We

Many of my Friday and Saturday nights when I was a kid were spent at the home of close family friends.  My father and my stepmother were incredibly close to another Tamil couple in our town and I was equally as close with their two sons.  The three of us would spend hours playing computer games, hanging out, and just having a great time.  However, as the evening progressed, at some point my dad would walk into the room.

The moment of truth.

Each time he would say in Tamil "We are leaving".  However, in that statement I would find out if I would have to leave or if I was allowed to sleep over with my friends.

Now for native English speakers this idea can be a bit confusing.  How can someone say the same sentence "We are leaving", but mean two different things depending on the scenario?  Does the listener depend on contextual clues?  Perhaps the tone of voice?  Actually it's a lot simpler than that.

In Tamil, there are two forms of the word we: "inclusive" and "exclusive". Depending on the word used, it either includes the listener or doesn't.  Confused? See below:

Leave it to Wikipedia to explain the difference a lot clearer than I ever could.   In Tamil, if one is including the addressee one uses the word "Naam".  If not, one uses the word "Nangal".  So basically if he used "Nangal" for the word "we" (as in referring to him and my stepmom, but excluding me), it meant that I would get a sleepover.  

If, he used "Naam" (as in referring to him, my stepmom, AND me), I'd complain that it wasn't late, and that he was being unfair, and then I would start crying like a two year old baby...

OK.  Maybe I didn't start crying.  The point is that at that young age, I learned that when said one used the term "We" in English, it could have multiple meanings.

As you'll see, inclusive and exclusive forms also existed for the Tamil word for "Our" as well.

One time my parents sponsored a prayer at the Hindu temple in Pittsburgh.  They invited the entire community and ordered mounds of fruits, flowers, and coconuts to make offerings.  I remember walking into my parents' bedroom as my Mom was adjusting her silk and gold sari.  That's when I asked: "Is Leena Aunty and Selvarajan Uncle going to be there?" Leena Aunty and Selvarajan Uncle were other close family friends.

Amma: Oh Harikannu, they don't come to our kovil(temple). They go to Church.  They are Christian.

I was utterly confused! An Indian that was...Christian?  I thought I understand how society worked: My non-Indian friends were Christian and my Indian friends were Hindu.  At the age of 5, I had already started categorizing people into specific categories with specific traits.

Me: (clearly upset) They don't like Krishna?

My mom must have heard the distress in my voice because she knelt down and carried me over to our family shrine.  Once there, she pointed to a picture of my late grandmother, my father's mother, my Ayah, and asked me to tell me who she was.

Me: Amma...that's Ayah.

Amma: Yes that's right.  And your Appa loved her very much.  And she loved him very much as well.  We do this out of reverence for her spirit as we believe that she is as close to God as she is to our hearts.  But do you think your friends have pictures of Ayah in their houses?

Me: <<laughing>> No Amma! She's our [Engalodiya - Exclusive] Ayah!  That's not their Grandma!

Amma: Even though your friends don't know your grandmother, they know that a grandmother's touch feels like the softest cotton.  They know that a grandmother's kiss still feels like the a spring rain.  They know that a grandmother's hug is warmer than a fireplace.

Me: <<confused>> Adha Naal?...So what?


Amma: So?  We all experience a grandmother's love in our  own way.  Regardless of what name we give the person who shared that with us, regardless of that person's color, creed, or path...they are all grandmothers.

<<raising her hands in prayer>>

Adhu pol...Like that...the Lord of all lords, the Creator of all creations, the Spirit that moves all spirits is one being. He is that which humbles all of us. <<smiles to me>>  Aunty and Uncle love that same spirit that we pray to in Pittsburgh.

Me: But they don't pray to our God?

Amma: They worship our [Nanmodiya - Inclusive] God. There is no "Engalodiya" in God.  He is not yours, mine, or someone else's.  He is God  for us all.

I never forgot that.  It reminded me how much significance is carried in the words "We" and "Our".  I was reminded of that conversation years later while watching a TV segment.  In the show, a man interviewed random people on the street and asked them what was the first sentence of the Constitution.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Most people, got "We the People".   After that, it was pretty much chaos.  People started reciting the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation....there were even several who included pieces of Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Dreamed A Dream" speech.

Although the idea of the show was to show how unaware the American public was of their own laws, I think the show missed the fact that most people remembered (at least to me) the most important part...We the people.

This reminds us that when we speak of the laws of this nation, we speak as a unified group of people.  There is no "We" against "Them".  We the people...is basically the inclusive form of "We" in Tamil.

The Constitution was written in an era that was  burdened with masochism, slavery, and intolerance.  However, the document has withstood the test of time because it is based on the values of acceptance and commonality.  For me, "We the People" is as inclusive as one can get.  It carries the same fervency as my mother's words when she insisted that we all believe in the same God, regardless of our faith.

To appreciate this commonality is a core concept that is important for governments, faiths, and even for every individual to live a good life.  It's when we stratify society and categorize people based on birth, attributes, and backgrounds, that the seeds of intolerance are sown.

In the dramatized version of the Hindu epic "Lakshmi Sabadham", the story of Lakshmi, there is a scene where a milkmaid is brought to speak before a group of intellectuals and to join in their debates.  The priests and scholars immediately scoff and mock her and are incredulous that someone of her status could join in an intellectual debate.  The milkmaid then spoke:

"The Lord Almighty, Narayana, was born of the cow-herders...my heritage.  The Lord Narayana is the father of the spirit of creation (Brahma).  From creation, all of the spiritual knowledge and the scholars that bear them came into existence.  So are we not all of the same clan?  If birth, and not merit, determine our status, are we not all born as cow-herders and as equals?

By saying that we should all be seen as equals does not mean that I do not support individuality.  Tamil has an exclusive form of "we" and "our" because it recognizes that we are possess a diverse range of traits.  To say that we have characteristics that others do not is something worth celebrating.  That we all have unique qualities is a thing of beauty.

But the inclusive form of "we" has merit because it reminds us that there are core truths that unify us. That regardless of our faith, our culture, or our beliefs, "We the people" are deserving of certain dignities.  To know the inclusive form of the word shapes our humanity from our individuality.  It creates commonality from our differences.

So the next time some person talks about "our faith" versus "their faith", you may want to consider the significance of that word "our".   When a politician spews hate-filled statements against people who do not follow in the footsteps of our founding fathers, you may want to consider what "We the People" meant to our founding fathers.  When you see someone being defaced due to their economic, social, racial, or cultural background, you may want to consider what it means to be "us".

Even when you speak, you may want to consider what you actually mean when you state:

This is OUR land.
These are OUR values.
These are OUR rights.
This is what WE deserve.
I personally can't imagine a situation where any of those statements would use the exclusive form.

Righteous

The time period that I was in High School was a politically turbulent time in the US.  The events of 9/11 occurred during my sophomore year.  I was in French class when the announcement was made that planes had hit the twin towers.  It was a surreal day.  First, there were the phone calls to my relatives/close family friends that worked in and around the World Trade Center.  After discovering that they were safe, the numbness still didn't fade.

It was later that afternoon that the reality finally sunk in.





I was watching TV and I remember a Latin American woman standing in front of the TV with pictures of her brother.  Even though it was early afternoon, the dust in the sky from fallen buildings left the entire setting dark as night.  Her interview only lasted several seconds and was merely among a whole slew of people speaking about their missing loved ones.  However, this specific interview stuck in my memory.  I remember her saying at one point: "He may have amnesia if something hit him on the head.  If he's forgotten most things, he may respond to our nickname for him."  And at that moment, she said a Spanish word and burst into tears.  All the tears I had withheld until that moment, were released.

It's amazing how quickly that unified sense of remorse our nation felt dissolved into antagonistic groups immersed in either hatred or forgiveness.  Prior to the War in Iraq, I remember that students at our school held peace protests near the flag pole. I also remember the counter-protesters with their own slogan.  While I can barely remember anything that occurred at the peace protest, I remember being fixated on the crowd of youth waving a banner with the words "Bomb Iraq."

No it wasn't "Bring Terrorists to Justice".  Or "End Tyranny in Iraq". Or "Bring Peace to the Middle East."

Bomb Iraq. Bomb Iraq. Bomb Iraq.  Their voices echoed in my head for nights after the war erupted.  If kids in high school, in a progressive community like State College, could believe that positive resolution to a conflict is to bomb, kill, and even decimate an entire population...are the actions of September 11th, although definitely horrific, really that unimaginable?

In other words:  If kids raised in a white-collared suburban college-town community in Central Pennsylvania feel that blindly decimating an entire country's population with no regard as to whether the individuals they bomb are young, old, women, men, disabled, sick, etc. resolves the problems of evil and tyranny, then...

...what exactly goes through a kid's mind raised in a war-torn country?

That very night I remember hearing these words from our President, ""States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."

Have you ever heard of the British Overseas Indian Territory? No? It is an archipelago of islands located halfway between Africa and Indonesia. In this territory were the former Chagos Islands.  The islands were well known by Indians, Mauritians, and the Maldivians. Until the 1960s, the Islands were inhabited by a group of individuals known as the Chagossians or the Ilois (French for "Islanders").  The people were simple islanders that depended on fishing and agriculture for sustenance.  They were of mostly African heritage, with some mixed Malay and South Indian backgrounds.  Their language was a French creole. Their faith was Catholic.

1965:  A year after M.L.K. received the Nobel Prize for Peace for defending the civil liberties of his people, the Chagossians' simple lives were changed in a political stroke by powers that existed hundreds and thousands of miles from them.  In exchange for the independence of the nation of Mauritius, the islands were split off to form a separate British Territory.  Throughout this entire process, no referendum was held.  No consultation was made with the Chagossians.  The newly formed constitution was not democratic in nature, for it began a process of forced depopulation of the islands.

There are many testimonies online that discuss decreasing food supplies, violence, and threats to force the Chagossians to move.  But I think the basic summary of the actions came on April 16th, 1971, less than 2 years after the Stonewall riots.  The United Kingdom issued "British Island Overseas Territory Ordinance Number 1".  It made it a criminal offence for any non-military personnel to live on the islands.

One can not even claim that this depopulation was the result of poor administration efforts. No.  There was a malicious effort to deny Chagossians of any territorial claims. Eleanor Emery, the head of the territory issued the following message:   

..."Apart from our overall strategic and defense interests, we are also concerned at present not to have to elaborate on the administrative implications for the present population of Diego Garcia [The largest island of the Chagos Islands] of the establishment of any base there.

We would not wish it to become general knowledge that some of the inhabitants have lived on Diego Garcia for several generations and could, therefore, be regarded as 'belongers'.

We shall advise ministers in handling supplementary questions to say that there is only a small number of contract workers from the Seychelles and Mauritius, engaged to work on the copra plantations."

And in a dry, official document, the natives were disenfranchised.

The compensation that was provided per head was 6,000 Pounds per head.  6,000 Pounds to relocate, find home, learn a new language, learn a new trade, and survive.  The British government "kindly" offered additional money in 1979...but only to those who would relinquish any right to return to the Islands.

Even as an American, I feel my hands are not clean.  Because the military located there, is a combined British and US armed force.  The depopulation of the islands was done by both British and US military personnel.

But beyond a feeling of shame, I can't help but feel a strong feeling...the harsher and bitter feeling of irony being played here.

In 1962, the President of United States, John F. Kennedy said, in regards to the creation of the state of Israel:

"This nation, from the time of President Woodrow Wilson, has established and continued a tradition of friendship with Israel because we are committed to all free societies that seek a path to peace and honor individual right."

This blog entry isn't about imparting knowledge or wisdom.  Because at this time I am at a loss. I can not even say that the "Trail of Tears" existed over a century ago.  Less than a decade before my birth, another forgotten Trail of Tears occurred.  But their woes have been forgotten...like tears in the salty ocean they crossed to their new homes.

Because in my mind, I'm still a kid in high school watching a group of kids.  They are laughing, talking, and kicking around a soccer ball.  But as I watch them, their faces darken, not only the sun, but under years of hardship.  Their features may have changed, but that ferocity remains.  Their signs change from "Bomb Iraq" to "Bomb UK" or "Bomb USA".  And the same way I feared my own peers, I find myself fearful of these Chagossians.

And I find myself confused. Who is the axis of Evil our President spoke of?  Who is the axis of Good?  And most importantly...who is righteous?