unstable possibilities

“Menshiki nodded. “It is. Instead of a stable truth, I choose unstable possibilities. I choose to surrender myself to that instability. Do you think that’s unnatural?”

Haruki Murakami; Killing Commendatore

Well it is very hard to give a definitive answer to that question. Like when lighting a cigarette; the best moment is when you take a drag while still craving the nicotine. The moment the crave is gone, smoking becomes pointless and joyless. But there is an ephemeral and fleeting moment where the crave and the act of smoking intersect. So the best thing to do is to prolong and savor the first drag after a long crave. That is what makes the first cigarette of the morning special. Even on a historical level, the initial days of revolutions are the best part; it is during these days that new possibilities open before normality (and betrayal) sets in. This makes the proposition of permanent revolution so enticing even if impractical and often a recipe for permanent terror. But in contrast there is the enduring image of static utopias, a sort of eternal present, which reminds me of the pictures of people in gardens as depicted on some pamphlet distributed by the Jehovah witnesses, not to mention the mushroom village of the smurfs. So damn reassuring but distant. But still all this could well be within reach in our small imperfect islands. For when one sees beauty in imperfections, on can also find enduring happiness. Than there is fear of being thrown off course. It is a fear evoked in the hellish visions found in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, a sensation of hopelessness which offers no possibility of redemption but which still regales us with a bestiary of torment. And yes torment can become a way of prolonging an instability which is no longer pregnant with possibility. This recalls the feeling of when you wake up from a dream which you can't remember but which you know left you stranded, away from the island of the day before, which you can never reach despite all the efforts made. Than there is the joy of hibernation. The possibilities remain shelved and acknowledged, but you can keep afloat in blissful detachment. It is like keeping possibilities frozen in a time capsule. Yet spring always lurks at a corner and with global warming, spring sometimes does come prematurely.

On submission

“Some people make the mistake of confusing "submission" with "weakness", whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.”

― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

For some time I have been fascinated by the concept of submission as interpreted in mystical strains of Islam. In western culture we are used to think in terms of progress, constant self improvements and utilitarian choices. Sure we have a duty to change the world around us, fight injustices and avoid harm to all those around us. But there is also an existential dimension in a chaotic world, where things happen by coincidence. Many including myself spend too much time getting entangled in thoughts simply to better understand things from a detached point of view. Sure that can be a very healthy exercise. The more one understands the world, the greater the ability to change it for the better. But this also has to co-exist with an acceptance of unpredictability, futility and silence. Many associate the idea of submission with fate. But fate itself is misunderstood as a preordained future rather than as blurring of distinctions between past and future in to an eternal present. Ultimately life happens for no reason at all but that makes it even more worth living. And realizing that is ultimately the greatest act of submission.

Il-mutur tal-ekonomija

Ihhaffer, jordom u jfarrak.
Igawdi l-aqwa zmien
Dan zmien il-hsad qalulu
U hadem kemm felah biex tikber l-ekonomija
Kull bitha, gnien u gallinar li fadal bena
It-toroq tieghu, ihuf fil-madwar qisu il-boss
Idejjaq lix-xjuh b’xi offerta specjali biex darhom jiehu
U jekk isib xi qanzha, jaf li jaf lin-nies ta stoffa ikbar
Biex jibqa ghaddej bhal gaffa
Ghax qalulu li hu l-mutur tal-ekonomija
Minghajru jkun hemm l-ghaks u l-faqar
Ghalhekk irrabja hafna meta sema b’ dak il-cowboy li radam omm taht dara
Mal-hazin se jehel it-tajjeb
Dan zmien l-ghaqda u r-riflessjoni
L-ebda cuc tal-Graffitti m’hu se jnawwar lill- kotra kontrina
Ghax ahna tal-affari taghna, ahna l-mutur tal-ekonomija

Community centred politics

Every now and then, we hear about the need of a new political party to provide a much needed opposition from the left. I have myself often entertained this thought.
Still there is a living legacy which is often overlooked; that of community based struggles in which people from movements like Graffitti have inserted themselves to support, sustain and sometimes lead such struggles without imposing themselves as a vanguard. To succeed any such strategy depends on how local communities perceive activists. Building trust in such circumstances is far from an easy task and also depends on personal charisma.
One reason why people trust these activists is that unlike politicians these are not after their vote. Neither are they perceived as a threat to their entrenched political and cultural identities. Not being tied to any of the dominant political parties is also an asset.
Sure one may ask whether this goes far enough in addressing the structural roots of social and environmental problems. But probably such a strategy is far more rewarding than celebrating a 2% score in an election.
In environmental struggles these community based alliances have yielded big results.
Moreover such movements are also communities in their own right, offering sense of belonging and a common safe space for activists. They also provide an important cultural space where people can also have fun and experience togetherness. One should never underestimate this aspect of tranformative politics. It is vital in nurturing an ecosystem where plural identities can thrive.
Rather than re-proposing the small party paradigm by summing up the pieces, we should be thinking more about building on these experiences. We may be thinking too much in terms of a tried and tested paradigm, which has largely failed in the context of the two party system. Sure such a perspective does not exclude a more direct political commitment, on a similar model to that which pushed socialist candidates like Ocasio Cortez in the US congress.
So my humble suggestion is to think more on building communities than parties, communities which can grow beside, within and against political parties and relying on creativity, revolutionary passion, commitment and joyful expression.

Glimpses from the train

“Like you're riding a train at night across some vast plain, and you
catch a glimpse of a tiny light in a window of a farmhouse. In an
instant it's sucked back into the darkness behind and vanishes. But
if you close your eyes, that point of light stays with you, just
barely for a few moments.”


― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

Reality is what it is but its full of glimpses. The train still keeps moving ahead to its intended destinations (which is ultimately non existence) but there is a duty towards life to collect as many sparkles which on their own can take you on so many other voyages on so many other planes. Moreover the train itself may be the problem; its speed can also be slowed. That is where the personal and the political merge. More time.

Reclaiming time

As someone interested in history, i am obsessed with the nexus between time, space and culture, as it is within these three dimensions that our lives actually take place. There was a time when fruit was seasonal, time passed according to the rhythms of church bells and even the night was pitch black and often lived as a distinct time zone, often haunted by its own spirits. Moreover people had much shorter lives which could easily fit in to a more rigid pattern. But the increase in life expectancy raises new questions on ageing which often becomes a process people seek to defy. Even ecological threats are often reduced to a 'doomsday clock', which may be reminiscent of millenarian movements in the middle ages but is based on an entirely different understanding of time, something unstoppable but which can be defied, not something divinely set according the rhythm of an enchanted world. We live in an epoch when time, no longer seasonal or dictated by the sacred, is unstoppable. Life becomes a race against time which constantly keeps running out. Space becomes the container for the aspiration to amass as much experiences (often reduced to consumable ones) as possible. Space is also shaped and carved in a way to ensure maximum accumulation for those who live within it, often to the detriment of others who are associated with risk, danger and a threat to our individualized time-line. That is why people are obsessed with borders to ward off disease and instability, while at the same time seeking global experiences which render the world in to a playground for tourist hordes. Still reclaiming time may well be one of the next greatest transformations. Giving everyone a basic income would enable the masses to set up their own pace of time. So would reducing the working week. People would have more time to spend with family and friends. But I suspect that any transformation depends also on redefining time, for other wise even free time will recolonised by capitalist accumulation. It also depends on redefining space, for the risk would be that change will only take place in privileged enclaves to the detriment of the excluded others.

Books and memories

What really gets me in to books particularly certain novels is the experience of experiencing a multiplicity of emotions and memories, which after being experienced are stored on the book shelf. Some characters and the emotions they trigger continue their life as part of my own memories. Others are forgotten but even these continue lurking in some compartment of the mind. Looking at the book shelf is a always a source of wonder, at all the characters created by other people which became a part of my life.

Sure there is another side to reading, a somewhat escapist one. For what's the use of creating your own narrative when there are so many extraordinary stories which can be lived sometimes even more intensely than reality itself, especially when this becomes repetitive and boring.

The feeling is captured in Orhan Pamuk's The New Life:
"Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this life because of these musicales going on in my head.”

On the other hand some books have a power of their own to transform our own daily lives; to be overwhelmed as Osman was one day when he read a book his whole life was changed. "Its incandescence dazzled my intellect but also endowed it with brilliant lucidity...my point of view was transformed by the book, and the book was transformed by my point of view."