LEARNING EMPATHY WITH THOSE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY WHOSE CITIZENS SPEAK A LANGUAGE UNKNOWN TO YOU

I can’t say how many times I’ve heard the complaint in the US about non-English speaking individuals not making the effort to learn English. Somehow, the reasoning appears to conclude that the non-speaker of English is either arrogant and, therefore, not sufficiently grateful for the magnanimous generosity of natively born Americans in allowing them to remain in the US, or that the non-speaker of English is incorrigibly stupid, de facto evidence of the irremediable ignorance of people from a different culture who speak a language that is not as ‘advanced’ as English.

While I have always recognized such statements/arguments as being deeply racist in origin, I have often wondered at the reluctance of immigrants to master at least the basics of the dominant language of a country that speaks a language different from their native language. After nearly three months of living in a country in which the dominant language is one so far removed from the linguistic roots of English or any other Western European language I am beginning to understand.

  Like many immigrants to the US or other prosperous western European nations, I left the US for economic reasons (I needed a job with a steady income) with an understanding that my stay was temporary. The contract I was offered is limited and I hope to return to my home in the US to be with my family as I near the end of my life. Consequently, my reasons for investing my time in learning a new language are severely limited by the terms of my employment and my objectives in leaving the US in the first place.

      In any case, I had great hopes in being able to learn the indigenous language in order to come to a better understanding of the culture and become basically unnoticeable amongst the general population, not unlike the desire of an illegal immigrant to blend into the general population in order to avoid recognition leading to deportation. However, the demands on my time by my employer as well as my inability to freely move about due to a lack of personal transportation have severely limited my opportunity for studying anything, let alone a new language. Local laws make obtaining a legal driver’s license dependent upon an operative fluency in the local language (no half measures or intermediate fluency allowed here), and since the municipal transportation system management where I am now living have decided any publication of routes is unnecessary I am forced to either let chance take me where it will when I travel, take an expensive cab with thoroughly researched routes and destinations clearly printed out, or, if I am extremely lucky, rely on a companion who speaks the language and is willing to travel with me when I am able to travel.


Consequently, every need to travel to a new destination is an undertaking loaded with pitfalls and a lurking sense of dread that disaster is as imminent as the next intersection.

Because of such reactions and such realities the natural response of attempting to exercise some control over circumstance is to develop a narrowly defined routine, shopping at the same supermarket, eating at the same restaurants, and, most effective, never leaving the proximity of others who speak your native language. I have met many expats who rarely leave their homes and established routine except for gatherings with other expats. Public occasions are held in establishments that clearly cater to an international clientele, who, in most cases, are upper middle class and above and speak English with a relative easy to understand fluency. In effect, my lack of language fluency restricts my associations as well as my movements. Factor in the legal tenuousness of my residency (I have a work permit but one unknowing violation of local law or custom and I am deported) and a huge reluctance to become involved with anyone outside of my immediate experience becomes manifest.

I can only imagine the constant anxiety of living within a legally and culturally fragile compromise new immigrants, both legal and illegal, must experience in a country as unwelcoming as the US, many western European countries and many quickly developing countries, especially when the move was undertaken for little more than trying to survive in the world.

It's Time to End Monkey Politics

As we watch the slowly unfolding crash of the infrastructure of Zimbabwe, the facts of who and what is responsible for the crash is self-evident. Robert Mugabe’s lust for power and prestige is the unquestionable cause of Zimbabwe’s slow decline into chaos. Only the wealthy and powerful are capable of living lives that are insulated from the rampant cholera and inflation. Vladimir Putin in Russia is another prime example of government for the leading alpha male, as was or latest Republican president, George W. Bush.

What we are witnessing is the culmination of five millennia of monkey politics. Our entire political structure has been and still is driven by hormonally charged, biologically driven social structures in which so-called “Alpha” Males are driven to monopolize all the good female breeding stock, hell, all the female breeding stock. Those of us who are not “Alpha,” ie., driven by the secretions of our gonads, are expected to cower before the “Alpha’s” magnificence and accept the “self-evident proof” of their superiority. In truth, those who seek power over others are akin to “dirty” neutron atomic bombs designed to destroy all life while preserving valuable architectural structures. Their desire for power is limited only by the competition of other “Alphas.”

Over the millennia we have seen thousands of philosophical “explanations” of why monkey politics and monkey politics political structures are “natural.” Such explanations from the “natural” superiority of wealthy, white males to the “divine” right of kings, from “might makes right” to “inbred inferiority.”
The days of monkey politics must come to an end. In true democracies the only power any individual seeks is the power develop their full potential as individuals in such ways that other individuals are granted the same power. If we, as a species, are to survive and not self-destruct we must forgo the kind of hormone driven politics and political structures that create and support men such as Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush.