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I wasn't overwhelmed by the start of E Lockhart’s The disreputable history of Frankie-Landau Banks, and kept reading with lowish expectations*. I think I was put off by the high school group cliches, of-course-every-hetero-girl-would-love-this-guy stuff. But then Frankie’s snarkiness and powers of observation starting showing, and I understood why so many people had raved about the book when it came out. I love the tributes to Wodehouse, and the musings about power, family relationships and gender. And it makes for a different type of boarding school story, one where the heroine is quite rational about the benefits and costs assocaited with attendance. If there is anyone left who hasn't read this, I recommend it!

*I seem to write this quite often. Maybe it’s a good thing as then I enjoy a good book more?

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Ashraf Ghani has taught at Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, and Kabul University, worked at the World Bank, served as Finance Minister of Afghanistan, and been credited with a range of successful reforms in Afghanistan in the years following 9/11. He is currently the Chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness. Clare Lockhart is Director of the Institute for State Effectiveness. She has worked for the World Bank and the UN and played a key leadership role in developing the National Programs approach to Afganistan’s reconstruction efforts. Together Ghani and Lockhard wrote Fixing Failed States: A Framework For Rebuilding A Fractured World, which explains through vivid on-the-ground examples why past attempts to rebuild states have failed and advance a groundbreaking new solution to the crisis. In the original article below they outline what makes a successful state.  Listen to a podcast of Ghani at the Carnegie Council here.

Given the historical and geographic variability of state functions, it might seem bold to declare that there are ten of them (why not nine of eleven?). Nevertheless, based on our reading of history, our engagement with international development, and our first hand experience with the challenge of state building in one of its most difficult contexts, we have concluded that states in the world today must perform the following ten key functions to succeed.

1) Rule of Law

The most crucial function of the state is law making (i.e. establishing the rules by which society operates). Laws define both the powers and the limits of the state and the people within that state.2) A Monopoly on the Legitimate Means of Violence
State controlled use of violence (military/police activity), encompasses three distinctive elements. Complete authority over the means of destruction and the use of force. The legitimacy needed to subordinate violence to the decision making process (voting/elections/laws). And in extreme cases, the use of force, according to the rules of law, against those citizens of the state who challenge its legitimacy.3) Administrative Control
The state must establish a bureaucratic system of checks and balances. A system that is managed by governmental professional who are accountable to the citizenry. Each division of the government performs specialized functions, has continuity over time, and is overseen at a higher level.

4) Sound Management of Public Finances
Create a budget and stick to it! A proper budget brings both the rights and duties of citizenship into balance. Each entitlement must have a line of expenditure and each expenditure must be matched by a source of revenue. The key elements are wealth creation and involvement of the citizenry in taxation and redistribution.

5) Investment in Human Capital
Among the many investments are the creation, development, and growth of institutions of Higher Education and the availability of a national healthcare infrastructure. Health and education produces a mentally and physically vital citizenry, which is in turn crucial to a successful state.

6) Creation of Citizenship Rights Through Social Policy
Empower citizens through equal opportunity. When the state uses social policy as an instrument for the establishment of equal opportunities, the social fabric created can lead to a sense of national unity and a shared belief in common destiny. Key social policy starts with the right to vote, and extends into regulating labor practices and establishing fiscal welfare programs.

7) Provision of Infrastructure Services
The state must provide everyday necessities such as adequate transportation, power, water, communications, and pipelines to establish its overall ability to produce less mundane functions such as security, administration, investment in human capital, and the necessary conditions for a strong market economy.

Formation of a Market
The state must support the creation and expansion of an open economic market through three major measures: setting and enforcing rules for commercial activity, supporting the operation and continued development of private enterprise, and intervening at times of market failure.

9) Management of Public Assets
Every state has three areas of natural resources to oversee: the management and allocation of rights to land and water, the sustainable use of natural capital, including extractive industries (i.e. mining and drilling), the management, and protection of the environment, including forests, and the licensing of industrial commercial activities.

10) Effective Public Borrowing
Put simply, do not take on bad debt or take on too much debt. Beware of the sovereign guaranty from international lenders. Maintain public disclosure and monitoring of the fulfillment of debt obligations.

The performance of these ten functions produces a clustering effect. When the state performs all ten functions simultaneously, the synergy creates a virtuous circle in which decisions in the different domains reinforce enfranchisement and opportunity for the citizenry. This supports the legitimacy of the decision makers and their decisions, builds trust in the overall system, and thereby produces a “sovereignty dividend.”

Conversely, when one or several of the functions are not performed effectively, a vicious circle begins: Various centers of power vie for control, multiple decision-making processes confuse priorities, citizens lose trust in the government, institutions lose their legitimacy, and the populace is disenfranchised. In the most extreme cases, violence results. This negative cycle creates a “sovereignty gap.”

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I'll start by going out on one of my habitual limbs to say I'd nominate this one for the Premio Aztlán Literary Prize. No, I don't think it's as passionately written as last year's winner, Across a Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande, but hell, she raised the bar so high, authors are going to be scrambling for some time to catch up with her.

To quote from Kermit Lopez's website, Cibolero "is a tale of sorrow and terror, hope and triumph, set against the backdrop of 1800's New Mexico. Antonio Baca, a former cibolero, or buffalo hunter, pursues his daughter's kidnappers in Post-Civil War era New Mexico and Texas. Cibolero is a fictionalized account of the Hispanic experience before and after the conquest of the Southwest by the United States." (Go to the publisher IUniverse website for a more extensive account.)

Press like that made me want to read Cibolero; it sounded intriguing. But I confess I soon grew more intrigued by the historical references the author used to develop his story. In truth, there's such a wealth of this, the novel should more rightly be categorized as historical fiction.

Cibolero proves that you Chicanos've come a long way, Bebé. Categoried on the back cover as a "Western"--rather than some "ethnic" labeling--it's got all the elements that once accompanied John Wayne on the screen. Cowboys, Indians, horses, shoot-em-ups, cross-prairie chases--the Western culture in detail by an author who knows his history, even researching his own family's history to lace into this novel.

Anyway, as a Western it's got your bad guys, the Texas Rangers, and then your real evil bad guy, Calhoun, son of a wealthy slaveholder rancher; the hero, Antonio Baca; and the quest, to rescue his daughter Elena, Captain Travis Russell, the head of the Rangers is a mixed-up gringo with some morals who won't go along with all the rape and pillage ideas of his men and is the only thing standing between Elena and a gang-raping or two before certain death. His role raises the gringo to co-protagonist with the Hispanic Baca, something we don't usually get from raza writers. I loved that.

The whole cibolero backdrop to the novel introduced an aspect of our history I'd never known. The high plains of New Mexico, el Llano Estacado, serves as the principal scenario, adding to the novel's unique perspective. Likewise, Lopez gives us extensive insight into the plains culture, including details about the omnipresent cibolero lance used to hunt the buffalo, now destined to serve a different purpose.

Using the back-story to Antonio Baca, as a typical New Mexican Hispanic, Lopez interweaves most of the significant economic, historical and political events of this part of the Southwest. Of course, it's a story with plenty of ugly parts, some still denied by the apologists of U.S. history. Especially the parts about los pinches rinches, the Texas Rangers.

The only historical bone I've got to pick with Lopez is that Anglos from Texas are referred to as "Texans." Texicans is what they loved to go by before 1836 and some time after; of course, maybe it's there, and I just missed it.

Now for the bad news: Lopez's historical accuracy may be what keeps his book from reaching a wider audience. In a county where the majority don't notice that their President's WMDs wear no clothes, how popular can the truth be? Readers who read Westerns assumedly are looking for escapist literature. (Readers of historical fiction might not be so much.) Being confronted by the ugly truth of what your ancestors did to the Southwest--Mexican citizens, the indigenes, the buffalo and the land--probably won't let them escape enough to enjoy the story. I'd recommend the publishers reclassify and rewrite press about the novel to attract more an historical-fiction audience.

Okay, so the Premio Aztlán committee is probably going to ignore my opening remarks (Amazon has one reviewer who gave it five stars), but today at least you can easily purchase a "Western", some escapist literature, written by one of us. Remember the old days when you couldn't? To boot, you'll get a more realistic account of los pinches rinches than you get in Texas public schools.

Lastly about the book, several times when reading it, I had flashbacks of Tell Them Valdez Is Coming. It always bothered the holy pinche out of me that Kirk Douglas portrayed such a cowering Bob (sic!) Valdez who, yes, later became the shoot-em-up hero, but still--. Hollywood has yet to fully make that up to us, and giving Lopez an option would be a good way to start. (N.B.: the only redeeming value to that movie was Lancaster's response to what did he used to hunt: "Apache, before I knew better.")

About the author's name: I had the same questions you do: is this his nom de plume, did he legally change it, or, what were his parents smoking? That's some not-so-critical info I'd like to have seen on the author website. Also, a historical bibliography and way to contact the author would be nice. It does have a short streaming video on the book that's worth checking.

Rudy Ch. Garcia

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