The shallow reader

Well, the Arab Spring is over. Roll on winter. Didn't see it happening to be honest. What caught my attention was the story of a ten-year old Coptic girl, the only child of two Egyptian parents, killed by fundamentalists. So, you will say: what about democracy? You can't support a military coup! This reveals, really, the shallowness of your commitment to liberal values. Why is it that the death of scores of people in a bomb attack, a drone attack or at the hands of a military/police offensive don't move you but the death of a single individual does?

The thing is, putting on my practical hat for a mo., if these buggers ever come to power here I'll be the kind of person that they string up without a second thought!

Reading Berlin's electrifying prose, his essays on Herzen and Turgenev, one cannot but help think of the parallels between Russia and Pakistan. Something deeply conservative about both; in both a vast hinterland of ignorance, superstition and peasant old-fashioned backwardness, crudity, and cruelty. A thin crust of western-educated elites, drunk on themselves, full of half-baked and incompletely assimilated ideas, passionately engaged in drawing-room discussions over the 'state of the country'. An elite that is weak, childish, paper thin, ready to fold, crumple, both fascinated and horrified by the strength of conviction of the radicals.  An old feudal class surviving, barely, on old-world inequalities and repression, a growing religious fanaticism, a swarm of conspiracy theories in the cities, the growing realization that one has missed the boat, that the world has moved on; misogyny, antisemitism, rituals no-one understands any more, garbled words, duplicity, a village mentality that persists in all strata of society; a deep confusion over identity,  religious hypocrisy, inner boredom masquerading as 'fine feelings' and detachment.

No, this country is heading for trouble; either civil war or a fundo. take over. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon...

~~~

Formally creative~Islamic Republic~Independence Day~Reluctant Fundamentalist~internal logic.

Brusque~Burlesque~Berlin~Berlinesque~Belinsky~Berlinsky~Banksy~Bellini~Bella~Kova~

Bell~Timing~Toll~Taxes~Death.

FMF~Mutilation~Minister~Administer~Body Politic~ Politeness.

~~~

You're in a Russian State of Mind. 

The anchors of the world have blown away. A house without mirrors is a form of madness. The world is variably endlessly boring and endlessly fascinating.

~~~

We sat in the room with high ceilings, like an old country English house. The indoor swimming pool visible from one side of the room. The old men, worldly-wise, sunk deep in their armchairs and melancholy. The ship is sunk. That's the consensus. An old servant with henna in her hair brings in cool drinks on a tray. Some wave her off. Matters of the state. A young man, wearing a striped sports t-shirt gives the impression that he knows things the others don't. But his haircut and pencil-thin moustache make him look ridiculous. The exchange-rate is discussed, the shambolic political set-up is gone over with a fine comb; the old military hands in their stiffly pressed shalwar kameezes  nod approval in a drunken stupor: "What we need is a Khomeni to wipe the slate clean". There is silence. There is a whiff of sympathy for Shiaism in his comment so he adjusts: "What we need is an Attarturk to teach these barbarians once and for all. Only when blood flows can we have peace."  Where's the whiskey, for heaven's sake. I'm immediately recognized as an outsider, doubly so because I'm an "intellectual".

"The Taleban have got us by the balls."There is general agreement. The thing is, I don't read the newspapers or watch the news-haven't done so for three years now. I have absolutely no clue or interest in what's going on in this country. But these old fools do not seem to know a great deal more than me. All they know is gleaned from gossip and whisperings in the corridors of power.

On mention of the Taleban little r, who has been hopping about and jumping on the plush sofas-much to my amusement-turns around and says: "I voted for the Taleban". No-one hears her. Like me she is invisible. Doubly so: a child and a girl. Leave the politics to the big boys, hon.

~~~

It hasn't escaped your attention that your reading habits are those of a shallow reader. Books have become like your clients. Your lack of seriousness might make good material for a novel, but not for a life. At 11 last night, unable to sleep, you watched a bit of the Warhol film. More superficiality. The Night and the City which, despite its wonderful late-night scenes of a run-down 1950s London, was a mediocre film. Style over substance. The petty man who dreams big but is undone by a quirk of fate. Everyone's a crook out there, everyone's tainted. 

Then you picked up the Capote book which, so far, is slightly nauseating in its 'lightness' and  shallowness. Maybe that's the effect that is being sought. The lack of gravity makes my head spin. More superfluous people. Another book started, only to be abandoned. This is crazy. It is 1.40 now and still I'm restless. You know the next day is going to be ruined because of this wasting of time right now, but still you resist. You switch the computer on. Maybe in another dark part of the world there's an image that will bring some light or, rather, take the light away. There must be a way to live without light?