Gunga Din
I was steering clear of that comparison with the benighted wretch of imperialist doggerel fame, played in blackface in the movie. But the Dems aren’t so shy. This one, anyway. Boston Herald:
Democratic strategist Michael Goldman, who supported John Edwards, said yesterday there likely is no strategy here, just a sinking campaign’s attempt to poke fun at “Mr. Perfect looking stupid.
“ He doesn’t look like Osama to me. He looks like Gunga Din from the 1940s movie,” said Goldman. “He looks like he’s about to sweep up the floor. He’s forgotten the lesson of John Kennedy: never put on a hat. You have to look at this picture and laugh.”
Goldman, known locally as the Undertaker for his services to ill-fated Massachusetts campaigns, is very quick and funny, often delightfully unPC, and in this case has pretty much nailed it, superficially. I’d see the infamous Obama photo as more of a Dukakis in the tank than a Meccan Candidate moment. But my perception, having at various times adopted aspects of local attire and otherwise made nice as a guest in other people’s tents, may be somewhat off your average voter’s. The above Goldman quote is from a column by Margery Eagan column, who comments herself:
I can hardly wait for the moment in tonight’s Clinton/Obama debate when NBC’s Tim Russert calls for the picture you see here - Barack Obama dressed as a Somali tribesman, complete with white turban - and asks Clinton what message her campaign, by circulating this picture, was trying to communicate.
That the crazy Internet rumors are true: Obama (rhymes with Osama) is in fact a crazed Muslim terrorist?
That America should think again: do we really want to elect a black guy just one generation out of Africa?
Or perhaps a little of both: play the race-card and Muslim card, hoping one or the other creates a general sense of unease?
“Americans are sensitive to anything that’s different,” says political scientist Darrell West of Brown University. “This picture does make him look out of the mainstream.”
I’m with Goldman. Obama just looks awkward and ridiculous, though I don’t doubt that photo is playing to racial stereotypes and allegiance suspicions in some quarters. JFK’s prophetic words ring down through the decades … never put on a hat.
I’m a little surprised no one else seems to have gone down the Gunga Din route, the blogosphere not being known for taste or sensitivity. Google and Technorati didn’t turn up much of an Obama-Din nexus this morning. Here’s a Gungadinonymous political site, not very active, and not at last check seizing the Gunga Din moment. Here’s an apparent Obama supporter who proclaims himself to be Gunga Din, but it’s not clear how up he is on his Gungadinology, and the connection is coincidental.
Din doesn’t get much respect. Din and the poem about him are more complex and anti-racist than many people probably realize. Here’s the deal. ”Gunga Din” is a tale of British soldiers ill-treating but gratefully acknowledging the Indian water carrier who faithfully serves them amid fire and death, ultimately sacrificing himself for them. Everyone knows the kicker:
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
The whole thing’s worth a read. You’ll find it below.
The Gunga Din analogy doesn’t work on Obama, for a number of reasons. Whatever the anti-war camp and Ralph Nader might say about his Senate war-funding votes, Obama clearly isn’t much interested in carrying water either for the troops or for the benighted heathen masses the American imperialists are dying to liberate, protect and civilize.
Din’s actually a heroic and highly moral character, but given his position of servitude on the lower rungs of an imperialist system, I wouldn’t expect Obama to embrace him. John McCain is not likely to be compelled in debate to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s famous line: “Senator, I knew Gunga Din. I served with Gunga Din. Gunga Din brought me water when the bullets were flying. Senator, you’re no Gunga Din.”
The widely misunderstood, often ironic Kipling’s Din tribute is a rough but insightful look at wretches at the leading edge of the British Empire, which Kipling saw as a force to civilize and maintain order in a dangerous and imperfect world. As it ultimately did, if imperfectly and not necessarily for lofty motives, leaving institutional legacies that greatly benefit those former colonies that have chosen and managed to maintain them; in the main, doing a better job of than most of the other western powers involved in the 19th century landgrab. Visit a colonial cemetery in India, see the gravestones where British civil servants buried their children and wives, and you’ll get another tight focus on the complexities of empire. But in Kipling’s tale, no civil institutions are being built. It’s just about bonds of loyalty and the brutal enlightenment of combat, where race and station in the end are transcended. Kipling’s wretches include the benighted, hell-bound Tommies as well as the benighted, ill-fated water carrier who will serve them there. Kipling, who spent much of his life in India, was far more intimate with the concerns and humanity of Britain’s subject races than I suspect a lot of his critics were or are. In Din, Kipling is well below the abstract level of the “audacity of hope,” and has zeroed in on the bleak equality of shared sacrifice, to which racial advancement historically owes no little debt of gratitude.
But Obama’s no Din, and the United States, in its modern wars against fascist, communist and now Islamist threats, is no British Empire. Here’s a real, modern tale of race from one of those wars, stripped of a lot of the uncomfortable qualities of the Din story. It’s from a friend I’ve quoted here before, John Eade, American infantryman and survivor of the Ia Drang, who has a lot of lessons to offer about life and death:
Eade said he and three others, Wilbert Johnson, Barry Burnite and Oscar Barker Jr., had some freedom of movement along a line of brush and tried to flank the NVA.
“We wanted to hunt them down and give the platoon a chance,” Eade said. “We bit off more than we could chew.” Eade said. Burnite, a white trooper, was a machine gunner and Johnson, a black trooper, was his crewman. When the machine gun was disabled by shrapnel and Burnite was hit in the chest, Johnson dragged Burnite 30 meters in an effort to save him.
“It was the greatest feat of human strength I have ever witnessed,” Eade said. “I don’t know if Burnite was still alive.” Eade, a native of Toledo, Ohio, is white and said that growing up, he had played sports with a lot of black kids and was not subject to racism. But he said that what he witnessed that day cured him of any possible vestiges and has left him with no tolerance for it.
Johnson, Barker and Eade holed up among some trees and continued to fight. Johnson was killed, and Eade was shot in the gut and the right shoulder, forcing him to fire his M-16 left-handed. His legs and boots had been sprayed with shrapnel, with a large piece stuck into his foot, so Eade couldn’t walk. By about 3 p.m., much of the fighting had subsided around Barker and Eade. Barker tended to Eade’s wounds when they weren’t fighting, stuffing one of Eade’s dirty socks into his shoulder wound to stop the bleeding because they were out of bandages.
“I knew and he knew that everyone else was dead,” Eade said. He urged Barker, a black trooper, to try to save himself and run for the command post, where Gwin and others held a perimeter.
“He refused to go,” Eade said. Shortly after that, Barker was shot in the chest, and Eade had to watch him die. Barker had a sucking chest wound, and it took him a long time to die, Eade said.
Anyway, the simple view of Gunga Din is Din as a figure of racist mockery, a sort of Indian Uncle Tom. But like history and the present where race is concerned, it defies simplistic condemnation:
You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.
Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ‘Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them blackfaced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
He was “Din! Din! Din!
You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
Hi! slippery hitherao!
Water, get it! Panee lao! [Bring water swiftly.]
You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”
The uniform ‘e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ‘arf o’ that be’ind,
For a piece o’ twisty rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment ‘e could find.
When the sweatin’ troop-train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ‘eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,
We shouted “Harry By!” [Mr. Atkins's equivalent for "O brother."]
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped ‘im ’cause ‘e couldn’t serve us all.
It was “Din! Din! Din!
You ‘eathen, where the mischief ‘ave you been?
You put some juldee in it [Be quick.]
Or I’ll marrow you this minute [Hit you.]
If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”
‘E would dot an’ carry one
Till the longest day was done;
An’ ‘e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
‘E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.
With ‘is mussick on ‘is back, [Water-skin.]
‘E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire”,
An’ for all ‘is dirty ‘ide
‘E was white, clear white, inside
When ‘e went to tend the wounded under fire!
It was “Din! Din! Din!”
With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out,
You could hear the front-files shout,
“Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!”
I shan’t forgit the night
When I dropped be’ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should ‘a’ been.
I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
An’ the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.
‘E lifted up my ‘ead,
An’ he plugged me where I bled,
An’ ‘e guv me ‘arf-a-pint o’ water-green:
It was crawlin’ and it stunk,
But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
It was “Din! Din! Din!
‘Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ‘is spleen;
‘E’s chawin’ up the ground,
An’ ‘e’s kickin’ all around:
For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!”
‘E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
‘E put me safe inside,
An’ just before ‘e died,
“I ‘ope you liked your drink”, sez Gunga Din.
So I’ll meet ‘im later on
At the place where ‘e is gone –
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;
‘E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
Topics: history, literary, pols, racism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:55 am on Tuesday, February 26, 2008
11 Responses to “Gunga Din”
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February 26th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Shouldn’t that be Gunga Djinn?
February 26th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Kipling is widely misunderstood, period. And that’s a pity, because he is so forthright in his writings.
Of course, these days, when you get hit with the racism charge, true or not, a lot of people blindly accept it, and the stigma is carried for life.
Myself, I don’t see Obama as Gunga Din; I see him as an opportunistic politician, pandering to the masses for the power that he craves.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Looks more like Aunt Jemima in drag.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Who Freakin’ Cares
So if I show up to your next party in my kilt, are pictures of me dressed in the garb of my ancestral home going to make you nervous about my loyalties to America? Whatever…Jules Crittenden has more on the
February 26th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
The picture doesn’t bother me much, except that it is kind of silly. Politicians are always dressing up in local garb when they travel. It’s the same thing as kissing babies and shaking hands until your skin bleeds. No, I have other, far more substantial reasons for not voting for Mr. Obama.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
That the photo is being used as a supposed negative speaks volumes about the desperation of the Clinton campaign.
It really is a silly picture. As usual, Rebecca is right in her assessment.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
“So if I show up to your next party in my kilt, are pictures of me dressed in the garb of my ancestral home going to make you nervous about my loyalties to America? ”
Guess that depends on what sort of colorful native garb you’re decked out in. Show up to that party in a Waffen SS costume and that might raise a few eyebrows.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:01 am
[...] On a serious note, Jules Crittenden on why Obama is no Gunga Din. [...]
February 27th, 2008 at 8:54 am
His Kim is a serious, well-observed novel about The Great Game, among other things.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
He looks totally Ghey.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am
[...] do the Wajiris intend to start burning or blowing things up? They know when they’ve been Gungadinned. Heads up, Garissa [...]