W is a Hero of the Revolution

Recently, the Daily Show did a story on W's visit to the Mighty Country of Africa. What was remarkable, so Jon Stewart and John Oliver pointed out, was that W was joyfully received: flags were flown, children sat on the shoulders to catch a glimpse, W's visage had been printed onto fabric worn as sarongs. Yes, the glorious Country of Africa loves W so much, that they sit on his face. The Daily Show folk pointed out that W's munificence toward the Great Country of Africa, the idea of his doing actual good - he has poured billions of your American dollars into malaria and (more controversially) AIDS prevention - provides an insurmountable glitch in the established narrative of his essential crap-ness. Take that Kanye!

Being, as I am, a Dirty Furrner from the Magnificent Country of Africa, I too was struck by W's munificence. Do I love him deeply? Maybe not. Do I dream of sitting on his face? Perhaps not in a way that would please him. But I do think there's something to be said about the wonder that W has unwittingly loosed upon America. There's a way in which I think I might even appreciate him. And it's not merely a matter of me liking my mosquito nets sponsored - it's bigger even than that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the man's administration is such a train-wreck, that, well, it's making American people want better for themselves and the world.

Look, I'm a Dirty Furrner, with Dirty Furrner blood, and my words are to be taken from whence they come, which is somewhere Other. And it's a tricky "somewhere Other" to explain. I come from a very privileged section of a small society in the most Southerly peripheral province of that Hyperbole-defying Country of Africa. I'm a WASP. I grew up in idyllic splendor in a place where shit rained down and still does. For the longest time it rained down in my name and I did nothing to persuade myself that things should be different.

Apartheid South Africa: heady days. I watched a lot of TV. It was very comfortable, watching virtual white policemen fire virtual rubber bullets into virtual black "communist terrorists". But it all changed. It had to change. The disempowered majority stood as one, refused to play along, insisted angrily. They'd had enough, and rightfully so. Promises kept getting broken. Lies kept being told. And so people stood up.

I remember having a conversation with some lily-white pals on the playground of my lily-white high school at about the time a black majority-led government became inevitable. Fueled by ignorance and fear, we posited a future in which white people would be driven from their televisions, nay, their very homes and into the sea. Our gardens would become chicken scratch patches. Malls would fall into disrepair. Anarchy would reign. We were such little bigots that our vision of a majority-led South Africa was also an apocalyptic one.

Fourteen armageddon-less years and many near-miraculous if imperfect changes beyond those moments, I can say this: The apartheid government lied to everyone, including whites. That's not to absolve myself. I lacked the curiosity required to stand for what was better. And if I am a curious person today, it is in no small part out of the fear of being lied to again, and believing it, and getting it terribly, painfully, painfully wrong. I probably still do all the time, but I'll be damned if I take it sitting down.

Which brings me back to W and why we might, through some perverse historical twist, find ourselves thankful to him. He's in his "legacy-phase" - hence his rhythmlessly munificent jaunt across the the Fucking Fabulous Country of Africa. He keeps yokelling on about how history will prove him right. And so, as a Dirty Furrner, and by way of thanks for my shiny new mosquito net and abstinence program, I thought I'd write what, to me at least, is the only conceivably redeeming version of George W. Bush's legacy. It requires a few leaps of the imagination and should probably be set, oh, 2000 years of forgetfulness from now, but, for what it's worth -

Imagine a hologram in the American Presidential museum (in 4008 holograms will be so passe):

George W Bush stands on a mound. He has a beard. His teary blue eyes gaze slitted at the masses who will eventually betray him. His arms are akimbo in a Messianic embrace. He is illuminated by a heavenly pillar of light that has burst through the clouds as if by divine sanction, an iridescent sheen of oil coating his skin. A giant "Mission Accomplished" banner floats overhead as though suspended off some kind of aircraft carrier structure that seems miraculously to have materialized in the Israeli scrub lands.

Imagine a modulated voice streaming the following texts into the heads of passers by:

"Selflessly, like the martyr he was, George W. Bush told bald-faced lies. Rotten, ill-conceived untruths. With nary a regard for what people would think of him, he posited unspeakable policies against the interests of the majority. Self-effacing, he vetoed good ideas. Selflessly self-enriching, he shrunk the bounty of the earth into a couple of loaves and a few fishes, and left the masses clamoring. He stumbled over his words. He drawled idiocies. But he never misspoke and was never misheard. He refused to stoop to feel-good proclamations. His policies said "Suffer the Little Children" without all that other "to come unto me" crap. Every child was be left behind. He refused to pretend to take in the world's poor, tired and huddled masses, when he could make poor, tired and huddled masses both at home and abroad.

George W. Bush consistently made filth his own name and legacy because he knew, as that other great American, Karl Marx, knew, that revolution rides on desperation. He knew that if the masses got tired, huddled and poor enough, they'd also get pissed off. They'd revolt. They'd demand change. They'd insist. They'd mobilize. They'd fight. They might even vote for a man descended from the Super-duper Country of Africa. George W. Bush cared about black people.

George W. Bush's gift to America was simply this: wisely, generously, he made injustice impossible to ignore. He oversaw the erosion of civil liberties in order to remind people of the importance of civil liberties. He knew that for American people to take responsibility for their choices, they had to understand the privilege and value of choice. So deep was his insight, so perfect his vision. Only George W. Bush - and perhaps that other visionary, Dick Cheney the Baptist - could have forced the American people out of their arm chairs and away from their televisions because the shit he rained down was no longer virtual. People actually died. Torture really happened. Disenfranchisement was no longer limited to far-off jungled shores. Such horror, Bush knew, had to stick in the craw of every decent person. And America was then, as it is today, filled to brimming with good and generous people who would not put up with George W. Bush. They refused to hide behind blithe exceptionalism and unchallenged entitlement. Good people stood on principle. Good people stood.

Blessed, blessed Saint W. Pious Hero. Our Revolutionary Nadir-in-Chief. Everything after him was better."

Something like that, anyway.