Correspondents' Correspondence
MARGOLIS, ELIAHU SALPETER/HARRY S.
Correspondents' correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Israel's Elusive Priorities Tel AVIV—Prime Minister...
...Such active interchange is largely absent in American stores...
...Many people sat in the shade of thatched roofs, as at Miriah...
...Jewelry was being sold back by the main highway...
...In any case, it is critical that the figure be kept below 8 per cent, l or then it would be necessary to pay all employees a disruptive cost of living increment...
...My friend knelt down and explained in Hausa that I wanted a traveling gri-gri...
...Israel's Elusive Priorities Tel AVIV—Prime Minister Shimon Peres' number one priority, bringing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) home, faces difficulties in Jerusalem that may prove no less formidable than those now being confronted in Lebanon...
...But at the same time, one consequence of the rapprochement again linking King Hussein and PLO leader Yasir Arafat has been a reopening of the Palestinian organization's liaison office in Amman, and the Defense Ministry is finding it hard to dispute the charge that this development and the increasing incidents on the West Bank are directly connected...
...Gradually, a bit of organization became apparent...
...seriously be expected to actively participate in an invasion of the Jewish State...
...To begin with, the Beirut government of President Amin Gemayel is today a satellite of President Hafez al-Asad's regime...
...The Reagan Administration has politely set four preconditions for favorably considering the request...
...The money printing problem is being dealt with in a proposed law that would give the Central Bank greater authority to refuse government requests to turn on the presses...
...Not far away were stacks of enamel pots made in China...
...Along one side men hawked grains and beans displayed in large mounds on straw mats...
...The Shiites, part of the same Moslem sect Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini belongs to, arc much more fanatical I hail their PLO predecessors...
...Jerusalem must reduce subsidies...
...Particularly significant is the fact that the offensive is being carried out by local Shi-ite extremists, not members of the Palestine Liberation Organization...
...The three-month freeze of wages and prices that he instituted shortly after taking office last September has had the anticipated salutary effect: Inflation has been cut from its previous monthly rate of 15-20 per cent to a range of 3.5-5 per cent (approximately 80 per cent annually...
...In a large open area, camels and the like were being traded...
...Nor could the U.S.S.R...
...Generally, we pay the amount on the label and exchange a few pleasantries with the salesperson, nothing more...
...At first sight, Miriah's Sunday market had seemed merely a multicolored jumble of human beings, animals and merchandise...
...Surrounded by the essentials of his profession—small animal skulls, feathers, skins, grains, seeds, various woods, and many pouches of unknown content—he was sitting on theground beneath a black umbrella protecting him from the sun...
...Their skirts stopped at the knee—very short for a Moslem part of the world...
...come closer to achieving a balanced budget...
...Hundreds of men and women gathered around a single large tree whose branches spread 3 5 yards or more across...
...The parties invariably claim the greatest poverty, and the seller routinely assures the buyer that the price offered will leave no profit, maybe even result in a loss...
...The first demand will be met if the government indeed manages to hold the price index below the point where a cost of living increment would be triggered...
...Their position has been strengthened by the growing number of attacks on the retreating IDF in Lebanon...
...Shopping is a burden, not an event...
...The variety of tribes—Bouzou, Fulani, Hausa, Tuareg, Wodaabe—was quite striking...
...People had not walked miles across the desert solely for commerce...
...Nearby, Western pants and shirts, probably brought to Africa in aid shipments, were hung on lines of cord...
...Under an arrangement the government has concluded with the General Confederation of Labor and the Manufacturers Association, this should average 5 percent permonth...
...A passenger...
...Led by Minister of Trade and Industry Ariel Sharon—who hopes to wrest the leadership of the Herut Party, Likud's main component, from Deputy Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir—they are likely to take a strong stand against the third and final phase of withdrawal...
...Long swords dangled from the waists of the men...
...The fourth demand, though, has been rejected, for the government maintains devaluing its currency would produce a sharp new wave of inflation and endanger the progress that might be made by the other three...
...and devalue its currency...
...So the "military option" is foreclosed to Asad at present...
...But that dramatic decline was bought at a heavy price: $ 150 million-$200 million in added subsidies...
...The culmination of our flight from old-fashioned markets may be videotex, the technology that will permit us to shop through personal computers...
...Furthermore, computers will never list gri-gris...
...It consisted of three short red leather pendants strung on braided red and black string...
...To help with the whole process, Israel is seeking an $800 million supplement to the $1.2 billion in economic aid that it has received from theU.S...
...the griot asked...
...reaction, it is apparent that putting Israel's economy in order will take quite some time...
...Yellow thread had been used to sew the leather over a hard, oblong object, probably a bean...
...They remain no match for the Israeli Army...
...Infact, you can see the political history of the whole vast area on its enamel pots...
...Under the shade of trees, thatched roofs and umbrellas people were selling, buying, bargaining, meeting, preparing food, repairing broken goods...
...Despite outward appearances of agreement on the popular objective in the Labor-Likud Government of National Unity, hawks in the Cabinet have still not reconciled themselves to a total pullout...
...Its ease and privacy, though, will wholly eliminate human contact between the merchandiser and the public...
...More important, the already close relations between Damascus and Moscow have become even tighter, affording Syrian troops sophisticated Soviet weaponry...
...My vibrant experience in Niger, a nation as poor as the United States is rich, seems to prove his point...
...They had come to see acquaintances and, as we did, to observe and participate in the drama of the market...
...Found all over West Africa, they are decorated with floral patterns or pictures of regional leaders...
...Whatever the U.S...
...It has been the scene of stepped upstone-throwingat Israeli vehicles, and lately a rash of gasoline bomb-throwing has broken out, causing two deaths and numerous injuries...
...The West Bank is fertile ground as well for critics of Labor's policies vis-avis the Arabs...
...This would also go a long way toward satisfying the second demand, and in addition the 1985-86 budget law will include a paragraph making it a criminal offense for an official to spend more on any proj ect than has been specified...
...In The Fall of Public Man sociologist Richard Sennett describes the emergence of fixed prices in 19th-century France...
...The road was lined with nomads driving their sheep and cattle south into Nigeria, hoping to find pasture or purchasers before the beasts died...
...And until then Peres' other elusive priorities—unfreezing relations with Egypt and securing a West Bank settlement— will remain on the back burner.—Eli-ahu Salpeter Shopping for a 'Gri-Gri' Dokoro—It is in its markets that the barren Sahelian state of Niger comes alive...
...Children, often balancing trays of cola nuts on their heads, roamed throughout...
...Prime Minister Peres has been somewhat more successful in pursuit of his second priority, restoring Israel's economic health, although the United States continues to express skepticism about the extent and pace of his effort...
...We saw fewer smiles in Dokoro than in Miriah, and there was less vitality, but the market was still fascinating...
...He gave my friend an already prepared gri-gri...
...Instead of a total freeze, a slow, controlled increase in prices will be permitted over the next eight months...
...All of this has elicited a rather measured response from Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin, who is responsible for controlling the occupied territories, since the government is eager to keep open the possibility of negotiations with Jordan about the troubled region...
...On the merits as much as because of behind-the-scenes pressure from Washington, therefore, the second stage of the battle on the economic front takes a more flexible approach...
...The following week we went to Dokoro, about 100 miles northward—toward the Sahara—where the drought plaguing all of the Sahel has hit with particular vengeance...
...in the current fiscal year...
...In a corner women were touting ceramic pots and jugs, as well as frying pans...
...I never dared open the gri-gri to find out, but I feel that wearing it brought me luck during the remainder of my travels in West Africa...
...Harry S. Margolis...
...Being the only foreigners on hand, we ourselves attracted a good deal of attention: we were a part of the spectacle...
...Thus, opponents of withdrawal argue that it would be a cruel irony if the result of the whole undertaking in Lebanon was merely a replacement of the old kind of terrorism by a new and mere dangerous one...
...Some observers here are convinced Ihe radicalized Shiites will not stop at the border after the IDF's departure...
...Theendof haggling, he says, killed the "stylized interplay [that] weaves the buyer and seller together," and consequently we are less complete participants in our own society...
...In another section members of both sexes displayed heaps of red dried tomatoes and small green peppers...
...Would I be the driver or passenger...
...The center of the market, where my friend bought the gri-gri, seemed reserved for griots...
...Syria's position, it is further noted, has also changed considerably over the past year...
...Nonetheless, Peres' detractors warn, full control of Lebanon would provide Damascus with a convenient staging area for very active and widespread terrorism...
...they cannot be mass-produced...
...At one of them, in the small South-Central town of Miriah, a friend I was visiting found a griot...
...Each dressed differently, wearing brightly printed cloth "panyas" or duller fabrics, straw hats or turbans wrapped around the head and face...
...stop the practice of printing paper money to cover deficits...
...Miriah was half business, half theater...
...It was not always so...
...The women shaved the sides of their heads and sported rows of large round earrings...
...The Wodaabe, who appeared to drape themselves in any fabric they possessed, stood out the most...
...You cannot buy anything in these markets without lengthy haggling, which is essentially the same whether its object is a few tomatoes or a handwoven blanket...
Vol. 68 • January 1985 • No. 1
