David: If you wanted to know about the murder in your street, you
could begin by talking to your neighbours. And maybe through all the
different accounts, you could begin to discern what happened. Things
are never absolute, except in the fantasies of hardline ideologues.
But you might find it interesting to read some Agamben. I think his
legal/philosophical maps of our current democratic police states are
deeply interesting and pertinent.
There isn't an "answer". Who's pretending there is? But there is a
very serious question about the issue of collective punishment, which
is outlawed in international law. That punishment includes, as well as
the bombings and current invasion, the daily serial harassment and
economic subjugation of Palestine, and the blockade of Gaza, put in
place in retaliation for the free election of Hamas (whom I keep
reading "seized power" in Gaza, as if their winning an election was
somehow illegitimate).
And perhaps one should also take into account that, whatever one feels
about Hamas, its leadership is probably the most highly educated of
any political party in the world, (nine of the 15-member Shura council
have PhDs in the sciences, many of them gained in western
universities). It makes for a more interesting picture, no? Of course
there are extremists and fundamentalists, no doubt more after this.
The horrible thing is that the continual creation of extremism seems
to be point of Israel's policy. And very successful too, no doubt.
But blah. I don't want to climb onto a soapbox. It's enough to
remember Primo Levi's famous statement that, for evil to win, it is
enough for good men to do nothing. Tempered with Zizek's (I think)
necessary scepticism about contemporary activism, which I fear I
rather agree with too.
Of course things are complex. I have long thought that the real
contemporary conflict is between those who claim things are simple
(Good V Evil, East V West) and those who keep arguing that they are
actually very complicated, with many different truths. All the same,
if those things bother you, it's at least worth trying to find out
what you can about them. And there is a point where all those
recursive mirrors of doubt are just cowardly bullshit.
xA
On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 1:54 PM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Ok Stephen, the problem is that although the State of Israel is
> supported by US crooks Hamas too is run by crooks, one bunch of
> wife-beaters against each other, I simply don't have an answer to it
> all.
>
> 2009/1/4 Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>:
>> David, given the gift of David Lloyd's piece - instead of ignoring it as 'information overload' - it think it informed, well thought out, and worth responding to, controversial et al.
>>
>> Stephen V
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>> --- On Sat, 1/3/09, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: World Affairs, and the Moral High Ground
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Saturday, January 3, 2009, 6:34 PM
>>
>> Alison
>>
>> any murder is very individual, as it only happens to the one person it
>> occurs to. When I say I don't know what is going on in Palestine, it
>> doesn't mean I haven't read Said, or I don't listen or read or
>> watch
>> the news, it means I don't think those maps of reality I receive are
>> adequate.
>>
>> As far as I can tell the situation is that a very well-supported state
>> is being attacked by gangsters posing as religious nationalists,
>> neither party is creditable but innocent people are being killed on
>> both sides, it's awful, I don't have an answer to it all, and
>> particularly I don't want to pretend I do.
>>
>> the point of my post was that even in this little corner of the
>> universe that I inhabit, I don't know what the fucks going on, we live
>> an age of information overload, where the more we know means the less.
>>
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> 2009/1/4 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>:
>>> There's a big difference between an individual crime, which is being
>>> investigated and is tagged as "wrong" by the State, and a crime
>> that
>>> is committed by a State. Particularly, and this is crucial, a state
>>> that calls itself a democracy.
>>>
>>> If you don't know much about the situation in Palestine, Dave,
>> it's
>>> easy enough to find out. You could start with reading some Said, who
>>> was one of the wiser commentators on the situation. And an acute
>>> literary critic as well, so you could feel all literary as well.
>>>
>>> I'm not a protest kind of gal. I've been to precisely one in my
>> life -
>>> the protests before the US invaded Baghdad. I knew when I went that
>>> the protests wouldn't stop the invasion, which had been planned for
>>> literally years (although I suspect it blunted the edge of the Shock
>>> and Awe campaign - not that that helped later). I went because I
>>> didn't want to be complicit with what I believed was a criminal
>>> disaster with horrific implications for international law, that my
>>> country was participating in, allegedly on "my" behalf.
>> Everything I
>>> feared came about, but only because it was so predictable.
>>>
>>> I'm going this afternoon, not because I think it will stop anything
>>> that's going on as the tanks roll into Gaza, but because the barefaced
>>> lies that are being printed about Gaza make me angry, and because my
>>> politicians are shoving out the usual mealy-mouthed evasions.
>>>
>>> And yes, I think of Darfur and Somalia and the Congo and other
>>> unfashionable conflicts, where atrocities take place every day without
>>> rippling the surface. Or the more endemic economic crimes that enslave
>>> people in "offshore" factories - like Amatil in Fiji, where
>> they've
>>> been shooting trade union leaders. Yes, injustice is everywhere. Yes,
>>> I am a writer and not an activist. Etc. We all live with these
>>> dilemmas. But I feel that while saying no might make very little
>>> difference, not saying no is worse.
>>>
>>> It's not about high moral ground. It's about the kind of world you
>>> want to live in.
>>>
>>> xA
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 11:51 AM, David Bircumshaw
>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> Early on the other day, about 30 yards from where I live, a guy was
>>>> stabbed to death:
>>>>
>>>>
>> http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Woman-arrested-murder-probe/article-583469-detail/article.html
>>>>
>>>> will give you news details. Apparently his suspected murderer was a
>>>> woman. I didn't know who he was, or who is believed to have killed
>>>> him, all I knew was that on the morning police tape was around the
>>>> streets and the very road I live on was blocked off by police cars and
>>>> there was a forensic tent set up. Tonight, complete strangers have
>>>> been straggling around mutually sobbing about the site of the death,
>>>> presumably they were friends of the deceased.
>>>>
>>>> But I know nothing, or next to nothing, about it, even though it
>>>> happened almost on my doorstep. Likewise, I know next to nothing about
>>>> what is going on in Gaza and Israel, I can see no point in
>>>> pontificating. If I, or anyone, could think of something to help end
>>>> that tragedy that would be great, but, to go back, the other night, a
>>>> bloke was murdered, a few yards from my home, I was watching a
>>>> schmaltzy film on tv, and didn't know, not that I would have been
>>>> capable of doing anything much if I did, other than calling the
>>>> emergency services.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> David Bircumshaw
>>>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>>>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>>>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> David Bircumshaw
>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
|
