DONALD TRUMP, ICE, AND THE GLOBALISATION OF VIOLENCE

By threatening to use military force against people defending immigrants from horrific ICE kidnappings, Trump has globalised this nasty feature because the rest of the world will follow the American example

- By Gamini Akmeemana

A young mother carries her baby past a group of federal agents. (Pic courtesy: Ted Weiss/www.motherjones.com)

(Ted Weiss/www.motherjones.com)

As I grew up in semi-rural towns before my parents finally settled down in Colombo in the 1970s, I acquired a lot of Americana - pop music, Westerns, and literature. This was on my own.

There was something magnetic about American rock bands, movies with actors such as Burt Lancaster, Jane Fonda, Steve McQueen, Dirty Harry, and the books of Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck.

I wasn't alone. In Piliyandala, there was a friend called Paani who was a rock music fan. Listening to 78rpm Santana and Grand Funk Railroad LPs on a Kenwood stereo in his living room was a revelation. Back in 1975, when Sri Lanka didn't even have a TV station and I had never heard of globalisation, this was a way of connecting with a larger world.

I must admit that I was politically immature. The dark side of American foreign policy - the napalm bombing of North Vietnam, coups in Latin America, backing dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines - was overshadowed by the gloss of Americana and its seemingly inexhaustible supply of idols and superstars - from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, from Marlon Brando to Richard Gere, an unending line of artistic heights. In my mind, there was a firm line drawn between American politics and American culture, but culture superseded politics.