"I Inherited a Mess"

This is a verbatim quote from the President of the United States from last week.  At the time that I heard him say it, and since then too, I've been aghast at the implications of this innocuous statement by the (new) leader of the free world.

Let's start with the the full quotation as there's no fake news here:

"I inherited a mess, it's a mess at home and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. See what's going on with all of the companies leaving. Going to Mexico and other places. Low minimum wages. Mass instability overseas no matter where you go. The Middle East, a disaster. North Korea. We'll take care of it folks. We'll take care of it all."

So he's begun his term blaming the previous guy.  That's actually playbook 'new president' and not objectionable as such as it's been done before over and over.

What galls me here is the idea that this is all a surprise.  It's too bad he hadn't campaigned on keeping America's jobs, or the 'threat' of Mexico, and mass instability in other parts of the world.  What's that ?...He did ? - well then why act if it's a surprise now ?  Because I'd argue he's starting to appreciate the complexity of his role.  That's a good thing in some ways, but a frightening one when you imagine he may not actually have understood the depth of the issues he was ranting about pre-election.  If we acknowledge that, then we just handed the keys to the country to an individual who seems to have lied on their driving test.

Let's the honest, being President isn't a job for everybody.  The stresses, tough calls and incredibly intricate negotiations to keep everything moving must be like dancing on a pinhead.  Politically, you can't screw up your Israeli question or your China policy for fear of what impact it has on trade policy and other foreign relationships.  Everything is linked, and it's not just complex, it's a political-economic ecosystem where only 'balance' works.  To think a domestic matter isn't effected by trade is to not understand the linkages between current account deficits and mortgage rates, amongst other things. Jobs in any country are driven from a myriad of factors including (but not limited to) technology, GDP, demand from your home market and the trade agreements in place with others and these sands are always shifting.  

Is it a mess ?  No it's not, but to an uneducated eye the nature of the layers and movement could make it appear so.  Provided he's surrounded himself with smart people, and he listens to them, he'll get through this learning curve.  He's got a positive economy, no ongoing international troop deployments of size and a degree of domestic security.  Looking at the last few presidential transitions, this is a gift. 

The Cradle We Share

Visiting one of the earliest civilizations and seeing it's technical brilliance, and incredible feats, while learning of the customs and language used back then is a tremendous treat. Catching glimpses of all too familiar human nature in their actions - etched into stone - makes it all come to life.

The areas around modern day Cairo are filled with royal graveyards, typified by the expensive monuments to ego in the life thereafter we refer to as pyramids today. Over a thousand years and almost 30 dynasties, Egyptian Pharaohs ruled what was their modern world.  They changed where the capital was, and built up many areas north and south on the Nile from where Cairo is today.  As impressive as the nice Giza pyramids are (three larger familiar ones, flanked by two sets of three smaller ones each for Queens), what really tells the story of Egypt is the detail inside. 

Depending upon the date of the dynasties, certain trends were in place.  In the all-too-familiar larger pyramids, the burial chambers have blank walls.  Indeed while they may have been packed with papyrus scrolls delineating instructions, these are long gone as the very prominence of the structures made them targets across the ages.  It’s the smaller, less impressive structures near Memphis and Saqqaa (also suburban Cairo) that were constructed more cheaply in later Dynasties that have the stories we have come to know.   Here the stories are told on the walls of the journey to the after-life, complete with supplies and intentions.  While these too were looted down the ages, the stories remained etched in stone for us to piece together a look at the culture and history of this country and it’s individual rulers.

To offer some perspective here, we need to understand that economics came into play then, just as it does today.  A burial chamber was an expensive proposition, and was constructed in one’s life with clear direction, rather than after death as some sort of testament to one’s greatness.  So the costs of regular servicing one’s afterlife had to be financed during one’s life. Decisions around how often post-death nourishment and adornment that should be dropped into a crypt by the priests were weighed carefully.  In tomb after tomb the stories on the walls are clearly laid out, and are quite similar. I imagine there was a standard budget and approach of sorts, just as we have burial standards that are largely the same. 

 In one tomb close to the pyramid of Djoser, a queen’s tomb was adjacent to her son’s nearby to where her husband the King was buried.  Her name was Inefrt. Unlike the typical sarcophagus (empty now of course) alone in a room, this chamber featured an alter, and a bench.  At first reflection, one might conclude she was a caring person, offering a place to rest.  Looking up from the bench however was a clearest set of

instructions (in hieroglyphics of course) you might imagine, of what should be brought, in what quantities, and on what date.  The alter was present to ensure the slaughter (lambs) took place within her prevue.  So, I might guess this was an early ‘type A’ queen, not leaving anything to chance, and not trusting her servants to get it right.  It was this revelation perhaps more than the engineering feats that made the most impression on me.  This were just people, royal or not, and as us, they were individuals.  To be able to gain a glimpse into the person 4500 years later is remarkable and the thousands of as yet undiscovered burial chambers will doubtless help us understand ourselves even more in the coming years.

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Into Danger

The world is actually a pretty small place.  We can fly around it in a weekend in any of a number of ways. While there are 7 Billion+ of us, there are remarkable similarities and what we hold in common is often more striking than what we consider to be our differences. In New York, London, Singapore, Sydney and Nairobi we are bound to find the same shops, foods and outlets in addition to similar working customs and more.

It's not surprising (to me anyway) that the search for the new places and cultures occupies such a large chunk of what we seek at times.  Lately, that means crossing into a 'dangerous' place - one that is populated with those that have very different beliefs, customs and standards.  Because there can be uneasiness about these differences, we often classify them as dangerous - and while I wouldn't suggest that South Sudan is as safe as Northern Canada - it's really the variation in values and our preconceived ideas that sets places apart.  South Sudan has no polar bears for example.

This weekend I'm venturing into a dangerous place, one that my country's travel advisories suggest I shouldn't under any circumstances go to.  I understand that - it falls into the same thought process that now requires us to label the package of peanuts with the "May contain Nuts" warning.  You don't want someone stumbling in unprepared.  But I believe that if we're careful, and respectful, and we have an open mind, it's these dangerous places that help us broaden our horizons and inform us about the greater mosaic that is the beauty of our species.  And yes there is violence there, but there's also violence throughout the world now, and the old way of looking at 'bad neighbourhoods' simply doesn't apply when it can happen in Paris, Brussels, Quebec City or New York.   Travel bans affect the innocents, not the determined. So into the valley I go.