a cabdriver reads Thomas L. Friedman
article-in-todays-times-mag-a-post-by-john-252362.php> ‘How to Read the Tom Friedman Article in Today’s Times Mag’: A Post = by John Hello. I am here to tell you about the article entitled “The Power of = Green” (AKA “The Greening of Geopolitics”) in this week’s New York = Times magazine by my American friend Mr. Thomas L. Friedman. Allow me = to introduce myself. I am called Pookunhi Takahiro Pierre Velazquez y = Al-Sadr. By birth, I am of the Oulad Bou Sbaa (”Father of the Lion”) = tribe; it is a noble tribe. Because of the globalization, however, in = the mid-1990s, I became a cab driver in Abu Dhabi, and it was on the = corner of Liwa and Sheik Hamdam Bin Mohammed, peace be to = Zarathustra, that I first met my American friend Mr. Thomas L. = Freidman, who was flapping his arms like that traditional bird I know = about, which I still take seriously as a beautiful metaphor even as I = face down modernity. Anyway, he came into my taxi and asked to learn = my name, and also my existence. I told him the latter would be benefited by a new line of luxurious = sedans from the Toyota Motors Company and a new e.-v. o. o. that went = better with those too-sour artisanal balsamics my vinaigrette-Nazi = wife was always having me try at home. He nodded knowingly, but could = not pronounce my name, so he said he would call me simply “John,” = which is a popular name in America. I told him that that was fine but = I preferred the Old Testament resonances of “Jon” to the “h”- = inclusive Christian spelling; he explained that I was likely = illiterate and probably did not care. Mr. Thomas L. Friedman — in my culture, it is customary to shorten = the name “Thomas” to “Tom,” but my American friend said there were = some things even he would not countenance in the name of golden = interdependence — was craving a Royale with Cheese, so I pulled over = at the neighborhood McDonald’s, and he disembarked. Though he is a = very good friend whose inner life I understand with a depth = comparable only to the height that that bird I talked about earlier = can fly, this was sadly the last time I saw Mr. Thomas L. Friedman. I = am not sure, but I believe his country and my country are now at war. In any case, imagine the surprise when I saw my old friend’s article = on the cover of today’s New York Times magazine! I am embarrassed to = say, though I am a subscriber (there are things behind the Select = wall that infidels could not even fathom!), I make it past The Funny = Pages only rarely — in my culture, The Funny Pages are the funniest = pages in the media and all the online blogs talk about them, so I = always laugh so hard at them the whole magazine rips apart in my = hands. But, of course, I owed it to Mr. Thomas L. Friedman to read = what he had to say about America and the environment and the world, = because he once showed me such empathy and understanding, and = because, as I learned from our last meeting, Mr. Thomas L. Friedman = entertainingly enjoys pointing outside the windows of moving vehicles = and yelling out new, absurd words for the familiar things he sees. In = my culture, this way of communicating is very non-traditional and = exciting — alas, we know about Koko the talking gorilla only from = pirated VHS copies of PBS documentaries purchased at bazaars, next to = harems, next to sultans — so I set aside my insatiable curiosity = over what happens next in that Michael Chabon serial novella, and = turned straight to “The Greening of Geopolitics” by Mr. Thomas L. = Friedman. Wow! Things are very different in the United States and — praise be = the Merovingian kings! –not entirely in a bad way either. We in the = Emirates have a lot to learn from the simplicity and resourcefulness = of Americans like my friend Thomas L. Friedman, and so, before you = make judgments based on preconceived notions of what an original, = properly argued magazine article should be, I ask you to read “The = Greening of Geopolitics” in a generous and culturally sensitive way = that does not immediately appeal to such terms as “hack” and = “embarrassment to the Pulitzer committee and, moreover, the art and = practice of writing as such.” For example, I read in a fascinating = (though traditional and properly argued) piece by John Colapinto in = the New Yorker last week that there is a very primitive tribe in = Brazil that can only count with “one,” “two,” and “many,” and have no = fixed words for colors. I did not expect this to be true of Mr. = Thomas L. Friedman the time I met him — when he told me I have a = “beautiful odor” and a terrifically patterned traditional tunic (it = was a slim-fit Zegna my sister-in-law picked up for me in Milan) — = but perhaps he in fact exhibits the same marvelously dignified = penchant for solipsistic extrapolation and sophistic elision (so = often ridiculed in our traditional culture as “lazy ‘tardation”) as = those wonderful Pirah=E3 tribesman. Perhaps it is a recessive allele? That is to say, we are being dangerously ethnocentric if we ask my = American friend Thomas L. Friedman to have the same sense of history, = or even basic non-demagogic short-term memory, that we would expect = of a journalist here at home. Of course, because we are always = shopping for pirated DVDs of An Inconvenient Truth at bazaars, next = to harems, next to sultans, we remember the man named Al Gore, and, = as such, it would be plainly ridiculous for any individual in our = traditional culture to claim to make, on April 15, 2007, an original = argument about how environmentalism should become a non-partisan = issue that everyone rallies around. But, with no fixed words for = colors — or, for that matter, the sets of programmatic predilections = customarily second-order signified by them — in my friend Thomas L. = Friedman’s society, a shamanistic practice ethnologists call = “obliviously stating the obvi” holds sway: We will need to find a way to reknit America at home, reconnect = America abroad and restore America to its natural place in the global = order — as the beacon of progress, hope and inspiration. I have an = idea how. It’s called “green….” Well, I want to rename “green.” I = want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and = patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, = designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be = the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st = century…. How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they = thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous = world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at = the dawn of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in = scale that they can only be effectively addressed by an America with = 50 green states — not an America divided between red and blue states. I did some searching on the Google, and want to point out to the = reader that, xenophobic lies aside, Americans do not actually believe = that the planet Earth is flat, is becoming flatter, or was ever flat = before. In fact, it seems that Americans are just inordinately = transfixed by strained catchphrases, which, according to my taxi = conversation with Mr. Thomas L. Friedman, they love affixing to such = things as books commonly found in the “Political Science” sections of = public libraries, Sunday-morning talk show appearances, and even = statements in the sorts of venues we in the more traditional world = usually associate with serious truth claims. Take that into = consideration when reading utterances like this: The good news is that after traveling around America this past year, = looking at how we use energy and the emerging alternatives, I can = report that green really has gone Main Street — thanks to the = perfect storm created by 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Internet = revolution. The first flattened the twin towers, the second flattened = New Orleans and the third flattened the global economic playing field. Now, it may be shocking to for us to hear such crudeness, but if we = are to answer the big questions facing a twenty-first century of = Times Op-Ed domination, it is best to learn well the environmental = lesson that my American friend Thomas L. Friedman first taught me all = those years ago: polish up a cubic zirconia anecdote and it might = just pass — for two or three decades at least — as a diamond factoid: My Pakistani friend and I were allowed to observe a class of young = boys who sat on the floor, practicing their rote learning of the = Koran from texts perched on wooden holders. The air in the Koran = class was so thick and stale it felt as if you could have cut it into = blocks…. I went to Moscow in February, and my friends told me they = just celebrated the first Moscow Christmas in their memory with no = snow…. Outside my window the smog was so thick you could not see = the end of the terminal building. When I got into Beijing, though, = friends told me the air was better than usual. In the olden days of my culture, custom would dictate that we try to = figure out what is meant by such foreign babble. But as a properly = glocalized man, I say hogwash: It’s enough to know that, deep down, = despite all the superficial differences, the world’s people are = really, truly best friends forever.
=97p. t. p. “john” velazquez y al-sadr The Power of Green [NYTM]