Go to WHO IS THIS GUY CALLED ARIEL?
- Add a comment
- Go to WAR AND REMEMBRANCE. FAMINE WAR AND DEATH. NOW, IN OUR TIME
Tel, I didn't notice it actively, but it did sink in under the whole effect
of the piece. Not reading today's yet, but it looks like a meaty tome.
posted by
_dave_says_ack_
on November 10, 2006 at 2:12 AM
| link to this | reply
Tio David
Thank you, amigo
I do like to end with a dramatic last line/paragraph.
Did you like the juxtaposition of prettiness with brutality?
el Tel
posted by
ariel70
on November 9, 2006 at 10:45 AM
| link to this | reply
Tel, the last line is the most powerful.
posted by
_dave_says_ack_
on November 9, 2006 at 10:40 AM
| link to this | reply
Tonyzonit
Thanks for your long, thoughtful and insightful comment.
I have long believed that there is no such thing as progress in human affairs, for while there may have been quantum leaps in science, medicine and technology, what you gain on crap table you lose at roulette.
I also have to thank you for unwittingly giving me a little mental prod! I'd forgotten that I'd intended to post a piece soon about what I see as really hopeful signs of the wall of our callous indifference to the plight of the Third World being breached.
I shall get on it soon, and I hope it'll be a little light relief from this present mini-series of remmbrance.
Thanks again,
el Tel
posted by
ariel70
on November 9, 2006 at 5:15 AM
| link to this | reply
Ariel, your writtings are welcome
posted by
Chilitree
on November 9, 2006 at 5:11 AM
| link to this | reply
Nautikos
Thank you for your long comment.
The world ... well, more particularly the flabby EU stood by while the genocide in the Balkans went on. And Rwanda was even worse ; an unforgivable example of utter disregard for the lives and welfare of poor Africans.
it was a disgrace that will taint us for generations to come ; to say nothing of the appalling message that it gives to the world.
Well, what do the lives of a few hundred thousand Rwandans mean, anyway? What are a few more, or fewer African limbs lopped off with machetes? We've got better things to worry about, haven't we? Like who's boffin' who in the film world.
posted by
ariel70
on November 9, 2006 at 5:10 AM
| link to this | reply
Marieclaire
Thank you. High praise indeed!
I'm sorry if the graphic nature of my poem upset you, but you know that one must write what one feels.
posted by
ariel70
on November 9, 2006 at 5:03 AM
| link to this | reply
Chilitree
PS. Perhaps you'll let me know how you feel, when it crystalises in your mind. I'm sure that many others would be interested too.
posted by
ariel70
on November 9, 2006 at 5:02 AM
| link to this | reply
Chilitree
How wonderful! That's exactly why I write posts like this one ; to force people to think about the abuses in the world.
Please don't misunderstand me, this is in now way a criticism of you or anyone else, but we all become so engrossed in the ninutiae of our own lives that remembrance slips away all unnoticed.
Without making our lives miserable, we must remember ; and speak out loud and clear.
It will make a difference in time.
posted by
ariel70
on November 9, 2006 at 5:00 AM
| link to this | reply
I have no words
but I want you to know that I have read your post and it is causing something to brew in my deepest heart ... perhaps a little later I will have translated it into words.
posted by
Chilitree
on November 9, 2006 at 12:07 AM
| link to this | reply
heart wrenching display of dispair...
this is truly a beautiful poem, pity it has to depict such tragic side of life. Your poem is haunting...I cannot handle this very well, your poem, it sets me off again. but i do want to read it because it speaks to me and I really mean it it is beautiful.
posted by
marieclaire66
on November 8, 2006 at 11:55 PM
| link to this | reply
ariel,
A great post, another poem that grips me. But what else can I say in response? That to fully open oneself to the human misery on this globe, to the epidemics, famines, wars and genocidal slaughter, to that hoof-beat of the horsemen, is to bleed to death?
I remember reading Romeo Dallaire’s book Shake Hands with the Devil.
Dallaire was our Canadian General in charge of the UN mission to Rwanda in ’93, to deal with a situation that showed all the signs of developing into a catastrophe. And a catastrophe it became!
He failed! Not because of any personal shortcomings, but because of the UN and the rest of the world. In ’94, approximately 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered in the span of a hundred days. Not even the Nazis managed to destroy life at that prodigious rate! Dallaire came home later in ’94, very close to suicide because did not prevent what was not preventable. That is to say, not preventable because he had been given neither the means nor the authority to prevent it.
Several years later I found myself one day in a Toronto area high school. It was a time when fashion dictated to teenaged girls that they had to wear sweaters with excessively long arms, covering their hands, always interfering with their note-taking. This was a class of only girls, taking a theatre course, a delightful group, with that graceful stalkiness of fawns. Among them, cheerful, with flashing eyes and a gorgeous smile a little black girl, wearing that same kind of long-armed sweater, and having a bit of a problem with her bag. And, half-jokingly I said to the teacher “Now look at that! Why doesn’t she use her hands?” And she turned to me and said “She doesn’t have hands! They got hacked off with a machete! She’s from Rwanda!”
posted by
Nautikos
on November 8, 2006 at 7:07 PM
| link to this | reply
Hi Terry
Just read the last five or so pieces. You've been busy. All good, thought-provoking stuff. I like your approach to the Darfur situation. It is a way of contrasting crocodile tears with the suffering of those unfortunates. I don't know what the answers are. Well I do, but I don;t think the human race is up to it yet. It's not, however, as simple as helping the current poor and suffering - I know you'll agree - it's also planning in order to reduce the future recurrence of these situations. The United Nations and the League of Nations were ttempts to do this, but they have been the victims of that very same selfishness we are all so conscious of. And the terrible thing is that that same selfishness is what mainly motivates us towards progress. The two are inherently intertwined like strands of DNA. If we all abandoned materialism, the drive for better medicines, food production, gadgetry etc would atrophy and we would in effect revert to our pre-industrial lifestyle. Fine, but the old brute nature of man still existed then. It is that that we have to eradicate. How do we do that? All the poor would simply love to swap places with us, if they had the choice, rather than us all being somehow equal. Food for thought...
posted by
Antonionioni
on November 8, 2006 at 4:09 PM
| link to this | reply
Troosha
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
It is right, and good, that we enjoy our lives, and not dwell at misery-engendering length on past and present evils.
But, that said, I'm sure that we have gone much too far in our seeming obliviousness to injustice, and our sense of impotence to do anything about it.
We are not impotent! We can make a difference, for we all have a voice, and having a voice we have a duty to use it to speak out about unacceptable things.
If enoughof us speak out loudly and often enough, our so-called leaders will have to listen. We can make a start in here, can't we?
posted by
ariel70
on November 8, 2006 at 2:30 PM
| link to this | reply
Ariel
We are bombarded and although that is not a justification for living within a indulgent vacuum, for some it is the only means of emotional preservation. Hopelessness or the feeling of not being able to make a difference allows us to rationalize the quick transition back to the Red Sox game (as you put it). “It won’t happen to me – it’s not happening to me”, we say to ourselves. “I can kiss my child, stroke his/her cheek at bedtime, eat from my bountiful fridge, and God willing return to a job that sustains my humble existence” is what runs through our head – consciously or unconsciously. The images are sometimes too much to bear. I’m not excusing the behavior – it just is.
Profound and mindful post. Your poem is equally heart wrenching.
posted by
Troosha
on November 8, 2006 at 2:12 PM
| link to this | reply
Rumored and RAME
Thank you. Yes indeed, you are so right. I often think that we've become a race of spoilt, greedy, autolatrous brats. We revere the harlot instead of the virtuous ; make gods of the violent and uncouth, and never pause to consider what we do to our children. Nor what image we present to those who have not.
posted by
ariel70
on November 8, 2006 at 1:43 PM
| link to this | reply
powerful as always, ariel..that last line sums it all up
"I might be made to care."..thats what we need, to start caring past sending 5 dollars to "name your charity"...
posted by
Rumor
on November 8, 2006 at 1:37 PM
| link to this | reply
Ariel70
As always, well said just the artist you truly are.
posted by
RAME
on November 8, 2006 at 1:03 PM
| link to this | reply