Sane Inside Insanity: WIND OF CHANGE IN NORTHERN AFRICA

martedì, febbraio 22, 2011

WIND OF CHANGE IN NORTHERN AFRICA

The wind of change blows straight
Into the face of Time
Like a storm wind that will ring
The freedom bell for peace of mind... (1989)

Sto ascoltando il discorso di Gheddafi in diretta su Al Jazeera via Corriere; dovrei andare in bagno ma aspetto la fine.

Il povero interprete/i è senza fiato e non capisco molto, ma non credo di perdermi gran che, solo vuota retorica. Poco fa ha detto "L'Italia è stata fatta a pezzi in Libia". Sai che sforzo.

Il mio più intimo pensiero è "QUESTO E' PER LOCKERBIE, STR*NZO".

Da ieri ascolto e guardo quello che posso. Quando non c'è nulla di interessante, trasmettono bellissime canzoni arabe. Tengo sottomano il mio dizionario di arabo (comprato per il viaggio in Israele), ma finora non mi è servito; sono troppo occupata a scrivere e ascoltare.

Me lo ricordo il 1989, ero al mare e pensavo tristemente che basta un uomo con un fucile per fermare il progresso del mondo, e poi Eltsin sul carro armato, e Gorbaciov di ritorno dall'esilio che scendeva dall'aereo. Me lo ricordo benissimo.

Spero e prego dal cuore che questo sia il 1989 del Nord Africa, e che gli estremisti non prevalgano. Proprio come si augurava un ragazzo israeliano sabato al BIT, dichiarandosi ottimista. Voglio esserlo anch'io, perché essere pessimisti peggiora solo le cose.

Listening to Gaddafi's speech live on Al Jazeera via Corriere, to the point that I should go to the bathroom but I'm waiting for the end.

The poor translator(s) is breathless and I'm not understanding much, but I don't think I'm missing much. Just empty rhetoric. A while ago he said "Italy was blown to bits in Libya". Oh yeah, big effort.

My deepest thought is "THIS IS FOR LOCKERBIE, BIOTCH".

I'm listening and watching when I can since yesterday. When there's nothing of interest, they air lovely Arab songs. I'm keeeping my Arab dictionary (bought for the Israel trip) beside me, but till now it hasn't helped, I'm too busy writing and listening.

I remember 1989, being at our seaside home and thinking dejectedly that one man with a rifle can stop the world from going on, and then Yeltsin on a tank, and Gorbachev back from exile, getting off the plane. I remember it so well.

I truly hope and pray this will be the 1989 for North Africa, and that extremists will not prevail. Exactly as an Israeli boy wished on Saturday at the BIT, saying he was an optimist. I want to be an optimist too, because being a pessimist only makes things worse.

QUOTES

Heart shall be bolder,
harder be purpose,
more proud the spirit
as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter
nor mood waver,
though doom shall come
and dark conquer.
(The Battle of Maeldon, translated by Tolkien)

He who has a treasure, or a demon in his heart, cannot hide it. (King Theodoric the Great)

I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.
(Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio)

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever. (Hannibal Lecter)

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai 'Ngaje Ngai', the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. (Ernest Hemingway)

Would I embarrass you? Yes, it is possible. You see, I... I am crazy. I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites. Like my appetite for patterns. Perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream. (A Beautiful Mind)

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands,
father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold,
the light that brings the dawn,
the horn that wakes the sleepers,
the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night Watch
for this night and all the nights to come.
(GRRM)

Never criticize a person until you walk a mile in their shoes (Atticus Finch)

A warrior for peace is no less a warrior (General Korrd, unwittingly reminding of Yitzhak Rabin)

What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter. (Sirius Black)

Whatever makes a soldier sad will make a killer smile (Leonard Cohen)

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't. (John Coffey)

Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feel - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! (Starbuck)

I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. (Charlotte Bronte)

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? (Karen Blixen)

Do not you recognize me, Dumas? I am the rearguard of the Grande Armee. I have stood at Kovno, and thrown the last muskets in the Niemen. I am Marshal Ney. Give me a bowl of soup. (Attributed to Michel Ney).