Writings

The Despite People

You can recognise us, because our face is definite, strong, sharp, but usually ugly too. ‘Ugly’ is not necessarily the right word, but you won’t find harmony and peace on our faces, instead, you may find dissymmetry, deep lines, expression of confusion, internal trouble, eternal disturbance. And perhaps signs of digestion problems.

Chronologically, it usually starts early and continues on: when families, nurseries, schools, work places, cultural, social or political groups communicate rejection. “You don’t belong to us”. “You are something else”.

This is often followed by recognition, which is offered too late. Those who offer it, occasionally might be ‘normal people’, but mostly it is offered by other ‘odd’ people, they may be ‘Despite People’ themselves. People who refused to become rejects, who were determined not to sink, but instead, somehow found a path of strength towards an unknown end.

Proud, but angry people. Proud to be angry people. Angrily proud people.

Typical activity: telling the Emperor that he/she does not have a new coat on

Typical response from others: admiration by a few for having guts, but rejection by the majority

Typical stupidity: voluntarily walking into the Lion’s mouth

Typical strength and weakness: feeling that there is not much to loose, but a lot to revenge for

Consequences:

(1) mixture of paranoia and an over-developed sense of reality

(2) being pretty good in something, giving amazing commitment to work (or to anything else if consciously chosen) – but this excellence is partly related to the desire to revenge: “I will show it to them!”

(3) difficult personal relationships, which all mean too much

(4) lack of automatic loyalty to any institutions, established hierarchies, authoritarian structures and norms

Piroska Markus (Written in the 90’s)

P.S. I don’t think, people who are not ‘Despite People’ will understand the above, or understand us.

Beware of them!

One day after the Paris massacre

I have been thinking all day about this idea, suggested by many people today, that Paris (or for that matter New York) is ‘close to us’. “Us” can be English, Hungarian, Italian or ‘European’ people as such (whatever this term is meant to imply nowadays). “Close” is used to refer to either to physical proximity,  or it is used in a symbolic way. There is also a hidden assumption, that societies, cultures created by white people wherever in the world (and at whatever cost), would be essentially the same, and people living there, somehow belonged to each other. (E.g. Australia and France sharing more than Kenya and Ireland). As the victims of 9/11 and the Paris attacks included non-white people, there may be another hidden assumption, that non-white people living in the US or in Europe become almost like white people, their life (when murdered by certain enemies) can be measured in the same way as white people’s lives, as ‘we’ (white people) can feel close to them. (Not sure if the same applies when black people are murdered by white police in their own country, e.g. in the US). The hidden idea is that the 149 students who were murdered on Thursday in Kenya are ‘too far away”, so we can not feel the same for their death as for the death of a similar number of people murdered in Paris, as Paris ‘is close’. Kenya is ‘too far’. Although some of the victims in Paris could have been easily emigrants from Africa, even from Kenya, but because Paris ‘is close’ we mourn their death too. It happened in Europe, so it is ‘shocking’ for Europeans. Death happening elsewhere is ‘too far’ so we don’t mourn (of course with the exception of 9/11). The (perhaps hidden) assumption is, that if murdered people have similar type of life-styles to my own life-style, than I should be able to feel their pain, to mourn their death more easily, then the pain or death of people, who are ‘different’ from myself. I think what we are talking about is our ability to identify with the victims. It is assumed, that me, living in Europe, can naturally identify with the victims in Paris (and in New York), but not with the victims in Kenya, Somalia, Mexico or Pakistan. If I identify with the murdered victim, I imagine myself being the victim: an internal scream may let lose, shouting “it could be me!”. In contrast, if I am unable to identify with the victim, if identification assumed to follow continental, plus ethnic and racial divisions, then I won’t think of myself when I see a picture of a murdered black student in Kenya if I happened to have pink skin colour. The assumption is, that I would unconsciously think, it could NOT be me, so I won’t feel the same shock, bereavement and natural sorrow. In other words, me, living in England, would FEEL SORRY FOR MYSELF when I think about the Paris (or New York) victims, but would not feel sorry for myself when I see the victims in Kenya. I wonder how the Black, Asian, Arab, South American, Roma and mixed population of Europe is expected to fit into this scheme. Certain authorities and people regularly provoke groups of non-white people in Europe to express their ‘loyalty’ through expressing condemnation of the killing of white people. They are often expected to prove they have ‘integrated’ by showing shock and bereavement about the death of white people. If they don’t do it, it is sometimes assumed, that they are somehow guilty of the murder. This is intensified when Muslim people living in Europe are expected ‘to fight terrorism’, ‘fight fundamentalism’, to successfully influence their youngsters not to become jihadists, and to make statements after statements to condemn ISIS. One condemnation is not enough, they are expected to do it each time white people are killed. Otherwise they may be treated as suspects. Of course nothing like this happens when Christians go out to murder a number of kids, or Church-goers or whoever. No Christian Church is expected to condemn these murders which are seen as the product of lunacy, they are not suspected of being guilty by sharing the same religion. Which happens all the time with (against) Muslim people. Going back to my original topic, I would like to say, here, publicly, that if I look deep into myself, which I did today, I have to admit, that sadly, I do feel the joy and pain of those people stronger, who appear more similar to me. I also feel the tragedy of their death stronger too. I can ‘sense’ much more precisely the life of those who look similar to me, who eat, love, dress, work, raise children etc in a way I am familiar with. It is also true, I admit, that their death shocks me more, than the death of people who appear to be very different, whose life and customs and believes and rules I don’t understand. However all my life I challenged this tendency inside myself, even as a child. I had different words to describe it, but in my nursery and school I made an effort to try to get to know those kids who were disliked by the teachers or bullied by other kids. These bullied kids often came from really poor background, sometimes were unable to study, focus etc, and it would have been easy to join in the popular dislike, ridicule them and see them as ‘strange’, as ‘the other’, the one whose pain does not count. The one who helps the rest of the class to unite, to feel expected because we together we hate him or her. Occasionally, I found myself letting down this kid, joining in with the crowd, but I knew I was wrong, and I changed my behaviour. I still remember these incidents when I felt I betrayed that child, I betrayed my own principles. I don’t think I talked about these things those days, and not even as an adult. Today is the first day I can put some of these things in words. As an adult, especially since I moved to England, I have found it easy to ‘identify with’ many people who could superficially be seen as very different from me, whose language and customs I could not understand initially, who follow rules I may not like, who have religious beliefs I don’t share. I often try to look for some similarity, something we have in common, even though we may even dislike each other. I believe, it is my task to see the humanity in those people who may first appear ‘strange’ for me, and to stop automatically identifying with those people who come from my country, or my continent, or have the same pink skin colour as me, or who are also atheist, or share my feminist ideals, my questionable class and social status, my attitude of hating money and authority. I want to be able to feel the joy and pain of anyone in the whole world. The more different they seem to be, the more puzzling their being is, the more important it is for me to find our connection. To connect, to relate. I think the ‘global’ task is not the world-wide exploitation of oil, but the potential ability to see the human in everyone, even in those people who we don’t understand, those people who seem to share nothing with us, and even in those people, who may first consider to be ‘enemy’ – whatever this over-loaded term may or may not mean, today, on the 14th of November, 2015. Good bye, thanks you for reading, comments welcome.

To connect and disconnect: oppression and the soul

I have noticed the disconnectedness of people more strikingly when I moved to England. Mostly among English people. Thankfully, not all.

I believe it is less true about others, for example African, Asian and South American, Arab, Jewish people or Mediterranean Europeans. More typical of men than women. Perhaps it is essentially a West European male problem, which they have exported into those parts of the World they occupied and tried to Europeanize.

What happens in the heart and soul of the person who perceives other humans as inferiors, in need of his (or her) rule? This is my question.

If in any country an individual wants to enjoy – with a clear consciousness – the benefits of belonging to a privileged class they need to justify it to themselves intellectually and politically. In addition they need to distance themselves from those living in poverty who create their riches by types of work they do not know. They need to remove something from their soul in order to achieve that they will not feel the pain of those under them in the hierarchy. The class system has it’s psychological consequences and background for everyone involved. Those on the top created ‘charity’ to calm the pain they may still feel, and to try to convince themselves and others that essentially they are good people.

In order to colonize other countries, the individuals taking part in the process had to cut off some of their natural human feelings towards those human beings they started to rule over with even more cruel methods than practiced at home with the ‘lower classes’.

How could any man oppress, exploit and especially enslave another, if he feels the pain of the person whom he is abusing or enslaving? He must make his victim look essentially different, less of a human as himself. How could anyone force children into factories in their own country, or colonize another country if he perceived those whom he subjugated to be his equals? (I am using the term ‘man’ consciously because women were not creating this situation, although middle and upper-class women in the ‘mother-countries’ would have clearly enjoyed the financial benefit and the prestige of being the wife or daughter of rich people, belonging to the ‘masters’).

I imagine the individual men involved in the process of ruling ‘lesser classes’ at home and enslaving other people abroad, in order to cope with the task psychologically, were forced to alienate that side of their soul altogether which could potentially perceive all humans as his equal. This was perhaps relatively ‘easy for men’, or for the ‘normal’ men, as men have already practiced (all over the world) how to subjugate women. But after colonizing other countries their psyche must have become even more cut off from their heart (if we can assume that everyone is born with a pure human heart). This in turn would have affected their relationships with their own family, with their wives, mothers and children, with other white men, and may have spoiled their relationship with their own selves.

Man in white coat

Through the European worship of rationality white men have developed the art of over-justifying what they are doing, even if they feel it is wrong. They developed racist theories for the justification of the subjugation of people whose skin colour happened to be different. But when economically beneficial, they easily transferred the racist ideas to other ethnic groups, whose skin colour was the same as theirs, for example against Irish people, whom they also sold as slaves for many years. Our history books don’t often talk about this. In the last few decades racist ideas are used against Eastern European immigrants and ‘guest-workers’. However even in this context white West European people find it easier to start a hate-campaign when the skin-colour is different, see the hostile press against East European Romas moving to West Europe.

I always thought that men’s domination over women distorts the male psyche more than it distorts the female psyche. I think it is also true about white men’s domination over other people generally. Frantz Fanon, in his famous book ‘White Skin Black Masks’ was perhaps the first to give a thorough analysis of the psychological damage colonization caused in the psyche of the colonized people. What I am thinking about now, is the psychological damage it has caused in the psyche of the colonizing rulers, and their descendants, among who I am living now in England.

If people try to liberate themselves by copying the distorted psyche of their oppressors, e.g. women copy men, black people try to behave like white people, then the whole world will be as fucked up as the ‘normal’ people are in this part of the world.

I think there is a growing number of beautiful English men and women who are different, who are not described by the above. However normally they make special efforts to distance themselves from the ugly past and the ugly current British colonization efforts in various parts of the World.

As usual, the colonization going on currently is called something else. Hundreds of years ago they were ‘spreading Christianity’ to ‘save the souls’ of people, they were ‘civilizing so called barbarians and primitives’. Now Western and American foreign wars and occupation is carried out in the name of ‘spreading democracy’, ‘humanitarian aid’ ‘development’, even ‘women liberation’ (in Afghanistan apparently). And my lovely English friends who oppose these, may be perceived as ‘mad’, ‘bad’ or ‘odd’ by their neighbors or in some cases even by members of their own family if they don’t hate those people (with brown-skin-colour) who are officially identified as the ‘enemy’ right now.

Most importantly, many English people have re-structured their psyche and became more relaxed, a bit like the African or Latin people who do not distance themselves from others the same way as West European people have been distancing themselves for hundreds of years. They are able to connect with others, hear the perspective of people who come from all over the world, feel their pain and joy and listen to their stories.

Piroska Markus

(P.S. I found the children-photo which appears above this essay on Facebook, unfortunatley I don’t know who took it so I am unable to credit the great photographer. The other photo – of the man crossing the road – was taken by me).

Who is laughing? And who is doing the killing? (Essay with music)

On the 3rd of May 2015 the so called ‘American Freedom Defence Initiative’ organised a competition offering $10 000 for the best caricature of Prophet Mohammed. The event took place in the Dallas suburb of Garland, Texas, United States, in a building belonging to a private school, not in New York where the main organiser lives, but in Garland, which is described as the most ethnically mixed town in the country.

Two hundred people turned up to compete and the organiser privately bought in 40 police men in addition to the other security staff provided by the school. We have been informed that two young men turned up with guns and one of them has lightly injured one of the security guards. The two gun-men were killed in no time. Their dead bodies were left on the street for hours while experts were searching for potential bombs. The people participating in the event were moved to another location, and it seems, the competition was completed, as the winner’s name has been published.

The intention to provoke tension and to create violent conflicts between people who could happily live next to each other has many old and new forms. Not for the first time in history, ‘divide and rule’ dominates international and domestic politics in many powerful countries, inc. the USA, UK, Russia, India. It is tragic that many ‘ordinary’ people are willing to be polarised, deciding that another group of ‘ordinary’ people are their enemy. The political and economical elite greatly benefits from these divisions and hatred. They covertly or openly encourage the divisions (while in the West also paying lip-service to ‘equal opportunities’, ‘universal human rights’ etc). They don’t like to dirty their own soft hands with blood, but they encourage, pay or order others to do the dirty work.

Conscription – in times of potential wars  – is a demand on a mass scale to attack and kill those whom your political leaders perceive as their enemy, and to sacrifice your life. Where there is no conscription, manipulation needs to achieve that a large number of people should ‘want’ to kill and die for the interest of their political and economic elite, and their families, friends, schools, Churches are expected to stand behind ‘our heroes’. It is useful if the the fighters personally believe that they are killing for noble causes. On addition serious efforts are made to create a general public perception and consensus that the paid armies are fighting and killing for noble causes.

The people who ‘voluntarily’ join the killing fields (any type of killing fields) are normally poor. They are often in desperate need of money, a job, or a purpose in life, or they may wish to achieve (strangely conceived) ‘self-respect’. They may even have something to revenge for: either in their communal (or ethnic) history, or perhaps the story of their family or personal traumas provide extra motivation. They may be full of frustration and anger created by their own collective or individual life-histories, ready and willing to turn these feelings against any ‘enemy’ named by others, by powerful manipulators. I imagine, all over the world many people join the police, the security firms, the armies or any type of religious military crusade (including the much talked about ‘jihad’) because in these organisations they will be respected and rewarded if they act violently. Many fighting people who believe in this or that religion may be doing the killing in the name of their God, while others refer to ‘patriotism’ – despite the fact that most of the wars nowadays are being fought far away from the soldiers’s and the fighters’ homeland. If I was a soldier I would not like to know that I am simply serving the economical and  political purposes of the economical and political elite. If I was religious, perhaps I would like to think I am fighting for my religion. Or for my country. Or both. Sounds heroic and noble.

Muslim and Christian people have not always fought each other. For the rest of the article I will refer to the Western and US powers as Christian, despite the fact that a large percentage of the population have other religions, and many are atheists. The UK and the US governments still claim the Christian religion as their right, and recently in their so called ‘War on terror’ they have increasingly used religious – and colonial – language. There are many places in the world where Muslim and Christian people (and others following Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist religions and life-styles) were living in peace right next to each other for centuries.

The only time Christians and Muslims are encouraged to hate each other are times when a crusade was/is initiated by political leaders, who often managed to get their religious leaders to work for them too. This happened whenever the rulers of powerful Christian or Muslim countries wanted to dominate the same piece of land, wanted to extend their empires in the same direction. However when they turned in other directions, they managed to ignore each other and they stopped concerning themselves about the rights and wrongs of Christianity or Islam. For example they were not focusing on hating each other when Spain, Portugal and England decided to expend to South and North America. Instead of thinking about Islam they were busy hating the population they found in the Americans whom they named ‘Indians’ and whom they wanted to ‘civilize’ (make them useful for their purposes). Similarly when  the Islamic empires decided to extend towards India, then it must have become more important for them to convert Buddhists and Hindus into Muslims, and they have achieved this to some degree.

Therefore the crash of Islam and Christianity depends on a simple question: do the political leaders of powerful Islamic and Christian countries are fighting for the control of the same part of the world?

The current answer is: YES. They do want to control the same part of the world. The part which is known in the West as the ‘Middle East’.

The above on the left is the original secret Sykes-Picot map of 1916: “A” would go to France, “B” to Britain. And the map on the tight shows the same in a clearer form. The map below shows the extent of military power physically present in the Middle East, now.

US bases in the Middle East

It has a long history, but where are we now? In Texas in May 2015 a few (perhaps) naive and potentially dangerous ‘ordinary’ people decide to organise a ‘caricature competition’ to help this nasty fight. Some of the participants may believe it is really about ‘freedom of speech’, while others may have turned up desperate for the $10 000 top price, but it is clear that this event was organised to provoke. They invited a Dutch politician known about his racist views as the ‘Guest of Honour’.  He is not naive and not ‘ordinary’. He is part of the power elite, his party is the 4th most popular in the Netherlands. Then two (perhaps) naive and dangerous ‘ordinary’ young men jump like puppets, rushing there with the intention to kill some of the participants. In the name of  their ‘God’. At least this is what we were told by the media – they did not speak. Then a few (perhaps) naive and potentially dangerous ‘ordinary’ people, who are paid security guards or private police, immediately kill those who seemed to want to kill the competitors. Who benefits? Who is laughing?

Pamela Geller, the organiser of this event must have expected an attack as she herself paid 40 private police officers to guard the building, it costs her $10 000 according to The Guardian. She said she paid because this is “the high cost of freedom”.

The Guest of Honour “Wilders has campaigned to stop what he views as the “Islamisation of the Netherlands”. He compares the Quran with Mein Kampf and has campaigned to have the book banned in the Netherlands. He advocates ending immigration from Muslim countries, and supports banning the construction of new mosques.” (Wikipedia)

And who is Pamela Geller, the American woman who organised this event? According to The Guardian she is the co-founder of the ‘American Freedom Defence Initiative’ which is behind the contest to award $10,000 for the best cartoon depiction of Mohammed. She is a New Yorker who writes a blog called ‘Atlas Shrugs’ that campaigns to stop the “Islamisation” of America. Pamela Geller used to be a housewife not interested in politics until 9.11 when she turned. After the shooting yesterday she used her blog ‘Atlas Shrugs’ to declare: “This is a war. This is war on free speech. What are we going to do? Are we going to surrender to these monsters?”

BBC World Service broadcasted a short interview with the Mayor of Garland. He explained that the event has nothing to do with the town. They did not ask his permission, in fact it was authorised by a private Education Authority which provided the venue. He made it clear he was not happy about this competition. He said his city is the most ethnically diverse city in the States, and the neighbourhood which is the most ethnically diverse neighbourhood. So why they picked this one?

In January 2015 a large conference was organised in Garland by the local Muslim Community, to plan how they should stand up AGAINST Islamic fundamentalism. While the conference was taking place thousands of white people were protesting against them. One of the placards said: “Muslims, go home! And take Obama with you!” Here it is:

Garland, US Anti-Muslim Demo Jan 2015