Reminiscences of an American dream

WON'T YOU BUY ME A FERRARI ENZO?
By Egoigwe

There is so much America needs to know, the definition of failure for anyone is not being able to fend for yourself, whereas you are fit. You cannot have an enemy greater than one who deprives you of livelihood. The world sees America living in ‘lunatic’ obscenity; I do not mean it to be insulting or abusive but as a descriptive given. I mean, just think about it… here I am, cuddled up in my little Nigerian corner, watching some Gotti chick sweating it out in the kitchen to fetch Richard Quest some spaghetti. A meal fifteen people cannot consume is served for four; Richard, the Gotti chick and her two spoilt brats that call their mum crazy and mean it, on global TV (CNN).

Mum goes:
“Crazy? You mean neurotic.”
That was mum being factual. The brat emphasizes with a prolonged nod of the head:
“Yeah! Crazy and neurotic.”
He’s the one not touching his meal, the other brat is playing twirl-a-top with his spaghetti and table sticks. Meal for four, now for two. And you think, where is all that food going to end up? Then you consider; so, what can America’s problem possibly be? Look how well a gangster’s daughter lives! Or if you are stupidly adventurous, you think, I’ve just got to get over there real soon.

America, in everything you read, watch and listen to, is advertised as the only land of the living. People, kids are dying everyday, everywhere from 500Ib bombs, sanctions, blockades and IMF inspired starvation. And those that pull through, still die because America or Israel freaks out or has a dream or some fear. We all know the Iran war will happen because the American people have given up political control over their leaders (all thanks to TSP!). It’s so true for America, of our local parlance, “servant don become Massa”. Even from here, we can see something has gone terribly wrong with America.

In our penury and squalor, we are still reasonably happy. We can still take a joke and share a good, tall drink. Our sense of family and culture persist in spite of the culture shock that is Western mercantilism. It is incomprehensible to us how America can be so blessed and yet so miserable. Homes to take in half my village belong to a family of three, two grownups and a toddler. Or à la Michael Jackson, for a family of one, living in juvenile splendour ... it’s not about the money, it’s about losing yourself. It’s about what people have become.

Please don’t get me wrong, there are loads of beautiful American families. It is to the stench that emanates from its public face that I refer. And Hollywood has done a marvelous job of spreading that American stench to all nooks and crannies of the world, George Walker Bush has only enhanced it. It’s really so easy for some to conclude: they come to our country, rob us blind and return to theirs to live like the devil in heaven. Something just doesn’t seem right and America is not making it easy that she should be understood. A riddle encased in an enigma or an enigma wrapped in a riddle, who knows? Reasons why they hate us or reasons why we hate them, who knows, who cares?

It was labor obtained under ruthless duress from my continent that grew and tended the cotton fields and sugar cane plantations of the South. It is a historical fact that its best politicians, bankers and property owners, its moneyed class, owe the origins of their wealth to the trade in Africa’s humanity, as Europeans and lately Americans.

Let me tell you what the price of an Enzo Ferrari can do for most African communities today. It can build ten rural clinics with free daily medication for a whole year. It will pay for thirty bore holes to deliver portable and safe drinking water for fifteen to twenty rural communities, depending on their various populations. It would provide antenatal care for five thousand pregnant mothers through the year and some change to build three maternity homes. It is enough funds for a hundred and five small scale industries or two hundred and twenty five home run ventures. Multiply this by three and the cost of a Formula One Ferrari will get as much.

So, next time you see one cruise by, try and imagine what it looks and sounds like viewed with the African eye.

It cannot be so hard to believe the rest of the world starves because of America and her reckless indulgences, it may not be true but it’s easy to believe. What would you think and believe from the African perspective and situation? From the Middle East point of view? The South American and Asian trajectory? What won’t you think? Can you then begin to imagine how very infuriating it must be, can you even start to visualize it? The anger that envelopes one when they see America attacking Iraq to steal her oil?

Look at the things George Bush, that incredulous leader of the free world, has had to say. Now, messing with Iran’s mind in the hope of provoking her into doing something really stupid. It can never be about rapture, it is all about big business with a capital double B. Everything we do, eat and breathe today is it. We are simply wasted on consumerism, no productivity. Kids spend all day long playing computer games, music, chatting on-line, glued to the TV or smoking pot and what else? No time-tables, no schedules, no routine.

In Africa, kids are bent over in the sun tilling the earth from dawn to dusk, not for a dollar but for a dime. These are kids unlike their fathers and forebears, who did not have satellite and the internet, that could not afford TV and radio, who could not read and write, that were trapped in their illiteracy. Today, you don’t have to be literate to understand it, it’s visual and in panoramic vision for everyone, who is not blind, to see. They see the limos and ask; how many people sit in that thing? You tell them between eight and ten; so why are there only two guys in it? You think… then emm… well, he’s a big shot.

So? He has to sit in space for ten to show it? Are you serious? Yes. People just crack up and call America crazy. And I haven’t even told them yet, that all that Gotti food and sweat are going into the trash can! Now, can you imagine the sheer horror it would cause if I found the courage to tell them that almost three billion dollars was spent on chewing gums in a given year by Americans?

Well, won't you buy me a Ferrari Enzo?