Those to whom evil is done

September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Settler Colonialisms and Ethnic Cleansing

Many states that were built through settler colonialisms (frontier state building) have in common a belief that they are God's 'chosen'. From the Puritan belief in the 'City on the Hill' and the need to drive out, convert, or annihilate the American Indians to the Afrikaner belief that Zulus were Amalikites to be driven out or killed to the Israeli belief that the must go forth and take the land that God gave them, settler colonialisms specialize in justifying the eviction, if not annihilation of indigenous people. In fact settler colonialisms often specialize in uniting a diverse immigrant population through aggression against a subhuman 'other'. The commonalities cannot be missed nor are Americans, South Africans, and Israelis it's only practitioners. All settler states have this commonality.

Intriguingly--despite all the hoopla and media-generated fear of some sort of Islamic will to convert or annihilate another people, we've never seen this happen. Settler states seem to have exclusively grounded their ideologies in the Old Testament and European racism. While it's likely this is something of a consequence of European power, it's odd that some people insist upon seeing an Islamic menace for what has been done exclusively by Europeans.

Running Away or Common Sense?

I'm really not sure why but Instant Messenger conversations with Y. tend to throw off my plans to work for the day. Our conversations are usually brief and usually we just update each other and how we both are and what we are doing. Today he was complaining that he might have to go to China--yeah, yeah, I know poor baby! My main concern here though is that I tend to get nothing done for the rest of the day. I really don't understand myself here. I'm not consciously pining for his company.

Maybe it's just sad that our conversations have become so superficial? Maybe it just reminds me how much I enjoyed having him around and regret that I never told him so until after he was gone? Or could it be deeper?

Do I really need to stop talking to him if I want to become unstuck? I question this all the time. Partially because I don't want to cut him out of my life and he gets so unhappy every time I have tried to just remove Instant Message from my computer. I don't like making him unhappy. I'd rather just understand myself better so that my conversations with him didn't send my whole day awry. My day is my responsibility and it doesn't seem as though cutting him out of my life really meets my responsibility to myself. It seems like running away.

Learning from my Grandmother

The most important lesson my grandmother taught me is one I'm still learning--the art of unconditional love. In these days and times of pop psychobabble unconditional love is often confused with codependency. People who do not want to be labelled codependent often fall into the trap only giving love if certain conditions are met. Such conditional love is not love at all and leaves someone with an inner void that cannot be fulfilled no matter which deoderant we buy or haircare product we use.

My Grandmother mastered the art of unconditional love--at least for me. I was a troubled young woman for reasons I'd rather not get into right now and she loved me anyway. She didn't get angry or frustrated with me that I could not love myself unconditionally. Her message was that she would love me without reservation. It was and is because of her that I learned to value myself enough to begin living my potential. If I made a mistake or even failed, I always knew she would love me anyway. It inspired me to see what she actually saw in me that was so worthwhile because, believe me, at one time it was a total and complete mystery to me. Now, so many years later, I begin to see in myself what she saw in me and I know I would not be where I am or even who I am without her.

I am now half my Grandmother's age. I hope I have also achieved half of her wisdom and loving spirit. I also hope that I can, one day, give the love she gave me to someone else so that he or she can also be inspired to love him or herself unconditionally.

Israeli Lies and American Gullibility

Henry Siegman has a terrific article in The London Review of Books called "Israel's Lies." Here's the link:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html

Israeli leaders lie about any number of things but lately their lies about Hamas to the Israeli and American peoples show a great deal of what can only be termed chutzpah (Yiddish has some great words, doesn't it?). The lies are so easily disproven. For example, the lie that Hamas violated the truce is very easily disproven. Israel violated it on November 4--notice the date. The whole world was watching the American elections so it was a great time for a sneak attack. The truce, largely adhered to by Hamas, was also supposed to see the gradual loosening of the Israeli strangulation of the Gaza Strip's economy. This, of course, is an additional violation by Israel as Israeli leaders declined to loosen their grip an iota. Hamas refused to renew the truce because of the November 4 assaults and Israel's failure to comply with the terms of the agreement regarding a little economic freedom. They wanted talks to re-negotiate a new truce. Instead they got a brutal air war and ground invasion. Most Americans are completely clueless about these events--beginning with the strangulation of Gaza. You often hear Americans say something like 'well, if the Mexicans were sending rockets into our territory, we'd respond.' They have no idea of the context. The comparison is apples and oranges. The U.S. has not sealed all of Mexico's borders. We haven't kept taxes rightfully belonging to Mexico. We don't drive Mexican fishers back onto land. We haven't made them dependent on us for gas, electricity, etc. and then withheld these things from them. The situation is not the same for all that Israel and her apologists would like for Americans to believe that they are the same.

So why is the Israeli propaganda machine working so hard to convince Israelis and Americans that Hamas is completely at fault and is a 'terror organization' linked to Al Qaeda (in fact, they despise each other)? This quote from Siegman is telling:

"It is too easy to describe Hamas simply as a ‘terror organisation’. It is a religious nationalist movement that resorts to terrorism, as the Zionist movement did during its struggle for statehood, in the mistaken belief that it is the only way to end an oppressive occupation and bring about a Palestinian state. While Hamas’s ideology formally calls for that state to be established on the ruins of the state of Israel, this doesn’t determine Hamas’s actual policies today any more than the same declaration in the PLO charter determined Fatah’s actions.
These are not the conclusions of an apologist for Hamas but the opinions of the former head of Mossad and Sharon’s national security adviser, Ephraim Halevy. The Hamas leadership has undergone a change ‘right under our very noses’, Halevy wrote recently in Yedioth Ahronoth, by recognising that ‘its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future.’ It is now ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state within the temporary borders of 1967. Halevy noted that while Hamas has not said how ‘temporary’ those borders would be, ‘they know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their co-operation, they will be obligated to change the rules of the game: they will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.’ In an earlier article, Halevy also pointed out the absurdity of linking Hamas to al-Qaida.
In the eyes of al-Qaida, the members of Hamas are perceived as heretics due to their stated desire to participate, even indirectly, in processes of any understandings or agreements with Israel. [The Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled] Mashal’s declaration diametrically contradicts al-Qaida’s approach, and provides Israel with an opportunity, perhaps a historic one, to leverage it for the better.
Why then are Israel’s leaders so determined to destroy Hamas? Because they believe that its leadership, unlike that of Fatah, cannot be intimidated into accepting a peace accord that establishes a Palestinian ‘state’ made up of territorially disconnected entities over which Israel would be able to retain permanent control. Control of the West Bank has been the unwavering objective of Israel’s military, intelligence and political elites since the end of the Six-Day War.[*] They believe that Hamas would not permit such a cantonisation of Palestinian territory, no matter how long the occupation continues. They may be wrong about Abbas and his superannuated cohorts, but they are entirely right about Hamas."

Democratically elected Hamas will aim for a better deal for the Palestinian people and one Palestinians can and will live with. It is just like the contention of Hamas leaders that it is not up to a political party to recognize Israel but up to the Palestinian people. When Hamas offered to pur it to a referendum they knew exactly how Palestinians would vote (they would have voted to recognize Israel). In fact, if we look closely at Hamas over the past several years we will find a group that has actually tried to act in the interests of the Palestinians. Arab politicians that try to act in the best interests of their people. Imagine that.

The Eternal Now of Love

Law and rules are just excuses; excused for not admitting that we already know.
We already know that all is love. Love is what we are and what we crave. To act in love is our most fervent desire. To be loved our greatest hope
Law like every other dance in life is ritual...a rite, to make us believe we can move, to teach us there is nothing to fear in movement, in experience, in living. It is love that moves us all the same, through ritual or direct loving action.
Crowley claims that "do what thou wilt shall be he whole of the law"..."Love under will".
I say , 'Will under love"--thus there is no law.
Follow love for it is eternity.
Proximate cause is eternal and causes all. It is the present moment. A moment in flux, but not through time. Time is the past and the future, a dream of the present moment--a moment in flux but always now.

You are here now, rejoice in that moment. Fear drives the clock of past to future as a troubled dream.
To be here now is to live in eternity. Clocks are a law and an excuse, for not admitting we already know. The moment is in flux, but always now. Fear is the ticking of a clock. Fear that it's ticking will stop and the moment will be no more. The moment is eternal, the clicking clock is but a dream.

The flesh will come and go, for the moment is in flux. The flesh is but a ticking clock, and the clock is but a dream...a dream of forgetting.

Will Whitten

International Support and Persistant Authoritarianism in Egypt

Although the orientalist fashion is to declare that resistance to democracy is due to Islam, this explanation is actually quite weak. While many factors may inhibit transitions to democracy in the modern Middle East, I want to focus on one factor that meets alot of resistance from Americans--specifically the role played by geostrategic rents to the maintenance of authoritarianism in Egypt.

Despite declining literacy and widespread poverty, Egypt would appear to be a good case for democratic transition. Some popular resistance exists and the Egyptian regime is widely perceived as illegitimate, however, there are no signs of impending collapse or popular revolution. The work of Eva Bellin is instructive here. She examines the relative will and ability of a regime to maintain their coercive apparatus. The Egyptian regime has both greater will and ability than a cursory examination of their fiscal health and relatively high degree of institutionalization would suggest. How can this be?

Geostrategic rents provide part of the answer. The U.S. provides 2 billion in aid every year. This money is used by the Egyptian regime to buy support from key societal sectors and to slow down economic reforms so that economic losers can be deprived of the means to resist and associate while economic winners are incorporated and coopted into the regime's agenda. Continued economic success depends upon regime support. Rather than state-owned enterprises, crony capitalism has found a new business elite that also has no interest in democracy--all those losers with a real vote could cause a loss of special privileges and mean real reform. The security apparatus never suffers from the underfunding of schools or social welfare or even the cuts to subsidized staples that the poor depend upon for survival. The security apparatus gets funded first and most, thereby ensuring that it will function in favor of the regime and against the people. The money provided by the U.S. is crucial to maintenance of the coercive apparatus (although not singular as remittances also play a role).

So why doesn't the U.S. ever hold back aid? We are supposed to be pro-democracy, right? That depends on who would replace the despised and illegitimate Mubarak regime. If it's Islamists, than we're not at all pro-democracy. The Egyptian regime has proven adept at playing this card too. If Americans complain of human rights abuses--well, they're combatting an Islamic insurgency. If Americans suggest more honest and free elections--well, the Muslim Brotherhood would take over and they're radical Islamists that are just like Al Qaida (these two groups despise one another). It might surprise Americans to know that the laws we have applauded Egypt for passing against "Islamic terrorism" are far more commonly used against human rights groups, pro-democracy groups, and even just people striking for better working conditions.

This is how international support inhibits democracy in Egypt. Ignorance and fear rule American policies towards Egypt and, whether we choose to believe it or not, we are supporting authoritarianism in Egypt.