by Tom Kratman
Marqueli wasn't the only one beginning to tear up. Jorge whispered, "He was my commander. I can't say I liked him, or that many of us did. But we did love him."
Women began to weep as the flatbed moved away. What would happen to them and their husbands and families now? Carrera had given employment and care, had given meaning to lives. What did the future hold for them? What about the coming war? Children cried as their mothers did.
With their women and children, the men, too, began to shed tears. This was their commander, the man who had led them to victory upon victory. Would he return to them, return to continue the great war on which they had all embarked? If not, would his like ever be found again? A hard man and a harsh one they knew him to be. Did not the times themselves demand hardness and harshness?
The flatbed moved to the guarded gate to the airfield. Now they could truly see him and the weeping redoubled. Guards lining both sides of the road kept the surging crowd back. The cries grew:
"Give us our commander! Give us our duque!"
Something touched Carrera. Where wife and family had not moved him, or not enough, the tears of his men and their women did. From under a draping sheet a single arm emerged and was held straight up.
At the end of the arm was a clenched fist.
Epilogue
The minstrel boy will return one day,
When we hear the news, we will cheer it.
The minstrel boy will return we pray,
Torn in body, perhaps, but not in spirit.
Then may he play his harp in peace,
In a world such as Heaven intended,
For every quarrel of Man must cease,
And every battle shall be ended.
--Anonymous, The Minstrel Boy, Third Verse
Cochea, Balboa, 11/7/471
Flames arose from torches on the green.
Lourdes had not been invited. "Love, in this one thing, you cannot be witness," Carrera had told her.
Her eldest was there, the boy Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez. The boy was wide eyed, half at the spectacle and half at being led kindly by the hand by his father. They walked along a path marked with the flaming torches towards the marble obelisk that marked the grave—though it was more memorial than grave, really—of his dead siblings and their mother.
Before moving to the memorial Carrera had shown the boy pictures of Linda and their children, explaining their names and telling him stories about them in life. He'd also told the boy how they'd been murdered.
"That's why I spent so much time away from home, Son," the father explained, "hunting down the men responsible."
"I understand, Dad," the boy said.
Perhaps he did, too. He was a bright lad, extremely so. Carrera expected great things of him. Kid will likely be tall, too, given that his mother's 5'10."
Around the obelisk were several close friends: Kuralski, Soult and Mitchell, as well as Parilla. Jimenez, McNamara and Fernandez were in Pashtia, Jimenez commanding the field legion in Carrera's absence. Those present were uniformed and stood at parade rest as Carrera led the boy forward by the hand.
Soult brought out a bible, which he handed to Carrera. Releasing Hamilcar's little hand, the father knelt down beside him, holding out the book and saying, "Place your left hand on this and raise your right. Now repeat after me."
"I, Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez . . . "
"I, Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez . . . "
" . . . swear upon the altar of Almighty God . . . "
" . . . swear upon the altar of Almighty God . . . "
" . . . undying enmity and hate . . . to the murderers of my brother and sisters . . . and the murderers of their mother, my countrywoman . . . and to the murderers of all my country folk . . . and to those that have aided them . . . and those that have hidden them . . . and those who have made excuses for them . . . and those that have funded them . . . . and those who have lied for them . . . wherever and whoever they may be . . . and whoever may arise to take their places. I swear that I will not rest until my fallen blood is avenged and my future blood is safe. So help me, God."
"Very good, Son," Carrera said, handing the bible back to Soult and ruffling Hamilcar's hair affectionately. "Now we are going to have dinner with my friends, back at the house. The day after tomorrow we go back to getting ready for the next war."
Afterword
Warning: Authorial editorial follows. Read further at your own risk. You're not paying anything extra for it so spare us the whining if your real objection is that it is here for other people to read. If you are a Tranzi, and you read this, the author expressly denies liability for your resulting rise in blood pressure, apoplexy, exploding head or general icky feelings. (I am indebted to my former law partner, Matt Pethybridge, for his contributions to this afterword. Matt joins me in this dissent.)
"Do I hate cosmopolitans?" you ask. Why, no, of course I don't hate them. That would be like hating sex . . . or drugs. Cosmopolitanism is like sex and drugs, you know; it just makes you feel all gooey and great inside. It's like sex and drugs in another way, too. I'll cover that later.
Okay, I'll be serious now.
Imagine, just for now and just purposes of illustration, some solid geometric figure; a cube will do. One side of the cube is labeled "progressivism." Another might be "pacifism." Still another might be "multiculturalism." Then there's "humanitarianism" and "environmentalism" and "cosmopolitanism." What's inside the cube, if it is a cube, I can't tell you, but surely it's something that holds those six (or probably more) together. After all, scratch a cosmopolitan; wound a multiculturalist. Kick a progressive and set an environmentalist to screaming.
Some might say that what's inside the cube is communism. I'm not so sure it's that sophisticated. Really, I suspect there's not a lot more holding all those –isms together than a mix of arrogance, envy, hate, and rage. Oh, and greed. Greed's often very important, too. Still, I don't know what's inside. The cube—if, again, it is a cube—is not that opaque.
I know only what's on the outside. One of those things is cosmopolitanism. And yes, that's what I'm going to talk about right now.
There are a number of different kinds of cosmopolitanism, most of which are not really all that cosmopolitan. We have the religious versions, notably the Islamic and Christian ones. There's also a communist cosmopolitanism. And then there's what one might call "true cosmopolitanism," the kind put forth by Immanuel Kant and, more recently, Martha Nussbaum. For the most part, I'm going to talk about "true cosmopolitanism," hereinafter, just plain "cosmopolitanism." To do that, though, we need to at least glance over the others.
"All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers."
—Francois Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai[1]
Cosmopolitan religions typically allow anyone to join in; they are open to anyone who will accept their tenets, laws and philosophies. That's as far as it goes, though. If one has not joined in the circle of the given religion, and that religion means anything to its adherents, one is outside it. I don't think I'm doing any violence to cosmopolitan thought by saying that religious cosmopolitanism is different, that drawing the kind of circle cosmopolitan religions do—us and them, in and out—is not really cosmopolitanism.
Communist cosmopolitanism, on the other hand, starts with the premise of ins and outs. It may cut across nations and ethnicities, but communist cosmopolitanism cannot avoid the distinction of class. It exists because of the distinction of class. Class is a bright line circle drawn around some men, and excluding others.[2]
Cosmopolitanism, on the other hand, permits no circles. It would allow no "us and them." It insists, to take Fenelon's words, that "all men are brothers." Of course, if all men are brothers then we are all part of the Family of Man.[3] To cosmopolitanism, this is so, the merest truth. Any distinctions drawn, any circle that doesn't include the entire human race, is arbitrary and illegitimate. Keep that—"arbitrariness"—in mind for later.
For now, let's look into families, shall we?
&
nbsp; "No matter how much I care about progressive politics, at the end of the day, it's my family and their well-being that's going to come first."
—Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Kos
Kos here doesn't mean the "Family of Man." He means his own. One doesn't usually get that much honesty from anyone, let alone from the Left. (Applause—sincere applause—to Kos.) But do they act that way? Do they act as if their families came first? Of course they do, even though they usually hide behind any number of high sounding phrases: "Family of Man," "Human Rights" . . . "Progressivism."
When Kofi Annan abetted his son, Kojo's, tax fraud, that was putting his family and their well-being first. It was the same with the post-tax fraud cover up. It's there, too, in Benan Sevan's use of his aunt as a notional posthumous money launderer for his little profits from the "Oil for Food" scam. It's written in the lines of every Darien, Connecticut mansion or Manhattan penthouse owned or rented by the head of some humanitarian non-governmental organization.[4] It is implicit in the very generous educational benefits the fund-starved United Nations grants to the children of its bureaucrats for the sacrifice, if that's quite the word, they undergo of earning, if that's quite the word, fifty or one hundred times more than most of them could hope to in their own lands. It is George Soros raiding the Bank of England and doing insider trading with the French Société Générale for his own personal benefit. It is a highway in Africa which is never built to standard and washes away with the first hard rain because the money for material went to line someone's nephew's pockets.
If there is a Third World politician who does not believe blood is thicker than water, he or she has probably been overthrown in a coup. It is the rule of Iraq, the rule of Iran.[5] It is China.[6] It is Latin America and Africa. It is, in ever growing frequency, the rule in Europe and the United States, too. Whether Third World or World Bank, that rule is "mine, first."
It's also one of the two default states of mankind. The other is "me first." This latter occurs, for example, when environmentalist Cape Cod liberals invoke "Not In My Back Yard" to prevent the construction of energy saving windmills.
We are, each of us, descended from people who decided, generation upon generation, that their gene pool came first. The sociologists' term for it is "amoral familism." Note that that's "amoral," not necessarily "immoral." It's difficult to call something "immoral" that's in our very genes.
Nor is this amoral familism by any means arbitrary. The connection to family is real. It is natural. It is, moreover, reinforced by close and intimate personal knowledge. It is also within the very natural human limit of what any person can really know or personally care about.
On the other hand, it's even more difficult to call the Annans' tax fraud and coverup moral behavior. Still less so Soros' raid on the Bank of England, mandatory kickbacks and bribes to line the pockets of dictators' and bureaucrats' nephews, and—not least—the fraudulent scamming of little Maritza's twenty-seven cents. This is so, even though it may be in the genes.
* * *
Camouflage is also in the genes, for some species of predators. The predator, Man, being rather white or black or brown or yellow or red and, in any case, generally shiny and of regular shape, has to create his own. Some human predators, descended no less than we from Og, the caveman, have to disguise themselves no less than did Og, if they, the wives and the kiddies are going to eat (and live in that Darien mansion or Manhattan penthouse).
For many of these, Cosmopolitanism is a cloak, the cloak behind which they can hide tax frauds and currency raids, insider trading and charity scams, graft and corruption and nepotism.
This doesn't mean that every cosmopolitan is a lying, scheming, greedy, hypocritical, dishonest predator. No doubt many are sincere, honest, selfless and, at a personal level, generally admirable in the conduct of their own lives. They sincerely believe that any distinction between peoples is arbitrary and therefore illegitimate. It may even be true, though it is no doubt rare, that they give no preference to their own little families over the Family of Man.
"By conceding that a morally arbitrary boundary such as the boundary of the nation has a deep and formative role in our deliberations, we seem to be depriving ourselves of any principled way of arguing to citizens that they should in fact join hands across these other barriers."
—Martha Nussbaum[7]
Arbitrariness appears to be one of the three core principles of cosmopolitanism; the others being, let us say, the complementary "Wouldn't it be nice?" and "Isn't it so awful?" When those for whom cosmopolitanism is more than camouflage ask those questions, in one form or another, they do have a point: it (life, the universe and everything) can be pretty awful and perhaps a more cosmopolitan world might be nice. Dull? Yes, probably, but that's not the worst imaginable world, is it?[8]
To concede those things, however, is not to concede much, for "Isn't it so awful?" does not mean it can't be or won't become worse, anymore that "Wouldn't it be nice?" proves that it will or even can be better.
Those we will take up later. For now, let's look into the concept of arbitrariness.
It really is wrong, you know, to hate people on sight merely because they look a little different. It is as wrong to hate people just for being born on one side of a border rather than another. It doesn't follow from those, however, that it is morally obligatory to love them on sight merely because they look a little bit the same or were born on the same side of the border as you. One reason why it isn't morally obligatory to love all of mankind for looking a little bit the same is that it isn't really possible to do so. Love, if it's to mean anything, is a fairly intense emotion and there's only so much of it any individual has to spread around. Even Kos saves most of his for his immediate family.
Hate and love aren't really the choices though. Between them are such variables as like and dislike, trust and distrust. There's also indifference.
I'm not convinced that the cosmopolitan notion of arbitrariness holds any water at all. It seems to me that the accident, the one truly arbitrary factor, is being born. Given that, it is no accident that a particular person is born to a particular culture and gene pool, that one is of a particular family.[9] Unless people are purely fungible, and perhaps completely malleable, it is no accident that one is a product of those two factors. Really, one cannot be anything but a product of them. It is not accident, neither is it arbitrary, to like or dislike, to trust or distrust, based on genuine, natural similarities, acceptance of similar values, a common gene pool and a common culture.
Still, perhaps the question is not about accident, but about choice. If not quite accidental, it is true at the least that we didn't have a lot of choice in the nation, culture and family to which we were born. So then, is lack of choice in the matter what makes distinctions between people arbitrary? Yes, but.
Choice is a problem to the cosmopolitan ideal, as is free will. Those very things they decry as arbitrary are, in fact, the results of some very non-arbitrary choices made in the past, distant or recent. Someone said, "I like this hunk of dirt. I think I'll stay, of my own free will, and raise a family; maybe get together with the neighbors at need," and thus was born a distinction, non-arbitrary at first, that would condemn the rest of us to an arbitrary future. Just as truly, someone said, "I'm tired of this piece of dirt. I think I'll move on, of my own free will, and perhaps take a few of the more agreeable neighbors along with me," and that, too, set for some of us an arbitrary future. For still others, it was, "I like the color of that man," or "I don't like the shade or shape of that woman," and there, again, voluntary, non-arbitrary choices were made that became arbitrary for the rest of us.
And who can doubt but that—go ahead and set the clock back to zero—still more non-arbitrary choices would be made in the cosmopolitan future, unless it were somehow possible to eliminate free will, preference and choice. But that is an inhuman future. I believe I mentioned things could be worse.
"Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat."
—Muhammad Ali
The United States, Canada, Australia and some other settler nations represent a problem for the cosmopolitan, and, especially in the case of the United States, in more ways than one.
Our choice—more commonly, our ancestors' choices—was relatively recent. Moreover those choices are validated daily by the numbers of people who want to come and join us. Is the Mexican's choice to risk the border to find work arbitrary? Hardly. Was the Soviet dissident's choice, or the Cuban dissident's choice, to come here for political or literary or artistic freedom arbitrary? Is it arbitrary when a young man or woman, born here, says, "I like this piece of dirt. I like the neighbors. I believe I'll defend it and them," and joins the military? No, except insofar as each is rejecting the cosmopolitan ideal and then only if the cosmopolitan eats her own tail and defines arbitrary as "that of which I do not approve."
To an extent, that's just what they do. When Martha Nussbaum, in her essay, Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,[10] calls for children to be educated away from patriotism, to be educated into and for cosmopolitanism, she is substituting her choice for anyone else's. That, friends, is arbitrary.[11]
But let's not stop there. There are all kinds of voluntary, non-arbitrary choices people can make, choices, be it noted, that have no taint of nationalism. What, after all, is a member of the Mafia but someone who rejected his nation and society and opted for that non-nationalistic, cosmopolitan ideal? What of Mara Salvatrucha 13? The KKK? What of Legionnaire De Gaulle of the French Foreign Legion? All these are people who reject the nation and opt for a very non-arbitrary, tribal, even (accepting there is such a thing as a non-blood related—that is to say, a chosen—family) familial and ultimately exclusionary primary allegiance. What of the soulless, greedy, transnational Microsoft or Union Carbide or United Fruit CEO or corporate bureaucrat? Their loyalty is to the Family of Man? Their loyalty is to their paychecks, their stock options, and their golden parachutes . . . and, of course, to the families those things provide for . . . and to themselves.