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Millions lost, I'm an illegal immigrant, so run to the crocodiles.....
What a week. My multimillion dollar income proposal for the country is turned down, I give intention to resign, I discover I am an illegal immigrant with a missing passport (which requires a lengthy meeting with the National Director of the Police force), and have a fantastic journey to the countryside to get all this out of my system.
The better part of ten months of lobbying, research, careful documentation and analysis seems to have come to an end. Two proposals for the country-code top level domain; mine and that advocated by staff in the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications.
My proposal would be worth approximately seven million dollars income per annum. Theirs would actually cost money. My proposal used several contextually appropriate examples (Tuvalu, Nunei, Laos). They didn't use any examples. Mine suggests hosting with access to 162 Gbps. Theirs is 1024 kbps.
Guess which one the Minister for Telecommunications has decided to go with? Yep, you guessed right. An hour after I
received notice of his decision, I handed in my intention to resign.
There is still a couple of last minute options. A one-to-one meeting with the Prime Minister is being organized, but I
don't see much hope in changing the decision. After all, noone wants to usurp the Minister's decision. He is such a
nice guy and all.
Just to make matters better, I discovered that the Protocol Division had lost my passport. Fourty days they were
given the passport for updating the visa. It sat on someone's desk for that fourty days, rather than going to
Immigration and Border Control. It was only the subtle threat of international criminal charges being laid which caused
it to be miraculously reappear. No explanation of course. With some assistance from the Director of Consular Affairs
(one of the more hard working people here), I had a meeting today with the National Director of the Police, a charming
and sensible character Carlos, to explain exactly why I was not an illegal immigrant.
Anyway, with all this on the agenda on Friday evening, Debbie, a community development worker, had arrived from
Melbourne for her first visit to East Timor. Within an hour of getting off the 'plane, Daryl and Jim (both Lt-Col's
from the Australian army), two Portuguese UN workers and myself are in vehicles heading towards the south coas to have
a weekend out of this capital city. Jim's a weird one. So straight it's weird. Although he's in the legal and negotions
corps, he wanders around with a pistol everywhere. Daryl on the other hand I've developed a crazy friendship with.
Despite being in the armed forces for eighteen years, he has radical-left politics, hates guns and war (like any
sensible soldier) and is always a jovial, pleasurable person to be around. And he likes a drink.
I've done the journey often enough before, but it's worth explaining. From Dili to Aileu, Aileu to Maibasse, Maibasse to Same, then to Betano. In East Timor distance isn't measured by kilometers, it's measured by the time it takes. As the crow flies (or something that can get a better altitude) you're travelling about 70kms. Due to road conditions, mountains, jungle, fog, landslides, rivers and the effects of earthquakes you're talking about four to six hours at best. Usually you're at least 1000m in the air, and up 2500m in some parts. Enormous sections are like being in an Edgar Rice Burrough's novels, especially in the moutainous center. On the south coast you have beautiful beaches interspersed with mangrove swamps which are inhabited by hundreds of crocodiles, weighing up to 400kgs.
During the journey one passes through three different ethnicities; starting with the Tetum-Praca people of Dili, the Mambe people of Maibasse and Same and the Tetun-Terik people of Same-Betano. The southern district, Manufahi, is the least developed region in the country; mostly preliterate, grass huts, animism and, until very recently (and maybe still) headhunters. Apparently it is a great honour to have your head lopped off by a Manufahi warrior.
In Maibasse we stayed at the old Portuguese governer's residence, which is now a hotel of sorts. We were the only visitors for the night, which came with the additional luxury of hot water - I had my first hot shower since January this year and believe me, I took my time.
In Betano we slept on the beach (after getting the OK from the village chief) following a late night of sitting around the campfire, having a bbq, drinking and singing. Obviously we attracted a fair bit of attention and by the following morning a substantial number of youngsters had turned up. We started "Eskola Besik Tasi" (Beach School) and discovered one boy (Solomon) could both read and write with some competence.
Recent floods having taken their toll on the region. Although they have been susbtantially worse just west (Suai) and east (Viqueque) the damage was evident here as well. An significant section of road out of Betano, along the major river (Karaulun) had just been washed away - a good 40 meters worth at least. Enormous sections of road along the cliffaces along the Same-Maibasse road have likewise vanished, but not yet to the point where it is impassable. We were hoping to return either via the east or west road, then turn north, but they are completely flooded. In other words, despite only having one seaside, Manufahi can only be reached by a single road directly from the north - and that's hardly safe by any stretch of the imagination.
On other matters.... Just when you thought that we were on the verge of a new political dark age, the United States produces a great alternative; Kucinich!
Those whose anti-Americanism is just another version of racism can shut up now. The war machine, the "Patriot Act", the campaign against reproduction rights and so forth have nothing to do with so-called "American culture" (besides, the U.S.A. is a nationality not an ethnicity) and everything to with a particular government of the United States of America.
The better part of ten months of lobbying, research, careful documentation and analysis seems to have come to an end. Two proposals for the country-code top level domain; mine and that advocated by staff in the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications.
My proposal would be worth approximately seven million dollars income per annum. Theirs would actually cost money. My proposal used several contextually appropriate examples (Tuvalu, Nunei, Laos). They didn't use any examples. Mine suggests hosting with access to 162 Gbps. Theirs is 1024 kbps.
Guess which one the Minister for Telecommunications has decided to go with? Yep, you guessed right. An hour after I
received notice of his decision, I handed in my intention to resign.
There is still a couple of last minute options. A one-to-one meeting with the Prime Minister is being organized, but I
don't see much hope in changing the decision. After all, noone wants to usurp the Minister's decision. He is such a
nice guy and all.
Just to make matters better, I discovered that the Protocol Division had lost my passport. Fourty days they were
given the passport for updating the visa. It sat on someone's desk for that fourty days, rather than going to
Immigration and Border Control. It was only the subtle threat of international criminal charges being laid which caused
it to be miraculously reappear. No explanation of course. With some assistance from the Director of Consular Affairs
(one of the more hard working people here), I had a meeting today with the National Director of the Police, a charming
and sensible character Carlos, to explain exactly why I was not an illegal immigrant.
Anyway, with all this on the agenda on Friday evening, Debbie, a community development worker, had arrived from
Melbourne for her first visit to East Timor. Within an hour of getting off the 'plane, Daryl and Jim (both Lt-Col's
from the Australian army), two Portuguese UN workers and myself are in vehicles heading towards the south coas to have
a weekend out of this capital city. Jim's a weird one. So straight it's weird. Although he's in the legal and negotions
corps, he wanders around with a pistol everywhere. Daryl on the other hand I've developed a crazy friendship with.
Despite being in the armed forces for eighteen years, he has radical-left politics, hates guns and war (like any
sensible soldier) and is always a jovial, pleasurable person to be around. And he likes a drink.
I've done the journey often enough before, but it's worth explaining. From Dili to Aileu, Aileu to Maibasse, Maibasse to Same, then to Betano. In East Timor distance isn't measured by kilometers, it's measured by the time it takes. As the crow flies (or something that can get a better altitude) you're travelling about 70kms. Due to road conditions, mountains, jungle, fog, landslides, rivers and the effects of earthquakes you're talking about four to six hours at best. Usually you're at least 1000m in the air, and up 2500m in some parts. Enormous sections are like being in an Edgar Rice Burrough's novels, especially in the moutainous center. On the south coast you have beautiful beaches interspersed with mangrove swamps which are inhabited by hundreds of crocodiles, weighing up to 400kgs.
During the journey one passes through three different ethnicities; starting with the Tetum-Praca people of Dili, the Mambe people of Maibasse and Same and the Tetun-Terik people of Same-Betano. The southern district, Manufahi, is the least developed region in the country; mostly preliterate, grass huts, animism and, until very recently (and maybe still) headhunters. Apparently it is a great honour to have your head lopped off by a Manufahi warrior.
In Maibasse we stayed at the old Portuguese governer's residence, which is now a hotel of sorts. We were the only visitors for the night, which came with the additional luxury of hot water - I had my first hot shower since January this year and believe me, I took my time.
In Betano we slept on the beach (after getting the OK from the village chief) following a late night of sitting around the campfire, having a bbq, drinking and singing. Obviously we attracted a fair bit of attention and by the following morning a substantial number of youngsters had turned up. We started "Eskola Besik Tasi" (Beach School) and discovered one boy (Solomon) could both read and write with some competence.
Recent floods having taken their toll on the region. Although they have been susbtantially worse just west (Suai) and east (Viqueque) the damage was evident here as well. An significant section of road out of Betano, along the major river (Karaulun) had just been washed away - a good 40 meters worth at least. Enormous sections of road along the cliffaces along the Same-Maibasse road have likewise vanished, but not yet to the point where it is impassable. We were hoping to return either via the east or west road, then turn north, but they are completely flooded. In other words, despite only having one seaside, Manufahi can only be reached by a single road directly from the north - and that's hardly safe by any stretch of the imagination.
On other matters.... Just when you thought that we were on the verge of a new political dark age, the United States produces a great alternative; Kucinich!
Those whose anti-Americanism is just another version of racism can shut up now. The war machine, the "Patriot Act", the campaign against reproduction rights and so forth have nothing to do with so-called "American culture" (besides, the U.S.A. is a nationality not an ethnicity) and everything to with a particular government of the United States of America.
no subject
Fantastic, I want to clone about, maybe a million of him. An army of people who know how to start and end a war practicall without actually wanting to use the skills unless utterly necessary! That's the sort of national defense I'd be happy with.
no subject
Actually you would be surprised by how many people in the Australian armed forces that I've met like this. Nearly all of them people who have made up through the grades to officer level. It's quite surprising - we assume that people in the army aren't exactly liberal in their worldview. That might be the case when many first join and the bulk of the lower ranks. But as time goes on they begin to understand the old adage.
A soldier lost is a soldier lost forever.
Re:
Not so surprising
The soldiers have to think through what they are fighting for and why. The US armed forces long ago noticed that they didn't go to war with democracies, so only (spreading) democracy provides final victory in wars with dictatorships.
Or, as one military intellectual wrote recently about the folly of settling for dictatorship ‘the Shah always falls’.
Re: Not so surprising
This is all very true. The difficulty lies of course in how one goes about exporting democracy (and importing it as well - every "democratic" country needs to engage in a bit of navel-gazing, otherwise they'll just get carried away with their own propaganda).
People in the least the sense that the "liberated" nations need to actually feel that the invading force are actually liberators. This was obviously the case for France in WWII and Kuwait in 1991. But it is certainly not the recent conflict in Iraq.
Hopefully that lesson will be learnt.
Re: Not so surprising
But yes, the how is awfully difficult. One of the points I like to make is that exporting democracy is as difficult as exportiing prosperity, since both require certain basic cultural and institutional features.
no subject
It was interesting comparing his gaming style to some of the others in the group. We had one guy who always played a combat-monster character, stats maxed out for damage-dealing, who carried around the biggest, munchkinest sniper rifle he could find (Browning .50, for any gun buffs reading this). Sometimes his character would die, and he'd come back playing the same character with a change of name and clan/tribe/etc.
Funny thing was, every so often Combat Monster would come into conflict with Andrew... and in about five minutes Combat Monster would be rolling up a new character. Without Andrew having to lift a finger. I don't think I ever saw him use his character's abilities, or get personally involved in combat, but he was very good at persuading other people that their interests were served by helping him with his...
no subject
Whilst not wanting to turn this into an RPG anaecdotes threat *twitch* *twitch* *twitch*.... combat-wombats invariably have short lifespans.
I had one character plagued by relatives and friends of an orc he killed for over six months which only ceased after the character moved continents.
Following the fourth assasination attempt on the character the player exclaimed "How could he have so many friends? He was only an Orc!"
Yes, but a very popular and respected Orc. And in a vengeful community.
no subject
no subject
I'm not sure what I think of his fiction yet, but I've been enjoying his political activism.
no subject
Heh. That was quite good. I'd be fairly confident of the fiction as well. I mean if Kurt Vonneget jnr likes it, it should be good. Vonnegut is a great writer.