Who are the state coffers for?

They always have money for the war machine. The national budget's coffers are open for plundering for war and death but when it comes to making policies to protect the people from disasters and poverty, the coffers are empty. The state is asking for international help. Does it ask for international assistance to prop up its fat Army? The people are subject to constant crisis, none of their own making. International media has given more attention to Imran Khan's bail than the suffering climate-change-induced floods have inflicted on the people and, nowhere does it mention the state's failure to reach people and provide relief. We need a news cycle that holds states accountable to the people , relentlessly showing gaps. Videos on social media are heart wrenching : people , livestocks, homes, bridges and buildings are being swept away in gushing waters. Helicopters were not deployed to rescue people despite appeals. Ugly hotels that were allowed to be built on riverbanks are dissolving like sugar into the water, exposing massive corruption and lack of planning. We live in a world where profiteering and politicking overshadow everything else. States are not for the people but for concentration of total power.

Science fiction novels

I've enjoyed watching science fiction Netflix series like Altered Carbon and Dark so much that it triggered a deep desire to start reading it too. Science fiction almost seems to have even more of a burning desire to capture the human condition than other genres do, or are limited in doing. Its landscapes are limitless. 

So, I've read recently: 

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler 

Solaris by  Stanisław Lem

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Kindred blew my mind because one doesn't need to get into the book. From the first few words, one becomes absorbs headlong. With the same force that the narrator is pulled back into the past, one is wrenched brutally into the slave plantations. I finished that book in about 3 days. 

I had the utter pleasure of watching Soviet Solaris in London at the Prince Charles cinema in Leicester Square. I'd always wanted to watch it and, it was such a treat to watch it. It's a very slow film , very artistic and, even boring for the Netflix addicted minds of today. I found it hard to keep my interest in the slow camera work but I watched it and, found myself admiring the artistry and  compelling mood and atmosphere that was created in this film without any technical marvel. 

I purchased the book later and read the novel. Having watched the film,  I found myself in a familiar terrain. That is the 'convenience' of having seen a film adaptation and, then being able to rely on the visual markers imprinted in our minds and, then reading the words. 

The novel is stunning, it's so slim but it's overwhelming, the pages and pages of history of scientific exploration of Solaris. It's stunning to have lived in the space station above Solaris along with the characters who have been so affected by it and struggle to understand why. It's a profound psychological novel. 

Le Guin's work is pure masterpiece. I think I found The Dispossessed to be even more mind blowing than The Left Hand of Darkness but I bet I'll be saying that with all her works. And, she's so prolific. Her name only entered my consciousness around the time of her passing, I think, and, that too on social media. One quote came up a lot: 

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

It's interesting that one comes to know of someone only after their passing on social media. 

We did not read science fiction at school: we read important English literature. I wonder how much it has changed since then. 

The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness study patriarchy, capitalism, gender, political organisation, etc through the eyes of aliens visiting strange planets on exploration visits. These violent  and contradictory systems are seen through wholly new eyes. 

Shevek in The Dispossessed though reacts to the society on Uras in a disturbed way. One of my favourite passages is when he goes shopping on a 2-mile street and is sickened by the infinite number of useless things one can buy and some of which is more astronomical more than what a worker makes in a year. It's "nightmare street": 

And the strangest thing about the nightmare street was that none of the millions of things for sale were made there. They were only sold there. Where were the workshops, the factories, where were the farmers, the craftsmen, the miners, the weavers, the chemists, the carvers, the dyers, the designers, the machinists, where were the hands, the people who made? Out of sight, somewhere else. Behind walls. All the people in all the shops were either buyers or sellers. They had no relation to the things but that of possession.

This part struck me because that's often how I feel when I leave Monrovia to visit a big city like London where the endless variety of things one can buy is so overwhelming. Even Pakistan has become so consumerist and, one can just buy, buy, and buy provided one has enough money. How many fashion labels do we need? How many different styles of plates and glasses can one fill up one's house with? The supermarkets in London are overwhelming, even a small one. 

The conversations that Ursula writes in her novels are so tender, so powerful, so rallying! It's not merely an intellectual study of systems but also human yearnings. 

I want to say that both The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness can become reading material of feminist study circles. We can think about the systems that oppress us by reading these novels but also think about how resistance itself can become oppression. 

Good evening

Kavita wants to play with the kids in the compound and, doesn't accompany me on evening walks as much as before. So, here's me. 

 

Patrice Lumumba's tooth, Pope's apology and Academy Awards

What does Patrice Lumumba's tooth returned 60 years after his assassination by colonisers,  Pope's empty handed apology and Academy Awards apologising to Ms. Littlefeather 50 years later  have in common? Too little, too late. That the colonisers, that white systems of power exert their neo colonial power  and violence through lapsed performances of apologies that accomplish nothing but show of power. These so-called apologetic displays of power come so late without any substance, without any material compensation. They are enacted with such pomp and show that the power of the white masters , white systems remains in tact.

The headlines are "Belgium returned tooth", "Pope made apology", "Academy Awards made apology" but they tell us nothing of how the empty apologies are received and, what reparations would look like. These apologies are , I suppose, enabled by states or indigenous peoples held captive in their own lands. We don't know what outright rejection of these apologies would look like because states and, leaders of captive peoples are still beholden to these white systems in economic and military relationships. 

We know there are detractors but of course, they hardly dominate headlines. News cycles run on activities of the global order of states. 

So, these headlines do nothing beyond than celebrating the greatness of the colonial apologisers. There is such little critical interrogation of all that we are subjected to on a daily basis and, this often filters down to conversations we have amongst each other. In fact, conversations are landscapes of these very crimes of history. 

How many times is one privy to disparaging remarks about Liberian English? Apparently, expats can't understand it because it is not spoken the right way. What is the right way? If these very expats had to work in a country where the national language was the lingua franca the conversation would be entirely different. If Liberian English itself were the official language, they might still disparage it, but would be forced to contend with it. 

It's amusing how expats drop these comments in front of you, not wondering to think whether you would find it appropriate or not. In a way, I guess, it is more interesting to hear these comments and have the chance to talk about language and exchange ideas. One has a chance to teach expats from the Global North that we are not subjects of colonial languages and, although we still speak them, they no longer belong to the masters only. English doesn't belong to the English anymore! 

But then, what belongs to to who anyway? You can live and work all your life in Liberia yet the elites have made owning of property a political racial issue. So, is citizenship. After almost 20 years after the end of the civil war, parts of Monrovia look no different than they do in 2003. Electrification, water, basic infrastructure, and security are rare. If you want to have anything, pay for it privately, at a premium. Build your water harvesting system. Make deals with field LEC technicians to hook you up and then invest more in back up power. Reinforce your fence with barbed wire and put dogs in the yard. 

Nothing works around here and, I wonder about the relationship between the elites and upper middle class with the Liberian state. Typically, the system at least works for the well to do but is it working for anyone here in Monrovia? 

It's as if the state is eating itself, plundering of state funds, sheer incompetence where basic commodities are not available or priced too high, and, a direction-less future or same historical extraction of natural resources by foreign powers. 

Depressingly, the role of the pre-war and post-war Liberian elites is the same - they are plundering resources and, developing their own pockets instead of roads, industry, schools, hospitals, etc. 

I am now staying in an apartment building owned by one of the well known pre war elites, the so-called Congo. I know this building has been rented out to UN expats over the years and, by now it should be a well-maintained structure. Is it? No. It's a run down building and apartments are not even connected to the LEC.  Everything has to be done by tenants themselves. The landlord is busy extorting us funds so he can first build a penthouse first. Renovating and maintaining the building is not the priority.

Even for the sake of PR exercises, it seems the pre-war elites have nothing to show or prove in the post war Liberia. Do you see them offering or building anything that the public can benefit from? Is everyone settled in America and comes back only to collect rent? 

One sees the typical elites at social events, not hosted by them, inebriated and, I often ask myself what influence do they have left ? 

One of my Indian-Liberian community friends remarked that the Congo elite are very good at holding on to their properties. I think the Lebanese community too has copied this economic model, they have sub leased properties and are very good at holding on and extracting rents. 

What do Liberian elite - old new and non Liberian - have in common? Extract rents. 

Are we supposed to be happy just because we can return to the banalities of capitalism the next day?

I'm sorry even I'm not sorry but have to talk in this foolish self evident fashion but I love this article. Every paragraph is quotable! 

Are we supposed to be happy just because we can return to the banalities of capitalism the next day?

This is part of a broader pattern in countries that have regular elections. The idea is that we are supposed to enthusiastically vote for someone but what are we supposed to do when the system consistently yields candidates that generate no enthusiasm? If we opt out we invite a Trumpian moment that might generate unprecedented harm. You might vote him out after a term but what about the irreversible harm that is done in the interim? If we opt in are we endorsing a system that is designed to deliver kakistocracies? Is the solution mandatory voting or ranked choice voting?

Outsiders praise the Handshake as a moment that allowed Kenyans to return to capitalism without confronting the country’s political demons.

I fear this election result does not bode well for Kenya. At best it signifies that we’ve failed to teach our young population our contemporary histories. At worst we’ve made a devastating mistake. The next five years in Kenya were going to be difficult regardless of who won: The world is in a bad place and Kenya is not immune to the fallout. But it all feels rather more ominous when you think you have a bad captain steering the ship through the choppy waters.

The article is The Kenyan Kakistocracy by  Nanjala Nyabola in The Nation. 

Caught in the headlights!

There was hardly anyone on the hill today. 

What do you think of the headlights? Of the rickshaw or keke as it is called here?  

I miss you Pakistan

 Maybe because I've not taken any other citizenship and opted to pursue a life in Western countries or white settler states like Australia for a 'good life' I still have the citizenship link to my home country and carry its passport. And, maybe because of that, I still have that living breathing relationship even though I still mostly live abroad. And, somehow maybe because of that, one regularly feels homesickness, a yearning for one's country. And, it's both a sad and good feeling, to miss one's homeland.

Whimsical illustrations

I read this article Main Apni Sabse Favourite Hoon: Chronicles of an Instaspam Queen for fun. I am somehow persuaded by the idea that women can't be guilty for occupying cyberspace by sharing photos of their lives, food, clothes, moments etc. Sure, it's apolitical. Sure, it kind of reeks of elitism but is that merely my self righteous judgement? I know that everyone regardless of class likes to go online and, post events, birthdays, news. I've even had my Liberian housekeepers take photos of themselves in my home and, they enjoy centering themselves. I know it it because I'm friends with them on Facebook. Instagram is really considered dumb by self identifying intellectuals. For those who can't write. A friend on Facebook posted as much. But these platforms are what we make of them. 

I liked the illustrations: 

Trashed Mamba Point Beach

It gives me no pleasure to share such photographs but this is the trash on the Mamba Point beach. The beaches in central Monrovia have been trashed because 1) there were/are communities living right on/very close to the the beaches 2) inconsistent city garbage collection. We should be asking for: Ban plastics. Clean up beaches. Create recycling opportunities. And, be transparent on garbage collection and waste disposal. What's happening with landfills? Are they sustainably being managed?

The answer is no. See this piece Suffering Silently in Whein Town. 

Greys and blues

We made a little detour to see the ocean in today's evening walk. Gives me no pleasure to show the beach trash but it's hard to look away and pretend it's not there. 

The colours in the photographs are greys and blues. 

We are enjoying the cool rainy season and its moods and colours. 

Kavita loves making a pose, standing on one leg, with the other stretched upwards, behind her. I think she's mastered it. I love the sense of satisfaction she gets when she makes this pose. 

My living room

 

Mood

Pakistani women are more protected than women in the West?

Although Imran Khan has back tracked a bit and agreed that a rape victim should not be blamed herself, he makes the statement that Pakistani women are still more protected and respected than in the so-called West. Needless to say, the relentless comparisons to the so-called West when discussing patriarchy and feminism cannot be made with such convenient broad brushstrokes. I've seen the same being done by progressives that somehow patriarchy is less violent and less shitty in the West. This is insulting to the struggles of women living in advanced , prosperous countries, our former colonial masters. Not only do immigrant women from former colonised lands face layers and layers of racism and misogyny but we have also the struggles of indigenous women that we can't obliterate just because it suits the vehemence of our feelings with the slaughter of Pakistani women. "Say her name"! There are women from every background, class, race who face violence in the West. Patriarchy is older than capitalism and the modern state! Let's not forget, they burned women as witches in Europe just a few hundred years ago. So, what is Imran Khan essentially trying to say ? Let's read between the lines: he means that our religion protects women, gives them a respected status. Those who commit violence against women will be punished yes , when the state is finally rallied to take action against criminals. But, we cannot lose faith (pun intended) in our culture, in our religion that gives women a certain status. So, unpack that if you really want to understand what the condition of Pakistan women is.