Sigh
Reading this excerpt from a Molly Moore article about Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Indian subcontinent in 1995:
When the Clinton motorcade whisked through the Pakistani countryside yesterday, a long fence of brightly colored fabric shielded it from a sprawling, smothering garbage dump where children combed through trash and several poor families had built huts from scraps of cardboard, rags and plastic…
In another instance, Pakistani officials, having heard rumors that the First Lady might take a hike into the scenic Margalla Hills overlooking the capital of Islamabad, rushed out and paved a 10-mile stretch of road to a village in the hills. She never took the hike (the Secret Service vetoed the proposal) but villagers got a paved road they’d been requesting for decades.
Reminded me of the time when I was living in Montreal, and the Pope came to visit. Giant rolls of kraft paper were shipped forth and wrapped around the marquees and signs of the city’s downtown porn shops and peep shows, down the long blocks where His Holiness would be passing in the popemobile. In protest, people deserted their blanked-out streets, but still He drove down them, waving.
Which reminded me of when I was in Toronto, and the G7 summit came to town. In the week beforehand, the police rounded up the city’s vagrants and hookers, exported some to the outskirts and locked the rest up for the duration.*
Like they did in Moscow for the Olympic Games in 1980, and no doubt have done in other cities around the world.
And we continue to be startled by the degree to which our leaders, who leave their palatial homes to be shuttled from pre-arranged event to pre-arranged event in limos and private jets, encircled by protectors, are oblivious to the plight of the common man. And impressed when they slip on a plaid shirt to talk to the farmers.
(* I was doing some freelance work for Radio Canada International at the time, and offered to do a story on the rounding up of unsavouries, and the anti-G7 protest that was held in Queen’s Park – which was ineffectual, at best – but told there was no interest in such a story. Coverage of the protest appeared in European papers only, the following day. CBC radio luminary, Lister Sinclair, covered the story three years later.)
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Comment
- “And impressed when they slip on a plaid shirt to talk to the farmers.”
For me, not really all that impressed. Then again, I could be suffering from electoral burn out right now.
— roggey Oct 19, 9:55am # - I took a bus tour in Ottawa this summer and we went through this park, which the Queen had come to have tea at during a visit. (There was some kind of tea pavilion or something, it’s a little hazy). ANYway, the short version is they spent thousands of dollars building what is basically a glorified outhouse for Her Majesty to be able to use, because, of course, they actually do need the restroom sometimes.
She never used it. It sits, to this day, unused.
— Brenda Oct 19, 4:23pm # - They tried hard to finish the new road from the airport into town before the pope last visited us in Gdansk but they couldn’t get it done in time, so they just put up nice new safety signs to make sure the pope’s driver didn’t drive into the trees. With the pope in the passenger seat and nuns and children lining the edge of the road, the driver probably couldn’t have driven off the road if he had tried.
(In the end, though, it didn’t matter—the pope waved his staff, tilted his hat into the wind, and levitated all the way to the Holiday Inn. Which was interesting.)
— eeksypeeksy Oct 21, 2:53am # - they rounded up the bums and vagrants in sydney for the 2000 olympics as well. shipped them off to the country. or so the story goes…
— jonathan Oct 22, 12:21am # - I can personally vouch for the fact that this thing happens all OVER Pakistan. The road outside my house had been completely untravellable, and numerous appeals, requests or even using high-handed officials to put in a good word for us, didn’t work.
One morning we all woke up to find that the road was finally being made. Why? Because the Cheif Minister was visiting a school situauted on our road, and ocourse, he couldn’t travel on a broken down road and sprain his precious back or anything. We, on the other hand, hadn’t mattered for the 25 years that we’d been using the road for.
In fact I wrote about it in my blog: http://grassdreams.blogspot.com/2004/08/from-now-on-its-smooth-sailing-all-way.html
How can officials all around the world try to veil something that is so starkingly obvious? Everyone knows that there is perfect Shangrila on Earth.
— Moonshine Oct 24, 5:17am # - I was going to say “Potemkin Village,” but then I did a little research. I’d still like to say Potemkin Village.
— Jeremy Cherfas Oct 24, 6:12am # - Pumpkin Village is the roadside pumpkin stand where they put a few nice show pumpkins in front but all the rest are lopsided and a bit moldy.
— eeksypeeksy Oct 25, 12:44am # - A small pumpkin in a baby buggy, rolling down an endless flight of stairs…
— vernaculo Oct 25, 12:55am # - When Bill Clinton visited our lovely city by the sea (Vancouver) a number of years ago he decided that he might like to go for a “run” through one of the trails in Stanley Park. The Secret Service rounded up the 200+ people living in the park just in case. I have no idea whether or not he went for the run, but it was the first time anyone was able to get a (somewhat) accurate count of how many people called those woods their home…
— kerry Oct 26, 11:19pm # - Reminded me of the time when I was living in Montreal, and the Pope came to visit. Giant rolls of kraft paper were shipped forth and wrapped around the marquees and signs of the city’s downtown porn shops and peep shows, down the long blocks where His Holiness would be passing in the popemobile.
Since it was Montreal, I trust that the porn shop signs were all in French…
— David Oct 29, 11:36am # - I first heard of this practice in connection with Expo 67 in Montreal, when they apparently put up boards to hide unsightly … erm … sights.
More sinisterly, I attended a summit conference in Bucharest a couple of years ago. Now, I’d heard that the city was overrun by roaming packs of dogs, hundreds and thousands of them. While I was there I saw but two miserable specimens. I don’t like to think how they got rid of them. I doubt they were shipped off to the country for the duration.
— Nick Oct 30, 1:58am #
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