“TO GIVE VOICE TO OUR SOULS”

WARING: this is a bit of a rant, after another week of horror.

“In truth the impact of extreme grief
must stun the whole soul and impede its freedom of responses
in reaction to very bad news,
for us to be numbed,
and as our souls become paralysed from grief…
at last breaks away to give voice to our souls.”   paraphrased from Virgil

Having grown up under the knuckle of an older brother who was on the spectrum,
having to avoid his slaps, scratches and punches virtually everyday,
I learned to detest bullies.

Because of those experiences,
for me it’s easy to understand how social/political oppression,
arbitrary arrests and continual intimidation,
drive victims into grief and madness.
Thus for me, it’s easy to understand the Jewish and Israeli paranoia,
stoked by the surrounding millions of people wishing to drive them into the sea,
while knowing frustrated and oppressed young amongst them
are encouraged by Imams to sacrifice themselves
for the mythic embrace of virgins… by killing Israelis.
Thus for me it’s easy to understand that even Israeli humanists
must be driven into madness
by guilt for what their government has done and is doing to the Palestinians.

It’s also possible to see why Palestinians,
driven mad by years of prodding, torment, lost dreams and humiliation
have committed such horrendous crimes against the Israelis,
while sacrificing even their own people in the name of a crazed religious death-cult.

But I believe the Israelis are doing something more;
they are demonstrating to the Iranians and other non-state terror groups,
“you see our unforgiving revenge,
you see what we are capable of,
you see that we will bomb you into damnation,
should any of you ever touch us again.”

I am against all violence,
but I also know I am capable of it in defence of those I love.
I accept that these two things are contradictory.
I cannot explain the contradiction, nor do I wish to excuse it.
I can hold within me these opposite thoughts,
but it is none the less, inexcusable.

I and those I love wish these horrors to end now in Gaza
as well as in Ukraine; oh yes Ukraine,
the now media-ignored war.
I know that I refuse to feel the guilt which should only haunt those
who perpetuate these horrors.

Perhaps, as I have lived my life with the fear of a hunted people,
I have always believed the horror will come again.
For me, our civilizing consciousness
is only a thin veneer on the surface of our vengeful stem brain.
This is why the humanising consequences of learning and of culture are so important.

Meanwhile we are living through:
being squeezed for more taxes,
more costly fuel and food,
more welfare state austerity,
more clashes between states,
greater storms and flooding from carbon corporations,
more anti-human-rights totalitarians appearing on the public stages,   
all signs that capitalism is failing as are liberal politics.

Listen to Trump threatening revenge,
spewing his antisemitic hate against “Liberal Jews’
who are destroying Israel and the US from the inside”.
Listen to Braverman with her endless astounding evil.
Their followers, also angry and inchoate,
are responding to the hero’s emotions
and identifying with their anger and incoherence.
The content of their hero’s hate speeches is unimportant.
What counts is their hero’s ranting hatred and anger.

Statesman like dignity, calm and rationality is simply not as appealing.
Sadly, it is my experience that people find emotional rather than thoughtful responses
are more appealing and satisfying to their sense of loss and unfocused anger.

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This soullessness has crept into our lives creating an emotional chasm.
It is a place where kindness, caring and appreciation for others used to reside.
The chasm is seemingly invisible,
as a disused mineshaft in our emotional landscape.
Those with the resources* hide disruption within it, within us.

Is this melodrama?
No, it’s tragedy in which we begin in innocence
and end in horror of ourselves and/or of others.

The aspiring fascist dictators and hate driven psychopaths
lower the tone of politics and public discourse,
they despoil all that is fine and beautiful in the name of material wealth,
they demean all that is not about the individual**,
(as those who find solace in communality),
they find the weakest in society and turn them into enemies,
they smear anything that is about community as communism,
they belittle intellectuals and academics
whom they accuse of believing they are superior to the people.

While these infantile narcissists lower the bar of kindness, fairness and beauty
they raise the alarm about our safety.
Slowly, unconsciously, in our lonely darkened mineshafts
we become beholden to them,
we lose our individuality as we consume their identikit packages of ideas
which they digitally bombard us with day-by-day.  

These deficits in our needs are why the world seems so empty.
All this erosion of our deepest needs is for others to profit from.

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What do we know now?
To survive we need to remind ourselves and others of the best of us,
to hold those better things dear and to celebrate them with each other.
We need to cook and make music together,
we need to talk and laugh together.

We have few powers as individuals
but we can gain by becoming engaged in our communities,
helping others,
being appropriate and kind,
while turning our backs on their corporations,
on their divisive culture,
and by revealing truths via the arts***,
by moving people’s hearts and minds
and helping people to cement together their instincts about the status quo
with positive actions towards others and “to give voice to our souls”.

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* resources: as control over film and TV production, over the press and the internet,
over education and educational book publishing, etc

** it is a powerful driver of the establishment’ world view that if they can undermine our sense of community sufficiently, they can undermine our desire to join with others in groups, thus we turn away from the only viable defence we have as employed people to protect ourselves: we don’t join unions, we are divided and thus produce greater profits for the corporations.

*** For an example of this see the three spoke poems in my last week’s essay 
or the paintings of Ricky Romain