Churning within the melting pot

It is an old saying that you cannot go home again. The force of the saying is so evident today because not only do we get changed by going abroad, but also, and this may be the modern twist, without ever moving, home also changes.

The melting pot used to mean that the pot gathered diverse elements and made them melt into a uniform whole. Today the melting pot can neither melt nor blend but it perpetually churns. Ease of contact creates an illusion of continuity. We feel as though we have never moved, even though the forces that have enabled us to move have simultaneously modified, if not uprooted, the homes that we have left.

Perhaps the first time I was aware of the shrinking everyday world was in the early 1990s when I was visiting Dhaka. At breakfast my father said to me, “Lows in the 30’s, snow expected.” In Dhaka?! I hid my confusion by focusing on breakfast. Then it struck me: my father had looked up the Chicago weather forecast on CNN and was relaying it to me, so that I could check on the children when they were going to school!

CNN is now a commonplace but the shrinking of the world, at least in some aspects, has never ceased to surprise me. Having grown up at a time when palanquins were still in use and when villagers would leave their plows and run when they heard the horn of a car, perpetual surprise is now an everyday reaction.

Almost 20 years later, when we landed at Kota Kinabalu and took a taxi to the hotel, the taxi driver asked to stop briefly at a shop. He exchanged only two words and then ran back. “Chelsea won,” he said with a big smile.

NO RIGHT TO BE SURPRISED

How a British football team could acquire such worldwide support still puzzles me. But I shouldn’t really be surprised. During the World Cup, Bangladesh is divided into two camps: Argentina versus Brazil. Many miles of the countryside fly flags of the two countries, many localities have the flags painted on the walls, processions come out in favor of each country, and if they happen to meet, they fight. If such events happen in Bangladesh, I have no right to be surprised at the way international affiliations are formed and nursed.

This is also clear when we look at migrants from the subcontinent to the west. Once upon a time, migration meant the rending apart of the family. Going abroad, whether for a job or to study, involved saying farewell, with the real possibility of no return being recognized by everybody. Today, thanks to WhatsApp, migrants can talk almost every day with their families at home. This is not necessarily a blessing, as all the problems at home get transferred 6000 miles daily. One can no longer escape in-laws by going abroad!

In the Middle Ages, festivals for the Saints drew pilgrims from all over Europe. Today international pop stars attract fans from all over the world. The variety of different faces, ethnicities and nationalities at the concert for Taylor Swift seemed to matter little to their collective enthusiasm as “Swifties.” Have the pop stars become our saints?

As students we had no idea of the fluidity of knowledge and were awestruck by the names of those who wrote our textbooks. That the frontiers of knowledge could be moved was a privilege reserved to those from the elite Western universities. Today, scholarly research is conducted within circles that have no geographical content. Not only are pdfs of textbooks almost universally available, websites (such as SSRN for the social sciences) provide almost daily guides to the latest research. Both open questions and results obtained are provided; so there are many fields in which geography has been disposed of.

Parallel to these deeper connections there are many shallow tentacles. When visiting Malaysia, I was amazed at the fact that all the meetings were conducted by WhatsApp. Not just the notifications or the agenda, but the entire report, comments on the report, and final decisions were conveyed on WhatsApp. The meetings were even stored on WhatsApp. What would they do if the WhatsApp server was ever seriously hacked?

The dual nature of modernity is also clear when we look at migrants to the West. Once upon a time, migration meant the rending apart of the family. Going abroad, whether for a job or to study, involved saying farewell, with the real possibility of no return being recognized by everybody. Today, thanks to such technology as WhatsApp, migrants can talk every day with their families at home. This is not necessarily a blessing, as all the problems at home get transferred 6000 miles daily. One can no longer escape one’s in-laws by going abroad!

In this new world, if one contrasts the behavior of the middle and upper classes with that of the working people, we already find a difference, even within Bangladesh. Every Eid, the trains are so full of people returning to their villages that the photographs are almost hard to believe. An American who saw them asked, “Where is the train?” Those rushing so eagerly back to their roots are the working people and the lower middle class. Modernity has strengthened their local roots, even as it has weakened and almost eviscerated the roots of their economic betters.

This divergence is also clearly visible abroad. Whether in Italy, or in Malaysia, whenever we talked to those Bangladeshis who served at restaurants or in grocery stores, we were greeted with open arms and invited to their homes. But those Bangladeshis who were on their way up were cautious and opportunistic. They began with a friendly hello, but as soon as they had assessed the situation and decided that we were of no further use to their climb into the international elite, they dropped us into a social black hole. Which leads me to wonder whether the shrinking world is also not a desiccated world. 

One cannot call the emotions of Chelsea fans or those of “Swifties” shallow or superficial. All that needs be said is that these are not the feelings that raise children, sustain families, and build communities. Today, local connections and their concomitant prejudices can be maintained, but as the local is itself turning foreign, we have to ask -- what is it that is being maintained? Where will the deeper feelings come from? What will sustain them? 

EVEN A CLOD MATTERS

Those of my generation are fortunate in having been raised at a time when we really did believe in a common humanity, and in values that were pervasive to being human. Was it a colonial message? Almost certainly. But it was not only that. Indeed, it was much more than that. We were taught that

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

The poem is famous for its last lines, which tell us not to ask for whom the bells toll, because “It tolls for thee.” The lines that struck me most are those which proclaim the universality of mankind:

Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.

And those that celebrate the importance of being common:

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.

Even a clod matters. Other cultures have spoken of the common man, but where has it been felt with such mellow hues?

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear.
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

During the Boxer rebellion in China, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was widely read. The early sustained land reform efforts in China were led by German missionaries. Why? Koreans have wondered about the impact of Christianity and concluded that there were three significant changes brought by the missionaries to Confucian culture: dignity of manual labor, lessening of hierarchy, and elevating the status of women.

Upon thinking back about such issues, I have come to realize that the most effective and forceful advocacy of the oneness of humanity came from the missionaries. Whether or not one agrees with the message is immaterial, what is significant is that they believed in the oneness of humanity. In this pursuit they went from the Amazon to the Mekong, living in the wilderness, translating languages, and seeking to convert by setting an example of doing good. That they often failed to live up to their ideals is beside the point, which is that simply by being there they provided a forceful testament to the oneness of humanity.

There was once such a culture. There was once such a civilization. What is the new alternative?