Behind blue eyes…

Right-wing sources are quoting Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as using the phrase “blue-eyed devils”  in referring to the cause of the international banking crisis.

Never mind that “blue-eyed devils” as an epithet goes back to the possibly Afghani, possibly Maori, but definitely not blue-eyed  Wallace Fard Muhammad, and it’s not exactly what Lula said.  The same web-sites and writers who’ve suggested that the Mexico is run by a “corrupt white power elite” (vdare.com 05-05-00, and I’m not going to link to that piece of racist shit site) — which one assumes includes more people with blue-eyes than the general population — are apoplectic over the remarks not made by Lula, and going to extreme lengths to claim  Franklin Raines and Vikram Pandit, neither of whom are white men, and neither, as far as I know, blue-eyed, are the only bankers that count in this world.  A few made reference to the tired old “international Jewish conspiracy”, but that would have created a real conundrum for the yahoos… having to decide which they hated more… socialists, Jews or Latin Americans.

And, as an aside, I will mention that the only World Bank official I knew in Mexico was … you got it, a white guy with blue-eyes.  But, he was also French, which makes him devilish in the blue-eyes of the U.S. reactionary right anyway.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd — who seems to be under the impression that “Lula” is the Brazilian President’s alias, and not his family name — at least gets the statement more or less correct (as far as I can tell, my Portuguese being limited to what I need to download pirated videos off Brazilian websites):

“This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing,” charged the brown-eyed, bearded socialist president.

As the brown-eyed Brown grew a whiter shade of pale, Lula hammered the obvious point that the poor of the world were suffering in the global crash because of the misdeeds of the rich.

“I do not know any black or indigenous bankers,” said Lula.

Dowd airily dismisses the gist of Lula’s complaint — that the world economic crisis was created by the elite in the northern countries — and riffs on blue-eyes, beauty and everything but economics.

Saúl Arellano, in the very conservative Mexican daily, Cronica de Hoy, paraphrases the remarks as saying the latest economic crisis, like those of the past century were caused  “FUNDAMENTALLY by white men with blue eyes”.

President Lula may be a bit quick with the lip, but he’s “fundamentally” correct.   It was northern “elites” (overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly “white” and statistically much more likely to be blue-eyed than the rest of the human race) have made the decisions, and made very bad decisions, that affect the rest of the planet.

I’ve never known exactly how to respond to the right-wingers and neo-fascists who claim this country doomed because it’s run by “white elites” for the advantage of the rich, and that unless the submerged masses rebel it’s not going to change.

Um, well, OK.    A lot of my book talks about the multiculturalism of Mexico, and just pointing out that a lot of wealth in Mexico is concentrated either in the hands of those who inherited wealth (as in any other place) or those who emigrated (mostly from Europe) with money and technical skills at the right time  (as in the United States, Britain and Canada) doesn’t phase people whose minds are made up, and don’t want to be confused by facts.

And, then I’m told, Mexico is doomed because it’s a brown country with “white leaders” from that upper crust.  Most countries leadership is from the wealthy classes.  The only U.S. presidents I can think of in the last century who lived mostly on their salaries when they entered the White House were Harry Truman and Bill Clinton.  Most Mexican presidents of course have been rich, but most came from fairly humble backgrounds.

In the United States, all but two of the Vice-Presidents, have been of British or British Isles descents, and only a few Presidents.  Religious affliliation is a more important social indicator in the United States, and all but one president (and the incumbent Vice-President) have been Protestants.  The one Catholic President made up for his religious non-conformity by having inherited wealth.  Aside from Harry Truman and Bill Clinton, all modern U.S. Presidents have inherited or earned (or, like Lyndon Johnson, married into) fortunes before entering the Presidency.

And, anyway, Mexicans aren’t running the world economy.  We have a few blue-eyed white guys, and so do the Brazilans, but not many of them are bankers, and it isn’t Mexicans and Brazilians who created this mess.

Maybe Lula needed to clarify his remarks, or maybe the people north of the border need to, as the right-wing commentators suggest the Mexicans do, rise up and overthrow the corrupt white elites who control the country.

But, somehow, I can’t see the right-wingers… or Maureen Dowd…  going to the barricades to shout “Workers of the world unite… we have nothing to lose but blue-eyed bankers.”