The Masada Complex

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And now, laaaadeeeeeeze and gentlemen...something completely different.

This one's a tad more academic. I've been studying for my exams and this is somewhat inspired by my anger over a reasonably famous book which I think is seriously wrong in a serious number of ways.

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Thomas Friendman argues in his book, The World is Flat, that the world has been “flattened” – that is, placed on a level playing field – by various “flatteners” that are arguably causes and effects of the progressing “phenomenon” of globalization.

But in what way is this world flat? The playing field isn’t level; instead, I would liken it to Masada, an archaeological formation in Israel that was a fortress for Israelis who were pursued by the Romans thousands of years ago. As the Romans attempted to climb Masada by building a dirt ramp to scale its heights, the Jews decided that death would be preferable to rapture by the Romans, and committed suicide.

The world’s elite and privileged – predominantly educated citizens, mostly white and English-speaking from developed former colonial powers, or rapidly industrializing countries that are molding their economies to fit a neoliberal standard – are now on top of a hypothetical Masada. They claim that the playing field is level because they have little view of the reality below.

The Jews’ fears of Roman capture may have been unwarranted, and their mass suicide certainly was premature. Upon modern examination, it is clear that, at the time of the mass suicide, the feared Roman victory over Masada was years away. The modern privileged forces who drive and benefit from globalization are in a state of self deception, similar to that of the Jews on Masada. They fear the ascent of individuals in the developing world, feeling that those who are currently disadvantaged will rise economically and rob the elite of their privilege. The loss of jobs in manufacturing, most prominently in the auto manufacturing sector, has made workers’ unions a major source of criticism of globalization from the Global North.

Like the Jews, the privileged of the Global North are hardly threatened by the ascent of others onto their “Masada.” They have already prevented the Global South from infringing on their standard of living through colonial rule that robbed the Global South of indigenous knowledges and the means to survive independently. Unlike the Jews, however, the response of the privileged to the invasion of the less privileged onto “Masada” is not self destruction, but instead destruction of the Other. Rather than committing mass suicide, the privileged are condemning and disenfranchising the perceived threat through the use of neoliberal, neocolonial economic policies that essentially remove the dirt from the ramp that those in developing countries are using in their hard work to reach Masada, and place this direct on top of Masada to make the plateau higher.

The real Masada is now no more than a tourist attraction that is at risk of collapsing due to erosion, but the neoliberal Masada of economic globalization in a neocolonial world is getting taller each day through the use of structural adjustment programs, flawed and fraudulent aid programs, and the global rule of corporations that decrease living and working conditions in the south in exchange for profits for the north, control the pharmaceutical industry and undermine efforts that support global health, and degrade the environment at the expense of those who are already marginalized.

Will the global Masada become merely a piece of historic memory, and an example of mounting inequality in the 21^st century? Maybe someday. Perhaps it will eventually crumble altogether, and exist only as a myth of the past, a story of a time in which humanity existed in a hierarchy with some lives more valued than others. Whatever happens, until that hierarchy is erased and our Masada is razed, the world will never be flat.

Sometimes the World Ends

I've had this blog for four years now. Which means four years since, well, other things.

But that's not important today, because there are more awful things happening today that invaded my head and ricocheted off the insides of my skull and swirled into a poem of sorts.

Sometimes the World Ends

April 16^th, 2007

Sometimes the world ends.

Twenty-one, now twenty-two died today

Pain building up with each number they say

Young names we’ll read at next year’s Kol Nidre.

Yes, sometimes the world ends.

Sometimes the world ends.

A fleet of sirens rush by on TV

Too late to save thirty-two, thirty-three,

Nameless numbers who cry inside me.

Yes, sometimes the world ends.

Sometimes the world ends.

Pierced bodies bleeding beyond our control

Amputated souls in the toilet bowl

Builds into pain from a sharp bullet hole.

Yes, sometimes the world ends.

Sometimes the world ends.

Everyone watches as fear sharp as knives

Rips out the shadow behind anger’s eyes

Sirens go silent, too late to save lives.

Voices are chanting, yes, still I rise

But sometimes the world ends.

Shouldn't have happened...

I’m not against rape because it happened to me. That’s not my point. I’m against rape because it happens, and it’s wrong. I don’t think I’m radical. I think I have the right to be safe and want this right to extend to all women. I shouldn’t matter whether she was already drunk, already naked, already dating him, even already fucking him.

It shouldn’t matter if she reports it; I have a right to safety, even if I’m far from brave enough to regurgitate traumatic details of my life to a uniformed stranger and submit to a medical exam to let them extract evidence from my already violated body. It shouldn’t matter if the evidence has been washed away, or if I am in too much pain to talk or let them see my body. I still have the right to safety.

It shouldn’t matter if I flirted, tried to become friends, pretended to be straight. It shouldn’t matter that I used crutches – that makes me no stronger or weaker than any other woman. It shouldn’t matter that the age of consent is fourteen – and I was fifteen. I didn’t consent, but was too hurt to show the bruises that would prove it, still hurting inside from the stitches they used to put me back together.

It shouldn’t hurt anymore; I shouldn’t remember it, be plagued with flashbacks four years later. I shouldn’t be afraid of whipped cream, change rooms, gym benches and tensor bandages. I shouldn’t have a deformed hymen, asymmetry and scarring that I was afraid my girlfriend would see. I shouldn’t be afraid of sex; shouldn’t be afraid of letting someone see my body’s differences where it has been ripped with pain or be afraid of touch which might accidentally sting of a buried memory.

I shouldn’t be afraid or hurt, violated and emptied. Who I am, what I did, and what he did shouldn’t matter.

These shouldn’ts are because it shouldn’t have happened.

Easter

Easter is in the air

I breathe in the musty smell of spring

And as a Jew

I don’t think of Jesus.

Easter is in the supermarkets

I survey the boxes of Easter eggs

Strangely placed in the Kosher food aisle

And puzzle at the depiction

Of rabbits who lay eggs.

Easter is in my body

A sinking feeling as it approaches

Teasing memories out of my mind.

Easter is in my footsteps

As I scurry from the bus stop

Head cocked over my shoulder

Waiting and afraid.

Easter is within me

Grabbing from behind

Forcing, thrusting, penetrating

Refusing to let go.

International Women's Day!

I posted on this a couple of years ago. But hey, it never gets old...at least, it won't until we have equal rights.  Happy IWD, friends and non-existent readers!

International women’s day is an important symbol of women’s rights. It is a validation of our existence and growing power – yet, at the same time, it is a recognition of the power we do not have but desperately need to have. It is also, increasingly, an expression of international solidarity, where women demonstrate the international connections in feminism and women’s issues, rather than just rallies and events held in enough countries to merit the label “international”

IWD is important for girls as well. Girls need to recognize their voices, and refuse to be subsumed into silence and the hypocritical realm of popular culture. As a student at a feminist school, IWD was recognized and celebrated, and the biggest event of the year. It took this celebration for granted. During my first year attending public high school, a male student repeatedly harassed me but I assumed that this was normal. The harassment had progressed into minor forms of sexual assault by International Women’s Day. My school didn’t recognize the day at all. I was one of few students who knew it existed. It felt like nobody cared, and that violence against girls at my school was assumed to be normal. I never told about the harassment and assault, because I thought that nobody would listen or care.

Thirty-six days later he brutally attacked me at school, and still it felt like nobody was listening. We need to recognize IWD so that we show girls that women matter. Feminism is normal. Violence is not.

Queerness, gender, grammar

Grammatical structures really influence how language is perceived as derogatory, offensive, etc. For example, calling me “queer” as an adjective doesn’t bug me, but yet “a queer” seems offensive – it is as though it is using “queer” as a noun, turning me into a different species, or an “other.”

Using it as a noun makes it seem like this is the only thing about m – that this specific characteristic is the sole defining factor in my identity. Using it as an adjective makes it more open to inserting other identities, and recognizes that I am more than just queer.

I guess this is why I don’t like the word “lesbian.” Interesting, though, that nouns like “man” and “woman” don’t hold the same power, to me.

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20070116/high_school_attack_070116/20070116/?hub=TorontoHome

I wish I could hug her and tell her that she's not the only one who isn't going to sleep tonight; it's events like this that bring back the past.

But still, the fact that the past is flooding back means that it's something that can disappear for a while, months, even. I wish I could tell her that; yes, it always follows you, and some nights it's crushing you, but eventually you can put it in a back pocket and live your life.

I don't know her, but can you all keep her in your thoughts tonight?

I sometimes wonder what they knew, and how they felt

For the 25 Girls

September 18, 2006

This is for the 25 girls in my grade 9 gym class.

For the girls who knew what went wrong

And the ones who never noticed.

For the ones who cared,

And the ones who were scared and ashamed.

For the girls who spoke like a well of tears

And the ones who were silent.

For the ones who blamed themselves.

For the girls who never questioned the blood stains the next class.

And those who never came back.

For the girls I finally told,

And the ones I loved too much to tell.

For the girls who begged me to cheer on their teams

And the ones who realized that I’d never go back.

For the girl who discovered my torn clothing the next day;

If she wondered where it came from, or never asked.

If she knew inside.

If she told.

My name was written in sharpie on the tags.

This is for the girls who left the school

And never found out.

And the ones who knew who did it.

This is for my friends

Who were never the same

And the girl whose face

Was the last thing I saw before his.

I still think her face is beautiful.

This is for the 25 girls who were with me

The day I was raped

After grade 9 gym class.

Take Back the Night

http://www.trccmwar.ca/events/index.html

You all should come to this. It's an anti-violence women's march. Last year I missed it because I didn't know it was this early in the year, so I'm determined to make it this year (even though it's 2 hours away from me by bus!).

COME!!! This is something that's very important.

Thoughts from Annie Dillard

"Every inchworm I have seen was stuck in long grasses. The wretched inchworm hangs from the side of a grassblade and throws its head around from side to side, seeming to wail. What! No further? Its back pair of nubby feet clasps the grass stem; its front three pairs of nubs reach back and flail in the air, apparently in search of a footing. What! No further? What? It searches everywhere in the wide world for the rest of the grass, which is right under its nose. By dumb luck it touches the grass. Its front legs hang on; it lifts and buckles its green inch, and places its hind legs just behind its front legs. Its body makes a loop, a bight. All it has to do now is slide its front legs up the grass stem. Instead it gets lost. It throws up its head and front legs, flings its upper body out into the void, and panics again. What! No further? End of world? And so forth, until it actually reaches the grasshead's tip. By then its wee weight may be bending the grass toward some other grass plant. Its davening, apocalyptic prayers sway the grasshead and bump it into something. I have seen it many times. The blind and frantic numbskull makes it off one grassblade and onto another one, which it will climb in virtual hysteria for several hours. Every step brings it to the universe's rim. And now - What! No further? End of world? Ah, here's ground. What! No further? Yike!" ~ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life