Goodreads review: The Jaguar Smile

The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey by Salman Rushdie

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


As a U.S. citizen residing in Nicaragua, I expected to find The Jaguar Smile interesting and insightful. But I learned next to nothing and saw little in this book that resembled Nicaragua as I've experienced it.

I must admit Salman Rushdie enjoyed certain advantages over me. I've only lived in Nicaragua for a little over 4 years, most of which time I've spent in a rustic barrio of Jinotega, rubbing elbows with my Jinotegan neighbors. Trips to other parts of the country have been via crowded buses in close quarters with common folk. I've had no guide or translator.

Mr. Rushdie, by contrast, was an invited guest of the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers. For 3 weeks he was flown and driven around Nicaragua by a select few politicians and journalists eager to impress upon him their own ideological viewpoints. He met and talked (via an interpreter usually) with local folk who were included in the planned agenda. Rushdie freely accepted or rejected at his own discretion the viewpoints he heard, and recorded his thoughts accordingly. He seems to have genuinely thought his experience to be a meaningful one.

So, if you want to learn what these Very Important Nicaraguans - and the Very Important Rushdie - were thinking and doing about 3 decades ago, you may enjoy The Jaguar Smile. I can't guarantee that you'll learn much about the real Nicaragua.




View all my goodreads reviews

Slouching Towards Savagery

Combining two earlier thoughts: The previous post "God, Husband and Father" opined that Patriarchy (and, with it, civilization)

...starts with the Woman, and it starts with raw biology. The beginning of the patriarchal order is when the woman binds herself to one man and one man only. She in effect decides to belong to that one man, most likely to the man to whom she gives her virginity.

Secondly, my early impression of Nicaragua (the "Repaso" post) contains this paragraph:

But if I expected to find the same innocent culture that I encountered in Guatemala in 1975, in that I have been disappointed. Along with money and technology, most Americans and Europeans have brought with them the corrupt morals and worldviews that threaten to completely undermine their own native cultures. And with few exceptions, Nicaraguans look up to their wealthier neighbors and want to be more like them. So the same kinds of trashy TV, political ideologies and immorality are flooding in, and folks here seem generally to be eager to emulate Americans and Europeans, even if in lemming fashion it ends with their own demise.

My sentiments have not changed much in the two years since I wrote the above. The culture of Central America (perhaps of the whole world) is slipping steadily into a dull savagery. And I think it has to do with the feminization of the culture and of women's independence.

The feminized culture isn't the Utopia promised by the feminists, especially for women. Since a 'liberated' society means sex without responsibility, its women are much more likely to attract womanizers and misogynistic woman abusers. Indeed, a feminist culture is a paradise for these irresponsible miscreants. Likewise ample accommodation is given for serial sex and the adulterous changing of partners, a sort of prostitution in slow motion. Likewise for sterile, childless or one-or-two-children households. What is increasingly not tolerated in the feminized world is the large and stable patriarchal family where an unattached man marries a virgin and where true motherhood is cherished.

Because of a lazy, feminist lack of strong fatherhood in the Church, and a resulting lack of strong fatherhood in society, any sanctions or taboos against unwed sexual activity are downplayed or completely ignored. (God forbid that we should marginalize or offend the whores or their bastards!) Socialist government programs insure that fatherless families are well tended to. As a result, young women have no fear or scruples about promiscuity, and tend to deliberately choose mates with no commitment. I guess liberated (savage) women find liberated (savage) men attractive.

When women choose savagery, there is little or nothing that men can do about it except play the same game. The typical gigolo / womanizer has several women, either in succession or at the same time, and perhaps dozens of biological offspring whom he need not support. The decent man who wants a stable relationship and who wants to be a real father is lucky to find one woman (usually one who was not his virgin) and will produce zero or one of his own offspring, while perhaps supporting one or more bastards from his wife's previous lover(s). So the gigolo's biological offspring, not the good man's, are well represented in each succeeding generation. In this game of demographic natural selection, women decide who will win, and right now the gigolo is winning big time. Civilization starts with the Woman; so does its demise.

As implied above, I have no idea whether this is a global phenomenon or an anomaly of Central American culture. I suspect the former. Nor do I have a solution to suggest. Perhaps the situation will be self-corrective. Since matriarchy / savagery is inherently unstable and backward, the whole damned house of cards may soon collapse. Globally, I suppose patriarchal Muslims will survive the collapse and effectively own the demographic future, with perhaps a few scattered pockets of traditional, large, patriarchal families keeping the Christian faith burning here and there.

Thieves, beggars, and dogs

Let me be clear: After over a year in Nicaragua, I can say that it is not a paradise on earth. Au contraire.

It isn't so much the prevalence of thieves, beggars, and mangy dogs that rankle me, but the fact that these seem to be an accepted part of the landscape. This is not to say that most Nicaraguans are thieves or beggars, but that many Nicaraguans just shrug their shoulders at such things; it's merely part of life here, or so it seems. Stray dogs that wander in and out of churches and homes and businesses are routinely ignored, their unbidden presence taken in stride, like that of houseflies or cockroaches. Neighborhood children make a habit of begging from total strangers, with some of them routinely swiping things from their neighbor's yard or house; it's often just laughed at. It is not at all surprising that many of them continue their thieving and beggaring as adults, and that the beggaring is usually opportunistic and dishonest. Nor is it surprising to routinely encounter petty cheating and skullduggery among relatively respected businesses. Such businesses are in the minority, and are easily avoided after the first petty theft. And one just learns to keep one's doors locked when unattended, and to keep tabs on small stealable articles.

Now, I am quite well practiced in the art of opposing my surrounding culture, so I am not inclined to passively accept these things as normative. What's wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. I must live with the situation, but i will not be pressured or coerced into merrily accepting it. I do not subscribe to the axiom to "do as the Romans do".

Nor should I neglect to mention the positive aspects of life in Nicaragua. In contrast to stray dogs, I find the presence of other animals here quite appealing. The frequent clip-clop of a cowboy riding his horse past my house, the cattle and pigs and chickens kept by my neighbors, are all in fine relief to the relative sterility of the American scene which characterized most of my life. The songs of tropical birds are a cheery part of my mornings now. Perhaps most charming of all are the harmless little lizards that dart about on my walls, often stopping to look at me as I sit at my desk. The beauty of the northern woods has been replaced by tropical mountain vistas. And I have found it very easy to adjust to a habit of fresh fruit from the market all year long.

But the nuisance of the stray dogs and the ameliorizations of the above paragraph are of little consequence. I must maintain my sanity in the face of culturally accepted dishonesty. And that is best achieved by putting it into proper perspective.

I am living now in a place where petty thievery and dishonest beggary, while not practiced by most folks, are largely accepted as almost a normal and inescapable part of life. That's not good. I have recently come from a culture where abortion and sodomy, while not practiced by most folks, are largely accepted as a normal and inescapable part of life, and are sanctioned by the state. That's worse. Pick your poison.

Repaso

Repaso is the Spanish past tense of repasar, and is generally translated into English as review, both in the sense of inspecting something (as in a book review), or in passing by or looking for a second time. So now that a full year has passed, it may be time for another pass, a review.

As my last post anticipated, I fled to Central America in June 2010. After some time in Costa Rica, I bought a house in a barrio near Jinotega (Hee-no-TAY-ga) in the central mountains of Nicaragua, and have been living here since October 2010.

Nicaragua is a relatively young country. The Sandinista revolution of the 80's was fairly successful, and has resulted in a remarkably peaceful and quiet political atmosphere, from what I can tell. Most Nicaraguans are quite patriotic and are proud of their nation and its government. Most English-speaking expats may not agree, but what do they know?

It is young in a demographic sense as well. I don't know the statistics, but the population of Nicaragua must be toward the low end of the global bell curve when it comes to median age. Lots of children and young people, and lots of the young girls have big bellies.

But if I expected to find the same innocent culture that I encountered in Guatemala in 1975, in that I have been disappointed. Along with money and technology, most Americans and Europeans have brought with them the corrupt morals and worldviews that threaten to completely undermine their own native cultures. And with few exceptions, Nicaraguans look up to their wealthier neighbors and want to be more like them. So the same kinds of trashy TV, political ideologies and immorality are flooding in, and folks here seem generally to be eager to emulate Americans and Europeans, even if in lemming fashion it ends with their own demise.

Thankfully, there is a significant lag, both as to the technology and to the cultural erosion. The majority of Nicaraguans are religiously inclined, and still possess a certain simplicity of life and of piety. Nicaraguans have not yet learned to be afraid of innocent human life, nor to loathe their own fertility, nor to esteem sexual deviance a virtue. Perhaps the American-European culture will finally implode as it is wont to do, and places like Nicaragua may yet awaken, change course, and escape relatively unscathed. Time will tell.

For the time being, I have indeed found "a place to live without having to fund murder and genocide with my taxes." How long it will remain thus is known to God. Time will tell.