 |
 |
Ladies and gentlemen, we have here a differend: a mutual incomprehension of narratives, specifically where one narrative pre-emptively voids the other's claims to legitimacy - "well they would say that, wouldn't they?". The situation is never one of balance, but of irreconcilable assymmetry. It is a polemical situation, a state of war in language. Try another analytic. Baudrillard on seduction, for instance: what am I doing when I pluck out my eye and give it to you? Or if that seems too much like a sick joke and not sad and angry enough (I don't disagree): what am I doing when I declare my silence eloquently, shockingly, stomach-turningly, and above all before the eyes of the world (analytic of the sublime: the visible testament to the unsayable, the unpresentable)? Also strategic considerations. Why are they letting us see this? I mean the photographs of the prisoners in Cuba (I keep thinking of Pound, caged, in Pisa - this is a technique with a history), which affront and attest to an American "arrogance" but are more importantly setting up a polemical conflict that certain people - the affronted - are going to lose, don't ask me how, they haven't played that move yet. The affronted are going to lose here as well. Thatcher's Tories ruled for years by systematically outraging their opponents in order to make fools of them. It used to be a trick of subversives and left-wingers, but the fact is it works on anyone... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Printmaker" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 9:44 PM Subject: Re: Silence > Alison Croggon wrote: > > > > At 9:43 AM +0100 21/1/2002, Martin J. Walker wrote: > > > > > the main effect on me of the whole scene is nausea & > > > sadness. > > > > Yes, me too. But that's compounded by a feeling of > > furious shame. > > > > Best > > > > A > > > Being Devil's Advocate here. > > This is precisely the response they are counting on. Note > the careful priming of the children re what to say to the > media. > > You are being manipulated. > > They have paid considerable sums of money to be smuggled in, > around $AUD10,000-20,000 each I have heard. With these funds > they could have re-established themselves in Pakistan in > luxury and kept the freedom they argue for. They are where > they are because of their own actions, we are masters of our > own destiny. They are not 'victims' of the smugglers, they > were not kidnapped, they paid their way. One woman I saw > interviewed said her husband was working in Victoria and had > sent the funds over to get her brought in! > > In the meantime they are being fed and housed and protected > from harm all at the expense of the Australian public purse. > > I feel for the refugees who are walking over the mountains > through snow and starving, or the ones in Africa whose city > is covered in Lava. Not these opportunists. > > I do agree that they should be processed faster, two years > is too long for my taxes to be supporting them. We could > have run a university and provided hecs free education for > our own struggling youth with what they have cost us so far. > Or built a hospital, or provided aid where its really > needed. > > Food for thought. > > Josephine > (trying to bring some balance to the argument)