Walking home from work yesterday, I passed by just one of the many colleges, institutes, academic centres of learning, call-them-what-you-will, that populate Phnom Penh. Along with the backpackers, mosquitoes, English teachers and moto drivers, 'higher learning' places are now a common sight. Standing outside in her white shirt and blue skirt was a young girl waiting for her ride, holding her jet-black books and binders tightly to her chest.
That's quite a sight, in and of itself. Only fifteen years ago, I don't think too many girls in Phnom Penh were studying much of anything. I wondered: Exactly what was she studying? Where did she want to go in life? Was there even a chance in hell of her getting there, given the modern realities of Cambodia's political and social structures?
The personal and the political are always linked in my mind.
For the past two days, Condoleeza Rice has been grilled for hours on end in her Secretary of State confirmation hearings. Forty years ago, Ms.Rice would have been similar in status and possibility to that Khmer girl I saw. The America of 1964, the Alabama of 1964, did not hold much hope for a young black girl. Rice went to the same school as one of the girls killed in the infamous church bombings in Montgomery Alabama (a story chronicled in Spike Lee's documentary 4 Little Girls). At that time, Rice wouldn't have been able to grab a hamburger at Woolworth's if she wanted to. "Ah, but you can become president someday," her parents told her, and she believed them.
And so she might. (It's not as far fetched as it may sound.) First up, she has to succeed as Secretary of State. Second up, she has to link America's policies with the world's expectations. What a shining moment of pride and possibility for African-Americans.
Yet, she is doing this as part of an administration that is disliked, if not despised, by most black Americans (and a hell of a lot of other whites, Hispanics, Chinese, Mongolians...) What should be a crowning moment of pride for the 'Civil Rights generation' hasn't really felt like that at all. Everybody's pleased as punch that Condi's made it so far, and it certainly represents a magnificent achievement...but did it have to be for somebody like Bush, they wonder. Did it have to be an African-American woman who was largely responsible for the war in Iraq, they ask.
What's Rice thinking, in these final few days before she takes the reins from Colin Powell? Somewhere inside of her, beneath the overachieving Soviet expert and former Stanford provost, beats the heart of that little girl who came of age in a slowly desegregating America. A little girl who had be twice as better as the whites around her if she wanted to succeed. A little girl who has made it to the top of the top, only to find that most of her own people may respect her, yes, but not her agenda, or her boss, or what he stands for.
Her boss, too: What does he think?
I'm not talking about Bush the president. I'm talking about Bush the frat boy, Bush the practical joker, the eldest son of the family who kind of bumbled through his twenties and thirties looking for something to focus his energies on. I just read a book about the 'Bush family dynasty'; its central argument being that the Bush family has been at the centre of an almost century long vortex that lies at the heart of the military-industrial complex, that nebulous alliance of big business, big industry and big military that has fueled America's imperialist ambitions. Money, oil, the CIA, oil, Saudi Arabia, oil, the CIA, Texas money, oil -- Bush the elder, Bush the younger, and their family connections to the whole damn shebang, are all chronicled in exhaustive detail. (Oh, and did I mention their links to the oil industry?Or the CIA? Very scary stuff.)
The point is, at one point, Bush was a high school kid who liked to screw around and play baseball and try to cop a feel every now and then. While his dad was forging the international links that would eventually sustain his son's political career, Bush was daydreaming through Economics 101, waiting for the bell, watching the clock. He was a yahoo, in other words, as we all were, and as some of us still are (present company absolutely included.)
This kind of stuff fascinates me. Slowly, through the days and years that claim us all, somehow, Bush was brought into the family circle. He learned the ropes. The intricacies and complexities of global cartels and local, West Texas oil tycoons gradually became understanable, if not clear, resulting in a worldwide order and destiny that has been, without exaggeration, largely shaped and refined by a single family, by a father and his son.
It's fascinating, if you look at it this way. All of these complex, global-altering concepts of finance and theology and espionage and shady deals made in brightly lit rooms and shadowy hallways, and it all comes down (as all of our lives do) to a Thanksgiving dinner in Kennebunkport, and George Dubya walking into a room, and hugging his dad, and his dad asking how things are, and the son saying pretty good, pretty good, can't complain, and how's that turkey coming? The stuffing going to be like last year's? That was good stuff.
The personal and the political, linked, inseparate.
So back to the young Khmer girl. Let's not forget about her, shall we? She stands in front of the school, waiting for her ride. She's learning English, maybe computers, possibly a little accounting. Corruption and politics and money changing hands goes on all around her. A few blocks away, political parties and treaties and deaths are being planned. She's oblivious to it all, as she should be, as Rice and Bush before her were, as you were, too (and maybe still are).
Who knows? She could be a future leader in this country, twenty, thirty years from now. Stranger things have happened. Or she could be a housewife by the time she's twenty, a more likely scenario. (Ah, but this is Cambodia, and since when could the word 'likely' be applied to anything with certainty? So let's allow her her dreams; let's give her that much, at the very least.)
All around the country, big changes are happening, ideas are being discussed, senators are being bribed, coups being planned.
And it all comes back that girl, waiting for her ride. It all comes back to the ordinary lives we try to lead in the middle of swirling, indefinable political tornadoes that shake us up and lift us high.
As I walked down the street, I looked back to see if she was still standing there.
She was.
For some reason, I took that as a good sign.
