I have been reflecting lately on how everything is more complex than
it is presented. Not all Moslems are nutters telling bereaved
parents to convert to Islam as soon as possible so they don't go to
hell; not all Americans are mad Baptists from the South telling
Hindus to convert to Christianity as soon as possible so they don't
go to hell; not all Australians are beach loving sun bunnies; not all
British are Dursley type materialist petty snobs; &c. People are
diverse and have private agendas which are not necessarily those of
the people in whose interests these simplicities are rendered. This
seems to me something to hold on to, a kind of hope, however
unpredictable and fragile it might be.
It is not anti-American to criticise the US government or to object
to the disease of corporatism (though one ought to be fair and
remember that this kind of bureacratism began with the French). It
seems, rather, a duty in the fine tradition of North American
dissent. The easy equation of America with MacDonalds denies the
complexities which permit this. It is not anti-Islam to point out
that the new Library of Alexandria is hardly the great repository of
the world's knowledge which that other ideal library (burned by the
famous Roman Julius Ceasar) represented: how can it be, if it forbids
all "anti-Islamic" texts? It seems so sad to have built a shell of
such grandeur, only to put nothing in it. Such willed editings and
manipulations of reality seem to be the tenor of our days. It seems
to me a necessary first step is to argue against them, to argue for
plurality, doubt, complexity, against those who would have it
(whatever the stated colour of their ideology) that it's Them and Us,
Black and White, Right and Wrong, these stark murderous polarities.
The more we are panicked into a corner, by the spectre of terrorism
or those US war machines, the harder this gets. Perhaps we needn't
buy into the assumptions about what power is, those assumptions that
only serve those in power, while nevertheless keeping a sharp eye on
these realities... perhaps, despite its impotence, poetry might
matter a bit in these questions.
Best
Alison
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Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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