Remembering 1989 - From Tiananmen Square to the Berlin Wall

Thirty years ago, I was a sophomore in high school, watching wide-eyed as the world around me changed in ways beyond my wildest imagination. I'd grown up with the world divided in two between the West and the Soviet bloc. Admittedly, India and a few other nations claimed to occupy a middle space between those two blocs but it was a position that even we Indians considered little more than a lot of posturing and talk devoid of real policy; after all most of India's advanced weapons came from the Soviet Union and our government tended to back Soviet policy more often than not. Even our economy was patterned heavily on the Soviet model, to the chagrin of many middle class Indians. By contrast, outside the bureaucracy and a few elite schools, many Indians had a positive view of America and we dreamed of opportunities in the West, especially America.

In the latter half of the Eighties, I was still a little young to follow the world news but I'd heard words like "perestroika" and "glasnost" (perhaps because we were not in America, I heard less about Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech) and was beginning to realize that Mikhail Gorbachev was a leader unlike any other USSR Chairman. But in India, we still had many other problems to focus on, far more immediate than the seemingly small changes in policy within the Warsaw Pact nations - India was still in the middle of the violent Punjab secessionist struggle and its attendant terrorism, while the Kashmir insurgency was in its nascent stages (little did we suspect that the Punjab violence was about to end while thirty years on, Kashmir still burns), while a government elected with so much hope in 1984 (naive hope, it must be admitted and based on more emotion than facts) had set new records in corruption while failing to generate any economic change (and sadly had set in motion other events that would haunt India for the next three decades); closer home, for a kid interested in warfare, there was the Iran-Iraq war and the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgency.

But I remember the news when Solidarity and Lech Walesa were allowed to dethrone the Communist Party in Poland and suddenly things began to happen all over the world. I avidly followed the news daily that spring as Chinese students flooded Tienanmen Square, demanding reforms and democracy and for a few breathless weeks it seemed that the largest communist nation might bow to popular sentiment. But in June that dream was brutally and bloodily crushed beneath the treads of tanks in the kind of crackdown that I never dreamed possible (I had clearly never heard of Hama, or Iraqi Kurds at that time). For a dark moment, the forces of freedom and democracy were stymied, but if China's Deng Xiaoping was willing to keep his throne afloat on a sea of his people's blood, in Eastern Europe Gorbachev and most of his fellow strongmen were more circumspect. As the year drew to a close, the foundations of the iron curtain crumbled before the desire of people to be free and in November the greatest symbol of that curtain, and ironically the greatest symbol of communism's failure was torn down in an unplanned and explosive outpouring of popular sentiment. I will never forget that evening, as I listened to the BBC reporter describing the scenes as Germans tore down the physical barrier that divided their national soul.

It was a moment of hope, the kind of moment that comes but once in a lifetime. Hope, for a free world; hope, for a brighter future; hope for actual peace in our time; hope, for a world without walls and fences to divide us; hope, for a single world united in brotherhood. What fools, what hopeful fools we were! to dream of peace and universal equality. If the Prague Spring had ended too soon, this time surely, with the Soviet Union tottering, that bud would survive and grow into a great flowering tree of peace.

And yet, we should have known better. The signs were there, if not so clear on that day in November, soon enough in the weeks and months that followed. While the majority of East European nations were able to throw off the shackles of their communist oppressors, they had a stable history that predated their communist governments. But the Balkans showed how the loss of communist control also released the demons of sectarianism and reopened wounds still fresh and painful. And that was in Europe's backyard. Beyond Europe, there were myriad warlords that had survived by currying favor of either the US or USSR; now robbed of their importance, they clung to power through violence against their own people or through nationalist rhetoric. Ancient, and not so ancient enmities were awakened anew, and while the world has generally contained the more overt outbreaks of violence, we remain far removed from that dream of 1989. Can we ever return to that point? To be honest, I don't know if we ever were quite at that point as I imagined it. For me, that year was part of such a profound upheaval in my world, and I was still learning that my naivete imbued that moment in November 1989 with far greater hope than it deserved. But if the dregs that followed that drought of sweet hope were bitter regret for what might have been, nevertheless, I will never regret that first blush of excitement or the very real change that rung in across Europe that night. In the end, it was not the moment that lied, but that we failed our test in history and continue to pay the price today.

Who Else Must Go Back to Where They Came From?

Two years ago, I was saddened beyond description when America chose Donald Trump as it's new president. Like millions of others, I wondered how such a thing could happen, and in search of answers, I devoured every scrap of information possible. The fact, however, is that there were no simple answers, that the amazing support Trump enjoys from the most fervent and active members of the Republican Party defies all simple logic. It would be easy to say that Trump is a racist, a nativist (whatever that might mean in the USA), that he panders to the lowest common denominator in his party. But he enjoys the support of almost four of five Republicans, and it's actually very simple to see why no one from John McCain to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan to John Kasich dare to oppose him. Those who ventured to get off their knees for even an instant, like Bob Corker or Jeff Flake - and their defiance was beyond weak and fleeting - were instantly destroyed and run out of Congress, a stern warning to anyone else who would dare even to dream of standing up for what was good and right anymore.

But if Trump's power comes from his popularity with the rank and file of the party, what does it say about the party itself? How can so many Americans cover their eyes and ears in the face of his ignorance and hate-filled rantings? How can the people around me, people I know and work alongside and who seemingly respect intelligence and accept me as a person, yet smile and shrug (or even cheer loudly) when he tells women from racial minorities to "go back to where they came from"? Plenty of ink has been metaphorically spilled in pointing out the sheer ignorance of telling American citizens to "go home", but that misses the point. Trump never cares about the accuracy of his insults or his jibes, only whether they connect, and it is a time-honored tradition in America to tell immigrants, whether first or second generation to "go back home" when they do not conform to the appearance of the more established immigrants of three or more generations removed. The chant is even louder when the immigrants have temerity to hold ideas that they are entitled to the same rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens. The jibe is never intended to address whether its target is born in the US or a naturalized citizen or a permanent resident. No! it is intended, always, to de-legitimize the targets, to strip away their rights and cast doubts upon their legitimacy.

It's a trick old as time and played out across the world, time and again. Immigrants, minorities are always questioned - are they true citizens? Do they love this country as much as they should? We don't need to look back to the most horrific practitioners of this game, not when we have examples of it all around us. A hundred years ago, the Italian immigrants in New York faced the same taunts, echoing the charges leveled at the Irish before them and the Japanese after them faced the same trial by fire. Now it is the Hispanics and the Somalis and Iraqis whose patriotism and love of America are called into doubt, not because of anything they've actually said or done, but because of the color of their skin and their claim to their fundamental rights.

The tragedy is not that Trump and his circle of advisers have raised this terrifying shibboleth to assert their power over immigrants they dislike. The real tragedy is that all those nice Americans we work beside daily are acquiescing in this deceptive game. They pretend that it's not about race, that it's about the "anti-American" statements (incidentally non-existent statements that were never made by these women, and a particularly ridiculous charge to be made against four elected Representatives of the people), that it's just a "love America" call, that there is nothing chilling to tell immigrants that they should leave the country if they don't like it. The reason it's really a tragedy is because this is the kind of behavior that really sets us along the path of no return, when a demagogue can say anything without consequence, and when any minority can be targeted at will. It's a tragedy because these people should know better, they should know that this hatred targets their own neighbors, friends and co-workers. How can my Midwestern girl friend's mother wish me well, yet agree with Trump? How can the guy who sits across from me, smile and joke with me at work and yet support a "send them back" chant? How can a man whose daughter is married to a Chinese immigrant support an idea that immigrants do no love this country? That people in some mythical flyover counties and small towns may support Trump's racist rhetoric is sad but understandable; that people who know (and in some cases love) the immigrant co-workers and friends and family members will still support Trump in this naked threat against those same people is a tragedy beyond understanding.

When Trump was elected, I deplored the fact that his liberal opponents had ignored so much of the electorate as unworthy of their attention, basically abandoning them to Trump's (and Russia's) propaganda. I did not believe that they were bad people then, and I don't believe they are bad people now. They can be dragged out of Trump's orbit, but it takes a lot of work. It takes us, Trump's victims on the immigration front-line, to give a face to his hatred, to show our co-workers and acquaintances that when Trump targets minorities, it's not some distant faceless group, but every single one of us who is his victim. Perhaps many of them will still support him, but I'm willing to bet that there are more who will turn away from their worst instincts and show themselves more honorable and more reasonable than we credit them. But they must see, that Trump is not just threatening poor, weak immigrants who try to cross the Southern border, it's not just them that he would put in cages, but all of us. We have much more that binds us together than divides us, but we need to reach out and embrace those who share some ideas that we do not like, that we do not agree with; just as we have ideas that they dislike. But dislike need not be hatred, ideological differences should not be a reason to break off contact, for it is that contact that's most important. We need to know how policies, laws affect our neighbors, and they need to see how we are affected - when we see our friends suffer, we do not support the laws that make them suffer. Politicians of Trump's ilk (and make no mistake, he is a politician at heart despite what so many of his supporters think) need us to split and see his targets as the "others", that is the secret of their power and that is the key to their defeat. When influencers oppose Trump, it's easy for his supporters to brush them aside as elitists, as socialists, as communists. But I have faith in America, in the people I see around me - if they see that we are the face of Trump's targets, they will turn away and stand beside us rather than stone us. In the words of Captain America, "I am willing to bet that I am not alone" in this.

Contrary Trade Winds

This morning brought news that the United States and China have declared another "truce" in their on-going trade war and resolved to resume negotiations on a final agreement. This is both good and bad news, since an escalating war between the world's biggest economies and trading partners can never end well, not just for the direct protagonists but for everyone else no matter how removed from the original quarrel. But having entered into this war, we have little option but to prosecute it vigorously now and eke out the best deal possible.

Unfortunately for that latter aim, we need a clear and well-defined strategy, and at least at the highest levels of our government, we seem lacking in clarity and defined goals. Or rather, the defined goals do not match up with our rhetoric or demands. I admit, freely, that I am not a fan on this current administration and that my dislike of their policies and politics may well cloud my judgment of their approach to trade. However, I think that on the whole I may muster a reasonably balanced and objective review of their trade policy and its consequences, seen of course from the viewpoint of a layman.

My first and foremost criticism of President Trump's trade policy is that he conflates trade deficits with unfair trade practices. Deficits by themselves are not a problem, especially for the US - if we import more than we export, it's because other nations have goods we desire at a cost that is better than what we could manage domestically. It ensures that we enjoy cheaper products locally and fuel our own consumption. I may be mistaken, but given that these goods are imported by private companies, the US government has no direct loss if we import more than we export as long as the US dollar remains the global currency. Governments of other nations may suffer in similar situations since the payments drain their foreign exchange reserves, something the US clearly doesn't face in the present or foreseeable future. But the president is fixated on trade deficits as a marker for other countries exploiting the US and enriching themselves at our expense. No major (or even minor) economist has endorsed his opinion on deficits, but that has not deterred him. Critically he has tied the trade deficits in manufactured goods to the loss on American jobs, especially in the Rust Belt states. But as critics have pointed out, US manufacturing output has increased steadily over the years, even as the total number of jobs in that sector have fallen. Even if we stop importing all those products - iPhones and shirts, LCD displays and toaster ovens, solar panels and MAGA hats - the number of jobs would not recover; the only reason we do import so much from China, and Vietnam and Bangladesh, is that those countries can produce goods cheaper than we can do here. Forcing manufacturing back into the US must lead to inevitably higher costs for us, without the higher paying jobs needed to afford them.

Now there are definitely many things that fuel trade deficits and many of those do tilt the field against the US. But the Administration has barely mentioned items such as lax environmental laws or working conditions that enable other nations to undercut our prices, except to seek to reduce our own protections. There is a political side to this position, since many modern conservatives dream of gutting our own environmental protections and returning workers to an utopian slave-like status; to push other countries to enact laws like our own would undercut the GOP position and stem the evisceration of unions in the US. So these issues are not part of our trade position, or at least are not a prominent or strongly held position in our negotiations.

China, more than our other partners, cheats in the realm of intellectual property rights and uses their government muscle to force one-sided deals on their corporate partners. These corporations, lacking the same government support on their side, acquiesce in order to gain a foothold in the largest emerging market, but in doing so hobble themselves for the future.  So we have a German company handing over Maglev technology to the local train corporation in return for the contract to build the Shanghai Maglev, or Google agreeing to government censorship in return for access to the Chinese internet. But these are private corporations selling out their future and/or their principles for short-term gains. By principle, the US has limited interest in these deals and it would be smarter for international companies to make common cause against such Chinese policy; something they will not do, since our current markets reward short-sighted temporary gains over long-term losses.  Other Chinese laws, or lack thereof, allow trademark piracy and open theft of intellectual property. On this front the US can and should fight back, and yet it is precisely this issue that is left on the backburner and given little importance in the Trump trade war.

Possibly a major reason for talking about deficits over intellectual property rights is politics and perception. The president views everything through the prism of reality TV and ratings and he knows that ranting about manufacturing job losses plays well to his supporters, even if he doesn't know or doesn't care that no trade deal is going to bring those jobs back to the country. Moreover, the deficit in absolute numbers makes for an achievable aim in a trade war, even if it has no meaning in the long term prosperity of the US, and in fact may hurt the US should we succeed.  In many ways it is hard to believe that the president is serious about a real deal for the US as a country or he would have followed a very different course. To start with, he would not have demonstrated from the start that he sees treaties and deals as meaningless. He talks of negotiating a new deal with China, even as he tore up a free trade zone deal with Canada and Mexico and renegotiated it with threats of wrecking the economies of all three nations if they didn't agree. (Fortunately for him, his bluff worked, though it's hard to say if anything new or substantively better for the US was actually added to the new deal - Canada and Mexico worked out a deal largely similar to the last with some concessions rather than wreck their own economies to make a point), But in the end, even if he should succeed in negotiating a deal that is tilted in the US' favor - and make no mistake, despite all the talk of "fair" agreements, Trump's insistence on bilateral rather than multilateral agreements makes it clear that he wants to bully smaller economies into one-sided trade deals (only his overly simplistic view of global economics stands in his way of actually blowing up global trade) - there is nothing to keep China from tearing it up as soon as conditions favor them in a tough negotiation. Trump has made clear that as in his personal business dealings, he sees nothing binding in an agreement and that the only right is the power to get away with one's actions, legal or otherwise.

It is a safe bet that this president has never read the teachings of Sun Tzu or Lao Tzu or he would never have chosen to follow quite the course he has so far. If he really wanted to address the true unfair trade practices in China, he would have made common cause with Europe, Japan and Korea to maximize pressure on the one lawbreaker instead of opening wars on every front. Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a treaty designed by previous US trade representatives to constrain Chinese intransigence, was short-sighted to say the least and a signal to the world that the US had no long-term strategy to trade. Criticism of the WTO is a similarly strange approach to achieving one's aims, but all part of Trump's muddled view of global trade and economics. He has continually conflated different issues, most recently pushing the idea that some Chinese companies pose a cyberthreat to national security - how stupid would the UK feel if they followed US urging to expel Huawei from their markets, only to see today that in Donald Trump's view those dire claims were just a negotiation tool and that today he is perfectly willing to raise US sanctions on that company as part of a trade deal. Canada must be definitely feeling cheated having aided in the arrest of Huawei's chief executive and drawn the ire of the Chinese government in return, only to see the US hang them out to dry while negotiating with China. If this company poses a threat to US security, that should be a redline in talks with China, possibly not even included in the trade negotiations. But the US government has mixed all these issues together, robbing them of separate importance and actually ceding an advantage to China. China after all has some issues that are much less open to negotiation and we would need much more pressure to force changes in their policy. But we not only fail to understand these issues (at the highest level, since I think our career officials at the Commerce Dept understand the case better), we make it clear that we see most issues as equal and that all that matters to us is the overall trade deficit and rise of the stock markets. In effect, we have signaled to China that we will accept any deal that reduces the trade deficit, an issue that they will gladly cede in return for the chance to continue stiff-arming foreign companies and benefiting off the intellect of the rest of the world. The stock market of course will rise on any agreement that ends the danger of a trade war and not care about the long term risks to the US - it is neither their interest or job to worry about how we hamstring ourselves, nor do they care about one country over the other. So we may well give China what it wants most in return for mere window dressing, concessions that they will feel quite willing to cede if they hold their core interests. Meanwhile, we have weakened the entire world trade system and handed our allies over to China's power to be dealt with at leisure once the war with the US is done. Sun Tzu couldn't have plotted it better - for China.

Opposing An One-Eyed, Toothless World and Capital Punishment

This cheerful Saturday morning, as Americans of diver's background prepare to drink themselves into a state of greater than normal inebriation in honor of St. Patrick, it would be so easy to reflect on the madness that unfolded half a world away when a white supremacist decided to make his dream of a hegemonic world a reality, but for the feeling that there is nothing left to say that has not been said before, so many times. One man, but a representative of a dangerous larger group, armed with weapons that no individual should ever need for personal reasons, walked into a gathering of his perceived enemies and became judge and executioner upon a group of unarmed and in this respect, innocent, fellow human beings whose only crime was that they were different from the agent of their death. It has played out, time and again, with the cast of actors changing, but ever the same final result.

But this past week, another event with far less publicity but possibly equal consequences occurred much closer to home, when California moved to permanently rescind the death penalty. In my opinion, this is a move long overdue and brings the sunshine back to the Sunshine State with the specter of death banished from above the convicted felons found deserving of death in the past but also releasing the families of the victims of those same felons from what was an ultimately pointless rite. Not entirely unsurprisingly, some of those same family members are not as thrilled with this development and have expressed their anguish over the loss of closure in their bereavement.

Let me say first of all, that I could never understand the pain that these folk have felt and the loss that they will live through every day for the rest of their lives through the untimely loss of a loved one, torn from this world through some violent and senseless act. I have never suffered this loss and I could no more predict how I would feel in such a case than I can tell when the world will end. But, that being said, it is the duty of every thinking man and woman to address this in tranquility for our system of justice requires that judgment be rendered upon an accused perpetrator by a jury of his peers, and there is a reason why the jury is never composed of the families of the victims. We are required to know why we would sentence a man to death, or equally, do the opposite, and we must do it removed from the emotion that surrounds a particular case that our choice may be impartial and rational. Removing the death penalty as a choice of punishment altogether frees the jury to weigh each case differently than if they would be rendering so final a doom.

My main objection to the death penalty is based upon two main pillars. Firstly, if rendered swiftly, it is a terribly final punishment and we should believe in the guilt of the accused beyond all shadow of doubt, for once we execute this form of justice, we will never be able to revisit our decision. And, in too many cases, people have been condemned and in some case, too many by a greater degree if anything, they have been even executed, only for exculpatory evidence to be revealed later that may have stayed the sword of justice or even seen those same condemned men walk free with no stain upon their character. To be sure, there are cases where guilt was indeed beyond doubt, where the accused admitted his or her guilt, even reveled in in, and those cases are different; my reasons for still opposing the death penalty remain as steadfast, but I will discuss that later. But for those who may be condemned unfairly, there is no reprieve as long as their death is the goal of our justice. Sadly, prosecutors and the justice system itself have all too often made the death of the accused rather than the discovery of the truth the main aim and have falsified or suppressed any information that might hint at the innocence of the person they have decided is guilty. In their zeal, whether politically driven or in an overabundance of righteous conviction, they usurp the power of both prosecutor and judge and close their minds to all that would cloud their case. The reasons matter little from a practical standpoint since it results in  a wrongful conviction either way. While the Byzantine system of appeals may stay the execution of the accused for years on end, living with such a threat hanging over one's head is no life, and none but those who have existed under that particular sword of Damocles can truly appreciate what it does to a person. Should they be reprieved or exonerated in time, they will never be truly whole again and we, as a society, can never really right that wrong. If we convict or worse, execute, even one innocent man, that is one too many and far better would it be for a thousand guilty to live than for one innocent man to die to sate our blood lust. Worse yet, for every innocent who languishes in prison, whether on death row or not, the actual guilty party walks free and justice is not served simply because someone paid for the crime, if it is not the true criminal.

It is often said that executing a guilty murderer brings  closure to the kin of the victims, a blood sacrifice to their pain and suffering. I do not pretend to understand what it would feel like to have a dearly loved family member or friend brutally torn away with neither warning nor notice, and so often with no rhyme or reason. But death is around us constantly, be it on the freeway or in airplanes, in bridge collapses or sudden slip. It may feel worse, and may even be worse, to have a face on the agency of death, but does it truly matter? When one's friends or family are gone, no matter how, and they must pick up the pieces of their lives and move on and find closure. I would suggest that tying  healing to the death of the agent who caused their loss is less healthy and in fact transfers power to that person and away from them. If the only way to find peace and solace is to see the murderer die, then they have now tied their well-being to the very person most responsible for their pain and every failure to punish him in the way they desire extends their suffering. If healing and peace is possible when our loved one's die suddenly in other way, sometimes as violent, as meaningless, then even the families of such victims can recover independent of the criminal responsible and may well be better off by doing so in the long run.

Revenge is a very basic emotion in us, perhaps the one emotion uniquely human - a sad commentary on the supremely evolved creatures we think we are - and has long driven the logic of the death penalty. Nearly every civilization through history has had a version of the tenet, "an eye for an eye" and some have taken it further than others. But as we gain more enlightenment, it is worth wondering if we gain anything from wreaking the same fate upon one who has killed. Murder, the main crime that draws the death penalty, is committed for many reasons; personal gain, high passion, ideology and personal pleasure in killing cover most of the cases. Our legal system does address these differently and recognizes that different motives should be treated differently, even if the end result is no different for the victims. We recognize that a killing driven by high emotion is different than one coldly planned in advance, that one triggered by group (or gang) ties is different than one driven by implacable hatred for an entire group of people who happen to share no more than a religion, sexual orientation or skin tone. Even for the kin of the victims, the motive behind the killing matters, if only to help them understand why their loved ones died, to demystify their loss to some extent and aid the process of healing.

It is worth questioning why we would ever execute a convicted criminal. Do we do it as revenge, because they deserve to die in the same way as their victims? Only of course, we don't tailor the execution to the crime, for that would be barbaric and inhuman in the extreme. Another motive for execution is deterrent,  the idea that would be criminals will be less likely to risk the consequences in fear of suffering this fate. However, even ignoring the statistics that indicate little correlation between capital crime and the death penalty, it should be obvious that the deterrent effect would be minor for any of the classes of crime listed earlier. A crime of passion, by definition, is committed by someone who has suspended rational thought and the perpetrator is not in a mental position to weigh the consequences of their actions. Crimes driven by fraternal ties or ideology are likewise committed with little thought to the consequences. It is rather unlikely that too many gang members would be knowledgeable on the status of the death penalty in their neck of the woods and in all probability do not plan very far ahead, certainly not for the consequences of their actions. Criminals driven by ideology are so convinced of their righteousness that they scorn the consequences of worldly and societal justice, if they even live to face our judgment.

Another reason advanced in favor of the ultimate punishment is the idea that we are sending the criminal to face some greater judgment in the next life. This is not advanced so often as it used to be, and this is just as well, since it fails both with those who, like me, disbelieve in an afterlife, and those who do. The problem for agnostics and atheists is obvious, but even theist believers must surely wonder if the best idea is to execute a man, giving him no chance to make amends for his mistake in this life before sending him to eternal damnation. It flies in the face of their own beliefs, especially if one further factors in absolution for anyone who repents before death, but does nothing at all for the actual victims of his or her crime.

In the end, we as a society have to question why we wouldst execute one of our fellows. Do we do it to give revenge and closure to those who have suffered, and if so, is this the most positive way to help them? Or do we do it because we think certain crimes "deserve" a harsher punishment? While many of those crimes might seem so heinous as to warrant the sternest of punishments (as a side note, if a single murder deserves execution as punishment, is a multiple murderer then punished less?), it's always worth considering that the finality of death in fact is contrary to the idea that a correctional system is intended to reform convicts to fit back into society, a goal that remains admittedly further than ever in most nations, despite the change in name from penal  to correctional system, for it turns out that reforming criminals requires a little more than just a change in terminology. If we decide that there is no way for us to ever reform our convicted criminals, we face a challenge as a society to find a way to change that. Simply locking people up and throwing away the key, or in this case, literally burying the criminals is no answer and leads us down a path where life has less meaning. If we value life so much that we would impose death on those who rob others of it, we cannot and should not acquiesce to execution of any one, not even the most hardened criminal and killer. In the words of John Donne, every man's death diminishes me; it matters not if the death be that of a friend or a distant unknown convict. So long as we are all part of this world together, we must find ways to extend, not end life. Lacking any practical reason to support the death penalty, I can only hope that the rest of the world comes around sooner than later to this same point of view.



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Whose Culture Is it, Anyway?

This morning I saw a headline that Gordon Ramsay was being criticized for opening an "authentic" Asian restaurant. Headline hyperbole about Mr. Ramsay being "destroyed" aside, the bulk of the criticism seems to focus on two ideas, viz. that only an "Asian" can cook authentic Asian food and the nebulous charge of cultural appropriation. The first argument is easier to understand and rebut, the second is the one I really worry about and which I want to think about a little more. Cooking food is straightforward, it really isn't some mysterious knowledge that is passed on to select initiates in secret ceremonies. One blends various ingredients in the correct proportions, adding them at the correct time and temperature and voila! you get the desired result. To suggest that only an Asian person can cook Asian food is to suggest that Asians are born with some special gene or inherent ability denied to all other ethnic groups. And what is an "Asian" person anyway? In this case, Mr. Ramsay planned a 1930s Tokyo diner - but Asians include everyone from Lebanon and Syria in the west, through Iran, Afghanistan and India to Vietnam, China and Japan in the east. All these nations, China and India especially each have so many different cooking styles within their borders that make the idea of an "Indian" or "Chinese" chef quite irrelevant in deciding the authenticity of their product. Can an Assamese cook craft a Coorgi dish? Would you assume that a Cantonese chef can create true Uighur food? Every region has its own unique style that can be learned, but certainly are not known to their inhabitants by simply breathing the air as they grow up.

However, while I can easily believe that enough people would trust to Mr. Ramsay's culinary skills to deliver them an over priced plate of excellent Japanese food, the idea that he has no right to open such a restaurant is far more insidious and dangerous. In recent years the crime of cultural appropriation has been widely charged against many people, ranging from college kids to, obviously Gordon Ramsay. At its heart is the idea that culture belongs to a certain group of people born withing that specific ethnic and geographic limit and that attempts by any outsider to adopt the same is a racial crime against the first group. There are many things to unpack in here but let's be clear about a couple of things first off: there are certain circumstances that are charged with historic issues (e.g. blackface) that fall outside the realm of just cultural appropriation and may be opposed for wholly different reasons. I do not always agree with those reasons, but can appreciate that the circumstances may make certain people uncomfortable - those fall beyond the purview of this discussion.

I firstly want to examine the concept of cultural appropriation as something wrong. Across history, cultures have met, sometimes clashed and in those confluences, ideas and habits have been shared between the two (or more) groups. The Silk Road carried trade goods from one end of Asia to the other, but along with silks and jade went ideas, clothing, cuisine, furniture, weapons, architecture and so much more; in short, culture. Would cloves and cinnamon be prized in countries far from their origin if the importing nations didn't learn to use it the same way as the original culture? Would the Chinese monopoly on silk have mattered if other nations hadn't learned the benefits of the material and adopted its use? It wasn't a one way street - horses were domesticated in the Steppes (most likely) but the lessons of horse breeding and horse breaking were carried far and wide. Religious ideas were adopted, sometimes through simple sharing, sometimes by force, but shared they were and it is often hard to separate exactly where a certain religious practice originated. Returning to cuisine, I have seen close parallels in the foods of India and Thailand, as well as India and Ethiopia. Pure coincidence, driven by similar geography, or ideas shared through traders. The ubiquitous trousers were used by Celts and Persians alike, but eventually were shared across the world; the popular jeans were created in the US but can one find a single corner of the civilized world without them?

So the idea of cultural sharing is as old as the history of civilization. Yet, when the same idea is repeated today, there are partisans ready to spring to arms to oppose any shared cultural theme. Generally, the charge is leveled against Caucasian people who seek to borrow ideas from Asian or African cultures. There is a level of imperialistic guilt mixed in, for defenders of those cultures recall the days of European colonialism. But the reality is that European colonialism outside the Americas, probably lasted less than two centuries, far less in most areas, which pales in contrast to the age of other empires - the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, to name a few - and the cultural exchanges forced upon their colonies were similar to any prior imperial power. The idea that a young person in the West wearing a kimono or borrowing a pattern for a costume or using a tribal tattoo or wearing a turban or sari (hopefully not both) is an attempt to block cultural exchange, and closing off cultural exchange has never worked well for the culture that locks itself away. Japan, during the Restoration, locked themselves off from any sort of cultural exchange, only to find themselves woefully behind in military power a hundred years later and unable to resist external pressure.

Perhaps the outspoken opponents of appropriation fear that the original culture is being insulted or misused. To this I argue that no culture is so weak that it cannot withstand a few people tying their kimono wrong or draping their sari ungracefully. Besides, what is correct and wrong when it comes to clothing? I would say that wearing one's trousers low around the buttocks is wrong, but that does not stop a large group of people wearing them just so for their own reason. Look back in time and what is "correct" today was as likely as not considered just as wrong a few decades ago. Culture needs change or it stagnates. That change can come from within, or it can come just as easily from without. American slaves, cleaved from their African homelands, mixed their cultures and gave us most of the musical influences of the last half century. To be sure if someone wears a specific ethnic dress to mock that group, or adopts a mannerism for that purpose, it's insulting and may be treated with opprobrium. But that's not cultural appropriation, that's racist behavior and would or should be criticized no matter who is doing it, and whether they are white, brown, black or green (assuming Martians may also get into the act).

And who owns a culture anyway? I saw a suggestion once, related to the whole appropriation argument, that a Caucasian schoolgirl could wear a traditional Chinese costume if she got permission from Chinese friends. That got me thinking: who are these friends who are empowered to give permission on behalf of the whole Chinese culture? Is it three friends or does she need five or five and twenty friends to offer permission before it's okay? Does she need unanimous agreement that it's okay or will an eighty percent agreement suffice? If she gets only three in five friends to agree, can she wear the dress but not style her hair to match? Do these people with cultural veto power have to be "true" Chinese, or will third generation Chinese-Americans suffice? Do the friends have to be from the same region of China as the dress in question, or can they be anywhere in the People's Republic? Do they have to even be Chinese, or will any "Asians" do (in which case the girl already has my permission)?

This rabbit hole just gets even deeper and more twisted as you seek the end. If this girl were anything other than Caucasian and American, would she have to meet the same requirements? What if she were an African American girl? Or, "gasp" Korean? Does a Taiwanese girl have the right to Manchu costumes? Can an Indian wear a Kikuyu tunic? What about a Luo in a Xhosa headdress? Does a West European have the right to learn Chinese or Japanese? Or even Russian? What about a person with a mixed heritage, does it matter with which side they identified before that point?

These questions are all absurd, of course. That is precisely my point - the whole opposition to cultural appropriation is foolish. Do I, as an Indian born and bred, but with no deep roots in Indian culture, have more right to wear an Indian costume than any random person on the street in Denver, Colorado? Do I have a right to wear a costume only by virtue of the particular shade of my skin and certain other outward characteristics? I would, I know, do far less credit to any Indian costume than nearly anyone else (my brother excepted, but in his defense, he does no credit to any costume, regardless of the ethnic origin).  Culture grows and flourishes when opened up to wider audiences and outside influences. I have faith that those who would mock a group will fail to truly harm the culture they attack; I'm equally certain, that preventing people from wearing the clothing or symbols of different culture will not stop attacks on the ethnic originators of those symbols. In the end, we are all better when we learn about different cultures. It matters not if we started out simply borrowing an African symbol for a tattoo after a night of drinking, more often than not, it could open us to a wider appreciation of that culture; at worst it leaves us with the Chinese word for soup instead of courage in a place where only our spouses may see it regularly.

As a parting thought, I offer this story about a small bakery I visited in Washington DC. The owner was a music enthusiast and traveled to Senegal to learn about African drumming. He befriended the people of a small village there on his journey. He ended up abandoning his music career and instead returned to DC to open a bakery using grain from the village he'd visited. His friendship and partnerships endure years later and I learned a little about Senegal from his bakery webpage.There are those who would have argued that a white college kid learning West African drumming was cultural appropriation. I would say only that they have not visited West Africa and that they should at least visit Seylou bakery - it just may change their perspective.