italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Forwarded by John Unsworth <[log in to unmask]>
Look at the newspapers this morning, and see in cold print the perfunctory
representation (in letters to the editor eg, but all over) of the voices of
those who strongly dissent from where this wave of anguished fear is bent
on carrying us. the radio, tv, and paper media are all mobilizing for
"war" -- a long war, we are assured, that wants to bring a fearful terror
against terrorism. hardly a whisper of the need to confront the sources of
this landscape of terror, only talk of spreading it further.
and so we realize, nearly hopelessly, that dissenting from this misguided
program will be given no serious space in those media.
by chance, in the latest issue of _the nation_, comes edward said's essay
on finding a way to speak with effect in this circumstance. i urge
everyone to read it. and to use THIS medium, a medium still relatively
free of total control, to spread a call to step back from what our
government seems determined to do. if "only to connect" (forgive me,
foster) ourselves together. "standing together" as a nation without
borders and an army without guns, like those firemen in nyc -- one can't
get them from one's mind -- who died trying to bring comfort and help and
rescue. all those firemen, our model anti-terrorists.
(relatively free of control: i write that knowing full well, as all of us
should, that these messages are being monitored. we must still speak out.)
will we actually send yet another generation of our youth to die in places
already populated largely by innocent and suffering people? the terror in
nyc was conceived in just such an imagination -- an imagination in
pain. we can either try to heal that imagination or let it run on, until
we are all "standing together" under its terrible wings.
Jerome McGann
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