Birthday Kisses, Jaguar Smiles

As it happens, today is my birthday. So I am going to revisit the events of my 34th birthday on Friday, January 30, 1987, and the day after.

Steve Daniels, The Victoria in Walton Street, Oxford, CC BY-SA 2.0.

“My birthday was quite nice. I went to see some Indian (Asian) dancing by a very beautiful woman. There I met my friends Malki and Mark, who I went to an Indian concert with last term. About five of us went to the Victoria (a fashionable pub) for a drink,” as I wrote to my Mom.

“Quite nice” is an understatement. As you may recall from last term, Malki was introduced in Mentor par Excellence and I accidently stood him up in Simpkin the Cat and Bourbon Biscuits. As I was convinced that I would never see Malki again, this joyous encounter was an unexpected gift. While searching for Malki last term, I met Mark Stone, a University of London graduate student who was living in Oxford and writing a dissertation on Salman Rushdie. He took me to London for a Ustad Zakir Hussain tabla concert during Michaelmas term.

“When I returned to my college [on the night of my birthday], I discovered that there was a big party/disco going on in the Middle Common Room (the graduate social center). So I went there, and my friends were giving me birthday (I almost wrote gifts, no such luck) kisses. Karen is taking me to hear the Clerkes of Oxenford at Christ Church chapel on Valentine’s evening as a belated birthday gift. So it was nice and speaks well of my situation here that I have so many friends.”

Is there really a tradition of “birthday kisses” in the UK? Or was this another one of Richard Bevington’s pranks, so that he would have an excuse to kiss me?

Riverside Studios in London

Mark invited me to go to Salman Rushdie’s book launch at Riverside Studios in London the next day. When he picked me up, I was surprised to see three other people in the car. I got into the back seat on the passenger side and squeezed in beside a handsome man (who reminded me vaguely of the young Elvis Presley). Mark introduced him as Victor Lal from Fiji. I immediately forgot the name of the woman from Sri Lanka who was sitting on the other side of him. The older man sitting in the front seat turned around and introduced himself as K.P., an Indian journalist based in Dubai. We immediately recognized each other—he was the “You Drink It!” man from the Lamb & Flag. Fortunately, he had the discretion not to mention our previous meeting. There were five different nations represented in the car, which gives an indication of how internationally diverse Oxford is.

Victor, K.P., and the Sri Lankan woman were all Reuters fellows (past or present). (The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism offers high caliber mid-career journalists a one-year period at Oxford to carry out media research.) As always, it was unclear to me whether they were members of the university, but they seemed to have a connection with Green College. I assumed that they were going to the book launch as journalists. I was the odd one out and actually the enemy.

The Jaguar Smile

At Riverside Studios, Salman Rushdie gave a somber talk about his new book The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (published on January 30, 1987), followed by questions and answers. As Rushdie explained, he had been invited to the seventh anniversary celebration of the revolutionary Frente Sandinista in July. This book was an account of what he saw and learned during the three weeks he was there.

Nicaragua was fighting for its survival. The International Court of Justice had ruled in June that US aid to the Contras (the counter-revolutionary army that the CIA had invented, armed, and funded) was a violation of international law. Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives went ahead and approved President Reagan’s request for $100 million of new aid for the Contras (though conservative estimates of the CIA budget against Nicaragua were around $400 million, with another $300 million to buy off the neighboring countries). All of this money was spent to destabilize a country of 3 million people that was already struggling from an earthquake and the US-imposed economic blockade. The United States, which was acting illegally, believed that the democratically elected leaders of Nicaragua were totalitarian Stalinists. This was the Cold War. Not surprisingly, the Sandinistas believed that a US invasion was imminent. Rushdie’s book had a slim possibility of changing the narrative.

It was a story that the newspapers were not reporting (perhaps the Reuters fellows would change that). I had difficulty understanding why the United States wanted to destroy Nicaragua. The first draft of its constitution indicated that they wanted to construct “a society with broad based participation of the people, the right to vote and to be elected, freedom of speech, organization and assembly, and rights to housing, education, and health care.” It stipulated a mixed economy “where diverse forms of property exist—state, private, mixed, and co-operative—and where the principal objective is the well-being of the people, without impairing the ability to maintain reasonable profits.” The state was to provide social security, welfare, protection against hunger, and conservation of the environment (this was 35 years ago). Why would the United States want to destroy this country?

The US ambassador Harry Berthold told Rushdie that he had been assigned to Nicaragua because he was an expert on Marxism-Leninism, but he could not find any evidence of Marxism-Leninism in Nicaragua. His reports to Washington went unread by the people making policy.

Rushdie encountered some Americans in Nicaragua. A delegation of farmers from the Midwest had come down to “learn about Nicaraguan farming methods and to give what help they could.” Also “a group of Californian old-age pensioners had come down to help bring in the coffee harvest, having heard that the manpower requirements of the army [fighting the Contras] . . . were making it very difficult for the farmers to get in the crop.” I was touched to hear of their efforts; this is how the Americans are: curious, helpful, and friendly. It seems like, no matter which party is in power, the policies of the US government do not reflect the sentiments of the American people.

K.P. asked some questions. Afterwards, K.P., Mark, and the Sri Lankan woman went to buy copies of The Jaguar Smile and stood in line to get them autographed by Rushdie. I wandered into the hallway, where the Nicaraguan Solidary Campaign in London had set up tables with Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) merchandise, and Victor followed me. I bought a red and black mug, thereby making a small contribution to the support of Nicaragua. Then Victor and I leaned against a wall, talking quietly smiling, as we waited for the others. When they rejoined us, K.P. handed me a signed copy of the book that he had bought for me. I felt uncomfortable accepting it because, as anyone could have seen, my interest was elsewhere.