the cassandra pages

On the Identity of Thieves

"The proposal was this: if Liebard would help him clear the overgrown fields beside the house and clarify the lawns under the full-branched chestnut trees, then he and his family were welcome to stay on that land for as long as they desired. Lucien would sign any formal document if Liebard wished, but Liebard waived that possibility. He disapproved of putting pen to paper - that and excessive dialogue had always got him into trouble in the past. And while they were talking, in a footnote to the conversation, Liebard announced that he was relinquishing the name he'd been using, and was now taking the name Astolphe.

Within an hour the boy, who was used to these changes, was calling his father Astolphe. Lucien realized the man used names like passwords, all of them within a brief life span. But this time the thief wished that he had owned the name earlier in his life. He spent the first day imagining moments from his past when he could have been "Astolphe," when he might have behaved and participated with more ease and subtlety just for having the epaulette of such a name...The thief liked the sound of the name, its aftereffect, its airiness, with a hint of an echo. With such a name it would almost be possible for this thickset man to turn into a three-ounce bird or a subtle grammatical form.

...The name Astolphe appeared in the sixteenth-century Orlando Furioso. How had this man come across it? Would he have stolen such a book in the past -- did thieves even steal books? How did he gather such things into his pockets?"

Michael Ondaatje,  Divisadero

Imagine

Jon and Yoko's "Bed-In" for world peace; 30 years ago, Montreal. (video clip from the CBC.) This poster is from the Musee des Beaux-Arts' current commemorative exhibit.

Here's another vintage clip, also from the CBC, of the press interviewing John and Yoko after their meeting with Pierre Trudeau (the first 30 seconds are silent.)

If you haven't seen The United States vs. John Lennon, you should. If you were alive at the time, it will take you right back. If not, it will show you what it was really like. (I still can't see Nixon or Kissinger on the screen without wanting to scream.)

War is Sin

I never thought I'd see an American president, with a Muslim name, receiving a standing ovation in Cairo before giving a major policy speech containing positive, hopeful language and never once mentioning terrorism -- but today it happened.  Early reaction from the Muslim world has been generally positive, though some people have mentioned the lack of concrete ideas, and have said that actions speak louder than words. I think perhaps Arabs cannot quite understand what a departure this is, and how much Obama is bucking the tide, especially in his firm determination about Israel and Palestine. He's proving how stubborn and courageous he is, and I wish him all the stamina in the world - he's going to need it.

Now, a look at the cost of war from a spiritual perspective, but one which, I suspect, underlies Obama's thinking:

“In theological terms, war is sin,” writes Mahedy." (William P. Mahedy, a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam, is the author of “Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets") “This has nothing to do with whether a particular war is justified or whether isolated incidents in a soldier’s war were right or wrong. The point is that war as a human enterprise is a matter of sin. It is a form of hatred for one’s fellow human beings. It produces alienation from others and nihilism, and it ultimately represents a turning away from God.”

The young soldiers and Marines do not plan or organize the war. They do not seek to justify it or explain its causes. They are taught to believe. The symbols of the nation and religion are interwoven. The will of God becomes the will of the nation. This trust is forever shattered for many in war. Soldiers in combat see the myth used to send them to war implode. They see that war is not clean or neat or noble, but venal and frightening. They see into war’s essence, which is death.

War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society’s institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god.

Chris Hedges, "War is Sin," in TruthDig

It's good to see that Chris Hedges, former Vermonter, NY Times war correspondent, graduate of Yale Divinity School, and the author of "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," has finally cut to the chase and said exactly what he thinks of war. Exposing the hypocritical collusion between religion and political power is critical (even in Canada "Remembrance Day" is still observed, acting out in tear-jerking liturgy the formalized relationship between the Church, the military, and the heroic dead). But until the day when the message changes from every pulpit, as well as all the other religious and quasi-religious speaking platforms used to rally people and troops behind war-mongering governments, human beings will continue to believe in national exceptionalism, and use religion to justify war and view the death of soldiers as a heroic act. This is not to say - and Chris makes this point - that all wars and all killing are unjustified. But I suggest that we listen to the veterans Chris speaks of here, and see if their post-war God is also ours.

"Mahedy tells of a soldier, a former altar boy, who says to him: 'Hey, Chaplain ... how come it’s a sin to hop into bed with a mama-san but it’s okay to blow away gooks out in the bush?'' ...“How is it that a Christian can, with a clear conscience, spend a year in a war zone killing people and yet place his soul in jeopardy by spending a few minutes with a prostitute? If the New Testament prohibitions of sexual misconduct are to be stringently interpreted, why, then, are Jesus’ injunctions against violence not binding in the same way? In other words, what does the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ really mean?”

I've always been driven crazy by this same thing, as old as Abrahamic religion itself, but taken to new heights by the puritans and their evangelical heirs, as well as Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists: the idea that sex (even between people who love each other but aren't in a church-sanctioned state of heterosexual matrimony) can send you to hell, but violence in the name of the Lord is perfectly OK. I would like to turn Mahedy's question back to every member of the clergy and every apologist for every religion, in particular to those Bible-toting Congresspersons outraged by Janet Jackson's breast, or gay marriage, but voting happily for funds that rain bombs on children, or send young poor kids into war: just what does "thou shalt not kill" actually mean to you?

When Obama speaks about every single child having a right to a future, that is an answer. To reiterate Chaplain Mahedy's comment: "...war as a human enterprise is a matter of sin. It is a form of hatred for one’s fellow human beings." The fact that war has existed as long as our species itself is not exactly cause for optimism, but we still must believe -- and act as if it is possible -- to eradicate this worst manifestation of our tendency toward territoriality, competition, power, and revenge.

I don't talk much about sin; like "evil," it's not a word I find useful or helpful. But in this case I agree with the simple point of saying, "this kind of killing is wrong and we must do everything to avoid it," as well as Obama's (to me, astonishing) refusal to engage in the "eye-for-an-eye" rhetoric that has blighted the heritage and perverted the essential message of all three Abrahamic religions, and given the word "terrorism" and "terrorist" so much weight, regardless of which side wields the word, the stone, or the bomb.

Scanning

The man on the courtyard scanned the upper floors of the skyscraper-- with binoculars, I thought, maybe he`s looking for peregrines. Then I realized it was a video camera; he was shooting some video of the black faces of the Mies van de Rohe building known as Westmount Square, a landmark here but so starkly international in style that I find it sterile, both inside and out.

The peregrines were a good guess, though; the endangered falcons have been nesting on Montreal`s bridges and tall building for a long time, under the watchful eyes of migratory bird researchers.

I had ridden my bike over to Westmount in the middle of the morning, slowed by the endless construction around Concordia University that constricted the bike path down to one dangerous lane and spewed mud and debris all over the street. Coming home I went down St. Catherine instead, making several stops, first at the Iranian grocery where I bought two folded half-moons of fresh laham-bi-ajeen, and a box of Ahmad English Tea No. 1, teabags rather than loose tea, which is J.`s favorite, after some pleasant conversation with the old proprietor, who always sits behind his counter wearing a sweater under a worn suit jacket, his kindly face breaking into a smile when I say hello and hand him my purchases. "Some sun today, at last!" I told him, and he turned away from the boxes of halal chicken bouillon and henna on the counter to look out the window on this day which is probably, for him, just like any other day. "Yes!" he sighed, letting his shoulders heave and settle, and gracing me with another of his slow gentle smiles. "No more rain for a while!"

After that I bought myself a cup of coffee and a muffin, and sat reading Ondaatje in a cafe armchair for twenty minutes before heading east again. Going up the hill to Sherbrooke, just below the blocks that house the fine-arts museum and high-rent galleries and clothing shops, I noticed this storefront, nestled inbetween imposing wrought-iron fences, and thought I'd have to go back some day when it was open:

("Frigo" is informal French-Canadian for refrigerator, or "fridge," and "vert", of course, is "green." I liked the bilingual signage!)

That's what I love about this city: it's all mixed up. Within a few blocks you've got Mies van de Rohe, Iranian immigrants running little groceries that could have been plucked from the streets of Tehran, radical student collectives, museums with carved friezes that would be at home in London, a lifesize Chinese horse in a gallery window, Inuit carvings, $350 pairs of shoes and thousand-dollar dresses, and $3 lunches at al-Taib's middle eastern buffet.

I worry that the edge is off my vision, though, that I'm neither looking nor seeing as much as I did when I first came here. Maybe that's inevitable, but I hope not.