An impossible peace

For want of a better explanation – the only important part is the GMA-Bush meeting next Tuesday – President Macapagal-Arroyo’s expedition to the United States is being touted as a pitch to woo American investors to the Philippines.

As long as the Abu Sayyaf hold two Americans hostages (the Burnhams), GMA had better forget about attracting many Americans. They’ve grown paranoid about going to areas where there are threats from Islamic fundamentalists, and we’re high on the Hit Parade both owing to the ASG and the Osama bin Laden’s Al-qaeda network.

They’re so paranoid, in fact, that the other week US immigration officers in Seattle, Washington, grabbed two Filipino pilots who had arrived there fore flight skills upgrading, prior to going to Lagos, Nigeria, to fulfill an important flying contract.

The two astonished pilots were seized, held in detention, then unceremoniously hustled aboard an aircraft returning to Manila. Someone had called the Anti-Terrorist Hot Line the Americans maintain and "identified" the two hapless Pinoy pilots as carriers of anthrax. Without bothering to test them for the alleged disease, the jittery Americans barred them from entering the country, then shipped them out.

As it turned out, the two pilots upon their indignant return were found to be anthrax-free. From what I hear, the US immigration and naturalization service (INS) is apologizing to them – which is rare because those INS bozos play rough, without an excuse-me or by-your-leave. Probably they’re still smarting over having permitted all those Saudi, Egyptian, and other Arab terrorists and hijackers into the USA, some of them on flimsy student visas.

It was discovered that another Filipino pilot, angry at not having been chosen for those cushy Nigerian jobs, resentfully sabotaged his two "buddies" by placing that hoax phone-call. What a dirty scum. He ought to be barred from flying for life, and slapped into jail for that shameful act. No names can be mentioned now, pending a crackdown. Abangan.

So, there you are. How can our President convince Americans to come here when there’s no peace and order in Metro Manila and the countryside, when kidnapping is a cottage industry, and the Crab Mentality continues to prevail. There used to be a saying to the effect that "there’s honor even among thieves." What about among us Filipinos? Sometimes I hope, uplifted by instances of heroism and generosity in our midst. Most times, I hate to admit – I despair.

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The daily Malaya banner-headlined yesterday: "SECRET TALKS ON US ACCESS TO BASES BARED."

This is no secret. In fact, we’d be disappointed if this did not come up when President GMA meets US President Bush in the White House. Now that Russia’s President Vladmir Putin has left, after some dialogue on the ranch, to return to Moscow, perhaps George will have enough time to have more than coffee and biscuits with our Chief Executive. Unless some other VIP arrives requiring Bush’s attention. Nowadays, as America belatedly strives to rejoin the World Club (Sus, even UNESCO!), the White House entrance on Pennsylvania avenue is practically a revolving door.

What remains for us to find out is that kind of quid we are getting for the quo. Cuentas claras. Marriages may be made in heaven (and divorced in Las Vegas), but alliances are hatched at the bargaining table.

There’s nothing wrong with the Americans, as our allies in Mutual Defense and other auld-lang-syne relationships, getting access to the facilities of our military bases, anchorage places and airfields. This sort of "cash and carry" is good for our cash-strapped economy. But since, inevitably, we’ll be accused of selling our souls for a mess of potage, let’s get the price right. Even in Vietnam, the buzzword is: "Yankee, come back. But don’t forget to bring dollars." The Vietnamese proved their patriotism, nationalism and staying power by beating the Americans in the 1970s. Now they’re demonstrating their pragmatism.

What about us? All bluster and no rice?

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We have one advantage over other countries. While everybody is panicking over the global "recession", we’ve been in Ground Zero ourselves for so long that we’ve long ago adjusted ourselves and gotten used to it.

Take tourism. An article in the Financial Times of England yesterday mourned that in the wake of the September 11 "attacks", a situation worsened by the crash of that American airlines Airbus-300, worldwide tourism which used to be a $476 billion industry (by last year’s figures) has gone into a tailspin. The Times expressed the fear that because of the disastrous downturn, some 8.8 million people in the industry will lose their jobs. Since about 207 million people are employed in tourism around the globe, or eight percent of total global employment, this would constitute a big blow to the world’s equanimity. See what a handful of terrorists can accomplish?

Wrote the newspaper: "Since the attacks, the number of tourists to France, the world’s most-visited country, has fallen 20 percent. The US, the second most-visited country, expects a 13 percent fall in inbound tourists this year. The number of Japanese tourists leaving home – one of the world’s highest spending groups – fell 22 percent in September compared with the same month last year."

Can you imagine how many Americans canceled their honeymoon or second-honeymoon trips to Bali because they fear going to a Muslim-dominated country. This is not religious or racial stereotyping. It springs from a primordial urge – self-preservation.

In the Philippines, of course, tourism was dead two years ago. Yet, it can be reiterated today: Misery loves company. We’ve got plenty of it today.

A few days ago, Tourism Secretary Dick Gordon – the Man with the Impossible Dream – was in Paris to address the leaders of the Filipino community there. (There are 37 Filipino organizations in Paris, representing something like 120,000 Filipinos in France.) Gordon pleaded with the group, headed by businessman Rafaelito Gomez, director-general of International Multi Media Electronics, to "bring along one tourist with you when you come home for a visit."

Dick, I admire your effort. But have you forgotten? When a Filipino invites a foreigner to his home, he ends up footing the bill.

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Everybody is talking and writing nowadays about Afghanistan and how the US and the coalition allies should make sure that the old feudal warlords don’t regain power in the wake of the Taliban’s imminent collapse, and strive to put a broad-based government in Kabul.

George W. Bush, who almost lost the Florida elections himself, must realize how impossible that task is. It was far simpler to bomb the Taliban to bits than to revise the mindset of the various and ferocious tribes that inhabit that mythical country named "Afghanistan" because the Brits and the Russians in their Great Game of rivalry a century ago, couldn’t find a better name for that collection of various nationalities.

It might be said that "there are no Afghans." Instead, we have five or six nations crammed together in a piece of rugged real estate (637,000 square kms.) the size of Texas, or twice the size of Italy. Half of it is at an altitude of 6,000 feet, one-fifth is desert. The mountains of the Hindu Kush, which means "killer of Hindus", are an extension of the Himalayas going from east to west. This mountain range, which stretches 600 miles and cut the country in half soar to an average height of 13,500 feet. The Pamir Knot is one of the highest mountains in the world, serrated by more than 100 peaks rising between 20,000 to 25,000 feet.

In Afghanistan you don’t wage war. You fight a war of endurance against nature, the elements, and against your fellow man.

The 26 million Afghans are divided into usually hostile groups: the majority Pushtoons (Pashtuns, Pathans), about 10 million, the Tajiks who number seven millioin; the Uzbeks with 1.9 million, the Mongolian-looking Hazaras with some 1.6 million, and finally some Aimaqs (1.4 million), Farsiwans and Baluchis.

The major languages are Pushtu and Dari, a Persian dialect. In sum, this is not just a Tower of Babel, but a land of vendettas.

Someone wisely remarked yesterday that the new rulers of post-Taliban Afghanistan look very much like the rulers of pre-Taliban Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, when you take a closer look: They’re the same guys! The Northern Alliance? Once it swept south, it began to come unstuck.

The Americans should just concentrate on getting food and shelter to the needy, and getting Osama bin Laden. That they can accomplish. Setting Afghanistan straight? They can try, but they cannot hope to succeed.