The Horror, The Horror

An American journalist describes the refugee camps she has seen in 'Witness to War' on CNN (a programme whose short trailer that appears every five minutes contains three mosques in Istanbul interspersed with ruined Afghan monuments. Sloppy journalism? Hey, here are some pictures of nice mosques, let's use them!) She describes "acres and acres of makeshifT tents with children crying and having no one to turn to..." (and even some more melodramatic jargon I can't remember now) to the accompaniment of pictures of children scrambling for food.

Here's what Jean Rhys has to say about it all:

"Let’s say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off. But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple – no, that I think you haven’t got. And that’s the right you hold most dearly, isn’t it? You must be able to despise the people you exploit. "

Deformation Professionelle

"The protagonist herself does not know where to place her own body in the social order so that it may have meaning. She starts to perceive herself through the eyes of the others as '(re)presenting a problem', is forced to relinquish her status as a legitimate subject and perceives herself as an object"

ooops! this is supposed to be chapter 3 of my thesis, not a diary

Afghanistan and Englishmen

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

- Rudyard Kipling, extract from the poem "A Young British Soldier" published in "Barrack Room Ballads", 1892.