"A woman asks the man, who are you?
Man replied I am pickpocket.
Woman surprised by this naked admission –
do you mean that you pick other people’s pockets?
Man said, yes, but not any more. He further added, there was a time
when people used to wear cloths, and these cloths had pockets, and
I used to pick them.
Woman – what do you do now?
Man – I go around and collect these old clothes, as there
are museums who are collecting to show to the next generations that
there was time when people used to wear cloths.
Woman – is this a well paid job.
Man replied, yes it is. I can afford to have a one good meal a week
and a woman for the night.
Woman – then it must be well paid job. Do they need more people
to work for them?
Man – Yes they need people all the time.
Woman – listen, I am well educated, have an M.A. in Literature
and philosophy. I understand the world around me and beyond.
Man whispered, please
say no more. It is not only that they wouldn’t give you any
job, they may not you to be around. If you understand things, you
will be considered a dangerous person to the national security. They
may even kill you.
They only want robots,
which they feed instructions, to go around following those instructions
and once a week they will feed the robot with some coins.
Asking question is not the norm of day. I say no more. The man disappeared."
This was a short Panjabi story, I read nearly
forty years ago. It is so true today.
Yes there was a time, when
most people used to wear cloths, or let us they their actions were
not so naked as the action of invading Iraq based upon pure lies.
We see further naked lies toward Iran and so on.
When you wore cloths, you had pockets, which not
only had some money; you also carried some objects of sentimental
memorabilia that proved that the person was also a human with history
and feelings. Now that human side of the life has also gone out
of the window.
On 22 February 2006, Atwar Bahjat was abducted
and murdered along with colleagues Adnan Khairalah and Khalid Mohmaoud
Al Falahi from ‘Al Arabiya’ TV station while reporting
the bombing of the sacred Shia shrines in Samara.
It seems like Atwars are born in every country
and in each period of history; so they are also silenced by mindless
people. Seeing the replay of her killing, a friend of her, said
‘I found it hard enough to bear the news of her murder, when
I the film replayed in the TV of her killing, if was if part of
me had died with her.
I never met Atwar Bahjat, not was I lucky enough
ever to visit the Golden Dome mosque in Samara. When I saw the pictures
of the mosque before and after the destruction, then read the news
of killing of Bahjat, I am very close to loosing faith in humanity.
I would add that when Bush and Blair launched
an unprovoked attack on Iraq, for me any idea of justice in so called
Civilised West had died.
I am an artist and have a chronic faith in the
future of a better world. Sometime one feels that one day that all
the so called civilised people would stand there watching another
gunman decides to take life another Bhajat.
Irony of the so called civilised world is that
it also shows to the world that it has values. Here is a piece of
news picked from a newspaper on the net, “Bhajat was honoured
posthumously with the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity
in Journalism by The Nieman Foundation during a ceremony at Harvard
University last week.”
That is the reason outsiders like me can love
and hate this civilised society at the same time.
Someone asked Mother Teresa, if she was trying
to reform the world? She answered in her humble way; ‘it is
the politicians who promise to change the world. She is only a simple
human being who could only share her love and care to anyone who
came in contact with her.
There is no doubt that politicians are kind of
beings, who have the un-quenching thirst for power, to achieve this
they would like to all available tools (legal or illegal) to change
the world to their ideals, whatever these ideals may be called,
a kind of political system or religious order. What we see everyday
that to achieve such goals, these leaders are taken more naked measures.
The sad part of the story is that many artists
and other cultural tools are being used to provide some kind of
drapery around the naked greed to dominate.
In 1985, I was attending an International conference
of Artists, writer and other thinker,
One of the big names of British cultural hierarchy
came with the idea that we should use art to make changes in the
society. When I asked him, who would he like to change and from
what to what? His faced cringed and he immediately changed the subject.
Later that afternoon, when raised same question in the plenary session
of the conference, he didn’t respond, but in the evening,
he came to in the bar lounge and told me that he would like to be
in the same session/group with me again.
I repeat here paragraph from an article that I
wrote in 1989 –
“The ruling powers do not always leave everything
to the event of history. If it can't fight you on the ground, it
seeps/burrows under your feet and you never know when your own ground
in not yours any more.
David Selbourne, a Tory house philosopher justifies
even a direct action in his recently published book. According to
him any ethical stranger, to the civic order of which he is a member,
if he insists upon his "estrangement, the civic order will
justly react against him". In his view these targets may be
ethnic minorities, gays and other non-conformists. I am sure, he
meant artists too but missed to mention. But let's be warned, he
is still around.”
August 9, 1945, William Laurence reporting in
New York Times.
“I watched the assembly of this man-made
meteor during the past two days .... Into its design went millions
of man-hours of what is without doubt the most intellectual effort
in history. (my italics) This atomic bomb is different from the
bomb used three days ago with such devastating results on Hiroshima
...
We reached Yakushima at 9.12 and there, about
4000 feet ahead of us, was The Great Artiste with its precise load
... The winds of destiny seemed to favour certain Japanese cities
that must remain nameless. We circled about them again and again
and found no opening in the thick umbrella of clouds that covered
them. Destiny chose Nagasaki.”
When William Laurence called this deadly device
‘The Great Artiste’ that resulted in creating a scene
of sixty six thousands human corps, did he or other Americans realise/understand
the mortality of human being? Probably not. It was the largest number
of human lives lost in history as a result of one single action.
For most Americans, this was only a figure in the newspaper.
50 years later, Damien Hirst took a dead cow
to America as work of art to remind those American about the human
mortality. Can one make a better case of human mortality with one
dead cow, that couldn’t be made with the loss of (almost)
entire population of Nagasaki.
This is not the place to question Hirst’s
intelligence or sincerity as an artist. But it is obvious that he
is a product of an environment in which a single political party
has ruled for more than a decade and half. His vision of the world
has been formed during a time in history, known for greed on individual
and national level. Concern for fellow humans has been reduced to
mere rhetoric. This is what makes me doubt, if Hirst ever felt the
need to think about the human conditions and the world in a wider
context.
When one grows up at a time when a victims of
a serious accident or of a chronic decease are not patients in a
hospital but customers of a business concern. (If Blair is allowed
to carry on his manifesto, the victims of rape, thuggery and violence
etc. will become clients of Police.)
In a situation like this, there are artists who
share the pain of the people and express through their work. JUHANI
AHVENJÄRVI has said the whole thing in one poem.
A fruit-knife. A
guitar, and a man caressing its neck.
From the open door a hand reaches across the room
and pours tea into cups. The hand withdraws slowly:
it seems as if it is waiting to be thanked.
Next morning.
A stuffed cheetah is carried into the room.
The removal men call to the building's inhabitants
but remain unanswered.
On the floor is a pool of blood.
If the Watcher wishes,
it can be scrubbed away.
Let the hand first
dip its pen in it
and sign for the cheetah's delivery."
Avtarjeet Dhanjal
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