BEGGING AND BEGGARS

Begging: a profession? a misfortune? a job? a scourge? a spiritual practice? an industry? a stain on society? freedom of choice?

Like tipping, the subject of my previous post, begging creates an unequal relationship between giver and receiver, an unbalanced one-way exchange with the amount of money transferred depending on the generosity and intentions of the donor with the receiver having very little to say.

Because I was born in India and spent my formative years there, begging was a normal part of my environment, when I used to go to the market with my mother or to the Anarkali bazaar with my father. I saw beggars every day, and although I found them annoying, I would always stare at those with especially startling deformities such as grotesquely twisted limbs or too many fingers or tiny microencephalitic heads, I did not feel responsible for their misfortune nor did I think I could--or should--improve their futures.

Sometimes, against my mother’s wishes I would hand out coins, knowing that this would embolden other beggars to run towards me, extending their hands and whining ‘paisa, memsahib’ but by then I felt I had done my good deed for the day and could convincingly wave my empty hands or pockets to demonstrate I had nothing left to give. These are my memories as a seven- or eight-year old child but their enduring clarity has left me curious to hear the stories brought back by American visitors to India to hear how they react to the poverty in general and beggars in particular often a defining part of their experience. Of course beggars are not restricted to India but are found in virtually every country of our planet.

I am also most curious about what it’s like to be a beggar, who becomes one and who remains one and how beggars and begging fit into Indian society today. Do the beggars of Mumbai or New Delhi have anything in common with the homeless of New York City?

That’s the thing with the subjects I choose for Tidings. Before I know it I’m burrowing around in some unexpectedly deep, complex, mysterious, weird corner of the universe. Begging has always been with us and probably always will be. It may even compete for primacy with the world’s other oldest profession. Yes, begging is considered a profession, not only by many of those who practice it but by academic researchers too. A blogger from Ghana describes begging as “one of the fastest growing sectors of the country’s economy”. That pronouncement certainly gave me pause—perhaps it’s time to rethink begging! Should I be gloomily realistic and propose that with the economy being what it is these days we may want to consider begging as a viable emerging career alternative? If not on the streets, then at least to join the swarms of beggars on the Internet here and here.

The way people feel about beggars seems to go broaden the more they’ve been exposed to begging in their lives. On first contact, they take it very personally, almost as if they themselves are the victims. They experience confusion and fear, especially when confronted and surrounded by a number of clamoring beggars in a crowded Indian city. Greater exposure to beggars over time leads to self-analysis: people ask what is my contemptuous, fearful rejection of beggars doing to me and my soul?

Amy teaches high school math in New Jersey and has a rather pragmatic attitude towards beggars. She says she feels no obligation to give money to either beggars in India or to the homeless in New York City. Compassion, yes and food or small useful gifts perhaps, but not money and then only to adult women not children. Unsure of where the money will end up, she feels giving money will only perpetuate the problem.

Isabella, a high school senior from Long Island, New York, describes her first visit to India a year ago, when she was 17. She struggles with what the right thing to do is, unsure whether giving to a beggar is a good thing or a bad thing. “I really don’t know”, is her heartfelt conclusion. Perhaps, if they were were honest, this would also be the conclusion of broader philosophical and public policy debates about poverty and its solutions in think tanks and NGOs around the world.

I wondered if maybe one gets used to beggars and develops a more resigned attitude over time so I emailed Midge, a school chum from the days we both went to Woodstock School, Mussoorie, U.P. Being an old India hand, born and raised there and currently on sabbatical in Bangalore, I thought she might have a well-developed philosophy about how she and her husband Byron behave when beggars come up to them, asking for money. Midge is troubled by how easy it is to transform beggars into “The Other”, ignoring their presence and thereby denying their existence rather than confronting them and acknowledging them as fellow human beings. Whatever we give beggars, she says, we know is ‘totally inadequate to solve their problems’ We can’t help them and so we feel “like a rat”, no matter what we do.

Another friend, Milda, had visited the holy city of Vanarsi on the Ganges River where her terrifying experiences with beggars have left her not just with vivid memories but also with new resolve: She tells me: “If I would go back...I would go back with a different mind set. It is I who failed the poor...not they who failed me. I was not prepared. And I should have been.”

However heartfelt these Western views are, they do not begin to chronicle the many-tentacled position that begging actually occupies in the narrative of Indian culture and history. For a more nuanced understanding I interviewed two native-born Indians.

I spoke with Mr. S. Swaminathan, or Swami as he asked me to call him, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where he conducts motivational and communication workshops. I had came across his satirical article
in which his purpose was to reframe beggars as people with professional skills: they understand site selection, for example, by choosing the right place and the right time, they are skilled at “practicing the art of sustained irritation until the alms giver breaks down and puts money in the begging bowl”. They also know how to network to identify clients and learn the latest techniques, from their colleagues, all skills that could be applied to more productive ends. Begging is not a choice, he insists and demands that politicians and society accept responsibility by creating dignity for beggars through viable jobs. “Instead of patronizing the beggar”, he says, “persuade the politicians!”

I also stumbled across what its editor, Vikas Kamat, claims is the largest personal blog on the web, citing not only its 4 or 5 million page views a month but also the more than 100 person-years it represents of stories, commentaries and photographs from his India-based family . In an article written by his father before his death and translated by Vikas, we learn about the varieties of begging, ranging from inherited tradition to the temporary and circumstantial to the professional with their sharply defined and defended territorial claims. I urge you to visit this site for a fascinating and illustrated tour through the complexities of begging in India.

When we talked, Vikas explained that donors need beggars, to allow them to learn and practice humility and to provide them “a fast track to heaven” to earn punya or divine credits, sort of like the Jewish concept of mitzvah. In other words, the beggar-donor relationship is symbiotic, with a spiritual rationale, not merely a transfer of money from one person to another. Hindu ritual includes learning how to beg on entering the monkhood or taking a vow to beg for, say, one day a week as an exercise in humility. To become a successful beggar requires many skills and props, including acting, performance, storytelling, wardrobe design, training and outfitting of animals with their decorative dress. (The two black-and-white photos were taken at my parents' house a long time ago: they had brought in a monkey wallah to perform at their grandson's birthday party.)

Looking at a beggar’s life from the inside like this makes it appear suddenly colorful and a lot less drab, almost enviable, at least for a short stint.

Beggars are not doing nearly as well as they once did, however. Since the halcyon days and “due to an increase in mankind’s selfishness and small-mindedness, (the beggar community) feels they are not able to make a living”. Another factor is the institutionalization of government departments designed to eliminate or relocate beggar communities, not a good omen if you’re thinking about begging as a career track should the Apocalypse appear more imminent. But then there’s always the Internet!

I wanted to know how Vikas, as an Indian, thinks about those visitors to his country who are overwhelmed and horrified by the beggars and the poverty they witness? Agreeing over cultures, continents and generations with Isabella, he tells me there is no binary answer. It’s part of life, part of India, something he grew up with but also a sensitive, controversial subject--and a dilemma. Patronizing beggars keeps the profession alive but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to depend on our fellow humans when in need.

Whatever their personal attitudes to begging are, everyone I spoke to agrees that supporting beggars does little to help them and only adds to the social problem. If we want a beggar-free world as it is today, skill training and job creation must replace the tin cup as income and the street as home. Poverty is the cause and beggars are the effect. The question then become how to replace all those good karma chips and place-in-heaven tokens and all that soft-hearted guilt with tough love. I have another contrarian question: in a democracy, which India is, don’t beggars have a right to choose their profession? What gives us the right to take it away from them or to relocate them out of sight so they won’t offend the tourists?

After our interview, Vikas Kamat continued our discussion on his blog.

Begging and Beggars is also available as a podcast. In the radio series Tidings from Hazel Kahan, it was produced by Tony Ernst and broadcast on WPKN on October 23, 2008.

TIPPING: do we have to?

Full disclosure.

I don’t think tipping is a good thing

and I don’t like what it does to people. I also believe that hardly anybody except for a few scattered bloggers will agree with me.

Tipping is deeply embedded in American culture which means we have access to hundreds of books and articles about the etiquette and how-to’s of tipping, a compendium of tipping situations with guidelines to what constitutes an appropriate tip. You won’t however find a debate about whether tipping is a good or bad thing, such controversy does not exist. But, whether I agree with it or not, the tipping industry does exist, to the tune of $17 billion a year, when last measured.

Politically correct tipping wisdom boils down to two questions:

First, when and whom should I tip? Should I tip the owner, the funeral director, the mover, the valet, the blackjack dealer, the bathroom attendant, the hairdresser, the UPS guy? Somewhere, somehow, the pundits and legislators of tipping have drawn a line in the sand so that we must tip the bartender and barista but not the barrister, the street musician but not the orchestra conductor or subway conductor, the taxi driver but not the bus driver or airline pilot, the one who delivers pizza but not the one who delivers babies.

Once these fundamental lines about who and when have been drawn, the science part if you will, we ask the second question: how much the tip should be? Here is where art and heart come in, your personal beliefs and values, your assessment of the person to be tipped, your own history, experience and standards combining with what society and tradition dictate.

These raise thorny questions about what size tip constitutes the minimum, the punitive, the reward, the insulting, the generous. Mulling over the size and variability of the tip converts us into teachers, parents, judges, soul mates, social workers, psychologists, social activists and who knows what else.  Tipping's more than the tip.

Since I am against tipping, all these questions of course become moot. I can’t shake off the conviction that the employer, not the guest, should be responsible for the employee’s income even though I understand that a good service person can take home a lot more money generate than any fixed wages the employer might offer.

I’m a survivor and I try not to consciously provoke social disapproval and I quite like having friends who like me. So, I confess. I do tip. Of course I do. I have to. Reluctantly perhaps, but every single time. I’m an average tipper, doing what etiquette dictates but not expressing myself through either excessive or miserly tips. For me, tipping is not a way to applaud or chastise or bond with those who serve me. I feel uncomfortable with the idea of regulating somebody else’s behavior by arbitrarily loosening or tightening my purse strings.

If I were to paint a picture that would illustrate the tipping transaction, it would be about hands: I would have the waiter standing with his hands open and the sated eater sitting at the table with his wallet or purse open, as he riffles through the coins and bills. In this picture, power is clearly in the hands of the diner, the patron, the tipper, with a moat thrown between him and the tippee.

Michael Lynn, an authority on tipping at Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, describes the economically irrational aspects of tipping—that is, the rewarding of behavior over which one has no control because it is already past. He argues that tipping reflects the customer’s embarrassment at being in a superior financial position vis-à-vis the server, a left-over from the British class system where tipping those socially inferior serves to display one’s own wealth and to underline the imbalance of status and power.

I was happy to find a kindred spirit in the person of Peter Tupper, a writer for the British Columbia-based daily online magazine The Tyee. Describing tipping as a “Class struggle, one meal at time” Tupper expands:

"Tipping is the front line in the class struggle, where pocket change for one side means a decent living for the other. The implied threat of sabotage by slighted tippees goes back to the days of vails. There are apocryphal tales of traveler's baggage being tagged with discreet chalk marks, indicating their tipping proclivities to initiated servants, or diners being pursued outside the establishment as a not-so-gentle reminder. More recently, one hears about various bodily fluids added to orders. Poor service was the more common retaliation.

Even in the Soviet Union, tipping was ubiquitous enough to prompt disdainful editorials, calling it a "survivor of capitalism" that "humiliates the honor of men."

Many etiquette guides preface their sections on tipping by saying that the practice itself is disagreeable. Not only does it add an extra expense and element of complexity to dining out, it reminds people of a time when servants were dependent on the generosity of their social superiors. Others say that management has somehow shifted the responsibility for servers having living wages to the customers.”

Tupper ends by saying: “I've lived mainly off freelance work for the past few years, and if there's anything worse than working for tips, it's freelancing.”

But Gail Podstupka confidently disagrees with me—and with Tupper. I interviewed her on the waterfront deck of one of my favorite local restaurants, The Old Mill in Mattituck, New York, where she is a successful waitress. She likes her work and feels that she is as much if not more in control of the relationship with the people she serves as they are. She does not feel at all oppressed or condescended to although sometimes international customers can create differences in expectations.

I’m glad Gail is my waitress and I’m glad she feels her tips even out in the end to twenty percent but that doesn’t deny the existence of tipping anxiety, a dynamic that in my experience women are much more heir to than men.

How many times have I been with my women friends, a group of three or four of us huddled, looking at each other, staring at the bill in front of us, intimidated by the calculations that await us, voices lowered, brows furrowed, wondering what happens if we double the tax and add a bit, what’s that, let’s make it another $5, divide by four, what’s that, she was really nice, she brought the bread and drinks so quickly and she didn’t complain when I spilled the wine, god that was so embarrassing…this is probably not an unfamiliar scene to you!

Empathizing because once upon a time they themselves may have been on the other side of the table, my friends remember their own experiences, righting the wrongs done to them in those former lives, while our harried but patient waitress pretends to be oblivious to the small passion play being enacted behind her back.

But whatever my peculiar quasi-socialist beliefs may be, tipping in our culture has become mandatory, a fact of life, a social contract. By going into a restaurant you agree to tip the service staff. By violating the agreement you are a curmudgeon at best and unethical at worst.  In America today, you ignore the conventions at your peril.

Consider the meaning and provenance of the word ‘tipping‘. It is said that the word T-I-P-S has its roots in ‘To insure prompt service’ which may indicate that once upon a time tips were offered as an incentive before service was provided. In Germany, Trinkgeld, or drinking money is the word for tips, the same idea as the French pourboire. In the Middle East it’s baksheesh. To me at least, all these terms have an air of condescension or trivializing about them.

I visualize the word being accompanied by a pat on the head or a turning away as the patron leaves the Trinkgeld on the table or hands it to the taxi driver. Tipping is not usually accompanied by a fulll-faced eye exchange as it is, for example, in when one gives a birthday gift or presents the hostess with a bunch of flowers. This suggests to me that a tip is an unequal exchange—on one end is the donor, benefactor, patron, on the other is the grateful recipient, metaphorically at least raising his hand to touch his forehead in a weak salute or perhaps a tug of his forelock in fealty or deference.

The waiter (and I include here all the people who expect a tip to augment their income, bell boys, messengers, taxis, croupiers, belly dancers) does not know in advance to what extent his special attentiveness or his perfunctory or even neglectful service will bring a reward. In that sense, it‘s a loose relationship between cause and effect and an unpredictable business proposition (even though there has been much academic and field research about what increases or decreases tip size—bending on one’s knees while describing the menu is apparently a good thing to do). 

Ultimately the size of the tip depends on the mood of the one signing the cheque. The waiter has no choice in the matter—except perhaps to refuse the tip but I’d be surprised if that happens very often.

Anthony Nigrel does duty both as bartender and waiter in the same restaurant where I found Gail. His friendly open manner and his enthusiasm about the positive relationship between the way he performs and the way he is rewarded does not prevent him from acknowledging the tension that can surround the ritual and reality of what happens at tipping time, when actual money is transferred from one person’s hand to the other. He describes it as ‘demeaning’ and ‘awkward’ to wait and watch as the diner riffles through his wallet or her purse, deciding whether to pull out a $5, $10 or $20 bill. 

So, tipping's all about power?

Urban legends abound (and maybe some are urban truths) about the secret ingredient that might be added to a dish sent back to the kitchen. You know what I am talking about. What is TIPS spelled backwards? That was the sly question asked by one waiter who seems to know what he’s talking about. Complain at your peril! or resign yourself to anxious uncertainty when the waiter comes back from the kitchen with the newly improved dish you rejected. Rather than make yourself crazy you may very well decide to keep the dish, not to complain and, perhaps—or not—reduce the size of your tip.   Now who has the power?

Tipping is one thing in America but can be quite different in other cultures where it is shaped by fewer assumptions and rules. Sociologists point out that tipping tends to be more widespread in countries where people feel uneasy in the physical presence of unequal relationships and clear status differences. Think about tipping, as a kind of very temporary income redistribution and you can see how it might work to briefly reduce that inequality although ironically the tip is itself a statement about that unequal relationship.

American tourists are often confused by tipping etiquette in other countries and feel more comfortable doing what they are used to back home which in turn has altered the cultures in those countries.

In former or presently Communist regimes-- China, Russia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cuba for example, tipping is not expected. This is also true in Israel, whose early settlers arrived in the country with socialist principles. In some European countries, where a service fee is automatically included in the bill, tipping is considered unnecessary although sometimes small coins may be left on the table as a token of appreciation.

In some Asian countries, tipping for services other than food can be frowned upon. Although globalization is changing the tipping landscape, tips have not traditionally been expected or required in Malaysia, Phillipines, South Korea, Taiwan Japan, Iceland or Norway. In New Zealand and Australia, tipping can be considered condescending, rude or insulting, raising the specter of servitude, In England one might tell a taxi driver to “Keep the change” although the driver may be as likely to round the fare downwards!

Psychological theories and international anthropology aside, I would much prefer not to think about money—my wallet or the server’s income-- while I’m eating at a restaurant, even if the menu prices make such thinking inevitable. The complexities of tipping create an unpleasant finale to a meal, with money the last thing one processes after draining the coffee cup and before standing up to leave. I will always think tipping is not a good thing!

__________________
Tipping is also available as a podcast. In the radio series Tidings from Hazel Kahan, it was produced by Tony Ernst and broadcast on WPKN on September 25, 2008.

DISAPPEARED: The Palestine Olive Tree

You can't make olive oil without olives and you can't get olives without olive trees and you can't have olive trees without land and you can't get abundant harvests of olives from these trees without the farmers who know and understand them and who have tended them over generations.

The ruthless destruction of any tree fills me with anger and sadness but there is something about the deliberate savaging of olive trees in Palestine that amplifies my anger. I am especially affected by the irreversibility of the destruction: you have to wait 500 years to have more 500-year old olive trees.
For me, olive trees are not only ancient but noble, patient, quiet and very beautiful, their colors harmonious with the dusty, muted terrain. I respect these trees because for sometimes hundreds of years they've been the primary livelihood for Palestinians.

The olive farmers of Palestine are by no means an agribusiness, consisting of small, family enterprises using farming practices and equipment that are not at all helpful in a global economy. Combined with the additional obstacles created by Israel's occupation, it is nothing short of miraculous that we have the privilege of buying and using Palestinian olive oil.

Today, they are under terrible threat. The Israeli occupation of Palestine has created a cruel attack on the land, the cutting down of olive trees to build the enormous separation barrier, the annexation of agricultural land to build roads and the theft of land to build illegal settlements. Millions of olive trees have been uprooted while others have been separated from their farmers by the occupation's various pernicious tactics, including severely restricted access to the trees and to the harvesting of the olives.

Farmers are prevented from tending their trees by a series of punitive rules that regulate the hours during which Israeli soldiers allow access through guarded gates and the issuance of permits to who will be allowed this access. Uniformed soldiers are a threatening presence in the olive groves and heavy equipment a terrifying weapon that uproots, slashes and burns the trees.

It is estimated that as many as four million olive trees have been taken out of production, by one or other of these means.

These pictures tell the story. There is no need here for my explanatory words. I must however express the deep outrage I feel as a Jew that people of my 'tribe', a people for whom a belief in justice has always been fundamental, can destroy these ancient, beautiful living things and at the same time deprive another people of the right to their traditional livelihood.

When we buy olive oil from Spain or Italy or Greece, we don't think much about the journey from the olive tree to the bottle on our kitchen counter.


And when we think about olives we probably don't think about Palestine and many of us don't even know that we can buy Palestinian olive oil in North America. And even if we know all that, we may not realize the many, many obstacles that stand between those Palestinian olive trees and the Palestinian olive oil that is available to us in this country. I owe my first bottle of this excellent olive oil to Zatoun, (zatoun means olive in Arabic), a grass roots organization in Toronto and its founder Robert Massoud. Please listen to his story on Tidings from Hazel Kahan and visit the Zatoun website to place your order. The olive oil is also available from the American Friends Service Committee.

Even if you are at war with a city...you must not destroy its trees for the tree of the fields is man's life. Deut.20:19-20

Related sites:

International Women's Peace Service

Mahsanmilim

Jewish Peace News

Land  Research Center

B'Tselem

SHOULD WE ALL BE VEGANS?

Portraits of four animal activists

What inspires and motivates people to be animal rights activists and vegans? Until I interviewed four young American activists I had not realized just how intimate--and necessary--the connection is between the vegan and animal movements.

Although I know quite a number of vegetarians, I know rather few vegans. I’m aware of course that neither vegans nor vegetarians (although there’s also the puzzling concept of “almost vegetarian”) eat meat but there’s always been something rather mysterious about those who chose the vegan way: in my mind they were somehow more exotic, more serious, more disciplined, perhaps more ascetic, more willing to put up with deprivation. Or so I thought. I didn’t understand until I interviewed the four "superstar" activists for my radio program Tidings from Hazel Kahan that veganism is actually the linchpin of the animal movement. If you’re serious about protecting the rights of animals, especially the rights of farm animals, that is animals who are farmed for food, then you would find it difficult to argue against the logic of being a vegan.

Being an activist in the animal protection movement means not only protesting—and protecting-- the way farm animals are born, raised and killed, but also making explicit the profound connections between factory farming and our own health, the health of the environment, the health of workers and, last but not least, the ethics on which our society is based.
The four people whose stories I heard had all developed a compassionate consciousness of animal suffering when they were much younger. Often without the benefit of support from family or their peers, this compassion led them not only to make life-long food choices but also to a belief that these choices could make a difference. All of them are now leaders in the broader animal movement, shaping it through advocacy, legislation, undercover investigative work, outreach in national and international organizations as well as the forming of new organizations.

I have been inspired and moved by the ways in which they have integrated their values into their lives and their work. I hope you will be too.

Each of the activists I spoke with can recall exactly when and how they had their first awakening about animal suffering. When they talk about it, their memories have the feel of an epiphany, the day on which their lives were changed--it may have been a teacher, a video, a book or a conversation.

One of the myths about vegans is that their diet is boring at best, that they are malnourished at worst. Listen to these interviews and you will hear that myth debunked with dispatch! Rather than a marginal counter-culture phenomenon, veganism is growing and entering the main stream and general consumer consciousness. Although conclusive research evidence is difficult to come by, the capitalist proof lies in the capitalist pudding: greater demand has led to greater supply so that more products are now available in more places. If further proof is needed, Oprah herself has announced that she is embarking on a three-week vegan experience.

Fundamental to the animal protection movement is a strong sense of injustice tempered by compassion. Other vegans have told me that for them the suffering of animals is so palpable that they believe that by eating meat they are actually ingesting the suffering into their own beings. I was curious to see if such thinking was shared by these activists and if they also saw participation in animal abuse—witting or unwitting—as somehow staining our entire society. Although this may not use quite those words, they are passionately logical about the ethical ramifications of animal suffering and food choices that create and extend such suffering.

Although the various groups within the animal movement differ in emphasis and style and connotation, they are bound as witnesses by the documented horror of animal suffering and their belief that a vegan diet makes an important contribution to change. This is an energetic movement, galvanized by exchange of people from one organization to another, the forming of new groups and organizations, increased collaboration, the relative youth of its members and the increasing salience of its vision on the broader planetary stage.

Perhaps it’s time to think about why we aren’t all vegans already!
Podcasts of the two-part program are available: Part 1 and Part 2

Please visit their websites to learn more about these activists and their work: Nora Kramer www.humanecalifornia.org, Nathan Runkle www.mercyforanimals.org, Lauren Ornelas www.foodispower.org and Paul Shapiro www.hsus.org.

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Interviews with the four activists were broadcast on June 26, 2008 and July 3, 2008 on WPKN 89.5 fm Bridgeport and 88.7 Montauk, totally independent and listener-supported radio stations. This and all other Tidings from Hazel Kahan programs are produced by Tony Ernst..

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The four larger photos: cockerel, pigs, sheep and chickens were taken by me in Paraguay and Guernsey! The two smaller ones are web downloads.

HOW DOES A COUNTRY CRUMBLE?

I AM ALWAYS GRIPPED by the ways in which political forces affect the life of a single individual. Even when printed headlines expand to a few minutes of real time video capturing the mother, man, child or dog against backgrounds of raging fires, rampages or collapsed houses, I want to know more. I want to get as interior as I can. How does one man, this Donald Fraser, feel as his country crumbles around him, his cat is lost, his laptop battery has run out of juice and his passport is stolen? What did he manage to forage for lunch? Can he count on his neighbors?

I met Donald (he asked us not to use his real name) in Tanzania where he was a safari guide. He was born in what was then Northern Rhodesia and is now Zambia, went to school in what is now Zimbabwe and lives in Harare, its capital. He is a white man, approaching 60, an artist and writer and one of the millions of Zimbabwe’s citizens struggling to exist in increasingly apocalyptic times. Remembering his idyllic life as a child and young man on very same land he lives on now lends a special poignancy to his story. How did it come to this, I ask him. What makes a country crumble?

When we spoke, courtesy of Skype, it was two or three weeks before the last ‘real’ election, March 29, 2008, that is one where there was still an opposition candidate. Since then, Zimbabwe has occupied headlines every day and become a target for international sanctions, rebuke, analysis; none of this has, so far, lessened the terror experienced by its citizens, black and white.It’s the 21st century, it’s the year 2008 and arguably we’ve become somewhat immune to stories of collapsing countries, failed states, genocide and suffering populations. They’re on every continent, especially in Africa. When Zimbabwe is mentioned in the media, many of us shrug it off as just another one of those countries, distinguished perhaps by stratospheric inflation rates. Just like Nazi Germany. Oh, and the fuel shortages? Just like Gaza. And the corrupt dictators? Just like so many places in the Middle East, Africa, South America. We shake our heads and let our attention continue its wandering.

How do countries collapse with such speed and drama? What does it take to transform a nation from an effective, self-sustaining, creative, thriving place for all of its citizens to one where the vast majority of its people have to forage for food and water, narrowly concentrated on survival, vigilant to enemies and living from moment to desperate moment? Countries are huge entities yet they are also delicately-balanced systems, each with its own irrevocable, irreversible tipping point. We watch with alarm as our own country, the proud and powerful United States, confronts the fall of towering institutions and respected leaders. How did Zimbabwe go from good to bad?Can Zimbabwe be put together again? Is Donald waiting for its reconstruction and reconciliation? Why doesn’t he run away? I think I would!

He’s hoping, he says, for a return to law order, for the economy to return to profitability, for people with skills to return to the country to make the place work again, for the violence to stop:

“My family have lived in Africa since 1820 …I feel Africa is where I belong...people, traditions, history, how everything works…So for me to feel as if there isn’t a future in Africa is turning my back on a hundred years of continuous existence on this continent…a serious statement. It’s easy to say I’ve had enough but I’ve lived here a long time and for me to say I’ve had enough is a significant thing. In the last couple of months I’ve said what is there to live for… when your body starts to crack up and you need medical supplies…it’s more and more difficult to find that over here.”

Since we spoke in March, these hopes have the appearance of delusion. Violence and chaos have multiplied, inflation has soared beyond calculation and Donald has left for a short work spell in Zambia where he is beyond the reach of email and telephone.

Like Yusuf, a Palestinian man demographically quite dissimlar from him, Donald is trapped in a country where everything that once gave him life has turned to poison. Like Yusuf, there is no other country reaching out to extend him permanent shelter.

That’s what happens when a country crumbles.

You can hear Donald describe the dénouement of Zimbabwe and the accompanying unraveling of his life by listening to him talk on this Tidings from Hazel Kahan program.