Madonna, not Muhammad in Senegal

Globalization: friend or foe?

Presently, I am in Sor, Senegal tapping furiously on the dusty keyboard of a Windows 98 machine. It is 12:30 pm and this semi-reliable web connection is about to close down for mid-day prayers. The cyber cafe's attendant (a typical African youth, LIVESTRONG band poking out of his floor-length bou-bou's sleeve) strides over to his own terminal and inserts a CD. The words to the new hit single "Hung Up" fill my ears, blocking out the monotone of distant, mumbled prayers to the east and suddenly, I've got Madonna, not Muhammad on the brain

"Time goes by... so slowly. Time goes by... so slowly."

I think Madonna's got it all wrong.

If time goes by "so slowly" how is it that here in Sor (where toilet paper is still a novel concept) I weekly hand out sandwiches and coffee to a homeless Talibe boy sporting a Guns n' Roses concert tee?

How is it that when I order bread from the local bakery using crystal-clear, repeatedly rehearsed phrases in Senegal's official language (French), I'm inevitably misunderstood by the baker but here next to me in the cyber cafe he can skillfully navigate the uploading of his portable mp3s?

How is it that I can rumble along to the market in a horse drawn taxi painted to advertise the "Nice Burger" fast food chain, on my way to buy street cakes for three cents a dozen from a girl who hums Eminem and supports the Chicago Bulls?

How is it that this very Internet cafe boasts both a frequently used prayer rug and and an up-to-the moment collection of American Billboard chart toppers, including the aforementioned Abba-flavored dance hit?

How? Well it sure isn't by time moving slowly. Today, a global culture is evolving more rapidly than ever before. By the time I finish this blog, the Madonna tune that inspired it will have received another hundred thousand download hits from all the townies with laptops all across the world. The latest runway fashions in Hong Kong will already be old news in New York, and last month's gimmicky consumer product from Macintosh Inc. will be on sale in every black market from Moscow to Dakar. We've finally come across the potentially atomic discovery that the unknown can be uploaded far faster and in greater quantity than could ever be experienced firsthand. In in the centrifuge of cyber space, fragments of the world's many ways of life are spun together and recombined and the results are beige at best. Instead of culling the best of what our many cultures have to offer, something gets lost in the shuffle and we end up gleaning whatever common denominator can be marketed to the masses. The byproducts of the 21st century's rapid-fire cultural diffusion are more often than not just tired amalgams of mediocre pop art.

I first began to realize this a few months ago in France. Picture this: Paris. Latin Quarter. Irish Bar. Now add a televised ping-pong match, South African rugby players downing Guinness, and a local five-man reggae band slaying standards on the stage. There I sat, the lone, befuddled American in the corner thinking, "Wha-?"

The only highlight of that culturally confused evening was my misguided theory that a night of table tennis and Peter Tosh tunes was about as awry as globalization was ever going to get. That's when I ran away to Senegal and "Calypso Danny Boy" came into my life.

For my first meal in Africa, I was seated cross legged on the ground before a communal dish of tieboudienne (a traditional example of the culinary artistry of Senegal). Following my hosts' examples, I prepared myself to leave utensils for Western posers in restaurants and dig in with my bare hands. Suddenly, those around me ceased their rapid conversation in Wolof to watch me as I cocked my head sideways and made my way toward the source of a familiar strain of music that had just caught the airwaves of the FM.

"Is that...?"

It couldn't be.

But it was. I placed the song immediately, having sung the alto harmony at school, a lifetime and a half ago. The rhythms were altered, the beat had been changed, but the melody couldn't hide. Of all the tragic, painful, and misguided cover songs I've ever heard, this one hit me hardest, right in my gut. The song was a Senegalese, calypso rendition of the Irish traditional, "Oh, Danny Boy." My appetite went up in smoke.

This was several weeks ago. My appetite (and ears) have since somewhat recovered. My outlook on globalization however, will never be the same. As we move toward a universal culture I feel we may also be moving closer to a cultural catastrophe. So.... what am I suggesting? That we try and stop globalization all together? Of course not. But proceed with caution. In a world where international exchange of ideas is as easily accessible as an inbox, we've got to take it upon ourselves to filter out the SPAM. Otherwise, what happens when I'm not the only one whose meditations on tradition and conventional culture can be so easily interrupted by the likes of- "Time goes by... so slowly... time goes by... so slowly"

Okay, I'm not going to argue with a woman with enough savvy to stay au courant for over a decade (currently reincarnated as a boa-twirling disco dance queen... at age 50!). So I won't completely disagree with Madonna. Perhaps "time" is slow. However, as anyone who's ever gotten sick from traditional Senegalese cuisine and Irish folk songs can attest, the times are anything but.