junge de luxe:: arteries blu

Sunday, July 31

I fell out of love: that's our story's dull ending,
as flat as life is, as dull as the grave.
Excuse me -- I'll break off the string of this love song
and smash the guitar. We have nothing to save.

The puppy is puzzled. Our furry small monster
can't decide why we complicate simple things so --
he whines at your door and I let him enter,
when he scratches at my door, you always go.

Dog, sentimental dog, you'll surely go crazy,
running from one to the other like this --
too young to conceive of an ancient idea:
it's ended, done with, over, kaput. Finis.

Get sentimental and we end up by playing
the old melodrama, "Salvation of Love."
"Forgiveness," we whisper, and hope for an echo;
but nothing returns from the silence above.

Better save love at the very beginning,
avoiding all passionate "nevers," "forevers;"
we ought to have heard what the train wheels were shouting,
"Do not make promises!" Promises are levers.

We should have made note of the broken branches,
we should have looked up at the smokey sky,
warning the witless pretensions of lovers --
the greater the hope is, the greater the lie.

True kindness in love means staying quite sober,
weighing each link of the chain you must bear.
Don't promise her heaven -- suggest half an acre;
not "unto death," but at least to next year.

And don't keep declaring, "I love you, I love you."
That little phrase leads a durable life --
when remembered again in some loveless hereafter,
it can sting like a hornet or stab like a knife.

So -- our little dog in all his confusion
turns and returns from door to door.
I won't say "forgive me" because I have left you;
I ask pardon for one thing: I loved you before.

Saturday, July 23

James Blunt

On a completely different track, James Blunt's album - Back to Bedlam - absolute rocks. I so dig the songs on this album... every. single. one. of. them.

Depression

It has been a month of strange bittersweet-ness as an adopted Londoner: the initial (short-lived) Olympic madness, the subsequent terrorist mess, and a bizarre wackiness of this mixture of sublime joy and horrid angst.

A budding terror – that’s what it is.

Depressing isn’t it – this horror on the streets, the edginess, the mourning, the weeping, the grief, and the realisation that it isn’t over. There is no easy synthesis; no plausible explanation; no sensible prediction. They say that life must go on. We can’t stay holed up. There’s an urgent need to defy and to win this reckless war.

But how does one win a war against terrorism? It’s easier where there’s some degree of calculated risk. Insurance companies know the drill by heart. Where fundamentalism is concerned, however, the predominant factors of control and prediction – normal parasites of risk – no longer act as indispensable constraints. It’s a dreadful thought: a game where the rules are as discerning as they are indistinct; an ideal that arises most pervasively to confront the world and life as we know it to be; a proactive reaction that perpetuates odious acts; a masked group of self-proclaimed victims and defenders of a faith which carries out orders of naked aggression and massacres in compliance with incomprehensible fanaticism - the uneducated young subscribing to, and falling for, such brainwashing.

It’s a pretentious thing, this religious fundamentalism. A fad that takes over the minds of those that engage in these acts against humanity with impunity. Is this not fundamentalism at its worst – as an excess that completely denies reality and disregards life; an ideal that is totally dependent on the whims of human nature, power, and contradiction.

And I hate it. I completely abhor fundamentalism of all sorts. Fundamentalism works on a lack of true understanding, and is oiled by an inability to rationalise. It reduces the word credibility to an all time low. Fundamentalists are like tunnel rats. They can’t see the light from different angles; everything looks straight. They breed in socially backward societies, thriving on insular concepts that are closed, racist, almost chauvinistic, passive obedience, feudalism, and fascist intolerance.

I find myself increasingly intolerant of extremist behaviour and ideals. Now, at the age of 25, I am beginning to re-evaluate what is important to me – what I think is worth fighting for or against. I have little (and shrinking) patience for religious or moral propaganda. You live your life. I live mine. My life is my creation and my responsibility. On many occasions, I have felt that Christians and Muslims alike are a bit too quick and hasty to pass judgment upon those whose viewpoints differ from theirs, especially where non-believers and dissenting views are concerned. Critical discernment of rational argument vis-à-vis taking the morality high ground within an ivory tower that rests upon hypocrisy, minimal thought maximal (and bloody conservative) belief, and rock hard stubbornness. As a lawyer, I find this particularly distasteful. And wrong.

In a sense, it is not difficult to appreciate why the existence of morality, the code of values each of us uses to decide on the choices and actions we make, is vitally relevant to our lives. In an age where the moral and legal order assumes no minimum moral consensus and appreciates moral pluralism and relativism in the field of legal consciousness, and amidst an atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion that extends even to the most basic values of human life, conflicting opinions about abortion, surrogate motherhood, homosexuality and most recently of torture and genetic engineering with the human embryo exemplify such moral perplexity. Eternal quibbling over these matters is surely a permanent fixture. But there are mainstream responses and fundamentalist responses. This is primarily a realisation that no one’s perfect; no one’s infallible; no one’s completely right. There are always divisions within any interpretation. Your vision is but one embodiment of this realisation.

For all this waffling, I think I am at a crossroad in my life. I am increasingly taking a view (though clearly not enough) of the matters that I recognise as incredibly important to me and I am increasingly willing to speak up. And I suppose there is something poignant about that as I have always been a fence-sitter: a moderate force that tries to complement and accommodate. I suppose there's another side to all this. Ori mentioned over messenger last week about how I am too complicated a person. “If I were to date you, you would be an intellectual challenge, which is very nice however at the same time might cause me a headache.” Apparently, I think too much. Frightening, isn’t it. Understandably, being complicated is a turn off. I hate drama. I hate soppiness. No one likes complication. Simple's good. It gives a straight road in life without any fudgyness of a directional choice.

But is that ideal? What would life be if everything was straight? Boring. What I dig is intelligent discourse. I’ve never been afraid to be wrong. You pick yourself up and there are things to learn throughout the process. What I do dislike, is passive agreement, which gets you nowhere and is in fact as dangerous as being wrong in the first place. I like confident people who negotiate their path in life. Mindlessness is such a disease. I’ve discovered, however, that looking stupid is a far better alternative as a means to an end vis-à-vis being terribly clever and terrifying people – the insecure sort that gets threatened by excessive and ostensible intelligence. It’s a desolate landscape for some, but no less uninhabited. I waffle sometimes.

Friday, July 8

7 July 2005: this terrorist problem

Nuff' said

Hats off to London and Londoners. It's the spirit of the Blitz all over again. This oft-quoted English tradition, the stiff upper lip, is as impressive as is the stoicism you see around the city as people go back to work and resume their life. In a sense, we have had IRA bombs since the 70s. Why should we let the buggers interfere with our lives? It's business as usual, or else terrorism succeeds.

A group linked to Al Qaeda have claimed responsibility. I quote:

"In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him.

Nation of Islam and Arab nation: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist Crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.

We have repeatedly warned the British Government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid.

We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the Crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused.

God says: "You who believe: If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly."

The fools. Britain is certainly not burning with fear, terror and panic. If anything we are burning with wrath and rage. This terrorist fad will learn that nations will not tolerate fundamentalism inasmuch as we do not tolerate bigotry, racism, sexism and religious intolerance.

So it seems that the Al Qaida or a wannabe branch of the main group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. This surge of violent fundamentalism in the Muslim world will have repercussions. The rise of distrust breeds contempt and a lack of true understanding, as people become embroiled in the sensationalist ideas propagated by the media in favour of sensible ideals.

Despicable and hypocritical comes into mind when you read a message that quotes words from the Koran and the blessings of Muhammad in a warning that includes violence, murder and hatred and inspires fellow Muslims with misguided words of bravery, honour or morality within that context.

From what I’ve learnt of the Al Qaida, we can trace their origin back to the time of the 4th Caliph Ali. They rebelled against his rule, and eventually assassinated him. Those familiar with Islamic history would know it was the death of Ali that lead to the cataclysmic divide between sunni and shia (as to who was to succeed to the caliphate). At the time they were known as the ‘khawarij’ (‘those that left’ in arabic’). They twisted Islamic law in two major ways: 1. they considered that when ordinary people commit major sins their blood becomes permissible, and 2. armed insurrection and rebellion against the rulers was permitted. Retreating to the hills, the cowards have been fighting a rearguard action against anyone they consider too moderate for 1400 years. They occasionally make a comeback when things get tough in the Muslim world (as in today when virtually all Muslim countries are police states that persecute their own population). They are true extremists that simply do not consider innocent people ‘innocent’ for their warped logic.

It is hard not to wonder how ordinary Muslims really feel about seeing atrocities committed in the name of Islam. Do they feel a personal or religious affront, or conversely do they feel grudging fraternity for the perpetrators? Or are they, as I suspect, as melancholy, sad, confused, and slightly detached as the rest of us are?

I do not dislike Muslims, even if I do find some of their ideologies harsh and unconvincingly hypocritical, a personal belief which encroaches almost every religion, including Christianity and the Catholic Church. What I find most disagreeable about the current state of affairs is the lack of universal condemnation amongst the clerics and Muslim people of the world, in light of the attacks. To say you do not agree with the ideology behind the attacks is not enough. To condemn the attacks and then follow on with a proviso that "hey, you guys asked for it" does not, in my humble opinion, go far enough. It's like a little spurt of electricity that lights up a bulb for a momentary lapse before retreating to a safe, dark point. One cannot condemn and then justify. At the end of the day, you hurt yourself with the lack of integrity and the half-heartedness of your words. Because the terrorists will bend your words to their advantage and in their continued attempts to sully the name of Islam.

In the words of a letter from London to the terrorists:

What the fuck do you think you're doing?

This is London. We've dealt with your sort before. You don't try and pull this on us.

Do you have any idea how many times our city has been attacked? Whatever you're trying to do, it's not going to work.

All you've done is end some of our lives, and ruin some more. How is that going to help you? You don't get rewarded for this kind of crap.

And if, as your MO indicates, you're an al-Qaeda group, then you're out of your tiny minds.
Because if this is a message to Tony Blair, we've got news for you. We don't much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We'll deal with that ourselves. We're London, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.

And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub.

So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city.