Accents--and the Dragon's Teeth

I used to get a chuckle, Bush, out of hearing people of West Indian origin speaking with pure Cockney accents. Obviously, they were London born and bred, so it ought not to have been surprising to hear their accents; but I left England in 1962, and from then on returned only occasionally to visit family, so I missed the major influx of immigrants that must have arrived there in the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, there was a growing Indian and Pakistani population before I left--we used to have fun with the Peter Sellers spoof of their accent on The Goon Show--and there was the beginning of new arrivals from the West Indies. But it was a surprise to me, on my visits "home," starting in the 1980s, to hear the voices of the native born children of early immigrants.

And now, on yesterday's BBC World News report in the latest findings in last week's London bombings, I recalled that pleasurable surprise on hearing what was obviously a second generation of Middle Easterners speaking in broad Yorkshire brogue--Muslims in full regalia, complete with beards and headbands. More troubling was the substance of the report, that it was young men such as those interviewed, British-born and educated, who had somehow connected with enough of the hatred that inspired the 9/11 perpetrators to inflict their terror tactics on their own people: British, and--especially in the Edgware Road area--even Muslims. Those brought up with them, their peers and neighbors, were shocked to find this venom brewing in their communities. But there it was. Islamic terror with a Yorkshire accent.

It's clear, Bush, that the populations of the world are on the move. National, even racial groups are mingling with greater or lesser degrees of comfort. People everywhere are looking for prosperity, happiness, financial security for their families, better living conditions. Those born in countries where such things are available only to those fortunate--or unscrupulous--enough to enjoy great wealth are naturally inclined to cast their eye further afield, to countries where they seem within reasonable reach. It has been happening for nearly two centuries now, and the drift has become a tide, and then a flood. Here in the U.S., they came first from Ireland and eastern Europe. Now they come from countries to the south, they cross the Pacific from southeast Asia, the Atlantic from Africa and the Middle East. The transformation of Europe, I suspect, along with its turmoil, has much to do with this global shift. And, because we have not yet learned, as a species, how to accommodate to these radical changes in our evolutionary (sorry, Bush!) growth, we are all vulnerable to the fears and angers they provoke.

It's in this context, Bush, that I see acts of terrorism: boils pustulating and bursting on the surface of the globe. Declaring war on terrorism is futile, as I see it. Sure, I grant you, it's an obvious obligation to do everything we can to protect ourselves from brutal, senseless attacks. But that, as I was saying yesterday, is more a matter of effective intelligence and policing than fielding armies, as you have done in Iraq--to the infinite regret of almost everyone except yourself. The dragon's teeth you sowed have sprouted into armies of implacable and ferocious enemy warriors: it was a tiny unit of this vast, unarticulated army that again attacked our common body last week. No, Bush, the boil problem is systemic. Its source is a venom that is continuing to spread through the world's body, and the boils will not go away until the body learns how to neutralize the venom in its system. Which is why I say the holistic approach is the only one that makes the slightest sense: let's stop fussing around with local issues, attempting to apply a bandage here, a patch there. Let's take a good look at the whole body politic, Bush--as I think your Blair, to his credit, was beginning to try to do in Scotland, though apparently against your all-American grain--and begin to identify solutions that can heal and nourish us all. Until we realize that this is our only choice, we'll go on being confronted with the lessons we refuse to learn from.

Time to get off your high Texas horse, Bush, and muck in with the rest of humankind.