Think self-centeredly, map globally

By Deborah Taylor-Hollis

There are so many horrible, mind-numbing things happening throughout the world, and I know I should be very concerned about the toll in human emotion, human lives, human suffering.

But sometimes, events that happen far from home have terrible local repercussions, and seem to affect the lives of those of us on this side of the planet. And while most times we should focus on the big picture, and just be thankful for happy outcomes, this is not one of those times. Today, I want to focus on the small, petty reverberations that happen when a country halfway a cross the globe is in turmoil. I want to focus on my own selfish problems.

In the '70s, we heard about the Congo--that small, densely forested center of the dark African continent. The place where Stanley chased after the lost and presumably dead Dr. Livingston. If you haven't read the actual history of this encounter, then you must surely be familiar with the Hollywood movie version starring Spencer Tracy. One of the few pictures he did not co-star in with Katherine Hepburn, it gives a wonderfully plastic, antiseptically clean view of what most Westerners can believe the actual African nation must be like (if we discount that there are smells that could not be transmitted though electronic experience at that, or even at this, time).

While still in grammar school, we learned all about the Congo. We learned how to spell C-O-N-G-O (sing it like the song about the dog Bingo) and we learned to point to it on a map. That having been drilled into our puny consciousnesses, we moved on to finding the island nation of Madagascar (although we lowly 12th-graders never actually expected to spell that one), and then went back to relearning about the California Missions (a recurring educational event for any kid in California, and totally useless information to anyone who moved out of state after having taken the courses repeatedly).

As time passed, I and many other Americans went out, and, due to the ever-important issues of world events, we bought large maps, globes, and even atlas books at anywhere from $10 to $100 a pop, just so we could find these faraway and exotic locales. Many grown men reading this can still remember their first naked ladies picture in an old National Geographic, and then rushing to the atlas to look up exactly where in the world Guyana was and how fast could they get there on a Greyhound bus if they got a year-long advance on their allowance.

Time passed, and places like the Congo fell into civil war. Guerrilla armies came in, determined to overthrow the old, selfish, colonial ways, and govern themselves. Terrible civil wars broke out, millions died, and some army guerrilla with an IQ of 18 took power--and promptly renamed the county Zaire. It probably had something to do with his own middle name, a theme we see frequently on city streets when developers are allowed to name residential tract housing streets after their entire families.

This same development happened throughout the '70s and early '80s all over the globe, and many new, small, independent nations with strange, native, hard-to-spell names appeared. Only "The Gold Coast" remained after one bloody swath of political upheaval.

Fast forward to 1996, and the Zaire goes into another bloody war--and comes out the other side with yet another new leader, and this idiot decides to change the name of the place back to The Congo. Now this may all be well and good for them--but they don't have to try and keep a current atlas in the house.

I have probably shelled out close to $500 over the years for updated atlases, with new and "improved" names of every little burg on the map. I know more country names in Africa than I do city names in Nebraska--after all, those haven't changed in 200 years, and so I haven't had to focus too much on the burgs and hamlets near the borders that might be overrun any day now by native tribesmen bent on destroying other native tribesmen that want to change the name of Nebraska into "HunterUterLandi."

I am tired of this. I am seeking a UN resolution that, until such time as a government has ruled a place peacefully for 30 years and gets the approval of at least three map makers, no name changes of countries may occur. It may seem like a petty, small-minded demand to those of you who worry about the misery and death out there on the great world order, but to those of us just trying to keep all the players straight, we would like the scorecard to keep just one set of team names. That's all.

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