History Rhymes

“History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes” – Mark Twain.

My grandma named me. She named me before she met me. My parents had trouble conceiving and I was not born until 10 years into their marriage. For Indian people of their generation, this was unusual. Most of my cousins have children my age.

But my grandma scolded the universe until it bent to her whim.

Gurpreet, she called me. It means one who loves the enlightener. 

There is a superstition in many cultures that a name has power and significance far beyond the ordinary. That our names decide our fortunes and and fates.

It’s fun, if not a bit self indulgent, to wonder if my name helped shape my curiosity and perspective on the world. Perhaps just the idea that names have power, a principle I call The Rumplestiltskin Rule, subconsciously helped shape my identity in some way. Perhaps I wanted to live up to my name and the expectations that came with it. 

You may wonder then, why I go by Gia instead. This is a complicated question. 

I started using Gia as an alias in college when I submitted poems for publication. Then I started using it in class. UW was big enough that even in my smaller classes, no one knew who I was. I could be anyone. I wanted to explore different aspects of my identity and distance myself from the child I was. Gia means life force in Sanskrit, but it sounded Italian too and I had fallen in love with Italy when I went. I liked the simplicity of Gia and the cultural ambiguity of the sound. And it was easier for people to pronounce so I didn’t have to waste time teaching people how to say my name. 

I did not want them to have my true name on their lips. 

A name they could not fully value. 

I could not give anyone that power anymore. My family are the only ones still allowed to call me Gurpreet. 

If names have such power, what of the namer. The person who dubbed me, me?

What power must she wield? 

My grandma is an absolute badass. My grandfather died when my dad was just 12 years old, leaving my grandma to raise 5 kids all under the age of 12 in a rural farming village by herself. She’s tough as nails and nearly impossible to please. She’s not afraid to be disliked for saying what she needs and expects. 

As a woman in America, this is true power to me. 

She was very blunt, aloof, and demanded excellence and obedience from everyone around her. 

But she was always gentle with me. 

For a brief time when I was a child, my grandmother lived with us. She only survived a year or so here before she got fed up with America and demanded to be returned back to her village in India. 

She hated the closed door policy of most neighborhoods here as she was used to leaving her gate open to wandering passerby. Her friends in her village would stop by for tea and cookies and some afternoon gossip. She could easily get around there. She spoke the language there. She belonged there. She had such a strong sense of home and she hated being away from it.

I could see how much she missed home when we watched Indian films. Especially when we watched Gadar. 

Gadar is an early 2000s film that showcases the partition of India. It’s a love story but also a bit of a historical chronicle. I’m sure it takes some liberties, especially with the ending, but it must have had enough truth for my grandma was always silent and riveted as she watched.

It is heart wrenching to see the loss of life and the horrific violence and hatred that spread between the two newly minted nations of India and Pakistan. 

My grandmother lived through that brutal division. 

After centuries of British rule, the monarchy beat a quick and clumsy retreat from its most prized jewel of a colony. They left broke and disorganized, ruined by two world wars. They rushed the division and drew the maps all wrong without taking into account the cultural and tribal and geographical relations between the people they were tearing apart.

The communal tensions that had been stoked by the British proved to be at a boiling point and an unstoppable tide of violence swept the country. Trains full of corpses began to be exchanged across Pakistan and India along the now split Punjab region. Women were subjected to sexual violence. Many villagers committed ritual suicide before the opposing groups could strip them of their dignity. Millions were displaced and without home or shelter.

It is a bleak time when a mother cannot wish her child a long life. 

But considering what happened to many women, including pregnant women having their bellies split open and having their babies roasted on spits, I can understand the assisted suicides that took place. 

Sikhs were caught in the crossfire between Hindus and Muslims. Not really belonging anywhere. 

This is a deep homesickness that Sikhs often carry with them to this day. 

I remember watching my grandma tearing up at the imagery.

I remember that she would ask me to play the movie almost every afternoon after I returned home from school for many weeks. I would complain back then because I wanted to watch cartoons. I didn’t quite realize then that the film was allowing her to express some latent trauma, to see a part of herself that she was never allowed to openly grieve until now. 

Because I grew up with this knowledge that human nature can be devastatingly fickle and that chaos and order are always balanced on the edge of a knife blade, every time global politics became tense, I waited to see if it would come to us here. Here in America. This little burg of denial.

We always seem to escape the brunt of what goes on in the world. But for how long?

The war in Ukraine has me deeply concerned. It reminds me of the intrinsic tensions between India and Pakistan. Two Brothers who still have nukes pointed at each other over Kashmir to this very day. A bitter rivalry that has raged since 1947. It’s a conflict that has taken much from both nations, but the greatest victim is Kashmir itself and all the potential that was quashed.

I get so tired just thinking about how long Ukraine might be fighting this fight. 

But I get frightened even more thinking about it ending quickly, either with Ukraine beaten into submission or with this whole ordeal reaching a tipping point where we would all be swept up in the pyroclastic flow of this nuclear Vesuvius. A mass scale Pompeii of our own making.

Because I do not see Putin turning to reason. Not now. Not ever. Not with his other cronies sprinkled all across Europe. Italy, Hungary, Belarus, and even parts of Germany and France seem in line with Putin’s agenda. Even US Republicans have entertained authoritarian notions and love for Putin and his ilk. 

And the scariest ally of Russia seems to have become Saudi Arabia. America’s unwieldy mistake. The Middle East in so many ways, is a monster of our own making. The United States and its weapons manufacturers have pumped comically dangerous weapons into the region for decades. 

The House of Saud, the royal family of Saudi Arabia has gotten more powerful and hostile since the rise of the younger charismatic and single minded leader, Mohammed bin Salman became the Crown Prince. He has arrested, detained and killed some of his own family to prevent any contest for the throne. He had journalist Jamal Khashoggi tortured, murdered and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey and never batted an eyelash about it. 

He used Trump as a puppet to stock pile even more weapons than the Obama administration had already supplied him. (Because when it comes to foriegn policy, even Democrats suck.) 

He promised equality and social reform for women then had female activists like Loujain, jailed, tortured and sexually assaulted for years to silence them.

And just a few days ago, MBS fist bumped Biden looked America dead in the eye sockets and then cut oil production, sentencing the world to another price hike at the pump. 

This act hardly seems sinister compared to some of his other actions, but when you consider that oil prices are being artificially bolstered to increase the profits of OPEC (including Russia/Putin) so they can continue to fund their many unjust proxy wars and butcher countless innocent lives, it’s the worst thing in the long term. 

I was hoping with fewer allies, Putin’s arms supplies would run low before America’s did. However, with the Saudi’s now involved and Turkey and Iran already having supplied Putin, it’s a different story. America is in no way running short on weapons, but after over 14 billion in support to Ukraine, we are running out of weapons we can send to them without tapping into our own reserves. We are burning through ammunition faster than it can be manufactured.

I still don’t think Putin has the support or morale needed to quickly beat Ukraine. But this alliance with the Saudis is troubling indeed. 

Since Iran and Turkey seem to hate the Saudis, I’m interested to see how this pans out. Especially with the current state of Iran and its citizenry on the brink of revolution. 

And what of China?

These shifting alliances and rise of nationalistic rhetoric all around the world are definitely reminiscent of the previous world wars. With one big difference. 

America is looking more and more impotent in comparison to the dick wagging that’s happening around the world. The other nations have caught up, if not surpassed us in technological capabilities and imperialistic ambition. 

Our skilled workforce is significantly lacking and the country is divided against itself. Hell, half of Republicans were into Putin and Putin style governing during and after the Trump presidency. 

The word Nazi has lost all meaning as it’s just used by both sides to refer to each other with little regard to it’s fascist ties. 

And with the level of misinformation and online trolling, it’s hard to unite behind a single cause like we once did.

That’s why history rhymes. It's not exactly a repeat. It’s different. There’s no way to predict what will happen next. But it’s familiar enough to be exhausting. If you know enough history. You know this will get worse before it gets better. And that it will be horrific all the way through. 

It is always the poor and powerless that suffer the most. The Kashmirs, the Yemens, the Ukraines. But at least Ukraine has western support. Many of the other little nations are left to defend themselves and slowly watch as their hopes and potentials are blown to hell with bombs manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

The resolution to these conflicts won’t be easy, and perhaps is not even possible. Perhaps we are past the tipping point and what comes next is inevitable. A domino effect worthy of the film V for Vendetta. But if we could do things differently, not sell weapons to countries with undemocratic values, invest in our own infrastructure and health, and stop putting profit before people and planet, we may actually slow or reverse our demise. 

I’m just less certain we are capable of it every day. 

As frustrated as I get, I still remember that most people are good. So good. 

And we find a way to live our truths, speak our truths and stand up to evil in our own way every day. Just like Loujain. Just like Jamal Khashoggi.

Just like my grandma. 

I’m scared to go back to India. Not because of the political turmoil, although that is troubling. Not just because the air travel is exhausting and the time change makes me sick.

But because it would break my heart to have to leave my grandma again, knowing I will most likely never see her after that. 

Perhaps that’s cowardice. I haven’t been back to India since 2007. I was 15 the last time I saw my grandma. She cried when I left. I cried too. Feeling like I would never be happy again. 

That’s why I can’t go back. To have her call me by my name again and see all the years that had passed in my absence. This tie to a place that was once my home but is now so changed. It would kill me. 

It was violence towards the Sikhs and lack of opportunity that drove my dad out of India. Away from his mother and home. Maybe, I got a better life, but a half life. It’s the blessing and the curse of the immigrant, to always be homeless yet home everywhere. Like a snail or a tortoise.

The last thought I will leave you with on part 1 is an old Sikh fable I grew up with.

Nanak traveled much to spread his message of peace. Along the way he encountered a very violent and corrupt village. He offered them a blessing. He said “I hope you will always dwell here and never leave.”

He then passed a very peaceful village full of love and kindness. He cursed them saying I hope you will be scattered like seeds to all corners of the world. 

His traveling companion, Bhai Mardana asked, why did you curse the good and bless the evil? 

Nanak replied, because I know where the good scatter, they will take their message of good and kindness with them. They will sow good wherever they go. The world needs that.

The evil should stay here, lest they infect the others. 

It’s a bittersweet story. I would like it more if evil didn’t seem to spread anyway since the internet allows all ideas to carry the same weight and into the minds of so many. 

Also, it’s a rather cruel universe that would expect good to come from trauma. 

But I suppose it’s up to us to be the antidote to the indifference of the universe. What other choice do we have? 

The lesson I always pull from this is, do good wherever you are because it takes root and then spreads. That’s your true power. That’s often what keeps me going when the news is as bleak as it has been for too long. No matter the outcome, it is the doing that is important. 

But what is it that we can do to maximize our positive impact on the world? How can we take action right now in a meaningful way? I asked myself the same questions. In part ll of this blog post for October 2022, I’m going to share with you the research I’ve been doing on ways to change and help the world and you’d be surprised at the impact you can have. 

Please check out part ll: Changing the Rhyme: What We Owe the Future and how to give it. How to build a better world starting now.

(If you are interested in learning more about global politics, please check out the in-depth coverage on PBS’s Frontline program. It’s available on YouTube. And as always, find a good book like William Macaskill’s What We Owe the Future or Peter Singer’s Save the Life You Can.)