End-of-Year Musings

« What do you want ? »
« Who are you? »
« Do you have anything worth living for? »

The shadow in the mirror smiles as it asks its ritual questions. I smile also, being its faithful relfection. The order in the questions is wrong. You cannot say what you want unless you know who you are. And you cannot begin to pretend to know who you are if you don't have any idea why the hell you're living this strange life you were born to without asking for it in the first place.

Today is Christmas day for christians. For me, it's a focal point of beliefs and symbols. It's a day when the echoes of our multiple pasts reach out to embrace us, whether we realize it, or not. We have Christmas trees. We have gifts. We have fire in the hearth, we have the traditional « Bûche de Noël » - the Yule log. We celebrate the return of the light, of the sun rising from the heart of winter, the deep of night and darkness, without which it loses all meaning. Like life, which is meaningless without death, no matter how hard grief and loss are to bear for those who remain.

As always, the end of year period belongs to questions. It belongs to doubts and reflections and stubborn hopes, to indignation and the elusive promise of revolutions to come – pehraps even more so this time than ever before. So why not indulge this shadow in the mirror and its relentless questions and challenges ?

Why not, indeed ? But we'll do it my way.

« Do you have anything worth living for ? » the shadow asks from within its mirror. Well, the first answer to that should be obvious : I have this life, you dolt. And it's in me to make the most of it. To kindle it and make it burn high and bright, to fuel its flames with my heart and send it soaring high, until it touches the sky. And then there are all the other answers. All the people I love. All the places that resonate inside my heart. All the lives I touch, all the lives who touch mine. All the world. All the universe, boundless. « Big words, » the shadow snorts in the mirror. « Big, but rather empty. »

Really ?

I think not, dearest reflection. Reach out, touch all that surrounds you, if you dare. Let all that surrounds you touch you, if you dare. Break the shell. Shed the armor. Watch. Listen. Feel. The world, the people, they are so many onions stinging your eyes as you peel off the layers isolating you from it all. They make you cry. They make you angry. They make you smile. They make you proud. They make you sad. They enrage you. They disgust you. They enflame you. So many emotions. So many thoughts. So many things to say and feel and express. Too many to put into words : joy, revolt, grief, hope, despair, anger, fury, contempt, spite, happiness, pride, shame, hatred, love, sparks, fire, cold, ice, determination, stubbornness, fight, refusal, solidarity, indignation, revolution.... So you see, there are too many things, overflowing, spilling from this mind of mine, to put into words. The only way to express it all, is to encompass the whole chaotic mess with big words. Big, but not empty if you know how to read them.

So, next question, please. « Who are you ? »

Again, the answer seems obvious. I am who and what I am. I am a human being, full of flaws, torn between the dark and the light. Standing between dusk and dawn. Flickering gray, I am one funambulist among billions of others. I am a sum of contradictions. I also happen to be a woman, but don't be afraid, women are simple human beings like everyone else, regardless of religions' misogyny and bigotry. « Yeah, right, » the shadow in the mirror smirks. « That says nothing at all about who you are. Big words again, and avoidance of the real answer. » Is that so ? But who could give a definite answer to that question ? We are always building ourselves. We grow and change and become who we are and will be with each moment that passes, with each encounter we make, with each and every event we experience. Any definite answer would become false in the moment I'd write it. The present is a heartbeat, over and done, and then renewed, repeated again and again, different each time, everlasting and inexistent. « Sophistry, » the shadow in the mirror spits. « You gorge yourself with words and sentences that have no meaning. » Do I ? Or are you just miffed and frustrated because those words and sentences are just more questions which ask for answers nobody can give, ô dearest shadow in the mirror ? But then it's true I do love babbling, the more so when I write in English. And, yeah, that's also part of who I am, so there !

All right, last but not least, « What do you want ? »

In Babylon 5, the single best ever aired SF TV series, answering that question is damning yourself. Be careful what you wish for, it may come true, is the lesson B5 teaches in the most cruel and definite fashion...or is that the real message ? Lately I tend to see it as more of a warning : stop depending on others to make your wishes come true. Take your destiny in your own hands. Move your fucking ass, because if you wait for someone else to do it for you, you may not like the result – and then it's usually too late to take it back and do something else. But let's get back to what I want. The answer to that shouldn't be very hard to find. You only need to read the posts I've written on this blog along the years, but if that task sounds too daunting, I can probably summarize it for you here :

I want us to grow up.

I want us to stop bowing our heads before the dictates of the powers-that-be.

I want us to deserve the name of « human beings ».

I want justice to prevail for everyone. Social justice. Economic justice.

I want us to be free of religions, of bigotry and obscurantism, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hinduist, Buddhist, Animist or other.

I want us to think for ourselves, and stop swallowing the garbage flung down our throats by the mass media.

I want people to involve themselves in unions, in politics.

I want people to do more than whine and then slump down in the sofa to watch sports or some other TV junk like reality shows.

I want us to stop allowing ourselves to be blinded, to be driven like plough horses during the course of our lives.

I want us to stop nodding our heads when frauds come on TV, on the radio or in the newspaper to tell us that « There Is No Alternative » or that « we've lived above our means until now, and so it follows that now we must take care of our debt ».

I want us to think outside the box.

I want us to stand up for ourselves and turn the tables on the powers-that-be, on the Ron Pauls and Rick Perrys and Newt Gingrich, on the Koch brothers and the Albert Freres and Vincent Bollorés, on the Etienne Davignons and Jean-Luc Dehaenes, the Goldman Sachs and JP Morgans and UBS. I want us to turn this oligarchy upside down, to depose those ploutocrats and their faithful dogs : Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Lucas Papademos, Mario Monti, Mario Draghi, the IMF, the ECB and all the other zealots in the media everywhere.

I want us to do the revolution.

I want us to be happy, to be balanced and to live in peace.

I want to see, feel, touch and hear the beauty of this world we live in.

I want...so many things I could fill a thousand lifetimes with them, but that's all right. Like the weeds and the moss in my garden, I'll endure. I'll grow even though it rains. I'll keep standing up. I'll keep on fighting, no matter whether I stand a chance to reach the lofty goals I set for myself.

Because that's who I am.

Because that's what I want.

Because that's what makes this life worth living.

And that's it for grand philosophy moments from me...well, that's it for this time, anyway. As to the future, I make no promises ! =)

When the US of A insists on choosing the Path of Shame

Yesterday, UNESCO voted the entry of Palestine into its institution by a large majority of votes. This should have been a moment of joy and celebration : even though the state of Palestine doesn't yet enjoy a full recognition by the UNO, its entry into one of the most respected and valued international organisations is another chance for peace. Yet, not everyone sees the event in this light. The US of A, in yet another demonstration of their usual grandeur, not only voted against the motion, but also decided to immediately cut funding UNESCO.

This will have repercussions, it will hurt people who have done nothing wrong, and do not deserve to be cast off with a mere flip of the hand, but let's focus first on the absolute stupidity of such a move.

It's been way too many years since a peaceful settlement was sought between Israel and the dispossessed people who have been pushed back to Cisjordania and the West Bank of Gaza. In theory, everyone agrees that there needs to be two viable states side by side, each with guarantees of security – be it the économical, social or otherwise – and good living standards. Yet, even though everyone agrees, nobody can reach a final conclusion on this protracted, and often halted, process. In the meantime, both populations – Israelis and Palestinians – must trudge on with their lives. And as the years pass, the Palestinian population gets poorer and more desperate, the rightwing and hawkish Israeli government allows furter settlements in the Palestinian territory, chasing people from their land. The Israeli government builds the Wall of Shame, at least as shameful as the Berlin Wall in its time – and even worse sinc here it's a democratic state which is building it, rather than sitting at a negociations table to find a lasting solution to this heartrending dispute.

Of course, the poorer the Palestinian population gets, the more vulnerable and prone to the influence and manipulation of extremists and terrorists like the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad they become. The more Israeli settlements steal land from the Palestinians, the more incursions and retaliations take lives, the more desperate the Palestinian population gets. The less alternative they have. One day, all this will boil down to cornering the whole Palestinian population and leaving it with only one option : hatred, and all out violence. Yet, nobody seems to care...but that's only appearances. Nobody can believe that the Israeli government would be so blind. Nobody can believe that the US of A government could be so blind.

But the US of A government keeps entangling itself further and binding itself tighter to the Israeli government, no matter what it does and decides. And the Israeli government is not only rightwinged and hawksih, its majority is also so fragile that it depends on the continued goodwill of religious extremist parties and far-right parties. Once you know this, you understand why the game unfolds in such a crazy board : extremism is extremism's best friend. Blood calls out for blood. Extremists on both sides do not want peace. They want the anihilation of the other. They want to « purify » a poor, beleaguered piece of land they claim is their very own god-given right.

Beyond the fact that this demonstrates yet again how inherently evil religions are (I'm not talking about faith here) and how they've been pushing humanity down the path of war and tragedy, destruction and horror all along history, there is another lesson to consider : it's not in the interest of extremists on both the Palestinian and the Israeli side to find a peaceful solution. It's in their interest that the situation keep festering until nothing can save peace.

When you want to settle terrible, enduring disputes which have fostered hatred, incomprehension and wariness for generations, the only way is to go through proxies, to go through institutions that both sides recognize. The UNO, and UNESCO, are such organisations. To be a part of them brings the Palestinian into the international community. It gives more chance for opening dialogue – which can sometimes start in an oblique fashion. It gives more chance for peace. It weakens the hold of extremists. It shows the Palestinian population they can be embraced by the world, and that there is a chance other than extremism and terrorism to one day win peace.

To sum it up, Palestine's entry in the UNESCO should have been a moment for hope and celebration. For joy. And yet, the US of A, not content to have vetoed Palestine's entry into the UNO, decided to cut funding to the UNESCO at once, since they couldn't blackmail UNESCO into backing down and denying the Palestinians.

Why ?

The US of A will likely use the same excuse they pulled out of a much used hat when they vetoed Palestine's entry at the UNO : such a move wouldn't help brokering a peaceful settlement. This paltry excuse isn't only laughable, it's most of all absurd : the US of A has been failing again and again at really pushing toward a fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute for generations. Some might even say that this state of constant threat and warfare serves the military industry in the US of A right – or that this state of affairs puts Israel in a dependant position toward the US of A, thus giving them a stable foothold in the middle east... Still, beyond the conjectures, what matters is that the more time passes, the more it ties itself with the Israeli government and embraces its views, no matter how extreme and counterproductive.

The US of A's decision simply hurts further the chances to find peace. They're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, were their desire to broker an agreement real and honest.

More, the US of A's unfair and hurtful decision to cut funding to the UNESCO will jeopardize programs all around the world that the US of A should be encouraging : schools for girls in Afghanistan, help to education and teaching, help to bring writing and reading to the children of Africa, regardless of their gender. Development of culture and understanding between people. This is what UNESCO is about : sharing cultures and understanding, building bridges between people, helping people to grow and walk out of violence and war.

The US of A brought war to Afghanistan with the pretext of wanting to bring freedom and democracy there, to free girls from the living hell their existence was under Taliban rule. And now, they're cutting funding to the one organisation which is trying, really trying to help girls win free of the madness of those foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics.

Tell me, how does that add up ?

What purpose does it serve, other than abandoning people to their sorry fates, and giving a hand to terrorists and slavers – a more than fitting name for all those Islam fundamentalists worldwide methinks – to warmongers and fanatics everywhere ?

What consequence will this absurd decision of the US of A have, other than rekindling the possibilities for war and pain and grief, for destruction and death and hatred between peoples ?

So, the US of A is again choosing its path. That path has a name.

Shame.

PS : watch the declaration of the UNESCO CEO after Palestine's entry, and listen to her explaining the consequences of the US of A's decision to cut funding. Then, try telling me again we should try to understand the US of A's position.

Veiled Reflections

The veil/niqab controversy won't die in France. It may seem weird to countries like the US or the UK, where just about all the forms of religious extremism or communautarism are openly tolerated, and where communities live among themselves, in ghetto-like quarters where people from different cultures don't mix.Usually people from those two countries look down on what's happening in France or in latin countries with a sort of kind superiority, claiming they're more tolerant, and we're all backward, stuck-up people who won't see the error of their ways.

Still, at least here we wonder, we question. We do not automatically validate everything that gets thrown our way. We try (and often fail) to promote the mix of cultures, to ban ghetto-like suburbs or quarters (but here our nice and gentle and well-educated bourgeoisie doesn't help much). And this latest controversy concerning women (not many) who flaunt the use of the niqab (complete veil which doesn't even let you see the eyes of the person) as some twisted revendication of ethnic roots is one well worth having.

Yes, the use of the niqab in the public spaces (streets, public transports, cinemas, restaurants, cafes, etc.) must be forbidden. Yes, we should not even try to argue with all the false defenders of "freedom" (which, here, is nothing more than another word for "oppression plan deployment"), and simply fall back on the obligation for everyone to be garbed in a manner that will allow them to be identified if a police officer requests it. Still, for the sake of being clear about it, here's my view on why things such as the niqab should be forbidden in all western countries, and all countries which claim they grant women a true status of equality with men :

The niqab acts like a tool of isolation and exclusion of all "others", no matter who or what those "others" may be, no matter what their nature or gender. It's a very simple, direct and primal effect: it's visual and physical both. Anyone who passes by a person wearing the niqab (ou can't tell whether it's a man or a woman) cannot help but respond, on a reflexive level, the same way you'll stare when you notice something out of place close to you, whether you want to, or not.

Beyond the obvious denial of self wearing a niqab represents (denial of one's image to others, and thus denial of self), this garb is the perfect symbol of the denial of the feminine identity, and of the rejection of a woman as a "woman", female human being and equal (even if different) to the male human being, a.k.a. "man".

The "inner beauty" fantasy or the "beyond apparences" rationale cannot resist analysis: we're human beings. As such, we cannot help responding to all external sitmuli: we react to appearances. Our gender is part of our identity and our image. To deny that is to deny oneself or worse, it's to drape oneself in hypocrisy.

And beyond all this, the niqab is as fundamentally disturbing in a western society as a woman wearing shorts and a sleeveless blouse strolling in an Arab country would be: what isn't accepted there because it doesn't respect the country's customs has its equivalent here; and what doesn't shock there (having to adhere to the customs of the country in which you are) shouldn't shock here either (*).

When extremists from all the sides of the spectrum, the false defenders of a so-called freedom which is nothing more than a pretext to establish oppression, or those who seek after roots where they have no chance of finding them will understand this, we'll have taken a great step toward brighter days.

(*) cultural relativism has ery clear limits, which are drawn around oh-so insignificant things such as the universal declaration of human rights (which, incidentally, applies to women as well...)

Something else entirely:
A small, tiger-grey cat came to say hello in Koroni. A smile and a thought from our little one, a bit of light in the blue heavens. And memories, and feelings, and this crazy mixture of warmth, sadness and beautiful memories that nothing can shake. Our beloved little guardian still watches over us. And we remember him. We think about him. We love him.

Meanwhile, in the World…

Very precise memos on US torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^H excuse me, fine interrogation techniques were released to the public by the Obama Administration. A stunning example of exquisite detail, they explain how, when, where how long (plus all the questions you could ever imagine--some which you would never think of) you should apply those fine torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^H interrogation methods on the prisoners.

As in the famous experiment on submission to authority and estrangement from responsibility and accountability demonstrated, these memos were designed to reassure the tormentors that what they were doing was sanctioned by a higher power. That they were on the side of good, that it was all right. Well, I’ve got news for you, ladies and gentlemen of the US torture battalion: torturers are evil. No matter where, when, how or why, torture is evil. And you who have willingly and knowingly tormented other human beings aren’t heroes. You’re not good citizens. You’re not faithful servants of your country. You defiled its name, you shamed it in an irremediable fashion.

And you must be brought to justice. You must face those you harmed so grievously, those you humiliated, those fellow human beings you reduced to a status far below that of animals.

The economical and financial crisis is going well, thank you very much. Lay-offs are growing exponentially. In Europe, big company CEOs are advancing their agendas to cut down on worker and social rights. Those nice CEOs and their financial tycoon masters cannot give enough thanks for the opportunities this crisis has offered them to reach goals which would otherwise have remained out of their reach. Strangled workers and unions are backed to the wall by powers-that-be who have no morals, no ethics, and for whom balance means being lords over hordes of slaves they can hire, lay off and treat however they want to, because they know what’s best [for them and the stakeholders].

The grand promises of change, of a revolution in the way things are “managed” in the global economy, the promises of regulation, control and sanction that will ensure that such a crisis never happens again…well, they’re here somewhere, I’m sure. There, in the vacuum of space, yeah. In the nothingness of the interstellar void, where all lies and false promises end up. It was to be expected: the powers do not want to be limited. They do not want to face those they’ve harmed, are harming and will continue harming for the sole benefit of less than 5% of the global population, while telling u s that this society we live in, this society they forged, is freedom’s realm—theirs, not ours.

Liars, all of them: Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Hu Jin Tao, Manuel Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi—the list is long. They told us they would change it, and make it better. Make it safer. They said they’d give us back the world the finance tycoons snatched from us. They lied. The one power that would represent us, the State, the union of all States in the world, is a myth, and the men at the wheels are all sold to the powers of finance and international corporations.

In the shadows of the UN building, great enlightened minds of the West are conspiring with the forces of obscurantism to reinstate the crime of blasphemy. They are gathering forces to send us back to the dark ages of the world, when dissent was whipped back with the words of a god or other. Religion, the cancer of civilization and freedom, the form of authority that would dictate every aspect of a person’s life, claiming that some higher power(s) wrote down all those laws, is tiptoeing its way back into a position to dictate what our lives should be. I have nothing against people who choose freely to adopt some rules or others (as long as they don’t impose them on others, be they of their own family), but I draw the line when those people would have me follow their philosophy and laws.

When will religions learn to mind their own business and stay out of ours?

I’ll take care of my soul myself, thank you very much (if I have one, that remains to be scientifically proven).

I don’t believe in any god, goddess, or otherworldly entity. In fact, I believe in one thing: I don’t know what’s out there. Get it through your heads that blasphemy makes no sense when you try to apply it blindly. How can a person who’s not of faith X commit a blasphemy since s/he doesn’t believe in that faith? There can be no general blasphemy crime, because that would mean that the right to not believe, the right to doubt, would no longer exist. You would institute a dictatorship of belief, where you’d go back to burning, torturing, drowning (not necessarily in that order, of course) all those who dare affirm that they bow to nobody, be they mortal, or otherwise.

There, the cat’s out of the bag. Religion is submission to a higher order of things. What it cannot abide is rebellion, doubts, questions. Well, I’ve got news for you, mullahs, priests and all your ilk: bow down all you want. Those of us who refuse to will keep on refusing to amend the errors of our ways.

We won’t bow down. Ever.

Now, get over it, tend to your flocks, and leave us and this world the fuck alone!

And then, last but not least, I have set flowers on a small tombstone in the back of my garden. Time passes, but the feeling of loss lingers. Sometimes it’s so acute it hurts and brings tears to my eyes. I guess it’s the price you pay when you lose one that you loved and love still. In spite of the pain, I’m glad for it. And memories are full of smiles and happy moments.

So here, some thoughts to hover in the limbo of cyberspace. Memories. May they spark light where the sky is grey.

On the Brink

December 31st, 2008.

We stand on the brink of 2009.

We stand on the brink of a bloody, all-out war between the Palestinians and Israel, all because of madmen in frantic search of eternal power. The Hamas, murderers, cowards. Terrorists. Betrayers of hope. The Israeli government, intent in redefining the meaning of the word “strength”, and of reawakening the fear of its army throughout the Arab world, in a hopeless quest for popularity before the Israeli people go to the polls. Death, pain, loss and despair, all for the sake of people greedy for power, people lost in petty schemes to win popular support. All for the sake of a lame-duck US administration who’s all too happy to leave this poisoned gift to the successor to the worst president the US has ever had in all its (short) history.

We stand on the brink of the total annihilation of an economical system that has caused poverty, slavery, brainwashing of billions of people into nice, good and obedient little consumers/slaves. A system which believed itself to be eternal after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but which has shown that the only thing it’s capable of is to devour itself. To trigger despair, poverty, loss of ideals and values, to replace it with the one true god it recognizes: money. A system which, after using as slaves all the people of the underdeveloped countries, is now ready to gobble us all up. If we don’t change. If we pass out on this unique opportunity to seize matters in our own hands. If we pass out on this chance to regain control. We, the people. The States. We should seize control of companies, of banks, through public stakeholders. We should be the ones dictating the policies of the multinational corporations. We should be the ones deciding where the profits go: to the States so they can pay our pensions and our social security, our roads, our trains, our schools…not to the stakeholders.

We stand on the brink of a disaster greater than any we have ever known, for if our governments do not heed the warnings we have been given since September, if we do not change the system that dictates how our lives are led, and fast, we will see it wobble through for a year or two. And then it will crumble. And it will take us along with it in its fall.

We stand on the brink of chaos in countries we sent troops in, claiming we’d bring them our enlightened vision of the world. Afghanistan is now worse than it has ever been, all because we support a corrupt government which behaves worse than the Talibans ever did, thus causing the people to side with terrorists, and causing people to regret the cruel rule of those who were nothing more than madmen.

And then, we stand on the brink of hope.

We stand on the brink of change.

In all the dreary news of 2008, there was one which shed light all over the world. One which lifted billions of hearts, and got people to believe in a better tomorrow.

On January 20th, Barack Obama will step into the White House. On his shoulders will rest the hope of a world. The hope of billions of people who need the change he has defended throughout the US presidential campaign. We need hope. We need change. We need someone to steer the way, to lead in another direction. We need someone who will dare turn his back on the old liberalism, on the financial capitalism. We need someone who will dare put us, the people, the States, back in our proper place: center seat, with the controls in hands.

Because of the vote on November 4th, 2008, hope was kindled. And for this, I will forever be grateful.

We stand on the brink.

Mr. Obama, it’s up to you to see to it that we do not fall.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

I wish us all you’ll have the guts and the strength of will and vision to get us through.

Welcome, 2009, welcome, January 20th.

We await you with great hopes and expectations!

The Exercise of Vital Powers

Today is Elections day, both in France, and in Spain, and although the media have a lot to say about the French local elections, the place where all eyes should be focusing is Spain.

Why?

Because Spain has a fundamental choice to make today : either to continue toward modernism, the secularization of its extremely patriarchal society, toward social reforms aimed at improving life and welfare of everyone, or to slide back down the road of authoritarianism and Catholic dogma domination.

Contrary to the political spectrum we’re used to in France, Belgium, Germany or Holland, in Spain the right is set far, truly far to the right part of the spectrum. The specter of Franco haunts the rallies and meetings of the “People’s Party”—never has a political party so little deserved the name it’s taken for itself, but let’s not go there. Spain has never truly come to terms with the bloody dictatorship of general Franco, who was overwhelmingly supported and cheered on by the upper classes, and by the Catholic church.

The Catholic church itself has never come out of the closet with an expression of regret or apology, on the opposite. Even today, the Catholic church in Spain fights so it can continue to honor “victims of communist revolutionaries”, aka collaborators of a brutal, savage dictatorship who helped capture, detain, torture and slaughter men and women whose crime it was to dream of freedom, and of something other than the Right’s and the Church’s absolute dominion over their lives. Neither the church, nor the Right have ever done their duty of opening the historical records, and acknowledging the crimes that took place. They never condemned what happened under Franco. Worse, they hold ceremonies every year to honor the memory of a bloody tyrant on par with the worst we have known, Mussolini, Pinochet, etc.

And today, today the Catholic church and the Right see an opportunity to regain the power they lost when they tried to manipulate people and hide the truth behind the Madrid terrorist attacks. Today is mass day. The faithfuls will go to church. They will listen to their priest. And it just so happens that their priest has a message for them on this special day. A very important message that comes directly from the highest places in the Spanish Catholic hierarchy, from people who know better than us poor simple souls, and who only want what’s best for us.

And today, the Catholic church comes out of the woods, and clamps down its claws upon the people under its dominion. Today, it lifts its mask of benevolence and harmlessness.

Today, the Spanish Catholic church tells people for whom to vote.

Today, the Catholic church uses its power to try and regain what it never accepted to lose: dominion over every aspect of people’s lives, regardless of their faith, or lack thereof. In an almost sublime disregard for people’s freedom of choice and opinion, for people’s liberty to have faith in something, to be agnostics or atheists, the Catholic church rears its ugly head, and exercises its power.

Today, the Catholic church hands out for everyone to see the proof that, contrary to what optimistic people believe, it has never, ever accepted to withdraw to the sphere of people’s personal beliefs. Today, the Catholic church demonstrates that it isn’t satisfied with that, and that it wants what was taken from it during the French revolution in 1789: absolute power over temporal matters, over our lives. The power to dictate what we should do, think, believe and how we should lead our lives.

Today, the Catholic church proves that it’s anything but harmless, that it merely waits in the shadows, biding its time until the moment to regain what it lost comes.

It’s hoping that today is the day in Spain.

Today, the Catholic church proves that it keeps being a threat to all who would be free, and that it needs to be uprooted for good.

Today, the Spanish people have the unique occasion to send the Catholic church back into the closet, in the shadows where it belongs.

Good night, and good luck.

Live and Let Die

The euthanasia debate just might start again in France, after the brave and difficult decision of a 52 years old woman to allow her case, her suffering to be used as a symbol, and a channel for the debate.

Upon hearing for the umpteenth time the argument used by those who refuse to allow euthanasia to be set into a law, with clear boundaries and a frame of reference for doctors and patients to work with, I find myself fighting down disgust and exasperation with quite a bit of difficulty. Because all these people have are words.

Just words.

Empty sounds, that resound in a room, resound in the places where the TV is turned on and set on the debate channel. The syllables drift through the air, rebound on the walls, and then, what? And then nothing. People spew out sophistry, grand principles, bits and pieces of philosophy, never ever having the honesty to come out with the real reason why they oppose it: religion. Religious dogma and beliefs, which have nothing to do, no right to interfere with the everyday, temporal life of the citizens living in a democratic country. And while those holier-than-thou figures argue against the right for a person to decide of how, why, where and when they should end their own life, people keep suffering. People keep being in pain.

And words, pale words, are just laughable.

What does it matter to you, if someone decides to rule their own life, and the manner of their own death? What business of yours is it? None.

Nobody will ever make anyone shorten their life or hasten their death if they don’t want to. Euthanasia is about the absolute right to self-determination, it’s about the right to do what you want with your life, the affirmation that it belongs to you. If you believe your life belongs to some god and that in accordance with your beliefs system you should suffer, agonize for years, months, you name it, you’re welcome to it! Please, by all means, do lead your life and your death the way you please! Just don’t meddle into the lives and deaths of others!

It’s all too easy to guess at why the opponents to euthanasia will never relent: most of them oppose it because they belong to a monotheistic religion which states that life belongs to a deity without a name or face and that, as such, you cannot decide what you do with it, since it’s not really yours.

And, of course, the problem with religions, is that they are inherently intolerant of other systems of ethics. And that they believe they have “The One Truth.” They believe that they’re entitled to dictate what everyone, whether they adhere to their beliefs system or not, should do, think, and how they should live and die. Religions must save everyone, against themselves. They must redeem the sinners who do not see the “light”, who do not understand the obvious.

I’m sick and tired of religions.

I’m sick and tired of hypocrites who argue against the right for someone to decide what to do with his/her life or his/her death, quoting the progress of medicine, how painkillers would help, how having a better, more adapted environment would oh so certainly change the person’s decision to die. The truth is, while those hypocrites who are too cowardly to admit their opinion is nothing but a religious dictate, the people they pass judgment upon, and whom they forbid the right to die keep on suffering. The truth is, that no “better environment” will happen. The truth is that no “revolution of palliative care” will take place.

The truth is, also, that religions cannot abide people accepting death and welcoming it on their own.

Without the fear of death and the promise of a heaven when you die, provided you have been an obedient follower of religious dogma and laws, religions would lose most, if not all their appeal on people.

When I take a look at what’s being said in the US, how candidates for the presidency are forced to spew out the words “god” or “jesus” at every turn if they want to have a chance of being elected, in what claims to be a secular country, when I look at what Sarkozy spews out in his speeches, I cannot help thinking it’s high time for a revolution.

It’s really, really high time for a repetition of 1789.

Frenzy and Misconceptions

As expected, the Iowa caucuses results started a round of frenzy around the world. Many editorialists go on about how deeply significant these results are, and how they herald change in the US.

Some even press their right hand upon their chest at the heart's level, and tell you that what happened in these caucuses is the purest form and expression of democracy. If you look closely, you'll see their eyes glistening with unshed tears of pride and love. They're the journalists working for the Wall Street Journal, the great defenders of the neo-cons and the republicans, those who bark everywhere that the US is the greatest, the bestest democracy in the whole universe. I guess their sappy declarations of love for the caucuses, which are the most undemocratic process of election I've ever seen is coherent with their other declarations. At least I have to give the Wall Street Journal people this: they're not frightened of ridicule, and they do not step back from ludicrous claims:

Imagine a gymnasium full of people. Some are gathered in groups here and there. Others roam the space, undecisive. The groups shout at each other, yell catacalls, clap their hands and tap their feet on the ground to impress and unsettle the others, and try for shows of force to draw the undecisive their way. John Doe, who had said he'd vote for X, suddenly sees that a great many others are in group Y, and they call so loudly for more supporters that John Doe finds himself instintively going for the stronger group. In the meantime, Jane Smith wanted to vote for T, but T unfortunately doesn't gather enough supporters to be above a threshold percentage of votes. So Jane must choose someone else. No luck, she doesn't know. But the people supporting Y are so numerous, so loud. They seem so sure. So Jane goes to join the group defending Y. And when the ending time comes, a basket is handed from person to person, above heads in the crowd in a joyful chaos, and people "each" throw papers with the name of a candidate in the basket. There is no way of checking that this is done without any cheating. And of course, the caucus is nothing other than people putting pressure on other people to vote this instead of that. It bars some from attending, because it's held at a certain time, and that people who'd vote must endure at least 2hours of debate they have no need for, but must bow to, so they can be subjected to outside pressure and dictates on how they should vote.

The whole process certainly is the purest form of anti-democracy held in the self-proclaimed greatest democracy of the universe. A process the Wall Street Journal people know so well how to denounce when they explain the process of voting for or against a strike in gatherings of union workers. But then, it's true that this is the US, a country where voting isn't compulsory, and where elections day are invariably weekdays, when people are at work, and they either have to take a day off or do I don't know what to manage to place their vote. The greatest democracy of the world, indeed. But then, we wouldn't put the day for the election on Sunday, no, we wouldn't. We wouldn't dare annoy all the good Christians out there, would we?

Now, let's tackle the results of the Iowa caucuses on the Democrats' side. I'll spare you my thoughts on the Republicans' side, because you wouldn't like me to explain to you in detail how these results confirm my opinion that a good half of the USA no longer lives in a democracy but is putting a good old theocracy in place (the whole of the USA is in fact a plutocracy, but let's not go there either).

Barack Obama's victory certainly is a powerful symbol. It's gonna send hearts beating, it's gonna send waves of warmth and elation coursing the veins of all those who have soft spots and still delulde themselves into believing in the lie called the "American Dream". But at the end of the process, when the game is over, it'd be far better for Hillary Rodham to be the winner. Why?

Because, no matter what you can say, what the media can say, the American citizens as a whole will never elect Barack Obama over a good WASP Republican. No matter what people like to believe, the heritage of segregation and racism aren't dead in the US. The South and the Middlewest states, the infamous Bible Belt will not elect a black, Democrat candidate as president, even though his mother is a purebred WASP.

Because, whether or not the people who have sparks in their eyes when they hear Obama talking of "deep change in the way of doing politics" and of "suppressing the wars between red and blue states" like it, the whole speech is just empty words that have a nice ring to them. There will never be "peace" and "understanding" and "collaboration" between Republican and Democrat states. People will never abandon their little wars, their agendas. And more importantly, they will not renounce their own ideas to endorse some kind of empty, soft consensus. And if they did, in some utopia world or other, the result would be a status-quo that would in no way be the tiniest beginning of the change Barack Obama claims to be embodying.

Because, outside of his "I'll change everything" message, Barack Obama has no clear program, no clear vision of what he'll do and how. Outside of his nice face, of his appealing youth and the fact people don't know him and thus don't (yet) associate him with their general dislike of politics, there's no clear indication of what he wants. Worse, from the little he's said, he looks like the most conservative of the Democrat candidates...

Because Hillary Rodham has the experience.

Because Hillary Rodham has fought in the arena, because she has confronted the fiends one finds on one's path in Washington, when she tried to reform the oh so nice and fair health "care" system the US has.

Because Hillary Rodham has guts, because she's strong. Because she knows what she'up against, because that terrible machine has beaten her down once, and she rebuilt herself. Because she failed, and took strength from that painful experience. Because she is the only one, having encountered it, fought it, to be able to claim she can challenge the smearing and demolition machine of the Republicans. She's been there. She's withstood them. She's proven her metal.

Hillary Rodham has proven she has the will and the strength to endure and to prevail in the hell they call a presidential campaign. She has been tested. She has been through fire.

Because Hillary Rodham knows there is a world beyond hte US borders, and will have many friends in Europe. Because she knows the job.

Because she has a team such as no other candidate can have.

Because, once the Republicans will have chosen Rudy Juliani, John Mc Cain or Mitt Romney, she's the only one who can confront them.

And if she could have Edwards as a vice-president hopeful, I think I'd have to revise my judgment, and start believing again that a hope for change is possible in the US.

366 days...

To start on a quest for happiness.

To strive for a better world in our everyday lives, no matter how little we are, or how insignificant the things we can do in regard with all the pain and loss all around us.

To remember our roots.

To regain our bearings.

To open our eyes.

To question the “truths” authorities, media, political, religious or otherwise dump on our heads.

To take a good, long look at our lives and answer this question truly: is this what we want?

To wave aside hopelessness and the general consensus around the inevitability of living in a world where finance and economy rule, in the service of a few plutocrats, who wave before our enraptured gazes flags of “freedom” and make of us good little consumers, obedient little variables in their equations.

To tear off the mask of “democracy” our governments and those who own them have so securely tied, so that we can’t see the nice reality that we live in plutocracies, all of us “citizens of the free world”.

To turn our backs on all priests, popes, televangelists, predicators, imams, rabbis, and all religious figures and hierarchs who would presume to tell us how we should live our lives, tempt us and threaten us with whatever lies beyond the moment of our death, and to know better than we what’s good and what’s bad.

To weave a mantle of emerald green for our bleeding world.

To get involved in elections, and fight for what we believe in.

To see the Olympics in Beijing for what they are: the games of shame, held in a country that’s destroying the world with its power plants, its chemical companies, which has turned the sacred land of Tibet into its nuclear junkyard, and which has no intention to stop any time soon, in a country where freedom of opinion has been scratched from all the schoolbooks, and where they kill prisoners of opinion after having demanded their families pay for the bullet that’ll take the lives of their loved ones.

To unravel the glamor of an authoritarian midget who loves himself far too much to even begin to care about the people who were deluded by his populist speeches and voted him in power.

To see the FARC free their hostages.

To watch Hugo Chavez thwart the neo-cons and thrive, to see him seize victory in defeat, and to see this strange, strange man hold up in his hand another way, another path for people to choose.

To see either a woman or a man of color become the temporary owner of the White House.

To see if Pakistan can somehow defeat the looming shadow of chaos.

To see at last the Islam fanatics driven out of all the lands they've invaded, and in no particular order: Irraq, Sudan and the Darfur region, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Great Britain, and all the corners of shadow and dust that they haunt, cowards that they are.

To see if at last Palestine will be given its due, and will at last have a viable state, and if Israel will finally win free of the nightmarish path it has been following for so many years.

To discover the next seasons of Heroes, House M.D., Battlestar Galactica, Bones, Desperate Housewives, Life on Mars, Bones, Robin Hood.

To see the end of Saint Seiya adapted into anime.

To write a new piece of fiction (anyone who believed that When Blackbirds Sing would be the last occasion for me to waste bandwidth doesn't know me at all).

To remain as stubborn, selfish, insufferable and mean-tempered.

To refuse any kind of "new year resolutions".

366 days, and the afternoon of Winter in Greece, for the rain to fall gently on the scorched earth, for snow to glove the mountains with a soft cloak of pure white.

366 days, the afternoon of Winter and the glorious rise of Spring in Greece, for the forests to heal from the terrible fires of last Summer.

366 days, in which to look out for the sun, to try and bring more light to our world.

More peace.

Looking Back

Recapturing the film of 2007, many things happened, in many places of the world. But then, it’s also true that events take place all over, all the time. We live in constant flux and movement, and this very constancy of change is one of the things that tell us we’re alive, and that our world is alive.

A planet without volcanoes, without earthquakes, is a dead piece of rock with nothing but perhaps fossils or stones for the collectors to examine at their leisure. A planet with volcanoes, with earthquakes, with moving plates is alive, even though those phenomena kill and inflict such terrible loss and pain on those it strikes. Chaos is a very much needed part of life, and without it, Order would simply entomb us in stillness. Entropy, beyond being the focus point of the famous second law of thermodynamics, is the one force that sparked life to everything we know: to the stars we see in the night sky, to this fantastic, ever-developing universe we’re such a tiny, tiny bit of, minuscule ants that we are, and who often delude ourselves into thinking we’re the center of everything--helped in this by the monotheistic religions, which in this aspect as in many others, do nothing other than flatter us and mirror back what we want to hear.

But enough with philosophy.

So 2007 was, like any other year, a year of change. However, looking back I can’t help wondering if the changes that took place aren’t mostly in a direction I’d rather avoid. Of course I’m biased, and I’m sure a great many people would disagree with me, but still.

Let’s start with the bad stuff.

In France, the population elected an openly populist, demagogic president. Since then, this man has done little else but turn the political existence of the country into some gigantic, badly written TV soap where he’s the lead actor. This change has allowed him to start on profound changes, most of which are aimed to enact a very, very strong rightwing policy, and also to unravel all the laws and all the social rights that the French workers had won after so many battles since the 19^th century. But people don’t see, it, refuse to see it, under the glamour of the huge reality show the current tenant of the Elysee puts out for them. What amazes me, and disgusts me, is that it works, and that so many people are all too willing to fall for it, that so many people are all too willing to start drooling and wagging their tails whenever they stumble upon an authoritarian figure who then simply has to bark something for them to believe it’s some kind of absolute, divine truth. Mr Sarkozy has done everything from staging his ex-wife as the savior of the famous Bulgarian nurses who were held in Libya, trampling from underfoot and denying all the efforts made by European diplomacy, stealing the stage in such a gross fashion that everyone in France should have screamed “fake”, to going into hiding and uncharacteristic silence during the social conflicts in Autumn and then arranging to have himself and his newfound “love” photographed by paparzzi in Eurodi$ney to draw attention from the fiasco of his welcoming Kadhafi like a hero. And people bought it.

In the US, the subprimes crisis has ruined many families. Many people have gone bankrupt, and are now homeless, all because the US system has gone beyond any kind of sustainable balance, and because this system has taught generations of American people that, yes, they should live beyond their financial means, and that they should live indebted up to above their necks, that it’s perfectly okay. The inexistent social security and health care system has once again demonstrated how retarded the US are in that regard, where millions of families, of kids, had better not fall ill, because nobody will give them proper treatment, their only choice being to go to hospitals to be treated by students in their first year of practical field exercise. The crumbling of the middle-class has left dozens of millions with no label of “poor” enabling them to have a minimum of access to any kind of health care, and leaving them at the tender mercy of private insurance companies, which propose contracts those families can no longer afford. But then, I guess that when you embrace a system that glorifies individualism, says you shouldn’t pay taxes, and you shouldn’t have to insure yourself or pay for stuff you think you’ll never need (and it is well known we never get sick, we never grow old, we can never get fired from a job, of course), well you have to take responsibility and accept the consequences of the choices you make for the society you live in. The American Dream is dead and buried, but I wonder if the US people even realize that.

In Iraq, the population has drowned deeper into chaos and terror, all consequences that had been detailed and exposed to the US, and to Mr W Bush, who still decided to go and “liberate” Iraq, a decision among the worst and most ill-advised of these last centuries. Never has the US had a worse president, a president who was reelected nevertheless, by a part of the population who’s either deaf, or blind, or perhaps simply too self-centered and uneducated to see what’s happening beyond the borders of what no longer is a land of hope and dreams. Every single step along Iraq’s nightmarish descent into hell has been forewarned, foretold by this “old Europe” the fools called neo-cons so loved to deride. And now, what? With elections looming near in the US, all the candidates want to get out of the quagmire. But that’s all too easy. Is the US so callous as to barge in, spark chaos and death and terror, and then when all that they had been warned comes true, horrible step by horrible step, they’d just gather their things, leave good guards around the oil reserves and then scamper away like thieves, justifying this rout with claims like “the Iraqi need to take responsibility for themselves, they’re free”? The Iraqi are simply free to wither and to die, their country is in chaos, and all that courtesy of the “liberators” the US claimed to be through the voice of a fool named Georges W Bush, a man with a mission from whatever god he believes in , a man mad enough to invoke crusades in what betrays an incredible lack of historical knowledge and understanding, and, if you stop and think about it, a man whose words and actions aren’t that far removed from what a fanatic would do or say.

In Iraq, bombs explode and shred bodies into bloody pieces of flesh and bones. Families and friends weep, despair, and fall into this ages-old cycle of hatred and revenge. Blood calls out for blood, death calls out for death, all sparked by the folly of a nation who elected a fool, a puppet of very particular corporate interests, and a puppet of madmen who wrongly thought that the world is their playground, where they can build and install whatever society THEY think is best “for everyone”. The neo-cons are, along with religious hierarchs of any kind, those I despise the most, because they claim they know better, because they claim they know the one and unique truth, because they feel entitled to “save us” in spite of ourselves, because, by their way of acting and their way of moving, they show that they believe themselves superior to us, common mortals, when in fact they’re no different, no better, and simply crave power and wealth, same as your next door neighbor.

In Belgium, the June 10^th election gave birth to a six months-long crisis, which showed how obsessed with themselves and their greed for power some politicians are, chief among them Mr Leterme and Mr Reynders, who’d sell every single citizen of Wallonia to the Flemish interests if it could give him the dubious “throne” of Prime Minister. It served as a revelation of the way Flemish media and extremists maneuver by the nose the “mainstream” parties, who are now little more than pawns in a dirty nationalist extremist game. It showed the Walloons that they should perhaps envision the day when there will no longer be a country named Belgium, although a great many among us do not want this to come to pass.

It also showed, as it has in France, that the weaker social classes, the worker class and all those who lack in wealth and security in their jobs and their lives, tend to be duped by the simplistic speeches of the right. They elect the right in power, even though they will the first to suffer from its actions. Deaf and blind to anything other than populist speeches, people bark with the dogs and refuse to see beyond the edge of their noses to envision the consequences of their actions. As unbelievable as that can be, still it happens, again and again. Jobless people vote for those who will shape and vote laws that will authorize the hunt for people like them, who will authorize the withdrawal of what little help they have that enables them to keep on living. They put in power people who will unravel all the laws, all the covenants that allow them to live, that their grandparents fought, bled and sometimes died to tear from the powers-that-be of the time. All because people no longer think, no longer take a step back, no longer question. Because it’s so tiring to do so, because it’ so much easier to watch whatever crap is on TV, as long as it doesn’t demand any kind of reflection, as long as it takes us elsewhere, and doesn’t remind us of the mediocrity of our lives…

In Pakistan, a woman with a shady past dared to come back, in spite of all the threats on her life and on that of her family. This woman came to a land now ruled by fanatics in the streets, and by a military dictatorship that parades as a would-be candidate for democracy in the official seats of power. Benazir Bhutto was certainly anything but a saint. It’s more or less sure she benefited from money, that corruption used to sit comfortably on her shoulder. That’s as may be, but she was brave, this woman. She returned to a country where she knew she’d be the target of both the current government, and of all the foaming at the mouth religious extremists Pakistan shelters. On the very day of her return, they almost managed to get her. Still, she didn’t give up. She continued organizing public gatherings, she went to open places, to speak to people, unveiled. A woman in her own right, free and undaunted, she showed those barbarians who proclaim themselves servants of a fictional deity what bravery truly is. In spite of the fear that must have twisted her gut every single moment of every day of her final stay in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto never gave up. Fools in the US believed her to be their pawn, but they never understood the complexity of the East. Fools in the US have had the gall to try and take advantage o her death in their own selfish quest for power in their own little presidential race. In the end, it doesn’t matter. In the end, what matters is that this woman denied all the extremists, never yielded to fear, and never gave up on who and what she was: a woman, without a veil, a true woman, a strong personality, someone with ideas and strength, ready to do what it took to win the hearts of a population and to be elected in a fair democratic process. Nobody can take that from her.

And, last but not least, the brighter stuff.

As for me, 2007 allowed me to discover a land of wonders, on the other side of the equator, a land of beauty called Namibia. In spite of a true, and rather “interesting” brush with death over the Namib desert, images of this fantastic journey will stay with me. Nature undaunted, landscapes that take your breath away, gentle people, most of them living in a poverty we have difficulty imagining, I don’t think I’ll ever forget Namibia.

In New Jersey, people’s representatives took a courageous decision. They abolished the death penalty in a state of a country where many still hold backward beliefs like “an eye for an eye”, and where some will tell you, unashamed, that it’s better to kill criminals, because feeding them costs money. New Jersey brought hope to a country that’s so often been a cause for despair or sadness. It’s the proof that there’s always a potential for good, for things to get better.

A potential for hope.

The world, when you look at it, is a place of beauty and wonders. When there’s ugliness, you always find people at the source. We are, all of us, hope and despair, light and dark, stillness and movement, order and chaos. We can move. We can think. We can choose. We only need to decide to do so. We only need to take a step back, to take off our blindfolds, to look at ourselves, to look at our world, at our society, and ask this question: is this the way we want to live? Is this the way we want to be? The answer doesn’t have to be “yes”. The answer is what we decide, nothing more and nothing less. There is no foreordained course. No Fate written that we blindly follow. No bearded old man watching from above the clouds. No economical divine law dictating that our lives should be this or that.

We are what we choose to be.

We are strong, much stronger than often we know, or even suspect, but not alone. We are strong when we gather, around ideas, around ideals. All along our history, we have toppled tyrants, unmade monarchs of divine right, brought down castes which oppressed us. How many times have simple people risen against powerful oppressors? Too many to count. Time and again, we’ve done this.

We can do it again.

Call It What You Will...

But please, do not ever call it "Christmas".

The first, obvious reason for that, is that Christmas is a pure fabrication of Christianity, this master among thieves and liars. It's well known that they simply glued a new label on older, ancient celebrations and rituals. Be they Sol Invictus, or the celebration of the god of light Mithra. Be it a celebration of the victory over the darkness, when the days start to lengthen again and the night is vanquished, the celebration is ancient, and we do it no justice when bowing down and letting the oh-so-nice Church blindfold us and lure us into thinking it's got anything to do with the birthdate of a man who supposedly lived and died, and then lived again.

But then the Church is probably the most educated, the most learned and the most talented liar of all times. The thing that saddens me is that people still blindly follow like good sheep, and forget that any religion no matter where or when, only has a single agenda: gain dominion, absolute, on people, because they get their legitimacy from what they claim is a "divine will", and thus, they bow or recognize no right of freedom of thought to anyone. It doesn't matter that Christianity has bowed its head these last centuries. Had there not been a French Revolution, and had heads not rolled, no matter how savage and cruel that time period was, we'd be living in a very different world.

We wouldn't be free.

We'd be forced to "believe" in whatever we'd be told is the truth. There would be no discussion, no reflection nothing.

And, contrary to what it tries to make you believe, Christianity isn't done with dreams of converting and dominating the thoughts and all the aspects of our lives. It is no different from all the other "extremist" cults. It simply has been forced to bow its head and to wait. And so it does wait, patiently, showing us how tolerant, how good and benevolent it is. It waits, for the right time, for the moment when fools like Georges W Bush or Nicolas Sarkozy will start doing enough shows of allegeances, spewing out speeches about "values" and "the need for people who believe and hope", so that governments will have done its job, and put it back in the center stage. When the econolic and social situation will have deteriorated so far, when the oh-so perfect "free market" and "capitalism" lures will have reduced people to poverty, and the governments will have no power left to propose any solution to the populations, when riots and chaos will start, as they have started in some places of our own very much developed and rich countries, what will the populist, moronic and incapable governments like Bush's and Sarkozy's do? Why, they'll call on "the old sets of values", they'll call to "the need for people who hope and believe". They'll travel to Rome, and meet with the snake who patiently waits for its hour to come again.

And once it comes, it will be too late.

Christianity never chose to withdraw and yield back to humanity control over its life. It was forced to do so. It was battered and killed into yielding. Do you think it has forgotten? Are you that stupid?

It watches. It waits. It smiles.

Every time we foolish voters put the right in power, and hasten the fall into poverty and gloom for ourselves, we hasten its return. And when it comes, it will not be grateful. It will have a job to do, a dominion to regain. And if we let it, it will.

Just like Islam is doing in some part of the world. Did you hear? They killed Benazir Bhutto. I didn't like this woman, she had more than a few stains on her political record, but she had guts. She returned to Pakistan, and she challenged the extremists. It took them two trials, but they got her in the end. And the world's light dimmed yet again.
I look at those who rejoice of her death and shout that this is the proof that god exists, that he's showing them the one true way, I look at those who mourn yet another act of barbarism committed in the name of god and shake their head, saying that this isn't god's will and that god is light and love. I look at them all and I say: aren't you tired of always referring to the same cruel, jealous and sadistic anthropomorphic figure invented by people who needed an easy way to control whole populations? I look at them all, and I feel sick.

People so like political correctness, that the learned like to make differences, like nuances: they say we should never associate religion with extremism. Islam isn't fundamentalist Islam. Christians aren't fundamentalist madmen who spend their time foaming at the mouth claiming that whatever divine thingy out there made the universe in seven days some five thousand years ago. Christians aren't all terrorists who kill and torment women who have the "gall" to want to control their bodies and decide when and how they should or shouldn't have children. Christians aren't all self-righteous bastards who claim to have a say over the choices you'd make with your own life, to continue it, or to end it if you so choose.

Well, I'm sorry, but I've had it with political correctness. Religions, all of them, are always so awkward when they talk of atheists or agnostics. They're so embarrassed, that most of them simply ignore atheists and agnostics. They gather, sign great, wonderful treaties that talk about recognizing and respecting each other's faiths, and all that jazz. They never talk about acknowledging the weird people who have doubts, or the strange ones who do not believe. But then, it's not so strange that atheists and agnostics are always either ignored, or ridiculed. And when you tell them that, or when you tell them that separation of church and state means stay the hell out of all temporal matters, what is the answer? Ah, but the answer always invariably is "be tolerant", "be secular in a positive fashion". "Respect us". And I say to them: where is your respect for us? When will you stop spitting your religious beliefs in my face during political debates? When will you stop lording it over others with your self-proclaimed higher values?

Still, as mentioned, it stands to reason for religions and their lackeys to ignore or refuse to admit the existence of atheists and agnostics, since those are the people who do not recognize any kind of higher power and who do not bow their heads. Maybe they're all dangerous anarchists, people who do not think with blindfolds on their eyes, or fetters and chains around their limbs.

The truth is that all religions are extremists. That all religions claim they act on behalf of a divine entity or other, and that they alone know its will, its laws and its rules. And, as they take their power from this divine whatever, they are logically empowered to impose this on everyone and everything. Freedom doesn't make sense in a system where there is a divine something and an absolute truth that derives from its words, thoughts, you name it.

Faith is an individual matter. Religion is a structure of power, that uses "divine will", "divine truth" to gain absolute power over everything, and it's all perfectly reasonable. To pretend otherwise, for a religion to pretend at tolerance, and at "letting people think and decide for themselves" is nothing other than a sham, a lie, a mask this religion has been forced to wear by circumstances. But memories run long and deep, and nothing is ever won forever. So this politically incorrect post is here to disturb whoever will read it. To anger whoever will stumble upon it.

To make whoever will have the bad luck of reading it think.

To remind you, whether you like it or not, that religions and Churches are not nice, kind and tolerant. That they merely pretend. That they wait, patiently. And that if we forget, they do not.

In all the history of humankind, religion has always been, and will always be nothing but the tool of dictators, of powers-that-be, and the pretext for wars, for slaughters, for extermination and for torture, for intolerance. and if you read this and shudder, or grimace, or yell that I'm a heretic who should burn in hell, or shake your head and think that I'm a poor lost soul who doesn't understand the depth of god's love for the world, then you'll have proved me right.

I end this post with an excerpt from a fic I'll soon be posting online.

“You’ve lost this war.” I stiffened. Afraeil was staring right at me, all of a sudden. All trace of mockery was gone from his tone, and an unreadable mask had descended upon his face. “You lost it three centuries ago,” the smile frozen on his lips softened, “all of you, when the Romans were mad enough to make a martyr out of a man, and to allow his followers to weave a fantastic myth around his life. There’s nothing,” he went on in an eerily gentle voice, “nothing you can do to prevent this from happening. The shadow of Christianity will enshroud the world, bit by bit. It will do so, because it echoes people’s fears and hopes, and gives those all back to them a thousand fold. It will win their hearts and their souls, because it places them at the center of everything. Because it gives them the answers they want to hear. Because it makes promises everyone dreams of, and nobody can check. Still,” he drew in a breath and I shivered, refusing the urge to hug myself when I realized that the kind undertone in his voice was sorrow, “one day its veil will lift from people’s spirits. Humanity will again open its heart and its eyes. One day far, very far away from now. In the meantime, your people will have to bow and adapt.”

And Nothing Changes

In the end, when all is done, when all the fighting, all the struggling through grief and loss, when all the discovering of all the destruction brought about by a sick mixture of fate, negligence and criminal intent, what you find is a feeling.

A feeling so heavy, so strong that it smothers almost everything else.

Nothing changes. Nothing really, truly changes.

The Greeks re-elect in power those who locked up the hundreds of millions of Euros given them by the European Union so they could invest in the prevention of fires. The Greeks re-elect in power those who promised they’d sell off the beaches and beautiful coastlines of the land of the gods to the highest bidder. The Greeks re-elected to power those who bought off their votes by offering “relief money” to anyone who’d come to a bank and would promise they’d have suffered damages in the fires, without even requiring proof. What happened then is known: thousands of people rushed to the banks, many of whom were people who never suffered in the fires. People who greedily took that fake blood money and accepted that their votes were so coarsely bought by people who don’t vie a damn about anything other than their own, continued ascension to power.

And so it goes on. And so nothing changes. There will be no change in the laws to prevent avid property developers to feed on the ashes and the scorched land to build high buildings of concrete that will scar the land of the gods forever, oozing their tainted streams of tourists who will be al too happy to stomp on the remains of what was once beautiful and wild. Nobody in the re-elected majority will vote a law forbidding any building of hotels and other complexes upon sites which have been torched and often deliberately burnt to the ground for at least 10 years.

And the oh, so righteous Orthodox Church so benevolently lends its hand to the bereaved. Its priests gather in a semi-circle to receive the poor people who have lost everything. They get the Holy Church’s mighty help, there’s just a very, very small thing to do to earn that help: kneel, bow, and kiss the many-ringed fingers of those self-proclaimed speakers for the divine. And the charitable Church will hold out its hand to the many burnt down villages, and it will give to the people, but there is only one tiny little catch: they will give only to those who are worthy, to those who have sworn allegiance, they will select those worthy to receive on their willingness to bow to the Church and to do its bidding.

And yet people bow to this, people continue to accept being reduced to beggars, humiliated by an institution as corrupted and as greedy for its own power than the politicians it put in power. Perhaps you will smile if I tell you that, even as I write this, the newly re-elected government is sworn in power, not before the parliament, not before the people, but before the Orthodox Church. So backward is Greece. So tightly bound are the politicians with the Orthodox Church, that they are merely the puppets of priests, who send them voters after the Sunday preach. I hear this, I hear the beautiful songs, and my insides clench with revulsion. I feel like throwing up.

Perhaps one day the Greek people will finally lift up their heads and win free of the heavy, heavy fetters set on them by a Church so obsolete its teachings and precepts are antediluvian. Chained up by a Church who feels a need so strong to control every aspect of its “faithfuls” lives that it will frown and set shame on any who would dare marry before a secular authority before marrying before its priests. Shame and scorn on those bold and crazy enough to marry outside of a Church that will not tolerate anyone marrying before any other institution than it, the secular authorities like a mayor’s included.

And, finally, I get to what prompted me to write this piece even though I’m in Greece and I usually keep well away from the Internet: the last volume of Harry Potter. And here as well, when all is done, nothing truly changed: muggles are still muggles, lower lifeforms, gentle educated pets the wizards smile upon, protect from the knowledge of their presence with a veil of secrecy instead of taking the long, hard road of trying to find a way to live together. Even though the book contains one or two sentences explaining that muggles and wizards are both human, still the difference remain. Still people, normal people are not to be trusted, still normal people are to be protected, and “muggles’ rights” laws have to be passed, as if people were a threatened species of whales or dolphins.

And also, when all is done, when Severus Snape’s role is revealed, still Harry’s children taunt each other with the shame of entering Slytherin. Still they dread this “awful” possibility. Still, the author clings to a hierarchy of “valor” and “goodness” between the four Houses of Hogwarts. It spills out of every page where the students are gathered. That carefully established hierarchy remains in the words of the author herself, in the numbers of students from each House who decide to remain and fight the final battle against Voldemort beside Harry.

Griffyndor remains the one and only place to be. Godric Griffyndor’s shadier acts during his life aren’t explored. They’re barely hinted at, and then quickly forgotten since the one because of whom those doubts are brought about ends up “betraying” Harry.

I do not like this hierarchy of valor. I do not like these “casts” or “social classes” of sorts that Rowlings established and, as far as I can tell, upheld to the very end. All the characters of the other Houses will ever have been are shadows in the background, even during the last battle against Voldemort. All the wit, all the intelligence, all the courage and all the strength are and remain in Griffyndor. I would ask why, and I would ask why the three heroes all belong to the same House. My only hope is that we are supposed to think the way I’m thinking, and that what she pictures is nothing more than this sad truth of humanity: we never learn or, if we do, it takes us such a long, terribly long time.

Still, I would be lying if told you I didn’t enjoy the book. Harry irked me to the very end, but still I found myself wiping off the beginnings of tears when I closed down the book for good, and bid a final farewell to the universe of Hogwarts. I regret the useless deaths during the final confrontation, which really serve no true purpose, and could easily have been avoided. They felt like an overkill of tragedy to me. But I am not the author, and the author is god, so I guess I have to bow my head, and say thank you, for all the good times that the Harry Potter books brought me over the years, in spite of my being more than annoyed by Harry, from the 4th book to almost the end.

After all, how could I dislike a story which had Severus Snape in it?

Perhaps one day we will learn. Perhaps one day we will be able to rise above what we are. What choice have we but to hope this will happen?

And anyway, as many wiser people have said before me: it’s the journey that counts.

The quest. Not the unreachable goal.

Words and Hearts—Hey, Where are Our Minds?

Words. Sounds. Syllables. Powerful things, they cajole us, they frighten us, they comfort us, they make us laugh, they make us smile, they make us cry.

They make us think.

Words are power, and the tone used to utter them adds to their might, to the imprint they leave inside our minds—or should that be our hearts?

Two words used by writers and journalists, and all those who write to indicate the same thing. Mind, heart…those two words both speak of the grey matter beneath our skulls. This mysterious bit of grey matter where the intellect resides. Where emotions and feelings reside.

Always, in all times, people in power have tried to separate what is in fact one. People in power, be it in churches or other temples, be it in palaces or parliaments, or White Houses, have tried, and tried again to tell us that our hearts and our minds weren’t in the same place.

And incidentally, those nice people in power have always warned us of the treachery of our minds. The heart is oh, so much more trustworthy. So much nobler. So much better.

The mind is a fishy thing, a thing that demands a minimum of focus, of work, of reflection. A minimum of effort, while emotions and feelings rise naturally in response to things happening around us, to things said around us.

Heart and mind are two faces of the same whole. Two complementary elements. Together they give us balance. They make us whole. Separate, they make us prey to either inhumanity, or to the honeyed words flung our way by authorities either secular or religious.

Authorities, politicians, priests like to appeal to our hearts. They do not want our minds to come into the equation, and it’s so easy for them to do so: we’re all lazy, and lazy means we don’t feel like making the effort to listen and to analyze what we’re being told. We prefer being lulled by the song of the words, by the musical tone of voices. We let ourselves drift in the music, and we simply go along with the flow.

And we are duped. Like small children who’d go anywhere so long as they’re being handed out candies.

And the irony in all this is, that there are still decent people in politics, decent people in religions, but we rarely heed them. We rarely support them…or we aren’t enough to do so. Because those people do not want to trick us, and as they want to convince us, as they want to truly have our support, they appeal to our minds. They tell us important things, facts, numbers and reports they want us to analyze with them. They give them to us, so we can focus on them, and draw our own conclusions, make our own decisions.

But not enough of us want to do that. Not enough of us want to think, and get headaches figuring out what is going on around u s, the mechanics of our world, and devise a way to make it better, or at least ponder and decide who’s most likely to try and herd the world along the best path open to us.

As it has come to France, it has been in the US for a long, long time: the thinking crime has been imprinted in a great many people’s minds. People are taught to be wary of their minds, to be wary of intellectuals, of politicians, leaders who use precise, complicated words. People are taught that those who appeal to their minds, who ask them to make an effort, to think and analyze, are in fact elite snobs who have nothing but contempt for them.

People are taught to feel and emote, and they are taught to shun thinking. People are taught obedience and submission. People are aught to bow down their heads and to go work, work and work, so that when they get back home they’re so tired they don’t want to do anything other than to drown in whatever brainless reality show that’s airing when they drop into their sofas.

And of course, this is all very logical. While you can control someone through a shrewd use of emotions and feelings, appealing to the mind is taking a risk. The risk of understanding. The risk of disagreement. The risk of opposition. The risk of rebellion. The risk of revolution.

And of course, all those who have an authoritarian streak do not want that. They do not want that at all. So they appeal to our hearts, they use simple words, they do not tell us the truth of what they want to do. Instead they tell us that they have children and dogs, they tell us they’re good people who go to church, they tell us their opponents are bad people who do no respect this or that. They do not refute the contents of what their opponents stand for, they have no need for that. They’re appealing to our feelings and emotions, not to our minds. They do not want us to understand, they do not want to convince us. They want us to react on instinct, on emotions and feelings their words trigger. They want us to separate from a part of ourselves. They want us to be unbalanced, and soft, easy to shape and manipulate.

And so often, we are all too happy to oblige. Because it’s so much easier. Because we’re tired, and because thinking requires embracing the bleakness of our situations and of our lives, because it requires gathering the strength to rise beyond initial despair to think further, to find a way to make things better.

Because it requires a strength that can only come from the combination of what makes us truly human: our hearts and our minds.

And we need this balance, we need our hearts. We need our minds. We need them, if we are to outgrow old reflexes, if we are to win free of the leashes we accepted for so long. If we are to go beyond the simplistic rejections some words provoke in us, like “liberal”, or “socialist” or “communist”. What do we know of the true meaning of those words? What do we know, beyond the mental images they call up, mental images created by the very people who do not want us to think, and who want us in their control?

We know nothing…unless we decide to use our brains, and think.

Delusions

Some believe that Georges W Bush will succeed. Some believe that that instrument of bad luck and great blunderer is a success.

Some believe Nicolas Sarkozy will save France, and bring happiness to its people.

Some believe that they will find revenge and a renewal of pride and honor through honorless terrorism, the murdering of innocents, of women and children.

Some believe that keeping women under the status of slaves and breeding mares is the will of whatever god they worship.

Some believe that contradictory “laws” of economy will ensure humankind’s welfare and happiness. Some believe these so-called laws will be enough to bring a balance to a world that’s slowly, inexorably falling into chaos.

Some believe that things can go on as they are, that their reign is forever.

Some believe that reining in the desires to adapt to modernity inside the Catholic Church, and clamping down on much-needed reforms, giving signs of going backwards, of reverting to hard lines and obscurantism will bring back the crowds of faithfuls inside the churches for Sunday masses.

Some believe that all is well with the world, and that global warming is but a small problem, whose solution must not hamper the advance of economy, and the exploding production and consumption rates everywhere.

Some people in France believe that presenting the fact that the higher revenues have had an increase of 43% over the year 2006 while the poorer fractions of the population had only an increase of 4.3% in their revenues (barely above the increase in the costs of essential goods one must buy in order to survive) is not a big deal.
43% over a yearly revenue of, say, 500,000 €, meaning an increase of 215,000 € as opposed to 4.3% of a small revenue, say, 20,000 €, meaning an increase of 860€.
215,000€ to the rich layers of the population, versus 860€ to the poorer layers of the population. Since when is that insignificant? Since when isn’t that denounced, and clearly set on the table of Nicolas Sarkozy’s government? Ah, of course, since the moment when Mr Sarkozy’s been catering to the very rich layers of people in France, which means, since the beginning. But fools have voted him in power. Fools see the numbers on TV news, they see the percentages, but they do not take the time to convert that in terms of real money. They do not see, they do not realize.

And they believe.

And the populist, authoritarian Nicolas Sarkozy continues on his way, lying through his teeth, helped by the French TV media, who cater to his every will and whim, who broadcast the lies spun by his communication experts, who transform hard disputes and complains against Mr Sarkozy made by the Europeans who forced Mr Sarkozy to step back on his outrageous demands into a “lightning quick visit during which the president obtained almost everything France wanted”.

And his wife Cecilia goes to Libya to visit the Bulgarian nurses, in a transparent move to snatch at all the gains earned through months and years of diplomatic hard work done by the European Union. A visit heralded by the French media as “a humanitarian visit by the first lady of France”, conveniently forgetting the fact that it is nothing more than a brutal move to usurp the result of Europe’s hard work.

And people believe an image created by the media, a lie spun by communication specialists, while the world moves on, and the reality is the opposite of the honeyed tales sold to gullible crowds who want simplistic answers to hard problems.

And the Bush administration goes ever onward, denying the utter failure of everything it has undertaken.

And the mullahs, and the religious fanatics of Islam, the Talibans, go on stoning women, killing women, raping women, beating women who “do not wear the veil properly”, primitive apes that they are. Cowards. Gelded fools with no balls.

And people keep wanting simple answers, easy answers to hard questions.

And the Vatican keeps plunging down the road back to the dark times of obscurantism, of mass said in Latin, of exorcisms that leave their share of broken victims, of deaths. It’s so easy to think that praying to something will cure you of problems.

It’s so easy to shrug off responsibility to someone else. It’s so easy to claim that killing off the bad guys will turn the world into something better.

It’s so easy to follow Kira, and to cheer every time Yagami Light uses the Death Note.

It’s so convenient.

So mediocre.

So cowardly.

We all want a better world. But what is “a better world”?

Who is going to write the criteria that define “a better world”?

Who? Representing whom?

Georges W Bush?

Nicolas Sarkozy?

Joseph Ratzinger?

A nameless mullah in Tehran?

Theirs aren’t my world. And besides, nobody can build anything on sand. Nobody can build anything on lies…well, anything that lasts, anyway.

True Lies

Behold, disbelieving world, the new French government is born! A new way of doing politics, of leading the country by uniting the best people from every political horizon!

Behold in awe and wonder, and thank the Blessed Great Leader Sarkozy for His Infinite Wisdom and Magnanimity!

Errr…no, really, who do they think they’re kidding?

Overture to the different horizons of French politics, overture and a hand held out to former foes in a oh so touching gathering of the best talents to “save the country” and “carry out the difficult reforms”? Yeah, sure. So, who do we have here?

Eric Besson, once Socialist (maybe still even has his membership in order), once co-writer of a long essay demonstrating how Nicolas Sarkozy represents a danger for France and Europe, turned new best friend of said Sarkozy after he realized his personal ambitions and views wouldn’t be all listened to and agreed to by Segolene Royal. Yes, Eric Besson, the man who knifed his candidate in the back in the middle of the campaign and started on demolition rampage, stomping on his own beliefs and spitting on the words honor and loyalty.

Why, yes, Eric Besson is certainly a great symbol of overture and gathering of talent. After all, betrayal and mediocrity are qualities which demand constant and hard work. In that regard, Eric Besson meets all the criteria set by the Blessed Leader to enter the new French government.

Bernard Kouchner, supposedly once Socialist (it’s unclear whether he truly ever had a correct membership in the Socialist party, even though he did profit immensely from said party’s help and assistance). The good old French doctor, co-founder of Doctor Without Broders, an icon in the French group mind, the image of generosity and willingness to act to right all of the world’s many wrongs, at last discards the last shreds of his mask of holiness.

Bernard Kouchner, the whining, egocentric, narcissistic and ambitious high society man who kept complaining that the Socialist party mistreated him and in short forced him to choose Sarkozy who suddenly became “the one person willing to listen and do something”. Never mind that during the campaign the same Kouchner denounced the danger that the Holy Father of the Nation represents, that Kouchner pointed out, correctly so, that Sarkozy is much more dangerous than Le Pen, because he uses all the far-right themes and populism, with the added bonus of a veneer of political correctness inherited from the old political party he has hijacked from its true reason for being.

Bernard Kouchner, the man the Socialist party so mistreated that he was a minister of François Mitterrand’s government for ten years! Bernard Kouchner, one of the high bourgeoisie, with all the wealth, estates and all that go with it. Boy, if only I could be mistreated like this, I’d beg to get more of the same! Bernard Kouchner, the man whose ideas have always lied to the right in social and economical matters, and who used the Socialist party until he saw it would no longer serve his own personal ambitions.

Bernard Kouchner, the man who loves the US at least as much as Sarkozy does, and who was in favor of the horrible fiasco also known as the Iraq War, which has plunged that poor country and its citizens down the abyss of a bloody civil war to which nobody can see any kind of end in sight—unless one counts prospering as a training ground for terrorists and maybe yet another new Islamic Republic that will stone women back into the age of barbarism.

Bernard Kouchner, the icon. Not of generosity and willingness to right the world’s wrongs, but the true icon of self-serving people who lead their lives with the sole obsession of furthering their own personal agendas. Well, at least it’s out in the open, and I, for one, believe it’s a good thing. And, again, Bernard Kouchner is indeed a very fitting choice for Sarkozy’s new government.

I will spare you the analysis of the rest of the great people part of the brand new government. There are other new Sarkozy-converts to name here, such as one who was among François Bayrou’s closest friends and who betrayed him four days ago for a position in the government.

So, what conclusion can we draw concerning this new government?

Overture? Sham and lie for the gullible.

Surprising? Not one bit.

This government is a gross assembling of Sarkozy’s all times faithfuls, of egocentric and ambitious personalities with a talent for betrayal and a total lack of honor or loyalty—qualities that Nicolas Sarkozy holds in high regard and has demonstrated all along his own political career. The much publicized “overture”, nothing more than a transparent maneuver to kill François Bayrou’s courageous attempt to build a new political movement at the center of the French political chessboard.

Make no mistake: this government’s self-proclaimed overture is nothing else than an attempt to annihilate anyone or anything that might stand in its way. In the short run, the aim is to impose Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP as the sole party on the right side of the political landscape. In the long run, it’s the very clear threat of building a party that would be the sole political organization to exist in what would no longer be a democracy.

Overture? No. A locking down and strangling maneuver to smother nuance and have the absolute control over France.

This is not fiction.

It’s reality.