BUSHA BOB

One of my fellow subscribers to the Suriname Mailing List despises me, and has blocked all e-mails from my address so that he will never have to see my ugly name again, or read any of my turgid spew.


Except that he has confirmed that he reads from his trashcan, and also goes to the list's website for the messages (that last is necessitated because not all e-mails get through).

Apparently something I said recently set him off.

He reacted with hyper-caffeinated fury.


It made my day, and I still have a big smile all over my ponim.


All I can say is sorry. Sorry, Busha Bob, I really DO mean to get your goat. Seriously. And thank you.


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What is he like, I hear you ask? What manner of man would let another man, with whom he presumably shares some interests, so get under his skin that he both refuses to read the other person's writing and yet gives in and does precisely that? And then jumps up and down sputtering?

A complex man.


I've never met Busha Bob (not his real name), but he has been a member of the Suriname Mailing List longer than I have (I subscribed in 1998), and he and I have corresponded much. He is one of the frequent and voluminous contributors to the list. He also belonged to a few other mailing lists to which I was subscribed (including a Mollucan mailing list that I was expelled from for disagreeing with the bloodthirsty Christian-radical list-owner). So I have found out much about him over the years.

Key curriculum vitae: Middle-aged. Grew up mostly in the interior of Suriname, educated in the Netherlands. Extensive knowledge of music. Operates tours into the interior. Extremely knowledgeable about the flora, fauna, and ethnography of the Guyanas and Caribbean. Keen nature photographer (and a very good one I might add). Multi-lingual (Dutch, English, Sranangtongo, Ambonese Malay - and probably several other languages). Passionate about politics and social justice. And, like many Dutch-speakers, sickeningly left wing.


It is that last element which caused the falling out. As you may have guessed, I too am quite to the left of centre, but I am an American and a supporter of Israel. He, on the other hand, is an anti-American and often hates Israel.

Normally I tend to think of those who disagree on such fundamental issues as being in some way evil, because their wrongness goes so much against the grain. And if the manner of their discourse is sometimes crude and bigoted, especially on complex issues, I will usually end up at loggerheads if not actually downright despising them.

But Busha Bob is.... different. His heart is in the right place. He can often be a very eloquent and engaging writer (in all the languages in which I have read his messages). And he is adept at feeling the pain of others.
I just think his head is up a dark part of his anatomy at times. Which is very Dutch.
Either that or blinkers. Also very Dutch.



People are allowed to be wrong - intelligence and likeability are not always right. And in many ways he is an admirable man, though stubborn, opinionated, and completely wrong about so very much. He is not vile.

By the way, in case you're thinking that on the issues on which he and I differ I will allow that I myself MIGHT be wrong, stop dreaming - ain't gonna happen. It is not a matter of perception.
I'm absolutely right (though conceivably abrasive).


He, however, is wrong wrong wrong. And possibly dangerous in the causes he supports. Rabidly anti-American. Like many of the guilt-ridden first-world intelligentsia he despises all the failings of his own society, which his type typically project onto the United States.
He is also supportive of morally-bankrupt 'liberation movements', and paranoid about the establishment. It's a form of self-indulgence and self-delusion particular to certain classes. Especially in the formerly important European countries. You might call it an ex-colonialist neurosis. If you were being complimentary. There is no cure.


Other than that, you would probably enjoy eating with him. Did I mention that he has a ready wit? And he's not mean.