the algebra of infinite justice

this isn't the first time i've read this essay, because i remember:

In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of the country), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends. [ more ]

there is a forwarded email i read today that said arundhati roy refused india's top literary prize because the country remained loyal to principles she wrote against. [ more ]

although she won major western awards, like the booker and the sydney peace prize, some of her most interesting critics come from her own background - indian. some of them say she's not really all that as a writer. (i wonder which writers they consider are good. but then again, their works might be in languages i can't read, like urdu.)

i suppose that's what happens when you gain recognition in the west. not because her countrymen were envious of her awards. but that maybe because she wrote in english, she herself catered to the western ideal instead of her own indian.

there's still discussion about colonialism in india, and because many indian writers in english are recognized - salman rushdie, v.s. naipaul - maybe the ideas on colonialism and just what havoc it's wrecked on the indian psyche is buried somewhere in an essay written in urdu, that got buried in a pile of other words waiting to be translated.

i'm amazed at the south asians. surely, it's all ghandi's fault.

my friend and i were talking earlier this year and she said that there's just something wrong about filipinos. we're probably as poor as india, but there's nothing in this world strong enough to stamp out our optimism. our academe is comprised of MA and PhD holders from prestigious western universities. and yet we're known as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. we have the freest press in the region, at the cost of journalists, killed by the handful every year.

my friend and i can't figure it out because we're too close to the action. we talked about how great some friends of hers are starting schools and projects to help the poor in manila, and she concluded that we can't contribute because we live here, and not there.

i'm trying not to compare us too much with the south asians, because our colonial past is linked with the u.s., and not the u.k.

but i think too much naval gazing has something to contribute to that over 100 years of speaking, reading and writing english, we still have yet to produce a thinker like roy, rushie and naipaul. our writers like to pour over reams and reams of pages that cry poor us, we're lost in a cold land, alone, and we can't live without family and friends, so i guess that's why we always look for friends and family first, but then so overbearing our self-gazing is, we've hurt ourselves, and the presence of someone to give us relief feels so good, i think i shall extend my rest for now. we somehow then refuse to move further, even if we're given all the chances to excel.

the ideal of siesta in the middle of the workday. and that we can't work by ourselves, we like doing things with people.

my friend and i came up that it was 20 years of repression of the press that did it - marcos' control of the press.

a friend of mine currently works for ABS-CBN. i've never been to her offices, but with the way she shared her experience, i imagine thick, impenetrable walls several feet high capped by shapr barbed wire, with armed guards posted every several feet or so. she said that during mass riots, the first thing that their office building does is lock off all the gates, turn on an alarm system, and no one gets to leave or visit the office complex until after the rioting ends.

she says this is the case because the first thing that rioters will do, if they want to throw off the government, is to control the media. this is is how scary my country is. this is how gutsy the media are, to even want to work in the field in the first place.

and i dunno - the writing's not all that bad, actually. there are embarrassing pockets, but you have to wonder if that's because the story is the way it is, or if the writing is the way it is.

the way i see it, this suppression of the press in the 1970s and 80s had wrecked incalculable havoc in the filipino's communication psyche. when the media opened in the 90s, i was still in grade school, but i don't recall the media being any more loud than they already were before.

a new public television station opened, channel 4, "the people's station." corazon aquino gave weekly speeches, and she always wore yellow, her campaign color. i wondered if this is what it meant, that the media reopened, if it meant that we now support and should listen to aquino and just aquino.

i can't imagine what life was like during marcos' regime, i was too young. but i remember that western products dominated most of the media i consumed. later, TV shows like batibot came out, but they were such great copies of sesame street. i thought that if it copied what came first to me, that is, a western product, then the philippine product is an excellent substitute.

and so, i suppose, this is why young people here in the u.s. don't see the need to return to the philippines to even just romp around the clubs and visit. they'll have many of the same in the philippines, which strives to copy everything western given them. copying what came first is best, and what came first was western. why trade a copy when you can have the original?

i blog from chicago. i know i'm wrong on several counts. i'm also writing from memory, from when 1986 when marcos and his family finally fled the country and aquino had no choice but to take over. many of us who witnessed the first EDSA revolution are now old enough to contribute and change tides in the homeland, but young enough still that we still need guidance and we still like to have fun. writers here have raised the question, we've been writing for 100 years, where's the great filipino novel?

others have asked, where are the great filipino readers who will point to this great filipino novel?

i think they're still themselves only realizing that, for the country to thrive, for the country to improve and move forward, for the country to heal from wounds she didn't know she had, she must first read. read, and then teach effectively. and then discuss openly, unabashedly, completely.

of course girls shouldn't be too loud about these things, it'll scare all the boys off. of course boys are entitled to their own opinions, and they should be encouraged to say so. but if both boys and girls carry on like this, they'll just end up rattling many, many more of the same. and then we'll still end up with a country unable even to accurately, honestly, blog their own thoughts out.

in the meantime, i want to consider roy's controversial book of essays. some writers in new york city are considering putting up a literary festival sometime this year, i hope it happens. i keep on comparing my images of that festival with a south asian one i've attended late last year, and i should stop. filipinos are just as capable. and... possibly... much more talented. ;-)