B

I need to break the seal, get back in the saddle, learn to blog again. But it's been hard. Last week, I received some news about a friend and faithful reader, whom most of you may know only from his comments recorded here.

I have known my friend BrianB since we were both in pre-school. I remember him sitting on his heels in the Brown Room (the preschool classes were named after colors) as we gathered around our teacher for story time. He was looking up at her and smiling with his mouth closed, showing off his crater-like dimples. That is my first memory of him, but not my last. In my last memory, he is standing in my mom's living room just this past December, a man of 35 with his son wrapped around his leg. They were heading back to LA after a short visit with my sister and me. He had shaved his full beard that morning, and the dimples were once again on display. I could understand why a grown man, a serious scientist, wouldn't want to advertise a babyface, but it was nice to see them all the same.

In between the first memory and the last are years and years of school days, youth group meetings, choir practices, junior high dances, political debates, laughter, eye rolling, grade school crushes, and teen drama. We both volunteered at the same home for developmentally disabled adults all through high school. We canceled each other out completely the first time we voted in the 1992 elections. These endless pebbles of daily contact lay the foundation for the kind of friendship that can only happen between two people who have known each other as children and are now grown up. During his visit last December, the chipper politeness and catching-up small talk of reunited adults took place in a frame of golden fondness for the 5 year old, 10 year old, 13 year old and 16 year olds we once were together. My friendship with BrianB had a burnish like a halo; the icon of our friendship was finely wrought before we ever got back in touch, a little less than a year ago, thanks to this blog. His comments on these pages picked up a conversational thread that stretched back 30 years.

He was widely believed to be the smartest kid of our generation in the small California beach town where we grew up. He was a math genius, took every class in our high school's math department, then went on to an independent study. He attended the Naval Academy, and entered a PhD program in particle physics after his military service. He married, had a son who is as boisterous and silly as I remember him being at that age. He was deeply saddened by his recent divorce, and became depressed. When I saw him last, he seemed grief stricken but not outwardly embittered, as some people get, especially when a split isn't mutual. He was quiet and very, very sad. He was also attentive to his son and solicitous of my mom, whom he had always (we discovered) considered a second mother, especially after his own mother died of cancer some years ago.

You probably think he's dead too. But he's not. He shot and killed his ex-wife during a heated argument last week and will probably spend the rest of his life in jail. Nothing excuses what he did. But he was my friend, and I have known him all my life, and now that life is gone. But it hasn't gone, still burnished, into the grave. It's just gone. As someone who cares about him, I'm grieving as if he were dead, then feeling guilty because he's still alive. Then feeling the grief again--and not knowing what to do with it--as I reread his comments here, wondering what kind of person he always was if he is now a person with murder on his hands. We all make mistakes, incur weighty regrets and debts of shame, some heavier than others. Some suffer crippling mental illness. Others endure humiliations, perceived or otherwise. We hold ourselves to impossible standards and are devastated when we don't measure up. I know I've made mistakes that seemed to wipe the world clean of any good I'd ever done. But there are some deeds that wipe away an entire life--or take an entire life to redeem. Some would question if such redemption is ever possible. For the sake of my friend, I'd like to believe it is, either in this world or the world to come.

Though, if I were writing this entry about someone else, and BrianB was free to post, he would likely take me to task for being such a bleeding heart. A crime committed should be a crime punished, especially when there is an innocent child left behind. A life for a life, this proponent of the death penalty would surely claim, never imagining--do you understand how inconceivable it seems--that he'd be the one behind bars, facing the pulverizing wheels of the California justice system. And I'm not saying he shouldn't be punished. I'm simply grieving for the friend I knew who disappeared into one terrible moment, and grieving for the woman who was lost, and the lives of those left behind--his son, his own family, and his victim's family--who must now pick up the pieces.

I haven't written this blog to depress you, too. I debated if I should even post it. This isn't usually a confessional, and perhaps this knowledge is TMI. If BrianB hadn't posted so regularly, and at such length, I wouldn't have told you at all. But he is part of this publication, as humble as it is, and I can't go on without talking about him here, where I can still hear his voice. Please pray for his son and his family. And, if you can, pray for him, too.

To whom much is given...

Regular readers know all about Sheikh Zayed, founding father of the UAE and head of the royal family of Abu Dhabi until his much-mourned death in 2004. Some of you may even know that one of his last acts as sheikh was to commission the builing of a beautiful new mosque, a multi-million dollar extravaganza of gleaming white egg-cup domes, a forest of columns inlaid with mother of pearl and the world's biggest carpet AND world's biggest chandelier adorning the main prayer hall. (See the Sept 2008 and December 2008 entries for more details.)

Sheikh Zayed was a dedicated Muslim who probably loved Allah as much as the next person. The only difference between him and the super of my building (the be-scarved Mr. Aziz) was the wealth that comes from 8 percent of the world's oil reserves. As most public buildings commissioned by a single person, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi speaks volumes about its patron--many more volumes, perhaps, than said patron intended. As a result, the mosque has come to symbolize the glorification of a deity, the growing status of a city, the fine taste of a family and the expansiveness of a ruler, among other things. Needless to say, no expense was spared.

But the Sheikh Zayed Mosque is more than a stunning prayer hall toured by school kids and tourists, but mostly empty outside of holiday times. I discovered yesterday that the sheikh may have outdone himself with the Turkish tiles and reflecting pools, but he also created a home for an equally stunning show of generosity.

Every night during Ramadan (that's a whole lunar month), the mosque is host to a gathering of over 10,000 people who come to break their fast at its nightly Iftar. Fire up those mental calculators and you'll see: that's about 300,000 meals total prepared by the UAE Armed Services and distributed at the mosque. A group of us went yesterday to check it out. What we saw were 12 huge marquee-style tents (with a/c) filled with men (many of them laborers in the city) sitting on the floor and eating. There were so many that some gathered outside. Their dinners came in large boxes, and almost everyone was carrying around a plastic bag of leftovers. After the crowd finished eating, some left on the large buses that would carry them back to their camps for the night. Others said their evening prayers among the tents or headed into the huge mosque.

Giving of alms is one of the main pillars of Islam, and it was heartening to see such an eye-popping example of generosity in the shadow of such an eye-popping example of wealth. It reinforced my belief in the sincerity and power of Ramadan, at least in one, inlaid-mother-of-pearl, Turkish-tiled corner of town.

In my tribe...

While journeying in Tanzania this summer, Jessy (intrepid guide) asked K and I about tribalism in the United States. In Africa, tribalism is a hot topic in many countries and is seen as an impediment to development. Thinking tribally, the argument goes, damages the concept of nationhood and leads to favoritism and questionable decision-making in an effort to benefit a small, familiar group over a more anonymous, yet equally deserving crowd. In Tanzania, Jessy said, it doesn't matter what tribe you belong to. Almost anyone can point to an example of one group throwing its weight around to privilege their own. Understandably, this breeds resentment and apathy. Why bother, after all, if forces beyond your control have such power to shape your destiny?

So are there tribes in the USA? Jessy asked. And what he meant was: are there groups of people who are united by something fundamental or deeply rooted? And do these groups use their affiliation to promote their own interests to the exclusion, either natural or intentional, of others?

K and I hemmed and hawed a bit, searching for stateside equivalents to African tribes. We mentioned the American Indian tribes, of course, but the influence of these groups is not felt throughout society in the way Jessy meant. We considered class, religion and race next. But these categorizations seemed too unwieldy to fall under the heading of tribalim. Am I denying that people privilege their own class, ethnic group, religion or race? Of course not. But it's a reach (and potentially offensive) to refer to such behavior as tribalism rather than the specific "ism," like racism. We then pulled back to more light-hearted divisions by region. K spent 12 years living in Brooklyn. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Californian. Were these our tribes, each with its own linguistic pattern, cuisine and customs? Maybe. We spent some time making sweeping generalizations about East Coast and West Coast behaviors, trying to juxtapose a Wall Street banker with a surfer dude.

Then Jessy asked if it was unusual to marry a person from a different region in the USA? Did people avoid moving to a city not of their "tribe?" Could people change tribes if they changed locations? We realized that regionalism wasn't going to answer this question because it was so fluid. Tribal boundaries aren't fluid. People may choose to marry or live with another tribe in Tanzania, but such cases are rare and likely involve an acknowledged personal and cultural sacrifice. Moving from San Francisco to Baton Rouge, as startling as that might be, doesn't carry the same implications. People from the same tribe, Jessy explained, share a common understanding that is not easily put aside.

I was ready to give up, or attempt to explain poorly translatable distinctions like wine vs. beer drinkers or Yankees vs. Red Sox fans when K hit the nail on the head.

Political parties.

It wasn't always so, but we are all aware these days of how politics is no longer centered on opinions and policies. It's about how you view the world, how you live your life and how you think other people should live theirs. We call it the Culture Wars, but it is nothing less than the tribalization of the system.

Let's see how it measures up to the African version. Jessy is a member of the Chugga tribe of Tanzania. It is the tribe of his family and the foundation of his personal values. He is unlikely to marry outside of this tribe, not because he believes himself superior but because his own cultural perspective might be alienating to his spouse or vice versa. He would certainly not change his tribe willingly as he moved through life. To do so would mean denying lifelong beliefs. He is not in a position to make decisions that affect the lives of others. If he were, would he favor his own tribe? Probably. It is true that he would feel most comfortable with those who shared his outlook on the world and people he is closest too, people he spoke to us about during the journey, are those from his own tribe.

Does American political reality compare? Let's take me, RR, a member of the liberal Democrat tribe. This tribe didn't form my values, but my values are reflected (for the most part) in this tribe. It's true most of my friends are also liberal Democrats (though not all) and I can't imagine a relationship with a hard-core conservative. But what really clinched the issue , from the perspective of the road trip discussion in Tanzania, was this: to change my political party at this point in history really would represent a fundamental shift in my values. I wouldn't just have to change my views on taxation or the environment to become a Republican. I would have to change almost everything about how I see the world. I wouldn't do this lightly. In fact, I can't imagine doing it at all--and the same, I think, is true for most other Democrats, as well as Republicans. This, to me, indicates a more deeply rooted, tribalesque relationship to a political party, one that goes far beyond practicality and policy. In fact, as research has shown, people these days will often vote against policies in their own best interest because they are viewed as coming from the opposing tribe. We have been treated to several grueling months of healthcare debate obscured by the most truth-defying acts of blatant tribalism. Underinsured working people willingly believe that free healthcare is evil socialism rather than a enormous weight off their minds and pocketbooks. All because it's championed by the opposing tribe.

In Africa, countries with only two tribes are much more likely to fall apart dramatically (and often tragically) than countries with a melting pot/salad bowl mix. Rwanda, for example, is a country with two tribes. Cameroon, which is hardly ever in the news, is a country with many. I don't want to imply that the USA is heading for genocide and mass uprising. But I do think that there's more than one way to stop a country in its tracks, and we are nearing the point where inspired ideas, desperately needed leadership and, yes, even people's lives are being sacrificed in order to maintain the dominance (or regain the dominance) of one political tribe or the other.

Many countries in Africa are trying to confront tribalism, understanding that progress cannot be made while such divisions exist. We might want to take a lesson from their struggles before our own tribalism kills the country all of us--Democrats and Republicans--claim to love.