VLVL 4: Vietnam

[Otto]

Hi Maria,

thanks for your thoughtful post and a warm welcome to the Pynchon list.

----- Original Message -----
From: "snarf" <snarf at montevideo.com.uy>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 9:21 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL 4: Vietnam


> Otto wrote:
>
> >What's wrong with economical emigration is that the people might be
> > needed in their home countries for building up infrastructure.
>
> >There's nothing wrong with the Turks and their families who have been
> >invited to Germany in the early sixties, but I think that the refugees
> > from the Balkan-wars (for example) should return to their countries
> > because there's important work to be done there.
>
> Otto, I'm sure your comments have good intentions, but you are taking for
> granted things that does not work the same way in the "Third World" than
> in rich countries.

Well, the times that Germany could be regarded as a "rich country" are
over since the Berlin Wall fell.

> The economical emigration happens because this people are not wanted in
> the countries they were born.

Who doesn't want them?

> They are unemployed, or underemployed and no one
> let anyone build the infrastructure you are talking about.

Germany has ten percent unemployment, about 4.5 million people
can't get a job. It's useless to come here looking for a job if you're
not highly qualified (and even that is no guarantee).

The picture isn't much different in France, the Netherlands,
Denmark and most other Western European countries.
In the Eastern European countries it is even worse.

> Sometimes,
> building the infrastructure you mention should take a revolution. And
> revolutions are not allowed neither by the rich countries, nor by the
> owners of the country you live in. So if you are not a hero,  you
> don't have strong
> ties with a country that gave you nothing and all you want is to live a
> quiet life wherever life takes you, you just emigrate.

I understand that but emigration to Europe is no solution anymore.
I don't know how democratic Uruguay is now but sooner or later
the USA and the EU won't tolerate any dictatorship anymore.
Things will improve in Brazil and Argentina, things have improved
in Chili already. Other countries in South America will follow.

> I live in South America and every day some friend, some relative,
> emigrates.
> And one day you find that you can travel round the globe staying with
> friends in almost every country, every city of the "first world". Is not
> nice and you start to feel that you are wrong staying here. "No future"
> sung the Sex Pistols. Ha! It's still a funny joke.

But it's true, there's no future here if the economy goes down.

> I work 12 hours a day, and my earnings equal U$S 350 a month. I have a
> rather qualified job, and I have been to University. After paying the
> bills
> there's only U$S 102 left. Out these U$S 102 you should pay for breakfast,
> lunch and dinner (oh, you want to eat three times a day!), clothes and
> everything else you need to keep your house (and your health) going. I
> have no children, there's no way I can feed up one, not to mention
> sending him to school or paying for medical attention.
> If I want to buy Gravity Rainbow it
> cost U$S 30 down here. A CD costs U$S 23. A pair of sneakers U$S 40.
> And I'm
> among the lucky who has a job. A good job. A school teacher earns U$S 150
> a month.

I get 556 Euro plus roughly 200 tip (I'm a cabdriver) a month for 48 hours
a week. My rent is 317 Euro.

> The kind of job I do here is payed U$S 2000 a month in the United States,
> 8 working hours instead of 12. Why staying here?

Because maybe they don't need you in the States too? What about
unemployment, the giant budget deficit in the USA?

> Because there's some work to
> do building the infrastructure? The infrastructure of what? The
> infrastructure for whom?

Infrastructure means roads, railroads, schools, hospitals, industrie in
the so-called Third World countries.

> But I'm still in my country because I'm too lazy to move up. Or because I
> still have a job. But I'm far not needed here and not wanted anywhere
> else.
> It's very easy to speak up on third world countries, emigration,
> dictatorship or anything else when you have not been through them.

Germany has been through dictatorship, first the nazis and then the
communists in the former DDR. We've integrated 17 million East Germans
and the rotten DDR-economy. We've taken more refugees from Russia,
the Balkan, the Middle East and Africa than every other country in the EU,
but for the sake of the political stability we cannot take many more.
I'm afraid of those fifteen percent who would vote for a nazi party if we
would allow such a party.

> I'm sure
> Saddam was a cruel dictator, Fidel Castro maybe still is. But dropping
> 2.000
> pounds bombs on people does any good. The "liberating irakis" thing sucks.

We couldn't keep the US-government from starting that war, but the
situation has changed now. There will be an Iraqi government and there
will be elections.

Castro has to go too if Cuba shall have a future. He's the one who keeps the
Cubans from having normal relations to their neighbors, from developing a
normal economy.

> The "mass destruction weapons" thing sucks much more. You can't be so dumb
> in beliving such simple lies.

I have no doubts that Saddam Hussein was trying to get those weapons.
He has slaughtered the Shiites, he has used poison gas against the Kurds,
and he wouldn't have hesitated to use anthrax or nuclear warheads against
Israel once he'd got that stuff. If the Chinese don't force the North
Koreans
to come to terms there will be nuclear warheads in South Korea, Taiwan and
Japan. The Chinese have no interest in that. Nuclear blackmailing cannot be
tolerated.

> Please, concentrate in more elaborated ones,
> you are clever human beings, you rule the world,

I disagree, the Yankees rule the world. The US-economy defines the terms
of trade.

> come on, think a little
> harder and I swear we would consider the new myths for supporting the US
> invading foreign countries they don't even understand.

Who understands islamist fundamentalism and suicide bombing? Most of
the September 11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, a very rich country.

There will be no support for invading Syria or Iran. And I'm sure that the
US-Americans won't support that too now that they see how difficult things
are, that Iraq isn't like Germany or Japan after WW-2.

> First there were the
> communists, now there are the terrorists, tomorrow will be the mulatos,
> the albinos, whatever...nevermind.
>

Only if those people you mention decide to throw bombs. There will never
be a free Palestine or Chechnia on the basis of hijacking airplanes, blowing
up busses and people in street cafés.

> > I also think that the Iraquis who had fled the Hussein-regime should
>>  return home now, especially *because* they have lived in democratic
> > "environments"and could now become important members of the
> > political structures at home.
>
>
> Oh, they have become "civilized" people now. You should take for granted
> that they won't take back a Pynchon book to show their fellow countrymen
> how things "work" in the real world. Maybe a Britney Spears CD will do OK.
> Oh, come on...
>

No, but they've seen what elections are, that political stability and
welfare in the 21st century only can be grounded on democracy.
The Islamic civilisation is older than the European, the Islam once
was much more tolerant than Christianity. But it is the "Jihad" that
really sucks, old men who want to keep patriarchal structures by
sending young men and women to death.

Otto