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There are savages in America too

Sunday, 20 September 2009

Self Editor’s Note: Yes, there is such a thing as an American savage. Our Man in America compares and contrasts him with the savage of the Global South.

If you are abroad and have been keenly following the decline of United States — as you should — you are probably wondering what is happening to that country once envied across the world for its power and ingenuity.

What happened to all the wealth of America? Where are all these reports of poverty coming from? Why are people losing their homes and ending up on the streets? What’s up with all these wackos showing up in town hall meeting with machine guns? Doesn’t everyone in America have access to health care? Why did Rep. Joe Wilson, a congressman in this so civilized, turn in uncivil and yell “You lie ” to the president during a speech on health care? Why would a preacher in a “nation under God” pray for Obama’s death ? (You are probably saying this preacher was “a nobody” screaming for attention, but Pat Robertson – that soft-spoken, supposedly sinless grandpa of “The 700 Club” fame – called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005). Why are they still killing babies in Iraq and Afghanistan when there is a Democrat – a black one no less – in the White House?The answer to the questions above: American savagery.

Wait a minute! Hold on, Our “Dear” Man in America! Aren’t Americans — unlike people of the savage-ridden Third World — highly educated? That’s arguable, my friend, but for the purpose of this post, let’s pretend you’re right.

Far from the image the U.S. mainstream media present the world, the American savage is not that of a high school dropout good ol’ boy from the rural American South. Most American savages are born into — and grow up in – a land full of skyscrapers and other marvelous concrete structures. They go to school – and sometimes college – and eventually spend most of their lives working in the glass structures that dominate America’s mega cities.

The American savage is not any more different than one who grows in a small village in, say, Africa or the Amazon. Neither savage has gone beyond the confines his hamlet.

The American savage can be a right-wing conservative like the ones the media often focus on, or a bleeding-heart liberal. They are both afraid of the new. They both refuse to learn about others because they think the American way of solving problems is the best. That’s why, for example, when NGO’s run by Americans who identify themselves as liberal set out to end the plight of the African savage, insist that they make all the decisions.

In the same way Third-World savages hang on to their tribal supremacy beliefs, both right-wing extremists and bleeding-heart leftists, American’s largest two tribes, hang on to ideology. Both sides believe their stance is the absolute best — that negotiating with the other side amounts to betrayal of your party.

That’s why it doesn’t matter whether it is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. They spend countless hours bickering, with each side sticking to its ideology. Oftentimes they bringing beds into legislative chambers and declare that they are working tirelessly for the poor.

Even though by the time they sign the self-serving agreements schools and hospitals have lost funding, people have lost jobs and homes. But the less educated American savage — who Democrats and Republicans have intentionally kept so in order to remain relevant — celebrates. “We are number one! We are number one in the world,” you might hear them say.

Ask him how — he who has never left San Francisco or Wichita, Kansas — knows that America is No. 1 and you might hear something like, “I don’ t have to leave to know that. I have seen National Geographic.”

Unlike the consequences of, say, the African savage, which are often confined to their geographical area, American savagery is far more reaching. It goes beyond it’s borders and often unleashes terror on Third-World savages.

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The author is a widely published Kenyan journalist, humorist, memoirist and satirist in the United States. He holds a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied newspaper, magazine and broadcast journalism. Check out his blog Our Man in America .