsthat our country would never elect a true left progressive.
We talk about voting versus building a movement. How it's not either/or, it’s both and. We have to deal with the moment.Russ is convened that the student loans crisis was created to occupy students and keep them out of the streets like they were in the ’60’s. Steve P feels this is at best half true.In either event since 1970, the cost of an eduction has tripled. He sees this as a function of a society committed to material expansion.
The issues we are concerned about:
* health care
* prison reform
* Student debt
* Deployment of troops overseas and military funding.
Russ quotes Erica Chenowith’s ‘Ted Talk” where she compares the success ofnon-violent movements to violent revolutions, with more success on the side of non-violence.(https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#search/russ%40commonsoul.com?projector=1) For Joel this is like a kid who is given a protocol by a doctor who only half heartedly follows and then blames the doctor when it doesn’t work.We have to compete the whole therapy.
Steve P points out that since 1776, the US has had only 16 years without a war. The Peoples’ Republic of China, on the other hand, has had no wars since 1949.
Someone point out that turmoil is literally turning the soil, the moil.
Our job requires nuance.Much as we support the Poor Peoples’ Campaign, we realize that it has not had widespread awareness to date. We need to spread that further. (https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/)
Anyway we look at it, there’s work to be done,,,
****
Our Central America work group gathers.
In Honduras, a giant road sign reads ‘Where is the Money? Expressing the belief that international aid has been highjacked by those charge. International flights should begin again this weekend. The health system has collapsed.
In Guatemala, it’s a bipolarbouncebetween tight restrictions and laissez faire. There’s a daily curfew. No public transportation. Hunger, no food. Again, here too, the question, where's the money? They speak of the pacto de corruptos, the pact of the corrupt. Including even judicial corruption.Covid19 as an excuse for remilitarization. States of siege declared to extend government control even where no protests are present.
In El Salvador, theres’a similar use of covid to justify military expansion. Only here, the Bukele government has less support from his supporters and the government.
In Nicaragua, the head of the Protestant Council (CEPAD) has died of Covid. There is concern about the role of USAID as the 2021 election grows closer. Mass gatherings have finally stopped. The July19th revolution celebration was a very circumscribed event with onlya few dignitaries invited. They try to continue as if all is normal with 70-80000 dead, many deaths listed pneumonia and not Covid 19.
Cost Rica has does well with virus control but has growing xenophobia against people from other countries, especially Nicaraguans. Visitors from the US are now banned. Only 500-600 cases and 11 deaths. Running out of tests. Nicaragua demands a test for those trying to returnto the country and charges $150 a test at the border.
Dennis quickly covers South America. Brazil has 80000 deaths and 20 million infected. Chile’s privatized society has left many uncared for. Ban of transports is keeping oxygen tanks from reaching those who need them. If you don’t have a job you're on your own.
In the meantime, lack of attention due to Covid has seen a return of tuberculosis. Drugs for HIV patients are deteriorating in quality and disappearing. Dengue and CICA returning.
Somehow, with people afraid to leave the US, remisas, dollars sent back have not drastically declined.Deportatios have continued from the US even with airports closed.
Tim's new trombone
I have to go for a walk. What makesmy day, Tim has a new trombone. Praise the Lord.
It feels like we’re in another open season on black lives. First the jogger, Ahmand Arbery, and then with a chilling sense of deja vu, Floyd George dies gasping the words, I can’t breathe. This in a context where black and brown people are dying at a rate twice that of the general population in coronavirusworld. And predictably, the explosion of rage at a reality that alway comes back. These stories are so familiar, we struggle to remember the names and keep them order. Each one seems definitive as if they should be the last, but there they are again. And with the explosion of rage, the clucking of tongues and wagging of fingers saying this is not the way. Until a president says Where there is looting, there will be shooting…. One can be by principle against violence and at the same time understand that in the face of this rage, silence is the most appropriate response. As long as there is no owning of the problem of continued white privilege, no confession of its deadly oppression, no acts of amends let alone reparations, no engaged commitment to deconstruct the institutional architecture of white privilege, we have nothing to say. Absolutely nothing.
****
Our Presbyterian national work group on Central America meets to discuss what next. We worked for two years on a report to be made at this summer’s General Assembly and now that report …as well as all other social justiceactions…are put off until 2022.At one level, we’re okay with this. Our report was BC, before corona. The tendencies, dynamics, social trends have beenexacerbated and brought to painful new levels in the pandemic. In similar, but also unique ways in each setting. Where do we stand today?
* Honduras has had approaching 5000 cases and 250 deaths. They have had lockdown.Increasing authoritarianism on the part of the government.
* Guatemala. The government has declared total weekend lockdowns. The first time they did this with only 3 hours notice. Some had no time to get home. Most badly hurt are those working in the informal market of food and goods. Believing the the virus in Guatemala was largely fueled by infected persons deported back to Guatemala from the US, there are no longer flights to or from the US with the exception of continuing deportation flights. Communities are so frightened of returning persons that there are “literally lynchings”.The country that so honored migrants and the importance of their remisas that statue was erected in Salcalja in the highlands now violently rejects the returnees.
el migrante
The US embassy arranges ways for US citizens to get out. And Guatemalans with papersare stranded in the US.
* El Salvador is a mixed bag of increased authoritarian control, “for the good of the people.”Numbers and data seem accurate and transparent but the government wields greater control.
* Costa Rica had a spike last week, but has had only 1000 cases, 10 deaths and 12 hospitalized. The biggest issue is being a neighbor to an out of control Nicaragua. A ban has been placed on transportistas, trucks going through the country with goods from or to Nicaragua, There are also several hundred Nicaraguans stranded in Costa Rica. The government has worked very hard to quell anti-nicaraguan emotions on the part of the public and Nicas organized a Gracias demonstration.Costa Rica has also detained Salvadorans. Working very hard to control its borders. Honduras too has closed its border to Nicaragua making it a pariah country.
* Our workers from Nicaragua say that it is too painful to talk about. No protocols in place. In cities like Masaya, the public hospitals are a disaster. Two Baptist pastors have died. Numbers are non-existent. Death certificates do not identify cover casualties. Nothing in place. The well off are sequestered and people try to improvise, but there is simply no real response. Long time Moravian pastor and activist Norman Bent has died.
W e struggle to understand Ortega’s behavior. His closest ally Cuba has engaged strenuously in treatment, prevention and research. Even Venezuela has a plan in place.It seems historically bizarre that Ortega’s closest models seem to be Brazil’s Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.The newly born again Christian Daniel’s wife and co-President Rosario at first proclaimed “God will protect us.” Some believe she actually believed that. Then there was the claim that because Nicaragua was a young country and covid19 affected the old, there was nothing to worry about. Then the economic argument that Ortega’s base worked in the informal economy and could not afford to be quarantined. Then claim Golpistas set the virus loose. And some believe there is a cynical plan here to “cull” the population of weak and vulnerable people who only drain society. (Ortega's base?) There has been a recent papel blanco claiming that they are pursuing a Swedish model seeking herd immunity. So all over the map. And bodies continue to pile up, removed in the middle of the night, taken to mass graves. Not yet like Guayaquil, where corpses filled the streets, but getting there.
Our friend Dennis gives us a quick overview of South America. Brazil is a total “shitstorm.” Sao Paolo has 500 deaths a day. Twenty thousand now dead. Chile is spinning out of control because of the complete private nature of the health care system. In Peru, people are fleeing Lima and heading back to el campo bringing the virus with them.
Meanwhile, due to falling income, the PCUSA is cutting its budget by 20% and the future of mission partners is uncertain.
****
My friend Steve asked me to preach for his Shavout service. Here’s what I had to say:
It’s exciting to be with you on Shavuos. This weekend the Christian community celebrates Pentecost.Shavuos is 50 days after Passover.Pentecost is 50 days after Easter.(That’s what the Greek word means …counting 50…)Shavous celebrates the receiving of the 10 Commandments.Pentecost celebrates the receiving of the Holy Spirit. I always have got to remind my folks that the Holy Spirit didn't just show up fo sth first time 50 days after Easter. That it had been there since day one when the breath of God, ruah, blew across the waters and separated the dry from the seas. And when the breath of God blew into clay and made earth man, Adam. It’s always been there. But the point is, whoever wrote the Pentecost story in the Christian scriptures clearly believe there was a direct connecton between the 10 commandments and the Holy Spirit.
Now about those 10 commandments.What I would give for leaders who took them as principles to live by. Not a list of things to do. They are lo, that is no, don’t. Not do….And here’s the thing. I have come to think that the first commandment - no other gods- is central. Definitive.That every other commandment is a variation of, illustration of the first. They are all about making something else, something not God, into an idol the takes our attention and takes us off the path. Coveting, envy, adultery lying, theft, even murder….are putting something else above God. Makingsomething else your God. Maybe keeping focus on these basic principles becomes all the more important during a time like this where we are truly responsiblefor one another. So happy Shavuot, And shabbat Shalom.
****
The day ends with West Park Open Mic. I confess a month into this, I still find ZOOM a bit elusive. (They did just add an update…). I sing I shall be released to honor Dylan's 79th birthday and Ripple for the Grateful Dead . I’m wearing a Grateful Dead Steal Your Face t-shirt with a mask on the skull. The legend reads # wewillgetby.#wewillsurvive.
Friday, November 15, 2019
11/15
Speaking at the Symposium
My presentation at the International Symposium on Migration and Border Solidarity: Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime. Civil Resistance and the New Normal of Displacement. Ethical Cultural Society of Westchester.
CentralAmerica background...Once on a visit to Hamburg, I saw this graffiti: "...if you don't like refugees, stop creating them..." That is
perhaps the overriding theme for tonight's presentation.
You simply cannot understand today's Migration crisis without understanding role of the United States in
in creating it. This history has essentially three paradigms: 1. Monroe doctrine..1823....The US declares it intention to replace the European colonial powers
and to establish its own imperial hemispheric hegemony 2. East/west dialectic...this includes the early red scare following the Russia Revolution and extends through
the post World War II Cold War 3. The post cold war international economic competition
Early expressions of the US desire to establish hemispheric hegemony include the Mexican War (1846-48),
in which the upper 40% or more of Mexcio was seized by force and then the Spanish American War of 1898
in which the US essentially took over the remnants of the Spain's imperial holdings.
Central American intervention began with the US marine supported establishment of Somoza dictatorship
in Nicaragua,(1936-49) capped capped by the assassination of Nicaraguan independence leader Augusto
Sandino in 1934 after seven years if his fight to establish a democratic country.The Somoza family
would remain in power until 1979 when they were overthrown by the Sandinistas. (FSLN)
1954 saw the CIA supported overthrow of democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala to prevent
nationalization of the UNited Fruit Companies banana holdings.
Still fearful of the success of the Cuban revolution, seen as an outpost of Soviet power, the
1980s saw the deaths 75-90000 mainly poor and in Guatemala, indigenous people. Fear of the potential
influence of the Sandinistas following their overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, the US
sponsored the"Contra War," even turning to its arch enemy Iran as a means of arming the Contras
against the Sandinistas. This war had the further effect of turning Honduras into what one
Hoduran described as "a US aircraft carrier"
In El Salvador there was support for right wing dictatorship facing . a popular uprising with
death squads and a reign of terror with daily dumping of bodies.
The support of Rio Montt and his genocidal regime in Guatemala led to the death of thousands of
indigenous people and the destruction of eons old villages.
The Esqipulas peace accords of August 7, 1987 ushered in a new day of hope but that hope remains
but little realized. The Honduras coup of 6/28/2009 removing elected President Mel Zelaya from power
...last democratically elected President
Today we find these realities..
1.Corrupted democracies on 4 countries. * Honduras has been termed by one observer a "social-political Chernobyl" 2. Control by the narco military establishment and gangs. We cannot forget that these gangs were
"born in the USA", most specifically born in Los Angeles, their names reflect LA "hoods"...) 3. Collapse of sustainable village and rural life. This has been caused by international Agribusiness
mono crop production and destruction of sustainable indigenous seed base. A second and seriously
dangerous cause is climate change and accompanying environmental catastrophe 4. Lack of viable jobs 5. Violence 6. The control of emigration process by "coyotes" Today it costs migrants $10-12000 to be guided to the
border with accompanying sexual abuse and trafficking and frequent abandonment. The so-called "Caravans" were a self-organized effort to evade coyote system. Far from bad hombres the caravanistas
represented a responsible practical alternative to an oppressive, abusive syytemThw Former cold war dialectic now multivalent with the US, China and Russia now competing.
Especially interesting is Putin's Rusia seeking to takeover former Soviet client relationships..
China's impact on agriculture and environment is extensive including Chinese business support of
Daniel Ortega's chimeric canal plan.
The bottom line si very simple...
People will continue to leave their here as long as life is impossible where they live.
Graffiti in Hamburg "if you don't like refugees, stop creating them..."
NO walls, no militarized borders, no byzantine asylum /immigration procedures will stop their coming to
our borders...it will only force people into ever more desperate measures,
strengthen the power of gangs, coyotes and cartels and destroy families...and their very lives.
Central America random notes: . The ubiquitous tuk- tuks, scrambling around the border control area in El Salvador, where are they ferrying people from and to?
. There are armed guards in every public space in Honduras. And El Salvador. And Guatemala. With automatic weapons.
. Men don’t wear shorts. Women don’t either.
. Camionetas individually painted like works of folk art. Bearing the name of wife. Or girlfriend. Saint or Pentecostal exhortation.
. Tiendas, bodegas, barberias, casas de belleza, ferreterias with names like Rey del Mundo, Corazon de Caridad, Reina del Cielo....
. Futbol Copa de Oro on every tv.
. During the civil wars and deaths quad days I ran 5 miles a day every day. A bit crazy but...Today we are confined to patrolled bounds of our hotels, dorms....todays lawless chaos more dangerous than yesterday’s wars.
. Honduras accepts dollars as well as its own currency. Guatemala only Quetzaltes. El Salvador has just given in and made the US dollar its official currency. Pocketsful of Sacajaweas and Susan B’s ...so that’s where they all went....
US dollar coins in El Salvador
. US fast food triumphant everywhere...Mc Donald’s. Burger King. Dunkin’ Donuts. Pizza Hut. Honduras’ homegrown Pizza House has a pretty good knock off of Pizza Hut logo. Oh, and donuts are donas.
. Honduran food has the baleada with convoluted story of a woman tortilla seller who got shot, as in, I'll buy from the shot one. And rice and beans, gallos pintos in Nicaragua, painted roosters, are casimientos, or married ones, in Honduras.
. Morning juices are high fructose concoctions. The real stuff is all exported. . Leaving Tegucigalpa....miles and miles of bananas....they called them banana republics for a reason....then the miles of sugar cane...,in Guatemala cornfields crawl up hill sides and hold on for dear life...,
. “Auto hotels” are everywhere along the highways . A place for that illicit triste. Or maybe there’s just no privacy and everyone deserves a little romance...
. In the highlands, Guatemalan men and women in traditional dress. Including skirts for men.
Guatemalan women
Man in traditional dress
. The two monuments we see in Guatemala we see are a warrior chief who resisted the colonizers and the statue migrant. A story without words dances between these statues.
. At an overlook high in the mountains, in a market filled with folk crafts, a New York Yankee hat for sale.
2nd row up, Yankee hat for sale
. Many of the people I have spoken to were not even alive the last time I was here.
. Stunning how in the midst of poverty one can always see the breathtaking beauty of Gods creation. Despite our efforts to destroy it, it is
Shortly following the official announcement of Biden’s victory, our Central America Task Force gathers for its meeting. The joy here is a bit more restrained. All wondering how the countries these people come from or work in and all care about will fare in a new administration. The major fact impact al the countries is of course the hurricane. In Nicaragua, Puerta Cabezas is all but destroyed. Aid to tjhe regional’s forbidden and the Ortega government diverting the aid like Somoza after the earthquake. In the resistance, La Alianza and the Coalicion seem to have split on economic and class bases. The Alianzacistas feeling they would do better with Trump. Efforts are underway to try and restore the working agreement. Tens of thousands have died of covid while only 1300 are recognized, the government continues it be in denial and testing (around $200) beyond the average person’s capacity. ‘Foreign agency” and “cyber security” acts have clamped down on civil liberty. Election reform is taking place in advance of the 2021 election but not at the executive level. The second harvest has now been lost and a food crisis looms. Increased land demands for beef are eating into the rain forest.
There is of course hope for a more humane approach to the region. We need or start with the tens of thousands of Central Americans stuck in covid infested encampments on the Mexican side of the border unable to exercise their internationally recognized right to an asylum hearing. And every factor we’ve heard about will just keep pushing them north.
