Local Economics, US Politics
They call it Karte char/Karte seh and what a great, dusty community I now call home! It's located about a third of the way around a large hill (called TV hill because broadcasters fill the top of it) from the downtown area. Just about all of the foreign workers from NGO's (non-government organizations) rent here, making it, maybe, 1/7 foreigners. Thus far I have rarely bothered to venture downtown, being content to roam this treeless area (well, the whole city is relatively treeless, due to Mujahadin wars). Here I've shared time, hugs, laughter and tears with many national acquaintances, though no tried and true friends yet. A lot of impromptu teas sort of happen; once a musical troupe from France "invaded" a tea. (We communicated in Spanish in front of our Dari speaking host.) The University of K-Town rests on my neighborhood's northern border. Lots of trees shelter the University grounds and few cars are allowed (difficult to abduct w/o a car) so the internal perimeter is an ideal place to run laps. Foreigners are allowed to have one Christian Church and its usually in NGO territory, rotating between several buildings and homes - you've got to be an insider to know exactly when and where the next meeting is. I've become an insider - its my main contact with westerners outside my immediate PeaceBridge School (ISK) peer group. NGO workers are a different breed from the "downtown foreigners". Downtown are the embassy and UN folk. The stereotype "downtown foreigner" lives behind multi-layered security, wears sunglasses, is chamfered around or remains in seclusion, and that stereotype has been partly confirmed and partly broken by occasional mixing at church. Just outside the capitol, on every side, lies the other side of the world - I've seen it on TV just like you have. I know it about as well as you do. Our farmlands seem about as far away from my present home as they were from my home in North Philly. I've been invited there by fellow foreigners but have never gone. Some national friends have also invited me and I'm waiting for the right time (after the elections) to begin that odyssey.
At IAM language school I've landed a couple of "spare" hours with the head teacher on Thursdays (no ISK school on Thursday because it's right next to Friday, which is everyone's holy day). Malim Jannan, the teacher I chose for my reading and writing course is off on Thursdays. The head teacher has an economics degree from U of K-Town from back in the day when it was run by the USSR. My economics degree is
from the U of Costa Rica. My Latino professors would role over in their cubicles if they heard him describe what I learned as "Imperialist Economics". Anyway, we agreed to spend one hour talking economics in Dari and one hour on the reading and writing course. And talk of economics lead to talk about Karte seh/Karte char.
We agreed that USSR "socialist economics" has failed; that has never been a source of debate.. And we looked for solutions for this corner of Persia. Normally, investment can be made only at the expense of consumption. You gotta eat less than you produce to be able to invest in productive infrastructure. But right now our country can build infrastructure without sacrifice due to foreign funds pouring in - quite an historic opportunity. But what are we building during this window?
There is an effort to convert the farmlands from poppy production. But to what? I lamented that an agricultural product had not been identified the production of which this country could specialize in. Costa Rica used its high altitude farmlands to yield a quality grade of coffee that commands top dollar (well above Columbian) year after year on the international market and its low lands to produce bananas. Then it dropped the military from its budget in favor of education and medicine. Next, it expanded its tourist infrastructure until it surpassed coffee as the number one source of foreign funds. Today, on many economic and social indices, Costa Rica is a developed, not a third world nation. Our country has high altitude farmlands with considerably less water than Central America, though the Khyber River is nothing to be sneezed at. Not just ANY product will do, which seems to be the current (lack of) strategy to replace poppy. What specialized product would thrive better here than anywhere else and draw top dollar year in and year out?
Karte seh/Karte char is the center of a certain type of foreigner oriented economy. In my mind, the poster child projects are those that train women to earn money and esteem by producing goods and services for consumption by resident westerners. The whole local community economy is like that. One of the most lucrative jobs is landowner - renting to foreigners (in a dual priced market). It is illegal for foreigners to own land. Stores at the local bazaar stock corn flakes, etc. at prices ten times higher than local grain. It is a step in the right direction and a complete world changer for those individuals who benefit from it, but is this good long term economic strategy? Building local economic infrastructure without sacrificing local consumption is a situation that can not be sustained indefinitely - is this the infrastructure that will best serve? The old micro/macro vision needs to be considered (more money makes an individual rich, but for a country it only causes inflation and redistributes wealth in favor of the wealthy; countries need production
of more of goods and services to become rich, even if no individual in the country consumes them). Is what's profitable for these families now really good for the country (i.e. the future of those same families)? Are we squandering an historic opportunity to build an infrastructure that will provide for economic needs without that constant injection of foreign money? It seems to me that, on the macro view, the money being earned in my community is not nearly as good for the country as, say, money from tourism, since tourism dollars are competitively attracted and won, thus sustainable, where as the "Karte seh" dollars are here because foreigners are living out compassion during an historic epoch and historical epochs have a way of ending.
Which brings me to the motive of the foreigners living in Karte seh/Karte char. I have met some motivated by liberal passion (not just UN workers from downtown but also Karte Seh/Char Europeans and others)- but none from the USA. Every American I've breeched the topic of politics with is what I would call a compassionate conservative. So, with too much political hubris (if you're making peace, not war, where are the liberal peacemakers?), I wrote some dear USA family that I would consider "liberal" (sorry for the label). I got a long list of liberal peacemakers, and went to church with the info. Most were rural (other side of the world to me; I'll start visiting there some day, probably first with my students' families then in earnest over our three week Christmas break), one was UN, some were non-USA. No one I shook hands with worked for any of them. But my political hubris was not appropriate.
The American part (maybe half of the foreigners?) in the Carte char/Karte seh population is either politically segregated or politically homogenous. There may exist a segregated, undiscovered part of my community; I have certainly not been thorough in seeking out fellow Americans. Perhaps these folk do not go to my church (though it be the only Christian one legally in town.) Maybe they go to embassy events
(I'm not even sure exactly where the US Embassy is - I've stayed on the NGO corner of TV Hill). And if this community be homogenous that is not necessarily a political victory. Maybe only the right wingers would stoop to take NGO and charity money to destroy the long term hopes of the locals by teaching them to build micro businesses that cater to westerners, while the noble left does, well, whatever it is they have a passion for on those poppy fields and behind the tinted glass. (Come on - it's a joke! In my heart I do not doubt the compassion of Oxfam, any more than you doubt my compassion. And you make jokes, too. Compassionate conservative is not an oxymoron - in your heart you doubt neither our compassion nor our conservatism.) It's a tossup right now, but I'd put my money on political segregation. Some of those micro businesses smell of leftist roots! Let the political jokes and seriousness mix and continue, no offense taken nor intended.
At IAM language school I've landed a couple of "spare" hours with the head teacher on Thursdays (no ISK school on Thursday because it's right next to Friday, which is everyone's holy day). Malim Jannan, the teacher I chose for my reading and writing course is off on Thursdays. The head teacher has an economics degree from U of K-Town from back in the day when it was run by the USSR. My economics degree is
from the U of Costa Rica. My Latino professors would role over in their cubicles if they heard him describe what I learned as "Imperialist Economics". Anyway, we agreed to spend one hour talking economics in Dari and one hour on the reading and writing course. And talk of economics lead to talk about Karte seh/Karte char.
We agreed that USSR "socialist economics" has failed; that has never been a source of debate.. And we looked for solutions for this corner of Persia. Normally, investment can be made only at the expense of consumption. You gotta eat less than you produce to be able to invest in productive infrastructure. But right now our country can build infrastructure without sacrifice due to foreign funds pouring in - quite an historic opportunity. But what are we building during this window?
There is an effort to convert the farmlands from poppy production. But to what? I lamented that an agricultural product had not been identified the production of which this country could specialize in. Costa Rica used its high altitude farmlands to yield a quality grade of coffee that commands top dollar (well above Columbian) year after year on the international market and its low lands to produce bananas. Then it dropped the military from its budget in favor of education and medicine. Next, it expanded its tourist infrastructure until it surpassed coffee as the number one source of foreign funds. Today, on many economic and social indices, Costa Rica is a developed, not a third world nation. Our country has high altitude farmlands with considerably less water than Central America, though the Khyber River is nothing to be sneezed at. Not just ANY product will do, which seems to be the current (lack of) strategy to replace poppy. What specialized product would thrive better here than anywhere else and draw top dollar year in and year out?
Karte seh/Karte char is the center of a certain type of foreigner oriented economy. In my mind, the poster child projects are those that train women to earn money and esteem by producing goods and services for consumption by resident westerners. The whole local community economy is like that. One of the most lucrative jobs is landowner - renting to foreigners (in a dual priced market). It is illegal for foreigners to own land. Stores at the local bazaar stock corn flakes, etc. at prices ten times higher than local grain. It is a step in the right direction and a complete world changer for those individuals who benefit from it, but is this good long term economic strategy? Building local economic infrastructure without sacrificing local consumption is a situation that can not be sustained indefinitely - is this the infrastructure that will best serve? The old micro/macro vision needs to be considered (more money makes an individual rich, but for a country it only causes inflation and redistributes wealth in favor of the wealthy; countries need production
of more of goods and services to become rich, even if no individual in the country consumes them). Is what's profitable for these families now really good for the country (i.e. the future of those same families)? Are we squandering an historic opportunity to build an infrastructure that will provide for economic needs without that constant injection of foreign money? It seems to me that, on the macro view, the money being earned in my community is not nearly as good for the country as, say, money from tourism, since tourism dollars are competitively attracted and won, thus sustainable, where as the "Karte seh" dollars are here because foreigners are living out compassion during an historic epoch and historical epochs have a way of ending.
Which brings me to the motive of the foreigners living in Karte seh/Karte char. I have met some motivated by liberal passion (not just UN workers from downtown but also Karte Seh/Char Europeans and others)- but none from the USA. Every American I've breeched the topic of politics with is what I would call a compassionate conservative. So, with too much political hubris (if you're making peace, not war, where are the liberal peacemakers?), I wrote some dear USA family that I would consider "liberal" (sorry for the label). I got a long list of liberal peacemakers, and went to church with the info. Most were rural (other side of the world to me; I'll start visiting there some day, probably first with my students' families then in earnest over our three week Christmas break), one was UN, some were non-USA. No one I shook hands with worked for any of them. But my political hubris was not appropriate.
The American part (maybe half of the foreigners?) in the Carte char/Karte seh population is either politically segregated or politically homogenous. There may exist a segregated, undiscovered part of my community; I have certainly not been thorough in seeking out fellow Americans. Perhaps these folk do not go to my church (though it be the only Christian one legally in town.) Maybe they go to embassy events
(I'm not even sure exactly where the US Embassy is - I've stayed on the NGO corner of TV Hill). And if this community be homogenous that is not necessarily a political victory. Maybe only the right wingers would stoop to take NGO and charity money to destroy the long term hopes of the locals by teaching them to build micro businesses that cater to westerners, while the noble left does, well, whatever it is they have a passion for on those poppy fields and behind the tinted glass. (Come on - it's a joke! In my heart I do not doubt the compassion of Oxfam, any more than you doubt my compassion. And you make jokes, too. Compassionate conservative is not an oxymoron - in your heart you doubt neither our compassion nor our conservatism.) It's a tossup right now, but I'd put my money on political segregation. Some of those micro businesses smell of leftist roots! Let the political jokes and seriousness mix and continue, no offense taken nor intended.
posted by Terry at
8:14 PM
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