Whose Side Am I On?

I am writing from a country far, far away.

Because I can't give you the name of this nation, I will tell you a little bit about it.

It is a poor country. By that, I mean it has a GDP of roughly $17 billion (US, PPP) and since the 1960s, has been accumulating exorbitant amounts of debt to fund infrastructure development, poverty relief programs, etc. It is, as they say, "underdeveloped" or "developing". Some people think that the latter is a more polite, more encouraging choice of nomenclature. Because I am of the opinion that the terms mean the same thing, and because I don't like the implication of that thing – namely, that Aristotle's Great Chain of Being is still a vital force in our language and our minds – I will use the term "Third World". If you read to the end of this essay, you will understand why I choose this title, despite the fact that it has fallen out of favor with the academic establishment.

I am in a Third World country. Objectively, that means that it is debt-ridden; its creditors include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and bilateral donors like USAID and DFID. In exchange for the forgiveness of said debt (or, some would argue, to continue being eligible for loans), it is implementing structural adjustment programs (privatizing and deregulating industry, opening borders to international investment, "tightening the national belt" through cuts to social programs). It has a booming population that is rapidly urbanizing. Roughly eighty percent of the swelling population is engaged in the informal sector (economic activities that are not taxed, like subsistence agriculture or selling second-hand clothes in the street). Despite being overwhelmingly agrarian, it is trying to attract industry (or perhaps, 'reluctantly submitting to industry') by participating in the "Race to the Bottom": allowing foreign companies to enjoy the cheap labor force and vast mineral resources with as few pesky regulations as possible so that I, the ever-loyal consumer, can buy my jeans for $29.99 at the Fayette Mall.

Open to debate is whether or not this country's Third World status is also a function of its citizens' non-European heritage or if that is purely coincidental. It is also a former colony, another characteristic that is shared by a suspicious number of Third World countries.

What do these things mean? They mean that four-fifths of the population live on the equivalent of $2 a day or less. To address two common responses to this statistic: indeed, one should remember that this is a country where many people grow their own food and build their own shelters, tempering the need for paper currency. However, to reiterate, the country is urbanizing with a speed that decries its reputation for a leisurely pace. And granted, the purchasing power of $2 is greater here – best case scenario, the exchange rate is 1:1700(national currency), meaning that the average citizen makes ends meet on 102,000 NC per month. By way of comparison, I just rented a modest studio apartment for 130,000 NC a month in the capital, a deal that by every one's account is impossibly ideal; a deal that was secured only because of personal connections I had established due to my privileged status as a white foreigner. One hundred and thirty thousand NC for housing alone for one month. I have, in addition, over 500,000 NC for food and pleasure for the month of April.

What I'm trying to say is that you should pay very little heed to people who insist that the statistics are a bunch of rain-on-our-markets'-parade baloney. Things are unequivocally hard for the vast majority of people here, and increasingly so as they flock to metropolitan centers, seeking the gold promised them at the end of the proverbial rainbow.

They find it, alright. Problem is, it's inside of well-guarded family compounds, like the one in which I live; it's tied up on the lithe mannequins in the windows of boutiques which they aren't allowed to enter. Its baked into the pastries that are temptingly arranged behind glass counters according to impeccable Western aesthetic standards.

They find the gold: its just locked up, in a crystal safe. The transparency mocks them. Because they are wholly unequipped to crack the combination -- they do not speak the languages of power -- they remain on the periphery, faces pressed against the Swarovski, becoming increasingly despondent and desperate. But for some, despondency and desperation evolve into a lock-jawed bitterness at having been duped by the siren song of modernity. They become increasingly angry as I emerge, refreshed, from a popular spa, or from the hotel that still bears the name of a notorious colonial plantation lord, after my afternoon coffee and chocolate, or from the "green zone" (by which my roommates and I affectionately refer to our lodgings), freshly showered, en route to a meeting, certainly an important meeting, at the Carlton.

They are angry, the children who demand money, even those who cannot identify the emotion. They are angry and they are strong; they have grown up under conditions that have hardened their soles and sharpened their senses. They are strong because they have nothing to loose. By contrast, I am contemptibly weak, in body and heart, with my arch supports, miniature pharmacy, and fear of pain.

The only thing that is not weak is my mind, which is quick to point out the shameful inconsistencies in my behavior.

I have digressed.

This essay is not about my lack of moral fitness, or even this country, necessarily.

It's about Kentucky, my home. It's about the fact that this Third World country and Kentucky have more in common than one might suspect, good and bad: the wild disparity between rich and poor and the desire of the urban citizens to distance themselves in the eyes of outsiders from their rural brethren; the rowdy music and the fierce pride; the absentee landownership and the bids for industry, natural resource stripteases; the puzzling phenomenon of folks with means staying, purely out of something as antiquated as love of the land and community (do I need to point out that that is a joke?); the phenomenal creativity and energy of youthful resistance; the very histories themselves. All these things are shared, but I will focus on the first similarity to catch my attention: the mining industry.

There are certainly rays of sunshine in this godforsaken place. After a comprehensive revision of the 'outdated' national mining code (outdated because it smacked of socialism and nationalism, making exploitation difficult for international firms) between 1999 and 2005 under the expert guidance of a D.C.-based law firm, this country's mining sector was declared "open for business". The Heritage Foundation raved -- the chastity belt had been unlocked. This country's investment freedom score soared from 30 to 70 in this period -- largely because of the fact that "most sectors of the economy are open to 100 percent foreign ownership" (that's polite speak for absentee landownership). Since the completion of this "mining law modernization" process, all but 15% of subterranean exploration rights have been claimed by foreign conglomerates. The possibilities are endless. Just think -- in only a few brief years, this wretched, impoverished country will be making enough money, thanks to its shrewd utilization of la richesse de la terre and the invisible hand, to crack the crystal safe.

Just like Kentucky.

Just like Kentucky. With its poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy rates that are some of the bleakest in the nation. With upwards of 50% of children living below the poverty line in some counties and average income levels in others that are nearly half that of the national average. With it's hopeful reception of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, and his declaration of a "War on Poverty," and its subsequent realization, forty years later, that nothing has changed. With its uncertain hope that Massey is telling the truth this time with its assurances of wealth on the horizon and its reluctant acceptance of prevailing wisdom, which insists that there are no economic alternatives to coal for the backwards lot of Appalachia; with its Harlan Country insurgents of June, 1973; with its Martin County flood, 250 million gallons of coal slurry into our rivers and streams, 30 times the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon-Valdez disaster of 1989, declared by the EPA the worst environmental disaster in the recorded history of southeastern United States, and the media no where to be found; Kentucky, with its proud mothers who are intimidated by menacing coal trucks which circle their homes for days on end after they have been so presumptuous as to point out that the law exists to protect the consenting citizenry, not bloodless institutions that lack the faculties to make sound, ethical judgments, much less love or feel loyalty toward someone or something; Kentucky, with its achy, heart-breaky voices and mandolins and fiddles that I have failed to love enough, the sounds of obstinate joy in the face of impossible odds; sounds that explain my own life, perhaps better than I'll ever be able to understand.

This Third World country will arrive at wealth, influence, and most importantly, self-determination, just like Kentucky.

I promise.

What is the point of this? The point is that Kentucky might have more in common with the villagers, the naked pagans, of the country from which I write, than certain powers would like us to realize. The point is that the disempowerment of the Third World, which (news flash), with the globalization of markets, is no longer a respecter of national boundaries, relies on its incoherency and internal conflict. It relies on the dispossessed of southside Chicago and Southeast DC and Appalachia and Native American reservations and Tehran and Nairobi and Sarajevo and Beijing and Bangkok and Manila and Rabat and Baghdad and Beirut and Jerusalem all believing that they have nothing in common. It relies on the fortification of divisions and the stoking of hatred - cultural, ethnic, religious - between these groups.

The point is that in 2000, Massey Energy was spun off of Fluor Corporation, a publicly owned Fortune 500, engineering, construction, and procurement firm that operates, directly or indirectly, in well over 25 countries, one of which is the country from which I write.

I won't bore you with a laundry list of examples of the ways in which the global pillars of government, finance, and commerce are intertwined...chances are, you've heard it before, and if I'm not careful, folks will start calling me a conspiracy theorist.

But there's no question that solidarity exists within the modern, globalized First Estate, to the degree that "inbred" might be a more appropriate term. By contrast, hatred and violence reign within the modern, globalized Third Estate. We call the hatred and violence racism, sexism, tribalism, sectarianism; we call it the East versus the West, the clash of civilizations, Muslim extremism, Christian fundamentalism, ecoterrorism. With all of these frightening -isms and fancy phrases, is it any surprise that we feel ourselves pitted against basically everyone else in the world, and that the feeling is mutual? Is it coincidence?

I could carry my point further, but I myself am frightened of where it might lead, I am frightened of pain. I myself am unprepared for the full implications of my point. So, I will sit here in the crystal safe, sipping my cafe au lait, savoring ganache; I will readjust my black-rimmed reading glasses and bangle bracelets and "ethnic" raw silk wrap; I will return to my dog-eared Kafka and Thoreau and Sartre and repeat rituals that confirm my seat in the 21st century salons. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

But, as for me, even as I try to quiet my mind with these symbolic acts of "progressivism", I know that the arm of history is long, but bends toward justice. I know that President Nkrumah of Ghana was not only demonstrating non-alignment when he used the phrase "Third World" - he was also invoking the spirit of the French Third Estate. I know that the underdogs of history ultimately give up trying to figure out the combination, quit playing by the rules given them, and simply take a sledgehammer to the crystal safe. All that it takes is the realization that they have numbers and the mandate of history on their side and nothing more left to lose.

And just as those (of us?) on the inside for so long saw no distinction between the individual hungry bellies -- Appalachian or Colombian or Thai or Congolese, milk that skin-and-bones cow dry -- the hungry bellies will make no distinction between those who use solar panels and those who do not.

So, if you have read this wishing that I had been referring specifically to "Eastern Kentucky" in the description of our state - if you, even as a 'progressive', felt a desire to distinguish yourself from Appalachia - I would reconsider. As the song goes, "Whose side [of the safe] are you on?"

Whose side am I on?