Dissident

[matrixmann]

I sit
and I will be rewarded.

I shut up
and I will be praised.

I write,
but I stop.

Is this
going to drive them away?

Will they
even listen to what I say?

I am
afraid.

I ain't
no fighter on the ground.

Shamefully reminded
that a pencil is not a gun.

What is it
that I can do?

Comments

[mandarinsun.livejournal.com]

Writing is very Eastern in that it keeps the hope of a future revolution valid, but never really demands that it happens immediately. I bet the French, American, and Russian revolutions would have have happened without writing- though that sounds dumb to say, like of course they wouldn't have. But still, there are probably psychoanalytic books or essays about what writing is and how it both instills and defers action- or there could be. It reminds me of something concerning Derrida or Lacan. The problem with things that go with them though is that it gets lost in how intellectual and academic those guys were. It reeks of being too intellectual or something. I can picture how stuff like that makes people feel- overwhelmed and like it is reading nonsense- which to a large degree it is. However, it is difficult to talk about how writing is revolutionary without pointing back to something like psychoanalysis which Lacan and Derrida were also about.

It seems like what is lacking in Muslim countries is the idea that you can dissent strongly and revolt through reading and writing. They all think you have to go bomb or destroy things.

[matrixmann]

I don't know if that is originally Eastern.
At least today, it is very common in Western hemispheres (in the Eastern heimsphere, too, I do take notice what the Russians write here, but as seen in the sake of Новороссия they have proven to be a little more tending to stop sitting behind a table at home, if the situation turns bad on them and the right persons appear at the right time) to write a lot, to talk a lot, but take no forceful action.

For the French revolution I know, it's just a result of a great famine. Plain as it is.
The famine was a result of climate change in Europe that happens every few hundred years (shifting from warm to cold or from cold to warm). Today researchers see that.
But that wasn't an issue back then, the only thing was it added to the tensions that had already been there and gave it the final ignition spark.
Needless to say, this still works for every other turmoil these days too. Regardless of being a civilized state or not.

Say, that's also a reason for me why I don't quote a lot or link to complicated articles. Not only that even I need a dictionary to understand it, what is some reader supposed to do who belongs to the lesser enlightened candles on the chandelier? Or who has a lot of things to do in his daily chores?
That's why I rather like to stick to easy words.