Historic Places in South Jersey

Historic Places in South Jersey - Places to Go and Things to Do

A discussion of things to do and places to go, with the purpose
of sharing, and encouraging exploration of South Jersey.

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Pandemic - the Global Community

Just took a break from watching Netflix tv series BOLIVAR, to wonder - Why do we all know the phrase "Hannibal Crossing the Alps" and we do not know about Bolivar crossing the Andes? 

Mexico and South America are not just our neighbors, we are one large connected body, along with our closer cousins, the other former colony, Canada.  We know so little about them, and by 'we' I mean me and anyone and everyone I have ever known.  

The only people I ever knew who knew any history South of the Border, were artists who knew Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.  

It is as though they are our cousins, through geographical marriage.  They are the cousins spawned by the Spanish Empire's conquest of the Americas.  We speak a different language.  But all we know is about land grabs like the Alamo.  All the U.S. Government wants is what it can take - land or labor - a very exploitive and parasitic relationship.  And build a border wall!  Our southern neighbors are our family, the ones we find difficult.  

One of the unexpected delights of watching the Netflix  series Bolivar, which is subtitled, is when I understand a word here or there from the Spanish speakers.  Or when I figure out a word from its Latin roots.  One of my three unfulfilled hopes/dreams/fantasies, however you choose to look at it, was that I always wanted to learn Spanish, if not fluently (I know how hard that is) at least moderately.   I had three years of it in high school and I remember the title of the textbook was El Camino Real.  I liked the illustrations.  I love listening to the Spanish speakers in the tv series.  I find it a beautiful and interesting language.  

When you study another language, you become intimate with the different sounds that are used, different from your native tongue.  The Spanish have the trilled 'r' and the Germans have the two different sounds for 'ch' - Those are the only languages with which I have any familiarity,  The song quality of a language is interesting too, like bird song.


Also, when I was very young, around 19 I guess, I went to Mexico with a girlfriend from work.  We flew to Texas and took buses as far as Guadalajara.  We wanted to go to Acapulco but it was closed for some natural disaster involving the water, no tourists premise.

One of the great joys of the life of the mind, is intellectual curiosity which when combined with attentiveness, can bring about a kaleidoscopic vision of how things fit together, how they are the same, related, woven into one another:  the themes of history and personal life.

Our current state in the U.S. reminds me of the early boiling points in all the documentaries and books I have read that featured revolutions.  The slow fracturing that begins with some natural disaster such as a weather anomaly, drought, volcanic ash covering the sun and creating an endless winter, earthquakes and so on.  The lowest level of the society, or civilization, begin to suffer below survival level, and leaders among the begin to speak out.

In the revolutionary stories I have been following, perhaps throughout my life, colonists rebelled against the control of the Empire which established them, or peasants rebelled against feudal overlords, or slaves rebelled against their human traffickers.  But sometimes a country can be rent by a deep fissure such as the divide between the culture of the slave trafficking south in the United States and that of the industrialized, wage-worker, immigrant fueled society of the north.  The racism embedded in our own struggle here in the U.S. has made the long lasting fissures that are splitting their way across the land at present.  It is like one of those frozen lakes in Canada where the ice road truckers take goods over the frozen land in winter; the truck is a bit too heavy and the ice begins to creak and split.

We are cracking and splitting over living wage inequities, corruption throughout the government and the companies that control our nation.  We are dividing over the old complaints too, racial divides: people who still feel the need to claim racial superiority over others, people who want to use violence to exert dominance over their fellow citizens.  

This is a frightening time, a time of foment and unpredictable change.  

I take hope in what Yuval Harari said on BBC World News one night when asked what the future will be like after the pandemic:  "There is only one thing we can say for sure, it can't be predicted, it will be completely new."

I would like to say "Viva la Revolution!" but although I recognize the need for it, I am too aware from history of the wreckage that follows such large social upheavals.

It is a challenge to be face, not unlike facing into the unpredictable world of old age and disorganizing physical systems.  All I can do in the face of any of it is keep observing, keep learning, absorb as much useful information as I can.

It's a long and winding road.....
Jo Ann

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