Elsewhere Today 451
Aljazeera:
Iraq bombings shatter Ramadan calm
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2007
14:57 MECCA TIME, 11:57 GMT
Bombings across Iraq have killed 37 people and wounded 74 in less than 24 hours, shattering what had been a relatively calm holy month of Ramadan.
Two car bombs exploded in a shopping street in eastern Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 20 others, while in Basra on Tuesday a suicide bomber killed three policemen and wounded 20 people.
The Basra bombing occurred at the entrance of a police headquarters, raising more fears over the southern city's deteriorating security situation.
General Jalil Khalaf, a local police chief, said the bomb killed three people, one of them a policeman.
A hospital official confirmed the deaths and said that 20 more were wounded, among them six policemen.
The overwhelmingly Shia city has been the scene of inter-Shia rivalry between the al-Mahdi army, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Fadhila party.
The security forces, especially the police, have been widely infiltrated by the Shia groups whose rivalry over control of southern Iraq's largest city has escalated since British forces were withdrawn in early September.
Also on Tuesday, police in Baquba, which lies north of Baghdad, revised the toll from Monday's suicide attack on a village mosque.
Death toll rises
Brigadier General Khaider al-Timimi, a police official, said: "We have a total of 28 people killed and 34 wounded."
The bombing had targeted a Shia-Sunni reconciliation meeting at a mosque.
An Iraqi security official said the meeting was between the Shia al-Mahdi Army and the Sunni armed group known as the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.
In recent months the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution have joined forces with the US military in securing volatile Sunni Arab regions across Iraq.
Meanwhile, Tuesday's double car bombing in Baghdad occurred at mid-morning outside al-Rafidain bank in Zayunah, a mixed neighbourhood.
"The blasts occurred 30 seconds apart," a security official said.
Source: Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/63E894AE-06A5-4D29-98E3-C0886604D45D.htm
AllAfrica: Yar'Adua Calls
for Global Action On Climate Change
By Elkanah Chawai
Daily Trust (Abuja) NEWS
25 September 2007
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua yesterday in New York called on the international community to increase financial and technological support to assist African countries cope with the challenges of climate change.
President Yar'Adua is in New York on a five-day working visit to the US and a high-level climate change Summit convened by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. In a statement by Senior Assistant to the President on Communications, O.J. Abuah, President Yar'Adua said that the international community needs to treat Africa as a "special case".
Contributing to the interactive debate on climate change at the headquarters of the United Nations, President Yar'Adua said: "Africa contributes the least to global warning but the region is the most vulnerable and most adversely affected by climate changes; and because African countries lack the capacity and financial resources to adapt to climate change, the international community needs to treat the continent as a special case.
"There is a critical need to intensify financial support, transfer of appropriate and affordable technology, and capacity building to assist African countries meet with the challenges of climate change. "As we approach the conference in Bali, we in Africa will like to stress the need to operationalise, as soon as possible, the Special Climate Change and Adaptation Funds to assist developing countries," President Yar'Adua said.
He announced that Nigeria will host the preparatory meeting of the African Group of Negotiations under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocols next month in Abuja to ensure the effective coordination and harmonisation of the continent's positions before the Bali conference on climate change.
Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust. All rights reserved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200709250214.html
AlterNet:
Is Keith Olbermann the Next Edward R. Murrow?
By Marvin Kitman, The Nation
Posted on September 25, 2007
The launch of Katie Couric a year ago as the anchor of the CBS Evening News was hailed by CBS as the biggest thing in news since, well, the invention of denture fixative commercials. It was also the biggest flop. The CBS Evening News Without Dan Rather or Bob Schieffer had its lowest ratings since Nielsen began tracking evening news shows in 1987. This turn of events stunned CBS executives - who had given her the famous "Kiss Me Kate" contract, which paid Couric $15 million a year - and the news consultants who thought she was the answer to CBS being mired in third place in the network news race for the past ten years. The news doctors who have been paid millions trying to fix the show for the past year have only made it worse. It didn't matter how many times the consultants got it wrong. Remember what they did to poor Dan Rather? Smile, don't smile. Wear a sweater, don't wear a sweater. Stand up to deliver the news, sit down. It is a law of the news consultancy/network relationship: If we are paying so much money, it must be right. Otherwise, why are we paying so much money?
So, as a TV critic who has logged millions of hours of viewing to help save one of my three favorite commercial networks, I decided to volunteer my services to the Save CBS Campaign. Here's what I would do: First, I would dump the Walter Cronkite school of reporting, of which Katie Couric is the latest practitioner. The objective that's-the-way-it-is style they use at all the network evening news shows is so old, so over. No wonder all the network news programs are falling in the ratings. Katie Couric is just the hardest hit.
What the evening news shows need is less "objectivity" and more analysis. The problem with objective journalism is that it doesn't exist and never did. Molly Ivins disposed of the objectivity question for all time when she observed in 1993, "The fact is that I am a 49-year-old white female, a college-educated Texan. All of that affects the way I see the world. There's no way in hell that I'm going to see anything the same way that a 15-year-old black high school dropout does. We all see the world from where we stand. Anybody who's ever interviewed five eyewitnesses to an automobile accident knows there's no such thing as objectivity."
What I'm proposing is nothing new. Before Walter Cronkite became the model "objective" newsman, there was Edward R. Murrow. In the late 1930s Murrow started the tradition of reporting the news and analyzing it, giving his opinion of what it all meant. The Murrow legend was built on his opinionated analyses on the CBS Evening News.
For those who never saw Murrow's news show, here's how it would go: After running through the headlines, he would call on reporters at home and abroad to give reports on the scene. These so-called Murrow's Boys were real TV journalists, not actors who played them on TV. CBS News in the Murrow years had people we respected because of their expertise, not because they were famous TV names. The foreign correspondents weren't empty trench coats but real experts like William Shirer, who reported from Berlin on the menace of Hitler in the 1930s. It didn't matter that Murrow's Boys were bald like David Schoenbrun, who reported from Paris in the glory days, or older than the 18-49 demographic like Dan Schorr. They were specialists in specific areas.
Then Murrow would do his closing essay, in which he would comment on some hot issue, continually treading dangerous waters: McCarthyism at home, apartheid abroad, J. Edgar Hoover, the atomic bomb, stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction - all of which he opposed. He was pro-union and anti-business. He was a dissident on US foreign policy post-World War II. He spoke out against the Truman Doctrine, which had America supporting fascist dictatorships in Greece and elsewhere because they were anti-Communist. He was against funding Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist army, which John Foster Dulles told us would retake the mainland someday, if they didn't die of old age first. He was hard on Douglas MacArthur when he took his troops across the 38th Parallel in the Korean War. He criticized the Pentagon snafus that were getting our troops killed. He was critical of US support for the French in Indochina (pre-Vietnam) and of the Eisenhower Administration's embrace of the French puppet government in Saigon led by a Riviera playboy, Bao Dai. He was against Red Channels and blacklisting and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which identified a Communist under every bed. He even attacked television itself, warning that it had the capacity to "distract, delude, amuse and insulate us."
"No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them," Murrow said. His approach was so successful that all the other network news hours copied him.
Finally, CBS president William Paley made Ed Murrow shut up - by canceling his shows. In the dark ages after Murrow, the most powerful commentary on network news was the raised eyebrow of David Brinkley after reading a piece of news on NBC. A generation of telegenic and totally uninvolved journalists followed.
In short, what CBS (and all the others) need is a new Ed Murrow. Good news! There's already one out there on the launchpad who has demonstrated his qualifications. I'm talking about Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. He has the journalistic chops and the mind, heart, instincts and courage.
Olbermann, who anchors a one-hour nightly news show on MSNBC called Countdown With Keith Olbermann, closes his show every night by saying "1,547th [for instance] day since Mission Accomplished in Iraq," an hommage to Ted Koppel's "Iran Hostage" coverage, which evolved into Koppel's late-night ABC news show Nightline (the MSNBC show was originally Countdown: Iraq). Then Olbermann throws his crumpled script at the camera, which shatters, a simulated digital effect (something Koppel never did).
"Our charge for the immediate future is to stay out of the way of the news," he explained when the show debuted on March 31, 2003. "News is news. We will not be screwing around with it," a reference to Bill O'Reilly, his rival over at Fox News in the 8 pm time slot. "It will not be a show in which opinion and facts are juxtaposed so as to appear to be the same."
Olbermann, who looks more like a high school teacher than a glitzy TV anchor, is the one who cuts and dices the news of the day into five segments, what he and his staff consider the day's top stories, illustrated with news reports from NBC News correspondents, interviews with newsmakers, whom he treats courteously, interspersed with signature witty interjections (calling 9/11 Rudolph "Giuliani's red badge of courage"), further interrupted by new ways to look at the news.
Olbermann does news quizzes and a puppet theater. Beginning with the Michael Jackson trial, he created comedic puppet "re-enactments" of news stories, using printed photographs glued to popsicle sticks, hand-held in front of a blue screen. Olbermann did the voiceovers himself. My favorites were the "Karl Rove Puppet Theatre" and the "Anna Nicole Smith Supreme Court Puppet Theatre," although the Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton puppets were not too shabby.
A segment called "Oddball" regularly assays the day's collection of weird videos, goofy stories with goofy clips of people behaving like idiots, announced with the clarion "Let's play Oddball!"
Each night he picks the Worst Person in the World, awarding a bronze medal (worse), a silver (worser) and a gold (worst). Bill O'Reilly has the distinction of winning all three top spots on a single broadcast (the night of November 30, 2005); as of June he had gone gold fifty-seven times.
What I like about Olbermann as a newscaster is that he makes the evening news look like life itself, very absurd but serious, very angry, very stupid, very silly, very snarky, very much about pop culture. He gives the news in a language that can be understood by news audiences today. It is refreshing to hear a straight newsman making cultural references. If the voting goes heavily Democratic, he told the co-anchor of MSNBC's election night 2006 coverage, Chris Matthews, "you might see some sort of shift toward getting out of that war faster than Britney Spears just got out of her marriage." His was the only show where I could stand to hear about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Brangelina, Britney and estranged husband Kevin Federline, American Idol results or other stories he always told us his producers were forcing him to cover.
This is Olbermann's second stint at MSNBC. In 1997-98 he hosted a talk show called The Big Show, but he left the network after clashes with management over an edict from the suits to focus on the unfolding Monica Lewinsky scandal, which especially sickened him.
This time around, MSNBC execs gave him the freedom to do the news his way, since they had nothing to lose. Nineteen other shows had already failed opposite The O'Reilly Factor since 1996. Countdown is now the highest-rated show on MSNBC, which doesn't say much, as MSNBC is ratings-challenged. Still, his ratings in July were up 88 percent over last year.
What I like most about K.O., as he is called offscreen, is his passion. He goes after the dragon - which, as Murrow's producer, Fred Friendly, used to say, is the real function of news.
Olbermann's Special Comments, as they are labeled, make up the core of my pitch as his volunteer advocate. They were off the radar scopes until September 2006, when Rumsfeld said anyone who was critical of the "war on terror" or the war in Iraq or of Administration policies was the equivalent of the people who appeased Hitler in the 1930s. "I'm not a big fan of being called a Nazi appeaser or even a parallel Nazi," K.O. said. "I took that personally." And he began eviscerating Rumsfeld.
He has done twenty-two of the "specials" (as of July 19), all of which earn a place for him on the Mount Olympus of commercial TV anchors. The July 4 special on his reaction to Scooter Libby's pardon, explaining the historical imperatives for Bush and Cheney to resign, was the Gettysburg Address of K.O.'s commentaries:
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.... I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it ...
For ten minutes, Olbermann spoke with fierce clarity and surgical precision, drawing a comparison to President Nixon's resignation. He had obviously done his homework. His recitation of Bush's crimes concluded with his observation that the President had been "an accessory to the obstruction of justice" in the Libby case. "From Iraq to Scooter Libby," Olbermann said at the time, "Bush and Cheney have lost Americans' trust and stabbed this nation in the back. It's time for them to go." The highest praise I can give is to say I can imagine Ed Murrow speaking those words.
I'm not saying Olbermann is Ed Murrow. He is, however, what Ed Murrow might sound like today, changing with the times as a good newsman should.
I also realize the format of Countdown, with its mix of serious and lite news, might seem a little schizophrenic to older folks who haven't kept up with the crazy way the culture is evolving. But it's what has to be done to get the literally tens of people who watch MSNBC to pay attention.
My final recommendation is that what would make The O Factor - or whatever they would call the Olbermann-anchored evening news - work is for CBS News to bite the bullet and be the first to go to an hourlong format, something the network began debating in Walter Cronkite's day. The network under Bill Paley wrestled with its conscience and always lost, preferring a half-hour of lucrative syndicated trash following the news.
Would it work? There would be gnashing of teeth, rending of garments at Black Rock. There would be outrage from the on-the-air zombies now doing the news from the Land of the Living Dead. If the new concept caught on, they too would need to find something to say about the news they are mindlessly reporting. It would change the face of network TV news.
TV is an art form that suffers from kleptomania. They would rather steal something that works than try anything original. So much attention will be paid to The O Factor that the other networks will be looking for their own Olbermanns, newsmen with differing values and opinions. After all, in Ed Murrow's day, right-wingers Fulton Lewis Jr. and Walter Winchell were also on the air.
A whole new audience will emerge for the network evening news when it stops being, as Arianna Huffington put it, "the referee, pretending there are two sides to every issue." As Murrow suggested, there actually could be three, or even one.
Naturally, CBS won't buy the Kitman Plan, because I'm giving it to them free of charge. In TV news, they don't believe anything is good unless they spend millions to ruin the likes of Couric and Rather. And that's the way it is.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/63464/
Asia Times:
'Hitler' does New York
By Pepe Escobar
Sep 26, 2007
CBS reporter: But the American people, sir, believe that your country [Iran] is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world. You must have known that visiting the World Trade Center site would infuriate many Americans.
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad: Well, I'm amazed. How can you speak for the whole of the American nation? You are representing the media and you're a reporter. The American nation is made up of 300 million people. There are different points of view over there.
The new "Hitler", at least for a while, has lodged in a prosaic midtown Manhattan hotel. Contrary to a plethora of demonizing myths, this Persian werewolf did not evade his abode to eat kids for breakfast in Central Park. Instead, he turned on a carefully calibrated public relations charm offensive. Whatever his polemical views, for a now-seasoned head of state like Ahmadinejad to turn astonishing US disinformation on Iran, the Middle East and US foreign policy for his own advantage ended up as a string of slam-dunks.
Articulate, evasive, manipulative, the Iranian president - even lost in translation - was especially skillful in turning US corporate media's hysteria upside down consistently to paint those in the administration of President George W Bush as incorrigible warmongers. Both at the National Press Club, via video-conference, and live at Columbia University, Ahmadinejad even had the luxury of joking about fabled Western "freedom of information" - as so many are still "trying to prevent people from talking".
He scored major points among the target audience that really matters: worldwide Muslim public opinion. Contrasting with a plethora of corrupt Arab leaders, Ahmadinejad has been carefully positioning himself as a Muslim folk hero capable of standing up to Western arrogance and defending the rights of the weak (the Palestinians). The way he deflected US ire on the enemy's own turf will only add to his standing.
At the United Nations this week, a remix of 2002 couldn't be more inevitable: it's the same soundtrack of tortuous diplomacy with the bongos and congas and special effects of war beefing up the background. By going on preemptive public relations, Ahmadinejad was clever enough not to commit the same mistake of the previous, "invisible" Hitler, Saddam Hussein.
He was also clever in preempting ear-splitting rumors of a next war: "Talk about war is basically a propaganda tool." One of his key points may not have made an impact in the US, but resonated widely around the world, and not only in the Muslim street: "We oppose the way the US government tries to rule the world"; there are "more humane methods of establishing peace". He assured that no Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, adding that "regional countries in the Middle East don't need outside interference".
On uranium enrichment, he repeatedly stressed that it is Iran's right, as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to conduct a "legal" and "peaceful" nuclear program. "Why should a nation depend on another?" But if the US would engage in peace talks, so would Iran: "International law is equal to everyone." As for the US and France, they "are not the world" - a reference to both the Bush administration's and the French saber-rattling. "France is a very cultured society, it would not support war." Humanitarian imperialist French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was summarily brushed aside: he needs to attain "higher maturity".
On Israel, Ahmadinejad said, "We do not recognize a regime based on discrimination, occupation and expansionism," and he said that country "last week attacked Syria and last year attacked Lebanon"; pretty much what most of the Middle East agrees with. He may have granted that the Holocaust did take place, but the world needs "more research on it". The Holocaust is not his main point: it always serves as an intro to one of his key themes - why should the Palestinians pay the price for something that happened in Europe? He said he wanted a "clear" answer. No one deigned to provide it.
To put in perspective the Iranian hostage crisis in the early days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he said one would need to "go back to US intervention in Iran since 1953". His hosts preferred to change the subject. Humming non-stop in the background noise was the "wipe Israel of the map" myth. No one had the intellectual decency to point out that what he really said, in Farsi, in a speech on October 2005 to an annual anti-Zionist conference in Iran, was that "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time". He was doing no more than quoting the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - hoping that an unfair (toward Palestine) regime would be replaced by another one more equitable; he was not threatening to nuke Israel. Warmongers anyway don't bother to check the facts.
You've got to change your evil ways
US corporate media's treatment of the new "Hitler" seemed to have been scripted by the same ghostwriter lodged in the same (White) House. On 60 Minutes, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was firing on all cylinders for a casus belli - from "There's no doubt Iran is providing the IEDs" (improvised explosive devices, in Iraq) to "Why don't you just stop denying that you're building a nuclear bomb?" Ahmadinejad was bemused, to say the least. CNN for its part could not resist proclaiming, "His state even sponsors terrorism ... in some cases even against US troops in Iraq."
Ahmadinejad succinctly unveiled to the Associated Press the reasons for so much warmongering - in a way that even a kid would understand: "I believe that some of the talk in this regard arises first of all from anger. Secondly, it serves the electoral purposes domestically in this country. Third, it serves as a cover for policy failures over Iraq."
An even more appalling measure of Western arrogance - also speaking volumes about "us" when confronted with the incomprehensible "other" - is the diatribe with which the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, chose to "greet" his guest, a head of state. Bollinger, supposedly an academic, spoke about confronting "the mind of evil". His crass behavior got him 15 minutes of fame. Were President Bush to be greeted in the same manner in any university in the developing world - and motives would abound also to qualify him as a "cruel, petty dictator" - the Pentagon would have instantly switched to let's-bomb-them-with-democracy mode.
Ahmadinejad, to his credit, played it cool. Stressing, in a quirky fashion, his "academic" credentials, he unleashed a poetic rant on "science as a divine gift" just to plunge once again into the Palestinian tragedy. He stressed how Iran "is friendly with the Jewish people" - which is a fact (at least 30,000 Jews live undisturbed in Iran). Then back to the key point: Why are the Palestinians paying the price for something they had nothing to do with? Iran has a "humanitarian proposal" to solve the problem - a referendum where Palestinians would choose their own political destiny.
In the absence of informed debate, Ahmadinejad stressed his points the way he wanted to. Iran does not need a nuclear bomb. Iran does not want to manufacture a nuclear bomb. But telling other countries what they can and cannot do is another matter entirely. He is more than aware that the nuclear dossier is "a political issue" - a question of "two or three powers who think they can monopolize science and knowledge". It's up to a sovereign Iran to decide whether it needs nuclear fuel. "Why should we need fuel from you? You don't even give us spare parts for aircraft."
He also stressed that Iran is a victim of terrorism - a reference to the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a micro-terrorist group by any other name, formerly protected by Saddam, now supported by the Bush administration; but he was also referring to destabilizing black ops by US special forces in the strategically crucial provinces of Khuzestan and Balochistan.
Ahmadinejad was not questioned in detail on internal repression, intimidation of independent journalists, what his Interior Ministry is up to, from a crackdown on women not wearing the veil properly to more sinister, unsubstantiated "collaboration with America" charges. When executions were mentioned, he quipped, "Don't you have capital punishment in the US?" - and defended them on the ground that these were drug smugglers.
Nobody questioned him on his disastrous economic policies, on the competence of his ministers, on an embryonic pact between Iran and Saudi Arabia to prevent another war in the Middle East, on the upcoming, pivotal summit of the Caspian littoral states in Tehran where Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Vladimir Putin will discuss what happens next - from technical aspects of Iran's nuclear program to Bush's warmongering impetus. Anyway, Ahmadinejad made it clear: Iran is "ready to negotiate with all countries". The same could not be said about the Bush White House.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would have liked this UN General Assembly to discuss seriously climate change and the looming water wars. But nobody - not even diplomats - is really paying attention. It's all about Bush against the "new Hitler". Gaza is being collectively punished, and Tony "invade Iraq" Blair bleats platitudes about "peace". About 100,000 brave monks are in the streets of Yangon defying Myanmar's military junta - and the UN is not even listening ("Bring democracy to the Burmese people," anyone?). It's just war, war, war.
New Yorkers may have shown the new "Hitler" a very ugly face, but at least they should know the war remix's hard sell is not dubbed in Farsi.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II26Ak01.html
Guardian: Hizbullah boycott
halts election of Lebanon president
James Sturcke and agencies
Tuesday September 25, 2007
Lebanon's parliament today postponed a crucial session to elect a new president after pro-Syria politicians boycotted the event.
The vote to select a successor to Emile Lahoud, who is due to stand down in November, has been put back to October 23, after too few MPs turned up to make a quorum.
The postponement had been expected after the opposition party, Hizbullah, vowed to boycott the session to block the west-leaning government from electing a president from its own ranks.
Mohammed Kabbani, a member of the anti-Syria parliamentary majority, said more than 65 lawmakers attended, a simple majority in the 128-seat assembly, but fewer than 85 necessary for the two-thirds quorum.
Hizbullah politicians stayed in the parliament's hallways ignoring a bell summoning members into the chamber.
The telecommunications minister, Marwan Hamadeh, a leading member of the governing coalition, said the postponement was "to give an opportunity to efforts to reach consensus" on the divisive issue. However, Walid Jumblatt, a leading member of the majority, indicated that a compromise might not be acceptable to some government supporters.
"I don't believe in dialogue with murderers," he said.
Earlier, police and troops sealed off central Beirut and escorted politicians to parliament after last week's assassination of the pro-government MP Antoine Ghanem.
The security operation involving several thousand soldiers and police officers was aimed at allowing anti-Syria politicians to travel from a nearby heavily guarded hotel where they had taken refuge, fearing assassination.
Last Wednesday's murder sparked accusations by government supporters that Syria is targeting members of the ruling coalition, a claim denied by Damascus.
In the parliament chamber, a Lebanese flag and a portrait of Ghanem were placed on his seat. The attempt to choose a successor to Mr Lahoud, before he steps down on November 24, is expected to present a struggle between the government coalition, led by the prime minister, Fouad Siniora, and the opposition, headed by the Shia militant group Hizbullah.
Mr Siniora's majority slim majority in parliament has been reduced by the assassination of five supporters. Mr Siniora is eager to ensure the successor to the pro-Syria Mr Lahoud is more sympathetic to his party.
The ruling coalition has threatened to elect a president from within their ranks via a simple majority. Hizbullah and its allies have warned they would not recognise a candidate elected in their absence and could elect a rival.
More than a dozen declared or undeclared candidates are running for the post, three of them members of the pro-government camp, with one from the opposition.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,2176732,00.html
Jeune Afrique: Reprise des combats
entre soldats loyalistes et insurgés au Nord-Kivu
RD CONGO - 24 septembre 2007 - par AFP
Des combats ont opposé lundi des soldats gouvernementaux et des dissidents ralliés au général déchu tutsi congolais Laurent Nkunda dans trois localités du Nord-Kivu, dans l'est de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC), rompant une trêve de 18 jours.
"Les insurgés nous ont attaqué sur trois fronts à partir de 04H00 ce matin (02H00 GMT), près de Mweso, Ngungu et Karuba", a déclaré le colonel Delphin Kahimbi, commandant en second des Forces armées congolaises (FARDC) au Nord-Kivu.
Ces localités du territoire de Masisi sont situées à une cinquantaine de km au nord-ouest (Mweso), 40 km à l'ouest (Ngungu) et moins de 35 km à l'ouest (Karuba) de la capitale provinciale Goma.
"Nous sommes en situation de +défense active+. Nous gardons nos positions", a ajouté le colonel Kahimbi, indiquant qu'il ne disposait pas encore de bilan de ces combats.
De son côté, le porte-parole du mouvement politico-militaire de Nkunda, le Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP), René Abandi, a accusé les FARDC d'avoir lancé ces attaques.
Le CNDP accuse les FARDC d'être appuyées par des rebelles hutus rwandais des Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), notamment à Ngungu, et par des miliciens locaux Maï Maï regroupés au sein du mouvement Pareco (Patriotes résistants du Congo).
Le président de RDC Joseph Kabila "a déclaré la guerre contre nous. Il refuse le dialogue", a affirmé M. Abandi.
"Nous avons été informés que le président a donné l'ordre d'attaquer pour la prise de Mushake et Kitchanga (deux bastions nkundistes, proches des localités où se sont déroulés les derniers combats, ndlr). La guerre nous est imposée", a-t-il poursuivi.
Ces affrontements constituent une rupture de la trêve observée depuis le 6 septembre entre FARDC et nkundistes, après dix jours de combats ayant entraîné le déplacement de 90.000 civils dans la région.
En visite au Nord-Kivu la semaine dernière, Joseph Kabila avait déclaré qu'il n'était pas question de "négocier" avec Nkunda, visé par un mandat d'arrêt pour crimes de guerre. Il avait aussi appelé tous les dissidents - les nkundistes comme les combattants Maï Maï ou autres milices d'auto-défense - à rejoindre le processus national de réforme de l'armée.
Lundi, les autorités militaires du Nord-Kivu ont formellement nié l'existence d'une alliance avec les miliciens Maï Maï et les rebelles hutus des FDLR - accusés par Kigali d'avoir participé au génocide rwandais de 1994, essentiellement dirigé contre la minorité tutsie.
Un officier des FARDC, joint dans le Masisi, a accusé les troupes nkundistes de "faire de la provocation" alors que les unités FARDC n'avaient "pas bougé" de leurs positions.
"Ils nous harcèlent et continuent à recruter des jeunes de force. Tous les jours, nous voyons arriver des familles qui fuient l'enrôlement forcé de Nkunda", a déclaré le major Chico Tshibambwe.
La Mission de l'ONU en RDC (Monuc), qui a déployé 4.500 de ses 17.600 Casques bleus au Nord-Kivu, a annoncé l'envoi de patrouilles dans les zones d'affrontements, pour "protéger les populations civiles" et faire "le point de la situation", a indiqué son porte-parole militaire, le commandant Gabriel de Brosses.
Se refusant à parler pour le moment de "rupture" de la trêve, la Monuc a en revanche confirmé "la poursuite des recrutements forcés d'enfants et de jeunes adultes par les troupes de Nkunda et aussi des groupes Maï Maï" dans la province, selon sa porte-parole à Goma, Sylvie van den Wildenberg.
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_
depeche.asp?art_cle=AFP95327repriuvikdr0
Mail & Guardian:
Fear and loathing in London
Binyavanga Wainaina: CONTINENTAL DRIFT
20 September 2007
For the past few years I have tried to understand what makes me so fear the country called the United Kingdom. London, that great multicultural city leaves me incoherent with anger sometimes, confused many times.
Many of my friends love the place. I used to, but, over the years, I have found myself wanting to be there less and less.
Last week the UK denied me a visa to spend five days in the country. It was a first for me, for any country, including the utterly paranoid Russia.
I burst out laughing, at the lift, as I left the private company that now processes all British visa paperwork, the security guard looking at me with some compassion.
There was a kindly sounding letter in the sealed envelope that explained it all.
I was told that the commissioning letter from Conde Nast Portfolio magazine did not specify that it would cover my costs. I had no hotel booking. My bank account, as of August 15, had only $494 in it - it was clear to the person handling the case that there was no way I could survive London for five days without “recourse to public funds” or “looking for work”.
Her calculation of the “balance of probabilities” did not take into account my not-small salary from a well-endowed private university in the United States and the general health of my bank account. She did not see any useful clues to suggest that perhaps I could provide additional documentation to back up my claims - there was not enough positive benefit of doubt to call me for an interview.
To ensure I understood how unwelcome I was in the UK, the letter took care to lay out the only grounds on which I could appeal my case: if I felt I was being discriminated against as a black person by a public institution; or if the refusal threatened my human rights as laid out in British human rights law.
So, it was made clear to me that no possible explanation or rationale I could provide now would make me welcome in the UK.
I called around. A person who knows these things suggested that I resubmit the application, after seeing a lawyer, and write an affidavit. My English agents faxed off a letter to the High Commission saying oh, this man, this man is so amazing and good. Conde Nast, in some disbelief, resent the same letter it had originally given me to help me with such bureaucracies.
Years ago, when I had left South Africa, I had an idea that I would become a travel writer, one of those guys who send out dispatches from the rim of volcanoes, the middle of tribal rituals in New York City and so forth. It quickly become apparent to me that to do this well, to wear your khakis, grab your waterproof passport and dash off to Upper Ohio requires you to be a global cosmopolitan - a citizen of a world relatively free of borders.
Now, 10 years down the line, I find myself contorting horribly to keep my paperwork in a position to move.
In these dark days, when the United States seems so horrible to the world, it seems wrong for me to suggest that my experience there has been generally excellent. I have done several reading tours of the UK and hardly ever sell any books. The first time I went to the US, I sold 300kg of books in two weeks.
There is something powerful in a certain American idea: that you will not be punished for reaching “above your station”. My experience has been that people recognise and reward talent. The US is full of aggression. Let me call this active-aggression. If there is a problem, it will be clear to you.
In England I have never found this clear. The war the British have cultivated to perfection is the passive-aggressive war, often fought within the bound of “fair play” - which means “the rules” - which they set in advance in their own self-interest and peddle as universal fairness.
When people or institutions have a problem with you, they huddle behind words such as “standards” and “policy” and “rules” - from behind this shield, sharp little faxes and missives and bills are thrown at you - the battle can go on indefinitely.
If you are naive, as I used to be when I first went there, you start to think something is wrong with you. That you filled in your forms badly or said the wrong thing. Until you can read the codes and vague resentments - and understand that, even after many years of Labour, in Britain the highest assault is generated on those who do not know their place. It is a tolerant country, but just barely so.
Like many African or former Commonwealth writers, I have ended up shuttling between the US and home. In the past few years I have seen British resident African and Indian writers slowly make their way across the ocean, where it seems, even the grim trio of Bush, Cheney and Condi have not managed to break the spirit of a country that allows some to breathe without apologising.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=319883&area=/columnist_wainaina/
Mother Jones:
Shiny Happy Activism
Clicks, not cliques result from teens' use of an online activism site. But are they really engaging in activism?
Kendra Hurley
September 24 , 2007
Eric Glocker is a rarity among 17-year-old high school students: He's not on MySpace. His folks don't want him to, he says—it's a protective "parental thing"—and so far he's indulged them. But three years ago his parents did let him join YouthNoise—a kind of MySpace meets MoveOn. Unlike MySpace, with its no-holds-barred banter and barebones aesthetics, YouthNoise is monitored for objectionable content and has a glossy homepage that feels like a Scholastic magazine: bright photos link to articles on "causes" for teens to claim, like "poverty," "environment," and "war, peace, and terrorism."
In his real life, Eric insists he's "average," a football player in suburban Colorado Springs with "no aspirations beyond going to college and joining the Marines." On YouthNoise, using the pseudonym Ampmaster, Eric indulges his "deep thinking" side, something Eric says would get him ostracized at school. As Ampmaster, Eric can debate the nuances of the term "jihad"; offer support to a 15-year-old girl wondering if she's gay; and admonish newbies for being trivial. ("I actually have read your blog," Ampmaster responded to one young woman who wrote about how she hates cleaning her room. "You need to find more amusing content, like rants against society and what not.") And by pontificating about women's rights, religion, and the war in Iraq, Ampmaster has made friends with types of teens that Eric would never be found sitting with in his school cafeteria.
YouthNoise is one of the most established of a growing number of activism sites for youth. YouthNoise caters to slightly older youth; DoSomething awards grants to teen "rock stars" who "make a difference"; the United Nation's Voices of Youth educates young people about their rights; TakingITGlobal has a refined, international feel. And the software Causes on Facebook launched in late May, letting Facebook members promote social causes. These sites' goal of "making service cool and accessible," as DoSomething's "Content Dude" George Weiner describes it, appeals to corporations wanting to associate their brands with hip, youthful social responsibility. Last year, a group of corporations and foundations pitched in $1.5 million for YouthNoise to revamp its social networking features, and the logos of JP Morgan, Jet Blue, Doritos, and Home Depot flash across DoSomething's homepage beneath the slogan "sponsors that rock."
The adults backing these sites say they're providing youth with tools to use the Internet for true change. After all, last year's student protests around immigration issues were partly organized on MySpace. But distilling politics and activism into glitzy one-stop shopping sites for teens may reflect adults' fantasies of youth engagement rather than the real deal. What's appealing about MySpace is its raw, unmediated nature: It "represents a part of life that seems to be noncontrolled by adults and that's why it has such currency," says Mindy Faber of Open Youth Networks, which collaborates with youth on technology and media projects. She adds that the activist sites, by treating politics as an isolated interest, overlook "how tied to culture political expression is for youth."
So far, DoSomething and YouthNoise both report around 100,000 monthly visitors, trifling compared to MySpace's 60 million. Fewer than 50 YouthNoise members use the site heavily, but these enthusiasts, like Ampmaster, are true devotees, posting nearly daily.
After three years on YouthNoise, Eric decided it was time to retire Ampmaster and live more resolutely in the real world. His online community mourned. "Tears are running down my face," wrote one poster. "You want to save the world, but we need you to save the world here." She was referring not to an adult idea of revolution, but to a more personal radical enterprise: creating a virtual haven where the cool kids can indulge their ruminative side, and the geeky ones get to be a little cooler.
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.
© 2007 The Foundation for National Progress
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/09/youth-online-activism.html
Página/12:
El Impenetrable o la agonía Qom
Por Mempo Giardinelli
Martes, 25 de Septiembre de 2007
En estos tiempos el Chaco concita la atención de todo el mundo. Prensa y televisión global vienen a mirar los estragos de la desnutrición que afecta a miles de aborígenes en los bosques que se conocen –ya impropiamente– como El Impenetrable.
Mi colega y amiga Cristina Civale, autora del blog Civilización y Barbarie, del diario Clarín, me invita a acompañarla. No es la primera invitación que recibo, pero sí la primera que acepto. Rehusé viajar antes de las recientes elecciones, porque, obviamente, cualquier impresión escrita se habría interpretado como denuncia electoral. Y yo estoy convencido, desde hace mucho, de que la espantosa situación socioeconómica en que se encuentran los pueblos originarios del Chaco, y su vaciamiento sociocultural, no son mérito de un gobierno en particular de los últimos 30 o 40 años (los hubo civiles y militares; peronistas, procesistas y radicales) sino de todos ellos.
Primero nos detenemos en Sáenz Peña, la segunda ciudad del Chaco (90 mil habitantes), para una visita clandestina –no pedida ni autorizada– al Hospital Ramón Carrillo, el segundo más importante de esta provincia. Civale toma notas y entrevista a pacientes indígenas en las salas de Tisiología, mientras yo recorro los pasillos mojados bajo las infinitas goteras de los techos, y miro las paredes rotas, despintadas y sucias, los patios roñosos y un pozo negro abierto y rebalsando junto a la cocina.
Aunque el frente del hospital está recién pintado, detrás hay un basural a cielo abierto en medio de dos pabellones. Vidrios y muebles rotos, escombros, radiografías, cascotes y deshechos quirúrgicos enmarcan las salas donde los pacientes son sólo cuerpos chupados por enfermedades como la tuberculosis o el Chagas. Me impresiona la mucha gente que hay tirada en los pisos, no sé si son pacientes o familiares, lo mismo da.
Una hora después, en el camino hasta Juan José Castelli –población de 30 mil habitantes que se autocalifica “Portal del Impenetrable”– la desazón y la rabia se perfeccionan al observar lo que queda del otrora Chaco boscoso. Lo que fue imperio de quebrachos centenarios y fauna maravillosa, ahora son campos quemados, de suelo arenoso y desértico, con raigones por doquier esperando las topadoras que prepararán esta tierra para el festival de soja transgénica que asuela nuestro país.
Entramos –nuevamente por atrás– al Hospital de Castelli, que se supone atiende al 90 o 95 por ciento de los aborígenes de todo el Impenetrable. Lo que veo allí me golpea el pecho, las sienes, los huevos: por lo menos dos docenas de seres en condiciones definitivamente inhumanas. Parecen ex personas, apenas piel sobre huesos, cuerpos como los de los campos de concentración nazis.
Una mujer de 37 años que pesa menos de 30 kilos parece tener más de 70. No puede alzar los brazos, no entiende lo que se le pregunta. Cinco metros más allá una anciana (o eso parece) es apenas un montoncito de huesos sobre una cama desvencijada. El olor rancio es insoportable, las moscas gordas parecen ser lo único saludable, no hay médicos a la vista e impera un silencio espeso, pesado y acusador como el de los familiares que esperan junto a las camas, o tirados en el piso del pasillo, también aquí, sobre mantas mugrientas, quietos como quien espera a la Muerte, esa condenada que encima, aquí, se demora en venir.
Siento una furia nueva y creciente, una impotencia absoluta. Le pregunto a una joven enfermera que limpia un aparador vidriado si siempre es así. “Siempre”, responde irguiéndose con un trapo sucio en la mano, “aunque últimamente han sacado muchos, desde que empezó a venir la tele”.
Es flaquita y tiene cara de buena gente: se le ve más resignación que resentimiento. Son 44 enfermeros en todo el hospital pero no alcanzan para los tres turnos. Trabajan ocho horas diarias cinco días por semana y cobran alrededor de mil pesos los universitarios, y menos de 600 los contratados, como ella. Los días de lluvia los techos se llueven y esto es un infierno, dice y señala los machimbres podridos y los pozos negros saturados que revientan de mierda en baños y patios. Y todo se lava con agua, nomás, porque “no tenemos lavandina”.
Camino por otro pasillo y llego a Obstetricia y Pediatría. Allí todos son tobas. Una chiquilla llora ante su hijo, un saquito de huesos morenos con dos ojos enormes que duele mirar. Otra joven dice que no sabe qué tiene su nena pero no quiere que muera, aunque es obvio que se está muriendo. Hay una veintena de camas en el sector y en todas lo mismo: desnutrición extrema, mugre en las sábanas, miles de moscas, desolación y miedo en las miradas.
Después viajamos otra hora y el cuadro se hace más y más grotesco. Paramos en Fortín Lavalle, Villa Río Bermejito, las tierras allende el Puente La Sirena, los parajes El Colchón, El Espinillo y varios más. Son decenas de ranchos de barro y paja, taperas infames donde se hacinan familias de la etnia Qom (tobas). Todas, sin excepción, en condiciones infrahumanas.
Digan lo que digan, estas tierras –más de tres millones de hectáreas– fueron vendidas con los aborígenes dentro. Son varios miles y están ahí desde siempre, pero no tienen títulos, papeles, ni saben cómo conseguirlos. Los amigos del poder sí los tienen, y los hacen valer. El resultado es la devastación del Impenetrable: cuando el bosque se tala, las especies animales desaparecen, se extinguen. Los seres humanos también.
Y aunque algunas buenas almas urbanas digan lo contrario, y se escandalicen ciertas dirigencias, en el ahora ex Impenetrable chaqueño palabras duras como exterminio o genocidio tienen vigencia.
Desfilan ante nuestros ojos enfermos de tuberculosis, Chagas, lesmaniasis, niños empiojados que sólo han comido harina mojada en agua, rodeados de perros flacos, huesudos y ojerosos como sus dueños. Se llaman Margarita, Nazario, Abraham, María y lo mismo da. Casi todos dicen ser evangelistas, de la Asamblea de Dios, de la Iglesia Universal, de “los pentecostales” o “los anglicanos”.
Involuntariamente irónico, evoco a Yupanqui: “Por aquí, Dios no pasó”.
Al caer la tarde estoy quebrado, roto, y sólo atino a borronear estos apuntes, indignado, consciente de su inutilidad. Al partir de regreso veo en un caserío un cartel deshilachado por el sol: “Con la fuerza de Rozas, vote lista 651”. Y en la pared de un rancho de barro, seguramente infestada de vinchucas, veo un corazón rojo como el de los pastores mediáticos brasileños de “Pare de sufrir”. Abajo dice: “Chaco merece más. Vote Capitanich”.
A unos 400 kilómetros de aquí el escrutinio final de las elecciones avanza lenta, nerviosamente. En alguna oficina el ministro de Salud de esta provincia seguirá negando todo esto, mientras el gobernador se prepara para ser senador y vivir en Buenos Aires, bien lejos de aquí, como casi todos los legisladores.
Nunca antes el Chaco ni este país me habían dolido tanto.
© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-91958-2007-09-25.html
The Independent:
'No injustice can last for ever'
Burma's biggest protest for 20 years provokes ominous threat
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
Published: 25 September 2007
As Gordon Brown sent a message of hope to the people of Burma, the military regime has issued an ominous threat to the Buddhist monks who are leading the series of extraordinary democracy demonstrations.
After 100,000 people filled the streets of Rangoon yesterday – the largest demonstration by far since the protests of 1988 – a government minister told senior monks that if they did not rein in the activities of those heading the marches, the regime would take unspecified action.
The threat by Brigadier General Thura Myint Maung, the religious affairs minister, represents the first public acknowledgement by the regime of the mounting challenge it faces as thousands of monks in maroon robes chanting slogans fill the streets of the country's largest city on a daily basis with calls for peaceful change.
At the same time, it has heightened speculation that the regime is preparing to crack down hard against the demonstrators if the protests continue, possibly with mass arrests and detentions.
For the regime, the stakes are huge. Every day, the number of ordinary people willing to risk the police and militia grows. Every day, the increasingly large numbers of people join the monks as they march for miles through the country's major cities calling for change. The key question is whether the government will respond with shocking violence as it has in the past or seek a compromise with the demonstrators in an effort to head off the challenge peacefully.
Observers believe that pressure from China, Burma's most important trading ally, may have been responsible for what has so far been a cautious response from the regime, seeking to avoid confrontation with the monks who are highly revered in Burmese society. Yet unconfirmed reports last night suggested the regime was planning to disrupt the marchers, possibly by sending in troops dressed as monks to act as agent provocateurs among the demonstrators. One report said that one unit of troops had been ordered to shave their heads and that 3,000 monks' robes had been sequestered by the military in readiness for such an operation.
"We fear that they will infiltrate the demonstrations, start violence, and the regime will use that as a pretext for a crackdown," said one campaigner.
Those activists inside Burma looking for international help may have taken some succour from Mr Brown, who told the Labour Party conference: "You know, there is a golden thread of common humanity that across nations and faiths binds us together and it can light the darkest corners of the world. The message should go out to anyone facing persecution anywhere from Burma to Zimbabwe – human rights are universal and no injustice can last forever."
He also said: "People will look back on events in Darfur as they did in Rwanda and say why did you the most powerful countries in the world fail to act, to come to the aid of those with the least power?"
However, there was no mention of additional aid for Burma, as many campaigners had hoped for. Earlier this year, a cross-party group of MPs claimed that Britain's aid to Burma should be hugely increased.
Some of yesterday's marchers walked for almost 12 miles, beginning once again at Rangoon's vast Shwedagon pagoda, the country's most sacred Buddhist shrine and probably its most famous tourist location. The vanguard of monks were joined by members of the public, students and MPs who were elected in the 1990 election ignored by the regime. Witnesses said that at one point the marchers filled a one mile section of an eight-lane road.
Up to 10,000 monks and people also marched in the country's second city, Mandalay, while around 20 other cities also saw smaller demonstrations.
"People locked arms around the monks. They were clapping and cheering," one witness in Rangoon told Reuters.
For the third day in succession a small number of marchers tried to visit the house of imprisoned democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. While the marchers were successful on Saturday – resulting in the first public appearance of Ms Suu Kyi for more than four years – both on Sunday and yesterday they were stopped from advancing to her house by police manning road blocks. The marchers made no effort to push past the road block, instead chanting a Buddhist prayer with the words "May there be peace" before dispersing.
It was several hours later that Brigadier General Maung met with senior monks at the modern Kaba Aye pagoda, north of Rangoon's city centre. During the meeting, details of which were broadcast on state television, he told the clerics that the protesting monks represented just 2 per cent of the country's population.
He said the demonstrations had been incited by members of Ms Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), the 88 Generation Students group and foreign activists, including the international media.
"Actions will be taken against the monks' protest marches according to the law if they cannot be stopped by religious teachings," he reportedly told the members of the State Monks Council. He denounced the "destructive elements who do not want to see peace, stability and progress in the country".
The wave of protests was sparked earlier this summer by a decision by the regime to increase fuel prices sharply. The government's move was seized on by democracy activists who used it to try and rally support. The government reacted quickly, seizing up to 120 activists and launching a hunt for those still at large.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2996091.ece
The New Yorker:
The Insufferable Gaucho
by Roberto Bolaño
October 1, 2007
In the opinion of those who knew him well, Héctor Pereda had two outstanding virtues: he was a caring and affectionate father and an irreproachable lawyer with a record of honesty, in a time and place that were hardly conducive to such rectitude. As evidence of the first virtue, his son and daughter, Bebe and Cuca, whose childhood and adolescent years had been happy, later accused him of having sheltered them from the hard realities of life, focussing particularly on his handling of practical matters. Of his work as a lawyer, there is little to be said. He prospered and made more friends than enemies, which was no mean feat, and when he had the choice between becoming a judge or a candidate for a political party he chose the bench without hesitation, although it obviously meant passing up the opportunities for greater financial gain that would have been open to him in politics.
After three years, however, disappointed by his judicial career, he gave up public life and spent some time, perhaps even years, reading and travelling. Naturally, there was also a Mrs. Pereda, née Hirschmann, with whom the lawyer was, as they say, madly in love. There are photos from that era to prove it: in one of them, Pereda, in a black suit, is dancing a tango with a blond woman, almost platinum blond, who is looking at the camera and smiling while the lawyer’s eyes remain fixed on her, like the eyes of a sleepwalker or a lamb. Unfortunately, Mrs. Pereda died suddenly, when Cuca was five and Bebe was seven. The young widower never remarried, although there were various women in his social circle with whom he was known to be on friendly (never intimate) terms, and who, moreover, had all the qualities required to become the new Mrs. Pereda.
When the lawyer’s two or three close friends asked him why he remained single, his response was always that he didn’t want to impose the unbearable burden (as he put it) of a stepmother on his offspring. In Pereda’s opinion, most of Argentina’s recent problems could be traced to the figure of the stepmother. We never had a mother, as a nation, he would say; or, she was never there; or, she left us on the doorstep of the orphanage. But we’ve had plenty of stepmothers, all sorts, starting with the great Peronist stepmother. And he would conclude: Of all the countries in Latin America, we’re the experts on stepmothers.
In spite of everything, his life was happy. It’s hard not to be happy, he used to say, in Buenos Aires, which is a perfect blend of Paris and Berlin, although if you look closely it’s more like a perfect blend of Lyons and Prague. Every day, he got up at the same time as his children, had breakfast with them, and dropped them off at school. He spent the rest of the morning reading at least two newspapers; and, after a snack at eleven (consisting basically of cold cuts and sausage on buttered French bread and two or three little glasses of Argentine or Chilean wine, except on special occasions, when the wine was, naturally, French), he took a siesta until one. His lunch, which he ate on his own in an enormous, empty dining room while reading a book under the absentminded gaze of the elderly maid, and the black-and-white gaze of his deceased wife looking out from photographs in ornate silver frames, was light: soup and a small portion of fish and mashed potatoes, some of which he would allow to go cold. In the afternoon, he helped his children with their homework, or sat through Cuca’s piano lessons in silence, or Bebe’s English and French classes, given by two teachers with Italian surnames, who came to the house. Sometimes, when Cuca had learned to play a whole piece, the maid and the cook would come to listen, too, and the lawyer, filled with pride, would hear them murmur words of praise, which struck him at first as excessive, but then, on reflection, seemed perfectly apt. After saying good night to his children and reminding his domestic staff for the umpteenth time not to open the door to anyone, he went to his favorite café, on Corrientes, where he would stay until one at the very latest, listening to his friends or friends of theirs discussing issues that he suspected he would find supremely boring if he knew anything about them, after which he went back home, where everyone was asleep.
Eventually, the children grew up. First Cuca got married and went to live in Rio de Janeiro; then Bebe started writing and indeed became a highly successful writer, which was a source of great pride to Pereda, who read each and every word his son published. Bebe went on living at home for a few more years (where else could he have had it so good?), after which, like his sister, he flew the nest.
At first, the lawyer tried to resign himself to solitude. He had an affair with a widow, went on a long trip through France and Italy, met a girl named Rebeca, and finally contented himself with organizing his huge, chaotic library. When Bebe came back from the United States, where he had spent a year teaching at a university, Pereda had aged prematurely. Bebe was worried and tried not to leave his father alone too much, so sometimes they went to the movies or the theatre, where the lawyer would usually fall into a deep sleep, and sometimes Bebe dragged him along to the literary gatherings that were held at the Black Pencil Café, where authors, basking in the glory of some municipal prize, held forth at length on the nation’s destiny. When they talked about literature, Pereda was completely bored. In his opinion, the best Argentine writers were Borges and Bebe; any further commentary on the subject was superfluous. But when they started talking about national and international politics, the lawyer’s body grew tense, as if charged by an electric current. From then on, his daily habits changed. He began to get up early and look through the old books in his library, searching for something, though he couldn’t have said what. He decided to give up wine and heavy meals, because he realized that they were dulling his intellect. His personal hygiene also underwent a change. He no longer spruced himself up when he was going out. He soon stopped taking a daily shower, and even went to the park to read the paper without putting on a tie. His old friends hardly recognized this new Pereda as the lawyer they had known, who had been irreproachable in every respect. One day he woke up feeling more nervous than usual. He had lunch with a retired judge and a retired journalist, and laughed all the way through the meal. Afterward, as they were drinking Cognac, the judge asked him what he found so funny. Buenos Aires is collapsing, Pereda replied. The journalist thought that the lawyer had gone crazy and recommended some time by the sea, that invigorating air. The judge, less given to speculation, simply thought that Pereda had gone off on a tangent.
A few days later, however, the Argentine economy went into meltdown. Accounts in American dollars were frozen, and those who hadn’t moved their capital (or their savings) offshore suddenly discovered that they had nothing left, or only a few bonds and bank bills the mere sight of which was enough to give them goosebumps, vague promises inspired in equal parts by some forgotten tango and the words of the national anthem. I told you so, the lawyer said to anyone willing to listen. Then, accompanied by his cook and his maid, he stood in long lines, like many other inhabitants of Buenos Aires, and entered into long conversations with strangers (who struck him as utterly charming) in streets thronged with people swindled by the government or the banks, or whomever.
When the President resigned, Pereda was there among the protesters as they banged their pots and pans. Sometimes it seemed as if the elderly had taken control of the streets, old people of all social classes, and he liked that, although he didn’t know why; it seemed like a sign that something was changing, that something was moving in the darkness, although he was also happy to join in the wildcat strikes and blockades that quickly degenerated into brawling. In the space of a few days, Argentina had three different Presidents. It didn’t occur to anyone to start a revolution or mount a military coup. That was when Pereda decided to go back to the country.
Before leaving, he explained his plan to the maid and the cook. Buenos Aires is falling apart; I’m going to the ranch, he said. They talked for hours, sitting at the kitchen table. The cook had been to the ranch as often as Pereda, who had always said that the country was no place for a man like him, a cultivated family man, who wanted to make sure that his children got a good education. His mental images of the ranch had blurred and faded, leaving only a house with a hole in the middle, an enormous, threatening tree, and a barn flickering with shadows that might have been rats. Nevertheless, that night, as he drank tea in the kitchen, he told his employees that he had hardly any money left to pay them (it was all frozen in the bank—in other words, as good as lost) and the only solution he had come up with was to take them to the country, where at least they wouldn’t be short of food, or so he hoped.
The maid and the cook listened to him compassionately. At one point, the lawyer burst into tears. Trying to console him, they told him not to worry about the money; they were prepared to go on working even if he couldn’t pay them. The lawyer definitively rejected any such arrangement. I’m too old to become a pimp, he said with an apologetic smile. The next morning, he packed a suitcase and took a taxi to the station. The women waved goodbye from the sidewalk.
The long, monotonous train trip gave him ample time for reflection. At first, the carriage was full. He observed that there were basically two topics of conversation: the country’s state of bankruptcy and how the Argentine team was shaping up for the World Cup in Korea and Japan. The press of passengers reminded him of the trains departing from Moscow in the film “Doctor Zhivago,” which he had seen some time ago, except that in the Russian carriages as filmed by that English director the talk had not been about ice hockey or skiing. What hope have we got, he thought, although he had to agree that on paper the Argentine selection looked unbeatable. When night fell, the conversations stopped, and the lawyer thought of his children, Cuca and Bebe, both of whom were abroad. He also thought of a number of women he had known intimately but had not expected to remember; silently, they emerged from oblivion, their skin covered with sweat, infusing his restless spirit with something like serenity, although it wasn’t altogether serene, perhaps not exactly a sense of adventure, but something like that.
Then the train began to advance over the pampas, and the lawyer leaned his head against the cold glass of the window and fell asleep.
When he woke, the carriage was half empty and there was a man who looked part Indian sitting beside him, reading a Batman comic book. Where are we? Pereda asked. In Coronel Gutiérrez, the man said. Ah, that’s all right, the lawyer thought, I’m going to Capitán Jourdan. Then he got up, stretched his legs, and sat down again. Out on the dry plain he saw a rabbit that seemed to be racing the train. There were five other rabbits running behind it. The first rabbit, running just outside the window, had wide-open eyes, as if the race against the train required a superhuman effort (or, rather, super-leporine, the lawyer thought). The rabbits in pursuit seemed to be running in tandem, like cyclists in the Tour de France. With a couple of big leaps, the rabbit bringing up the rear relieved the front-runner, which dropped back to last position, while the third rabbit moved up to second place, and the fourth moved up to third; and all the while the group was closing in on the solitary rabbit running beside the lawyer’s window. Rabbits, he thought, how wonderful! On the plains, there was nothing else to be seen: a vast, boundless expanse of scant grass under massive, low clouds, and no indication that a town might be near. Are you going to Capitán Jourdan? Pereda asked the Batman reader, who seemed to be examining every panel with extreme care, scrutinizing every detail, as if he were visiting a portable museum. No, he replied, I’m getting off at El Apeadero. Pereda tried to remember a station of that name but couldn’t. And what’s that, a station or a factory? The Indian-looking guy stared back at him fixedly: A station, he replied. He seems annoyed, Pereda thought. It wasn’t the sort of question he would normally have asked, given his habitual discretion. The pampas had made him inquire in that frank, manly, and down-to-earth way, he decided.
When he rested his forehead against the window again, he saw that the rabbits in pursuit had caught up with the lone racing rabbit, and were attacking it ferociously, tearing at its body with their claws and teeth—those long rodents’ teeth, Pereda thought with a horrified frisson. He looked back and saw an amorphous mass of tawny fur rolling beside the rails.
The only passengers who got off at Capitán Jourdan were Pereda and a woman with two children. The platform was half wood, half concrete, and in spite of his best efforts Pereda couldn’t find a railway employee anywhere. The woman and the children set off walking on a cart track, and although they were clearly moving away and their figures were visibly shrinking, it took more than three-quarters of an hour, by the lawyer’s reckoning, for them to disappear from the horizon. Is the earth round? Pereda wondered. Of course it is, he told himself, sitting down on an old wooden bench against the wall of the station, preparing to kill some time. Inevitably, he remembered Borges’s story “The South,” and when he thought of the store mentioned in the final paragraphs his eyes brimmed with tears. Then he remembered the plot of Bebe’s last novel, and imagined his son writing on a computer, in an austere room at a Midwestern university. When Bebe comes back and finds out I’ve gone to the ranch . . . , he thought in enthusiastic anticipation. The glare and the warm breeze gusting off the plain made him drowsy; he fell asleep. A hand shook him awake. A man as old as he was, wearing an old railway uniform, asked him what he was doing there. Pereda said he was the owner of the Álamo Negro ranch. The man stood there looking at him for a while, then said, The judge. That’s right, Pereda replied, there was a time when I was a judge. Don’t you remember me, Mr. Judge? Pereda scrutinized the man: he needed a new uniform and a haircut, urgently. Pereda shook his head. I’m Severo Infante, the man said. We used to play together when we were kids. But, che, that’s ages ago—how could I remember, Pereda retorted, and his voice, not to mention the words he had used, sounded odd, as if the air of Capitán Jourdan had invigorated his vocal cords or his throat.
Of course, you’re right, Mr. Judge, Severo Infante said, but I feel like celebrating anyway. Bouncing like a kangaroo, the station employee disappeared into the ticket office, then came out with a bottle and a glass. Your health, he said, handing Pereda the glass, which he half filled with a clear liquid that seemed to be pure alcohol. Pereda took a sip—it tasted of scorched earth and stones—and left the glass on the bench. He said that he had given up drinking. Then he got up and asked the way to his ranch. They went out the back door. Capitán Jourdan is over there, Severo said, just beyond the dry pond. Álamo Negro is the other way, a bit farther, but you can’t get lost in the daylight. You look after yourself, Pereda said, and set off in the direction of his ranch.
The main house was almost in ruins. That night it was cold, and Pereda tried to gather some sticks and light a campfire, but he couldn’t find anything to burn, and in the end he wrapped himself up in his overcoat, rested his head on his suitcase, and fell asleep, telling himself that tomorrow would be another day. He woke with the first light of dawn. The well still had water in it, although the bucket had disappeared and the rope was rotten. I need to buy a rope and a bucket, he thought. For breakfast, he ate what was left of a packet of peanuts he had bought on the train. He inspected the multitudinous low-ceilinged rooms of the ranch house. Then he set off for Capitán Jourdan, and was surprised to see rabbits but no cattle on the way. He observed them uneasily. Occasionally, they would hop toward him, but he had only to wave his arms to make them disappear. Although he had never been particularly keen on guns, he would have been glad of one then. Apart from that, the walk did him good: the air was fresh, the sky was clear; it was neither hot nor cold. From time to time he spotted a tree all alone out on the plain, and the vision struck him as poetic, as if the tree and the scenery of the deserted countryside had been arranged just for him and had been awaiting his arrival with an imperturbable patience.
None of the roads in Capitán Jourdan were paved, and the housefronts were thickly coated with dust. As he entered the town, he saw a man asleep beside some flowerpots containing plastic flowers. My God, what a dump! he thought. The main square was broad, and the town hall, built of brick, gave the collection of squat, abandoned buildings a slight air of civilization. He asked a gardener who was sitting in the square smoking a cigarette where he could find a hardware store. The gardener looked at him curiously, then accompanied him to the door of the only hardware store in town. The owner, an Indian, sold him all the rope he had in stock: forty yards of braided hemp, which Pereda examined at length, as if looking for loose threads. Put it on my account, he said. The Indian looked at him, nonplussed. Whose account? he asked. Héctor Pereda’s, Pereda said, as he piled up his new possessions in a corner of the store. Then he asked the Indian where he could buy a horse. There are no horses left here, he said, only rabbits. Pereda thought it was a joke and responded with a quick, dry laugh. The gardener, who was looking in from the threshold, said that there might be a strawberry roan to be had at Don Dulce’s ranch. Pereda asked him how he could get there, and the gardener walked a couple of blocks with him, to a vacant lot full of rubble. Beyond lay open country.
The ranch was called Mi Paraíso, and it didn’t seem as run-down as Álamo Negro. A few chickens were pecking around in the yard. The door to the shed had been pulled off its hinges and someone had propped it against a wall nearby. Some Indian-looking kids were playing with bolas. A woman came out of the main house and said good afternoon. Pereda asked her for a glass of water. Between mouthfuls, he asked if there was a horse for sale. You’ll have to wait for the boss, the woman said, and went back into the house. Pereda sat down beside the well and kept himself busy brushing away the flies that were buzzing around everywhere, as if the yard were used for pickling meat, Pereda thought, although the only pickles he had encountered were the ones he used to buy many years ago at a store that imported them directly from England. After an hour, he heard the sound of a jeep and stood up.
Don Dulce was a little pink-faced guy, with blue eyes, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, although by the time he arrived it was starting to get cool. An even shorter guy got out of the jeep as well: a gaucho attired in baggy bombachas and a diaperlike chiripá, who threw Pereda a sidelong glance and started carrying rabbit skins into the shed. Pereda introduced himself. He said he was the owner of Álamo Negro, and that he was planning to do some work on the ranch and needed to buy a horse. Don Dulce invited him to dinner. Around the table sat the host, the woman who had appeared earlier, the children, the gaucho, and Pereda. There was a fire in the hearth, not to heat the room but for grilling meat. The bread was hard and unleavened, the way the Jews make it, Pereda thought, remembering his Jewish wife with a touch of nostalgia. But no one at Mi Paraíso seemed to be Jewish.
When it came to buying the horse, everything went smoothly. Choosing was not a problem, because there was only one horse for sale. When Pereda said he might need a month to pay, Don Dulce made no objection, although the gaucho, who hadn’t said a word all through the meal, stared at him warily. Afterward, they saddled the horse, showed him the way, and said goodbye.
How long has it been since I rode a horse? Pereda wondered. For a few seconds he worried that his bones, accustomed to the comfort of Buenos Aires and its armchairs, might break under the strain. The night was dark as pitch or coal. Stupid expressions, thought Pereda. European nights might be pitch-dark or coal-black, but not South American nights, which are dark like a void, where there’s nothing to hold on to, no shelter from the elements, just empty, storm-whipped space, above and below. May the rain fall soft on you! he heard Don Dulce shout. God willing, he replied from the darkness.
On the way back to his ranch, he dozed off a couple of times. He woke up from his second nap on one of the streets of Capitán Jourdan. He saw a corner store that was open. He heard voices, and someone strumming a guitar, tuning it but never settling on a particular song to play, just as he had read in Borges. For a moment, he thought that his destiny, his screwed-up American destiny, would be to meet his death like Dahlmann in “The South,” and it seemed unfair, partly because he now had debts to repay and partly because he wasn’t ready to die, although Pereda knew that death is an occurrence for which one is never ready. Seized by a sudden inspiration, he entered the store on horseback. Inside, he found an old gaucho, strumming the guitar, the owner, and three younger guys sitting at a table, who started when they saw the horse come in. Pereda was inwardly satisfied by the thought that the scene was like something from a story by di Benedetto. Nevertheless, he set his face and approached the zinc-topped bar. He ordered a glass of aguardiente, which he drank with one hand, while in the other he held his riding crop discreetly out of view, since he hadn’t yet bought himself the traditional sheath knife. He asked the owner to put the drink on his account, and on his way out, as he passed the young gauchos, he told them to move aside because he was going to spit. This was meant as affirmation of his authority, but before the gauchos could grasp what was happening the gob of phlegm had flown from his lips; they barely had time to jump. May the rain fall soft on you, he said, before disappearing into the darkness of Capitán Jourdan.
From then on, Pereda went into town each day on his horse, which he named José Bianco. He often went to buy tools with which to repair the ranch house, but he also passed the time of day chatting with the gardener, or with the keepers of the general store and the hardware store, whose livelihoods he diminished day by day, as he lengthened the accounts he had with each of them. Other gauchos and storekeepers soon joined in these conversations, and sometimes even children came to hear the stories Pereda told. Naturally, he always cut an impressive figure in those stories, although they weren’t exactly cheerful. For example, he told them how he had once owned a horse very like José Bianco, which had been killed in a confrontation with the police. Luckily, I was a judge, he said, and when the police come up against a judge or an ex-judge they usually back off.
Police work’s about order, he said, while judges defend justice. Do you see the difference, boys? The gauchos would usually nod, although they weren’t at all sure what he was talking about.
Sometimes he went to the station, where his friend Severo would reminisce at length about their childhood pranks. Although Pereda was privately convinced that he couldn’t have been as silly as he seemed in those stories, he let Severo talk until he got tired or fell asleep, then walked out onto the platform to wait for the train and the letter it was supposed to bring.
Finally, the letter arrived. In it his cook explained that life was hard in Buenos Aires, but that he shouldn’t worry, because both she and the maid were going to the house every two days, and it was in perfect order. As for sending him money, they were looking into it, she assured him; the problem was, they still hadn’t found a way to make sure it wouldn’t be filched by some racketeer on the way.
In the evening, as he was returning to Álamo Negro at a gallop, the lawyer could sometimes see a ruined village in the distance that seemed not to have been there before. Sometimes a slender column of smoke rose from the village and dissipated in the vast sky over the plains. Occasionally, he encountered the vehicle in which Don Dulce and his gaucho got around. They would stop to talk and smoke for a while, Don Dulce and the gaucho sitting in their jeep, the lawyer still mounted on José Bianco. Don Dulce was out after rabbits. Pereda once asked him how he hunted them, and Don Dulce told his gaucho to show the lawyer one of the traps, which was halfway between a birdcage and a rat trap. Pereda never saw a single rabbit in the jeep, only the skins, because the gaucho skinned them on the spot, beside the traps. After those chats, Pereda always felt that Don Dulce was somehow diminishing the stature of the nation. Rabbit hunting! What sort of job is that for a gaucho? he asked himself. Then he would give his horse an affectionate pat. Come on, che, José Bianco, let’s go, he’d say, and head back to the ranch.
One day, the cook turned up. She had brought money for him. She rode behind him on José Bianco halfway from the station to the ranch, then they walked the rest of the way, in silence, contemplating the plain. By this time, the ranch house was more comfortable than it had been when Pereda arrived; they ate rabbit stew, and then by the light of an oil lamp the cook handed over the money she had brought, and explained where it had come from, which objects from the house she had been forced to sell off at a fraction of their value. Pereda didn’t even bother to count it. The next morning, when he woke up, he saw that the cook had worked all night cleaning some of the rooms. He reproached her gently. Don Héctor, she said, it’s like a pigsty here.
Two days later, in spite of the lawyer’s entreaties, she took the train back to Buenos Aires. Away from Buenos Aires I feel like another person, she explained to him as they waited on the platform, just the two of them. And I’m too old to become someone else. Women, they’re all the same, Pereda thought. Everything is changing, the cook explained to him. The city was full of beggars, and respectable people were organizing neighborhood soup kitchens just to have something to put into their stomachs. There were at least ten different kinds of currency, not counting the official money. No one was bored. People were desperate, but not bored. As she spoke, Pereda watched the rabbits that had appeared on the other side of the tracks. The rabbits looked at them, then bounded away across the plain. Sometimes it’s as if this country were full of lice or fleas, the lawyer thought. With the money the cook had brought, he paid his debts and hired a pair of gauchos to repair the roof of the ranch house, which was falling in. The problem was that although he knew next to nothing about carpentry, that was more than the gauchos knew.
One was called José and must have been around seventy. He didn’t have a horse. The other was called Campodónico and was probably younger, although he could also have been older. Both wore the traditional baggy bombachas, but their headgear consisted of caps that they had made themselves from rabbit skins. Neither had a family, so after a while they both came to live at Álamo Negro. At night, by the light of a fire out in the open, Pereda whiled away the time recounting adventures that had taken place exclusively in his imagination. He spoke to them of Argentina, Buenos Aires, and the pampas, and he asked them which of the three they would choose. Argentina’s a novel, he said, so it’s make-believe at best. Buenos Aires is full of crooks and loudmouths, a place like Hell, with nothing going for it except the women, and the writers, some of them, not many, though. But the pampas—the pampas are eternal. A limitless cemetery, that’s what it’s like. Can you imagine that, boys, a limitless cemetery? The gauchos smiled and confessed that it was actually pretty hard to imagine something like that, since cemeteries are for humans, and although the number of humans is big, there’s a limit to it. Ah, but the cemetery I’m talking about, Pereda said, is an exact copy of eternity.
With the money he had left, he went to Coronel Gutiérrez and bought himself a mare and a colt. The mare would let itself be ridden, but the colt was not much use for anything, and had to be treated with extreme caution. Sometimes, in the evening, when he was sick of working or of doing nothing, Pereda went into Capitán Jourdan with his gauchos. He rode José Bianco; the gauchos rode the mare. When he entered the store, a respectful hush fell over the clients. Some were playing cards, others were playing checkers. When the mayor, who was prone to depression, turned up, there would always be four brave volunteers for a game of Monopoly that would last until dawn. This habit of playing games (not to speak of Monopoly) seemed ill-bred and dishonorable to Pereda. A store is a place where people converse or listen in silence to the conversations of others, he thought. A store is like an empty classroom. A store is a smoky church.
Some nights, especially when gauchos from out of town or some disoriented travelling salesman turned up, Pereda felt a powerful desire to start a fight. Nothing serious, just a scrap, but with real knives, not chalked sticks, like kids use. Other nights, he would fall asleep between his two gauchos and dream that his wife was leading their children by the hand and scolding him for the way he had let himself lapse into brutishness. And what about the rest of the country? the lawyer replied. But that’s no excuse, che, rejoined Mrs. Pereda, née Hirschmann. At which point the lawyer would have to agree, and tears would well up in his eyes.
In general, however, his dreams were peaceful, and when he woke up in the morning he was in good spirits and keen to start work. Although, to tell the truth, not a lot of work was done at Álamo Negro. The repairing of the ranch-house roof was a disaster. In order to start a kitchen garden, the lawyer and Campodónico bought seeds in Coronel Guttiérrez, but the earth, it seemed, would accept no foreign seed. For a time, the lawyer tried to get the colt, which he called “my stud horse,” to cover the mare. If the mare had a filly, all the better. That way, he imagined, he could soon build up a breeding stock that would lead the recovery; but the colt didn’t seem to be interested in covering the mare and, although he searched for miles around, Pereda couldn’t find a sire, since the gauchos had sold their horses to the slaughterhouse, and now got around on foot, or on bicycles, or hitched rides on the endless dirt tracks of the pampas.
We have fallen, we’re down, Pereda would say to his audience, but we can still pick ourselves up and go to our deaths like men. He, too, had to set rabbit traps to survive. In the evenings, when he left the house with his men, he would often let José and Campodónico empty the traps, along with a new recruit known as the Old Guy, while he set off alone for the ruined village. There he found some young people, younger than his gauchos, but so disinclined to converse and so nervous that it wasn’t even worth inviting them for a meal. Occasionally, he would go to the railway line and spend a long time there waiting for the train to pass, mounted on José Bianco, both of them chewing grass stalks. Often enough, no train would pass, as if that part of Argentina had been erased from memory as well as from the map.
One afternoon, as Pereda was vainly attempting to get his colt to mount the mare, he saw a car driving over the plain, coming directly toward Álamo Negro. The car pulled up in the yard, and four men got out. At first, he didn’t recognize his son. Nor did Bebe realize that the old man in bombachas with a beard, long tangled hair, and a bare chest tanned by the sun was his father. Son of my soul, Pereda said, hugging him, blood of my blood, vindication of my days, and he would have gone on like that if Bebe hadn’t stopped him to introduce his friends, two writers from Buenos Aires and the publisher Ibarrola, who loved books and nature, and had financed the trip. In honor of his son’s guests, the lawyer had a big bonfire built in the yard that night, and sent for the foremost of Capitán Jourdan’s guitar-strumming gauchos, warning him beforehand that he was to do strictly that: strum, without playing any song in particular, in accordance with the country way.
Campodónico and José were dispatched to fetch ten litres of wine and a litre of aguardiente, which they brought back from Capitán Jourdan in the mayor’s van. A good stock of rabbits was laid in, and one was roasted for each person present, although the visitors from the city didn’t seem particularly keen on rabbit meat. That night, there were more than thirty people gathered around the fire, besides Pereda’s gauchos and the guests from Buenos Aires.
By three in the morning, the elders had set off back to Capitán Jourdan, and there were just a few young men left at the ranch, wondering what to do, since the food and drink had run out, and the guys from the city had gone to sleep a while ago. The next morning, Bebe tried to persuade his father to return to Buenos Aires with him. Things are gradually settling down, he said. Personally, he was doing all right. He gave his father a book, one of the many gifts he had brought, and told him that it had been published in Spain. Now I’m a well-known author all through Latin America, he explained. But the lawyer had no idea what his son was talking about. He asked if he was married yet and, when Bebe said no, suggested he find himself an Indian woman and come to live at Álamo Negro.
An Indian woman, Bebe repeated in a tone of voice that the lawyer thought was wistful.
Among the gifts his son had brought was a Beretta 92 pistol with two clips and a box of ammunition. The lawyer looked at the pistol in amazement. Do you honestly think I’m going to need it? he asked. You never know, Bebe said. You’re really on your own here. They saddled up the mare for Ibarrola, who wanted to take a look at the countryside, and Pereda, riding José Bianco, spent the rest of the morning showing him around. For two hours, the publisher held forth in praise of the idyllic, unspoiled life led, as he saw it, by the inhabitants of Capitán Jourdan. When he spotted the first of the ruined houses, he broke into a gallop, but it was much farther away than he had thought, and before he got there a rabbit leaped up and bit him on the neck. The publisher’s cry vanished at once into the vast open space.
From where he was, all Pereda could see was a dark shape springing from the ground, tracing an arc toward the publisher’s head, then disappearing. Dumb-ass Basque, he thought. He spurred José Bianco, and as he approached he saw that Ibarrola was holding his neck with one hand and covering his face with the other. Without saying a word, Pereda removed the hand from Ibarrola’s neck. There was a bleeding scratch under his ear. Pereda asked him if he had a handkerchief. The publisher replied in the affirmative, and only then did Pereda realize that he was crying. Put the handkerchief on the wound, he said. Then he took the mare’s reins, and they made their way to the ruined house. There was no one there; they didn’t dismount. As they returned to the ranch, the handkerchief that Ibarrola was holding against the wound gradually turned red. They said nothing. When they got back, Pereda ordered his gauchos to strip the publisher to the waist, and they flung him onto a table in the yard. Pereda washed the wound, which he proceeded to cauterize with a knife heated until the blade was red-hot, then made a dressing with another handkerchief, held in place with a makeshift bandage: one of his old shirts, which he soaked in aguardiente, what little was left, more as a ritual than as a sanitary measure, but it couldn’t do any harm.
When Bebe and the two writers came back from a walk around Capitán Jourdan, they found Ibarrola unconscious on the table, and Pereda sitting beside him in a chair, observing him intently, like a medical student. Behind Pereda, equally absorbed by the sight of the wounded man, stood the ranch’s three gauchos.
The sun was beating down mercilessly in the yard. Son of a bitch! shouted one of Bebe’s friends. Your dad’s gone and killed our publisher. But the publisher wasn’t dead, and made a full recovery, except for the scar, which he would later display with pride, explaining that it had been caused by the bite of a jumping snake.
From then on, there were often visitors from the city. Sometimes Bebe came on his own, with his riding clothes and his notebooks, in which he wrote vaguely melancholy stories with vaguely crime-related plots. Sometimes he would come with luminaries from Buenos Aires, usually writers, but quite often a painter, to Pereda’s satisfaction, since painters, for some reason, seemed to know much more about carpentry and bricklaying than the bunch of gauchos who hung around Álamo Negro all day like a bad smell.
On one occasion, Bebe came with a psychiatrist. She was blond and had steely blue eyes and high cheekbones, like an extra from the “Ring” cycle. The only problem with her, Pereda thought, was that she talked a lot. One morning, he invited her to go for a ride. The psychiatrist accepted. He saddled up the mare, mounted José Bianco, and they headed west. As they rode, the psychiatrist told him about her job in a Buenos Aires mental hospital. She told him (and the rabbits that sometimes surreptitiously accompanied the riders) that people were becoming more and more unbalanced: studies had proved it, which led the psychiatrist to conjecture that perhaps mental instability was not so much a disease as a stratum of normality, just below the surface of normality as it was commonly conceived. All this sounded like Chinese to Pereda, but, intimidated as he was by the beauty of his son’s guest, he refrained from saying so. At midday, they stopped for a lunch of rabbit jerky and wine. The wine and the meat, a dark meat that shone like alabaster when touched by light and seemed to be literally seething with protein, brought out the psychiatrist’s poetic streak, and, as Pereda noticed out of the corner of his eye, prompted her to let her hair down.
At about five in the afternoon, they spotted the shell of a ranch house on the horizon. Excited, they spurred their mounts in that direction, but at six they were still not there, which led the psychiatrist to remark on how deceptive distances could be. When they finally arrived, five or six malnourished children came out to greet them, along with a woman wearing a very wide skirt that bulged voluminously, as if there were some kind of animal under it coiled around her legs. The children kept their eyes fixed on the psychiatrist, who adopted a maternal attitude, though not for long, since she soon noticed, as she later explained to Pereda, a malevolent intention in their gaze, a mischievous plan formulated, so she felt, in a language full of consonants, shrieks, and resentment.
Pereda, who was coming to the conclusion that the psychiatrist was not entirely in her right mind, accepted the skirted woman’s invitation to dinner, and during the meal, which they ate in a room full of old photographs, learned that the owners of the ranch had gone off to the city a long time ago (the woman couldn’t say which city) and the laborers, having ceased to receive their monthly pay, had gradually drifted away, too. The woman also told them about a river and flooding, although Pereda had no idea where the river could be, and no one in Capitán Jourdan had mentioned any kind of flood. Predictably, they ate rabbit stew, which their hostess had prepared with an expert hand. As they were getting ready to go, Pereda pointed out the way to Álamo Negro, his ranch, in case they ever got tired of living out there. I don’t pay much, but at least there’s company, he said seriously, as if explaining that death came after life. Then he gathered the children around him and proceeded to dispense advice. When he had finished speaking, he saw that the psychiatrist and the skirted woman had fallen asleep on their chairs.
Day was about to break when Pereda and the psychiatrist left. The light of a full moon shimmered on the plain, and from time to time they saw a rabbit jump, but Pereda paid no attention, and after a long spell of silence he softly began to sing a song in French that his late wife had liked.
The song was about a pier and mist, and unfaithful lovers, as all lovers are in the end, he thought indulgently, and places that remain utterly faithful.
Sometimes, as he walked or rode José Bianco around the dubious boundaries of his ranch, Pereda thought that nothing would ever be the same unless the cattle returned. Cows, where are you? he shouted.
In winter, the skirted woman turned up at Álamo Negro with the children in tow. Some people in Capitán Jourdan knew her and were pleased to see her again. The woman didn’t talk much, but she certainly worked harder than the six gauchos Pereda now had on the payroll, to use the expression liberally, since he often went for months without paying them. And, indeed, some of the gauchos had what could be called an idiosyncratic concept of time. They could adapt to a forty-day month without any major headaches. Or to a four-hundred-and-forty-day year. None of them, in fact, Pereda included, wanted to think about time. By the fireside, some of the gauchos talked about electroshock therapy, while others spoke like professional sports commentators, except that they were commenting on a match played long ago, when they were twenty or thirty and belonged to some gang of hooligans. Sons of bitches, Pereda thought tenderly, with a manly sort of tenderness, of course.
One night, he asked them about their political opinions. At first the gauchos were reluctant to talk about politics, but when he finally got them to open up it turned out that, in one way or another, they were all nostalgic for General Perón.
This is where we part company, Pereda said, and pulled out his knife. For a few seconds he thought that the gauchos would do the same and his destiny would be sealed that night, but the old guys recoiled in fear and asked what he was doing, for God’s sake. What had they done? What had got into him? The flickering fire threw tigerlike stripes of light across their faces, but as he gripped his knife, trembling, Pereda felt that Argentina’s shame or the shame of Latin America had turned them into tame cats. That’s why the cattle have been replaced by rabbits, he thought as he turned around and walked back to his room.
I’d slaughter the lot of you if you weren’t so pathetic! he shouted.
The next morning, he was afraid that the gauchos might have gone back to Capitán Jourdan, but they were all still there, working in the yard or drinking maté by the fire, as if nothing had happened. A few days later, the skirted woman arrived from the ranch out west and Álamo Negro began to change for the better, starting with the food, because the woman knew ten different ways to cook a rabbit, where to find herbs, how to start a kitchen garden and grow some fresh vegetables.
One night the woman walked along the veranda and went into Pereda’s room. She was wearing only a petticoat; the lawyer made space for her in his bed, and spent the rest of the night looking up at the canopy, feeling that warm and unfamiliar body against his ribs. Day was breaking by the time he fell asleep, and when he woke up the woman was gone. Got yourself shacked up, Bebe said when his father informed him. Only technically, the lawyer pointed out. By that stage, with money borrowed here and there, he had been able to enlarge the stables and acquire four cows. When he was bored in the afternoons, he would saddle up José Bianco and take the cows out for a walk. The rabbits, who had never seen a cow, stared in amazement.
It seemed that Pereda and the cows were bound for the end of the world, but they had just gone out for a walk.
He spoke to the gauchos gathered in the general store one evening. I believe we are losing our memory, he said. And about time, too. For once, the gauchos looked at him as if they grasped the significance of his words even better than he did himself. Shortly afterward, he received a letter from Bebe summoning him to Buenos Aires in order to sign some papers so that his house could be sold. What should I do, Pereda wondered, take the train or ride? That night he could hardly sleep. He imagined people thronging the sidewalks as he made his entry mounted on José Bianco. His entry into Buenos Aires, as he imagined it, had the ambience of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem or Brussels as depicted by Ensor. All of us make our entry into Jerusalem sooner or later, he thought as he tossed and turned. Every single one of us. And some never come out again. But most do. And then we are seized and crucified. Especially poor gauchos.
He also imagined a downtown street, the quintessential Buenos Aires street, with all the charms of the capital; he was riding along it on his trusty José Bianco, while from the windows above white flowers began to rain down. Who was throwing the flowers? He couldn’t tell, since, like the street itself, the windows of the buildings remained empty. It must be the dead, Pereda supposed drowsily. The dead of Jerusalem and the dead of Buenos Aires.
The next morning, he spoke with the gauchos and told them that he would be away for a while. None of them said anything, although that night at dinner the skirted woman asked if he was going to Buenos Aires. Pereda nodded. Then take care and may the rain fall soft on you, the woman said.
Two days later, he took the train and went back the way he had come more than three years before. When he arrived at Constitución Station, a few people stared as if he were wearing fancy dress, but most were not particularly perturbed by an old man attired like a cross between a gaucho and a rabbit trapper. The taxi-driver who took him to his house inquired where he was from, and when Pereda, lost in his own ruminations, failed to answer, he asked if he spoke Spanish. By way of reply, Pereda pulled out his knife and proceeded to cut his nails, which were as long as a wild cat’s.
No one answered the door. The keys were under the mat; he went in. The house seemed clean, perhaps too clean—it smelled of mothballs. Feeling exhausted, Pereda trudged to his bedroom and flopped onto the bed without taking off his boots. When he woke up, it was dark. He went into the living room without switching on any lights, and telephoned his cook. First, he spoke to her husband, who wanted to know who was calling, and didn’t sound convinced when he identified himself. Then the cook came on. I’m in Buenos Aires, Estela, he said. She didn’t seem surprised. Something new happens every day here, she replied when he asked if she was happy to know that he was back home. Then he tried to call his maid, but an impersonal female voice informed him that the number he had dialled was not in service. Feeling dispirited and perhaps also hungry, he tried to remember the faces of his employees, but the images he could summon were vague: shadows moving in the corridor, a commotion of clean laundry, murmurs and hushed voices.
The amazing thing is that I can remember their phone numbers, Pereda thought, sitting in the dark living room of his house. Shortly afterward, he went out. Wandering aimlessly, or so he thought, he ended up at the café where Bebe used to meet his artistic and literary friends. From the street, he looked into the spacious, well-lit, bustling interior. Bebe and an old man (An old man like me! Pereda thought) were presiding over one of the most animated tables. At another, closer to the window through which Pereda was spying, he saw a group of writers who looked as if they worked in advertising. One of them, who had an adolescent air, although he was over fifty and maybe even over sixty, kept putting a white powder up his nose and holding forth on world literature. Suddenly, the eyes of the fake adolescent met Pereda’s. For a moment, their gazes locked, as if, for each of them, the presence of the other were a gash in the ambient reality. Resolutely and with surprising agility, the writer with the adolescent air sprang to his feet and rushed out into the street. Before Pereda knew what was going on, the writer was upon him.
What are you staring at? he demanded, brushing remnants of white powder from his nose. Pereda looked him up and down. The writer was taller and slimmer and possibly stronger than he was. What are you staring at, you rude old man? What are you staring at? The fake adolescent’s gang was looking on, following the scene as if something similar happened every night.
Pereda realized that he had grasped his knife, then let himself go. He took a step forward and, without anyone noticing that he was armed, planted the point of the blade, though not deeply, in his opponent’s groin. Later, he would remember the look of surprise on the man’s face, in which terror blended with something like reproof, and the writer’s words as he groped for an explanation (Hey, what did you do, asshole?), as if there could be an explanation for fever and nausea.
I think you need a napkin, Pereda remarked in a strong, clear voice, pointing at his adversary’s bloodstained crotch. Mother, the cokehead said, looking down. When he looked up again, he was surrounded by friends and colleagues, but Pereda was gone.
What should I do, the lawyer wondered as he roamed through his beloved city, finding it strange and familiar, marvellous and pathetic. Do I stay in Buenos Aires and become a champion of justice, or go back to the pampas, where I don’t belong, and try to do something useful. I don’t know . . . maybe something with the rabbits, or the locals, those poor gauchos who accept me and put up with me and never complain. The shadows of the city declined to provide an answer. Keeping quiet, as usual, Pereda thought reproachfully. But when the day began to dawn he decided to go back.
(Translated, from the Spanish, by Chris Andrews.)
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/10/01/071001fi_fiction_bolano
ZNet | Israel/Palestine:
Israel's Agenda For Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer
by Victoria Buch
CounterPunch; September 25, 2007
The stage for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has been set in the Occupied Territories, and ethnic cleansing is in progress. At present, this is the major project of the state of Israel. For an impartial person of medium intelligence, a tour of the Occupied Territories may be sufficient to understand this fact.
The prime ethnic cleansing tool is, forever, land grab of Palestinian property in conjunction with expansion of settlements. Various stages of annexation process are in evidence in the originally rural part of the West Bank, constituting 60 per cent of its area. By now, nine per cent of the West Bank land has been transferred to the direct control of the settlements. A recent Peace Now investigation (July 2007) revealed that only twelve per cent of this land is being used at all. "The state earmarks huge tracts for the settlements, out of all proportion to their size, in order to prevent Palestinian construction in those areas. Yet once an area is closed to Palestinians, the settlers begin seizing adjacent Palestinian lands, often privately owned, that lie outside their jurisdiction".
According to B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, already in 2002, 41.9 per cent of the West Bank was assigned to the Israeli regional councils. And for years, the entire rural Area C has been under administrative control of the so called "Civil Administration", which, in close cooperation with other branches of the Israeli army and with the settlers, toils to make the life of its Palestinian residents as miserable as possible; the obvious objective being to make them leave. (Comprehensive information can be found, e.g., in the Occupation Magazine, the website of the Israeli anti-occupation activists.)
In the remaining West Bank, Palestinians became virtual prisoners in their own towns and villages. Every aspect of normal Palestinian life - economy, health, education, is being crushed by a well organized and deliberate military-bureaucratic machine, masquerading as a security establishment. Every now and then, the strangulation noose around Palestinian existence is being tightened. Ethnic cleansing, by means of home and field demolitions, is also pursued diligently by the state of Israel towards its Bedouin citizens residing in the Negev desert (see the excellent tutorial movie at the website Adalah - the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights).
All of the above scarcely registers in minds of my compatriots. No wonder, since it is covered by a monumental but eagerly believed hoax of "negotiations with Abu-Mazen", diplomatic efforts, and promises of good will gestures towards Palestinians (which are forever un-implemented, or implemented marginally for short periods). For reasons of their own, some Palestinian politicians including President Abbas chose to participate in this farce.
An average Jewish-Israeli does not know - or does not want to know - about the ethnic cleansing program executed by their state - she or he prefers to think of it as "fight against terror".
Jewish-Israeli citizens live in virtual reality, thoughtfully provided for them by the leaders, the media, and the education system. In this reality, the Israelis figure as good guys, fighting for their existence, rather than as colonizers and occupiers. In this virtual world, it is believed that our government has worked hard to achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians; and if this goal has not been not achieved, it is because of Palestinian intransigence. Impediment of negotiations by settlers is admitted, but settlers are viewed as troublesome extremists, rather than as an offshoot of deliberate and consistent annexationist policy of the Israeli government.
But the key Israeli politicians KNOW - the ethnic cleansing project could not possibly proceed otherwise. I have been wondering if every new minister in Israeli government gets a manual spelling the facts of life, written in the past by somebody like Golda Meir or Arik Sharon. Otherwise, how would you explain the remarkable continuity of Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories during the long years of the Occupation? How come the current maps of the Jewish settlements and the Palestinian enclaves match the Drobles and Sharon's blueprints for colonizing the West Bank, prepared decades years ago? However I rather think that no such manual exists, and every minister is expected to figure it out by himself/herself. Yitzhak Rabin paid with his life for what then appeared to be a sincere effort to break away from the ethnic cleansing program (although Rabin never even tried to remove the settlements; and his was the idea of the infamous "bypass roads" for settlers; in the end! , the Oslo years turned out to be a golden opportunity for settlement expansion under the cover of the bogus "peace process".) Barak, promoter of large scale colonization projects in the West Bank, seems to have made the last failed effort to set a (very limited) form of coexistence with Palestinians. But he must have finally decided that "if you cannot fight it, join it", as indicated by his current activities as a new Minister of Defense.
(One recent example can be found in the article "Hamastan as a challenge", by Shlomo Gazit, NRG, June 25, 2007: "Simultaneously with its total takeover of the Gaza Strip, the Hamas leadership implemented a unilateral ceasefire with Israel. For a whole week, not a single Qassam was fired at Sderot and the surrounding district. But then, after only one day as Defence Minister, the new Minister [Ehud Barak] authorized a new operation to seek out people on the wanted list in the Khan Younis region. Five Palestinians were killed while others were injured. As if by magic, the firing of Qassams towards Sderot resumed the very next day." Maintaining low grade violence appears necessary for the ongoing Israeli policies of presenting Palestinians as terrorists, and presenting Israeli colonization projects and military operations to crush Palestinians - both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip - as the "fight against terror".)
It was Sharon, a brilliant politician, who, under the cover of the "disengagement from Gaza", converted the ethnic cleansing program to the "only game in town" in the Israeli politics. By now, the entire Zionist establishment has been enlisted, from the Hebron settlers to the Shomer Hatzair (socialist youth movement), who, as army conscripts, provide those same settlers with security cover. The current policies of the State of Israel are determined by the collusion of settlers' insatiable appetite for land, and the generals' insatiable appetite for "action". The elected leaders who execute these policies range from whole-hearted supporters to more or less willing accomplices, mindful of their careers. Presently, none of the leaders opposes actively the ethnic cleansing program. In the background, there is the ever-intensifying humming of propaganda which designates Palestinians - both citizens and non-citizens - as A DEMOGRAPHIC DANGER WHICH SHOULD BE ADDRESSED.
The Israeli policy towards Palestinians can be summarized briefly - "inflict all the damage you can get away with". But how do the Israeli leaders envisage the end of this game? The hard core nationalists spell it loudly - "transfer", i.e. expulsion of Palestinians. But what do the main-stream leaders think - the ones who actually carry out the expulsion (presently - the internal one, to the Palestinian ghettos and the enclaves)? The operation is too well organized for one to believe that the end-game was never considered.
I believe that the final objective of our rulers is to set the stage for the second Naqba. Otherwise what is the point of the endless goading of Palestinians into violence? Any minimally thoughtful person understands that the Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories will lead to an eventual paroxysm of violence. Do not tell me that our leaders never thought about it. Granted, amongst them there are total opportunists who do not care about anything except staying in power. But somebody is pushing the ethnic cleansing forward. Sharon was the foremost among them, but judging from the well organized continuation, his associates are fully operational and in business. These people are actually looking forward to the violence. They have their eyes on the real-estate prize - the West Bank. A paroxysm of violence would enable the State of Israel to annex the West Bank - the entire West Bank, that is, while getting rid of most of Palestinian inhabitants. Just like in 1948. This is! , in my view, the envisaged end-game. Where do they propose to expel the Palestinians? Jordan? The Gaza Strip? Syria? I do not know.
Will the ethnic cleansing succeed? The authors of these policies obviously count on it. The opening is there, with the present US administration backing Israel whatever it does, and the EU and the Arab countries unable or unwilling to stand up to the US. It is likely that the forthcoming outburst of violence will be initiated by the desperate and destitute Palestinians; and then, for the umptieth time, our propaganda machine will be able to present us to the world as victims, and Palestinians as victimizers. Israeli responses will be presented as legitimate defensive actions. Later, the history may judge otherwise, but meanwhile (if the present political constellation persists for a while), who cares about the Palestinians.
But in the long run, disaster looms for Israel. This is since we are a small nation, and Palestinians are a similarly sized nation which is moreover a part of the vast Moslem world. The experience of South Africa suggests that the apartheid-type system imposed on Palestinians is not viable in the long run, even if it seems invincible at the beginning. As exemplified by last year’s invasion to Lebanon, the performance of the Israeli army is deteriorating, corrupted by years of operating as a colonial militia. At the same time, the generals are becoming increasingly unbridled and reckless. The Israeli economy rests on support of the similarly reckless US corporate-political establishment, but this very expensive support is unlikely to last forever. The ability of the US to dictate the world is also likely to wane as Russia and China are coming to their own. And perhaps most importantly - the Dome of the Rock - the third holiest place of Islam - is at stake.
In my view, my country Israel has embarked on suicidal policies. Something like that already happened in the Jewish history, some 1940 years ago - see the "The Jewish War", by Josephus Flavius. And just like in those days, most of Israeli public does not realize, that they are being dragged to disaster by their own leaders.
Victoria Buch is an Israeli academic, anti-occupation activist, and a member of the editorial board of the Occupation Magazine www.kibush.co.il. She is can be reached at vvbb54@yahoo.com
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=13870
posted by attilav at 18:31
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