«In this month of July, 2005, two images haunt me. They are not related and perhaps they only gesture indirectly towards issues looming large in the contemporary world we inhabit –barbarism, terrorism, imperialism, impoverishment, plagues, the absence of ethical codes and a hierarchy of values, mad materialism, intellectual and artistic narcissism... Yet, both of these images illustrate to me the raw fault line where "private" and "public" meet.
The first is that of the so-called "Piano Man". On the stormy night of April 7, a young white male is found wandering the streets along the beach of Sheerness in Kent. His elegant dark suit is soaked, all nametags have been carefully removed, he has no papers. Apparently he has also lost his memory and, with that, his identity. If you forget how others saw you, you no longer exist. The man is taken to the Medway Maritime Hospital. The National Centre for Disappeared Persons is alerted. Nobody comes forward to claim him. Over the next weeks there will be thousands of reactions, speculations, theories, and false identifications aired over the Internet, all to no avail (the web is a vast echo chamber for the deluded and the conspiratorial), and then interest will subside. The man is traumatized by fear: when someone enters the room where he is kept he cowers in a corner. After a few days he draws a concert piano on a sheet of paper. He is taken to a grand piano, sits down and starts playing exquisitely for hours on end. Only while playing does he relax. The blonde young alien with the melancholic and fearful eyes responds to no question, seems not to know any language, draws or writes nothing else, but composes music; he is obviously an accomplished concert pianist and has to be torn away from the instrument. He clutches the folder with his compositions to his chest.
The second image arises or rather tumbles from the sky like some Icarus. A severed human leg falls on the roof of Pam Hearne's house, about 9 kilometres from JFK Airport in New York. When it lands, further limbs and crushed body parts will be found in the landing-gear space of a South African Airways flight from Johannesburg with stopover in Dakar. Again, no nametags and no identity papers. Pam Hearne says at first she thought the noise was caused by a neighbour loading his truck nearby. "I'm glad I live where I live so that I didn't have to run for my life as that man apparently did", she declares. And the authorities announce: "At no stage was there any danger for the passengers on board".
(...)
Martin Luther King said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
This arrogance should be seen against the backdrop of some comparative figures:
In 2003, there were 704 million people living in Africa, 307 million in the Euro zone; life expectancy in Africa was 45.6 years on an average, 78.9 years in Europe; HIV-Aids affected 7.2 per cent of Africans, in Europe it was 0.3 per cent; 457 kilowatts of electricity were used per person in Africa, in Europe it was 5912 kilowatts; the average income in Africa was US$ 500, in Europe US$ 22 810; 13 per cent of the roads in Africa were passable, in Europe it was 95 per cent; over the year there were 348 000 airline flights in Africa , in Europe it was 3.5 million. Between 1981 and 2003, the number of people in Africa living on less than a dollar a day rose from 40 per cent to 50 per cent, in China over the same period it fell from 60 per cent to 20 per cent. Nepad (the New Economic Partnership for African Development) budgeted US$ 64 billion annually for the development of Africa 's degraded and often inappropriate infrastructure, but over the past four years just one per cent has been committed to infrastructure projects.
Indeed, Africa is now poorer than it has ever been.»
The first is that of the so-called "Piano Man". On the stormy night of April 7, a young white male is found wandering the streets along the beach of Sheerness in Kent. His elegant dark suit is soaked, all nametags have been carefully removed, he has no papers. Apparently he has also lost his memory and, with that, his identity. If you forget how others saw you, you no longer exist. The man is taken to the Medway Maritime Hospital. The National Centre for Disappeared Persons is alerted. Nobody comes forward to claim him. Over the next weeks there will be thousands of reactions, speculations, theories, and false identifications aired over the Internet, all to no avail (the web is a vast echo chamber for the deluded and the conspiratorial), and then interest will subside. The man is traumatized by fear: when someone enters the room where he is kept he cowers in a corner. After a few days he draws a concert piano on a sheet of paper. He is taken to a grand piano, sits down and starts playing exquisitely for hours on end. Only while playing does he relax. The blonde young alien with the melancholic and fearful eyes responds to no question, seems not to know any language, draws or writes nothing else, but composes music; he is obviously an accomplished concert pianist and has to be torn away from the instrument. He clutches the folder with his compositions to his chest.
The second image arises or rather tumbles from the sky like some Icarus. A severed human leg falls on the roof of Pam Hearne's house, about 9 kilometres from JFK Airport in New York. When it lands, further limbs and crushed body parts will be found in the landing-gear space of a South African Airways flight from Johannesburg with stopover in Dakar. Again, no nametags and no identity papers. Pam Hearne says at first she thought the noise was caused by a neighbour loading his truck nearby. "I'm glad I live where I live so that I didn't have to run for my life as that man apparently did", she declares. And the authorities announce: "At no stage was there any danger for the passengers on board".
(...)
Martin Luther King said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
This arrogance should be seen against the backdrop of some comparative figures:
In 2003, there were 704 million people living in Africa, 307 million in the Euro zone; life expectancy in Africa was 45.6 years on an average, 78.9 years in Europe; HIV-Aids affected 7.2 per cent of Africans, in Europe it was 0.3 per cent; 457 kilowatts of electricity were used per person in Africa, in Europe it was 5912 kilowatts; the average income in Africa was US$ 500, in Europe US$ 22 810; 13 per cent of the roads in Africa were passable, in Europe it was 95 per cent; over the year there were 348 000 airline flights in Africa , in Europe it was 3.5 million. Between 1981 and 2003, the number of people in Africa living on less than a dollar a day rose from 40 per cent to 50 per cent, in China over the same period it fell from 60 per cent to 20 per cent. Nepad (the New Economic Partnership for African Development) budgeted US$ 64 billion annually for the development of Africa 's degraded and often inappropriate infrastructure, but over the past four years just one per cent has been committed to infrastructure projects.
Indeed, Africa is now poorer than it has ever been.»
How so? (if need be to ask)
Another essential in-depth essay on EuroZine
Another essential in-depth essay on EuroZine
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário