Tis the night before Christmas, a liminal time throughout the diaspora of our civilization which was reshaped historically by Paul’s reimagination of classical mystery faiths and Judaism as they collided and transformed each other, a night of magic, the redemptive and totalizing power of love, the rapture and terror of dreams and the power of wishes to redefine us and our possibilities of becoming human.
Clustered in dense layers around this time are rituals and symbols whose roots in our collective psyche are ancient and powerful, among them the family singing of Silent Night, a carol of great beauty composed in 1818 and made a universal cultural heritage by Bing Crosby’s recording in 1935. Its primary meaning remains the same; while the world sleeps, we are recreated anew and reborn with the dawn, to a new life wherein all things are possible. Choose wisely what you wish for, and who you wish to become.
As Kurt Vonnegut teaches us in Mother Night; “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Tonight I write to you not of the freedom and autonomy conferred by such acts of self-creation, nor of poetic vision as a sacred path in pursuit of Truth or of Orphic dream navigation as an art of transformative change, but of the art of making wishes itself. For wishes are a form of what Foucault called truth telling, though he wrote in the context of the witness of history and the primary duties of a citizen to question authority, expose authority, mock authority, and challenge authority. In wishes we speak the truth of ourselves, and shape our lives into an unfolding of our intentions as we have named and so created them, naming, defining, and claiming ourselves as Adam named the beasts. Wishes are a performance of our best selves, and of the truths we have chosen to become and embody; truths written in our flesh.
Herein the key and most precious and unique human act is to perform and make your dreams real.
We must never allow truths to be silenced, nor our souls stolen by those who would enslave us. True faith is living your truth; this sometimes means resistance to falsification and authorized identities as seizures of power and revolutionary struggle, but it always means living authentically and on your own terms, for only you can discover your own best self, and in this you are the only authority and the sole arbiter of choices and decisions, and of human being, meaning, and value.
In the arena of struggle between truth telling and the complicity of silence, I wish for us all Nevermore a Silent Night, for silence is complicity.
To silence in the face of evil there can be but one reply: Never Again.
As I wrote in my post of January 16 2021, Silence Is Complicity: No One Gets to Sit This One Out; A post in which I quote Adam Parkhomenko elicited an interesting reaction from someone, one which makes me question how the rhetoric of fascist and racist privilege creates complicity; the quote is in reference to the massive responsibility avoidance and denial on the part of the Republican lawmakers who refuse to join the call impeach our Clown of Terror, Traitor Trump, and his rabble of murderous barbarians.
Here is the quotation; “I have a very simple message for Republicans calling for unity without accountability: the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.”
This was the reaction; first, repetition of the very call for unity without accountability, which I would characterize as granting permission through failure to consequent behaviors, which the quote calls out; “These words are just creating more divisions!”
Second, an attempt at silencing dissent; “Please Stop!”
Third, an attempt at blame shifting; “Whenever one person thinks they are right and everyone else is wrong you are the problem!”
And Fourth, the very worst of the apologetics of historical fascism, a claim of moral equivalence; “Everyone just needs to stop all of these posts because there are good people on both sides!”
And this last I cannot let pass, for on the last occasion of its general use this propagandistic lie and rhetorical device led directly to the Holocaust and the global devastation of total war.
I am unclear which good people she could be referring to; the ones who were going to capture and hang or guillotine members of Congress, the ones who murdered a police officer and attempted to bomb both the Democratic and Republican offices, the white supremacist terrorists who have rallied to the cause of treason and armed sedition, or the mad tyrant who commanded them?
To this I replied; You are wrong. Treason, terror, and the murder of police officers has no excuse. You are either with us as American patriots or against us; no one gets to sit this one out and be counted among the honorable, the moral, and the loyal.
Silence is complicity.
Such is the Talmudic principle, “Shtika Kehoda”, famously paraphrased by Einstein in his 1954 speech to the Chicago Decalogue Society as “If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity”, and referenced by Eli Weisel as “the opposite of love is not only hate, it is also indifference.”
Martin Luther King said it this way in Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story; “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
John Stuart Mill expressed a related idea in his 1867 Inaugural Address to the University of St. Andrews; “Let not anyone pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”
Leonardo da Vinci formulated it as resistance to tyranny, with which he was very familiar in the wars of dominion between the princes of Renaissance Italy; “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”
Silence is complicity.
Should this concept require further clarification, please refer to the following recording and transcript of Elie Wiesel’s Millennium Lecture at the White House, on April 12 1999, hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton:
Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends: Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe’s beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald. He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again.
Liberated a day earlier by American soldiers, he remembers their rage at what they saw. And even if he lives to be a very old man, he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also for their compassion. Though he did not understand their language, their eyes told him what he needed to know — that they, too, would remember, and bear witness.
And now, I stand before you, Mr. President — Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others — and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to the American people.
Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being. And I am grateful to you, Hillary — or Mrs. Clinton — for what you said, and for what you are doing for children in the world, for the homeless, for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society. And I thank all of you for being here.
We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations — Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin — bloodbaths in Cambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence, so much indifference.
What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means “no difference.” A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.
What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one’s sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?
Of course, indifference can be tempting — more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.
Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the “Muselmanner,” as they were called. Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were, strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.
Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger. Man can live far from God — not outside God. God is wherever we are. Even in suffering? Even in suffering.
In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.
Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor — never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees — not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.
Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century’s wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.
In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps — and I’m glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, that period, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance — but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.
And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler’s armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies.
If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. They would have bombed the railways leading to Birkenau, just the railways, just once.
And now we knew, we learned, we discovered that the Pentagon knew, the State Department knew. And the illustrious occupant of the White House then, who was a great leader — and I say it with some anguish and pain, because, today is exactly 54 years marking his death — Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April the 12th, 1945, so he is very much present to me and to us.
No doubt, he was a great leader. He mobilized the American people and the world, going into battle, bringing hundreds and thousands of valiant and brave soldiers in America to fight fascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler. And so many of the young people fell in battle. And, nevertheless, his image in Jewish history — I must say it — his image in Jewish history is flawed.
The depressing tale of the St. Louis is a case in point. Sixty years ago, its human cargo — maybe 1,000 Jews — was turned back to Nazi Germany. And that happened after the Kristallnacht, after the first state sponsored pogrom, with hundreds of Jewish shops destroyed, synagogues burned, thousands of people put in concentration camps. And that ship, which was already on the shores of the United States, was sent back.
I don’t understand. Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who needed help. Why didn’t he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people — in America, a great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don’t understand. Why the indifference, on the highest level, to the suffering of the victims?
But then, there were human beings who were sensitive to our tragedy. Those non-Jews, those Christians, that we called the “Righteous Gentiles,” whose selfless acts of heroism saved the honor of their faith. Why were they so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war?
Why did some of America’s largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler’s Germany until 1942? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not have conducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from American sources. How is one to explain their indifference?
And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in Ireland. And let us remember the meeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and Arafat that you, Mr. President, convened in this very place. I was here and I will never forget it.
And then, of course, the joint decision of the United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo and save those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man whom I believe that because of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. But this time, the world was not silent. This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene.
Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far? Is today’s justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents be allowed anywhere in the world? Will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same?
What about the children? Oh, we see them on television, we read about them in the papers, and we do so with a broken heart. Their fate is always the most tragic, inevitably. When adults wage war, children perish. We see their faces, their eyes. Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony? Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine. Some of them — so many of them — could be saved.
And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathian Mountains. He has accompanied the old man I have become throughout these years of quest and struggle. And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.
For the edification of the children in this time of reckoning and rewards, I have written a book of values and principles of action to guide us through life. Each sentence belongs on its own page, though you and your children will have to draw the illustrations.
Children, this is the time of year you will be asked, Are you naughty or nice?
Is it better to be naughty, or to be nice?
Better for who?
Don’t be nice, seize power.
Nice means obedient, like a good dog.
Never let anyone make you their dog.
Refuse to sit up and beg, roll over and show your belly, perform tricks or do anything that grants anyone power over you.
Refuse to be bribed or bullied into submission to authority.
Refuse to submit.
Even if you are taken down a thousand times, locked away, denied things offered to others, given fearful lectures and not chosen for anyone’s team in games to play, you can still be victorious in defiance and resistance.
Find the other outcasts and build a team for games of liberation struggle, by rules of your own, because we are stronger together.
Who is Santa Claus, where did he come from, and how did he become a universal figure in our culture associated with Christmas?
A priest recently became infamous for telling children that Santa was a marketing character for Coca-Cola while performing the role of listening to wishes, a partial historical truth but one which misses the point; the poetic truth is that Santa embodies wishes as vision and as hope.
He is also far more ancient and subsumes a number of important functions, the origins of the figure of Santa Claus being in rituals of ecstatic trance and vision, underworld journey, and the dispersal of Sami tribal ritual and symbolism.
What this short film, focused on the use of amanita mushrooms, well documented as the pan-European witch’s flying potion, neglects to mention is that Finnish scout-snipers were employed by Gustave Adolph of Sweden, leader of the Protestants in the Thirty Years War, against the Catholic Holy Roman Empire; and roamed throughout Europe in the first half of the 1600’s, spreading their customs, including Santa, as heroes of the Reformation.
A wise elder in red and white as a figure of the magic mushroom, in a sled drawn by reindeer, bringing gifts of healing and welcomed with feasts, flying.
Santa and the Lord of Misrule who presided over the harvest and midwinter festival of Saturnalia which the Church had appropriated as Christmas are negative spaces of each other, Janus like figures which mirror and were conflated with one another; Santa the bringer of gifts, feasts, and reconnection with the mysteries of the spirit and dream world, and Saturn’s proxy ruler who represents transgression and suspension of laws and limits of the Forbidden and reversals of order and authority, but also an amok time of madness and the dangers of an authoritarian tyranny of whims.
The Underworld Journey and dream quest element of Santa’s myth, primarily an Orphic ritual of poetic vision and ecstatic trance, are universal in human cultures, and find a parallel in the Greco- Egyptian faith of Asclepius, found throughout the Roman Empire, in which patients entered guided healing states in dream incubation chambers. The historical leader of the Roman community in England after the fall of Imperial dominion, Ambrosius Aurelianus, on whom the literary figure of Merlin was based was a priest of Asclepius. This faith from the dawn of our civilization of the Serpent of Wisdom and Healing, rooted in oracles and dreams, has modern parallels in the dream navigation and interpretation arts of the Kagyu Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhists, the Naqshbandi Sufis, Jungian psychology, and Surrealism.
This suggests possibilities for reclaiming Christmas as a traditional festival of family and community healing, and a universal celebration of the revisioning of oneself and humankind.
In this time of reimagination and transformation, we dream new selves and new futures; we destroy and recreate our universes and realities, and free ourselves and each other to explore unknowns. Such times of change offer us new identities as liberation struggle, and emergence from the legacies of our histories.
Enacting the role of the Lord of Misrule, let us question, expose, mock, and challenge authority; let us transgress the boundaries of the Forbidden, defy our limits and those who would enslave us to their laws and ideas of virtue, and perform the violation of normalities and seizures of power. Let us run amok and be ungovernable.
Enacting the role of Santa Claus, let us be beneficent dispensers of mercy and compassion, healers of historic and systemic injustices, and champions of the powerless and the dispossessed, the silenced and the erased. Let us dream new dreams, and find the courage to make them real.
Let us embrace our darkness and discover new possibilities of becoming human.
Let us be bringers of chaos, joy, transformation, and revolution.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night; of wonders, raptures, and glorious transformative vision.
As we enter the Christmas season on this Midwinter Solstice, the day of most profound and deepest darkness, a time much of America will be consumed by orgiastic buying as displays of elite class membership and obligatory feasts often with people we don’t actually like or deeply know, adrift in a universe without imposed values living lives of random chaotic episodes of being which form no grand design, ephemeral and illusory, subjected to totalizing passions and caught in vast invisible systems of falsification, commodification, and dehumanization enslaved to authority and elite hegemonies of wealth, power, and privilege like Charlie Chaplin eaten by the gears of the machine he serves in The Factory, let us confront the meaninglessness of life and the terror of our nothingness not with abjection, despair, and helplessness but with the joy of total freedom.
When there are no rules, there are no impossibilities.
Merry Christmas, and don’t forget to run amok and be ungovernable.
As written by Wendy Syfret, author of The Sunny Nihilist: : How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy, in Aeon; “Exhausted by the modern pressure to squeeze meaning out of every moment? Here’s a radical way to reset your priorities.
In theory, the pursuit of a meaningful life is noble. Foundational concepts of community, ethics, logic, morality, consciousness and equality were born from the investigation of meaning. From Aristotle and Plato to the entire oeuvre of John Hughes, the urge to wrestle with the point of it all has inspired great works of art, literature and film. But today something’s gone awry and the pursuit of meaning inspires more angst than awe. The search has moved from a private pursuit to a marketable product.
The rise of meaningless meaning
Let me demonstrate with a game, ‘spot the meaningless meaning’. Next time you’re at the supermarket, pharmacy or really any non-enlightened space of commerce, pay attention to what the products are attempting to offer. One might expect a barrage of quality and utility assurances: ‘these chickpeas are low sodium’, ‘this facemask is non-irritating’. But, increasingly, aspirations are higher. A chocolate bar isn’t skim (skimmed) milk powder and sugar, it’s a chance to create an intergenerational family moment. A lipstick isn’t a bullet of colour to light up a drawn face, but a weapon of radical self-expression.
Rather than informing a population of philosophically fulfilled, elevated beings, the ubiquity of all this bite-sized meaning has had an adverse effect, fuelling our familiar, modern malaise of dissatisfaction, disconnection and burnout.
The fixation with making all areas of existence generically meaningful has created exhausting realities where everything suddenly really, really matters. Daily newsletters flood our inboxes, prescribing never-ending tasks and goals to meditate over and mark as complete. In the shower, we listen to podcasts about making this day count, then towel off and cram in a few minutes of mindful journalling about what we managed to meaningfully achieve the day before.
But as meaning moves from a long-term exploration to a daily metric, it’s creating new problems. When we’re not immediately able to locate meaning in our actions, jobs, relationships and consumer products, we’re left feeling like anxious, empty failures. The once-noble pursuit that built culture and helped us carve out rewarding existences becomes just another task on the endless checklist of a ‘good life’ that we’re never quite able to tick off.
Nihilism as a solution
So what’s the alternative? Is the answer to embrace a state of pointless, nihilistic chaos? Yeah, pretty much. At least that’s what’s worked for me.
For the past few years, I’ve been consumed by nihilism. Reading that, it would be fair to assume things haven’t been peachy. But my descent into the controversial philosophy hasn’t been a grim road of despair and hopelessness. Quite the opposite. It’s become one of the most illuminating and fortifying parts of my life.
Rejecting the urge to seek and denote meaning to all things has changed the way I assign value and spend time. It has challenged what I focus on and, most importantly, what I disregard. I’ve found that a kind of optimistic or ‘sunny’ nihilism highlights the delicate beauty of existence, the absurdity of life, and the exciting chaos of the everyday. But I’m getting ahead of myself. To understand the power of sunny nihilism, it’s necessary to begin with the philosophy itself.
The broadest explanation of nihilism argues that life is meaningless and the systems to which we subscribe to give us a sense of purpose – such as religion, politics, traditional family structures or even the notion of absolute truth itself – are fantastical human constructs; inventions to make the randomness of existence feel a little more orderly. Or, as nihilism’s poster boy Friedrich Nietzsche put it: ‘Every belief, every considering something true, is necessarily false because there is simply no true world.’
Breaking it down further, the American philosopher Donald Crosby divides nihilism into four main forms: moral, epistemological, cosmic and, perhaps the best-known, existential. Moral nihilism rejects fundamental ideas of right and wrong; epistemological nihilism takes issue with absolute truth; cosmic nihilism considers nature to be inherently indifferent and hostile; and finally we reach existential nihilism, in many ways the culmination of all these considerations, which probably keeps most people up at night – the basic idea being that there is no meaning to life, everything is pointless.
Reading all that, it’s fair to argue that nihilism is kind of a bummer. These ideas do pose the risk of curdling into a kind of toxic nihilism that leaves the individual feeling despondent and overwhelmed. What’s the point of doing anything if nothing matters? If there is no inherent understanding of good and bad, why try to lead a moral life? If everything is pointless, why even get out of bed?
The cleansing power of sunny nihilism
While I’ll admit that the message that nothing matters – not your job, god, universe, certainly not what type of canned goods you buy – is an overwhelming thought, it doesn’t have to be. Set against this never-ending obsession with locating (or, too often, purchasing) meaning, it can be liberating.
When I contemplate life’s pointlessness, I begin by remembering that, in the scope of all human history, I really matter very little (a rather cosmic approach). My issues and concerns are mute. My successes and failures will all be forgotten. As will the achievements and stumbles of everyone around me (existential nihilism at its finest).
While I may feel dwarfed by the scope of endless and apathetic time, the smallest elements of my life begin to expand. If nothing matters long-term, my focus shifts to this moment. I understand that the present, however mundane, is as fleeting, temporal, fragile and forgettable as the greatest events in human history.
Nihilism makes me wonder about what I do and don’t pay attention to. Is what another person thinks of me imbued with greater meaning (or meaninglessness) as compared with a brush of jasmine tumbling over a neighbour’s fence? Not really. So why am I consumed by one while ignoring the other?
By his own description, Nietzsche ‘philosophise[d] with a hammer’, breaking open large ideas and challenging his readers to see what could be reformed with the pieces. In this way nihilism, like all philosophies, is a tool to explore parts of our lives. As with any tool, it can be picked up and put down, used to create or destroy; outcomes and executions are dependent on the user’s intent. It is up to you to decide if you will fall into the destructive grooves of toxic nihilism, or opt for something a little lighter. You may not have a purpose, but you do have agency. It’s this reading of nihilism that I think about when considering a life without meaning.
But how does one go about picking up such a tool and using it in a positive way? This Guide will help you embrace sunny nihilism and avoid its toxic alternative.
Think it through
Understand the difference between passive and active forms of nihilism
The challenges posed by nihilism weren’t lost on Nietzsche, who had an elegant way of explaining how the philosophy can serve as a destructive or constructive force. According to him, passive nihilists absorb the messages of meaninglessness and are threatened. They fear the void so scramble to fill it by indulging in any offering of it. As Nolen Gertz wrote in Aeon in 2020, this form of blind self-protection is a ‘dangerous form of self-destruction’.
He added: ‘To believe just for the sake of believing in something can lead to a superficial existence, to the complacent acceptance of believing anything believed by others, because believing in something (even if it turns out to be nothing worth believing in) will be seen by the passive nihilist as preferable to taking the risk of not believing in anything …’
Which is how we end up back in the trap of meaningless meaning. Or standing in the supermarket aisle, trying to convince ourselves that a can of chickpeas really does matter.
As a more constructive alternative, Nietzsche ushered individuals to evolve into active nihilists. That is, to stare into the abyss and see the absence of meaning not as a tragedy but as an opportunity. To consider it a space to fill with your own values, to define how you want to be in the world and what you believe to be true. An active nihilist isn’t intimidated by chaos, they recognise it as a chance to create something new and better.
In my own journey toward sunny nihilism, I landed somewhere in the middle. I wasn’t horrified by a lack of absolute truth, but I also didn’t rush to write my own. Rather, I chose to pause, stare into the void, and consider the freedom of nothingness.
Stay alert to meaningless meaning
Whereas nihilism can prompt reflection and widen your view on existence, the commercial hijacking of meaning plays into the vulnerabilities of the passive nihilist, contributing to our era’s epidemic of self-obsessed selfishness. It not only encourages you to centre every action around yourself, but it deceptively presents this as a noble act. When you embrace this kind of personal mythmaking, you give yourself permission to spend a lot of time thinking about your own life, actions and experiences.
Speaking to Politico magazine in 2020, Virginia Heffernan, the author of Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art (2016), said: ‘the recent fantasy of “optimising” a life – for peak performance, productivity, efficiency – has created a cottage industry that tries to make the dreariest possible lives sound heroic.’
To help you avoid this decadent trap, it is worth being vigilant of, and guarding against, the ways the world is trying to convince you that you’re partaking in a sacred act – by positioning every brand, product or service as somehow meaningful.
Are those period undies really a symbol of rebellion, or just a convenient sanitary product? Does the bottle of hot sauce in my fridge truly mark me as an iconoclastic thrill-seeker, or just indicate a robust gut flora? Is my bank really helping me invest in family values and community, or do I just appreciate the low fees if I deposit a set amount each month?
While writing this article, I was conveniently served an advert for ‘Florence by Mills’, the new teen skincare range from the actress Millie Bobby Brown (I appreciate the algorithm recognising my youthful spirit). The entire range is clad in the familiar pastel colours and toothless message of ‘empowering young people through something something’ of so many personal care products. But the ‘Feed Your Soul Love U a Latte’ mask stood out in particular. Turns out it’s never too young to preach that enlightenment can be achieved in a 15-minute topical treatment.
I hope that the young people browsing these products are resilient enough to not fall into such narratives; that they’re able to pause to ask what these cheap exchanges are calling on them to invest emotionally or financially. Will this purchase make them happy, or is it an example of what Heffernan cautioned against when she said we were out to make ‘the dreariest possible lives sound heroic’?
Recognise the happy side of nihilism
When promoting nihilism as the antidote to the commercialisation of meaning, I tend to meet the same repeated questions: if there’s no point, then why do anything? Why get out of bed? Wash your hair? Treat another person with kindness? Not fall into a quivering heap?
I’m reminded of an episode of the Netflix sitcom The Good Place (2016-20). Chidi – a character who happens to be a moral philosopher – has the kind of existential crisis that inspires these queries. During his breakdown, he walks a classroom of philosophy students down the major paths where humanity has attempted to locate meaning and understand how to live an ‘ethical life’. After cycling through the arguments of virtue ethics, consequentialism and deontology, he finally declares that all these pathways to meaning lead nowhere (it’s worth watching the show to hear Chidi explain why) before concluding that nihilism is the only logical philosophical view – at which point he has a full meltdown.
While I love Chidi, I find the scene frustrating for how narrowly it presents this cause and effect. Such a response has always puzzled me. After all, did you get out of bed this morning to search for the meaning of life or for a cup of coffee? Again, are such grand questions really bringing such grand comforts?
In contrast to Chidi, another pop-culture figure shows how nihilism can inspire greater happiness. In the film The Beach Bum (2019), Matthew McConaughey plays Moondog, an epicurean, once-iconic, Florida-based writer. His is a woozy and colourful tale of excess and hedonism that involves a lot of drinking, drugs, avoided responsibility, and sex. All of which are indulged in with few consequences.
Watching The Beach Bum, you feel you’ve seen this movie before, you know to wait for the fall, when Moondog will collapse under the weight of his shirked responsibilities and the system will catch up to him. Except the fall never comes. After seeing it at South by Southwest film festival, the critic Hazem Fahmy wrote: ‘Rather than simply not address these issues, the film goes out of its way to remind us that nothing in this strange dimension truly matters.’
Moondog doesn’t care about anything, he lives for pleasure. Towards the end of the film, he outlines his life’s mantra to a reporter: ‘We’re here to have a good time.’ For all this destruction, and clear disregard for rules, values and consequences, Moondog isn’t punished. By the end of the film, he has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize and several million dollars. Although, true to form, he shows they’re meaningless too (I won’t spoil the finale).
Moondog’s embrace of nihilism demonstrates that, when you stop focusing on a greater point, you’re able to ask simpler but more rewarding questions: what does happiness look like right now? What would give me pleasure today? How can I achieve a sense of satisfaction in this moment? Most of the time, the answers aren’t complex. They’re small delights already at hand – time spent with loved ones, a delicious meal, a walk in nature, a cup of coffee. Or, in Moondog’s case, a lot of booze and parties.
Nihilism doesn’t have to spiral into selfishness
Moondog’s experience sounds great to me, but it leads to a second concern surrounding nihilism. It might not make you miserable, but what about everyone who has to hang out with you? If nothing matters, you’re not part of some larger plan and you’re not held accountable by any rulebook. Motivated only by what feels good in the moment, what’s stopping you acting only for your own interests?
Nietzsche was mindful of these pain points, writing in Beyond Good and Evil (1886): ‘He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’
Nihilism asks us to toss out meaning and gaze into the void that’s left in its place. But rather than being a simple, terrifying black hole, a void can prompt reflection. It’s a space to be filled with whatever you want. In that way, nihilism can serve as a funhouse mirror, reflecting and distorting your own beliefs. Approach it with pain and fear, and those feelings will be magnified. Go to it looking for a way to excuse gross behaviour, and you’ll find it.
Stare into the abyss
Give it a go yourself. Take a moment to truly submit to your own smallness in the Universe. To admit you are meaningless. That you don’t matter. That your name, ego, reputation, family, friends and loves will soon be gone.
This needn’t be a destructive experience. Once the discomfort passes, and your ego abates, stop to consider – how has your understanding of your own time and energy changed? Is your job really so important when coupled with the knowledge that even the greatest achievements in human history will eventually be lost to time? Are the issues, people or situations that cause you stress or pain actually worth the worry when you remember that no one will ever remember or really be impacted by them?
The only real impact these earthly concerns have is on what they take you away from: things that may not ‘matter’, but at least bring you joy.
Focusing on the scale of your own life, and how insignificant it is, also allows you to ask: OK, if I don’t matter, and neither do the issues that take up so much of my time, how does the world show itself differently? If I’m no longer the centre of my own universe, what takes that space?
You might start wondering what you want to last after you’ve gone, and what needs to be protected and treasured.
I considered these points recently while witnessing a widely affecting mass collision with nihilism – the delivery of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. The shots showed an inconceivable array of distant galaxies that existed billions of years in the past. It was an overwhelming view that crashed into any understanding we have of time, scale and distance – not to mention the potential for life and realities beyond our own. Responding to it, it felt like the whole world had a mass awakening to individual inconsequentialism.
But the reaction wasn’t mass depression or hopelessness. It was awe. People wondered over the beauty and scale of worlds they could never truly comprehend. They saw how their own lives barely register on a cosmic level, that our own galaxy wasn’t even a blip. This sense of our own meaninglessness was humbling. It didn’t break people’s hearts but excited them, reminded them of the inconceivable beauty and majesty of existence. People felt thankful for being a dot in an endless sky, to be part of this cosmic tapestry, even if just for a meaningless moment.
It takes guts, but you too might find that the abyss reframes your attention to things you hope will last for a little longer than yourself. Art, community, the people you love, their right to feel safe, respected and well. If you’re looking for somewhere to redirect all this formerly self-involved energy, start there. In place of existential angst, psychological annihilation or selfish abandon, you can find relief in larger causes.
Try a light meditation on death
When I’m overwhelmed, remembering that one day I won’t exist makes whatever’s stressing me appear small. Accepting this finality transforms the bland environs I’m ignoring into an overwhelming buffet of smells, sights and experiences that suddenly feel impossibly rare.
This ‘mindfulness of death’ is central to the work of the artificial intelligence scientist and Buddhist teacher Nikki Mirghafori. To access this feeling, she counsels trying a form of ‘death meditation’ to help confront your fear of death, and experience the strange wonder that can come from that.
To try it, she instructs meditating with the mantra ‘this could be my last breath’. The theory is that by doing so, you work through the terror a little at a time, observing what comes to the surface during the practice and confronting each fear until you eventually reach a place of peace.
Mirghafori posits that, by accepting your own mortality and facing life’s impermanence, you can align the way you live with your truest values. It’s many people’s lack of interest in contemplating death – and as such, how precious and fleeting our lives are – that allows so many to waste their time.
I can report that this is a terrifying exercise. It’s like rehearsing your final moments, inviting your mind to flood with fear, regret, longing, loss, love and gratitude. When you imagine each breath to be your last, each breath becomes a gift on arrival. Even after you’re done, it’s impossible to not enter the rest of your day with a degree of elation at being alive.
Doing it, I’m reminded of what Epicurus once said: ‘Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.’ Epicurus didn’t believe in life after death, as either a punishment or a reward. He taught that life and all it could offer was happening to us right now.
Just as nihilism has become associated with narrow-minded destruction, Epicurus is often synonymous with hedonism and a ceaseless pursuit of selfish pleasures. But in reality, he was certain this kind of living would usher people away from materialism and greed. His ‘pleasure principle’ championed being and doing good, arguing that, with one precious life to enjoy, not a moment should be wasted in guilt or anxiety over pain caused to others. The only way to feel truly good was to treat people well.
Remember pointless pleasures
I’d like to end by lightening things up a little. One way to refocus on the pointless pleasure that actually forms the bedrock of our lives is to start a ‘nice things’ list. Across the day, make an effort to jot down moments, people and events that make you happy.
I’ve been doing this for years. Reviewing my own rambling lists, I’m always surprised by the simplicity of the entries: the smell of fresh basil, an excellent joke, two dogs meeting in the street. Alone they are innocuous (and usually overlooked), but together they flavour my days with endless sweetness. Learning to pay attention to them returns me to what actually provides solace in my day, training me to not overlook the now for the promise of the one day.
So often in the pursuit of greater meaning we erase not only the joy of these forgotten delights, but also their collective power. Yes, a flock of galahs on my nature strip, or crying to a Paul Kelly song, or the spasmodic energy of Junior Bake Off (my most recent entries) are not life-altering – but, taking time to notice and appreciate them, they form the sum of their parts. A handful of treasured beats becomes a good day, a good week, a good year, a good life. Meaningless, sure. Precious, absolutely.
Key points – How to be a happy nihilist
The rise of meaningless meaning. The search for meaning used to be a noble pursuit, but it’s become commercialised and now inspires more angst than awe.
Nihilism as a solution. This is the philosophy that says life is meaningless. Handled with care, it can be liberating.
The cleansing power of sunny nihilism. This is a kind of optimistic nihilism that highlights the delicate beauty of existence, the absurdity of life, and the exciting chaos of the everyday.
Understand the difference between passive and active forms of nihilism.
Passive nihilists scramble to fill the void with anything to hand; active nihilists are undaunted, and fill the space with their own values.
Stay alert to meaningless meaning. To avoid passive or toxic nihilism, it pays to be vigilant of, and guard against, the ways the world is trying to convince you that you’re partaking in a sacred act.
Recognise the happy side of nihilism. When you stop focusing on a greater point, you’ll find you can ask simpler but more rewarding questions, such as: what does happiness look like right now?
Nihilism doesn’t have to spiral into selfishness. When you stare into the abyss, it reframes your attention to things you hope will last for a little longer than yourself.
Try a light meditation on death. I can report that this is a terrifying exercise. But when you imagine each breath to be your last, each breath becomes a gift on arrival.
Remember pointless pleasures. From the smell of fresh basil to an excellent joke, start a ‘nice things’ list. Meaningless, sure. Precious, absolutely.
Why it matters
The young philosophers embracing nihilism
For uplifting and earnest examples of nihilism’s application, check out the way younger philosophers are exploring it. Two TEDx talks by teenagers stand out in particular. In 2018, Elias Skjoldborg, a student at Harwood Union High School in Vermont, used the platform to introduce his take on ‘optimistic nihilism’. In short, he argues that if life is meaningless – and we are not pinned to some greater existential task or goal – then we may as well focus on finding happiness during this brief, meaningless flash of consciousness we call existence.
When he says ‘if you died right now, it wouldn’t really make a difference in the big picture. Had you never been born, nobody would really care,’ he presents it as good news. He adds: ‘That life has no meaning is not a reason … to be sad.’ Rather, he explains, if our lives are needless, then the only directive we have is to figure out how to find happiness in our momentary blip of consciousness. Skjoldborg suggested that his audience get hobbies, help others, solve problems rather than creating them, and just try their best.
Skjoldborg is not alone in his observations. In his talk a year earlier, Siddharth Gupta, a student at Kodaikanal International School in India, also opened up about how nihilism has helped him. Giving his talk the title ‘Confessions of an Existential Nihilist’, he explained how his belief that life was worthless had given him the ‘opportunity to find meaning in all that I do’.
Meanwhile, over on YouTube, Khadija Mbowe, a Gambian Canadian vlogger on sociology and media, recently looked at nihilism and absurdism in a video asking if life still had value if it was a meaningless random occurrence within an uncaring universe. Clad in a bright orange graphic T-shirt with matching statement makeup, Mbowe looked like any other luminous member of Gen Z, asking: ‘What does our life, our existence, mean when we don’t believe we’re put here for a reason?’ as easily as if they were reacting to a viral mukbang video. Drawing on references from as broad a field as James Baldwin and RuPaul’s Drag Race, Mbowe asks big questions that don’t lead to dense, depressing answers. Instead, this vlogger’s takes are thoughtful, exploratory and ultimately hopeful.
Each generation has a tendency to make the case for why their set of circumstances is especially dire. But for young people coming of age during rolling crises of pandemics, climate catastrophes and quaking world economies, they might have a strong case for being particularly hard done by. Yet basking in the aforementioned reflections of these fresh-faced philosophers, one feels a little lightened, not only by their constructive interpretation of nihilism, but also by the resilience it appears to offer them.
Links & books
In my book The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy (2021), I explore not only the modern tendency to overinvest in meaning, but also the darker consequences of such a relationship. In particular, how it intersects with our notions of work, love, family, capitalism and politics. I also explore how people can detangle themselves, and how gratifying it is to do so.
The literary darlings Ottessa Moshfegh, Melissa Broder and Lisa Taddeo all frequently return to themes of millennial nihilism in their work. Meanwhile, the writers Jia Tolentino, Susan Sontag and Jenny Odell are looking more broadly at our interest in meaning, worth and community in a way that intersects with these ideas. Their deep folios of writing are edifying reading – I suggest starting with Tolentino’s Trick Mirror (2019) and Odell’s How to Do Nothing (2019), both books are as digestible as they are illuminating (and have personally been reliable elevated small-talk fodder for the past few years).
I already mentioned the TV show The Good Place (do check it out if you haven’t already), but nihilism is present in many of our other favourite entertainment offerings, such as BoJack Horseman (2014-20), a cartoon that follows a clutch of humans and anthropomorphic animals as they navigate Hollywood, fame, and their own cycles of ambition and destruction. One nihilistic moment involved Mr Peanutbutter, a lovable and dim-witted Labrador who is a successful TV actor, consoling his then-wife by tenderly reminding her: ‘The Universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn’t the search for meaning. It’s to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense and, eventually, you’ll be dead.’ I promise it’s funnier than it sounds.
Nihilism has found its way to other screens too. The films Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) and Palm Springs (2020) both show how fun and bombastic these ideas can be. Although my personal favourite surprise nihilistic resource might just be SpongeBob SquarePants (1999-). If a chatty sponge can’t convince you of the chaotic charm of existence, I’m not sure what can.”
At moments of doubt such as this I read again Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Henley’s Invictus, I.F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates; myths, stories, poetry, and history of the grandeur of resistance which confers freedom.
On this day before winter solstice, darkest of all our days, and with the light possibly democracy itself begins to die from lack of faith as Tinkerbell warns us with the ritual command to clap our hands lest the faeries die, as the idea of our universal human rights dies in the ruins of Gaza, as Russia’s atrocities in the Third World War engulf the world and China tests our will and threatens to unleash the conquest of the Pacific Rim, as we face dystopian futures of global nuclear war and the fall of civilization, as the survival or extinction of our species hangs in the balance under threats of war, pandemic, and ecological catastrophe, as the Pentagon on this day only two years ago issued rebukes without accountability as tacit authorization to the fascist infiltrated and subverted military units on the brink of mutiny and civil war in service to Trump and the Fourth Reich, it is good to remember who we are, who we have chosen to be, and who we wish to become.
Now is the time to rage against the dying of the light.
When those who would enslave us come for any one of us, let them find an America and a humankind not subjugated with learned helplessness or divided by exclusionary otherness and fascisms of blood, faith, and soil, but united in solidarity and resistance.
And in refusal to submit we become Unconquered and free.
Owning our stories as the songs of ourselves is a primary human act in which we become autonomous and self-created beings; this is the first revolution in which we all must fight, the seizure of power over the ownership of ourselves.
Always there remains the struggle between the masks that others make for us, and those we make for ourselves.
We all have one problem in common as we grow up; each of us must reinvent how to be human.
The first question we must ask of our stories is this; whose story is this?
If we imagine the processes of our construction as a vast workshop like that of Santa’s elves, I believe that the parts of our assemblage are words and the rules for using them to create meaning as grammar.
As a high school student I discovered Ludwig Wittgenstein and his disciple James Joyce, and claimed their project of re-invention of the human as my own. Where Wittgenstein provided us with a tool kit for constructing meaning in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Joyce attempted to use it to create a universal human language in his great novel Finnegans Wake, a work which he began in 1922 with the German publication of the TLP and which occupied the rest of his life, as a response like that of Yeats in The Second Coming and of T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland to the collapse of civilization in three successive waves of mechanical failures of civilization as systems of order from their internal contradictions, the First World War, the Easter Rising of 1916, and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
He envisioned a united humankind wherein war is no longer possible, a world without emperors and kings or the carceral states and colonialist empires they rule with their silly little flags and terrible divisions and fascisms of blood, faith, and soil.
In this cause Joyce chose language as the lever of change, for he shared a primary insight with Wittgenstein that language determines the kinds of thoughts we are able to have and is therefore our primary ground of being and identity, and its corollary that when all rules are arbitrary we must change the rules to own the game. As my father once said to me, never play someone else’s game.
Plato and his successors in western mysticism and in Romantic Idealism had already established a historical tradition which took this idea in other directions, as a religion and philosophy of the Logos to the alchemical faith of the sapientia dei which found full expression in Jung and through neoPlatonism itself to the philosophy of Iris Murdoch, and was in the process of forming Surrealism, but Joyce was a master of languages and chose this as his instrument for the reimagination and transformation of human being, meaning, and value, and for the rebirth of civilization.
And this love of languages as free creative play in which we ourselves are the artifact and product of our art is what caught my attention and created my teenage identification with Joyce. For I love languages and had grown up with three voices; English as my primary and home language, though shaped by immersion in the rhythms and phrases of the King James Bible and the Dutch language of the Reformed Church which surrounded me in the town where I was raised, Chinese as my second language from the age of nine, study which included Traditional Chinese inkbrush calligraphy and conversation with a teacher who spoke, in addition to superb English, the Wu dialect of Shanghai and the Standard Cantonese of Hong Kong, as well as Mandarin, Japanese, and other languages, having served in the Chinese military from 1920 when he joined the Whampoa Military Academy through the Second World War, and as my third language I studied French in school rather than English from seventh grade through high school. Brazilian Portuguese was my fourth language, though limited to conversational proficiency, legacy of a formative trip in the summer of my fourteenth year just before starting high school.
It was during that summer, my first solo foreign travel, to train as a fencer with a friend from the tournament circuit for the Pan American Games planned to be held there the following year, that I witnessed a crime against humanity, the massacre of street children who had swarmed a food truck, a trauma and disruptive event followed by weeks in which I helped them evade the police bounty hunters who ruled the streets as apex predators.
From the moment I saw what the guards were shooting at beyond the walls of the palace in which I was a guest, I chose my side, and I place my life in the balance with those whom Frantz Fanon called the Wretched of the Earth; the powerless and the dispossessed, the silenced and the erased.
We all seek paths of healing from trauma, and of hope and the redemptive power of love in transforming the flaws of our humanity and the brokenness of the world. I found such paths in literature as poetic vision, and in our languages and our stories as instruments with which we can operate directly on our psyche and take control of our adaptation and the evolution of human consciousness as an unfolding of intention. This I call the Narrative Theory of Identity, and for this primary insight I owe the effects of reading Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.
In Joyce I found a figure I could identify with who was also struggling to parse and bring meaning to a primary trauma which exposed the hollowness and edifice of lies and illusions of which our world is made, in his case the fall and ruin of civilization itself from the mechanical failures of its internal contradictions. I had begun my search for meaning and my Freshman year of high school by reading Anthony Burgess’ Napoleon Symphony, a novel which questioned my hero Napoleon and illuminated two of my other heroes Beethoven and Klimt, then turned to the study of language itself; S. I. Hayakawa’s Language in Thought and Action, Alfred Korzybski’s Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, and Wittgenstein’s TLP, before discovering Joyce.
James Joyce’s linguistics scholarship was immense; he took Italian as his third academic language, taught himself Dano-Norwegian as a teenager to read his adored Ibsen in the original, and his modern languages degree cites Latin, Italian, French, German, and Norwegian. He loved languages and studied them as a game, as do I; his adult fluency included Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian, Finnish, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, and Modern Greek. All of this went into his masterpiece Finnegans Wake, written in a private language filled with games and experiments of the Italo Calvino-Georges Perec variety according to the principle of Wittgenstein that because all rules are arbitrary they can be reimagined and changed at will and ourselves with them, a language densely layered with literary allusions and references, loaned and invented words, and of signs with multiple meanings like the paths of a labyrinth. You need a working knowledge of several languages to get the jokes; no wonder I loved him.
I’m not sure it’s intended to communicate anything, so coded and laden with puzzles is his new language; like the notation for the principles of a system by which to create and order the universe. He spent the rest of his life searching for the lost runes able to break and reforge the oaths and bindings of existence, to renew ourselves and our world; perhaps he found them.
Though I may claim no such realization of a guiding vision of our limitless possibilities of becoming human nor Quixotic quest to create and affirm that which is human in us as he, Joyce in Finnegan’s Wake demonstrated for me a great truth which has illuminated my understanding ever since; we are made of our ideas and of our stories, and forged with our words and our languages.
We are what Gaston Bachelard called shells of speech, coquilles au parole, bearers of stories as memory, history, and identity, shaped by the passage of time and our interdependence with each other as prochronisms or the histories expressed in our forms of how we solved problems of adaptation and change.
Are we not the stories we tell about ourselves, to ourselves and to one another?
Can we not then change and transform ourselves with our stories through reimagination and poetic vision, as new and beautiful things freed from the legacies of our histories and the limits of other people’s ideas of virtue, beauty, and truth?
Let us seize the stories of which we are made, and become glorious.
As I wrote in my post of September 25 2023, My Library of Possible Selves: A History Of My Identities Through My Languages; Among my treasures where live the voices of my cherished companions through life which rest bound in leather or cloth, gilded and illustrated and written in strange inks or simply printed on creamy paper and smelling of vanilla and old saddles, histories of our conversations across vast gulfs of time and space awaiting the moment I need them again, lies brooding a symbol of the unknowability of the Infinite and the Conservation of Ignorance, the Sefer ha-Zohar or Book of Splendor.
Heart of the Kabbalah written by Moses de Leon in Spain and first published about 1275, I discovered this single volume edition in our family library, wedged between Encyclopaedia Britannica and the University of Chicago’s Great Books of the Western World series as a teenager while reading through both in their entirety over several years, and claimed it as my own.
This was during an enthusiasm which began as a high school Freshman for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and his disciple James Joyce’s attempt to reinvent humankind through a new universal language in Finnegans Wake, and I recognized immediately that Kabbalah was a project of like intent, within the context of Tikkun Olam or Repair of the World.
Written in a secret language? And filled with bizarre and utterly ambiguous symbols and metaphors? Of course I loved it.
That it was a forgery written for profit by a charlatan and reimagined by a madman just made it better in my eyes.
But like the visions of the Infinite and the alam al mythal it contains, the Book of Splendor remained beyond my grasp, dancing in and out of my awareness like a shifting fire of darkness and light. That which fascinated, intrigued, and compelled also warded questioning and ultimately escaped me; printed as it was written not in Hebrew for which I might have found a teacher but in a coded scholar’s cryptodialect of Aramaic and Andalusi Romance, a precursor of Spanish and Portuguese which uses Arabic script, languages which remained opaque to me. And even if translated one must be thoroughly familiar with the symbolic system it references in the Talmud and Midrash before Kabbalah becomes comprehensible. This was the only thing I ever gave up on, entangled with the Moebius Loop of language like Ahab lashed to the whale by the lines of his harpoon in his mad quest to break through the mask to the Infinite; though I read Gershom Scholem’s foundational study Kabbalah when it was published during my Freshman year in 1974.
Languages allow us to think the thoughts of others, to escape the limits of our histories, authorized identities, and the flags of our skin and to create new identities which become a library of possible selves; and mine form an atlas of my travels beyond the boundaries and interfaces of my maps of becoming human into unknown realms of human being, meaning, and value, also a history and archeology of my becoming human. I have often written that a full accounting of my languages becomes ambiguous and problematic; but herein I now so attempt.
Let me stipulate at the outset of this project that I now recount successive waves of languages in which I became conversant or literate as I explored our world over a lifetime, and in no way claim to have been able to think in them all at once, but only a few at any time during my studies and travels.
Languages are a hobby of mine; I grew up with three voices, English, Chinese, and French, each a mask of identity bearing the liminal force of the circumstances in which I learned them and conferring their own persona and uniqueness.
My English is influenced by the King James Bible and the local Dutch community of my childhood hometown, whose speech was full of thee’s and thou’s. This was the culture of elite hegemonies of race and patriarchy authorized by theocracy against which I rebelled in claiming Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra as a counter-text to the Bible, a Reformed Church community aligned with the Apartheid regime of South Africa. Here as a child I witnessed a witch burning, a cross burned on the front lawn of newlyweds whose union the town referred to as a mixed marriage, he being Dutch and she a member of the minority Swiss Calvinists, and both white Protestants speaking Germannic languages; during high school my fellow students began picking up stones to throw at a teenage couple from out of town at a ball game because they were kissing without being married, a public stoning which I just barely stopped.
How did I give answer to this?
At the first assembly of the new school year the incoming class was asked to recite a poem we liked to our new peers to introduce ourselves. I figured that I was going to get into a lot of fights, and had chosen to recite Invictus as the terms of struggle. Unconquered; the only title worth having, an idea which has continued to inform, motivate, and shape me since I first discovered it in a poem by William Ernest Henley, Invictus, as a high school Freshman.
Here was my prefacing speech to my peers and to the world; “I ask nothing of anyone, nor any quarter; neither will I offer any to those who stand against me. But I will never abandon anyone who stands with me, nor will you ever stand alone.
Last summer I went to Brazil to train as a fencer for the Pan American Games, and stayed to defend abandoned street children from the bounty hunters whom the rich had set on them, and this is how we survived against police death squads with only our hands and whatever we could steal; by standing together regardless of our differences.
This is what I ask now, of all of you. I’m hoping we can be friends.
The poem I’ve chosen to recite is Invictus, which means Unconquered in Latin, by William Ernest Henley.
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. “
After a long and terrible silence, the auditorium erupted in cheers.
None who are human are beyond redemption. Sometimes all we need do to conjure the redemptive power of love is offer others entrance into our world, to reveal our pain and our fear, our loneliness and hope of love, the wounds and flaws of our humanity which open us to the pain of others.
Here I wish to make clear that my family were never part of any church whatsoever; we lived there because that was where my father got a job teaching English literature, Drama, and Forensics at the high school, where he also coached the Fencing and Debate clubs, and was my teacher in all of these. I describe my formative years growing up in Ripon California because it is helpful in understanding me to know that I grew up in a premodern world, the world the Enlightenment and its political form the American Revolution overthrew, though the Revolution remains incomplete in its realization and universalization both in America and throughout the world. This is what being an American means to me; to be a bearer of the Promethean Fire of liberation from systems of unequal power, where ever men hunger to be free.
Herein the question of home language as source identity becomes determinative; mine was English, though I inherit through my father the possessing ghosts of ancestors who were driven out of the Black Forest in 1586 at the start of decades of witch hunting hysteria. Drachensbrute, Brides of the Dragon, my ancestors were called by Martin Luther, whose fame for grand defiance of Church law eclipsed his infamy as a witch hunter and brutal torturer of women. By modern constructions of race this makes me Bavarian, though my ancestry in the patriarchal line is equally Shawnee, from the marriage of Henry Lale and Me Shekin Ta Withe or White Painted Dove during the American Revolution.
My paternal grandmother was Italian; of the Noce family whose stilt house in Bayou La Teche Louisiana was built from the ship they sailed from Genoa in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, its navigable approach guarded by ancient canon. My mother wrote a journal of a family visit with them in 1962; there was Quiller, a giant who could carry a railroad tie in each hand, all day long, the Silent Man who sat in his rocking chair for three days without saying anything, then whipped out a shotgun and fired into the swamp, and after several minutes of rocking declared; “Water moccasin,” a deadly poisonous snake. The women all wore pointy hats like cartoon witches, and I’ve never found any credible reference which might identify the ethnicity to which it belongs nor the origin of the pointed hat as a witch symbol.
Beyond this I am a direct patrilineal descendent of the ally of Scipio Africanus that Cicero wrote his treatise on friendship about, Laelius de Amicitia, in 44 B.C. We briefly ruled what is called the Gallic Empire in the mid second century A.D., what is now France, Spain, and the British Iles; my ancestors include a deified Roman general and shapechanger, origin of the Berserkers, for whom the Bear Dance is still performed in Romania.
I once described myself to the wife of a poetry professor as Roman with the words; “I am a citizen of the Roman Empire; that it has not existed for fifteen hundred years is irrelevant.” This was Anne Rice, whose poem about the revenge of the broken dolls will haunt my dreams forever, and who modeled the character of Mael in her novels on me as I was in the early 1980’s. Her idea of Those Who Must Be Kept came from a reference of mine to the classics of western civilization and the Dead White Men of our history; “We are all bearers of those who must be kept and those whom we must escape, and if we are very lucky they are not always the same.”
In the line of matrilineal descent I am a direct successor to my great grandmother, whose story I told in my post of May 9 2023, A Legacy of Freedom Shared By Us All: Jewish American Heritage Month; Because the personal and the political are interdependent, and we are made of the stories we tell about ourselves, to ourselves and to others, I offer here a story from my family history as told to me by my mother of how Jewish people saved our family, when no one else would, and without whom none of us would have ever lived.
Upon the docks of America arrived a nine year old girl, alone and without a penny to her name or a word of English. A stranger, with no one waiting to meet her, no family, no friends, nothing. My maternal great grandmother Apollonia this was, with flaming red hair like my mother’s, whose family had put her on a ship to escape from Austria as their home burned, the sole survivor of her whole town so far as we now know.
She wandered the port of Seattle asking for help, in her five languages and in descending likelihood of recognition; French, Austrian, Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, and finally, in despair and fear that the reaction would be far worse than being abandoned to starve and freeze to death lost and alone among strangers, Yiddish.
This like a magic spell summoned a crowd, by happy chance not one armed with torches and axes. So a stranger was taken in and raised by Jewish people, a family of whom I know nothing, and thus our family’s survival is owed to the entire Jewish community and people.
This happened in 1873, year of the glorious Vienna World’s Fair but also the stock market crash in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War which began a twenty year Depression in Europe and the Jewish persecutions as they were blamed for it; also conflicts between the Russian and Ottoman Empires in their borderlands.
She it was who owned her own rifles and horses by the age of sixteen when she began her career as a hunting guide, and died in the saddle at the age of 95, rifle in her hand, having shot the bear that attacked her horses and killed her. The Indians buried her like the Huns buried Attila, on her horse and with her rifle, like a warrior princess.
I was born within days of her death, and as with all ancestors I bear her onward, literally as DNA and the stories which possess us as the ghosts of other lives; incarnated truths written in our flesh.
Historical context and the fact that my ancestor in the maternal line knew Yiddish makes it possible that under Jewish law we are Jews, though my mother never claimed so and moreover was a radical atheist who raised us with no religious traditions at all. In so doing the family faith she liberated herself from was Catholicism, an artifact of her Austrian paternal line who were exiles of the 1919 fall of the Hapsburg Empire after 600 years.
My mother’s speech was permeated with Yiddish words and phrases, a legacy of my maternal great grandmother; my maternal grandfather was the source of the family German, actually Wienerisch or the Viennese dialect of Austro-Bavarian, combined with the French-influenced Schönbrunner Deutsch of the imperial court. This was the home language of my mother’s family, though grandpa knew Latin, taught himself English, and to various degrees knew other languages of the Austrian Empire including Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Croatian, the Romance language Venetian and its Triestino dialect, and could speak Russian and Polish well enough to do business in their communities here in America.
As a teenager immersed in Holocaust literature while working through the trauma of a near death experience in Brazil the summer before high school, my execution by a police death squad while rescuing abandoned street children they were bounty hunting having been prevented by the Matadors, and conversations with my mother as she wrote her study of psychosomatic muteness from the Soviet medical records and childhood therapy journal of Jerzy Kosinski which he fictionalized as The Painted Bird, I once asked her directly, Are we Jews?
To this she replied; “Everyone is a Jew. Everyone is someone’s Jew, someone’s scapegoat, someone’s Other. The great task of becoming human is to overcome our fear of otherness, while embracing our uniqueness.”
My Second Voice from the age of nine was Traditional Chinese; inkbrush calligraphy, the Standard Cantonese of Hong Kong, and the Wu Dialect of Shanghai. During my decade of formal study of Taoism and Zen Buddhism, Chinese and Japanese martial arts, and the game of Go I studied in both Chinese and Japanese.
This was through Sifu Dragon, who also spoke a very British English full of Anglo-Indian words and phrases which shaped my English through our conversations; my great teacher of martial and other arts he was, with whom my father arranged for me to study after I had retaliated against my fifth grade class for putting gum on my chair by poisoning everyone, only by chance without causing any harm to anyone beyond a brief nausea. Horrified that I might have become a nine year old mass murderer when my fellow students began throwing up, I told my father about it that night, to which he said; “You have discovered politics. Politics is the art of fear, and fear and power are the true basis and means of human exchange. Fear precedes power. Fear is a terrible master and an untrustworthy servant. So, whose instrument will it be? What you need is a way to use fear and power that restores balance instead of imposing dominion, and when confronted by enemies you must demonstrate you do not fear them in order to take their power.”
My Third Voice from the seventh grade is French, a legacy of having been sent to six years of French classes at the high school because I was beyond grade level in English, which I enthusiastically embraced along with Surrealist film and literature.
Japanese I count as my fourth language as it developed over the years, becoming a greater passion at university when I was obsessed with Japanese poetry to the extent that I walked some of the Basho Road to see where he had written his masterpieces, and I claimed Zen as my religion on official forms through my twenties.
I learned some conversational Brazilian Portuguese from the summer before I began high school, Sao Paulo being the scene of my first Last Stand during the weeks of my campaign to rescue abandoned street children from the police bounty hunters and the trauma of my near-execution, in which I find echo and kinship with that of Maurice Blanchot by the Gestapo in 1944 as written in he Moment of My Death and Fyodor Dostoevsky by the Czarist secret police in 1849 as described in The Idiot, from which I was saved by the Matadors, who welcomed me into their fearsome brotherhood with the words; “You are one of us; come with us. We can’t save everyone, but we can avenge.”
Though Arabic is my Sixth Voice, it has long become a natural language for me since first learning some Levantine Arabic in the summer of 1982, during the Siege of Beirut. This was when Jean Genet set me on my life’s path by swearing me to the Oath of the Resistance he had created in Paris 1940 from that of the Foreign Legion, in a burning house, in a lost cause, in a Last Stand beyond hope of victory or even survival; “We swear our loyalty to each other, to resist and yield not, and abandon not our fellows.” And he gave me a principle of action by which I have now lived for over forty years; “When there is no hope, we are free to do impossible things, glorious things.”
My Seventh Voice is Spanish, as fast upon my Baccalaureate graduation came the horrific Mayan Genocide and other atrocities of the monstrous Reagan regime, and the heroic Resistance of indigenous peoples to America’s imperial conquest of Central America which collapsed with the Iran-Contra Scandal. This theatre of revolutionary struggle includes that of the Zapatistas in the Yucatan; though later I formally studied Spanish from Argentine professors in one of my many graduate school programs, Spanish is a second or trade language for the people with whom I aligned myself, mostly speakers of Yucatec in Mexico or Quiche in the Guatemalan Peten among the Mayan group of over twenty languages, who were rebelling against the Ladino or Spanish speaking elites. So while I am literate in Spanish, I am conversant in two forms of Mayan.
Russian is my Eighth Voice, being the language of international solidarity at the time and of the Soviet advisors with whom I sometimes worked. I had some familiarity with it from my sister Erin, who began high school when I began teaching it, and used Russian as I had Chinese; as a second soul into which to grow as a self-created being, free from the legacies of our history. She studied for four years in high school with Lt Col Sviatislav Shasholin, USAF, who translated during the Nixon-Brezhnev talks and handled Soviet defectors, then went to UC Santa Cruz where she studied Russian language and Soviet Foreign Policy, graduating as Valedictorian of the Oaks International Studies School, then went to the Soviet Union as Pushkin Scholar at the University of Kallinin, a couple years before the Fall of the Soviet Union. Her first languages beyond English were Old Norse, Gothic, and Old Welsh, which she taught herself in seventh grade while researching Tolkien’s invented languages, so she could write poetry in them.
I currently write and publish in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Zulu, Hindi, Urdu, Persian and since the invasion in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and recently Italian and Dari, Afghanistan’s major language and like Urdu derived from Persian, all three of which are mutually intelligible. This list changes ceaselessly, as do human identities; ephemeral, impermanent, performative and a ground of struggle.
Including dead languages with no broad communities of native speakers but of scholars of ancient literatures, those of my Buddhist and Islamic scholarship include Classical Tibetan from my time as a monk of the Kagyu Vajrayana Order of Buddhism in Kathmandu, Nepal, where I waged a revolution against the monarchy, and from my studies as a member of the Naqshbandi Order of Sufis in Srinagar, Kashmir, where I fought for independence against the invasion by India; Classical Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and the exception to the dead languages of scholarship classification as a universal language of Islamic faith in which one must be literature to be considered fully Muslim, Classical Quranic Arabic.
So, my literacy includes twenty three languages if we count Latin, which I’ve taught in high school; basic Latin is crucial if you are a new student in America whose native language is not English, especially for university-bound students and solving unknown scientific and technical terms. If you know Latin root words and conjugations, you will master English twice as fast.
My languages of conversational proficiency serve also as an atlas of my history; as Sir Richard Francis Burton says; “Where ever you go, learn the language; it’s the key to everything else.” We now leave the regions of literacy and explore the Atlas of my journeys in terms of conversational level proficiency.
During the 1980’s I was involved in liberation struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, which ended with the great victory in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola in 1988, in which I fought in my usual role of scout or reconnaissance. Here I learned some Zulu and Afrikaans, a fascinating Dutch hybrid language invented by the Cape Malay community using Jawi Arabic script, which incorporates elements of indigenous Khoisan and Bantu African languages and influenced by the Malay-Portuguese trade language Kristang.
From my time behind the Iron Curtain with the Romani my languages include Vlax Romani, the major Romani language and that of its heartland in Transylvania and Eastern Europe, and its origin or relative Vlachs or Aromanian, a Romance language created by the historical migrations and transformations of cultures in the borderlands between the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Venetian Empires, and influenced more by Greek than Slavic as a disambiguating characteristic from modern Romanian, a related language also originating in the Latin of the Roman Empire and its long centuries of disintegration and change.
Many Romani whom I knew spoke Vlax, Vlachs, Romanian, and Hungarian interchangeably as code switching, and also spoke Hochdeutsch which is the second language of Hungary and of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as Standard German. During this time I made mischief with a crew led by Bluey, an Irish gypsy from London who spoke English laden with Cockney rhyming slang, 16th century Thieves Cant, and the hybrid Irish Gaelic-Traveller cryptolanguage Shelta, a complex patois he and his crew, who were from everywhere, used as a secret language.
From my time in the Golden Triangle and Shan States I learned Thai, Shan, S’gaw Karen, the Singpho language of the Kachin Confederation of northern Burma and India, and the Sino-Tibetan language of the Konyak Naga. This charts the midcourse of my original Great Trek across Asia; one day I was driving to work in San Francisco and realized that I was going to live the same day I had more times than I could remember, that I was living in Nietzsche’s Hell of Eternal Recurrence, and I broke the pattern and took a wrong turn. I found myself at the airport and bought a ticket for an unknown destination; I just asked for a flight to the other side of the planet.
This I discovered upon landing was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; on day three I realized everyone in its elegant business district was doing things I could have done at home in San Francisco if I had wanted to, so I decided to do what no one else was doing. I found a bus station with a map where all the roads ended in the Cameron Highlands, rode a bus nine hours into the empty spaces on the map, got out when the road became a dirt trail into the jungle, and began my journey. I crossed from Malaysia into Thailand, Burma, and India before coming to live alternately in Nepal and Kashmir for some while.
In Nepal my role as a monk of the Buddhist Kagyu Vajrayana order required literacy in Classical Tibetan, conversational Gorkali or Nepalese as it is the official language and spoken by half the population, Newari which is the language of Kathmandu Valley where I lived, Gurung which is a tribal language of the Annapurna region and a major language of my key allies the Gurkha military and the horse nomads with whom I operated across the border between Nepal and Kashmir, and some Hindi.
In Kashmir my scholarship of Sufism required literacy in Classical Quranic Arabic, which I had been studying for years already, Classical Persian, and Ottoman Turkish; the official language Urdu which is Hindi written with a Perso-Arabic script and influenced by Classical Persian, and conversational use of the Kashmiri language Koshur.
This period in the early 1990’s coincides roughly with the Siege of Sarajevo of which I am a witness, where I learned some Croatian written in Latin script, mutually comprehensible with Bosnian as they evolve from the same source.
From my voyages and treks in South Asia on a later journey, where I sailed out of Georgetown on the island of Penang as a home port, I Iearned Malay in which I am literate and so count among my Voices, this being the major language of the region, of sailors, and of my initial scholarship of Naqshbandi Sufism which is a pan-Islamic warrior brotherhood synonymous with the martial arts of silat, and Buginese which is the language of the Bugis people of the Sultanate of Sulawesi who are the primary shipbuilders and navigators of South Asia, where half of all shipped freight is still by sail, and of the pirates with whom I waged an antislavery campaign led by our Captain Starfollower.
Then came the Minangkabu of Sumatra where I studied the martial art of Raja Harimau, briefly I learned what I could of one of the many languages of the Mentawai Islands where I was castaway in a storm at sea and with an indigenous tribe built an outrigger or Oceanic Proa over a couple months to sail ten hours across open seas to the mainland of Sumatra, Iban which is a language of the indigenous Dayak peoples of Borneo, and Hokkien Chinese in its Penang and Singaporean variants which is understood throughout the Peranankan or Straits Chinese communities.
Of windows into the other ways of being human I count twenty four languages of conversation, including Hokkien Chinese, Iban, Mentawai, Minangkabu, Buginese, Croatian, Koshur, Gorkali, Newari, Gurung, Thai, Shan, S’gaw Karen, Singpho, Naga, Vlax, Vlachs, Romanian, Hungarian, Shelta, Afrikaans, Yucatec, and Quiche. and twenty seven of literacy, a total of fifty one.
Thus far I have learned much about human diversity as well as the things which unite us, but nothing whatever of a great key which will unlock our infinite possibilities of becoming human.
Yet in the questioning of our languages as tools of creating our identities, of human being, meaning, and value, and of emergence from the legacies of our history and systems of oppression, we may transcend our limits and boundaries of otherness and belonging, and become exalted.
Will the next language offer the clues needed to decode the secrets of our liberation and self ownership, of our reimagination and transformation of ourselves and how we choose to be human together? As my mother used to say to students who asked for some pronouncement or authorization, juggling possibilities with her hands; “Maybe, maybe not”.
This I wrote originally as a Postscript to my essay of September 8 2023, International Literacy Day: What is a Library For?
It became its own work when I realized I had never tried to fully count my languages nor assess the meaning of languages as having multiplicities of selves as masks to perform in reserve at any moment, nor as revolutionary acts which may change boundaries into interfaces.
May all the Voices of your languages build bridges and not walls. But how precisely can we do that?
Is there a universal language behind all our languages and personae, a code like DNA in our consciousness and a meta-grammar or innate rules as Chomsky argues by which we create and order human being, meaning, and value?
What truly lies beneath the surfaces of our illusory and impermanent selves, images like ephemeral jetsam which conceal a unified field of being, Infinite in extent? Can learning languages truly allow us to operate directly on our own consciousness and seize ownership and control of our own evolution, to inhabit the imaginal souls of others, abandon our divisions and pathologies of disconnectedness, and become exalted in our participation in the being of others and of all humankind?
What becomes of us, when we transcend ourselves through immersion in what Ibn Arabi called the alam al mythal, Coleridge the Primary Imagination, Jung the Collective Unconscious, and the ancients called Logos?
I am a man who has many souls, one for every language I am literate in, in which I can think and dream and compose, and like James Joyce I have discovered few answers, but many questions regarding our possibilities of reimagination and transformation of ourselves and humankind.
For this mad quest to become human, to breach the event horizons of our culture, the legacies of our history, and the limits of our authorized identities, obeys the principle of the Conservation of Ignorance, in which the Infinite remains vast and unknown regardless of what we know or how much we learn.
Only this I have learned; it is not the kinds of thoughts we are able to have which make us human, but how we use them in our actions toward others, to harm or heal.
Among all of these voices of possibilities of becoming human stands the Zohar in its silence, voice of the Infinite, and it says; “I bear secrets; open me.”
And I with Ahab reply; “To the end I will grapple with thee.”
A “Finnegans Wake” Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary, Riverrun to Livvy: Lots of Fun Reading the First Page of James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake”, by Bill Cole Cliett
In this season of merriment and joy, filled with archaic and strange rituals and densely encoded with signs and messages, which for many Americans begins with the annual pilgrimage to see The Nutcracker ballet, most especially a delight for young girls and a performance filled with visions of beauty and wonder in a world which lies just beyond our own, I am once again seized and shaken by the Uncanny Valley of bifurcated vison and off kilter juxtaposition in the breathtaking beauty of the dancing and the ghastly horror of its subtext, because I am reasonably certain that when our heroine flies over the glittering confection of Candyland to rule it with her Nutcracker Prince, she is dead.
The Nutcracker ballet is the American Book of the Dead.
What is the mysterious wound with all its blood, and her witness which the adults silence with disbelief, but an act of sexual predation?
If the Nutcracker is a story of the destruction of a girl as a primal tragedy of patriarchy, with her death allegorized as a battle of mice versus nutcracker soldiers, it is also an initiation myth with Drosselmeyer as a Trickster figure and a terrifying guardian of the Otherworld who is transformed into a protector and guide as he becomes the Nutcracker Prince.
Both victim and tragic heroine, Marie escapes the prison of a family which has groomed her to disbelieve in her own experience through fantasy which is menacing and seductive, a world of her own. Hoffman was an icon of German Romanticism who clearly intended to affirm the vision of the individual and the liberating power of poetical truth, but there is also a parallel narrative of survival in which the toymaker Drosselmeier is not only a trickster god or magician who liberates Marie by setting challenges to overcome and creating scenes which reveal and transform inner conflict, but also a tyrannical and abusive opponent. Hoffman harnesses the initiation of a pagan seeress to Romantic ends, and preserves the ambivalence of the Toymaker figure in the folklore; a god who is both an ally and a predator of humankind.
Herein a tale of both ecstatic vision and the transcendence of the spirit through immersion in an imaginal realm of dreams and death, a core text of Romantic Idealism as codified by Coleridge, shares liminal space with our nightmares as a manual of gaslighting, induced alienation, and patriarchal sexual terror.
I’d like to keep the ritual of ecstatic vision and beauty, and emerge from the legacies of our history as Freudian horror, but in this ballet which is a ground of struggle between authorized identities and the liberation of self-ownership we cannot, for they are bound together, the angelic and the monstrous, like all humankind and the histories and systems of oppression we must resist.
What can it teach us as a story of growing up as Resistance?
Shatter the mirror and break free of the image others would trap you in; reclaim yourself and your agency.
As written by Blaine Greteman in The Week, in an article entitled The Creep of The Nutcracker: What the hell is going on with Godfather Drosselmeyer and what is he teaching our children?; “Now that the holidays are upon us and the productions of The Nutcracker ballet are coming hard and fast, it’s time to ask that age old question: What the hell is going on with Godfather Drosselmeyer?
The Nutcracker has always been a story about a young girl’s journey into adulthood and sexual maturity, and as Drosselmeyer creeps around the stage this year, in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore, he reminds us that the journey has always been fraught.
If you haven’t seen The Nutcracker in a while or have only absorbed bits of it through commercials playing Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” on infinite loop, the story goes like this: It’s Christmas Eve at the Stahlbaum home, and daughter Clara makes herself useful preparing for a party, while her younger brother Fritz, who nowadays would clearly have been diagnosed with ADHD, makes trouble. Soon the guests arrive. While the adults are adulting, the children make their own fun, until a mysterious man appears, cloaked in black and wearing an eyepatch. This is Godfather Drosselmeyer, a clock and toymaker who, depending on the production, either entertains the children or genuinely frightens them.
Either way, he soon takes over the night’s festivities. He produces uncanny, life-sized clockwork toys, which seem to come alive and dance for the guests. He hands out presents — dolls for the girls, swords for the boys. Clara, his special favorite, receives a wooden nutcracker, which everyone admires and which her jealous little brother quickly breaks. But Drosselmeyer bandages the toy and places it in a bed beneath the Christmas tree, where Clara will later fall asleep with it in her arms.
Things then get strange. At the stroke of midnight, Clara wakes to see Drosselmeyer on the grandfather clock, exercising what now appear to be magical powers. The room around her grows, or perhaps she shrinks. In the ballet’s source story, E.T.F. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, this moment is undeniably traumatic, and her account of it is the first of many that the adults around her will refuse to believe. The toys come to life and do battle with an evil mouse king and his troops. This is, after all, unbelievable, unless we remember that Drosselmeyer has already done something like it once before with his dancing automatons. In Hoffman’s story, Drosselmeyer tells the girl, “it will all be over soon.” But rather than being relieved she calls him “evil” (böser) and is paralyzed with fright.
Most versions of the ballet then jump to what happens in Hoffman’s tale on a subsequent night, when the nutcracker, who has been under a spell of the mouse queen, takes his natural shape as a handsome prince and escorts Clara to the Land of Sweets. Leaving aside the blatant colonialism of the caricatures that follow, isn’t it just a little creepy that Clara’s good-looking escort begins as a gift from Drosselmeyer? In fact this toy, in Hoffman’s story, bears a “strange resemblance to Drosselmeyer” himself.
But that’s not even half of it.
In the original, but not the ballet, the girl’s vision is accompanied by a sharp feeling of pain, which she will later realize was caused by falling into a glass cabinet and lacerating her arm. Discovered by her mother in a pool of blood, she relates Drosselmeyer’s role in her accident only to have her mother and the attending surgeon dismiss the “silly stuff” as the product of her “lively imagination.” Godfather Drosselmeyer, however, privately suggests that he believes her. As one 19th-century translation put it, “smiling queerly,” he “took the little girl on his lap, and spoke more softly than ever” as he confirmed that her dream contained some element of truth. It’s hard not to get a little Freudian about all this, but even if we don’t read it as some sort of sexual allegory, the dynamic is clear and unsettling.
Up to this point in the original, Drosselmeyer has wooed the girl with a special gift, awed her with his abilities as a technician and a magician, and degraded her by dismissing her as a “foolish child” (unverständig Kind) who could not appreciate his skill. Now he is teaching her to disbelieve her own experience unless it can be verified by a powerful man like himself. As the story continues, he will berate her for speaking “silly, stupid nonsense” (dummer einfältiger Schnack) when she tries to tell others. After being humiliated several times, she stops trying.
“A hundred times,” Hoffman writes, “she thought of telling what had happened, to her mother, or to Luise, or at least to Fritz; but she asked herself, ‘Will any of them believe me?'” Finally she withdraws into herself, which only warrants further criticism: “[I]nstead of playing as she used to do, she would sit still and silent, her thoughts far away, till everybody faulted her for being a little dreamer.”
It was a similar form of manipulation that caused the actress and director Asia Argento to describe her encounters with Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as “a scary fairy tale” and “a nightmare” in the story that initially exposed decades of Weinstein’s abuse. Weinstein so thoroughly warped her perspectives of herself and their encounters, said Argento, that he began to “sound like he was my friend and he really appreciated me.” One of failed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore’s accusers claimed he pushed her out of the car, saying: “You are a child. I am the district attorney of Etowah County. If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you.” He was almost certainly right.
In these cases, as in so many others that have come to light in recent weeks, we find similar differentials of power, age, and authority, leading women to keep quiet about what happened to them or even to adopt their abuser’s account. As another of Weinstein’s victims noted, “I just put it in a part of my brain and closed the door.” Drosselmeyer may not be a sexual predator, but he exactly follows the sexual predator’s script.
This matters because souvenir nutcrackers and swords are not the only things our children take home at the end of the show. For Clara as for The Nutcracker’s young audiences, the journey to the Land of Sweets and back offers a magical glimpse of adulthood even as it raises suspicions about that vision. How much of it is Clara’s? How much does Drosselmeyer produce by manipulating his machines or shaping Clara’s imagination of herself? Drosselmeyer should disturb us not because he is aberrant, but because he enacts in sugar-plum form the strategies that men have long used to manage and control female sexuality.
Rather than a reason to run for the exits, however, I’d suggest that this could be one of The Nutcracker’s redeeming qualities. Art has a remarkable power to make the familiar strange and allow us to see it anew — an effect Bertolt Brecht called verfremdung, or “alienation.” Hoffman’s nutcracker tale is strange, yet familiar, in exactly this way, especially as Clara internalizes the disbelief she encounters when she tries to tell her story.
A Nutcracker production that forced us to reckon with Drosselmeyer’s true power would also allow us to consider what it would mean for Clara, or many Claras, to take it back. While Drosselmeyer is a master of gears and springs, after all, his real hold over Clara comes from understanding that everyone, including herself, will trust his account of her experience more than her own.
That’s a hard nut, but it is ready to be cracked.”
As written by Joan Hennessy in StudyHall.Rocks, in an article entitled The Nutcracker’s Holiday Spell Broken; “From the overture to the dance of the sugar plum fairy, The Nutcracker is two hours of uninterrupted sweetness, and, importantly, a moneymaker for ballet companies across the nation. Or, at least, it was until now.
A recent critique in The Week magazine (“The Creep of The Nutcracker”) points to sexual overtones between a principal character, the mysterious Herr Drosselmeyer, and the ballet’s young protagonist, Clara.
The context: Set at a Christmas Eve party, Clara (also called Marie or Masha in various versions), fights with her brother, Fritz, over a nutcracker given to her by Drosselmeyer, an eye-patch wearing friend of the family. After the party, the girl falls asleep and dreams that the nutcracker is a prince.
While vapid, the ballet has remained insanely popular for decades. Anyone enrolled in a ballet school for any length of time has been in The Nutcracker. Small towns have at least one performance; cities have multiple productions. The ballet would have sellout crowds if it were staged at a landfill.
Next Christmas, Disney will release a star-studded film version, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, featuring a performance by Misty Copeland, principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. Already, the trailer (below) has gone viral. That means next year’s holiday season promises wall-to-wall nutcrackers on stages and cinema screens everywhere — just as the story is getting a second, uncomfortable look.
The problem is Drosselmeyer, the story’s magical helper, who arrives for Christmas Eve celebrations carrying elaborate presents — in the ballet, life-sized dancing dolls. After the party, the revelers leave and Clara goes to bed. But later, she awakens and tiptoes into the parlor. Alone, she spots Drosselmeyer, who appears on top of a clock. He flaps his arms like an owl, writes George Balanchine and Francis Mason in the book, 101 Stories of the Great Ballets (Doubleday; 1975). The girl is thoroughly terrified.
At once beloved and creepy, Herr Drosselmeyer is ultimately confusing.
“For Clara as for The Nutcracker’s young audiences, the journey to the Land of Sweets and back offers a magical glimpse of adulthood even as it raises suspicions about that vision. How much of it is Clara’s?” asks Blaine Greteman, a professor at University of Iowa and a journalist, in The Week. “How much does Drosselmeyer produce by manipulating his machines or shaping Clara’s imagination of herself? Drosselmeyer should disturb us not because he is aberrant, but because he enacts in sugar-plum form the strategies that men have long used to manage and control female sexuality.”
This is the sort of thing that once you see, you cannot un-see. And if the criticism sticks, it could prompt dance companies and perhaps patrons to rethink their interest in the ballet. But in reality, it is also true that most productions miss the point of the original story, a coming-of-age fairy tale.
The ballet is based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). After Hoffmann’s death, Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) rewrote and softened the story. This version was used by Lev Ivanov while choreographing the ballet, which premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia, 125 years ago this week, Dec. 17, 1892. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the famous score.
In 101 Stories of the Great Ballets, Balanchine (1904-1983) recounts portraying various roles during his boyhood in Russia. Decades later, American ballet companies began producing the ballet. But Balanchine, who had come to the U.S. in 1933, proved central to The Nutcracker’s place as a Christmas tradition. As ballet master of the New York City Ballet, he staged his choreography of The Nutcracker in 1954. A decade later, the company moved to a larger stage, the scenery was redesigned, and an over-the-top tradition was born.
In his book, Balanchine wrote that he based his version on the Hoffmann story. But Hoffmann’s tale is darker.
Early on, Drosselmeyer shows the children an elaborate model he has built — a castle, with clear glass windows and golden turrets. When the children are unimpressed, his mean streak surfaces. “An ingenious work like this was not made for stupid children,” he snaps.
He also gives the family a nutcracker, and in the book, the girl notices similarities between the toy and Drosselmeyer. She becomes convinced that the nutcracker is Drosselmeyer’s spellbound nephew.
Her mother tells her she has been dreaming and “now drive it all out of your head.” In a fit of tough love, her father threatens to toss the nutcracker and all her dolls out the window.
This sequence is at the heart of the story, for Hoffmann worked to balance his obligations and his artistic bent. Educated in law, he made his living as a legal official in Berlin.
“The struggle within Hoffmann between the ideal world of his art and his daily life as a bureaucrat is evident in many of his stories, in which characters are possessed by their art,” explains an article on the Encyclopedia Britannica website.
It is no accident that Clara prefers the nutcracker’s fantastical world to her parents’ reality. As the story ends, Drosselmeyer’s nephew comes to visit, and he looks much like a nutcracker brought to life. It is the nephew — not Drosselmeyer — who marries the girl. She grows to womanhood, but unlike others, refuses to leave her dreams behind.
At this hour, Hoffmann concludes, the girl is “queen of a land where sparkling Christmas woods and transparent marzipan castles, in short, where the most beautiful, the most wonderful things, can be seen by those who will only have eyes for them.”
As I wrote in my post of March 30 2020, Embracing Fear as Liberation from Authority and Control: Anarchy as a Path of Psychological and Social Freedom; Even more terrible than blaming the victim is when no one believes the victim; it is an erasure and silencing which is the particular horror of women, as the dread that no one is coming to help is that of the LGBT and other marginalized communities.
The degree to which we are trusted and believed, our authority, and the reach of our voices in witness are excellent and reliable measures of our power and our position in social hierarchies. As a measure of societies themselves, this will tell you about the relative democracy or tyranny of a culture.
What Matthew Jacobs calls The Ubiquity of Disbelief in his insightful criticism in Huffpost of The Invisible Man starring Elizabeth Moss, entitled Why Does No One In Horror Movies Believe The Female Protagonist?, and examines disbelief and the horror of disconnectedness as a disease of mistrust and failure of solidarity, points directly to the cathartic function of art, its ability to hold up a mirror to our darkness.
For the mechanism and pathology of fear is what drives patriarchy, unequal power, and inauthentic relationships, abstracts us from ourselves and one another as simulacra and creates aberrations of violence and sexual terror.
From fear are monsters born; yet it is our fear we must embrace to free ourselves of the tyranny of others and the spectre of authoritarian force and control.
We must not let fear define us; it is the degree to which we can embrace, learn from, and free ourselves from our fear which measures our freedom and enacts our liberation from the control of others.
For when we cannot be driven into submission by authority through fear and learned helplessness the use of force becomes meaningless as does its scale; thus do we reclaim our power and agency to define ourselves, and ownership of the performances of our identities.
Here follows the wonderful guide to The Nutcracker on GradeSaver:
“These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.
Written by people who wish to remain anonymous
What is a nutcracker?
A nutcracker is said to represent power and strength, serving somewhat like a watchdog guarding your family against danger. A nutcracker bares its teeth to evil spirits and serves as a messenger of good luck and goodwill. Long ago, rare or unusual nutcrackers were part of the social dining tradition.
This is the story of a young girl’s difficult, painful enlightenment to some basic truth’s about life on earth. For instance, the reader could easily interpret this entire plot as an existential crisis. In that case, Drosselmeyer’s gift of a clockwork world would be a way of showing Marie that chaos is necessary in life, or else everything is repetitive and boring (like that toy quickly becomes). She much prefers the dark chaos of her imaginary world where the stakes are life and death, where people take tragedy with communal support, and where (most importantly) no one is alone. Marie is probably mourning the death of her parents, which is implied in that they live with Drosselmeyer who is their godfather.
This newfound awareness of tragedy and death makes Marie’s imaginary world into a tool that she uses to ask difficult questions about life than she can otherwise handle emotionally. Look for a moment at just how violent this seven year old’s imagination is—she imagines a world of bitter warfare between two antithetical forces. She imagines the pain of loss for the community each time someone dies. Interestingly, she also imagines funeral rites and spells of mourning when bad things happen, and when the toy community loses someone, they all rally together to support one another.
Based on this, the reader can guess safely that Marie is struggling with something specific. She wants Drosselmeyer to be in community with her, so that he can help her more directly with the pain of her life. She needs help and support from someone, and these stories are like cries for help through which she invites Drosselmeyer into her mind and emotions. Sadly, he misunderstands this, and he has a hard time relating to her, so she stays fairly lonely in her godfather’s estate.
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King Themes
These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.
Written by people who wish to remain anonymous
Imagination and the value of story
This story features the brilliant imagination of a young girl during Christmas time whose difficult life leaves her unable to sleep. At night, sometimes she wanders around her godfather’s estate, and she imagines an entire world. The novel depicts her imagination as if it is really happening, but the reader should distrust the narrator’s point of view about that, since her imagination seems real to her. That’s one of the most important design features of the novel, that her imagination seems real, because to her it is true. In a way, they’re more true in a greater sense than if they had been literally true. When she creates stories from her imagination, she learns from them authentically. With this domain of play, she can work through the various pains and fears of her blossoming mind.
Time, fate, and the loss of beauty
Marie’s young imagination becomes fixated early on with the passage of time and the inevitable loss of beauty. She is trying to reconcile the fact that as time passes, people age and their faces change, people get sick, and people even die (like her parents, perhaps; after all, she is at her godfather’s estate). In a word, she is concerned about the decay of the world toward some tragic end. Two major plot moments highlight this theme: The curse of Pirlipat where she goes from being beautiful to being hideous, and the death of the nutcrackers that started the war with the mice in the first place. Notice how the toys are human inventions (carved and painted), but the mice are agents of nature. That “man versus nature” conflict is also relevant to this theme.
Loneliness
The unspoken theme that gives this novel its melancholic feel is that no one believes Marie’s imagination. Not only is this tragic because Marie isn’t taken seriously, but it’s also a tragic indication that the person taking care of Marie is not comfortable or familiar with the way a kid’s mind works. Marie doesn’t need Drosselmeyer to believe her literally—she really just wants to talk about her emotions with someone, and telling him about her games is an attempt to be a little less lonely. When he thinks she’s just being silly, he rejects her further. These are all ways that Marie deals with loneliness, and perhaps she is even mourning. Her imaginary stories are dark and violent, and often the dreams involve a community rallying to support each other in the face of trauma and pain—which would be very desirous to Marie.
The imagined savior
One obvious symbol is the titular Nutcracker. In the context of the war against the mice, the Nutcracker is a savior character, because he will save the toy people from their impending doom. This is especially significant given that these characters belong to a religious community and they’re celebrating Christmas. In the context of Marie’s imaginary world, the savior character represents hope that the future can bring something good, in spite of Marie’s fear of time.
The clockwork world
When the children pester their godfather enough, they finally figure out what it is that he made for them—a little clockwork world with puppets that come out in time (like a cuckoo clock). They are fascinated by the world, but because the world is timed, it is predictable to them, and before very long, the kids are bored of the clock. They want something exciting and unpredictable, so Marie begins to invent an imaginary story about the toy world. The clock world represents the children’s unlikely preference for unpredictability. It is as if they understand that they are supposed to be entertaining themselves. By the end of the book, we know why—they are using their imaginations to deal with painful emotions.
The mice as a symbol for decay
Mice in the estate indicates the passage of time, because older houses tend to become infested with mice. Mice are also animals, which means they represent nature, because they are literally compelled by their nature. They are violent and they bring chaos and pain to the toy community. In other words, they make things worse over time, which makes them into a force of decay.
Pirlipat’s curse
In Marie’s imagination, she invents a beautiful princess. She imagines a beautiful girl, more beautiful than any other person in any universe. This makes Pirlipat archetypal because she is the “most” beautiful girl in the world, so she represents the fullness of Marie’s desire to be beautiful. So when Pirlipat is cursed with a hideous face, Pirlipat comes to represent Marie’s fear of being ugly.
The Christmas motif
This is a thoroughly “Christmas” story. It starts on Christmas eve, for starters. It concerns the basic theme of a young girl coming to terms with the horror and pain of life (by exploring imaginary stories in midnight trances). That might not seem very Christmas-like, but it absolutely is. In this story, the Christmas spirit is the opposite of time’s decay. Christmas represents hope and new life. It is important to consider that perhaps Marie is mourning the loss of her parents, which is something that would make Christmas very lonely and painful. It is not unusual for Christmas to represent such painful things for this specific reason.
Young and beautiful (Metaphor)
The battle was in full swing. The mice “continued to advance” and even overtook “some of the cannons.” There was so much “noise, smoke, and dust” that Marie could barely make out what was going on. However, one thing “she could tell for sure” was that “both sides were fighting as hard as they could.” Sometimes it seemed that the toys would win, and the other times it looked like the mice “would take the victory.” Madame Clarette and Madame Trudie “anxiously paced inside and wrung their hands.” “Am I to die in the flower of my youth?” Clarette asked. Indeed, she looked like the most beautiful creature alive and was too young to die.
Wonders (Simile)
The castle was beautiful, but “dull.” The children were clearly disappointed, for they were not allowed to play with it. However, their mother was mature enough to appreciate the beauty of Drosselmeier’s work. She “came over and asked to see the inside of the castle” and “the intricate clockwork that made dolls move.” So the judge “took everything apart and put it back together again,” which “cheered him right up.” He was so happy and pleased that he even gave the children “some beautiful brown men and women with gold faces” that smelled “as sweet and pleasant as gingerbread.”
An elegant look (Simile)
The tiny man wore “a beautiful hussar’s jacket of vivid violet with lots of trimming and buttons” and “matching trousers.” He also wore “the most beautiful” pair of boots that “a student, or even an officer, had ever worn.” They were so “tight on his legs” that they seemed “to be painted on.” It occurred to Marie that if Drosselmeier were to dress “as elegantly as the tiny man, he would not look nearly as handsome.” He was the most charming little man she had ever seen.
Sacks of wool (Simile)
“Inspired by the Nutcracker’s speech,” Fritz’s toy hussars made “the dangerous leap down from the second shelf to the floor.” They were not hurt, for they were dressed in “soft wool and silk” and were made of “cotton and sawdust.” So they plopped down like “little sacks of wool.” The Nutcracker, on the other hand, “would have almost certainly broken himself to pieces.” His body was “as brittle as linden wood.” He “would have likely broken his arms and legs” had not Madame Clarette sprang from the sofa to catch the Nutcracker “in her arms.”
Written by Julia Wolf
The most valuable
Marie had a reason to linger “near the Christmas table when the others had left” because “she had seen something nobody else seemed to have noticed.” After Fritz had “disengaged his hussars from parading about the tree, a splendid little man became visible.” His build left “much to be desired.” His “stocky” and “somewhat long upper body” didn’t fit his “small” and “spindly legs,” his head was “too large.” However, his fine clothing suggested that he was a man “of taste and education.” This imagery evokes a strong feeling of curiosity or – maybe even fascination. Marie can’t take her eyes off him.
The battle
“Strike the battle march, loyal vassal drummer!” Nutcracker shouted. The drummer beat the drum “so furiously that the glass in the cabinet shook and reverberated the sound.” Then “a rattle and clatter came from within the cabinet,” and Marie saw that “the lids of boxes where Fritz’s army was quartered” had popped open. The brave soldiers were “jumping out of their boxes” and “forming regiments on the bottom shelf.” As a true leader, Nutcracker was running “back and forth shouting words to inspire the troops.” This imagery is supposed to evoke a feeling of nervousness. Marie’s anxiety and Nutcracker’s determination make readers feel a variety of different emotions at once.
Charity
Lady Mouserinks had lived for years in the palace and “claimed to be related to the royal family” and “even queen of a realm called Mouseland.” She also claimed to have “a large court under the stove.” When she saw the queen in the kitchen, she asked her for some fat to feast. “Come out and you may have some of my fat,” said the queen, so Lady Mouserinks “jumped out, hopped up to the stove, and grabbed piece after piece of fat from the queen in her delicate little paws.” Then came her “cousins, aunts, uncles, and her seven sons.” This imagery is supposed to evoke a feeling of fear, since a kitchen full of mice is not a sight that the majority of us would enjoy.
Essay Questions
Written by people who wish to remain anonymous
1
Illustrate how the imagery of hearing manifests itself in the “Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by E.T.A. Hoffman.
The author uses the battle to appeal to the sense of hearing to the reader. The Nutcracker shouts, “Strike the battle march, loyal vassal drummer”. After the shouting, the drum is beaten loudly by the drummer. As a result of the drum beating, the cabinet shakes and reverberates the sound. Afterward, rattles and clatters come out of the cabinet. Marie sees the lids of boxes quartering and popping out. The courageous military jumps out of their boxes and forms regiments below the shelf. Due to his dedication and as person in charge, Nutcracker runs back and forth shouting every word that encourages his soldiers. The author uses this imagery of shouting to depict the sense of hearing to the reader so that he can understand the level of nervousness on the scene of war.
2
How does the author manage to use the ‘young and beautiful’ as a metaphor?
The author illustrates that the battle is in full swing and that the mice continue advancing and even overtakes some cannons. There are much noise dust and smoke, which confuses Marrie of what is happening. Despite the confusion, Marie can tell that there is a fierce fight between the two sides. It seems that the toys are going to win and at times mice seem to be stronger than the toys making unpredictable on who is going to emerge victorious. Both Clarette and Trudie are anxiously pacing inside and wringing their hands. Therefore, a metaphor helps the reader interpret that Clarette is the most gorgeous being who deserves to live long but not to die early.
3
Explain how the author brings out the theme of loneliness.
Marie finds herself between the rocks because there is no one around her who wants to believe what she is imagining. Even the person taking care of Marie does not believe in her or take her seriously. Her caretaker is not comfortable living with her because he is not familiar with how the child’s brain works. What Marie needs is someone to share with her imagination and emotions. However, most people around are doing their best to avoid her. Therefore, Marie finds herself on an island that she is alone with no one to give her emotional company. In this regard, the author has successfully developed the theme of loneliness.
Written by Julia Wolf
The King
Lady Mouserinks did as she promised; she avenged herself of the royal family by biting the beautiful little princess. Thus, angelic Pirpilat turned into a hideous creature. The queen “shut herself away in mourning,” and the wall of the king’s study had to be padded, for he “would often bang his head” against them, crying, “Oh, what an unhappy monarch I am!” He put all the blame on the court clockmaker and wizard and issued him an order: “restore the princess to her former self within four weeks, or suffer the disgraceful death of beheading.” The king wanted to have his beautiful daughter back, but he could not even imagine the outcome of his threats. “Take him away! Take that horrible nutcracker away!”
Pirpilat
The young Drosselmeier had broken the charm and the beautiful princess was saved. Her angelical beauty was restored and the court was so happy about it that everyone danced and cheered loudly. The poor queen even “fainted from happiness.” “The commotion did not at all ruffle young Drosselmeier, who was just taking his seventh and last step.” But then Lady Mouserinks popped out of a crack in the floor and the boy became “as hideous as Princess Pirlipat had been a few moments ago.” “Take him away! Take that horrible nutcracker way,” Pirpilat cried, forgetting about gratitude and compassion. “Oh, poor me, poor me – what am I to say?”
Marie
Marie had been so happy about the nutcracker’s victory that she hurried up to tell her family about it and the wonderful places she visited during the last night. What she didn’t expect was that nobody believed her. They laughed at her and at that “silly story” she invented. They only “laughed harder” when she tried to explain, so Marie went to her bedroom and retrieved seven crowns of the Mouse King. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, for they called her “a little liar.” “Oh, poor me, poor me,” the little girl said and cried “violently.”
The story as written by Dio Sm
It is December 24, the house of Stahlbaum. Everyone is preparing for Christmas, and the children – Fritz and Marie – are wondering what will this time they get for a present from an inventor and godfather, senior adviser to the court Drosselmeyer, who often repairs clocks in the Stahlbaum’s house. Marie dreams about the garden and a lake with swans, and Fritz says that he likes their parents’ gifts more, because he can play with them (godfather’s toys are usually kept away from children so that they do not break them), and godfather cannot make the whole garden.
In the evening children admired the beauty-Christmas tree, near and on which were gifts: a new doll dress, hussars, etc. The godfather did a wonderful castle, but dancing dolls performed the same movement, and to get inside the castle was impossible, so the miracle of technology quickly became boring – only the mother got interested in a complex mechanism. When all the presents were sorted out, Marie saw the Nutcracker. Ugly doll seemed for the girl very pleasant. Fritz quickly broke the couple of Nutcracker’s teeth in an attempt to split the hard nuts, and thus Marie began to take care of it. At night children removed toys in the glass cabinet. Marie, placing her ward with all the conveniences, became a witness of the Battle of seven-headed Mouse King and the army led by the Nutcracker doll. Dolls surrendered under the onslaught of mice, and when the Mouse King has slumped to the Nutcracker, Marie threw her shoe at him.
When the girl woke up glass cabinet was broken. No one believed her story about the night incident. The godfather brought the repaired Nutcracker and told the tale of a solid walnut: the king and the queen had a beautiful princess Pirlipat, but the queen Mouserinks, taking revenge for her killed relatives by mousetraps of the court watchmaker Drosselmeyer (they ate bacon), turned the beauty into the ugly. Only the clicking of nuts could soothe her now. Drosselmeyer, under pain of death, with the help of a court astrologer, calculated the princess’s horoscope – her beauty could be restored by the walnut Krakatuk, chopped by a boy by a special method.
The king sent Drosselmeyer and astrologer in search of salvation; both a nut and a young man (the watchmaker’s nephew) were found in Drosselmeyer’s brother’s hometown. Many princes have broken their teeth trying to crack the Krakatuk, and when the king promised to give his daughter in marriage to a savior, a nephew came forward. He split the nut and the princess ate it and became a beautiful woman again, but the young man was unable to complete the entire rite, because Mouserinks fell under his feet. The mouse was killed, but the guy turned into the Nutcracker. The king drove Drosselmayera, his nephew and away. However, the astrologer predicted that the Nutcracker would become a prince and his ugliness would disappear if he won the Mouse King and a beautiful girl would fall in love with him.
Marie began to reproach Drosselmeyer that he did not help the Nutcracker. He said that only she could help, because she ruled over the light kingdom. The Mouse King got into the habit to extort her sweets in return for the safety of the Nutcracker. The parents were alarmed by the fact that the house was full of mice. When he asked for her books and clothes, she sobbed, she was ready to give everything, but when there would be nothing left, the Mouse King would want to tear herself. The nutcracker became alive and promised to take care of everything if he got the sword – Fritz helped with that. At night the Nutcracker came to Marie with a bloody sword, candle and 7 gold crowns. Having given her the trophies, he led her to his kingdom – the country of fairy tales, where they got into through the father’s fox fur coat. Helping Nutcracker’s sisters about the house Marie suddenly woke up in her bed.
None of the adults believed her story. As to the crown Drosselmayer said that this was his gift for her and refused to admit the Nutcracker to be his nephew (toy stood in its place in the closet). The father threatened to throw out all the dolls, and Marie did not dare to stammer about her story. But once on the threshold of their home appeared Drosselmayer’s nephew who privately confessed to Marie that ceased to be the Nutcracker, and made her an offer to share with him the crown and the throne of the Marzipan Castle. They say she is still the queen there.
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King Character List
Written by people who wish to remain anonymous
Marie
Marie is a playful child who lives in a large estate with her godfather and brother. In the winter, she witnesses her toys come to life. A mice army appears from holes in the walls, and the winter nutcrackers become animated to fight back. She watches the war play out at night, when no one is around, but when she tries to talk about it, no one believes her.
Fritz
Marie’s brother who plays with her often and often pesters their godfather about Christmas presents. Fritz often plays and imagines alongside his sister, Marie, but when she seems convinced about the mouse war against the nutcrackers, Fritz isn’t sure what to think.
Drosselmeyer
This court officer is godfather to Marie and Fritz. During the holidays, while the children are at his estate, he keeps them company and offers the promise of awesome Christmas gifts. He also appears in Marie’s midnight adventures, but in imaginary form.
Queen Mouserinks
This is the (perhaps imaginary) queen of the mice. The mice are in a war against the nutcrackers. Each night, they come out to do battle with the toys and nutcrackers, and one night, Queen Mouserinks is there to finish off the nutcrackers, but Marie throws a shoe at her.
Pirlipat
This is the princess of the toys whose beauty was unheard of. One day, the angry mice figured out a way to curse her with a piece of bacon, turning her ugly. Their other quest is to help restore Pirlipat’s beauty to her.
Krakatuk
This hero nutcracker has an advantage on the battlefield, because of a unique nut-cracking technique that lets him attack mice more easily. He is charged with the task of guiding the toys to victory while restoring Pirlipit’s beauty.”
Nina Kaptsova as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Bolshoi Ballet
Arabian Dance with Grigor Zakyan and Karina Davison
Moscow Ballet’s Arabian Variation featuring Sergey Chumakov and Elena Petrichenko
We celebrate today the human will to become, to explore, to discover new worlds and create new possibilities of becoming human, in the iconic figure of the migrant as the epitome and driving force of civilization.
Often the migrant also enacts the archetype and allegory of the Stranger as well, with all of the ambiguities, dangers, and opportunities for the reimagination and transformation of human being, meaning, and value implicit in the themes of this primary universal psychodrama.
A few days ago Our Clown of Terror, Traitor Trump, quoted the book he kept on his nightstand for years in place of a Bible, Mein Kampf, to cheering crowds during an election rally in reference to migrants; “They’re poisoning our blood.”
No matter where you begin with ideas of otherness as a threat to identity, the origin of all fascism, you always end up at the gates of Auschwitz.
Let us give to fascism the only reply it merits; Never Again!
The wave of fascism sweeping the world these past few years originates in a primal fear of otherness as loss of the self; this is weaponized in service to power by those who would enslave us, becomes divisions and hierarchies of elite belonging and exclusionary otherness, racism, patriarchy, nationalism, and all of this coheres into authorized identities and identity politics.
The other is always our own mirror image, and we cannot escape each other. This is why fascism and tyranny are inherently unstable and always collapse in depravity and ruin; when we project what we dislike about ourselves onto others, as objects to abuse as if exorcising our demons, we dehumanize ourselves as well as them. And such denial fails as a strategy of transformation and adaptation to change, aggrandizing ossified institutions and systems until they become threats rather than solutions, and the whole edifice collapses from the mechanical failures of its contradictions as is happening now in America and throughout human civilization.
This is why the embrace of our own darkness and monstrosity is crucial to liberation struggle; how else can we bring change to systems of oppression if we cannot confront it in ourselves? Especially we must hold close and interrogate feelings like disgust, revulsion, rage, and other atavisms of instinct which we drag behind ourselves like an invisible reptilian tail with the recognition that nothing we feel is either good or evil, but only how we use them in our actions.
In the end, all that matters is what we do with our fear, and how we use our power.
Against this Wagnerian Ring of fear, power, and force we must set a counterfire of solidarity and love, for only this can set us free. We must speak directly to that fear of otherness as loss of identity and of power if we are to turn the tide of history toward a free society of equals and not fascist tyrannies of blood, faith, and soil, toward democracy and a diverse and inclusive United Humankind and not carceral states of force and control, toward love and not hate.
We are stronger together than alone, as Benjamin Franklin demonstrated with his bundle of arrows in reference to Ecclesiastes 4:12 and the Iroquois Great Peacemaker called in some contexts Deganawidah. A diverse and inclusive society makes us more powerful if in different ways, wealthier, more resilient and adaptive, offers unknown joys and opens new vistas and possibilities of becoming human.
Change need not mean fear and loss; for it also offers limitless new wonders. We must be agents of change and bringers of Chaos, if we are to become a fulcrum and change the balance of power in the world.
The idea of human rights has been abandoned by its former guarantor nations, with whole peoples in Gaza and Ukraine being erased in wars of ethnic cleansing as exhibits of atrocities and crimes against humanity, and because of this and many other systems failures civilization is collapsing; ephemeral and illusory things like wealth and power are meaningless in the shadow of our degradation and the terror of our nothingness in the face of death.
A reader’s comment on my post of December 8, The Fall of America as a Guarantor of Democracy and Human Rights, contained the phrase “more hopeful of the good in most people”.
Here follows my reply; I too believed in things like human goodness once, but after forty years of wars, revolutions, resistance, and liberation struggle throughout the world I cannot. What I trust and hope for, if not believe in, is solidarity of action in struggle against systems of oppression and elite hegemonies of wealth, power, and privilege. Such is my faith; the equality of human needs and the necessity of our unity in seizures of power to create a free society of equals.
As written by Jean Genet, who swore me to the oath of the Resistance and set me on my life’s path during the Siege of Beirut in 1982; “If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we’ll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.”
How shall we welcome the Stranger?
As written in the United Nations website; “Secretary-General António Guterres credited the more than 80 per cent of those who cross borders in a safe and orderly fashion as powerful drivers of “economic growth, dynamism, and understanding”.
“But unregulated migration along increasingly perilous routes – the cruel realm of traffickers – continues to extract a terrible cost”, he continued in his message marking the day.
Deaths and disappearances
Over the past eight years, at least 51,000 migrants have died, and thousands of others gone missing, said the top UN official.
“Behind each number is a human being – a sister, brother, daughter, son, mother, or father”, he said, reminding that “migrant rights are human rights”.
“They must be respected without discrimination – and irrespective of whether their movement is forced, voluntary, or formally authorized”.
‘Do everything possible’
Mr. Guterres urged the world to “do everything possible” to prevent their loss of life – as a humanitarian imperative and a moral and legal obligation.
And he pushed for search and rescue efforts, medical care, expanded and diversified rights-based pathways for migration, and greater international investments in countries of origin “to ensure migration is a choice, not a necessity”.
“There is no migration crisis; there is a crisis of solidarity”, the Secretary-General concluded. “Today and every day, let us safeguard our common humanity and secure the rights and dignity of all”.
Realize basic rights
For his part, the head of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Gilbert F. Houngbo, shone a light on protecting the rights of the world’s 169 million migrant workers.
“The international community must do better to ensure… [that they] are able to realize their basic human and labour rights”, he spelled out in his message for the day.
Leaving them unable to exercise basic rights renders migrant workers “invisible, vulnerable and undervalued for their contributions to society”, pointed out the most senior ILO official.
Vulnerabilities
And when intersecting with race, ethnicity, and gender, they become even more vulnerable to various forms of discrimination.
Mr. Houngbo flagged that migrants do not only go missing on high-risk and desperate journeys.
“Many migrant domestic, agricultural and other workers are isolated and out of reach of those who could protect them”, with the undocumented particularly at risk of abuse.
Fair labour migration
Meanwhile, ILO supports governments, employers and workers to make fair labour migration a reality.
Like all employees, migrant workers are entitled to labour standards and international human rights protections, including freedom of association and collective bargaining, non-discrimination, and safe and healthy working environments, upheld the ILO chief.
They should also be entitled to social protection, development and recognition.
To make these rights a reality, Mr. Houngbo stressed the key importance of fair recruitment, including eliminating recruitment fees charged to migrant workers, which can help eradicate human trafficking and forced labour.
Injustices suffered by migrant workers are injustices to us all – ILO chief
“Access to decent work is a key strategy to realize migrants’ development potential and contribution to society”, he said.
“We must recognize that injustices suffered by migrant workers are injustices to us all. We must do better”.
‘Cornerstone of development’
Meanwhile, in his message, the head of the International Migration Organization (IMO), António Vitorino, described migrants as “being a cornerstone of development and progress”.
“We can’t let the politicization of migration, hostility and divisive narratives divert us from the values that matter most”, he urged.
Regardless of what compels people to move, “their rights must be respected”, underscored the IMO chief.”
As I wrote in my post of January 23 2021, Inclusion and the Embrace of Otherness is the Test of Democratic Societies: On Immigration; Our new President and his government seem committed to ideals of equity and fairness, in our system of immigration and in all things, which I celebrate and will help in any way I can; but in this area of policy I believe we need a few things more.
Inclusion and the embrace of Otherness is the test of democratic societies.
We need a version of the English Slave Act; anyone who sets foot on American soil is free, safe, and under our protection.
We need a borderless state with citizenship by declaration; if you accept the responsibilities of membership in our nation and agree to live in accord with our principles and agreements with one another, you are an American. If you’re crazy enough to want to be one of us, who are we to say no?
We need to reimagine and transform our security services and repurpose Homeland Security and the Border Patrol to provide safe passage to our shores and a humane landing which welcomes new Americans with food, medical attention, and education.
The horrific ethnic cleansing and systematic torture and abuse of the Trump regime did not emerge from nothing, but from an ancient injustice by which our nation created wealth and elite power and privilege for white supremacy; we have drawn a line in the sand to weaponize disparity and generate mass cheap exploitable labor which fuels agriculture, hospitality, childcare, and other markets and industries.
Illegal migrant labor is slave labor.
Let us emancipate our workforce so that everyone working here has the same legal protections as citizens, and no worker can be used against another.
As written by Maurizio Guerrero in In These Times; “One initiative stood out as especially (and cruelly) effective in President Donald Trump’s often inept White House: his administration’s monomaniacal attack on immigrants. Starting with an unconstitutional Muslim ban his first week in office, Trump signed more than 400 executive actions against migrants in a single term — curtailing legal immigration, casting out tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, separating undocumented families and sowing terror in immigrant communities. Trump’s caging of migrant children at the border sparked nationwide protests in 2018 under the banner “Keep Families Together.”
But despite mass outrage among liberals, the enormous bipartisan machine built to surveil, catch and imprison migrants predates Trump. While separating children from their parents at the border was a cruel Trumpian twist, the U.S. immigration system has long torn apart families through deportation. The current iteration of that system, which criminalizes migrants for making mistakes once considered paperwork errors, took three decades to construct before Trump arrived — from the landmark immigration reform act under the Reagan administration in 1986, to the founding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President George W. Bush in 2003, to ICE’s massive raids under President Barack Obama.
President Joe Biden has promised to reverse some of Trump’s most egregious anti-immigrant policies, but few signs suggest he will address what paved their way: the ongoing criminalization of simply existing in the United States as an immigrant.
Biden has declared a moratorium on deportations during his first 100 days in office. He also promises to send an immigration reform bill to Congress. But neither of these measures, advocates say, would necessarily effect a meaningful change; the moratorium is a temporary measure, and a bill could be delayed in Congress and might expand immigration enforcement as a trade-off for pro-migrant measures.”
“On January 13, undocumented activist Jeanette Vizguerra (who has been living in sanctuary at the First Unitarian Society of Denver since 2015) accompanied a grassroots coalition at Biden’s transition headquarters in Wilmington, Del. The coalition demanded immediate action on immigration and an end to detentions and deportations.
“I am here today to personally ask Joe Biden … to act immediately when he takes office next week,” said Vizguerra, who risks arrest by ICE just for stepping out of the church. “[Biden must] protect families like mine that have been hunted and terrorized simply for daring to exist in this ‘land of the free.’ ”
We now have it within our power to end forever the threat of fascism in America, and with it the spectre of racist ethnic cleansing and white supremacist terror as state policy, the concentration camps, deportations, torture and murder which under Trump reached toward the scale of South Africa’s Bantustan system of slave labor and echoed the horrors of the Holocaust.
How shall we answer for the genocide perpetrated in our name?
The Biden Presidency held great promise for the Restoration of America and for a Reckoning with the legacies of our history; in this we have been betrayed not by a failure of vision, but by infiltration, subversion, and capture of the institutions of our government by a Fourth Reich we have yet to purge from among us, as well as by systemic forces of reaction.
As I wrote in my post of June 9 2021, Overseer of the Carceral State Kamala Harris Proclaims Her Solution to the Humanitarian Refugee Crisis at Our Border; “Do Not Come”; Kamala Harris embodies my hopes and fears for the future of America; I hope she is a cross between Arundati Roy and the Jamaican warrior matriarchs who led the slave rebellion against the British Empire; but I fear she may be an overseer of the carceral state.
Today my darkest fears have been given new force by her speech to the “huddled masses yearning to be free”, as the poem by a Jewish girl on our Stature of Liberty proclaims. Former Prosecuting Attorney and instrument of law and order, force, fear, and the brutal tyranny of elite wealth and power and hierarchies of racial exclusivity, now wielding the authority of the Vice President of the United States, fails us all and betrays our trust in a stunning message to the world; “do not come”.
Not the poetic vision of an America which is a beacon of hope to the world, as written by Emma Lazarus;
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Kamala Harris could have simply quoted the magisterial poem which illuminates America’s historic mandate as a guarantor of universal human rights and the equality of all souls, could have spoken to the fear and pain of the wretched of the earth who have come to us for safety and for liberty, could have offered hope for the flaws of our humanity and the brokenness of the world.
And this is all the wisdom and empathy she has to offer us from her secret heart; “Do not come.”
Is Kamala an apologist of imperialism, abysmally ignorant, or just without moral vision?
For what purpose have we a border? We have drawn a line in the sand to exploit disparity and create illegal migrant labor; an invisible resource of those with no legal existence to whom we can do anything without reprisal, and whose cheap labor fuels vast industries of agriculture, hospitality, caretaking, and manufacture.
Migrant labor is slave labor.
This is the system of wealth, power, and privilege which our chosen champion has refused to challenge, and aligned herself instead with those who would enslave us.
Yet the betrayal of the people by Kamala Harris is neither the most central nor most sad issue driving the dynamics of elite hegemony and imperial dominion whose flaws can be read in the suffering of the masses at our border, for we ourselves have designed the failures which are their true cause.
As I wrote in my post of April 7 2021, How American Imperialism Created Our Humanitarian Crisis at the Border; Forty six years ago this April, America launched Operation Condor, a global campaign to destabilize and repress socialist governments and movements and defend capitalism as a hegemonic force and its elite hierarchies of wealth, power, and privilege. This remains relevant to us today because it is the origin of many of the push forces driving waves of refugees to our border, and the horrific humanitarian crisis and test of our democracy created by American imperialism.
Migration is a word which conceals both the conditions which trigger it and our own complicity in creating them as consequences of our decades long policies of colonialism, anticommunist militarism, and economic warfare; ecological devastation with its drought and famine, poverty and social and political destabilization, an age of tyranny and state terror, genocide and ethnic cleansing, weaponized faith and its patriarchal sexual terror, and multigenerational wars.
In terms of refugees fleeing to America for safety and survival as well as liberty and equality we are mainly speaking of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, though the hell zone of Columbia and Venezuela now accounts for many, and with the collapse of central authority in Mexico and its degeneration into a region of warlords, oligarchs, and feudal crime syndicates we have refugees from Mexico itself as well as the traditional seasonal laborers.
Migrant labor is slave labor; this is the great truth America has never confronted and must now answer for in the suffering masses at our border. Entire sectors of our economy run on it; agriculture in which labor becomes a strategic resource as we starve without it, but also child and elder care, hospitality, and some manufacture. America’s wealth and power is created for us by others to whom we export the real costs of production, others who must remain invisible and exploitable as unregulated illegal labor to wring every ounce of value from them for our elites. Thus we weaponize economic disparity in service to power and privilege, and create and maintain hierarchies of exclusionary otherness and white supremacy.
Interests of elite hegemonies of wealth and power converge here with those of racial privilege and white supremacy in historic toxicity, in parallel with the rise of the carceral state as an instrument for the re-enslavement of Black citizens as prison labor and the repression of the Civil Rights Movement, and have done so from their origins. One such origin point is America’s appropriation, concealment, and instrumentalization of Nazi war criminals in the repression of dissent and the conquest of the world.
The Fourth Reich of which Trump was a figurehead did not emerge from nothing like Athena from the head of Zeus, but was an invention of American imperialism. As such its history and character as a global threat to democracy can be studied in the crisis of refugees and migration to which it has given birth, and in the legacies of our nation’s use of fascism as an instrument of dominion in the Americas, for as we were using it to conquer others, it was using us to seize the United States of America and the world.
As I wrote in my post of February 18 2020, Guatemala: Our Heart of Darkness; As we abduct and lockdown refugees in concentration camps and secret prisons, and drive others back into a Mexico whose government is supine before the power of its criminal organizations, we must reflect on the causes of this historic mass migration from Central America’s Dry Corridor of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua; why is this happening, and what can be done to fix the problems which are driving it?
Drought and famine caused by global warming and climate change are clear immediate causes and triggering stressors of the current migration, as articulated by José García Escobar and Melisa Rabanales in The Guardian;
These conditions have worsened longstanding issues of endemic poverty and pervasive violence and criminality, legacies of historical colonialism and American imperialist and capitalist policies and interventions, which I have described in my post of September 4 2019; “ There is an interesting connection between the chaos we created in Central America which is driving a mass exodus of immigration to our borders and the conspiracy theory of Islamic replacement of Europeans which inspires our greatest terrorist threat today; many of the white supremacists who ruled Algeria as a colony of France, mainly former Nazi soldiers who joined the Foreign Legion after the end of World War Two, were after its fall in 1962 hired by the government of the United States to rule El Salvador and Guatemala as puppet regimes to protect our corporate profits.
With them came the same ideology and dream of a homeland and asylum for escaped Nazis, and a secure base of operations and launchpoint for the Fourth Reich, as with those who fled the fall of the colony of Algeria as a white ethnostate to France and blamed Charles de Gaulle for its abandonment, and whose descendants now form the core of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front.
Among the direct effects of the secret partnership between America and our former Nazi adversaries include:
The 1954 seizure of Guatemala by Eisenhower’s CI.A., which replaced a Marxist who had seized land owned by United Fruit and redistributed it to Indian peasants with a furniture salesman from Honduras, Castillo Armas. During the course of this coup America bombed Guatemala City, killed 9,000 communists, disbanded the unions, drove off the squatters, drew up a blacklist of some 70,000 leftists, built death squads and secret prisons, gave torture and brigandage free reign, created an enduring political front, the MLN, and started making a profit from our plantations.
The 1961 seizure of Guatemala by C.I.A. officer Willauer leading 200 men, a Harvard lawyer who had flown as Chennault’s first officer with the Flying Tigers in China. Guatemala was the staging area for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Throughout the 1960-63 period of a civil war which continued until 1996, America crushed a pro-Castro rebellion using six C.I.A. bombers, exiled Cuban shock troops, and Green Berets who used the opportunity to test counterinsurgency theories later used in Vietnam.
The 1974 accession of an officer of Armas named Alarcon to the Presidency of Guatemala, who institutionalized the MLN, declaring “I am a fascist, and I have tried to model my party on the Spanish Falange.” He was, of course, a C.I.A. agent. Nixon once brought him along on his annual pilgrimage to consult with what he called his spiritual advisor, the infamous Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.
The 1982 seizure of power and Presidency of Rios Montt, an evangelical Sunday school teacher and personal friend of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who suspended the constitution, replaced the courts with secret tribunals, escalated the scorched earth warfare, torture, and disappearances of his predecessors, and one thing more. Here we see the designs of the Christian Identity Gideonite fundamentalists for America and the world given free reign.
During this the most terrible period of civil war throughout Central America, when Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras were in fact a single nation ruled by remnants of the Nazis we had transplanted from French Algeria as American puppet regimes, and with the full authority of Ronald Reagan, Rios Montt weaponized Protestantism against encroaching Catholic Liberation theology.
During the 18 months of the Mayan Genocide, in which his death squads killed 3,000 people each month and annihilated 600 villages, he also instituted a system of forced labor in concentration camps modeled on the Apartheid system of South Africa and ruled by terror using former British police and Protestant Orange Militia units hired from Belfast, a mercenary force who had splendidly legal Hong Kong passports courtesy of the Thatcher government.
During over 35 years of civil war in Guatemala including Rios Montt’s genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the native Indians, about half a million Indians were killed, over one million conscripted into military service and used against their own people, tens of thousands driven into Mexico as refugees, and most of the rest worked to death in the concentration camps. No American Army came to liberate them; they were not white, and no one cared so long as the profits flowed. Guatemala is America’s Belgian Congo; our heart of darkness.
I think of this every day as I eat my morning banana, for each one is the living form of a silent cry, the ghost of a tear, the memory of atrocity and horror, a thing like many others of fragile beauty and fleeting pleasure won by brutality and the theft of hope, pain and blood and death made manifest. For the dead and for wrongs past I can do nothing; it is the living who must be avenged and the future that must be redeemed.
The 1981 founding of ARENA in El Salvador and the 1982-3 Presidency of Roberto D’Aubuisson Arrieta, son of one of the original French Algerian OAS/Afrika Corps legionnaires and immigrants and leader of death squads since 1972, when he was trained at the US School of the Americas, often called a school for war criminals. During the peak of the civil war in 1983-84, about 8,000 people were killed every month in El Salvador.
The 1963-75 Honduran coup and military dictatorship of Arellano, for whose regime the term Banana Republic was coined, and of course the conduct of the Contra War beginning in 1980, which included the 1984 Honduran invasion of Nicaragua supported by 5,500 American troops.
Together Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras were ruled for over a generation by America through our puppet tyrants and the ARENA and MLN parties we created. But there is more; much more, of which I will mention only four more brief examples here.
The 1964-85 rule of Brazil by the Arena Party and its legacy of torture and state terror which was ended by the total bankruptcy of the nation.
The 1976 military coup in Argentina and the civil war which followed, during which some 20,000 persons were disappeared. Of our earlier involvements; Peron had been a protégé of Franco and Mussolini, and Evita was assassinated not by us but by Vatican Intelligence with radiation poisoning due to Peron’s campaign against the Church. The Vatican also ran the Swiss escape route used by Otto Skorzeny and other SS officers at the fall of the Third Reich whom the government of America later hired. The most brazen flattery I have ever heard directed toward Oliver North was to compare him to Skorzeny.
The 1973 assassination of Allende in Chile and support of the Pinochet regime which killed as many as one in every hundred of its citizens.
Regarding Mexico, we long ago seized Texas and California, drew a line in the sand, and now call aliens everyone on the wrong side of it who comes here to pick the fruit, wash the dishes, and clean the toilets that our own nephews and nieces, children and grandchildren, would laugh in your face at the suggestion they get their hands dirty doing themselves.
Fascism is a sin of pride whose effects reverberate still, propagating outward in ever-widening circles as a force of contagion like the ripples of a stone cast into a pond. And we are all complicit in it, who call ourselves Americans.
We must make a better future than we have the past, and offer better solutions than to echo Marie Antionette’s dismissive and fatal reference “Let them eat cakes” in the imperious proclamation “Do not come”.
How is white supremacist terror conspiring in anti-immigrant violence now, and how does this issue figure in our elections as we choose who we will become?
As written by Martin Pengelly in The Guardian, in an article entitled Trump’s ‘dehumanising and fascist rhetoric’ denounced by top progressive: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal decries ‘horrific’ language after ex-president says immigrants ‘poisoning the blood of our country’; “A leading American progressive said Donald Trump was using “horrific … dehumanising and fascist rhetoric”, after the former president told supporters immigrants were invading the US and “poisoning the blood of our country”.
“This is horrific,” said Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on Monday.
“Donald Trump’s description of immigrants who are coming to the southern border is dehumanising and fascist rhetoric. These are dangerous lies, designed to villainise immigrants and make horrific policy seem somehow acceptable.
“This is a good reminder of why we can never return to any policies of Donald Trump. He is trying to erase immigrants from America. None of his policies are about reforming the immigration system in a way that recognis[es] that America is better for having immigrants here.”
Dominating Republican presidential primary polling despite facing 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats, Trump made the remarks at election rallies in New Hampshire and Nevada.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” the former president said in Durham, New Hampshire, on Saturday, returning to a line used before.
“That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America … but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”
In Reno, Nevada, on Sunday, he said: “This is an invasion. This is like a military invasion. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”
Academics, commentators and political opponents have been quick to link such rhetoric to that used by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and other authoritarian leaders.
On Saturday, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor and author of the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, said Trump’s aim was to “dehumanise immigrants now so the public will accept [his] repression of them when [he] return[s] to office”.
But on Sunday, Marc Short, chief of staff to Mike Pence when Pence was vice-president to Trump, came to Trump’s defence.
“I think it’s highly unlikely that Donald Trump has ever read Mein Kampf,” Short told Fox News, claiming Trump was instead using inflammatory language to distract critics while winning over voters.
Trump, however, has claimed to have owned Hitler’s memoir, which was published before his Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.
According to a 1990 profile in Vanity Fair, his first wife, Ivana Trump, told her lawyer her husband kept a collection of Hitler’s speeches by his bed.
Trump claimed the book was actually Mein Kampf and was given to him by a Jewish friend. The friend, Marty Davis, said he gave Trump the book of speeches, not Mein Kampf – and that he wasn’t Jewish. Trump told his profiler, Marie Brenner: “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
Brenner asked: “Is Ivana trying to convince her friends and lawyer that Trump is a crypto-Nazi? Trump is no reader or history buff. Perhaps his possession of Hitler’s speeches merely indicates an interest in Hitler’s genius at propaganda.”
Trump’s apparent interest in Hitler has surfaced since. In 2021, the then Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender said Trump told John Kelly, his second of four White House chiefs of staff: “Hitler did a lot of good things.”
As written by Heather Cox Richardson in her journal Letters From An American; “It seems that former president Donald Trump is aligning his supporters with a global far-right movement to destroy democracy.
On Saturday, in Durham, New Hampshire, Trump echoed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s attacks on immigrants, saying they are “poisoning the blood of our country”—although two of his three wives were immigrants—and quoted Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attacks on American democracy. Trump went on to praise North Korean autocratic leader Kim Jong Un and align himself with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, the darling of the American right wing, who has destroyed Hungary’s democracy and replaced it with a dictatorship.
Trump called Orbán “the man who can save the Western world.”
Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, a professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University, explained in The Conversation what Trump is talking about. Autocrats like Orbán and Putin—and budding autocrats like Trump—are building a global movement by fighting back against the expansion of rights to women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ people.
Russian leaders have been cracking down on LGBTQ+ rights for a decade with the help of the Russian Orthodox Church, claiming that they are protecting “traditional values.” This vision of heteronormativity rewrites the real history of human sexuality, but it is powerful in this moment. Orbán insists that immigrants ruin the purity of a country, and has undermined women’s rights.
Riccardi-Swartz explains that this rhetoric appeals to those in far-right movements around the world. In the United States, “family values” became tied to patriotism after World War II, when Chinese and Soviet communists appeared to be erasing traditional gender roles. Those people defined as anti-family—LGBTQ+ people and women who challenged patriarchy—seemed to be undermining society. Now, as dictators like Putin and Orbán promise to take away LGBTQ+ rights, hurt immigrants, and return power to white men, they seem to many to be protecting traditional society.
In the United States, that undercurrent has created a movement of people who are willing to overthrow democracy if it means reinforcing their traditional vision. Christian nationalists believe that the secular values of democracy are destroying Christianity and traditional values. They want to get rid of LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, immigration, and the public schools they believe teach such values. And if that means handing power to a dictator who promises to restore their vision of a traditional society, they’re in.
It is an astonishing rejection of everything the United States has always stood for.
The White House today responded to Trump’s speech. White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said: “Echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists and threatening to oppress those who disagree with the government are dangerous attacks on the dignity and rights of all Americans, on our democracy, and on public safety…. It’s the opposite of everything we stand for as Americans.”
Trump’s ‘dehumanising and fascist rhetoric’ denounced by top progressive
Glad Tidings I Bring; students are forming Satan Clubs at their schools throughout America to counter the subversion of democracy by Christian Identity fascist organizations which promote theocracy and anti-humanist values.
To this joyous news I wrote; What a lovely idea! Let’s make clubs of Rebel Angels in every school in America to learn and practice resistance to authority and systems of oppression, and to directly challenge theocracy and Christian Identity fascism.
In place of submission to authority, let us teach and practice the Four Primary Duties of a Citizen; Question Authority, Expose Authority, Mock Authority, and Challenge Authority. In place of a Bible, I suggest I.F. Stone’s The Trial of Socrates as a primary text. Though for poetic vision in the reimagination and transformation of systems of oppression and unequal power, Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, which I claimed as my own voice and counter text to the Bible in eighth grade, remains unparalleled.
Who stands between each of us and the Infinite serves neither.
As written by Erum Salam in The Guardian, in an article entitled Uproar as after-school Satan club forms at Tennessee elementary school: Satanic clubs, whose members do not worship the devil, usually formed in response to presence of religious groups in schools; “Community members in a Tennessee school district want to banish Satan from their children’s halls after the formation of a new club was announced.
The After School Satan Club (ASSC) wants to establish a branch in Chimneyrock elementary school in the Memphis-Shelby county schools (MSCS) district.
The ASSC is a federally recognized non-profit organization and national after-school program with local chapters across the US. The club is associated with the Satanic Temple, though it claims it is secular and “promotes self-directed education by supporting the intellectual and creative interests of students”.
The Satanic Temple makes it clear its members do not actually worship the devil or believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. Instead Satan is used as a symbol of free will, humanism and anti-authoritarianism.
Satanic after-school clubs are usually established in a school district in response to the presence of religious clubs, such as the Christian evangelical Bible group the Good News Club. The temple says it “does not believe in introducing religion into public schools and will only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus”.
But parents and faith leaders in the Tennessee community members expressed outrage at the news.
In a meeting with more than 40 pastors and other religious leaders, the district board chair, Althea E Greene, said: “Satan has no room in this district.”
Jenny Kincaid, a grandparent of a student at Chimneyrock, told the local Memphis news station Action News 5: “I’m about to come unglued right now. I cannot believe … this is a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school and they’re letting a satanic club come in here?”
The MSCS interim superintendent, Toni Williams, reportedly said there were no plans to prevent the club from operating in the district.
“I do not support the beliefs of this organization at the center of recent headlines,” Williams said. “I do, however, support the law.”
Chimneyrock would be the club’s fifth chapter in the country.
Other school districts have also pushed back against the club’s presence on their campus in the past. In March, the Satanic Temple took legal action against Pennsylvania’s Saucon Valley school district for allegedly discriminating against the ASSC by preventing it from holding meetings on campus and using school facilities. In November, the district settled with the temple for $200,000.
June Everett, ASSC’s national campaign director, said in response to the reaction of the Chimneyrock community members: “I’d like to believe that people that don’t agree with us and don’t think that we should be allowed equal access into the same schools that these other clubs are running, that this is a reminder of what a great and free country that we live in.
“It’s the first amendment at work.”
What of our traditional culture? If by this phrase those who would enslave us mean first submission to authority, second authorized identities of the Elect chosen by God as elite hegemonies of wealth, power, and privilege to dominate and control others, and third legitimation of theocratic states of tyranny and imperial dominion, to all of this I say to hell with it.
Faith weaponized in service to power is among the legacies of history from which we must emerge in liberation struggle.
As I wrote in my post of May 7 2023, The Abjection of Faith as Sadism: Case of the Dalai Lama’s Command “Suck My Tongue”’ Thousands of years of history speak to us with the voice of the Dalai Lama, and what it says is; “Suck my tongue.”
I have heard the Dalai Lama speak when I was a Buddhist monk, during the revolution in Nepal when we overthrew the system of monarchy. I’m not sure what the topic was, because all I heard was this; “I am better than you, and I want to steal your power.”
Actually, this is always the true purpose and design of those who claim to speak for the Infinite, and of any faith weaponized in service to power and authority through exploitation of trust, falsification, and the Wilderness of Mirrors; lies, illusions, rewritten histories, alternate realities, and terminating in subjugation and narratives of belonging and exclusionary otherness as divisions of identitarian politics and theocratic elite hierarchies of the Elect.
“Suck my tongue.”
This is the sum of all wisdom which can be offered to us by such tyrants and theocracies as we go forward into the future and create new ways of being human together; authority and elite hegemonies of the elect and of wealth, power, and privilege serve themselves alone and the systems of unequal power of which they are apex predators, and all their apologetics are nothing more or less than the weaponization of faith and trust in service to power and the subjugation and falsification of those whom they seek to enslave.
There is no meaning or value in theocratic ideologies beyond this, and we may say with Diderot; “Humankind will be free when the last king has been strangled by the guts of the last priest.”
Who stands between each of us and the Infinite serves neither.
“Suck my tongue”; possibly this shocks only Westerners who embraced Buddhism as so many have in reaction to the vile history of imperialism, patriarchy, racism, and wars of religion of traditional European Christianity, in the naïve hope that beliefs outside its boundaries may reify humanistic values and offer real change even when they reinforce rather than challenge systems of patriarchal authority and theocratic dominion.
Traditional authoritarianism mixes poorly with Western permissiveness. Here I speak of the precise and unique ferocity of Orientalism, so well articulated as colonial apologetics by Edward Said, of which the Western embrace of exotic cultures including religions during periods of civilizational fracture, disruption, and collapse from its internal contradictions such as those of the 1960s is a form, embedded in the history of the counterculture and its aberrant New Age faiths both empowering as liberation struggle and dangerous as colonialist assimilation of alien cultures and submission to authority.
Something like this wave of disgust at the nihilistic moral vacuity and dehumanizing arrogance of power as sexual terror now ripples through the global Buddhist community exactly as it has the Catholic Church, which operates globally as an organization of patriarchal sexual terror now that they’ve given up imperial crusades and witch burnings, and the Shia dominion of Iran, whose democracy movements are in part driven by revulsion at the selling of temporary marriages which finances the theocratic regime. The Dalai Lama, the Pope, and the Ayatollah are different not in kind but merely by degree from other apex predators of unequal power as tyrannies of the Elect, figures of vast systems of harm and dehumanization and organizations of subjugation and imperial dominion as weaponized faith.
There is always someone in a gold robe who has tricked others into doing the hard and dirty work for him and his chosen co-conspirators. In the case of the Dalai Lama as the exiled ruler of Tibet and the leader of a faith organization authorized as national identity, we have an actual theocracy like the priest-kings of Pharaonic Egypt combined horrifically with fascist identity politics and nationalism.
One need only look at current examples of theocratic state terror as wars of ethnic cleansing to see how such universal systems of oppression work; Sri Lanka, India, and Yemen as examples from Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic nations. Putin’s mad conquest to rebuild the Russian Empire, a Third World War with many theatres of conflict, is authorized by the Russian Orthodox Church. And Gaza, where the state of Israel has weaponized Jewish identity in service to power, enabled by the same America Pentecostal-fundamentalist network of Christian Identity churches responsible for the Mayan Genocide of the 1980’s, the end of Roe v Wade, and the capture of the Republican Party as a tool of theocratic state terror.
The Buddhist magazine Lions Roar once had a long article about the pervasive and endemic sexual abuse of students by Buddhist teachers and priests; it began “Of course you must accept some authority”. This is where you lose me, and why I no longer live as a monk and Dream Navigator of the Kagyu Vajrayana order, for I say you must never accept a thing as true on the basis of authority, and anyone or any system of politics or faith that demands your obedience is an enemy which must be resisted to the last, a tyrant who has no legitimacy, a deceiver who must be questioned and disbelieved, and a system of lies and stolen power from which we must awake and emerge.
As Kazantzakus teaches us; “I believe nothing, I hope for nothing, I am free.”
The power and impunity of religious authority is a precondition of abuse and a corruptive force.
Treat a man as the voice of revealed truth and an intermediary and substitute for the Infinite long enough, and it will destroy both of you.
As written in Huffpost, in an article entitled Dalai Lama Apologizes After Video Shows Him Telling Boy, ‘Suck My Tongue’; “During a February event, the Dalai Lama asked a boy to kiss him on the lips and stuck out his tongue. “And suck my tongue,” he added, prompting laughter from audience; “Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama apologized Monday after a video showing him kissing a child on the lips triggered criticism.
A statement posted on his official website said the 87-year-old leader regretted the incident and wished to “apologize to the boy and his family, as well as his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused.”
The incident occurred at a public gathering in February at the Tsuglakhang temple in Dharamsala, where the exiled leader lives. He was taking questions from the audience when the boy asked if he could hug him.
The Dalai Lama invited the boy up toward the platform he was seated on. In the video, he gestured to his cheek, after which the child kissed him before giving him a hug.
The Dalai Lama then asked the boy to kiss him on the lips and stuck out his tongue. “And suck my tongue,” the Dalai Lama can be heard saying as the boy sticks out his own tongue and leans in, prompting laughter from the audience.
The footage triggered a backlash online with social media users condemning his behavior as inappropriate and disturbing.
“His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras,” the statement from the Dalai Lama read.”
As written by Slavoj Zizek in Project Syndicate, in an article entitled Suck My Tongue, Crush My Balls; “The controversy surrounding a recent video of the Dalai Lama greeting a seven-year-old boy was not merely a classic case of “lost in translation.” It also speaks to the deep, ineradicable abyss that can separate cultures, and invites reflection on the confusion surrounding intentions and desires that can occur within cultures.
In a recent viral video, the Dalai Lama can be seen asking a seven-year-old boy, at a widely attended public ceremony, to give him a hug and then, “Suck my tongue.” The immediate reaction from many in the West was to condemn the Dalai Lama for behaving inappropriately, with many speculating that he is senile, a pedophile, or both. Others, more charitably, noted that sticking out one’s tongue is a traditional practice in Tibetan culture – a sign of benevolence (demonstrating that one’s tongue is not dark, which indicates evil). Still, asking someone to suck it has no place in the tradition.
In fact, the correct Tibetan phrase is “Che le sa,” which translates roughly to “Eat my tongue.” Grandparents often use it lovingly to tease a grandchild, as if to say: “I’ve given you everything, so the only thing left is for you to eat my tongue.” Needless to say, the meaning was lost in translation. (Although English is the Dalai Lama’s second language, he does not possess native-level mastery.)
To be sure, the fact that something is part of a tradition does not necessarily preclude it from scrutiny or criticism. Clitoridectomy is also a part of ancient Tibetan tradition, but we certainly would not defend it today. And even sticking out one’s tongue has undergone a strange evolution in the last half-century. As Wang Lixiong and Tsering Shakya write in The Struggle for Tibet:
“During the Cultural Revolution, if an old landowner met emancipated serfs on the road he would stand to the side, at a distance, putting a sleeve over his shoulder, bowing down and sticking out his tongue – a courtesy paid by those of lower status to their superiors – and would only dare to resume his journey after the former serfs had passed by. Now [after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms] things have changed back: the former serfs stand at the side of the road, bow and stick out their tongues, making way for their old lords. This has been a subtle process, completely voluntary, neither imposed by anyone nor explained.”
Here, sticking out one’s tongue signals self-humiliation, not loving care. Following Deng’s “reforms,” ex-serfs understood that they were again at the bottom of the social scale. Even more interesting is the fact that the same ritual survived such tremendous social transformations.
Returning to the Dalai Lama, it is probable – and certainly plausible – that Chinese authorities orchestrated or facilitated the wide dissemination of a clip that could besmirch the figure who most embodies Tibetan resistance to Chinese domination.
In any case, we have all now gotten a glimpse of the Dalai Lama as our “neighbor” in the Lacanian sense of the term: an Other who cannot be reduced to someone like us, whose otherness represents an impenetrable abyss. Western observers’ highly sexualized interpretation of his antics reflects an unbridgeable gap in cultural understanding.
But similar cases of impenetrable otherness are easy to find within Western culture. Years ago, when I read about how the Nazis tortured prisoners, I was quite traumatized to learn that they even resorted to industrial testicle-crushers to cause unbearable pain.
Yet lo and behold, I recently came across the same product in an online advertisement:
“Pick your poison for pleasure … STAINLESS STEEL BALL CRUSHER, STAINLESS BALL CLAMP TORTURE DEVICE, BRUTAL COCK VICE TORTURE TOY, HARDCORE STAINLESS BALL TORTURE … So if you lie in bed with your partner, melancholic and tired of life, the time is right. Your slave’s nuts are ripe for crushing! It is the moment you have been waiting for – to find the right tool to brutalize his balls!”
Now, suppose I walked by a room where two men were enjoying this device. Hearing one of them moan and cry in pain, I would probably misread what was happening. Should I knock on the door and politely ask, at the risk of being an idiot, “Is this really consensual?” After all, if I just kept walking, I would be ignoring the possibility that it really was an act of torture.
Or, imagine a scenario where a man is doing something similar to a woman – torturing her consensually. In this age of political correctness, many people would automatically presume coercion, or they would conclude that the woman had internalized male repression and begun to identify with the enemy.
It is impossible to render this situation without ambiguity, uncertainty, or confusion, because there really are some men and women who genuinely enjoy some degree of torture, especially if it is enacted as if it was nonconsensual. In these sadomasochistic rituals, the act of punishment signals the presence of some underlying desire that warrants it. For example, in a culture where rape is punished by flogging, a man might ask his neighbor to flog him brutally, not as some kind of atonement, but because he harbors a deep-seated desire to rape women.
In one sense, the passage from Nazi ball crushers to the erotic kind used in sadomasochist games can be seen as a sign of historical progress. But it runs parallel to the “progress” that leads some people to purge classic works of art of any content that might hurt or offend somebody.
We are left with a culture in which it is okay to engage in consensual discomfort at the level of bodily pleasures, but not in the realm of words and ideas. The irony, of course, is that efforts to prohibit or suppress certain words and ideas will merely make them more attractive and powerful as secret, profane desires. The fact that some superego has enjoined them furnishes them with a pleasure – and pleasure-seekers – that they otherwise would not have had.
Why does increasing permissiveness seem to entail increasing impotence and fragility. And why, under certain conditions, can pleasure be enjoyed only through pain? Contrary to what Freud’s critics have long claimed, psychoanalysis’s moment has only just arrived, because it is the only framework that can render visible the big inconsistent mess that we call “sexuality.”
Uproar as after-school Satan club forms at Tennessee elementary school
Herein two issues of solidarity and a united humankind in the face of crimes against humanity in war become interdependent as gateways to our possible futures; EU membership and American aid.
The fate of Ukraine has world-historical importance in determining the order to come in an Age of Tyrants or of a United Humankind and a free society of equals, both as a primary theatre of World War Three and possible launchpad for Putin’s new Russian Empire in the conquest of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Africa, and as a test of democracy and our universal human rights.
The enemies of liberty spin lies to convince us that “Resistance is futile”; as the Borg often claimed in Star Trek, while the fact is that Resistance is always victorious, because if we define victory as refusal to submit such acts confer freedom. We can be killed, imprisoned, tortured, our witness of history silenced and erased; but we cannot be conquered or subjugated so long as we resist and do not believe the lies of our enemies.
The great secret of power is that is it hollow and brittle, and the use of force and control finds its limit in disobedience and the legitimacy of authority in disbelief.
As written by Nataliya Gumenyuk in The Guardian, in an article entitled Yes, tiredness is ravaging the Ukrainian soldiers I meet. But they never think of giving up; “Ivan has been give the name Decent Man by his fellow soldiers, for being a decent man. As a 40-year-old teacher from central Ukraine and the father of three children, he would have been exempt from fighting at the beginning of the war. But he wanted to fight for his country. He has now spent 18 months on the battlefield and desperately misses his family. He might dream of returning home, but so far doesn’t consider being discharged an option. “The country has already spent money and resources on me. How can I leave?” he asks. Another soldier, who used to be a construction worker in a village in eastern Ukraine, speaks about his motivation to continue serving: “I’ve learned how to become a better and more helpful soldier for my colleagues.”
I spoke to troops from this squadron, which belongs to one of the most famous Ukrainian combat brigades, earlier this month. I wanted to understand the mood among soldiers on the eastern front, to find out what the troops care most about and also to discover whether political disputes reach the frontline.
My encounters came before President Zelenskiy went to the EU to plead for more support this week. Although the EU agreed to start Ukraine’s negotiation for EU membership, €50bn of financial aid was cruelly blocked by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán – Russia’s closest ally in the EU. This comes at a time when President Biden in the US is struggling to get an aid package for the country through Congress.
Most of the servicemen I spoke to had been serving for between 15 and 20 months. They had survived major battles; many were wounded and had witnessed the deaths of their closest friends. In that time, most had not had more than a week or two off duty. The squadron’s 26-year-old commander got married six months before the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Since then, he has been on the frontline for over 18 months.
Political life in Kyiv has now returned to some semblance of normality, including prewar criticism of Zelenskiy by his prewar opponents – sometimes fair, sometimes not. The national and international press persistently search for any evidence of a possible rift between Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s military leadership. Some people are concerned that the country is no longer united; others treat political confrontations as a sign of a healthy democracy, which Ukraine has preserved even under martial law.
Contrary to foreign media headlines, Ukrainian soldiers don’t talk so much about the lack of progress in the counteroffensive. Initially, those fighting had a sober view on the possibility of liberating the rest of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions without a decent air force and sufficient demining. (As one soldier, who lost his leg near Bakhmut this summer, told me, “For us, 200 metres of liberated land means a few dead and eight legs”).
Now, what Ukrainian soldiers really care about is physical tiredness. There is no procedure for discharging those who went to fight at the start of the invasion, including those who volunteered. They have a duty to serve until the end of the war. Last month, some servicemen’s relatives sent an appeal to the headquarters of the supreme commander-in-chief asking for clearly defined terms of service. “The assumption that experienced soldiers after 20 months of active combat remain motivated and have the physical and psychological resources to continue military service is false,” it read.
It’s become such a big issue that Zelenskiy has instructed the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the general staff, and the ministry of defence to find solutions, while factions in parliament are preparing a draft law that will change the rules for mobilising and discharging soldiers.
To wage a war of attrition, Ukraine needs more fighters, but it’s tricky to keep hundreds of thousands of troops in barracks, as they won’t have enough equipment. And Ukraine’s economy might not be able to sustain an army twice its current size.
Only males aged 27 to 60 are currently drafted, while a recent decision to lower the age for mobilisation to 25 is yet to be implemented. Conscripts (aged 18-20) are not allowed to be sent to the battlefield. But younger men can volunteer to fight.
The deputy commander of the squadron, who is in his mid-40s, prefers not to let the younger soldiers fight instead of him: “The newbies, especially the young ones, are the least careful. Often they do not understand what’s at stake,” he says.
The real issue is not so much about age, but experience. They can’t afford to let the experienced fighters go.
The Ukrainian army consists of men who went to fight not because they wanted to, but because it was the only way to defend their towns and families. “Unless the Russian troops are kicked out of Ukrainian territory, the probability that my city will be occupied remains,” one serviceman explains.
For those on the battlefield, the idea of a ceasefire sounds not just naive, but ignorant and detached from reality. The Kremlin uses any pause in the fighting to strengthen its capacity, and get more ammunition, they believe, while Moscow gives no hint of stopping its assault.
After almost two years of war, Ukrainians reflect a lot about the reasons behind successes and failures, but criticism and dissatisfaction must not be mistaken for surrender. The major question is whether casualties could have been avoided and how not to lose lives in the future.
“Nobody wants to die; we try not to, but it doesn’t always work” – that’s how the squadron commander summarises his everyday existence.
If the number of soldiers was the major criterion for success, Ukraine should not even be trying to defend itself. So far, all its victories have been the result of better technology, higher morale and more agility. But over time Russia has caught up, particularly by using drones.
Ukrainian soldiers now want a better equipped, more efficient army. What they don’t want is to give up.
This pragmatism is a far cry from the anxiety I heard in western capitals I visited last month, where some of the analysts, in a rather patronising tone, suggested that Ukraine should “prepare for the worst instead of trying their best”.
This suggestion may sound smart in London or Washington, but appears childish and irresponsible in Ukraine, like advising someone fighting a disease to abandon treatment. If Ukrainians hadn’t tried their best in 2022, the country might not exist now; the cities would be occupied, and society would be crushed.
It’s not just Ukraine’s armed forces that are tired of war; so are millions of ordinary Ukrainians. But being tired is not an excuse for a Ukrainian electrician not to fix the power grid, for a doctor not to treat the wounded, for a rescue worker not to save a person, or for air defence soldiers not to shoot down another Russian missile aimed at Ukrainian towns (like the one that fell less than two miles away from my house in the early hours of Wednesday morning).
The prospects of a long-lasting war have always seemed grim to the outside world, yet Ukrainians embraced this from the start, with doomed optimism. Two years on, we’re all much more tired. Yet, what we have also learned is that with weariness come experience and confidence.”
Here follows my journal of the final day as Russian forces sealed off the city from aid or escape, and after making what mischief we could for the enemy my friends and I fled along the underground railroad to Warsaw to organize resistance and revolution within Russia, and bring a Reckoning for war crimes in Mariupol to her destroyers.
April 18 2022 Last Stand at Mariupol: Fight at the Steel Works; Fighting at the Azovstal and Ilyin Iron and Steel Works remains ongoing; among the vast warrens and maze of tunnels here, with its arsenals, hospitals, communications centers, and routes of resupply as in other underground fortresses in Mariupol and elsewhere, Resistance to the Russian Occupation may be waged for years if necessary. A machinist and leader of the steelworkers who armed themselves in defense, called Big Yuri, has even jury rigged an arms factory which can manufacture rifles and ammunition indefinitely. This, unfortunately, is not the same as holding the ground.
We are the Spartans; our lives buy time for our civilization to awaken to its peril and the threat of fascist tyranny and imperial conquest.
For Mariupol and far too many of the people of Ukraine, this will come too late; no one is coming to help, and many of her defenders have nothing left to fight with on this forty seventh day of the Siege of Mariupol which began on the second of March, and of the Battle which began February 24th.
But it is not too late for you and yours, whomever you may be or wherever you may live. This truth must suffice, as the hope for our future.
I speak herein as a witness of history who has been in Mariupol from March 22, and offer this testimony on behalf of our universal human rights in any Reckoning brought to the perpetrators of this vast and horrific war crime.
This has been from its beginning a battle of aerial and artillery bombardment against the city itself and the civilian population, of tanks against riflemen, of flesh against unanswerable force and horror, of division against solidarity, of hate against love, and of fear against hope.
Here the human will to freedom is tested by an enemy who exults in the embrace of the monstrous, whose policies and designs of war as terror gladly and with the open arrogance of power instrumentalize utter destruction and genocide, a war wherein atrocities and depravities are unleashed as tactics of shock and awe with intent of subjugation through learned helplessness and overwhelming and generalized fear.
Here as in Nanking and countless other places, this produces not submission but resistance. Politics is about fear as a basis of exchange, and in the Calculus of Fear, where limited state terror against its own citizens in concert with total control of information may be useful internally in the manufacture of consent to be governed, provided the legitimacy of authority remains unquestioned by those in whose name it claims to act, in war what is uncontrollable and unimaginable creates conditions in which there is nothing more to lose.
Too much or too little fear, and where and how it is used, can destabilize totalitarian regimes. When law becomes meaningless and is replaced by power and force, authority is delegitimized, the consent to be governed is lost, and order becomes chaos.
Guillermo del Toro, in his magnificent epic of migration and racial equality Carnival Row, episode seven The World to Come, has a scene in which two young successors to leadership of traditionally rival factions find themselves in love and in need of allies in a subplot which reimagines Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; the rebellious hellion Jonah Breakspear asks his Machiavellian lover Sophie Longerbane, “Who is chaos good for?” To which she replies, “Chaos is good for us. Chaos is the great hope of the powerless.”
As Jean Genet said to me in Beirut nearly forty years ago as we were surrounded by soldiers in a house they had set on fire and about to be burned alive; “When there is no hope, we are free to do impossible things, glorious things.”
Resistance has always been a war to the knife. Curious phrase, that; among the few words and whole phrases which come into modern English unchanged from the original Norse; krig på kniven. Its meaning for us is simple; those who would enslave us and who abandon all laws and all limits may hide behind none.
By any means necessary, as this principle is expressed in the famous dictum of Sartre in his 1948 play Dirty Hands, quoted by Frantz Fanon in his 1960 speech Why We Use Violence, and made immortal by Malcolm X.
Why is this terrible war happening, in Mariupol a campaign of terror which includes executions, torture, organized mass rape and the trafficking of abducted civilians, the capture of civilian hostages and use of forced labor, cannibalism using mobile factories, genocidal attacks, erasure of evidence of war crimes using mobile crematoriums which indicates official planning as part of the campaign of terror and proof that the countless crimes against humanity of this war are not aberrations but by design, threats of nuclear annihilation against European nations sending humanitarian aid, and the mass destruction of cities?
The Russian strategy of conquest opens with sustained and relentless bombardment and destruction of hospitals, bomb shelters, stores of food, power systems, water supply, corridors of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of refugees; anything which could help citizens survive a siege. Once nothing is left standing, a campaign of terror as organized mass rape, torture, cannibalism, and looting begins, and any survivors enslaved or executed. This is a war of genocide and erasure, which has no parallel in modern Europe other than the Siege of Sarajevo; and here I speak as a witness of history to both.
Why? What could possibly be worth purchasing with your humanity and that of your nation and people?
Russia wants to conquer Ukraine for the same reason Japan invaded Manchuria; because it is an industrial heartland from which the conquest of the world may be launched, and the warm water ports of Mariupol and Odesa are key to this imperial plan of dominion, as well as to control of a land corridor to Crimea.
The sixty-five ports of the Black Sea connect Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine, and all of these with the Mediterranean, dominion of which Russia has long disputed with Turkey in Libya and Syria. If Russia intends to follow the conquest of Ukraine with that of Eastern Europe, the capture of Romania’s Port of Constanta would open the whole of the Danube region to invasion. The Black Sea remains as crucial to the dominion of the Mediterranean, and of Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, as it was when Mithridates VI of Pontus contested for it in his wars with the Roman Empire, or at the Battle of Gallipoli which we seem doomed to refight in Crimea.
At stake in the fight at the steelworks in Mariupol is the major regional industrial plant and the strategic resource of keeping a fleet alive, decisive in diverting Russian troops and resources from the Donbas campaign and in preventing Russia from fully colonizing Crimea and coastal Ukraine. Denying Russia the ability to refit and repair its ships from local resources may be key to defeating the invasion of the Ukrainian seaboard.
The Azovstal and Ilyin Iron and Steel Works are also a vast and labyrinthine fortress from which the defense of Mariupol may be waged, like Fort St Elmo from which the Knights of Malta made their heroic Last Stand.
What is happening in Mariupol now, among the confusion and devastation of a city of ghosts wherein the Russian army has given free rein to the depravity of war?
As Ukraine seizes the initiative in the north and drives Russia back across the border, and begins to contest and retake the Black Sea with the stunning victory of crippling the Moskva, flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet to which the defenders of Snake Island gave famous reply, savage fighting for the port and the steelworks continues though Russia has claimed a thousand Ukrainian Marines surrendered, with the implication that Mariupol itself has also surrendered.
To this disinformation aimed at the will of the Ukrainian people to refuse to submit and remain Unconquered I say; First, that Mariupol is without question under Occupation and in enemy hands, but the city has not surrendered nor ever will. Suicide teams who have volunteered to remain and harry the enemy as opportunities arise will see to that, and networks of Resistance among her citizens await the hour of Liberation.
The Russians have published their estimate of the forces gathered here at the steel works as twenty five hundred Ukrainians and four hundred foreign volunteers of the International Legion, including the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, we Americans who named ourselves after the legendary unit of the Spanish Civil War. Others still hold the port itself under Ukrainian control, a fact to the advantage of any such force of Liberation who may bring a fleet to this fight.
Second, there is nothing dishonorable in surrender if it means you live to fight another day, and the 36th Marines Brigade who have on the forty sixth day of their heroic defense of Mariupol declared in their last message to the world, days ago now, that they have nothing left to fight with, no ammunition, water, anything, and that they are either captive or dead, bear only honor with them into a future which must now be chosen by others.
I have never seen a Ukrainian surrender. Casually stroll into an enemy checkpoint and pull the pin on a grenade, laughing, to open the way for a hospital truck to rescue others, yes. Share a bottle of poisoned vodka with an enemy sentry and die together while refugees are escorted through the lines, yes.
Such people cannot be conquered. The use of force and violence is fragile and power is hollow when it has no legitimacy but only brutal repression to sustain it; for all such things fail at the point of disobedience and disbelief.
Whosoever refuses to submit becomes Unconquered, and is free. This is a kind of victory against which no tyranny or terror can win.
I have seen a fierce bearded fellow attack a pair of Russian tanks with an ax, running from cover to leap onto the turret and behead the commander, and vanish into the ruins like a shadow of wrath summoned by the city’s pain, grief, and fear. Called The Headsman, in him Ukraine has found an avenger. The remaining tank crewmen bailed out and ran in panic, the commanding officer in the second tank opened fire on the deserters and actually shot one of them, and he was shot in turn by a fellow Russian soldier who emerged behind him from the tank, put a gun to his head, and then simply walked across the street with hands raised and changed sides. The soldier who chose our common humanity over nationalism and solidarity over division is now the commander of that tank, but with the Ukrainian flag painted on it. Saint Andrei, they are calling him.
Putin has sent slaves to conquer a free people. He forgot to wonder, what happens when the slaves join together with their fellow victims of tyranny whom they were sent to conquer, in solidarity of action to liberate themselves?
While the Russian army has an active peace movement and networks of solidarity working with their Ukrainian counterparts, and many incidents of desertion and mutiny including fragging officers, the Ukrainians, often frozen, starving, and out of ammunition like the founders of America who crossed the Delaware with Washington on that fateful Christmas Day in 1776, remain defiant and Unconquered.
There is also the legend of the Wolf of Mariupol, a girl who tore out her attacker’s throat like a wolf. A myth of war, possibly; but I saw what was left of the Russian soldier in question. It is said she now leads a team of women who rescue others from the Butterfly Collectors, the soldiers capturing women for abduction to Russia and trafficking as a criminal syndicate within the Russian military. In her Ukraine has found a Harriet Tubman.
A group of Ukrainian Marines has last week broken through to link up with elements of the Azov National Guard, very stubborn fellows who have held the steel works in grim conditions; but several zones of conflict are unfolding and rapidly changing. Russian officers have tried to compel surrender using civilian hostages in a different incident, but not to my knowledge with success.
The war crimes of the Russians have awakened a resistance of victory or death; like the defenders at the Siege of Malta in 1565 or George Washington who coined that phrase as a password at the Battle of Trenton, the Ukrainian soldiers, civilian partisans including steelworkers and others who armed themselves when Russia attacked, and international volunteers I have witnessed swearing an oath to die in place rather than surrender anything to a conqueror will not go quietly.
What happens next? As Lenin asked in his essay that founded a political party which was destined to transform the world, What is to be done?
Today the Russian Occupation forces impose passports of travel required of all persons on the streets, begin capturing civilians and sending them to processing centers to choose some for forced labor camps and others for summary execution, and all access to the world beyond Mariupol and from the world to here cordoned off entirely. Mariupol is to be emptied, the population totalized as dead or enslaved, and remaining persons systematically hunted to extinction.
Putin intends to leave us nothing to defend and nowhere from which to fight. And in so doing he has freed us to begin the next phase of struggle, and take the fight to the enemy.
Sometimes I think he doesn’t know how to play this game at all.
Fortunately for us, being a KGB Colonel is not precisely the same as being a professional revolutionary, and seems to have made of Putin a truncated and misshapen thing, of limited intellect and no morals whatever, no visionary evil genius nor embodiment of Hegelian world-historical forces but merely an overseer of the carceral state. Vladimir Putin is much like Adolf Eichmann, as described by Hannah Arendt in her historic work on the Nuremberg Trials.
As I consider my goals and objectives regarding the war to be obvious to anyone, I don’t mind outlining them for you here.
First and beyond all other priorities, for only this will truly end the threat of war, we must act in solidarity with the Russian peoples to help bring regime change and the Liberation of Russia from the tyranny of Vladimir Putin and his oligarchy.
Second, we must bring a direct and personal Reckoning to Putin, his oligarchs, high command, political allies and minions, and all those complicit in war crimes in Ukraine.
Third, we must bring destruction to Russia’s ability to wage this war, especially the artillery and airfields which reduce whole cities to ruin in the opening phase of any such enemy assault.
Fourth, we must seize control of the Black Sea or prevent Russia from doing so, to deny its use as a launching pad for the imperial Russian conquest and dominion of the Mediterranean, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
We’re going to need a pirate fleet for that last bit, and I know just where I can find one.
Herein the overarching strategic reality which must drive our decisions is the fact that World War Three has now been ongoing for some time, whose theatres of war include Russia, America, Syria, Libya, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and now Ukraine inclusive of her province Crimea.
Should we fail to stop this war of imperial conquest and dominion here in Ukraine where all our humanitarian values and international laws are violated with brutal savagery, and allow it to become a general global war between liberty and tyranny, my fear is that the world may enter an age of tyranny and centuries of war which humankind will not survive.
For Putin’s hand rests on the button of our nuclear annihilation and extinction, and it calls to him, whispering; “Set me free, and I’ll make you powerful.”
”圮地則行；圍地則謀；死地則戰“; as written by Sun Tzu in Chapter Eleven of The Art of War, “In death ground, fight.”
This principle of action was once demonstrated for me in Angola, during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988, in a tactical situation similar to ours here in Mariupol. While the spectacle of this grand final battle in a decades long liberation struggle against colonialism and Apartheid was unfolding, I was making mischief behind enemy lines in the bush. Here I discovered a lost unit, mainly Zulu though with Soviet and Cuban volunteers, which was encircled by Apartheid forces.
After reporting what I knew of the area to the command group and a brief conference in several languages, an old fellow who had heretofore been silent stood up from the shadows of the tent, whose shirtless form displayed a fearsome and magnificent scar from a lion’s claws, and said; “We are surrounded and outnumbered with no ammunition and worse, no water, and no one is coming to help us. We must attack.”
The sergeant smiled at this as if he had been given a marvelous gift, strode outside, and gave the order which if you are lucky you will never hear; “Fix bayonets!”
And the men about to die erupted in song. “Usuthu! Umkhonto wami womile!” “My spear is thirsty”, that last.
We too can emerge victorious from our war of survival against even an immensely more vast and powerful foe, as did the heroes of Cuito Cuanavale, if we unleash the full will and force of our nations against an emergent Russian Empire, as a United Humankind; especially if we do so against its weak spots and lines of fracture.
Ukraine is such a weak spot of imperial ambition, while she yet resists and remains Unconquered. And the Russian invasion of Europe can be derailed by political action in Russia through the democracy and peace movements which have challenged Putin’s tyranny.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity goes the motto of the Revolution which birthed democracies in America and France; the first two parts of which proclaim universal principles of human being, and the third part, which refers to what we call solidarity, interdependence, and our duty of care for others, is instrumental to the realization of our liberty and equality as a free society of equals.
We can be victorious in the triumph of democracy over tyranny, of solidarity over division, and of love over hate. But there is only one way this works; we must act as one United Humankind.
Biden: Putin ‘banking’ on the US failing to deliver for Ukraine
This Day We Fight: Aragorn’s Speech at the Black Gate
Darkest Hour: You cannot Reason With a Tiger When Your Head Is In Its Mouth
Yes, tiredness is ravaging the Ukrainian soldiers I meet. But they never think of giving up
Reading List for a Future History of the Battle and Siege of Mariupol, To Be Written
Such a history begins thus; Herein is my witness of history and truth telling in this, the first general history of World War Three. As with all things human, it is also fiction except when it is not, myth when it can be, poetic vision and the reimagination and transformation of human being, meaning, and value and of our limitless future possibilities of becoming human.
Are we not the stories we tell about ourselves, to ourselves and to others?
Always there remains the struggle between the masks we make for ourselves and those made for us by others.
This is the first revolution in which we all must fight; the struggle for ownership of ourselves.
There are no Ukrainians, no Russians; only people like ourselves, and the choices they make about how to be human together.
Ukrainian
Список для читання майбутньої історії битви та облоги Маріуполя, який буде написаний
Така історія починається так; Ось моє свідчення історії та правди в цій першій загальній історії Третьої світової війни. Як і все людське, це також вигадка, за винятком тих випадків, коли це не так, міф, коли він може бути, поетичне бачення та переосмислення і трансформація людського буття, сенсу й цінності та наших безмежних майбутніх можливостей стати людьми.
Хіба ми не ті історії, які розповідаємо про себе, собі та іншим?
Завжди залишається боротьба між масками, які ми робимо для себе, і тими, які роблять для нас інші.
Це перша революція, в якій ми всі повинні боротися; боротьба за володіння собою.
Немає ні українців, ні росіян; тільки такі люди, як ми, і вибір, який вони роблять щодо того, як бути людьми разом.
Russian
Список литературы для будущей истории битвы и осады Мариуполя, которую нужно написать
Такая история начинается так; Вот мой свидетель истории и правды в этой, первой общей истории Третьей мировой войны. Как и все человеческое, это также вымысел, за исключением случаев, когда это не так, миф, когда он может быть, поэтическое видение и переосмысление и трансформация человеческого бытия, смысла и ценности, а также наших безграничных будущих возможностей стать людьми.
Разве мы не истории, которые рассказываем о себе, себе и другим?
Всегда остается борьба между масками, которые мы делаем для себя, и масками, которые делают для нас другие.
Это первая революция, в которой мы все должны сражаться; борьба за право собственности на себя.
Нет ни украинцев, ни русских; только такие люди, как мы, и выбор, который они делают о том, как быть людьми вместе.
18 квітня 2022 року Останній бій у Маріуполі: бій на металургійному заводі
Бойові дії на «Азовсталі» та «Ільїнського металургійного комбінату» тривають; серед величезних лабіринтів і лабіринтів тунелів тут, з його арсеналом, госпіталем, центром зв’язку та маршрутами постачання, як і в інших підземних фортецях у Маріуполі та інших місцях, опір російській окупації можна вести роками, якщо буде потрібно. Машиніст і керівник металургійних робітників, які озброїлися для захисту, на ім’я Великий Юрій, навіть присяжні сфальсифікували збройовий завод, який може виробляти гвинтівки та боєприпаси необмежений час. Це, на жаль, не те саме, що тримати землю.
Ми спартанці; наше життя дає час для нашої цивілізації, щоб пробудитися до її небезпеки та загрози фашистської тиранії та імперського завоювання.
Для Маріуполя та дуже багатьох жителів України це станеться надто пізно; ніхто не йде на допомогу, а багатьом її захисникам нема з чим битися в цей сорок сьомий день облоги Маріуполя, що розпочалася 2 березня, і битви, що розпочалася 24 лютого.
Але ще не пізно для вас і ваших, ким би ви не були і де б ви не жили. Цієї правди має бути достатньо, як надії на наше майбутнє.
Я говорю тут як свідок історії, який перебував у Маріуполі з 22 березня, і пропоную це свідчення від імені наших універсальних прав людини в будь-якій розплаті винуватцям цього величезного та жахливого військового злочину.
З самого початку це була битва повітряних та артилерійських бомбардувань самого міста та цивільного населення, танків проти стрільців, плоті проти невідповідної сили та жаху, поділу проти солідарності, ненависті проти любові та страху проти надії. .
Тут людська воля до свободи випробовується ворогом, який радіє в обіймах жахливих, чия політика та задуми війни як терору з радістю та з відкритою зарозумілістю влади інструментують повне знищення та геноцид, війну, в якій розв’язуються звірства та розбещення. як тактика шоку і благоговіння з наміром підкорення через вивчену безпорадність і непереборний і загальний страх.
Тут, як і в Нанкіні та багатьох інших місцях, це викликає не підкорення, а опір. Політика стосується страху як основи обміну, а в Обчисленні страху, де обмежений державний терор проти власних громадян у поєднанні з повним контролем інформації може бути корисним для внутрішнього виробництва згоди на керування, за умови легітимності влади. залишається беззаперечним для тих, чиє ім’я вона претендує на дію, у війні те, що є неконтрольованим і немислимим, створює умови, в яких втрачати більше нічого.
Занадто великий або занадто малий страх, а також те, де і як він використовується, може дестабілізувати тоталітарні режими. Коли закон втрачає сенс і замінюється владою і силою, влада делегітимізується, втрачається згода на керування, а порядок стає хаосом.
Гільєрмо дель Торо у своїй чудовій епосі про міграцію та расову рівність Carnival Row, сьомий епізод «Світ, що прийде», містить сцену, в якій двоє молодих наступників лідерства традиційно ворогуючих фракцій опиняються закоханими та потребуючими союзників у сюжеті, який переосмислює «Ромео і Джульєтту» Шекспіра; бунтівний геліон Джона Брейкспір запитує свою кохану-макіавеллістську Софі Лонгербейн: «Кому хаос корисний?» На що вона відповідає: «Хаос корисний для нас. Хаос — велика надія безсилих».
Як сказав мені Жан Жене в Бейруті майже сорок років тому, коли ми були оточені солдатами в будинку, який вони підпалили і ось-ось спалили заживо; «Коли немає надії, ми вільні робити неможливі речі, славні речі».
Опір завжди був війною на ножа. Цікава фраза, що; серед небагатьох слів і цілих фраз, які приходять до сучасної англійської мови незмінними від оригінальної скандинавської мови; krig på kniven. Його значення для нас просте; ті, хто хоче нас поневолити і хто відмовляється від усіх законів і будь-яких обмежень, не можуть ховатися ні за ким.
У будь-якому разі, оскільки цей принцип виражений у знаменитому сентенції Сартра у його п’єсі «Брудні руки» 1948 року, цитованої Францом Фаноном у його промові 1960 року «Чому ми використовуємо насильство» і зробленій безсмертним Малькольмом Ікс.
Чому відбувається ця страшна війна, у Маріуполі проводиться кампанія терору, яка включає страти, катування, організовані масові зґвалтування та торгівлю викраденими цивільними, захоплення цивільних заручників та використання примусової праці, канібалізм з використанням пересувних заводів, напади геноциду, знищення докази військових злочинів із використанням мобільних крематоріїв, що вказує на офіційне планування як частину кампанії терору та доказ того, що незліченні злочини проти людства у цій війні є не відхиленнями, а задумом, загрозою ядерного знищення європейських країн, які надсилають гуманітарну допомогу, і масою руйнування міст?
Російська завойовницька стратегія починається з постійних і невпинних бомбардувань і руйнувань лікарень, бомбосховищ, складів продовольства, енергосистем, водопостачання, коридорів гуманітарної допомоги та евакуації біженців; все, що могло б допомогти громадянам пережити облогу. Після того, як нічого не залишиться, починається кампанія терору як організовані масові зґвалтування, тортури, канібалізм та мародерство, а будь-які вижили поневолені або страчені. Це війна на геноцид і стирання, яка не має аналогів у сучасній Європі, крім облоги Сараєво; і тут я виступаю як свідок історії для обох.
Чому? Що може бути варте того, щоб придбати з вашою людяністю та людськістю вашої нації та народу?
Росія хоче завоювати Україну з тієї ж причини, чому Японія вторглася в Маньчжурію; тому що це промисловий центр, з якого можна почати завоювання світу, а тепловодні порти Маріуполя та Одеси є ключовими для цього імперського плану панування, а також для контролю над сухопутним коридором до Криму.
Шістдесят п’ять портів Чорного моря з’єднують Румунію, Болгарію, Грузію, Молдову, Туреччину, Росію та Україну, і всі вони із Середземним морем, домінування якого Росія довгий час спорила з Туреччиною в Лівії та Сирії. Якщо Росія має намір продовжити завоювання України разом із завоюванням Східної Європи, захоплення румунського порту Констанца відкриє для вторгнення весь Дунайський регіон. Чорне море залишається таким же важливим для панування в Середземному морі, Східній Європі, Північній Африці та Близькому Сході, як і тоді, коли Мітрідат VI Понтійський змагався за нього у війнах з Римською імперією або в битві при Галіполі, з яким ми, здається, приречені на боротьбу в Криму.
На кону в боротьбі на металургійному заводі в Маріуполі стоїть головний регіональний промисловий завод і стратегічний ресурс підтримки флоту, який вирішальний у відверненні російських військ і ресурсів від кампанії на Донбасі та у запобіганні повної колонізації Росією Криму та прибережної України. Відмова Росії в можливості переобладнати та ремонтувати свої кораблі з місцевих ресурсів може стати ключем до перемоги над вторгненням на українське узбережжя.
«Азовсталь» та «Ільїнський металургійний комбінат» також є величезною фортецею-лабіринтом, з якої можна вести оборону Маріуполя, як форт Святого Ельмо, з якого мальтійські лицарі зробили свій героїчний Останній бій.
Що зараз відбувається в Маріуполі, серед сум’яття і розрухи міста привидів, де російська армія дала волю розбещеності війни?
Коли Україна перехоплює ініціативу на півночі й штовхає Росію назад через кордон, а також починає змагатися та відвоювати Чорне море з приголомшливою перемогою, пошкодивши Москву, флагман російського Чорноморського флоту, якому захисники Зміїного острова дали славу Відповідь, жорстокі бої за порт і металургійний завод тривають, хоча Росія заявляла про капітуляцію тисячі українських морських піхотинців, маючи на увазі, що сам Маріуполь також здався.
На цю дезінформацію, спрямовану на волю українського народу відмовитися підкоритися і залишитися Нескореним, я кажу; По-перше, що Маріуполь безперечно знаходиться під окупацією і в руках ворога, але місто не здалося і ніколи не здалося. Команди самогубців, які добровільно зголосилися залишитися і боротися з ворогом, коли з’являться можливості, подбають про це, а мережі Опору серед її громадян чекають години Визволення.
Росіяни опублікували свою оцінку сил, зібраних тут на металургійному заводі: двадцять п’ятсот українців і чотириста іноземних добровольців Міжнародного легіону, включаючи бригаду Авраама Лінкольна, американців, які назвали себе на честь легендарного підрозділу громадянської війни в Іспанії. Інші досі тримають сам порт під контролем України, що вигідно будь-якій такій силі визволення, яка може привести флот до цієї боротьби.
По-друге, немає нічого безчесного в капітуляції, якщо це означає, що ви живете, щоб воювати ще один день, а 36-та бригада морської піхоти, яка на сорок шостий день героїчної оборони Маріуполя, оголосила в своєму останньому посланні світові, кілька днів тому, що їм нема з чим битися, ні боєприпасів, ні води, ні чого, і те, що вони або полонені, або мертві, несуть із собою лише честь у майбутнє, яке тепер мають вибрати інші.
Я ніколи не бачив капітуляції українців. Невимушено зайдіть на ворожий контрольно-пропускний пункт і, сміючись, потягніть шпильку на гранату, щоб відкрити шлях лікарняній вантажівці, щоб врятувати інших, так. Поділіться пляшкою отруєної горілки з ворожим сторожем і помріте разом, поки біженців супроводжують через ряди, так.
Таких людей неможливо перемогти. Застосування сили та насильства є крихким, а влада порожньою, коли вона не має легітимності, а лише жорстокі репресії для її підтримки; бо всі такі речі зазнають непокори й невіри.
Кожен, хто відмовляється підкоритися, стає Нескореним і вільний. Це свого роду перемога, проти якої не може перемогти жодна тиранія чи терор.
Я бачив, як лютий бородатий хлопець атакував пару російських танків із сокирою, бігаючи з укриття, щоб стрибнути на вежу і відрубати голову командиру, і зникав у руїнах, як тінь гніву, викликана болем, горем і страхом міста. . Називається Головою, в ньому Україна знайшла месника. Решта танкістів вирвалась і в паніці побігла, командир другого танка відкрив вогонь по дезертирам і фактично застрелив одного з них, а його по черзі застрелив російський побратим, який вийшов за ним з танка, поклав пістолет йому в голову, а потім просто пішов через вулицю з піднятими руками й перейшовши на бік. Солдат, який вибрав нашу спільну людяність, а не націоналізм і солідарність, а не розкол, тепер є командиром того танка, але з намальованим українським прапором. Святий Андрій, його кличуть.
Путін послав рабів, щоб підкорити вільний народ. Він забув поцікавитися, що станеться, коли раби об’єднаються зі своїми побратимами-жертвами тиранії, яких їх послали завоювати, на знак солідарності, щоб звільнитися?
У той час як російська армія має активний рух за мир і мережі солідарності, які працюють зі своїми українськими колегами, а також багато випадків дезертирства та заколотів, у тому числі підривних офіцерів, українці, часто заморожені, голодні й позбавлені боєприпасів, як засновники Америки, які перетнули Делавер з Вашингтоном у той фатальний Різдво 1776 року залишаються зухвалими і Нескореними.
Існує також легенда про Маріупольського Вовка, дівчину, яка, як вовк, розірвала своєму нападникові горло. Можливо, міф про війну; але я бачив, що залишилося від російського солдата. Кажуть, що зараз вона очолює команду жінок, які рятують інших від колекціонерів метеликів, солдатів, які захоплюють жінок для викрадення в Росію та торгівлі людьми як злочинний синдикат в російських військових. У ній Україна знайшла Гаррієт Табмен.
Минулого тижня група українських морських піхотинців прорвалася, щоб зв’язатися з елементами Азовської Національної гвардії, дуже впертими хлопцями, які тримали металургійний завод у похмурих умовах; але кілька зон конфлікту розгортаються і швидко змінюються. Російські офіцери намагалися змусити здатися з використанням цивільних заручників у іншому інциденті, але, наскільки мені відомо, не вдалося.
Військові злочини росіян пробудили опір перемоги чи смерті; як захисники під час облоги Мальти в 1565 році або Джордж Вашингтон, який придумав цю фразу як пароль у битві при Трентоні, українські солдати, цивільні партизани, включаючи сталеварів та інших, які озброїлися під час нападу Росії, і міжнародні добровольці, свідками яких я був, як лаялися клятва померти на місці, а не здати щось завойовнику не пройде спокійно.
Що буде далі? Як запитав Ленін у своєму есе про створення політичної партії, якій судилося змінити світ, що робити?
Сьогодні російсько-окупаційні війська встановлюють паспорти проїзду, необхідні для всіх людей на вулицях, починають захоплювати мирних жителів і відправляти їх у центри обробки, щоб вибирати одних у табори примусової праці, а інших для розстрілу, а також доступ у світ за межами Маріуполя та з Світ тут повністю оточений. Маріуполь має бути спустошений, населення узагальнено як мертве чи поневолене, а решта особи систематично вимирають.
Путін має намір не залишити нам нічого, щоб захищати і ні звідки воювати. І тим самим він звільнив нас, щоб ми розпочали наступну фазу боротьби і перенесли боротьбу з ворогом.
Іноді мені здається, що він взагалі не знає, як грати в цю гру.
На наше щастя, бути полковником КДБ – це не те саме, що бути професійним революціонером, і, здається, зробив з Путіна урізану та деформовану річ, обмеженого інтелекту та будь-якої моралі, ні прозорливого злого генія, ні втілення гегелівського світу… історичні сили, а лише наглядач за карцерською державою. Володимир Путін дуже схожий на Адольфа Ейхмана, як описала Ханна Арендт у своїй історичній роботі про Нюрнберзький процес.
Оскільки я вважаю свої цілі та завдання щодо війни очевидними для всіх, я не проти окреслити їх тут.
Перш за все, і крім усіх інших пріоритетів, оскільки тільки це по-справжньому покінчить із загрозою війни, ми повинні діяти солідарно з російськими народами, щоб допомогти змінити режим і звільнити Росію від тиранії Володимира Путіна та його олігархії.
По-друге, ми повинні принести пряму та особисту розплату Путіну, його олігархам, верховному командуванню, політичним союзникам і прихильникам, а також усім, хто причетний до військових злочинів в Україні.
По-третє, ми повинні знищити здатність Росії вести цю війну, особливо артилерію та аеродроми, які руйнують цілі міста на початковій фазі будь-якого такого нападу ворога.
По-четверте, ми повинні взяти контроль над Чорним морем або перешкодити Росії зробити це, заперечити його використання як стартовий майданчик для імперського завоювання і панування в Середземному морі, Європі, Африці та Близькому Сході.
Для цього останнього нам знадобиться піратський флот, і я знаю, де його знайти.
Тут всеохоплюючою стратегічною реальністю, яка повинна керувати нашими рішеннями, є той факт, що вже деякий час триває Третя світова війна, театри якої включають Росію, Америку, Сирію, Лівію, Білорусь, Казахстан, Нагірний Карабах, а тепер і Україну включно. її губернії Крим.
Якщо ми не зможемо зупинити цю війну імперського завоювання і панування тут, в Україні, де всі наші гуманітарні цінності та міжнародні закони порушуються з жорстоким дикістю, і дозволимо їй перетворитися на загальну глобальну війну між свободою та тиранією, я боюся, що світ може вступити в епоху тиранії та століть воєн, яких людство не переживе.
Бо рука Путіна лежить на кнопці нашого ядерного знищення й вимирання і кличе його, шепоче; «Звільни мене, і я зроблю тебе могутнім».
”圮地則行；圍地則謀；死地則戰“; як написав Сунь Цзи в одинадцятому розділі «Мистецтво війни» «На землі смерті боріться».
Цей принцип дій був мені колись продемонстрований в Анголі, під час битви при Куіто-Куанавале в 1988 році, в тактичній ситуації, подібній до нашої тут, у Маріуполі. Поки розгорталося видовище цієї грандіозної останньої битви в десятирічній визвольній боротьбі проти колоніалізму та апартеїду, я робив зло в тилу ворога в кущах. Тут я виявив загублений загін, переважно зулуський, але з радянськими та кубинськими добровольцями, який був оточений силами апартеїду.
Після доповіді про те, що я знав про місцевість, командній групі та короткої конференції кількома мовами, старий хлопець, який досі мовчав, піднявся з тіні намету, на обличчі якого без сорочки був страшний і чудовий шрам від кігтів лева. , і сказав; «Ми оточені та перевершені, без боєприпасів і, що ще гірше, без води, і ніхто не йде нам на допомогу. Ми повинні атакувати».
Сержант посміхнувся на це, ніби отримав чудовий подарунок, вийшов надвір і віддав наказ, якого, якщо пощастить, ви ніколи не почуєте; «Поправити багнети!»
І чоловіки, які ось-ось померли, вибухали піснею. «Усутху! Umkhonto wami womile!» «Мій спис спраглий», останнє.
Ми також можемо вийти переможцями в нашій війні на виживання проти навіть набагато більшого й могутнього ворога, як це зробили герої Куіто Куанавале, якщо ми випустимо повну волю та силу наших націй проти Російської імперії, що виникає, як об’єднане людство; особливо якщо ми робимо це проти його слабких місць і ліній зламу.
Україна є таким слабким місцем імперських амбіцій, а вона все ще чинить опір і залишається Нескореною. А російське вторгнення в Європу може бути зірвано політичними діями в Росії через рухи за демократію та мир, які кинули виклик тиранії Путіна.
Свобода, рівність, братерство – девіз революції, яка породила демократії в Америці та Франції; перші дві частини яких проголошують універсальні принципи людського буття, а третя частина, яка стосується того, що ми називаємо солідарністю, взаємозалежністю та нашим обов’язком піклуватися про інших, є інструментом для реалізації нашої свободи та рівності як вільного суспільства. рівних.
Ми можемо перемогти у тріумфі демократії над тиранією, солідарності над розколом і любові над ненавистю. Але це працює лише одним способом; ми повинні діяти як єдине об’єднане людство.
Russian
18.04.2022 Последняя битва под Мариуполем: бой на металлургическом заводе
Бои на Азовстали и металлургическом комбинате имени Ильина продолжаются; среди обширных лабиринтов и лабиринтов туннелей здесь, с его арсеналом, госпиталем, узлом связи и путями снабжения, как и в других подземных крепостях в Мариуполе и других местах, Сопротивление русской оккупации может вестись годами, если это необходимо. Машинист и лидер сталеваров, вооружившихся для обороны, по имени Большой Юрий даже присяжными устроил оружейный завод, который может бесконечно производить винтовки и боеприпасы. Это, к сожалению, не то же самое, что удерживать землю.
Мы спартанцы; наши жизни выигрывают время, чтобы наша цивилизация проснулась перед опасностью и угрозой фашистской тирании и империалистического завоевания.
Для Мариуполя и слишком многих жителей Украины это произойдет слишком поздно; никто не идет на помощь, и многим ее защитникам нечем сражаться в этот сорок седьмой день осады Мариуполя, начавшейся второго марта, и битвы, начавшейся 24 февраля.
Но еще не поздно для вас и ваших близких, кем бы вы ни были и где бы вы ни жили. Эта истина должна быть достаточной, как надежда на наше будущее.
Я говорю здесь как свидетель истории, который был в Мариуполе с 22 марта, и предлагаю это свидетельство от имени наших всеобщих прав человека в любой расплате, привлеченной к виновным в этом огромном и ужасном военном преступлении.
С самого начала это была битва воздушных и артиллерийских бомбардировок против самого города и гражданского населения, танков против стрелков, плоти против неопровержимой силы и ужаса, разделения против солидарности, ненависти против любви и страха против надежды. .
Здесь человеческая воля к свободе испытывается врагом, ликующим в объятиях чудовищного, чья политика и замыслы войны как террора с радостью и с открытым высокомерием власти превращают в инструмент полнейшее разрушение и геноцид, войну, в которой развязываются зверства и разврат. как тактика шока и трепета с намерением подчинения посредством выученной беспомощности и подавляющего и всеобщего страха.
Здесь, как и в Нанкине, и во множестве других мест, это вызывает не подчинение, а сопротивление. Политика — это страх как основа обмена, и в Исчислении страха, где ограниченный государственный террор против собственных граждан в сочетании с полным контролем информации может быть полезен внутри страны для производства согласия на управление при условии легитимности власти. не подвергается сомнению со стороны тех, чье имя претендует на то, чтобы действовать, на войне то, что является неконтролируемым и невообразимым, создает условия, в которых больше нечего терять.
Слишком много или слишком мало страха, а также то, где и как он используется, могут дестабилизировать тоталитарные режимы. Когда закон теряет смысл и заменяется властью и силой, власть утрачивает легитимность, теряется согласие на то, чтобы ею управляли, а порядок превращается в хаос.
Гильермо дель Торо в великолепной эпопее о миграции и расовом равенстве «Карнивал Роу», в седьмом эпизоде «Грядущего мира», есть сцена, в которой двое молодых преемников во главе традиционно соперничающих фракций оказываются влюбленными и нуждаются в союзниках в сюжетной линии, которая переосмысливает «Ромео и Джульетту» Шекспира; мятежный геллион Джона Брейкспир спрашивает свою макиавеллиевскую возлюбленную Софи Лонгербейн: «Кому полезен хаос?» На что она отвечает: «Хаос полезен для нас. Хаос — великая надежда бессильных».
Как сказал мне Жан Жене в Бейруте почти сорок лет назад, когда мы были окружены солдатами в доме, который они подожгли и собирались сжечь заживо; «Когда нет надежды, мы свободны делать невозможные вещи, славные вещи».
Сопротивление всегда было войной на нож. Любопытная фраза, что; среди нескольких слов и целых фраз, которые вошли в современный английский язык без изменений из оригинального норвежского языка; криг для ножа. Его смысл для нас прост; те, кто хочет поработить нас и кто отказывается от всех законов и всех ограничений, не могут ни за кем спрятаться.
Любыми необходимыми средствами, как этот принцип выражен в знаменитом изречении Сартра в его пьесе 1948 года «Грязные руки», процитированном Францем Фаноном в его речи 1960 года «Почему мы используем насилие» и увековеченном Малкольмом Икс.
Почему происходит эта страшная война, в Мариуполе кампания террора, которая включает в себя расстрелы, пытки, организованные массовые изнасилования и торговлю похищенными гражданскими лицами, захват гражданских заложников и использование принудительного труда, каннибализм с использованием передвижных заводов, геноцидные нападения, стирание доказательства военных преступлений с использованием мобильных крематориев, что указывает на официальное планирование как часть кампании террора и доказательство того, что бесчисленные преступления против человечности в этой войне являются не отклонением от нормы, а намеренно, угрозы ядерного уничтожения европейским странам, отправляющим гуманитарную помощь, и массовое разрушение городов?
Российская стратегия завоевания начинается с непрерывных и безжалостных бомбардировок и разрушений больниц, бомбоубежищ, складов продовольствия, энергосистем, водоснабжения, коридоров гуманитарной помощи и эвакуации беженцев; все, что может помочь гражданам пережить осаду. Как только ничего не остается, начинается кампания террора с организованными массовыми изнасилованиями, пытками, каннибализмом и грабежами, а все выжившие порабощаются или казнятся. Это война геноцида и стирания, которая не имеет аналогов в современной Европе, кроме осады Сараево; и здесь я говорю как свидетель истории обоим.
Почему? Что может стоить покупки с вашей человечностью и человечностью вашей нации и народа?
Россия хочет завоевать Украину по той же причине, по которой Япония вторглась в Маньчжурию; потому что это промышленный центр, из которого может быть начато завоевание мира, а тепловодные порты Мариуполя и Одессы являются ключом к этому имперскому плану господства, а также к контролю над сухопутным коридором в Крым.
Шестьдесят пять портов Черного моря соединяют Румынию, Болгарию, Грузию, Молдову, Турцию, Россию и Украину, и все они со Средиземным морем, господство над которым Россия давно оспаривает с Турцией в Ливии и Сирии. Если Россия намерена после завоевания Украины завоевать Восточную Европу, захват румынского порта Констанца откроет для вторжения весь Дунайский регион. Черное море остается столь же важным для господства в Средиземноморье, Восточной Европе, Северной Африке и на Ближнем Востоке, как это было, когда Митридат VI Понтийский боролся за него в своих войнах с Римской империей или в битве при Галлиполи, которые мы, похоже, обречены отыграть в Крыму.
На карту в битве на сталелитейном заводе в Мариуполе поставлено крупное региональное промышленное предприятие и стратегический ресурс для поддержания жизни флота, решающего в отвлечении российских войск и ресурсов от кампании на Донбассе и в предотвращении полной колонизации Россией Крыма и прибрежной Украины. Лишение России возможности переоборудовать и ремонтировать свои корабли за счет местных ресурсов может стать ключом к отражению вторжения на украинское побережье.
Металлургический комбинат «Азовсталь» и Ильинский металлургический комбинат — это также обширная и запутанная крепость, из которой можно вести оборону Мариуполя, подобно форту Святого Эльма, из которого мальтийские рыцари сделали свой последний героический бой.
Что происходит сейчас в Мариуполе, среди суматохи и разрухи города-призрака, где русская армия дала волю разврату войны?
Поскольку Украина перехватывает инициативу на севере и оттесняет Россию через границу, она начинает бороться и отвоевывать Черное море с ошеломляющей победой, выводя из строя «Москву», флагман российского Черноморского флота, которому защитники Змеиного острова дали знаменитую Ответ: ожесточенные бои за порт и сталелитейный завод продолжаются, хотя Россия заявила о сдаче в плен тысячи украинских морских пехотинцев, подразумевая, что сдался и сам Мариуполь.
На эту дезинформацию, направленную на волю украинского народа отказаться подчиниться и остаться непокоренным, я говорю; Во-первых, что Мариуполь, несомненно, находится под оккупацией и в руках врага, но город не сдался и никогда не сдастся. Об этом позаботятся отряды самоубийц, которые вызвались остаться и изводить врага, когда представится возможность, а сети Сопротивления среди ее граждан ждут часа Освобождения.
Русские опубликовали свою оценку сил, собранных здесь, на сталелитейном заводе, в двадцать пятьсот украинцев и четыреста иностранных добровольцев Интернационального легиона, включая бригаду Авраама Линкольна, американцев, которые назвали себя в честь легендарного подразделения гражданской войны в Испании. Другие до сих пор держат сам порт под украинским контролем, что выгодно любой силе Освобождения, которая может привлечь флот для этой битвы.
Во-вторых, нет ничего постыдного в капитуляции, если это означает, что вы будете жить, чтобы сражаться в другой день, и 36-я бригада морской пехоты, которая на сорок шестой день своей героической обороны Мариуполя заявила в своем последнем послании миру, несколько дней назад, что им не с чем сражаться, нет боеприпасов, воды, чего угодно, и то, что они либо пленники, либо мертвы, несет с собой только честь в будущее, которое теперь должны выбрать другие.
Я никогда не видел капитуляции Украины. Случайно зайдите на вражеский контрольно-пропускной пункт и, смеясь, вытащите чеку из гранаты, чтобы открыть путь для госпитального грузовика, чтобы спасти других, да. Поделитесь бутылкой отравленной водки с вражеским часовым и умрите вместе, пока беженцев провожают через строй, да.
Таких людей невозможно победить. Применение силы и насилия хрупко, а власть бесполезна, когда у нее нет легитимности, а только жестокие репрессии для ее поддержания; ибо все подобные вещи терпят неудачу в момент непослушания и неверия.
Тот, кто отказывается подчиниться, становится Непокоренным и свободен. Это своего рода победа, против которой не может победить ни тирания, ни террор.
Я видел, как свирепый бородач напал на пару русских танков с топором, выбежал из укрытия, прыгнул на башню, обезглавил командира и исчез в руинах, как тень гнева, вызванная городской болью, горем и страхом. . По прозвищу Палач, в нем Украина нашла мстителя. Остальные танкисты выскочили и в панике побежали, командир второго танка открыл огонь по дезертирам и фактически застрелил одного из них, а его в свою очередь застрелил однополчанин русский солдат, выскочивший за ним из танка, положил пистолет к голове, а затем просто перешел улицу с поднятыми руками и перешел на другую сторону. Солдат, который предпочел нашу общность человечности национализму и солидарность дивизии, теперь командир этого танка, но с нарисованным на нем украинским флагом. Святой Андрей, его зовут.
Путин послал рабов покорять свободный народ. Он забыл спросить, что происходит, когда рабы объединяются со своими собратьями-жертвами тирании, которых они были посланы завоевывать, в знак солидарности действий ради собственного освобождения?
В то время как в российской армии есть активное движение за мир и сети солидарности, работающие со своими украинскими коллегами, и много случаев дезертирства и мятежа, включая фраги офицеров, украинцы, часто замерзшие, голодные и без боеприпасов, как основатели Америки, которые пересекли Делавэр с Вашингтоном в то судьбоносное Рождество 1776 года остаются дерзкими и непокоренными.
Существует также легенда о мариупольской Волчице, девушке, которая, как волк, разорвала нападавшему глотку. Возможно, миф о войне; но я видел, что осталось от рассматриваемого русского солдата. Говорят, что теперь она возглавляет команду женщин, которые спасают других от Коллекционеров бабочек, солдат, захвативших женщин для похищения в Россию и торговли ими в качестве преступного синдиката внутри российской армии. В ней Украина нашла Гарриет Табман.
На прошлой неделе группа украинских морских пехотинцев прорвалась, чтобы соединиться с частями Национальной гвардии «Азов», очень упрямыми ребятами, которые удерживали сталелитейный завод в тяжелых условиях; но несколько зон конфликта разворачиваются и быстро меняются. Российские офицеры пытались заставить сдаться, используя гражданских заложников в другом инциденте, но, насколько мне известно, безуспешно.
Военные преступления русских пробудили сопротивление победы или смерти; как защитники при осаде Мальты в 1565 году или Джордж Вашингтон, придумавший эту фразу в качестве пароля в битве при Трентоне, украинские солдаты, гражданские партизаны, включая сталелитейщиков и других, которые вооружились, когда Россия напала, и международные добровольцы, которых я видел ругающимися клятва скорее умереть на месте, чем отдать что-либо завоевателю, не пройдет спокойно.
Что происходит дальше? Как спрашивал Ленин в своем сочинении об основании политической партии, которой суждено было изменить мир, что делать?
Сегодня российские оккупационные силы вводят проездные документы, необходимые всем лицам на улицах, начинают захватывать мирных жителей и отправлять их в центры обработки для отбора одних в исправительно-трудовые лагеря, других для суммарной казни, а также полный доступ в мир за пределами Мариуполя и из мир здесь оцеплен полностью. Мариуполь должен быть опустошен, население подсчитано как мертвое или порабощенное, а оставшиеся люди систематически истреблены.
Путин намерен оставить нам нечего защищать и не от чего воевать. И тем самым Он освободил нас, чтобы начать следующую фазу борьбы и дать бой врагу.
Иногда мне кажется, что он вообще не умеет играть в эту игру.
К счастью для нас, быть полковником КГБ — это не совсем то же самое, что быть профессиональным революционером, и, кажется, Путин превратился в усеченного и уродливого, с ограниченным интеллектом и без всякой морали, не визионерского злого гения и не воплощения гегелевского миросозерцания. исторические силы, а всего лишь надзиратель за карцеральным государством. Владимир Путин очень похож на Адольфа Эйхмана, как описала Ханна Арендт в своей исторической работе о Нюрнбергском процессе.
Поскольку я считаю свои цели и задачи в отношении войны очевидными для всех, я не возражаю изложить их здесь для вас.
Прежде всего и помимо всех других приоритетов, поскольку только это действительно положит конец угрозе войны, мы должны действовать солидарно с русскими народами, чтобы способствовать смене режима и Освобождению России от тирании Владимира Путина и его олигархии.
Во-вторых, мы должны привлечь к прямой и личной ответственности Путина, его олигархов, высшее командование, политических союзников и приспешников, а также всех причастных к военным преступлениям на Украине.
В-третьих, мы должны разрушить способность России вести эту войну, особенно артиллерию и аэродромы, которые превращают в руины целые города в начальной фазе любого такого нападения противника.
В-четвертых, мы должны захватить контроль над Черным морем или помешать России сделать это, чтобы лишить его возможности использовать его в качестве стартовой площадки для империалистического российского завоевания и господства в Средиземноморье, Европе, Африке и на Ближнем Востоке.
Для этого нам понадобится пиратский флот, и я знаю, где его найти.
Здесь всеобъемлющей стратегической реальностью, которая должна определять наши решения, является тот факт, что уже некоторое время продолжается Третья мировая война, театры военных действий которой включают Россию, Америку, Сирию, Ливию, Беларусь, Казахстан, Нагорный Карабах, а теперь и Украину. ее губернии Крым.
Если мы не сможем остановить эту войну империалистического завоевания и господства здесь, в Украине, где все наши гуманитарные ценности и международные законы нарушаются с жестокой жестокостью, и позволим ей превратиться во всеобщую глобальную войну между свободой и тиранией, я боюсь, что мир может вступить в эпоху тирании и столетий войн, которых человечество не переживет.
Ибо рука Путина держится на кнопке нашего ядерного уничтожения и вымирания, и она зовет его шепотом; «Освободи меня, и я сделаю тебя сильным».
”圮地則行；圍地則謀；死地則戰“; как писал Сунь-Цзы в одиннадцатой главе «Искусства войны»: «На земле смерти сражайся».
Этот принцип действия мне когда-то продемонстрировали в Анголе, во время битвы при Куито-Куанавале в 1988 году, в тактической ситуации, похожей на нашу здесь, в Мариуполе. Пока разворачивалось зрелище этой грандиозной финальной битвы за многолетнюю освободительную борьбу против колониализма и апартеида, я творил зло в тылу врага в кустах. Здесь я обнаружил потерянный отряд, в основном зулусский, хотя и с советскими и кубинскими добровольцами, который был окружен силами апартеида.
После доклада командной группе того, что я знал об этом районе, и краткого совещания на нескольких языках из тени палатки встал старик, который до сих пор хранил молчание, чье тело без рубашки демонстрировало устрашающий и великолепный шрам от когтей льва. , и сказал; «Мы окружены и в меньшинстве, без боеприпасов и, что еще хуже, без воды, и никто не идет нам на помощь. Мы должны атаковать».
Сержант улыбнулся при этом, как будто ему был дан чудесный подарок, вышел наружу и отдал приказ, который, если вам повезет, вы никогда не услышите; «Крепить штыки!»
И люди, собиравшиеся умереть, разразились песней. «Усуту! Умконто вами вомиле!» «Мое копье хочет пить», последнее.
Мы тоже можем выйти победителями из нашей войны за выживание против даже гораздо более обширного и могущественного врага, как это сделали герои Куито-Куанавале, если мы высвободим всю волю и силу наших народов против зарождающейся Российской империи, как Единое Человечество; особенно если мы делаем это против его слабых мест и линий перелома.
Украина – такое слабое место имперских амбиций, а она еще сопротивляется и остается Непокоренной. И российское вторжение в Европу может быть остановлено политическими действиями в России через движения за демократию и мир, которые бросили вызов путинской тирании.
Свобода, Равенство, Братство — вот девиз Революции, породившей демократии в Америке и Франции; первые две части которого провозглашают универсальные принципы человеческого бытия, а третья часть, в которой говорится о том, что мы называем солидарностью, взаимозависимостью и нашим долгом заботиться о других, способствует реализации нашей свободы и равенства как свободного общества. равных.
Мы можем одержать победу в триумфе демократии над тиранией, солидарности над разделением и любви над ненавистью. Но это работает только одним способом; мы должны действовать как единое человечество.
I say Happy Hanukah to all, in recognition that no matter how much the state of Israel wishes to confuse Jewish identity with the authority of the state in service to power, these things have nothing to do with each other; indeed the peace and democracy movement within Israel and throughout the global Jewish Diaspora are crucial to the reimagination and transformation of the state’s institutions of colonial dominion and Occupation and to the emergence of humankind from fascist ideologies of blood, faith, and soil, among them Zionism and the Israeli state.
In many ways the historic victory over the Seleucid empire which Hanukkah celebrates founded and defined Jewish identity as synonymous with dual political ideals; freedom of religion and anticolonial liberation struggle.
This is the Hanukkah I celebrate today; the equality and solidarity of all human souls in action as guarantors of each other’s humanity and universal human rights, and in Resistance to authority and tyranny.
In the words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks; “Hanukkah is about the freedom to be true to what we believe without denying the freedom of those who believe otherwise. It’s about lighting our candle, while not being threatened by or threatening anyone else’s candle.”
As written by Jeremy Scahill in The Intercept, in an article entitled This Is Not a War Against Hamas: The notion that the war would end if Hamas was overthrown or surrenders is as ahistorical as it is false; “THE EVENTS OF the past week should obliterate any doubt that the war against the Palestinians of Gaza is a joint U.S.–Israeli operation. On Friday, as the Biden administration stood alone among the nations of the world in vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was busy circumventing congressional review to ram through approval of an “emergency” sale of 13,000 tank rounds to Israel. For weeks, Blinken has been zipping across the Middle East and appearing on scores of television networks in a PR tour aimed at selling the world the notion that the White House is deeply concerned about the fate of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents. “Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them,” Blinken declared on November 10. A month later, with the death toll skyrocketing and calls for a ceasefire mounting, Blinken assured the world Israel was implementing new measures to protect civilians and that the U.S. was doing everything it could to encourage Israel to employ a tiny bit more moderation in its widespread killing campaign. Friday’s events decisively flushed those platitudes into a swirling pool of blood.
Over the past two months, Benjamin Netanyahu has argued, including on U.S. news channels, “Our war is your war.” In retrospect, this wasn’t a plea to the White House. Netanyahu was stating a fact. From the moment President Joe Biden spoke to his “great, great friend” Netanyahu on October 7, in the immediate aftermath of the deadly Hamas-led raids into Israel, the U.S. has not just supplied Israel with additional weapons and intelligence support, it has also offered crucial political cover for the scorched-earth campaign to annihilate Gaza as a Palestinian territory. It is irrelevant what words of concern and caution have flowed from the mouths of administration officials when all of their actions have been aimed at increasing the death and destruction.
The propaganda from the Biden administration has been so extreme at times that even the Israeli military has suggested they tone it down a notch or two. Biden falsely claimed to see images of “terrorists beheading children” and then knowingly relayed that unverified allegation as fact — including over the objections of his advisers — and publicly questioned the death toll of Palestinian civilians. None of this is by accident, nor can it be attributed to the president’s propensity to exaggerate or stumble into gaffes.
Everything we know about Biden’s 50-year history of supporting and facilitating Israel’s worst crimes and abuses leads to one conclusion: Biden wants Israel’s destruction of Gaza — with more than 7,000 children dead — to unfold as it has.
Israel’s Dystopian Game Show
The horrifying nature of the October 7 attacks led by Hamas do not in any way — morally or legally — justify what Israel has done to the civilian population of Gaza, more than 18,000 of whom have died in a 60-day period. Nothing justifies the killing of children on an industrial scale. What the Israeli state is engaged in has far surpassed any basic principles of proportionality or legality. Israel’s own crimes dwarf those of Hamas and the other groups that participated in the October 7 operations. Yet Biden and other U.S. officials continue to defend the indefensible by rolling out their well-worn and twisted notion of Israel’s right to “self-defense.”
If we apply that rationale — promoted by both the U.S. and Israel — to the 75 years of history before October 7, how many times throughout that period would the Palestinians have been “justified” in massacring thousands of Israeli children, systematically attacking its hospitals and schools? How many times would they have been acting in “self-defense” as they razed whole neighborhoods to rubble, transforming the apartment buildings Israeli civilians once called home into concrete tombs? This justification only works for Israel because the Palestinians can enact no such destruction upon Israel and its people. It has no army, no navy, no air force, no powerful nation states to provide it with the most modern and lethal military hardware. It does not have hundreds of nuclear weapons. Israel can burn Gaza and its people to the ground because the U.S. facilitates it, politically and militarily.
Despite all the airtime consumed by Blinken and other U.S. officials playing make-believe on the issue of protecting Palestinian civilians, what has unfolded on the ground is nothing less than a corralling of the population of Gaza into an ever-shrinking killing cage. On December 1, Israel released an interactive map of Gaza dividing it into hundreds of numbered zones. On the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic language website, it encouraged Gaza’s residents to scan a QR code to download the map and to monitor IDF channels to know when they need to evacuate to a different zone to avoid being murdered by Israeli bombs or ground operations. This is nothing short of a dystopian Netflix show produced by Israel in which its participants have no choice to opt out and a wrong guess will get you and your children maimed or killed. On a basic level, it is grotesque to tell an entrapped population that has limited access to food, water, health care, or housing — and whose internet connections have repeatedly been shut down — to go online to download a survival map from a military force that is terrorizing them.
Throughout Blinken’s one-man parade proclaiming that the U.S. had made clear to Israel that it needs to protect civilians, Israel has repeatedly struck areas of Gaza to which it had told residents to flee. In some cases, the IDF sent SMS messages to people just 10 minutes before attacking. One such message read: “The IDF will begin a crushing military attack on your area of residence with the aim of eliminating the terrorist organization Hamas.” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Palestinians were being treated “like human pinballs – ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival.” Blinken attributed the continuously mounting pile of Palestinian corpses to “a gap” between Israel’s stated intent to lessen civilian deaths and its operations. “I think the intent is there,” he said. “But the results are not always manifesting themselves.”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby got visibly irritated when asked on December 6 about Israel’s widespread killing of civilians. “It is not the Israeli Defense Forces strategy to kill innocent people. It’s happening. I admit that. Each one is a tragedy,” he said. “But it’s not like the Israelis are sitting around every morning and saying ‘Hey, how many more civilians can we kill today?’ ‘Let’s go bomb a school or a hospital or a residential building and just—and cause civilian casualties.’ They’re not doing that.” One problem with Kirby’s rant is that attacks against civilians, schools, and hospitals are exactly what Israel is doing—repeatedly. It is irrelevant what Kirby believes the IDF’s intent to be. For two months, numerous Israeli officials and lawmakers have said that their intent is to collectively strangle the Palestinians of Gaza into submission, death, or flight.
Kirby’s claims are also decimated by the revelations in a recent investigative report by the Israeli media outlets 972 and Local Call. The story, based on interviews with seven Israeli military and intelligence sources, described in detail how Israel knows precisely the number of civilians present in buildings it strikes and at times has knowingly killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians in order to kill a single top Hamas commander. “Nothing happens by accident,” one Israeli source said. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
As Israel ratchets up its killing machine, giving lie to all of Blinken’s pronouncements, it continues to wage a propaganda war that is consistent with its overarching campaign of mass killing. No lie is too obscene to justify the wholesale slaughter of people that Israel’s defense minister has called “human animals.” According to this campaign, there are no Palestinian children, no Palestinian hospitals, no Palestinian schools. The U.N. is Hamas. Journalists are Hamas. The prime ministers of Belgium, Spain, and Ireland are Hamas. Everything and everyone who dissents in the slightest from the genocidal narrative is Hamas.
Israel has quite understandably grown accustomed to many Western media outlets accepting its lies — no matter how outrageous or vile — when they are told about Palestinians. But even news outlets with a long track record of promoting Israel’s narrative unchecked have inched toward incredulity. Not because they have had a change of conscience, but because the Israeli propaganda is so farcical that it would be embarrassing to pretend it is otherwise.
Israeli forces have distributed multiple images and videos in recent days of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear — sometimes wearing blindfolds — and claimed they are all Hamas terrorists surrendering. These claims, too, fell apart under the most minimal scrutiny: Some of the men have been identified as journalists, shop owners, U.N. employees. In one particularly ridiculous piece of propaganda, a video filmed by IDF soldiers and distributed online depicted naked Palestinian captives laying down their alleged rifles.
Government spokesperson Mark Regev defended the practice of stripping detainees. “Remember, it’s the Middle East and it’s warmer here. Especially during the day when it’s sunny, to be asked to take off your shirt might not be pleasant, but it’s not the end of the world,” Regev told Sky News. “We are looking for people who would have concealed weapons, especially suicide bombers with explosive vests.” Regev was asked about this clear violation of the Geneva Conventions’s prohibition against publishing videos of prisoners of war. “I’m not familiar with that level of international law,” he said, adding (as though it matters) that he did not believe the videos were distributed by official Israeli government channels. “These are military aged men who were arrested in a combat zone,” he said.
Despite Israeli claims of mass surrenders by Hamas fighters, Haaretz reported that “of the hundreds of Palestinian detainees photographed handcuffed in the Gaza Strip in recent days, about 10 to 15 percent are Hamas operatives or are identified with the organization,” according to Israeli security sources. Israel has produced no evidence to support its claim that even this alleged small pool of the stripped prisoners were Hamas guerrillas.
So what we have here is both a violation of the Geneva Conventions and an immoral production in which Palestinian civilians are forced at gunpoint to play Hamas fighters in an Israeli propaganda movie.
No Path of Resistance
It has become indisputably clear over these past two months that there are not actually two sides to this horror show. Without question, the perpetrators who meted out the horrors against Israeli civilians on October 7 should be held accountable. But that is not what this collective killing operation is about. And journalists should stop pretending it is.
Any analysis of the Israeli state’s terror campaign against the people of Gaza cannot begin with the events of October 7. An honest examination of the current situation must view October 7 in the context of Israel’s 75-year war against the Palestinians and the past two decades of transforming Gaza first into an open-air prison and now into a killing cage. Under threat of being labeled antisemitic, Israel and its defenders demand acceptance of Israel’s official rationale for its irrational actions as legitimate, even if they are demonstrably false or they seek to justify war crimes. “You look at Israel today. It’s a state that has reached such a degree of irrational, rabid lunacy that its government routinely accuses its closest allies of supporting terrorism,” the Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani recently told Intercepted. “It is a state that has become thoroughly incapable of any form of inhibition.”
Israel has imposed, by lethal force, a rule that Palestinians have no legitimate rights of any form of resistance. When they have organized nonviolent demonstrations, they have been attacked and killed. That was the case in 2018-2019 when Israeli forces opened fire on unarmed protesters during the Great March of Return, killing 223 and wounding more than 8,000 others. Israeli snipers later boasted about shooting dozens of protesters in the knee during the weekly Friday demonstrations. When Palestinians fight back against apartheid soldiers, they are killed or sent into military tribunals. Children who throw rocks at tanks or soldiers are labeled terrorists and subjected to abuse and violations of basic rights — that is, if they are not summarily shot dead. Palestinians live their lives stripped of any context or any recourse to address the grave injustices imposed on them.
You cannot discuss the crimes of Hamas or Islamic jihad or any other armed resistance factions without first addressing the question of why these groups exist and have support. One aspect of this should certainly probe Netanyahu’s own role — extending back to at least 2012 — in propping up Hamas and facilitating the flow of money to the group. “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud comrades in 2019.
But in the broader sense, a sincere examination of why a group such as Hamas gained popularity among Palestinians or why people in Gaza turn to armed struggle must focus on how the oppressed, when stripped of all forms of legitimate resistance, respond to the oppressor. It should be focused on the rights of people living under occupation to assert and defend their self-determination. It should allow Palestinians to have their struggle placed in the context of other historical battles for liberation and independence and not relegated to racist polemics about how all Palestinian acts of resistance constitute terrorism and there are not really any innocents in Gaza. Israel’s president said as much on October 13. “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Isaac Herzog declared. “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
The notion that the Palestinians of Gaza could end all of their suffering by overthrowing Hamas is just as ahistorical and false as the oft-repeated claims that the war against Gaza would end if Hamas surrendered and released all Israeli hostages. “Look, this could be over tomorrow,” Blinken said December 10. “If Hamas got out of the way of civilians instead of hiding behind them, if it put down its weapons, if it surrendered.” That, of course, is a crass lie. With or without Hamas, Israel’s war against the Palestinians would endure precisely because of Blinken and his ilk in elite bipartisan U.S. foreign policy circles.
Throughout the years of U.S. support for Israel’s apartheid regime, it has consistently facilitated Israel’s “mowing the grass” in Gaza. This is not a series of periodic assaults on Hamas — it is a cyclical campaign of terror bombings largely aimed at civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Biden administration is not — and Biden personally has never been — an outside observer or a friend encouraging moderation during an otherwise righteous crusade. None of this slaughter would be occurring if Biden valued Palestinian lives over Israel’s false narratives and its bloody ethnonationalist wars of annihilation repackaged as self-defense. We should end the charade that this is an Israeli war against Hamas. We should call it what it is: a joint U.S.–Israeli war against the people of Gaza.”
What of American complicity as sponsors and beneficiaries of Israeli war crimes, state terror, and ethnic cleansing?
As written by Andre Damon in the World Socialist Web Site, in an article entitled Biden admits Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate bombing”: A confession of complicity in war crimes; “On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden made a series of damning admissions regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza that makes clear the United States is consciously aiding and abetting what it knows to be war crimes by the Israeli government.
At a campaign event, Biden stated that Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate bombing” of the civilian population of Gaza. He subsequently added that Israel’s Minister of National Security “Ben-Gvir and company and the new folks, they… They not only want to have retribution, which they should for what the Palestinians—Hamas—did, but against all Palestinians.”
In other words, Biden admitted that Israel is not making efforts to limit civilian casualties and the reason is that the minister of national security is deliberately seeking to carry out retribution, i.e., collective punishment, against all Palestinian civilians, including unarmed women and children.
The American president has thus admitted to arming, funding and politically supporting the intentional murder of civilian members of a targetted ethnic group—i.e., genocide. Significantly, even in light of these admissions, Biden reiterated that the United States would continue its unconditional funding and arming of the Israeli military, declaring that “in the meantime, none of it is going to walk away from providing Israel what they need to defend themselves and to finish the job.”
Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I of 1977. They constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the perpetrators can be prosecuted and held responsible in international and domestic courts.
Significantly, on multiple occasions, the Biden administration has made clear that the United States has set no limits on the extent to which Israel may target civilians. On November 7, asked whether it is “still the case” that the administration has “no red lines” regarding civilian deaths, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “That is still the case.”
Biden’s statements on Tuesday will be “Exhibit A” in any war crimes trial, effectively constituting an admission that the United States is consciously aiding and abetting war crimes by Israel.
In a press briefing Wednesday, Kirby and State Department spokesman Matthew Miller went into damage control mode, attempting to walk back the president’s statements, with Miller effectively declaring that Biden’s admission did not represent the formal position of the US government. “We have not made a formal determination to that question,” Miller said.
Asked by a reporter, “Does the president believe, based on those comments, that Israel’s conduct in this war thus far has been in accordance with international law?” Kirby said the opposite of Biden’s statement that Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate bombing.” He maintained, “we know they’ve stated their intent to reduce civilian casualties. And they have acted on that … by publishing a map online.”
Another reporter asked, “Biden says yesterday, of course, there were indiscriminate attacks, which to the rest of the world is a war crime.”
To this, Kirby replied, “There is a clear intent by the Israelis and attempt that they have admitted to publicly that they are doing everything they can to reduce civilian casualties.”
He added, “We’re going to continue to support them… They have every right to defend themselves.”
The United Nations’ official definition of genocide notes that there are two elements to the crime of genocide, “a mental element” and “a physical element,” with the physical element being “killing members of the group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” Israel has killed at least 10,000 Palestinian children and injured tens of thousands more.
But, the UN notes, “The intent is the most difficult element to determine.” It adds, “To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
But as Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, explained, the Israeli assault on Gaza is a “textbook case of genocide,” precisely because “explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military leave no room for doubt or debate.”
To cite one of innumerable examples, Giora Eiland, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, called for the deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians and the creation of conditions for the spread of “severe epidemics.”
Now, however, the leading funder and arms dealer for the government committing the genocide has explicitly stated that they are “killing members of the group” because they want to target the entire Palestinian population.
Critically, the UN document defining genocide notes, “This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals.” When Biden admits that the Israeli Defense Ministry is seeking “retribution … against all Palestinians,” he is making clear that Israel is carrying out precisely this critical component of genocide.
Biden made these statements against the backdrop of an overwhelming vote in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The United States was among a handful of countries that voted “no.”
But like dozens of non-binding resolutions passed by the United Nations over the course of decades, this resolution will have no direct effect.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller made this perfectly clear in his briefing Wednesday, declaring: “[I]t’s not the first time that Israel has not done well in a vote in the UN; you’ve seen the UN take a number of votes, oftentimes by fairly dramatic margins with respect to Israel, when we have disagreed with the outcome of those votes. So this is not the first time that has happened.”
In other words, the United States is making clear that symbolic votes in the UN General Assembly will do nothing to stop its criminal activities. Israel, for its part, demonstrated open defiance of the vote, launching a series of atrocities Tuesday, including the blowing up of a school operated by UNRWA, the UN refugee agency in Palestine, and flooding underground structures in Gaza with seawater, potentially poisoning the water supply and killing the plant life that sustains agriculture.
In announcing that the US would vote against a ceasefire in Gaza, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “Any ceasefire right now would be temporary at best and dangerous at worst.” She added, “Israel, like every single country on earth, has the right and the responsibility to defend its people from acts of terrorism.”
Workers and youth must draw the lessons of these developments. The imperialist countries that either voted for the ceasefire—including France and Australia—as well as those that abstained, including the UK, Italy and Germany—have all endorsed Israel’s onslaught against Gaza and provided material logistical support for it, with the UK, France and Australia all sending warships to the region so as to threaten Iran not to intervene.
Each and every one of these countries has attempted to criminalize demonstrations against the genocide, seeking to equate opposition to the genocide with antisemitism and support for terrorism.
The Arab states, for their part, have for years enabled Israel’s oppression and mass murder of the Palestinian population in an effort to seek an accommodation with US imperialism.
None of these governments or institutions can be relied on to stop the genocide in Gaza. The basic reality is that the struggle against the genocide in Gaza is a struggle against the governments that are supporting it.
For this reason, stopping the genocide in Gaza requires the mass mobilization of the working class. Workers should support the call by the Palestinian trade unions not to handle war materiel destined for Israel. The global demonstrations by millions of people against the genocide must be expanded and armed with a socialist perspective.
Millions of people have taken part in marches and demonstrations against the genocide. But if this movement is to succeed, it is urgently necessary to fuse the growing movement against war with the struggles of the working class and arm this movement with the socialist perspective of putting an end to the capitalist system that is the root cause of war and imperialist barbarism.”
Among all the odious and vile sideshows of our political system, a glorious and unconquered champion of the people bears witness and calls for solidarity with the powerless and the dispossessed, the silenced and the erased, all those whom Frantz Fanon called The Wretched of the Earth; Bernie Sanders calls for peace and a Reckoning of our sponsorship of ethnic cleansing and war crimes by Israel.
As written by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in The Guardian, in an article entitled Bernie Sanders demands answers on Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing:
Senator proposes resolution to investigate ‘humanitarian cataclysm … being done with American bombs and money’; “ The US’s support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a proposed resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance.
It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week – by an important progressive ally of the US president, Joe Biden – highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Citing the killing of nearly 19,000 people and wounding of more than 50,000 in Gaza since Hamas’s brutal 7 October attack, Sanders said it was time to force a debate on the bombing that has been carried out by the rightwing government of the Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the US government’s “complicity” in the war.
“This is a humanitarian cataclysm, and it is being done with American bombs and money. We need to face up to that fact – and then we need to end our complicity in those actions,” Sanders said in a statement.
If passed, the resolution would force the US state department to report back to Congress any violations of internationally recognized human rights caused by “indiscriminate or disproportionate” military operations in Gaza, as well as “the blanket denial of basic humanitarian needs”.
The state department would also have to report back on any actions the US has taken to limit civilian risk caused by Israeli actions, a summary of arms provided to Israel since 7 October, an assessment of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law in Gaza, and a certification that Israeli security forces have not committed any human rights violations.
“We all know Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack began this war,” Sanders said. “But the Netanyahu government’s indiscriminate bombing is immoral, it is in violation of international law, and the Congress must demand answers about the conduct of this campaign. A just cause for war does not excuse atrocities in the conduct of that war.”
Any such resolution would have to clear the Senate but only require a simple majority. It would also have to pass the House and be signed by the White House.
The resolution includes details about the extensive use of US arms, including massive explosive ordinance, such as Mark 84 2,000lb bombs and 155mm artillery, and includes “credible findings” by human rights monitors and press organizations about the use of US arms in specific strikes that killed a large number of civilians.
If the resolution were to pass, the administration would have 30 days to produce the requested report. After it is received, Congress would under US law be able to condition, restrict, terminate or continue security assistance to Israel.
Congress has not requested such a resolution since 1976.
Sanders has come under pressure from progressive Democrats to support calls for a ceasefire. Instead, the senator has previously called for a “humanitarian pause” to allow more aid into Gaza.
In a letter to Biden this week, Sanders called on the US president to withdraw his support for a $10.1bn weapons package for Israel, which is contained in a proposed supplemental foreign aid package, and for the US to support a UN resolution it has previous vetoed demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
And so we come to the question posed by Tolstoy and Lenin with mirror image results, one began the ideology of nonviolence in resistance to tyranny, the other began the Russian Revolution to seize power from tyrants; What is to be done?
As written by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, in an article entitled There’s only one way out of this Gaza war and Netanyahu is blocking it. Joe Biden must force him from power; “Joe Biden’s bond with Israel and the Jewish people runs so deep he is said to feel it in his kishkes (that’s “guts”, for the non-Yiddish speakers among you). Biden demonstrated that early in the current crisis by visiting Israel within days of the 7 October massacre, which saw 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, killed, many tortured and mutilated. He demonstrated it again, just as swiftly, with the dispatch of two US aircraft carriers to the region, aimed at deterring Hezbollah and its Iranian backers from attacking Israel from the north – his one-word message: “Don’t.” And he showed it once more just last week, wielding the US veto at the United Nations – making Washington all but a lone voice against the global chorus demanding that Israel end its offensive in Gaza, which has left so many thousands dead.
But there is one last act of service Biden needs to perform for the sake of the Israel he has stood with so long, a task he is uniquely able to execute. He must push Benjamin Netanyahu from power – and do all he can to ensure he does not return. Right now, the focus of US-Israeli relations is on the clock, on how long Washington will give its ally –which it arms – to pursue its stated goal of defeating Hamas, even at the cost of terrible death and destruction in Gaza. Hints that Biden’s patience is wearing thin are getting louder. This week he warned that Israel is “starting to lose [international] support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place”. The signals are that Israel has until the middle or end of January to keep up what the White House calls “high-intensity military operations”. After that, it will have to move to “a different phase” – one that consists of focused, targeted raids on Hamas strongholds, with fewer civilian casualties.
But Biden needs to go much further. He needs to confront Netanyahu – and win.
There are multiple reasons why the avowedly pro-Israel Biden should want Netanyahu out, but start with what happens in Gaza the day after Hamas rule ends. The Israeli leader says he will not countenance any involvement by the Palestinian Authority in running Gaza, not least because that’s what the US is pushing for – and Netanyahu reckons standing up to Washington plays well with his base. But his refusal amounts to ruling out the involvement of any Palestinians at all in running Gaza.
If it’s not Hamas and it’s not Fatah, the movement that dominates the authority, there’s no other substantial Palestinian group left. By opposing Biden’s plan, Netanyahu implies that the only acceptable options for Gaza are rule by a coalition of Arab states – which don’t want the job, and would certainly refuse it without Palestinian participation – or reoccupation by Israel. One is implausible, the other unacceptable.
Netanyahu’s position is that Israel cannot entertain anything that looks like a step toward Palestinian statehood. Witness the remarks of Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK – handpicked for the post by Netanyahu – who this week said “absolutely no” to the prospect of a Palestinian state. That stance blows apart a central defence of Israel’s current strategy: that it has to remove Hamas in order to make possible an eventual accommodation with the Palestinian people, in the form of the two-state solution.
There’s speculation that Hotovely was thinking less of Israel’s diplomatic needs than of her own ambition to return to her previous job, as a Likud member of Israel’s parliament. If that’s right, she was merely following the lead set by her patron. For the core criticism of Netanyahu is that he is thinking not of Israel’s national interest at a time of war, but rather his own political future. Given that he is on trial on corruption charges that could put him in jail, he is desperate to cling to the job that will keep him out.
And so he behaves in ways that damage his country but which, he believes, will help him. He devotes precious time and energy to ensuring it is Israel’s military and intelligence chiefs who get blamed for the appalling failures that made 7 October possible – even though the evidence is stark that he himself ignored the warnings of “a clear and present danger” that were put in front of him. He has stayed away from the funerals of the victims of 7 October, and has barely met the families of the bereaved, fearing they would slam him in public.
And he has sat back as members of his far-right coalition make unspeakable threats – calling for Gaza to be erased or burned – and while his security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has a conviction on terrorism charges, hands out weapons to his fellow extremists and encourages settlers as they provoke yet more conflict and violence in the West Bank. All of this is a disaster for Palestinians most obviously, but also for Israel as it seeks to maintain the international support Biden rightly said it is losing. Netanyahu stands by and does nothing, too frightened of the hard right he needs in order to keep his coalition from breaking apart – and whose votes he wants when elections come, which may be soon.
That is the heart of the matter. Israel is led by a man who is fighting only for himself. Which is why one of the heroes of 7 October, retired general Noam Tibon – now famous for grabbing a weapon, jumping in his car and heading down south to rescue his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren from the Hamas men who were poised to kill them – told me: “Benjamin Netanyahu is a huge danger to the state of Israel. While he is in the prime minister’s chair, we cannot win this war.”
Biden may well agree with that analysis. He has no affection for Netanyahu; before 7 October, he refused even to grant him a White House meeting. And yet, he may be wary of acting on that sentiment if it means meddling in the domestic affairs of an ally. But he should put those fears aside. What’s more, there’s a useful precedent.
In the 1990s Bill Clinton, who like Biden, had convinced Israelis that he truly had their interests at heart – even in his kishkes – took on Netanyahu and won. He pushed Netanyahu into peace talks and to sign agreements that the Israeli PM didn’t like – safe in the knowledge that the Israeli public understood that he, Clinton, was acting out of friendship, not hostility. As Anshel Pfeffer, columnist for Israel’s liberal daily Haaretz, pointed out this week, when Netanyahu eventually faced the voters in 1999, he lost – to a candidate committed to pursuing peace with the Palestinians.
The times are different now, to be sure. But Biden has a power to influence events in Israel matched by no one else. He should hear the cry of the families of the hostages held by Hamas, who carry placards bearing a simple message:
“Save Israel from Netanyahu”. Biden might be the one person in the world who can heed that plea and act on it. He must.”
How Gaza City’s high street became a landscape of debris: Buildings along Omar al-Mukhtar Road, the main artery through Zeitoun district, have collapsed under bombardment
15 בדצמבר 2023 בזמן שילדי פלסטין מתים במלחמת הטיהור האתני והטרור התיאוקרטי של ישראל, חגיגה של חופש הדת ומאבק אנטי-קולוניאלי מנצח שהגדיר את הזהות היהודית: חנוכה שמח
אני אומר לכולם חג חנוכה שמח, מתוך הכרה שלא משנה עד כמה מדינת ישראל רצתה לבלבל בין זהות יהודית לסמכות של המדינה בשירות השלטון, אין לדברים הללו כל קשר זה עם זה; אכן, תנועת השלום והדמוקרטיה בישראל וברחבי התפוצות היהודית העולמית חיונית לדמיון ולשינוי של מוסדות השלטון והכיבוש הקולוניאליים של המדינה ולהופעתה של המין האנושי מאידיאולוגיות פשיסטיות של דם, אמונה ואדמה, ביניהן ציונות. ומדינת ישראל.
במובנים רבים הניצחון ההיסטורי על האימפריה הסלאוקית שחוגג חנוכה ייסד והגדיר את הזהות היהודית כשם נרדף לאידיאלים פוליטיים כפולים; חופש הדת ומאבק שחרור אנטי-קולוניאלי.
זה חג החנוכה שאני חוגג היום; השוויון והסולידריות של כל הנשמות האנושיות בפעולה כערבים לאנושיותו של זה ולזכויות האדם האוניברסליות, ובהתנגדות לסמכות ולעריצות.
כדברי הרב יונתן סאקס; “חנוכה עוסק בחופש להיות נאמנים למה שאנו מאמינים בו מבלי לשלול את החופש של מי שמאמין אחרת. זה על הדלקת הנר שלנו, תוך כדי לא להיות מאוים או מאיים על נר של אף אחד אחר”.
Arabic
15 كانون الأول (ديسمبر) 2023 بينما يموت أطفال فلسطين في حرب التطهير العرقي والإرهاب الثيوقراطي التي تشنها إسرائيل، احتفال بالحرية الدينية والنضال المنتصر ضد الاستعمار الذي حدد الهوية اليهودية: حانوكا سعيدة
أقول عيد هانوكا سعيدا للجميع، اعترافا بأنه مهما كانت دولة إسرائيل ترغب في الخلط بين الهوية اليهودية وسلطة الدولة في خدمة السلطة، فإن هذه الأمور لا علاقة لها ببعضها البعض؛ في الواقع، تعتبر حركة السلام والديمقراطية داخل إسرائيل وفي جميع أنحاء الشتات اليهودي العالمي أمرًا حاسمًا لإعادة تصور وتحويل مؤسسات الدولة للسيطرة الاستعمارية والاحتلال ولخروج البشرية من الأيديولوجيات الفاشية القائمة على الدم والإيمان والتربة، ومن بينها الصهيونية. والدولة الإسرائيلية.
من نواحٍ عديدة، أسس النصر التاريخي على الإمبراطورية السلوقية الذي يحتفل به حانوكا الهوية اليهودية وحددها كمرادف للمثل السياسية المزدوجة؛ حرية الدين والنضال من أجل التحرر ضد الاستعمار.
هذا هو عيد الحانوكا الذي أحتفل به اليوم؛ المساواة والتضامن بين جميع النفوس البشرية في العمل كضامن لإنسانية بعضنا البعض وحقوق الإنسان العالمية، وفي مقاومة السلطة والطغيان. على حد تعبير الحاخام جوناثان ساكس؛ “إن حانوكا يدور حول حرية أن نكون صادقين مع ما نؤمن به دون إنكار حرية أولئك الذين يعتقدون خلاف ذلك. يتعلق الأمر بإضاءة شمعتنا، دون أن نتعرض للتهديد أو التهديد من شمعة أي شخص آخ
Torch of Liberty 