The Diameter of the Bomb, Kings
Yehuda Amichai, Ghani Khan
"There is no true life within a false life"
- Theodor Ardorno
In the past, I have referred to this popular slogan coined by the Marxist genius Adorno, that became a marker for the idea that one cannot setup private happiness in the midst of catastrophic developments in a society. I think of this idea more and more often, as a feeling of helplesness and despair settles in. The futility of it all, the inability to come to terms with the lack of control and uttter insignificance in the face of devastating events is a feeling that has become more and more persistent in the recent past. Such is the state of the world, eh?
Adorno talked about the rise of far right extremism in the vaccum left by the capitalist project, and the problems of liberal democracies, especially in the West. His thesis arose, of course, in the context of the resurgence of fascist politics in the 1960s, and he drew a direct connection with the discontent and disappointment in the people who lived in age of the promise of technology, liberalism and democratic freedom. We are confronted, once again in Afghanistan, with the umitigated takeover of power by the Taliban. Having seen what they are capable of in the past, the implications of this seizure of political control are nothing less than terrifying.
The images of people fleeing the city of Kabul, crowding the airport, and the most heart wrenching one yet - 2 people falling out of the sky from an American Airplane - have gone viral. What is difficult, and deeply disturbing for me, is this Taliban 2.0 What happens when fascism evolves? When barbaric, dangerous, ruthless elements start to learn diplomacy, and use language to garb their real, oppresive intent? Sample this Al Jazeera report summary -
During a Tuesday press conference, a Taliban spokesperson said the new government would respect the rights of women and media workers "within our cultural frameworks"
“Within our cultural frameworks” - That phrase lodged in our collective conscience like a bullet in the wall of an abandoned city.
Frameworks. Borders. Circles of power. Control.
What kind of boundaries can ‘contain’ a community’s most primodial impulses of freedom? What wall can keep out those different from us, and shackle our own so that they do not stray? How much surveillance is good surveillance? What is the ambit of pain? of trauma? How far does the lasso of terror and opression stretch? Does it make a difference that a handful of people are forced to toe the line at gunpoint in some obscure village in the middle of a desert? How does it affect our lives if a few girls whose houses don’t even have electricity, are stopped from studying or working? How far do the ripples go? Where does it end? How did it begin?
I think of these questions, also, subconsciously measuring “fascisms”, comparing ours with theirs, or even measuring the diameters of our democracies (USA, UK, Russia, China, India, Pakistan etc.). Adorno called these fascist forces the “scars of democracy”. There is so much prophecy in those words. I do not presume to be able to explain the complexity of the situation in Afghanistan. But I can speak to the modern nature of the way extremism operates, and how public events turn our personal lives upside down. As we scrambled to see if our friends and their families are alright in Kabul, I remembered Warsan Shire’s Home. Seeing people fleeing their homes, and the new fearful exodus, I thought of these lines:
“no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here”
I share with you two poems - one about the nature of power by the Pashto poet Ghani Khan - Kings (translated by Taimur Khan); and the other by Yehuda Amichai - The Diameter of a Bomb.
Note: I have shared Ghani Khan’s poetry before here.
