the cassandra pages

Deluge

As you've probably read or seen in the news, Montreal and Quebec are in the throes of a student protest that has drawn hundreds of thousands of demonstrators into the streets for more than 100 days. I've been wanting to write about this for you but it's such a complicated tangle of issues, an history, that I haven't yet found the time to do the subject justice in words. But it's still my intention, especially since many of the foreign news reports I've seen seem pretty far off the mark. On Saturday night Jonathan and I went out at 11:00 pm and joined the march as it went through our neighborhood: it was quite an experience. This video will give you the flavor of what's been going on:

 

 

Meanwhile, I'm working on my community garden, between thunderstorms, and on the next title forthcoming from Phoenicia, Claudia Serea's Angels & Beasts, a three-part collection of surrealistic prose poems from a very gifted Romanian-American author -- the book will be coming out in September.

Sunday, Pentecost, was another all-day affair for us singers, and full of fabulous music: a contemporary mass setting by Jonathan Dove in the morning, and some wonderful music by Herbert Howells in the afternoon. Between the two services and rehearsals, I helped facilitate a discussion within the cathedral community about the protests, our history, and our city, and what - if anything - we might offer as a response.

Yesterday I was pretty tired! But in the late afternoon we went to Pépinière Jasmin, up on Henri-Bourassa toward the western side of Montreal island, and I bought some plants...a white anemone, some delphinium and achillea, a hosta, and a hardy yellow rose, along with a bag of fumier de lapin: composted rabbit manure, highly recommended by the staff and apprently quite potent. And early this morning, after being woken at dawn by huge thunderclaps and then a torrential downpour, I went to the garden and worked...and worked...while the skies cleared, the earth rapidly heated up, and everybody and everything (including that rabbit manure) began to steam. Now, in the late afternoon, the skies have gotten absolutely black and the rain is starting again.

It's time, I think, to go home and pour a glass of wine.

Writing about War

Roman Skaskiw, who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has written several thoughtful pieces about his experiences for the New York Times. He has an essay there today in the "Home Fires" series that the paper has been running about Iraq. Titled "Narrative Memory at War," Skaskiw writes about the fact and fiction of war narratives, and why they come down to us in the forms that they do. It's a good piece, well worth reading, and I appreciated his comments on two of our most ancient war narratives as he probes the curious line between hero and victim, and the mixed motives of participants and chroniclers of war:

While I like the spare granting of hero or victim status in “The Iliad,” I’d be kidding myself to think it isn’t also a whitewashing — propaganda even — for the Greeks. Unglamorous labors are merely alluded to, while excessive descriptions of bloody, glorious combat go on for pages.

My favorite war narrative is Thucydides’s “History of the Peloponnesian War.” The two-and-half-millennium-old narrative does not ignore selfish pettiness, opportunism, false bravado, naïve adventure seeking, and is more familiar to me than many accounts of our wars being peddled today.

Reading Further

For those who would like to read some alternative analyses of the conflict in Gaza, here are a few recent links. These are less focussed on the reporting of specific incidents, and more on political analysis; several speak to the grave challenge facing the new U.S. President.

William Pfaff, "Who's in Charge - Obama, the Pentagon, or Israel?", (Truthdig)

William Pfaff, "The Drama of Reciprocal Self-Destruction," (Truthdig)

Rami Khouri, "Obama's Pro-Israel Congressional Welcome." (Daily Star, Beirut )

Chris Hedges, "The Language of Death," (Truthdig) (Many readers may find the first few paragraphs of this article over-the-top - Hedges, who was a Middle-East and war reporter for many years, is very much on the side of the Palestinians and in deep distress about current events. But his analysis of the internal political realities is astute and his connections in the Israeli media are deep and longstanding. He used to work for The New York Times but now can only get published in the alternative press.)

This week's Ekklesia newsletter (a liberal Christian newsletter from Britain) is devoted to this subject, from a religious perspective.

(My thanks to M.H. for most of these links.)

So the year slides to its end in the calm silence of these icy northern nights, and in crushing violence -- this year in the Middle East. Is it any wonder the stories we recite have become sentimentalized fables, as removed from the original text's setting of Roman oppression, militarism, and human poverty as our modern Christmas pageant creche scenes, acted out by children wearing homemade white wings and fake-fur sheep's ears, are from what our own governments and taxes now support in the lands of those poor shepherds? In spite of the Gospel message of peace, reconciliation between peoples, and an end to treating anyone as "less" or "other", we have 2000 years of intervening human history to show just how much we've learned.

So I've felt depressed and discouraged these last few days, by the news itself, and the way it's being reported in North America, and the lack of first-hand accounts. Is there indeed any cure for "our warring madness?" For all of human history we've seen wars waged, and disproportionate violence committed against the weak by the strong, in order to "stop violence" and teach rebellious subjects a lesson. Instead both the combattants become more vulnerable, more angry, more vindictive and bent on revenge - especially when young men on both sides watch their mothers, wives, old fathers and young children die, and proud and stubborn older men continue to hold the reins of power. I am a woman, and I suffer with all my sisters, on every side of every conflict; I have grown intensely weary of male anger and its effects.

Christmas and holiday cards arrive from far-flung friends, many expressing hope that Obama will truly represent change. I share their hope, but I am skeptical -- or rather, I think I'm realistic about what this good, decent, talented man will be able to achieve.

So I sit here, near a beautiful little Christmas tree shining with lights, and look out at the dark night, wondering about my own life and the use I've made of it. What have I done with the talents left in my safe-keeping? This is not the happiest thing to be pondering as yet another year slips away, but I'm afraid I'm apt to do it at least once during this season, worn down by too much holiday partying, too little sleep, and Montreal's bitter winds and brief days. For a time, I allow myself to tearfully miss my mother and the naive, carefree holidays of my childhood. I recite a bitter litany of personal griefs; seethe helplessly at the waste and violence of our societies and my part in it; deplore my own failures and weaknesses, my concessions and compromises.

And then I start to pull myself up, to face the new year rightly.

Thank you for being my companions, willing to share the days as they come and to read my attempts to write of them. Happy New Year, Bonne année. May we help each other to live it wholly, honestly, creatively, and with joy.