Thank you Beth.
Tag: democracy
Prophet Song
Benjamin Markovits, in his lukewarm NY Times Book Review titled Life Descends Into Chaos in This Year’s Booker Prize Winner, states “the ’emergency’ is never explained…the political crisis here is a kind of blank; it has no history…we never learn what they’re arguing about, apart from the rule of law…The other big decision is stylistic. There are sections and chapters in the novel but no paragraphs. Dialogue is not punctuated with quotation marks, and is often interrupted by descriptions and sudden dives into interiority. All of which means that following a conversation takes some detective work…”
Markovits is right, all true. But set it all aside. Easily, this was the best book I’ve read in 2023, and one that will stick for some time. I’ve shared a two excerpts from the book below:
Tell me, he says, do you believe in reality? Dad, what is that supposed to mean? We belong to a tradition but tradition is nothing more than what everyone can agree on – the scientists, the teachers, the institutions, if you change ownership of the institutions then you can change ownership of the facts, you can alter the structure of belief, what is agreed upon, that is what they are doing… (they are) trying to change what you and I call reality, they want to muddy it like water, if you say one thing is another thing and you say it enough times, then it must be so, and if you keep saying it over and over people accept it as true – this is an old idea, of course, it really is nothing new, but you’re watching it happen in your own time and not in a book… Sooner or later, of course, reality reveals itself, he says, you can borrow for a time against reality but reality is always waiting, patiently, silently, to exact a price and level the scales——
For how many days the shelling and gunfire has continued, the fighting stopped for the night but her body does not believe the silence, a sensory prickling in her nerves, the banging deep in her skull. She turns to Molly inhaling from her hair the fading scent of jasmine, sensing the mind at peace beneath the sleeping breath, to reach in with her hand and pull the terror out by the root, to caress the mind back to its old shape. Something has winged from the dark of her mind and she holds very still, then turns from Molly, gets up and goes into the kitchen. The sky in astronomical twilight, watching the trees rooted in the earth, thinking, there will be goodness again, there will be high and happy voices, the sound of feet seeking for slippers and the clicking of bicycle wheels through the porch.
— Paul Lynch, Prophet Song (Atlantic Monthly Press, December 5, 2023)
Where there is no democracy there is bound to be more human suffering.
There is a correlation between the lack of democracy in a country and the level of destruction left in the wake of natural disasters. In a functioning democracy, those in power can be held accountable, a system of checks and balances will control spending and the public will be informed of every step. Where there is no democracy there is bound to be more human suffering.
The state also failed to carry out swift, systemic emergency rescue efforts. In many parts of the disaster zone, people were left to their own devices, trying to save their loved ones with their bare hands, digging through rubble with whatever they could muster. Some of them could hear voices from under the ruins and experienced the immense pain and trauma of not being able to help their families and friends. A father sat for hours holding the hand of his dead daughter, only her arm showing through the concrete. For impossibly long hours no official help arrived in cities such as Hatay. People trapped under demolished buildings sent tweets giving their location, begging for help. It is mind-blowing that the next day access to Twitter was blocked, at a time when every minute was critical to save lives.
— Elif Shafak, from “Erdoğan, the earthquake and the failings in my homeland.” The writer Elif Shafak on a natural disaster compounded by man-made greed and corruption. (FT.com, February 10, 2023)
Notes: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels)
One Word.
Evolution
Cover of The New Yorker Sept 21, 2020 issue by Artist Chris Ware: “I live in the quiet, relatively diverse, and leafy “village” of Oak Park, literally across the street from Chicago, and all summer long I’ve seen neighborhood almost-but-not-quite get-togethers, not unlike what I drew here…I think vastly more people still try to get along in America than not. Our cities aren’t exclusively anarchic blast zones, and the suburbs aren’t all xenophobic cloisters. Yet, now, the weather is cooling, and we’re all heading back inside to await the results of what will surely be the most contested election of our lifetimes. The real fear is what may result: not a democracy or a republic but something that somehow stifles both.”