Tales of mere existentialism, pt2 (matter of existence)

People say news make them depressed, and I never understood this. One doesn’t have to stream Al Jazeera 24/7 to know the world is fucked up. One doesn’t have a subscription to news feed to know things are just not right. One doesn’t have to study political theories to know we made a mess of this world. It is there. I seek desperatelly for positive outlook. I dig through theories to find one that can reasonably explain we humans aren’t that bad. But I know falling for hope without any real basis hurts people. I look around and look for evidence of our goodness. Sometimes I find glimpses of it, but still I am not sure what to believe.

I often wondered if it is morally permisible to be happy in age after two world wars, too many genocides and after humans stole the power to destruct the world from Gods, when we created the a-bomb. Shouldn’t we all be hurting at least a little bit for it? What does it tell about person when they are happy in this world; world we know is messed up and where many things are wrong? Is it wrong to go vacation in parts of the world that have been torn apart by genocidal wars not so long ago? Economic arguments aside (does tourist industry really promote peace? Or is it just excuse for sad souls to go see troubled places without feeling bad about it?), I think it is a morbid curiousity in those of us who consider Sarajevo a proper holiday getaway.

Last summer, during my short trip to Prishtina I secretely wondered if the taxi drivers and waiters had something to do with the Kosova Liberation Army in the past. Maybe the one guy from Doner place in Prizren… One doesn’t get scars in face by being a good guy… Then I wondered what stories tourists create about me, when they see me back home. Or am I the only one who looks at people and imagines story behind them?

I watch the news and root for the opressed. I sympathize with freedom fighters. I take sides in conflicts, eventhough as BA in International Relations I shouldn’t. I read Psychology of War many times, and yet, I do take sides and believe maybe this all will lead to something… It hardly ever does… I know the theory. Theories tell us that we are screwed. Those that don’t lie to us and have been proved wrong. Sometimes in very hard way (aka League of Nations idealism). And yet, I refuse to accept being doomed. For myself and for the world. I stay awake through the nights and wonder if there is some way around it. I hadn’t found it yet.

I realize how happy I am to live here when it’s safe and reasonably wealthy (but with post-communist, new democracy with high debt, I have legitimate reasons to whine about our corrupt government and cruel cruel world that plays small countries with hard to spell names as pawns and it cannot be really written off as white whine, because what goes on in Central Europe is quite horrible). But then again, I watch conflict or revolution somewhere far away (but not so far after all, because it small small world) and root for the weaker, for the opressed, for those who had the guts to stand up (and who suffer terribly for it. After all standing up to the too powerful is foolish). I guess in a way I do identify with rebels and freedom fighters of the world. In a way, I wonder how would I be, had I been born somewhere else and if I would, in a way be more fulfilled. The beauty of struggle and conflict is that it creates meaning for you. Without it, one has to create their meaning for themselves and it all seems empty and meaningless, easily refuted and deconstructed.

 
I guess people love revolutions, because in revolutions it’s easy to do big things and to matter. In times of peace and stability, one can work their fingers to the bone and create things, but they don’t seem as impressive.

Sometimes I fear along with others that my steps are monitored and that “they” watch me. But only sometimes. Other times I wish they did, that I was stored on a harddisk on some supersecret locality, so there would be evidence I “was” if something happened to me. In 1984, idea of vaporizing people scared me much more than the fact government was in one’s bedroom. So I secretly hope “they” know where I crossed the borders and where I hit ATM, where I laid my head to sleep… during those escapist travels. Sometimes I have hard time realizing things really happened. I hope somebody has a proof that I didn’t make all my life up, like in that nightmare I sometimes have. In it, I wake up and it is dark and I realize world never was, that there is nothing and that all my life has been a dream, an illusion.

I wonder how many years of my life I spent and will yet spend in trying to proof I exist and I matter. To me those two seems to be interconnected. I try to leave my mark, partly for the world, but at part selfishly to myself, to preserve myself. I do believe in after life, but just in case, I wanna leave tokens of my existence around. I want to preserve myself on the planet. I want a proof that I was here. Long before the EU, people collected stamps in passports (and one still gets stamps and visas when travelling outside of the world. Maybe we don’t like to slip around unnoticed). But one doesn’t get a passport upon coming on the planet. One has no stamps to brag with. We have to mark our existence in different ways. Maybe that is why we build and create pretty things… for the future generations, so they know we have been here and for ourselves, to have a proof that all this is real.

Because life sometimes seems like a trip. It seems as if deities were playing reality show with us, because their eternal existence bores them. 

I wish I had an answer. I wish somebody stamped my damn passport and let me peek into constitution of this world-state, so I knew what to do. But I don’t, nobody really does. Maybe it is a waste of time to try to decipher what are we supposed to do here. Maybe, we really aren’t supposed to
anything. Maybe we can chose. So far deities never seemed to give us clear disapproval.

Tales of mere existentialism

I am on crossroads and my GPS just ain’t working. Or maybe I just don’t know how to use it. I’ve never been a modern gal. Sure, I have a map, but it’s old and outdated. This place has been rebuild in some major way. Maybe some civil war happened, or revolution or something. Streets have been renamed, after new idols. So here I am, old maps and old believes.

Hello, world.

Once, I think it was in Croatia, on an organized trip, our tour-guide told us that if one doesn’t know where they are going, they cannot get lost. I
guess I should put away my map and just make first step and see. And hope there aren’t any landmines off the road. Because at one point I will definitelly have to step off the marked paths, for they are crowded and what one can see there is boring, albeit safe. Maybe it is an urban myth, about how it is dangerous to step off the marked paths, because anarchy would follow if everybody went their own way. Maybe the risks are worth it.

Maybe I will take wrong turn and end up in some part of the city that has not been painted and decorated to impress. One where real people live and where tourists get scared.

But I am not a tourist. This metropolis is the world, and this journey is my life. I need to forget a lot of what I have been taught. Or at least
ignore it. For I will need to talk to strangers. All friends were strangers at one point.

No more organized tours. I never really liked them anyways, it seems they kept something from me. There must be more interesting places than the pretty pretty sights. Or maybe, I will just sit down for a while, here by this statue of whatshisname, and people watch.
I have nowhere to go and no aim. But maybe it means, I can do what I want. But can I go back? what if there are landmines off the paths? What if I get lost and stuck in part of the city and I will hate it and will spend too much time roaming the streets? How will I gather courage to walk to somebody, and ask “please, get me the hell out of there?”

I hardly ever ask for help. It’s not what I do. I am a strong female… that is what I like to think. And maybe I am just afraid. After all, I have been told that I should never talk to strangers. And I don’t want to hire a tourguide. They will never let me see the real and genuine parts of the city.

Ah, being afraid. Scared. So scared to do something that I won’t do it, in case it didn’t work out. Then it haunts me. All the things I didn’t do, but I should have. I guess you cannot always turn back.

Last look, deep breath. Send text message to family and friends, that I am indeed alright and it is kinda nice here. Taking the first step and I am more afraid then I should be. To all the people around here, it seems easy and natural. But maybe they are just tourists. Maybe the don’t realize how serious this is. Maybe they don’t have desire to explore and are just running their errands. Maybe they use approved guides. But this is not how I wanna live my life.

 

How to (re-)build a nation

Recently, while reading on transnationalism in Kosovo (Republic of), I came across to problem of nation-building. I saw few claims how nation building worked quite well for ex-Yugoslav republics, but maybe they are just behaving because they need our money and because they are afraid that NATO is not afraid to bomb them if they misbehave. Fortunately it looks they are using it to rebuild their cities, not their armies… but I would not be too optimist to claim this is it in the Balkans. Could democratic peace work for Balkans? But what if one of the republics gets fed up with democracy, because democracy means that you still get corrupt idiots, albeit democratically elected ones? Maybe it is hypocritical of me to say how Yugoslav wars weren’t rational, when I hold my own grudges… and despite of my pacifist leanings there are times I think Hugo Grotius was right. But besides Grotius, I read Lawrence LeShan, so I know in times of war we are often everything but rational and just. Of course, Grotius never had Srebrenica or Vukovar in mind… so who gets to decide what is just and rational, fair and reasonable? Surely not us in Ivory Towers in too peaceful parts of the world.

And when we talk Balkans, we talk about Europe. Europe with flavour, but Europe still. Kosovo (Republic of) is pretty pro-western oriented country. Flags of the USA, EU and NATO (I have not seen an UN flag. Telling? Do we want a military organization to run the world? Especially one that still pretends to be regional defense organization?) are flown along those of Kosovo (Republic of) and Albania. Shall I mention the blue on the flag of Kosovo (Republic of) is the same shade as the blue on EU flag? I wonder how many Kosovars watch us in worry, and watch the USA in worry and wonder if they did not put all their eggs in wrong basket. Or if they did not gamble too much with their assets on political Wall Street.

How long does it take to get things to normal? And what if they never were normal? How can you build a peace in a highly explosive part of the world, where peace is just not part of the narrative? (and is it ever? Do others than those who lost major wars ever make pacifism and peacefulness national policy? Germany and Japan come to my mind, but they are no longer the civil powers they been once (and they have been built as). AFter all Germany did participate in the NATO strikes on Kosovo and they gotten crap for not wanting to get into wars (Iraq, Libya). I acknowledge there is a difference between fighting to preserve one’s security and yadda yadda or all against all bloody atrocities of Bosnia, but it is often way more murky and unclear what are we fight for in reality.

So how does one rebuild a war torn nation? End of the History has been pretty much debunked, we don’t have it all figured out here in the west, but others know even less on how to run affairs. There is no model that really works. Can we really lecture about superiority of western values when we are anxiously waiting for all we build to collapse?

At the same time we do have certain experiences of how to do (and how not to do) things. Isn’t it selfish not to share and not to help out others? Isn’t it in our interest to share and help others, because in globalized world if they are a mess, it is gonna influence us in one way or another.

So maybe we should focus more on nation building and post-conflict assistance. Maybe that is the way to build a better world.

English Lesson

Welcome to my English lesson
Please remember these phrases
Because you never know when you’ll need them

Lesson number one:

How to stir controversy

Please, how can I get to nearest nuclear shelter?

I don’t like licorice.

Do you speak Hebrew?

I am aware you want to hear how much I love your country, but I really don’t like it.

Televoting in Eurovision is perfectly fair.

Let’s discuss the Israeli-Palestinian question.

Would you rather be the cool or the dissident?

I am here all alone, maybe you could show me the place?

Maybe you secretly wonder
How on the earth will this save my life?
It probably won’t.
It isn’t meant to.

Lesson number two:

How to judge others and the History

They shelled the city for months and yet they didn’t manage to capture it.

They built walls and yet those walls didn’t protect them from themselves.

They conquered and ruled. It didn’t last very long.

It was a spectacular skyjacking, but it didn’t help them at all.

And yet they’ve done it again and again and again.

One day he woke up as a giant insect.

You are a stranger in a strange strange land
Searching for words to say
And all you can remember
Are some useless clichés

Lesson number three:

Love, not war.

I really like you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

I always liked pariahs.

We waged wars against each other, we wanted each other dead, but now screw the history… I would like to take you home.

Because from my appartment you see the city skyline.

You really don’t want to see
You really don’t want to hear
You really don’t want to know
Because if you did
You would throw away that damn tour guide and would walk in the streets barefoot.
Because if you really did
You would not wave around your credit cards and would not pay in Euro, instead you would sit down and people watch for a while.
Because if you really did
You would not think that you can buy piece of this place to take it home with you.
Because if you really did
You would not complain about my accent
You would understand me perfectly just by looking in my eyes.

Lesson number four:

How to express yourself, even if you are in place where freedom of expression is unheard of or frowned upon.

I’ve got a pen, a paper and freedom of speech.

I’ve got a voice and a megaphone

And so much to say.

I’ll stand right here on this place

Where the revolution began

And I will speak.

I’m not afraid.
Freedom to the world!
Free Tibet!
Free Kosova!
Free Chechnya!
Free Palestine!
Free Corsica!
(feel free to add your favorite disputed territory. It doesn’t even have to be disputed…).
But most importantly…
FREE ME!

Thank you for your attention
Now you may go home
Just please
Remember me.

“Truth and love triumph over lies and hate.”

I was postponing writting this entry, because honestly I am still at loss of what to write. Right now the nation is in full blown (even officially sanctioned) mourning mode.  I am quite sure he would disaprove of the official dignities. If he can see us from other realm, he probably laughs at it, because he never got into his role of president. Was one of the rare people who managed to stay civil and human in high office. After all, he was a writer first, than an idealist. Could be said that the whole presidential business was an accident, or absurd drama twist.

It feels like we are a nation of orphans though, left with our cruel step parents. Havel was still a leader, even when he was no longer in the office. He was a great representative of the country. And one of world’s last idealists… which makes it even worse loss.

The most we can do to honor him is not state sanctioned pomposity, but keeping some of our idealism. As much as love-and-truther became an insult and pejorative at one point, I am proudly declare I am a love-and-truther and I hope many more will realize that there is something about that slogan. It is not cliche. Love and truth should be something we strive and fight for.

Life’s little – and not so little – miracles, pt. 1

1. Taking off my shoes to walk on cobblestones and feeling history with my bare feet.
2. Interesting looking people. People who bring Harajuku to central Europe, 50 something women with long purple hair, men with style (but not too much style). If I was a dictator, I would make random dress codes. Life would be much cooler if it looked like Lady Gaga’s video.
3. Travelling by train on moonlit nights.
4. Contemporary Russian music…. Russian language amplifies moods and feelings. Forget about French being language of love. Russian sounds much more softer and sensual. But they can make angsty songs that are yelled on top of the lungs… and you believe they really really are angry as hell.
5. People with a story. People who make me thing. Who make me laugh… about wrong things.
6. First step on foreign ground after long exhausting travel. The foreign air is almost intoxicating. It is not just the sleep deprivation. It is magic in happening.
7. Cats. Despite all their cuteness and cuddliness you still know you are holding a beast of prey in your hands. And you know why Egyptian worshipped them.
8. Sun on my skin in summer, when I can almost feel as being charged with cosmic energy.
9. Metropoles… with their crowds of people, each of them a story. Where you can be wonderfully anonymous. Life is fast, almost too fast and intense. Energies are materialized. One can feed for them.
10. Dancing to forget… like nobody is watching… getting lost in the beats and hearing the music through my skin… In fact, I only dance to forget. Rembember it when you see in me in a club.
11. Seeing the stars when away from the “civilization”. I am a city girl, and at times I tend to forget how sky with stars looks like. So to be somewhere away from burning city lights and see the starlit sky is always a wow moment.
12. The flash of inspiration when all of sudden things make sense… and I feel like a creator of the meaning.
13. Capturing a perfect picture with my camera. It almost feels like I preserved bit of every passing time. The moment is there. I can always go back to it… and feel almost the same intensity as I felt in the moment.
14. Good food. Does not matter if it is sushi or hungarian sausage at some street festival. Healthy or not, has to be enjoyable and enjoyed.
15. The sea with all it’s moods. Body surfing in waves. Storms while you are on ferry somewhere in northern Norway. Bluest shade and calm in mediterrean (to turn wild and unpredictable next day, waves crushing on the cliffs widly…). Life came from the sea… so I guess I feel like I was just born when I thrust myself into its arms.

Ode to Sleep Deprivation

I really really like you
But you should be more radical
When you’re on a mission
Self destruction will take you far

Put yourself on the stake
To prove you want it bad
You haven’t lived
Unless you struggled

Walk on the line – unbiased
You won’t be the one they trust
Or just chose a side
It feels fine
No going back
Once you cross the line

The world won’t listen
Unless you’re a radical
Once you do that
They say you’ve gone too far

Just ignore them
It’s all lies
… It’s not their lives they sacrifice

I really really like you
But you should be more radical
Show the world who you are
And maybe you will go far

You tell me about higher goals
Much more worthy than your life
But if you want to fight for it
You first have to be alive

If you walk the line
Unbiased
It won’t be you whom they trust
So chose ýour side
To prove you have a spine
Don’t look back
Just cross the line

It’s no good to be good
It’s better to be understood
Keep your eyes on the price
Value your life… which you sacrifice

I really really like you
But can you be more radical…
Your dreams are so worth it
And you could really get so far

Struggle, that’s what you’re meant for
Wonder late in night
“are we there yet?”
Your aim in your mind
You were alive… you struggled

I really really like
Even though you’re so radical
You got something to live for, something to die for
And I hope it will take you far

There’s not white supremacism here….

I ranted about this before. How we view terrorism. And here we go again… I think most of us remember the shooting in Norway and Breivik and his manifesto. His carefully planned and politically motivated act of terrorism. Yet, it seems that psychiatrist are declaring him insane now.

It seems like age old meme. Nobody ever asks about mental health of Arab terrorists, because… well, they are Muslim and evil and brown and their ways are funny. But each time a white person kills in name of political ideologies, we either blame the society (yes, it has it’s place… but why not look at roots of non-domestic terrorism then?) or we try to declare them insane… which has bad implication to us who fit few DSM-IV labels, but don’t go around killing people and declaring ourselves knights and crusaders.

So we get two messages here:

1) White people cannot be terrorists, they just carry terrorist-like attacks because they are schizo or whatnot… There is not problems of rising right-wing extremism either in Europe.

2) Crazies be dangerous.

 

So instead of addressing the societal issues, we probably should be hunting down crazies.
Another thing that I find “interesting” about this case is how fast did it calm down. Surely, there had been riots in London and it was kinda messy summer overall. And I don’t want to sound all “nobody cares about dead socialists…”. But it sort of seems, that we don’t really care about dead socialists… but the whole “Breivik is paranoid schizophrenic” (he sound pretty sane for one, as much as fucked up his perception of reality is, it is not delusional)… it takes focus of the core of the problem. That something nasty might be boiling underneath the surface in Europe. Something we all feel uncomfortable about. That we are the problem, not them immigrants or them Muslims. After all, in 20th century it was us Europeans who screwed up few times over (as much as some tried to pass it off on the Jews).

 

My friend said in comment to this event that Breivik’s ideology, when passed off on higher level, translates into genocide… and that ICTY did not give psych eval to the war criminals. And I have to agree.

Evil is evil no matter what form it takes. Be it Aryan killing in name of anti-multiculturalism. Be it Gaddafi killing protestors (some tried to pass him as insane as well). Be it a suicide bomber on Moscow’s subway, or Russians razing down Chechnyen villages. Passing it off as sign off insanity is usually trying to pretend there is not problem. And it is incredibly insulting to victims of such crimes against humanity.

Ballade for my generation

Social sciences claim
That we as humans need
something to identify ourselves with
Nations fit the concept quite well
They seem quite meaningful
It feels great
to pretend there is greatness in our DNA
And I guess
it is great we are still able to stand for something

Lately it seems
we have been seeking
for something more or just something else
We have been working so hard
for times where we can worry
about meaningless things

so….
we worry about our looks
about our bank accounts
about if our lovers really love us
about why some keep deploying nukes
when this is supposed to be Age of Aquarius
we worry about our governments
sneaking on our drunken pictures on Facebook
and that we all gonna die
and that nobody is gonna give a damn about us

we worry that there is no future
and the past was a lie
a well-crafted propaganda
they told us
and we fell for it

So… we bought this European dream
because the exchange rate was kinda good
And now we protest apathetically in the streets
Ditched the past
Looking good
but nowhere to do…
So I guess we have to find something
to keep ourselves occupied

We tried ideologies
and they failed us miserably
so we turn to drugs, God or consumerism
some of us headed to unknown places
seeking Zen or existentialism

They gave me labels
told me they will give me a purpose
But now they don’t fit anymore
now we cannot be defined
and instead of feeling free
we feel lost
Are we the problem
or did they lie to us?

They gave me words and set of theories
and told me we live in rapid times
and that should not cling to what I know too much
for tomorrow they may not be true anymore
so sometimes I am afraid
that I will wake up in the morning
with the world changed beyond recognition
I wonder
if I would be able to realize that the world has ended

Sometimes I wonder what would we do
if one day the rogues launched ICBMs on our cities
(as we are told they could do)
I am afraid
that instead of calling our loved ones
to tell them how much they mean to us
we’d hit Twitter
and complain about our incompetent governments
Would we still talk about us and them
on the Eve of Destruction?
Will we finally realize
that we almost had it all, but we just spend time looking for meaning where there was none?

We have been living
somebody else’s dreams
Trying to fit in the world
because nobody told us
upon arriving on the Planet
to make ourselves at home

I wonder when I stand by ruins of great empires
how did it feel
to live back then
How many felt they don’t belong?
How many felt it was all a lie?
How many felt that something is not right there and that things may soon come to the end?
(and in a way, they were right)

Social sciences
try to tell us
who we are and how things should be
We cling for them to answers
To make sense of our lives
To us something
to believe in and to stand for
to trace back where did things go wrong
so we can find a way back

What they don’t tells us
is look for good omens
or how to find the light….

How do we communicate? And what do we communicate?

Recently I was researching on wars in Libya and Kosovo for my thesis and a question of language and how we talk about things came to my mind.

We hardly ever wage “wars” anymore, at least not in language. We do interventions and surgical strikes and whatnot. I guess it is easier to support humanitarian interventions, as it is harder to picture people dying in them…  Wars are talked about only on Peace Marches. But the Peace People are guilty as well of using cliché laden language (and I say this as a person who has appeared on online news portal report holding a sign).

here, let’s deconstruct:

My sign says: “peace be upon this country” which is a line from a protest song from 1968.  Well, it was borrowed from Comenius writing about 30 year war. And the protest happened on November 17. So what you see it is not mere picture of a young woman holding a sign. It is a big tangled web of clichés. Or a cliché onion.

But can one talk about peace without clichés? Can one talk about war about clichés? And if we talk about things we do in clichés, how can we be sure that everything we do is not just a cliché?

Does neutral language still exist? And if it existed, wouldn’t talking about things in neutral language be desenitizing? But if we use value-laden language – we are basically communicating propaganda.

I have been reading Night Train to Lisboa which aside of other things exploits the corruption of language. I agree that languages are insufficient as a mean of communications (after all even Madonna claimed that “words are useless, especially in sentences, they don’t stand for anything, how can they explain how I feel?”). But if we reject language, what other means of communication we have? There is a need for a common, agree upon code of communication to convey a message. Is there some neutral medium?

Because visuals can be also value laden.

Let’s look at how war in Libya has been presented visually:

(aside the fact that the heart always reminded me of Eurovision

it is pretty much biased. It is almost perfect propaganda picture. And I admit, I had used this photo as my desktop for a bit. But this posed picture definitely takes sides. And I guess Tyra Banks would be impressed, because of the fierce smize).

Women with weapons are always a hot thing… and this is especially powerful… Posed? It may be possibly real.  How much does it tell about what happened? We don’t know. But it was all over the media at certain point. The narrative is quite clear and intriguing. There is not place in it for mention that Oceania was once, and not so long ago in war with Eastasia and ally of Eurasia…

 

And we have pictures of joyful victories. Much less pictures and report of post-conflict reconstruction. My problem with these pictures is that they make war look almost like some kind of street party. Which does not mean we should be showing dead bodies. But maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do a “where are they now” sequel after some time.

And pictures of desert and doom and gloom, which look almost like screen cap with high budget Hollywood war movie.

What do these have in common? They are oddly aesthetic. In a way war in Libya was what Lawrence LeShan calls a “mythological war”. There was certain glamorization and romanticization going on. We did not believe it was war to end all wars, but a lot of us (and I plead guilty in being swept into this) believed something has to be done and when it is over things will be much better for Libya… (and who knows. Maybe they will be. And I do believe it could have been much worse had the West not stepped in. But I am not here not to take sides and be neutral. After all to quote from No Man’s Land movie: “Neutrality does not exist in the face of murder. Doing nothing to stop it is, in fact, choosing. It is not being neutral”). Point here is that after years of mess in Iraq (because that stopped being attractive as early as in late 2003), there was a conflict we could watch, take sides in… and we did so joyfully.

But again… is it possible to talk about war without using clichés? How do we communicate war? Is it even moral to try to communicate it from distance? But would it be moral to be silent? And if we speak about it, what words and what language do we use? Are good intentions when communicating it enough?

Or maybe, when we teach language, we should also teach about all the layers of communication, about clichés and how they are used. Unless we all look under the surface, there is always going to be problem with communication and presenting information.

I don’t know yet what language and terminology I am going to use for my thesis. After all, I need to appropriate. But I want to look at the issue of the way arguments are presented and how they differ from the reality. Because even though rose under another name is still a rose, it is still easier to support a humanitarian intervention than to support a war. Even though people die in both. And both can get very very messy.

I am not saying that the right communication is key to world peace. But maybe if we look at the way we talk and think about things, we may sometimes notice that at the moment we are thinking in propaganda terms… and maybe we could finally perceive the situation closer to reality.