Paradox of Privilege

Switzerland, a third visit. The scenes are familiar and different. The thoughts too are familiar and different. After the second visit, I wrote about the Alps of the Privileged.

The word still lingers 8 years later. It has evolved into paradox.

The eyes I see everyday in Colombo will never see what I saw on the third visit. There’s an inherent tragedy that demands resolution but knows better than to expect the realization of borderless dreams. The eyes saw what chance and circumstance seem to have ‘earned’ although that term itself embodies a part of the tragedy. Fortune of birth dictating the possibilities and limits of seeing in the modern world could hardly be summarized in the rhetoric of the so-called self made. But then again perhaps such rhetoric, intended in its most ironic iteration, is the only acceptable nomenclature in this mad world.

The eyes saw while the mind wondered. Heaven knows those two only know how to argue. The eyes marveled. The mind questioned. The eyes amazed. The mind unraveled.

What responsibility do the eyes have to what is being seen, asked the mind.

The eyes shot back: Do I see and accept my inability to ever describe to those who cannot or is it better if I turn away and not see so there never arises a need to describe to those who cannot?

What should the eyes do about the ones who will never see, the mind responded callously in this disjointed conversation going nowhere.

The eyes retorted: Should I direct the mind to action or will the mind do what it wants to regardless of what I see?

The mind ignored the inquiry afraid of what further pondering will do. An uncomfortable impasse settled in. The battle postponed has no end in sight.

Yet the war rages on. Battle after battle the fight against inequality rushes headlong into paradoxical deadlocks. Passports and borders lock millions into an involuntary cage where they must settle for their imagination and dreams for their children. The millions see and share pictures, still, moving, or generated in code, on their phones and dream of sending their children to the lion’s den where they may earn their place among the privileged. They hope the children will one day see what their eyes are not allowed to see today. This world affords them no share of the privilege. They are aware of this but remain hopeful for the next generation. They accept impossibility and dream of possibility. Paradox, be damned.

Then there are the Others. The Others are often gifted a privilege and made to believe they earned it. They will therefore sometimes callously comment on those who break the laws of imaginary lines, for those demanding what they did not supposedly earn. The Others move away in delight, suitcases full of pomp and circumstance. If and when they return, they bring the arrogance of their privilege back to the homeland, usually in the form of charitable donations and tiresome lectures for model behavior and development for progress directed at the subaltern, and none of the humility the circumstance of their birth would have preordained. But whatever this arrogance is rooted in, to them, it is not privilege. They don’t claim it. They don’t see that it applies to them or they see but remain in active denial. Privilege denotes positivity, sunshine and daisies so to speak. So, the Others spend most of their time talking about the difficulties. They see sacrifices and compromises that are just a part of living. They see commonality in the human condition with those who will never have what they have. But they also see a difference. The Others believe they have made better choices. It’s definitely not privilege that affords them their privilege.

Still Some neither see the cage nor recognize their own birthed privilege, obliviously wandering from continent to continent and remarking at the lax nature of border controls within earshot of those who experience otherwise. Some among the Some try hard to sympathize but their predetermined privilege leaves them unable to understand, let alone move into the realm of empathy. To them, mustering some semblance of purported sympathy allows them to continue to bear the badge of privilege without the associated guilt.

How one interacts with these divergent groups while navigating a world of contradictory dichotomies prolongs the nature of this war. Most will choose to ignore. But some may wonder: Which mammalian predators, real or imaginary, are the bars on the windows in mountain chalets within tightly regulated border spaces meant to keep out? Do the miles of graffiti that disrupt the postcard aesthetic convey an ambivalent acceptance on the part of the state to inclusive modern artwork or subversive anti-power messaging? Does the lack of blatant nation-state markers on public transportation routes across a continent denote the success of the single market dream or the failure to effectively implement a New World police state in the Old World? Does a Ford service station nestled in the Swiss mountains denote the successes of globalization or the death of the small town specialist? Who is graffiti read from train routes declaring, “Love bastards, hate cops” directed at? Does a guillotine preserved in a museum room, where spirits linger heavily in the air impeding the ability to breathe, denote a success of the past or a warning for the present? Does the ability of some to walk casually across nation states erase the plight of the many who run out of air when their boats capsize in the nearby sea? Or, have the boats lost their newsworthiness because bombs keep falling from the sky?

Is the paradox of privilege being able to both have and not have it? Is it a cruel twist of  Schrödinger’s cat that allows some to gloat about what they think they have but could just as easily not have at the same time? Or is the twist that they don’t see that they have it, enthralled in a selective blindness? On the other hand, it seems privilege can both defy gravity in soaring above the clouds and drown the soul by filling the lungs with guilt. It lifts and drowns simultaneously. It opens and closes. It begs grateful appreciation and demands stubborn ingratitude. It is travel beyond borders that deepens the anger of them. Who can the anger be directed at? It is the seeing that creates havoc in the mind on behalf of the unseeing. Where can the mind shelter from the storm?

Those who wonder may find no reward so should the paradox simply be ignored?

Common Sensibility

For more than six hours, the heart reeled from the sting of the word.

“Abandoning.”

An accusation and judgment laid. Guilt tripping at its finest. Those in power know the tricks to play. The heart is a muscle so it cannot break. The mind knows that. But the heart can certainly tear. And tear it did. It’s hard to tell whether this will be the opening or closing argument. Acts continue in the play so why shouldn’t a trial of such magnitude be the same?

Let’s be clear: I’m no deserter.

Since the desert lit the fire and city lights sparked the urgency, life has been lived in purpose. Purpose in meaning. Purpose in direction. Purpose in acceptance. That last one took priority this year when the waters became infested with personifications of deep-seated insecurity trying to swim against the tide. The tides were intimidating, so the saying went and rumors spread.

Purpose in acceptance. This is no serenity prayer. Acceptance will not be acceded when the lines of common sensibility are crossed. It becomes more and more evident that power has little regard for such sensibilities. Common or otherwise. Perhaps that is how power stays. Lines have been crossed. Acceptance of the crossing of the lines was refused. An act of simple refusal.

It was only an act of mere resistance. In a world dominated by the ravishes of right-handed power, the left-hand looked for a chance to simply survive the boulders hailed down. To try and not be crushed by the force of the impact. To move away from the continual slaps on the face. In a life built on heavy doses of sarcasm and pacifism, the only option left for the heart was refusal to entertain the whims and fancies of the insecure. The game becomes less fun but sanity becomes more secure.

They should know it is not about them. The they who were told to find joy on Tuesday. The they who are looking for answers about being problems or solutions. The they who are thinking deeply and still speaking freely. Che once said that the “true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love.” How then could there be abandonment? Common sensibility dictates that the love will go on. There is no other way. There cannot be.

“I’m sorry, but I’m tired.”

In the last few weeks, that phrase garnered several blank stares, rolling eyes, and sighs of disbelief. There were even frustrated yet juvenile attempts at emotional manipulation. It got me thinking why an introvert’s response to social invitations received such cavalier and crass reactions. One would think that after many books and TED talks on the topic, personality types and corresponding needs would be well understood. But apparently they are not. At least not in this part of the world.

So, perhaps an explanation is in order.

I’m an introvert in an extrovert job. This year the one job became several. They all require constant interaction with a myriad of ages and personalities. For nearly 10 hours a day, it is an endless stream of human chatter much of which requires responses in some manner to avoid accusations of impoliteness or worse, arrogance.

To do the jobs requires stepping outside of my comfort zone on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. It is terribly draining on the body, mind, and soul. Add additional admin responsibilities on top of the stresses of playing an outgoing character who needs varying levels of social confidence depending on the class being taught, and it’s a recipe for a life on constant fatigue. It has now become the default setting. Tiredness.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the jobs were fatiguing but that fatigue didn’t become an MO. In those days, perhaps there was a good balance of solitude time to recharge. But there were various new professional goals set this year to practice inclusion. It came from a good place despite the consequences being ill-conceived. At one point there was a move to trial a more diversified existence - one that involved interacting with other people more regularly. It was fine in the beginning. Then it all became too much. The results of that trial have left me thinking of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

It’s time to retreat again. To go back to a place of silence and calm. To recharge. The jobs are works of joy so they will carry on. They must. The rest is optional and perhaps seasonal so they will be amended. Some Mesolithic tribes practiced the art of seasonality where their ways of living changed according to the season. Some seasons required interacting with others, some seasons required solitude.

Perhaps they were on to something. Practicing seasonality. It’s the season for rest.

Standing Up

We tell students all the time to stand up for things. Their beliefs. Their values. Their friends. But how often do we explain the how?

How do you actually stand up?

Perhaps a guide could be helpful for those looking for an answer. Or perhaps incoherent rambles for those looking to read between the lines.

Step 1: listen

The first step in any attempt at standing up is to listen. By listening one can evaluate not just the situation but the adversary. One can learn about the enemy: their strengths, their weaknesses, their motivations. Their words will speak volumes if you can decipher their subtext. You have to understand the why. You can decipher the why if you have read widely. Most importantly by listening to the things they say one can learn what the response needs to be. So, just listen.

Step 2: try to appease

At the end of the listening there will be a crossroads. Attack now or appease. It might be tempting to strike while the information is gathered. Choose to appease if the gravity of the situation allows for it. Barring immediate threats to life or wellbeing or sanity, appeasement can be justified because it buys time. Time to think. Time to plan. Agree with their demands in theory while the real action plan remains to be determined. Show kindness if possible. Even venture to show meekness. Humility, even if assumed or pretended, will go a long way. Predators should be made to feel like they have found their prey. Despite the prey’s actual fate. So, the prey should appease if possible to buy time.

Step 3: reflect

Think about the enemy’s actions and motivations. Sometimes this will be clear. Other times it will not be. Time can sometimes be your friend. Keep your distance and pause in reflection. While reflecting keep reading. Keep learning. Keep understanding the needs and wants of yourself and your enemy. Theirs may be in conflict with yours. Dig deeper. Get to the root of the conflict. Understand before reacting. Never act without reflection. So, reflect often.

Step 4: try to appease again

Return for another bout. It might be inevitable that the enemy wants to battle again. This time be more cautious than before. Promise nothing. If needed, agree to reflect further. Perhaps appease again. Go away to think about it some more. Reflect again. Keep reading. Keep thinking. Keep learning. Never assume the enemy will change. Demand the change. Appease only to see if the demanded change takes place.

Step 5: refuse to sit

If nothing has changed, stand up by refusing to sit. Change the power dynamics in any possible way. Seek help from allies. If needed, consult enemies of your enemy. Use their artificial hierarchies to pretend that their manufactured steps are broken. Bypass their procedures. Thwart their attempts to delay. Push for action. Never settle.

This is by no means a manifesto. Most of it is, I imagine, indecipherable to most. So, perhaps just one step that all might understand. When the enemy tells you to sit down, don’t.

Act Three, to be continued

Because it never ends.

Here I was thinking that the sound of the fury that was the last four years had dissipated into the night. They who had cast curses had fled leaving only a few traces and scars that begrudgingly healed with time. A storm survived had passed. And yet, in another new beginning, the same old experiences.

When will it ever change? When will brown skin stop the sting of white words?

I thought about Fanon. Then Che. Then Galeano. Then Ida B Wells. Then Deloria Jr. Because the mind has little regard for historical chronology. Just words, sentiments relevant to feelings that explain the fears of power.

Apparently power is afraid.

Power continues in its condescendingly arrogant dismal of educational qualifications. The days, nights, weeks, months, years spent hungrily absorbing historiographies, crafting unique narratives from learned metanarratives, creating resources that are unparalleled world wide, all cast aside. Expertise is dismissed as “personal preference.” Why? Because brown. No, actually why? Because still brown.

Without reading Mumford, power blindly pushes technology in confidence of a brighter future. To ask to pause, to consider the dangerously perilous road ahead invites accusations of being a Luddite. How could one doubt the technological gods who have brought us self-driving cars (that are now wreaking havoc on the roads)? There is no room for discussion when it comes to our latest Sun God. Nonbelievers be damned.

Power is already “uncomfortable”. Well actually power is made uncomfortable by the possibility of facing uncomfortable truths. That their way might not be the best way. That their way has been no significant threat to the status quo. That their way brought only sleep for a few while the many had no choice but to stay awake. That their way was surpassed by brown skin mimicking their mannerisms while undermining their lies. It’s only still a possibility.

Because power has not read. Power has not engaged. Power has not taken the time to fully understand. Because if power had, it would not simply be about being uncomfortable.

After the meeting, the fury that would have been a usual response did not come. Power appeared pleased at the promise to be more considerate of his feelings. Even a modicum of gratitude could be mustered from beneath a tempered frown. Because one knows what power does not.

Fanon as a moment of ‘to be continued’: “I realized two things at once: I had identified the enemy and created a scandal. Overjoyed. We could now have some fun.”

Paper flowers

This year, my fourth as a full time teacher in Colombo, I’ve received paper flowers on three occasions so far. The first time was a student thanking me for moving her to a quieter part of the classroom so she could concentrate better.  The paper flower came with a note that simply said “thank you” and included a happy face. The second time was a student who was making a flower amidst a group philosophical discussion about feminism and its intersection with capitalist theory. That paper flower was white with no note but a verbal “this is for you”.

The third time came on the last day of the second term from a student hoping for anonymity. The paper flowers were inside a colorful shoebox. They came with a note. Actually two handwritten pages. Based on the note, it was fairly straightforward to decipher its author. Regardless, the student hoping for anonymity mentioned that they read my blog so here’s an attempt at a note of gratitude and a reply.

Dear Student: Thank you for the paper flowers. I actually prefer them over real flowers that are cut from their stem and removed from their life force. I keep every note or card or paper flower I receive. As a teacher they are my little treasures. I’d like to think that you know me well enough to have known how much your gift would mean to me. Thank you for being brave enough to go on a journey of self-discovery. Thank you for being true to yourself regardless of what that means in the world in which you live. Thank you for sharing your truth. The world needs more of you so there is more compassion, kindness, and love. The world is better off because you’re in it and because of your journey. Acceptance of you is the first step. Hope for acceptance from all but expect that that may take time. Be ready if acceptance from some never comes. You being you is more than enough. You being you is exactly the you the world needs. Because you being you is love. Someday if we ever have this conversation in person I will tell you so. Until then, just know that I’m so honored to have been included in your path and I’m so grateful our paths crossed. Students like you are the reason I consider my job a work of joy.

Seeking silence

The last few months have been loud. Not intending to be outdone by car horns and lightning strikes, emotions have screamed demanding to be heard like parliamentarians on a warpath. They came all at once like children adamantly refusing to raise their hands before speaking. When their demands were not appeased, they went on screaming. There was not a moment of respite in the deluge that was life.

The loud came in many forms. It came in the form of tears and screams and sobs and cries. It came from stories of desperation and heartache. It came from painful memories and hopelessness. It came from friends and students, neighbors and strangers. It came from loved ones about lost ones. It flooded the world and bled it dry.

I’ve been in need of a quiet place.

The desert certainly was quiet. Despite the heat, a sense of tranquility that was unmatched in the ordinariness of daily life dominated those solitary adventures. Until the spirits started screaming. Then the desert lost its serenity and shed its protective cloak. Something about seeing and unseeing and impossibility. Recently those emotions returned. The feelings of the desert that brought the heat and the ghosts stirred the soul once more. State violence in broad daylight. Narratives crafted in fantasy. The past never keeps gone I suppose.

I had to find a quiet place.

My refuge, the ocean, is still quiet. Gratitude prevails. Spirits seem less likely to intervene amidst tropical waves and turtles patiently sharing their home. Even among waves carrying the sounds of distant languages as tourists have escaped their native winters, the ocean kept its tranquil promise. The waves crashed absentmindedly drowning the loudness. I’m not sure why exactly. Why do emotions and thoughts quiet down underwater? Is it just mine?

Last of the grands

At birth, there were three. At 9, there were two. At 17, there was one. At 30, there were none. So goes the story of the grands in my life.

It has been three years since I lost the last grand. The last grand was my maternal grandmother (“Archchi”). In the last months of her life, it seemed like Archchi was waiting to go. She had stopped reading the daily newspaper and prayer book. She even stopped eating at times. She had lived. She seemed done.

Watching her through the eyes of a new 30 year old, I couldn’t imagine ever being done. Her youngest child was 41. Her youngest grandchild was 2. Great grandchildren were not born yet. Memories were still to be made. Birthdays to be had, trips to be taken. So, I wondered: done with what exactly?

Done living I suppose. In her lifetime Archchi defied incredible odds. She was born in a small southern town in Sri Lanka at a time when the western world was going through its worst depression in the 1930s. The Second World War broke out as she was probably starting school. The Cold War served as the backdrop to her teenage years when she studied hard to get into University. She was accepted into one of the best universities in the country hundreds of kilometers from her hometown. She strode off confidently to pursue her education and lived in a single dorm room by herself (the cultural significance of this remains unparalleled even today). She told the story of this epic saga years later to grandchildren who should have listened more closely.

She married a good man and had five children. She guided the family through the turmoil of homelessness when the family lost their home. She watched her oldest daughter marry at 20, defying her request to pursue her studies. Her other children married, moved away, had children, and sometimes stopped by. She taught maths for decades. She was known for her uncompromising fairness, which was displayed in her particular attention to making timetables for her teaching staff. She was admired and feared as a strict principal. She taught math to her grandchildren. She traveled abroad. She lived.

It’s hard to imagine turning 84. So many decades of lived memories, of experiences, of feelings. Perhaps she knew that it was time. Maybe it was the timing of a summer when she had seen all five of her adult children come to visit her in an unprecedented turn of events. Or perhaps she saw her oldest daughter follow in her footsteps taking the mantle of her late husband’s generosity and giving spirit. Perhaps she decided her legacy was secure. Or perhaps she was just tired.

What do we lose when the grands pass on? What memories are lost to time? What moments can never be repeated? To what extent are we defined by our relationships to our grands? What happens when no grands are left? Who do we become?

Demanding the impossible

The state is cleaning up. Those who have threatened the very stability of the violent state structure (pardon the redundancy) are now being sought. Arrest warrants are making the rounds. State goons seem keen to pursue those who stood up to represent the masses. Those who spoke for those suffering. Those who put a face to the pain and the struggle. Perhaps lady justice is not blind after all. She wants only one kind of perpetrator.

Questions arise about the roots of this witch-hunt and when the state might have started planning for it. Was it when the millions found at state premises got returned rather than redistributed to the masses? Was it the almost storming of the sacred parliament but not quite breaking the barrier? Was it when the occupied state structures were peacefully unoccupied so state goons can take over again? Was it in the limited set of demands that were made at the start of it all?

Maybe it’s time to make just one demand. Make it an impossible one.

Let people vote on the budget.

This suggestion has been laughed at and mocked relentlessly by the bourgeois classes clutching to the remnants of their propertied worldviews. Let the masses vote? What horror! How could they understand the intricate details of political systems of governance or the balance of economic factors in budgetary debates? Considering the lack of transparency when it comes to the educational qualifications of the current office holders, it is highly doubtful the men in white robes understand any of it either. Regardless, there is a difference: the masses understand more than politicians ever could. Because what there is to understand the masses live. It is ultimately their lives that are being negotiated and voted on. Just without their say. Let’s be real: what we really get a say over is which rascal gets to steal our money. We can decide nothing else.

Why shouldn’t we change that?

Let me explain. People voting directly on the budget is called participatory budgeting. In the few places where it has managed to be allowed to be implemented (because god knows capitalism would hate it more than it hates feeding the poor or protecting our forests), participatory budgeting leads to a reduction in inequality and a fairer distribution of public resources. More money goes into public institutions, like hospitals and schools, and less money is spent on luxury cars, mansions, and bodyguards for politicians.

This shouldn’t really be a surprise. The masses rely on public hospitals and schools. Naturally they would vote to improve those institutions. Masses rely on public transportation. Naturally they would vote to improve the roads, railway tracks, and the quality of the buses and trains. What the masses don’t tend to rely on are racetracks for the silver-spooned, cafes with imported coffee and chocolate, apples in grocery stores, airports for private planes, purple towers that serve no real or imagined purpose, and tax breaks for conglomerates building oceanside condominiums. So perhaps we can tell the capitalists to keep funding those. Let public money go to public uses.

Of course, participatory budgeting will not be allowed. No vulturous state in its right mind would let this happen. It is impossible. The powerful will raise hysterical objections and appeals to emotion. “Participatory budgeting will cause chaos,” they’ll predict without an ounce of actual evidence. “The masses can’t be trusted,” they’ll insist based on bourgeois viewpoints tinged with elitism. “Everyone will just vote for their own interests,” they’ll argue. Doesn’t this happen anyway with the current system except in a far more exclusive and opaque manner? Isn’t that why the masses were in the dark as war criminals worked the country speedily toward bankruptcy?

Wouldn’t participatory budgeting allow more transparency about the income-and-expenses balance sheet of the island? Wouldn’t it allow a say over what politicians (and other public servants) are to be paid? Wouldn’t it allow public money to go toward fixing our roads and dangerously uneven sidewalks, funding our amazing public hospitals, creating accommodations like ramps for the differently-abled, updating our museums and libraries, equalizing access to phone and internet services throughout the island, and revitalizing our schools and universities to bring them into the twenty-first century? Wouldn’t it allow us to spend money on renovating aging children’s parks or building new ones or repurposing unused land for community gardens? Wouldn’t it allow us to develop industries that could pave the way for some degree of self-sufficiency in the future rather than always hedging our bets on tourism and remittances? Wouldn’t participatory budgeting actually allow some degree of collective agreement as to what the needs of our society actually are?

Why not make this demand even if it’s impossible?

Since its inception in Porto Alegre in the late 1980s, participatory budgeting has been implemented throughout the world in nearly every continent with over 1,500 documented instances. However, so far, participatory budgeting has only been implemented at the city or county levels or with specific institutions like schools or public housing. No country in the world has tried participatory budgeting at the national level. Sri Lanka could be the first. The question becomes whether we are willing to truly democratize our society and demand that people have this say. The state is coming for those who stood up to highlight its abuses. The state will not stop coming for others who continue to voice dissent. The state will not give in voluntarily. This must be demanded.

Isn’t it time to demand the impossible? What do we have to lose?

In defense of the non peaceful

On July 9, in an unprecedented takeover of a modern regime in a time of strenuously guarded neoliberal globalization, protestors in Sri Lanka occupied seats of government power without the use of weapons. Those in power were left alive despite their goons attacking protestors and journalists. In the aftermath, confused international media outlets continue to create far-fetched narratives that fail to capture cultural nuances while the powerful call for the protection of the right to peaceful protest.

Peaceful. Why must they so insist?

For months, daily life here in Sri Lanka has been marked by rolling power cuts and medicine and fuel shortages. People have turned to wood burning stoves. People sit in the dark sweltering heat to pass the time. People on the street cry out loud in desperation. Their screams reverberate. All this is compounded by exponential increases in food prices. Somehow the culprit has become “inflation” rather than also including the partner-in-crime that is the greed of companies to maintain status quo profit margins (are we all pretending the Indian Oil Corporation did not make record profits this year as they priced the poor out of fuel affordability?). Capitalism, after all, seems to always know how to survive near fatal bouts of impending collapse.

Regardless, stories float through the local news of people dying while waiting in line for days in endless cues. People are dying without access to basic medication. People are trying to survive on one meal a day. Nearly a third of the country is food insecure, according to the UN. People are going without because they simply have nothing. This is economic policy gone wrong, they say. However, despite the fact that the root causes of the current crisis are directly traceable to arrogant and corrupt politicians, rather than say karma or the Holy Ghost, it is still not considered violence in media narratives locally or internationally. Economies collapse, they say. It’s the cycle of nation-states and capitalism.

Yet a house on fire incites harsh rhetoric against “violent” protests. Protests must be peaceful, they condemn while airing scenes of smoke and fire for ratings. The house owner mourns the loss of his books while claiming journalists outside were “allegedly” beaten. State actors can kill or try to kill with their actions and inactions but those who fight back against this must do so peacefully. How can we live in a time when the brutal attack on journalists and protestors is placed side-by-side with a house on fire regardless of whose house it is and regardless of who set it alight? Are we saying both are equally “violent”? What about this notion of the sanctity of private property that has media consumers tightly bound in a daze of overtly self-conscious classism?

Whose sensibilities need to be protected?

It may have to do with how property links to ideas about freedom. In their monumental work, The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow write, “In the [Native] American view, the freedom of the individual was assumed to be premised on a certain level of ‘baseline communism’, since, after all, people who are starving or lack adequate clothes or shelter in a snowstorm are not really free to do much of anything, other than whatever it takes to stay alive. The European conception of individual freedom was, by contrast, tied ineluctably to notions of private property. Legally, this association traces back above all to the power of the male household head in ancient Rome, who could do whatever he liked with his chattels and possessions, including his children and slaves. In this view, freedom was always defined – at least potentially – as something exercised to the cost of others.” Property means having something another does not and being able to use the state to protect it. Like a collection of 2,500 books.

Are the media portrayals regurgitating this age old Eurocentric obsession with property and freedom? If so, perhaps we can clarify what the defense of private property actually means in the modern world of globalization. The defense of private property is the defense of inequality couched in the safe and secure language of meritocracy and legality. It is the defense of systemic injustices and outrageous inheritances of wealth that have enlarged the gap between social groups. It is the defense of a few living in castles while millions live nowhere, their lives, stories, and struggles slowly erased by tides of exploitation rushing ashore. It is the defense of the system that produces brutally violent outcomes where hundreds of thousands of children starve to death while a few take joy rides to space. It is the defense of violence itself.

Perhaps then there should be less insistence on the nature of protest. If anything, the nature of protest should directly correlate to the object of protest. If the object of protest is a system that produces and reproduces violence perhaps it is time to quell the insistence on peace and insist on destruction. Mike Davis once reminded us in Planet of Slums, “If the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression, its outcasts have the gods of chaos on their side.” Let the outcasts protest by any means necessary. Peaceful, be damned.

If this is it

What if this is it?

What if another won’t come again?

Has enough been done?

Has enough been said?

Has enough been felt?

Was it enough?

If this is it there can be solace

A life that was led with purpose

A life filled with gratitude

Actions, deeds, placards

Things were done

Believed, achieved

Enough

But if this is it there may be regret

A life that was spent in shadows

A life of paths not taken

Viewer, watcher, applauder

Things left undone

Unsaid, unfelt

Not enough

What then must come at 6:07?

A time significant only existentially

Will it be a wish for the ages?

What must it be?

What it always should have been?

Will time be kind or cruel?

If this is it perhaps a quiet wish

To silently strike at what matters most

To have discovered in the final hour

In the elusive feeling of an unfamiliar song

What ought to have been year after year

Until at last a wish for familiarity.

Yesterday in History

A message comes through as the students settle into their lesson on a review day. Curfew has been declared in parts of Colombo. But exams are coming up. The students are to attempt a practice question about unresolved issues left after the post-WWI peace treaties. There is palpable tension in the air that remains beyond the reality of the students, who stay unaware.  At least for now they are safe from the chaos. 

Outside the window, parents gather in a scramble to pick up their kids. More messages come in that parents are at the gate. A few students are asked to go downstairs. Curfew has now been declared in the Western Province. The “c” word that dominates memories inter-generationally in this country makes another appearance. This time not for a raging pandemic. This time perhaps to avert revolution. 

In a few hours the prime minister who managed to avert war crime charges for 13 years riding on a high of racist religious-nationalism will resign. His plan for a final bloodbath remains unfulfilled. Police will watch as paid goons attempt to engineer violence by beating up peaceful protestors. It will be a loud night as fires rage in rainstorms and the desperate who have not spoken get to scream.

But that was still a few hours away. Inside the classroom the students moan they hadn’t studied. They had been camping last weekend so had had no time. They are shushed and told to try. Outside car horns. Inside clock ticks.

No teacher training accounts for what to do when revolution breaks out in the country when you are in the middle of a history lesson. Do I tell them about Bakunin, the great enemy of Marx? In 1873, Bakunin wrote, “there can be no reconciliation between the wild, hungry proletariat, gripped by social-revolutionary passions and striving persistently for the creation of another world based on the principles of human truth, justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity (principles tolerated in respectable society only as the innocuous subject of rhetorical exercises), and the well-fed, educated world of the privileged classes, defending with desperate energy the state, legal, metaphysical, theological, and military and police order as the last stronghold now safeguarding their precious privilege of economic exploitation.” Nearly 150 years ago Bakunin said this would happen. Would that help?

Or do I tell them about Tolstoy? 20 years after Bakunin’s predictive words the great Tolstoy wrote, “Governments and the ruling classes now base themselves neither on justice nor even on a semblance of right, but on an organization so cunningly devised by the help of scientific progress, that men are caught in a circle of violence, from which there is no possibility of escape.” Should the students have discussed if this is what happens when people try to escape? Would that help?

What should a history teacher do when history happens in history class? The general teacher trainings tell us not to react. Not to let it show the uncertainty that grips the mind, heart and soul whatever may come. Yet the face must stay calm. As students packed up after hearing the news, I looked for words of reassurance.

I left them with this thought: you lived through a global pandemic that killed millions and you are now living through political turmoil that will no doubt leave a body count. This will make it into the history books. Remember where you were. Remember what you were thinking. Remember how you were feeling. One year from now when you sit for your exams you will be hardened by life and experienced beyond most kids your age. You will have planned your study habits around power cuts. You will have studied in literal firestorms while interacting with friends and teachers who seemed perpetually masked and whose smiles had become distant memories. You will have learned to read happiness in people’s eyes. You will be strong. This will shape your character. This might make you unbreakable. 

Perhaps awareness is all a history teacher can ever teach.

Solitude.

Isolation and I go way back. Isolation never produced dread. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Whether in familial ties, forced-to-attend social gatherings or religious rituals meant to save the sinner’s soul, isolation served as a constant companion. Isolation was familiar. Isolation was always there. 

It wasn’t a need to be different. It wasn’t a cry for attention. It was not understanding jokes others laughed at, or if I understood them, not wanting to. It was not wanting to talk about who did what to whom last week. It was not finding the possibility of rain tomorrow a scintillating enough conversation topic. It was letting the mind wonder when the talking served no discernible purpose.

It brought happiness. It brought time to reflect. Reflection deepened the bonds. Joy was found in its friendship. After all, Chekhov once wrote, “True happiness is impossible without solitude. The fallen angel most probably betrayed God because he longed for solitude, of which angels have no inkling.”

As the years have gone by the mind has wondered about this companion who was always there, everywhere and nowhere at once. A part of the mind had secretly hoped time would push away this old friend. Children don’t have old friends. Adults are supposed to. But what kind of old friends are adults supposed to have?

Does feeling happen in isolation?

“People aren’t really suffering though, are they?” She offered a meaningless laugh as her words hung in the air. Quickly she ran through justifications from which she drew out this conclusion. Objectively absurd to anyone with even an average understanding of the current situation in the country. To this scientist from abroad enjoying island living amidst political and economic chaos, however, incontrovertibly true. The bubble is real. Denial abounds. 

“What is there to feel guilty about?” His words echoed through the small room. The sentiment that if one was a have, one need not feel guilty about having in light of the have-nots. A tale as old as time yet seemingly renewed in a cinematic display of privileged ignorance. Time stood still. No words in reply came out. Emotions vacillated. Disbelief. Angst. Horror. Fatigue. How does one respond to madness? If one responds, does one claim the role of a staff member or a patient in the asylum? Who decides?

Does feeling isolate? Does trying to walk in another’s shoes ultimately mean you will walk alone? There’s an African proverb that says, ‘When a mad man walks naked it is his kinsmen who feel shame.’ But for the kinsmen to feel shame they must first feel. Has our modern world entrapped us in a bubble of unfeeling? We the kinsmen. We who watch our fellow kinsmen stand in queues for essentials and cook in the dark on wood-burning makeshift stoves. We who are not yet priced out of essentials whose neighbors can no longer afford milk and bread. For those two conversations to happen in the course of a single day just hours apart is perhaps indicative of how truly ill we have become. We’re supposed to be over the pandemic. But we still seem to be sick. Perhaps sicker than ever before. 

Chinua Achebe reminds us of a “saying of the elders that if a man sought for a companion who acted entirely like himself he would live in solitude.” Perhaps in befriending isolation amidst a cavalier search for companionship, destiny was predetermined. Alas, solitude. 

Labored breathing

Words don’t come as easily as they used to. Emotions come too easily without time to process. Both rain and fire storms hellishly coexist in a time undesirable and a place unsuitable for either. Perhaps they always have. But now the turmoil cannot be escaped. If nothing else the last two years taught us the price of globalization even the forcibly localized have to pay. 

Despite the hellish landscape, the stormy world continues to spin on its axis. A few rejoice because they get to cash in, most cry because their families are left with empty bellies, many laugh because they cannot cry, and some watch because paralysis can come in literal and figurative forms. 

The fortunate find a purposeful role to play amidst the storms. At least purposeful in their minds, which can help sustain a stubborn determination to win the battle waged in real time. Perhaps seeing or knowing the war is lost, however, the less fortunate slowly inhale the poison of helplessness. The empaths among them know its potency but cannot speak because they are trapped in a fatal double bind. While asking for food, the unfortunate are killed by state goons. The poor and marginalized have always known the line between themselves and the unfortunate is barely existent. The rest like to keep up pretenses. 

To calm ourselves down we are told the time honored wisdom of breathing. Just breathe, someone will say. Soothe the mind, relax the nerves, go for a walk, meditate, deep breaths. Beyond instinctual reflexes there is something to be said about how to stand still in a storm and bear witness to its carnage. Perhaps the less fortunate can bear witness and be the historians of our future. But what if breathing itself becomes labored? How can one then survive the storm to tell the tale?

Like today and likely tomorrow, the storms raged yesterday. In the morning, someone replied to a question of how they were by saying, “I want to die.” She meant it. Her tired eyes betrayed her. She had survived a bomb blast, lived through terror in many forms, experienced death and destruction, borne sorrow and pain and yet this moment was her breaking point. These storms were killing her will to live. In the night, a young stranger on the street who could not have been more than sixteen, almost shrieked in desperation with tears in her eyes near a bus stand. She did not know how to ask for money for groceries. Her screams hung in the night air as the rain drizzled. Her eyes too betrayed her. They had not slept. Her small frame told everyone the limits of stretching money to make ends meet. The storms were killing her ability to survive. In the news economists will show us bar graphs and tell us the worst is yet to come but we must endure. The question is how. 

How do those watching continue in these storms? How do you eat knowing many nearby go hungry? How do you breathe when those around you suffocate? Each breath carries a level of guilt that cannot be sustained. The spring that has been bouncing back will snap. Sleep gets interrupted by chest pains as daytime memories replay in fatal loops becoming nighttime terrors. 

Suggestions have been made to escape the storms. Psychologists might note this as the ‘flight’ in an acute stress response. But hasn’t the poison of helplessness already been inhaled? Will moving help with breathing knowing others are still suffocating and dying? This suggests only one option: ‘fight’. But how does one fight the mind and sub-conscience let alone the storms that rage beyond control? Will fighting in whatever form help with labored breathing? If not, what will?

More importantly, how long do we have to figure that out?

The impossibility of neutrality

In a clear, blue-skied April six years ago, there was a conference in New York City. The States of Incarceration exhibit documented the pain and suffering of the caged. Of the many talks over two days, one line still echoes loudly: “this is urgent.” The world looked different after those April days. Breathing started to hurt the soul. Fanon said it best, “I find myself one day in a world where things are hurtful; a world where I am required to fight; a world where it is always a question of defeat or victory.”

Life has been lived on urgent ever since. Decisions are made with resolve, with purpose. There is a determination that is unbreakable, that is rooted in absolutes. The absolutes that love and spirits should guide, that empathy should pave, that human solidarity be cherished. Until the world stops hurting for all, none can claim victory nor stop fighting. 

In this hurtful world where fighting back is a necessary precondition of mere existence, the middle path is untenable. Centrality lost its sway when invisible hands of power decided to make visible their cruelty. They stopped hiding the game they were playing. Left hands saw what right hands did. Subalterns learned to speak. Why should we pretend we still don’t know? 

Attempting to take a neutral stance in the face of unimaginable destruction of lives and our planet is akin to being a part of the problem. The rigged game cannot be won fairly. Neutrality preserves the status quo, an unequal world imploding under the weight of its own self-created contradictions. The status quo is violence and thus, neutrality preserves and protects violence. In this quiet protection there is a defense coated in a faux ideological justification of critical thinking to balance arguments. It’s how centrists sleep at night. But the defense only appeases. The rigged game continues. The hurtful world continues hurting. Neutrality becomes defeat. Defeat means the end of humanity.

Fanon wrote, “I undertake to risk annihilation so that two or three truths can cast their essential light on the world.” Which truths? Love? Empathy? Mutual aid? Compassion? Kindness? Companionship? Peace? Perhaps urgency will bring such bravery while neutrality remains impossible. 

When the light shines, or act two

With tears in her eyes a parent admitted her child was struggling in every class, except in History. When asked why, she spoke softly but confidently, “because he likes history, because he likes you.” The tears she didn’t let fall marked a moment in time. 

I saw flashbacks of her child in tears a few months ago during a History exam because he couldn’t finish the paper. I remembered leading him to a quiet office space, sitting down with him, and asking him kindly what he knew and guiding him to write down those thoughts. The exam didn’t matter. He mattered. His well-being mattered. Showing him love and kindness when he was most vulnerable mattered. 

I’m reminded of Lewis Mumford who once wrote, “Loving underlies effective learning: indeed, it is the basis of all cultural transference and interchange.” In that moment, in words spoken and unspoken, the parent acknowledged she had borne witness to that love. The love her child felt from his History teacher. The love that was the reason he tried his best in History class. The sunlight shone brightly through the window. 

That same morning I had walked into my old classroom. On the whiteboard was the following message. The mystery students hadn’t known I would be in that room that day. I hadn’t been in that room all year. They could not have predicted I would see their message. And yet before leaving school two days earlier they had taken the time to write a message on the wall. Leaving aside the pure hyperbole of the words, they too might be acknowledging that love. 

The love is profound and runs deep. I would not have known this had it not been for the desert. Those hours spent wandering around cacti in the Sonoran brought me closer to an understanding of the invisible forces that charge our lives. At least the forces that charge mine. Despite the darkness, defeated and still lingering, the light shines through. In the acknowledgement of others bearing witness to the light, love blossoms. The reason to be, to continue, to never give in runs deep.

The love they feel is mutual. It has to be if teaching is to be effective. Perhaps that feeling is the only thing that matters. Years from now, rather than anything from the curriculum, I hope they remember the love.

A day to remember

It is bizarre to document what was nervously anticipated in the lead up, unsettlingly surreal in the moment, and comedically enlightening in the aftermath. 

On no other than Guy Fawkes day, while the UK was still asleep, half a world away where post-colonialism lingers like rotten sewage appeased with gallons of cheap air freshener, an interview took place in a small room in a building next to a cemetery. The applicant covered her bases during her talk, so to keep the Q&A from devolving into the redundant, questions were posed that exposed the motivations and fears of right-handed domination. Perhaps they didn’t mean to show their hands so blatantly. The game wouldn’t be as fun if they did.

“What will you do if someone deliberately disregards you?” Leadership in their minds necessarily involves coercion. How could it not? Those who grew up with exaggerated cold war fears have yet to wake up from their nightmares of nuclear holocaust. Without coercion the end will come quicker and be more brutal, they believe in their hazes of delusion. There are many ways to teach but apparently only one way to lead. Such bizarre sentiments from such experienced professionals. 

“Will you implement a policy you disagree with?” The question reveals more about the fears of those in power than any answer could reveal about the applicant. Why ask a question just to get an answer on record? When an applicant is supremely (over)qualified, are rhetorical questions the only avenue of relief? Does it still count as a test if the person tested disregards its true intention and mocks the examiners?

“If you were offered the job right now, would you accept?” The applicant’s hesitation confuses them. Once more the applicant knows the words she must say and refuses to say them. She refuses because she does not believe the words and has sworn off lying since the desert pilgrimage. This has happened before. She remembers Nebraska. She smiles remembering that one professor’s eye-rolling.

Elsewhere the UK wakes up. Perhaps a shudder runs through the spines of all those in charge on this day. They all lock their doors a bit more securely before leaving for work. The applicant smiles thinking it must be the same with the questioners. They must remember what day it is. They must have told themselves to ask for appeasement and a peace of mind. The theatrical performance can help appease any objectors. But even without a verdict the case seems won for what the applicant learns. If offered, the applicant would have to think about a job that requires the adoption of personality traits long been buried or never existing in the first place. But then again, a call cannot be forthcoming in light of what they have learned (or, possibly what they knew all along).

After all, instead of hiring Guy Fawkes to run security, they sentenced him to execution.

Guilt, the sum of all parts

Multiple messages have confirmed that if desired one will be available. All one has to do is register the need with the employer and the need, in a highly unusual twist of fate, will be met. Under the guise of reaching herd immunity and to achieve a level of public relations that will come with marketable boasting rights, a spot has been reserved to do ones part. To play ones role in this great drama of our times. So say the leaders while celebrating elites escaping the planet. Are we all in the same play?

The exclusivity of the reserved spot in line is taking a toll on the conscience. This is not the first or even second world of over abundance. This is not go-down-the-street-to-any-place at any time if and when you feel like it. This is not have your choice of a range of options. Constrained by embassy donations masked in altruism and whatever the government decides or can afford to buy, the numbers and spots in line are limited. At least for now, maybe for the near future. The only thing certain in these parts of the world is that the devil, in whatever form, always comes to collect. These days the devil is coming for souls.

In the limitation, choices are made about who needs it or who will receive it or who is connected the most given society’s tendency to hide the hand of the powerful. Lists are made. No one really knows who makes these lists or how one gets to be included. Politicians, doctors, religious leaders, businessmen and their families jumped ahead in line. The early scramble seemed to reveal implicit fears of dying while showcasing explicit class solidarity. The haves were going to survive the virus legitimately or not. As we all know or should know by now, lists only apply to the masses. The elderly got left behind. When nurses went on strike to call attention to rollout injustices that did not prioritize them, the media showed their protest as untimely and callous. Then the teachers were given a spot in line so schools could eventually open because disobedient children out of daily routines and not trained in rote memorization could spell trouble for the state. 

But what is really happening? The state is deciding not just who gets a spot in line. The state is deciding whose lives matter. Maybe this is the actual price of underdevelopment by virtue of colonialism. Maybe this has always been the price. Each spot that is filled means another life is pushed back or ignored or cast away or made invisible. Every shot administered means someone goes without. This is, after all, life in what Vijay Prashad calls the “crippled” project that is the Third World. Doubts remain about whether there will be enough for everyone. That is everyone without reservations or qualifications or connections or designations of worthiness. Certainly few seem to expect a second dose after the gift of a first. But then again when has the state ever cared for everyone?

Ultimately playing or not playing the role ends the same way: guilt. Did someone need it more? Has someone’s loved one been waiting longer? How many ran out of time while the scene was staged? How many eyes closed during the performance? Who will help appease this guilt at curtain call?

Heart pieces at thirty-two

Today began with a strange realization. Having worked full time for just a mere two years, savings add to more than most people in the homeland can accumulate in a decade. The privilege of that position is suffocating. The injustice is infuriating. Most of it dumb luck, some of it effort, a little bit of it skill, none of it deserved. So says the mind that struggles daily to comprehend levels of systematic inequality and the heart that hears cries beyond the music. The child never imagined 34 would come. The clock is ticking louder and with more urgency than usual.

Has enough been done if the hour glass runs out without warning? Has the past been accorded its due?

It was never a single instance. Driving back from those centers, life inside, whatever it’s essence, slowly seeped out, like a broken faucet. Parallel to life is the heart, which broke slowly and all at once into a million pieces. The ground was littered as spirits eulogized the one who tried.

There was never a moment to spare without pain. Breathing became labored because to breathe meant to live and living meant to know the sorrow and knowing meant to feel the pain. Feeling pain was dying.

The last remnant of a once somewhat complete heart bore the rough etchings of the final message: nothing could have been done. The war was lost before the battle began. The ashes spread on the ground paid homage to souls that had hoped only to have life cruelly mock those dreams. A million reasons to dream ended with millions of heart pieces. Then life changed. The homeland made room begrudgingly for the heart pieces. Privilege then took the place of pain and suffocated the soul. Equally crushing it turns out.

Two weeks ago another school year came to a close. The second as a full time teacher. The first that was almost completely online. The midday quiet set in that afternoon on the second last day of school. The sun shone brightly, traffic moved sporadically, travel restrictions continued.

Somewhere a bread tuk went by blaring the instrumental for “It’s a Small World,” the unofficial anthem of seemingly all bread tuks in the country. The midday lull and accompanying thoughts were interrupted. During the past few weeks (or, maybe months… who can remember when the last day of leaving the house had become a hazy memory?) the tune had been played more often than usual and at all times of the day. Even at night.

The familiar morning tune that had woken the bustling city and used to remind the privileged of Disneyland now sounded ominous and foreboding to those listening beyond the music. How hungry was its rider? When had he last slept through the night? How desperate was his family these days when survival and death were separated by a line in the sand of a polluted beach? Were they safe or had officials come to take them away to an unknown location because scientists tell us separation will help us survive? The tune faded into the lull. The quiet returned. The uneasiness remained. Thoughts digressed.

Two weeks into summer and the thoughts and the tunes haven’t ceased. It’s almost like one impacts the other but the line of causation remains blurry. Is it a small world? How will the survivors live with the guilt? When will the reckoning come? Has enough been done if the world comes to an end? What if the spirits come first?

Act One

Fade in.

“I was frustrated,” he defends himself. 

So, she deserved the yelling.

“I was only angry for a very short time.”

He innocently explained to the juror bosses. 

“She’s instantly confrontational.”

She is accused of correcting his perpetual errors. 

“She never has a moment of reflection.”

But she lives mostly in her own head. 

“I’m not abusive,” he insists, like a colorblind racist. 

She remembers someone drinking two glasses of wine. 

“This place may not be a good fit for you,” he feigns care. His bosses say nothing.

If not here then where, she wonders.

“A liberal arts college in the U.S.”

Is she being run out of her own country?

“If he lost his temper there must have been a reason,” another intervenes, settles the score, proclaims the truth. 

She knows all too well how abuse is justified.

“It’s an attitude issue, not a skills issue.”

Perception again, qualifications disregarded.

“I can apologize,” the defendant whimpers. 

She waits to hear the words. 

“Do you accept the apology?” another asks.  

She didn’t hear one.

“Well, do you?” 

She must have gone deaf. 

“Are you willing to apologize?” another says. 

For asking for an apology for brown sensitivities. 

“Well, are you?” another is ready to retire. 

Tears in her eyes, her brown face stays dry. 

“Rebuilding trust happens through actions.”

Like when the defendant snitched on her. 

“Going over your superior’s head breaks trust.”

Avenues of appeal are closing. 

“Thanks for coming,” another ushers them out.

Defendant, accuser. 

Case closed. 

Verdict: defendant guilty but not really. 

Released by reason of white.

White boss stays superior.  

Brown accuser stays brown. 

Outside she can breathe again. 

The dark cloud lifts from her. 

Darkness envelops the defendant. 

He is blinded by the light. 

Fade out.