There are certain moments that are worthy of a blog. Sometimes these moments are personal and limited in their scope to an individual, and in other times, these moments are global, of unlimited scope and broad interest. Today’s moment was a bit of both.
One such moment occurred this morning. I awoke at 5:45 with my TV remote control ready at my side with the satellite channel already set to CNN. I flicked it on, and within fifteen minutes, the world and myself, received the news that the United States of America had elected it first Black president. The myth had been shattered, and conventional expectations, once strongly resisted, crumbled before my very eyes. Its first Black President. It was a huge moment – an event for which I had been eagerly waiting since my interest was gripped by the story of this individual and this American election.
As a young liberal with a recently developed grounding in post-modernist thought, I have come to resist hegemony and monolithic thought in the way that it impacts on my life. As a young South African Jew, I have a strong held belief that many of my peers and the majority of my community have allowed themselves to be trapped by outdated and monolithic ideologies that shape their perceptions of race, religion and the world at large.
About four years ago, when I was more civically involved, I had believed that the time was nearing for us, the youth, to come to our own conclusions about issues significant to our identities. I believed that if we could make these decisions freed from the dominance of our traditional backgrounds, we could play a role in reshaping the world in a way that is inclusive of all groups, but understanding of the key differences that endemic to groups of people the world over.
Well, I’m no Obama…that’s for sure. I had a message – but couldn’t communicate it effectively, and inflicted more damage than good. But what I’ve realized today is that my message wasn’t uniquely mine. Rather, it was a vision shared by people who were tired of the blinkers that traditional ideology had espoused and who craved a new dawn to do things differently. It was a message that came from a frustration that the world did not belong to us and that it was controlled by the older generation.
Why should we let ourselves be governed by fears and insecurities that go back 60 years?
Why should we accept behaviours, ideologies and beliefs that are passed down, as opposed to accepted conscientiously?
For once, the American example is right. It applies to our situation even now, even here, wherever and whenever we are. Obama said, “This is our moment. This is our time.” I disagree with him. Our moment is not only now, but also forever. Our time is not only today, but also tomorrow, the next day and years into the future. Obama’s success has shown that we should never lose doubt in our ability to make an impact, or effect change, or change our minds, or go against the norms, or do anything.
This moment is inspiring, because change is positive and because perceptions are meant to shatter and be reconfigured with every new generation. This moment is meaningful, because the hope and tears that came with that moment was symbolic of a major paradigm shift in eyes of many. This moment was poignant for me because I have refound my belief in the masses, and their ability to make up their own minds without being shackled to ideologies that have been passed down from generation to generation. And most importantly, for once and maybe forever, people can comfortably redefine their beliefs to suit their situations and be accepted, renowned or elected for doing so.
Supersweet.
4 dissenting voice(s):
El Hermo, your blogs often seem to be used as a tool (and I [specifically] don't meant to imply intentionally) to exploit some current affair, as a chance to repeat your common theme of people generally being stuck in some unthinking routine. Kinda' ironic.
---
You accuse many your so called peers of simply subscribing to doctrines or ideologies without giving it conscious thought. Now while that might be true for some (minority), I don't believe that you've given the 'monolithic' instigators a fair chance. Even a cursory enquiery would show them (I assume you're referring mostly to Jewish educational organisations) to be big supporters of free-thinking and challenge, objective investigations, and debate. I'd easily go so far as to say that they even dissuade many from just following suit, and discourage mere bandwagon jumping.
Does it not occur to you that people happen to choose a (sometimes popular) model of thought, not because they unthinkingly capitulate, but because they actually do indeed choose it? And even once chosen, continue to challenge it?
---
Okay, ideologies aside.
I must confess that I was not supporting an Obama-nation :p
But it is unfair of me to say so. I say that, as you rightly take umbrage, without having looked into what Obama's policies are (or were?). I hadn't investigated McCain's either. Other than my general Republican leanings I have been scared away from supporting Obama for exactly the ideas that you are describing - the dangers of being an unthinking flunkey...
I get scared when I see emotional masses (and messes) nodding away to an Obama speech. Not to the proposal, but to the patter.
I get scared when I see them reachicing for their socialistic pitchforks at the mere pitch of salesman.
And it scares me most (as it should you) that almost every Obama supporter that I've enquired after, has not been able to tell me about Obama's policies, nor his manifesto, without using the word "change". I can't imagine that McCain was hopping about saying he wants to keep everything exactly the same.
Change is not inherently a good thing. Impovement is.
While I congratulate the US on clearing a psychological milestone - to compare, I can't imagine South Africa voting in a white President ever again - I suspect it has come at the cost of an intellecual, free-thinking one.
America has voted for change. So I don't want them to complain when they get it, when it dawns on them.
But I hope I'm wrong - even though doing that is something you seem to think I can't do.
Mitch,
You are a good person with noble intentions, I have respect for your beliefs and ideologies, and I do appreciate your interest and engagement with my writing.
However, I sometimes wonder why your comments on my more political pieces, for the most part at least, tend to take the tone of an attack on my writing style, of my formula and method. I obviously understand that you disagree with my points - but i don't believe that you engage with them properly, simply because you are unwilling to try and understand them.
In any case, I feel that your comment about my "common themes" is laughable - cause you have a common theme of attacking my writing.
But let me put it in simple terms to help you understand:
1) I believe that "Obamaphobia" among South African Jews comes from Racism. How many of your peers say "Shochs"? How many of your family friends say that america has a "Shvartser" president? Plenty - so do mine. Old school behaviour based on ghetto mentality encourages this language and thought. There are plenty (not everyone, not the majority, but a worrying number of jewish people) who, as i see it, are strongly racist. I would also state CATEGORICALLY that the community does not do enough to change this perception. I challenge you to prove me wrong on this point.
2)Associating my beliefs with the bandwagon is not so much silly as it is unfounded. As you well know, mitch, I am liberal and irreligious - which places me far outside the "bandwagon" as it exists. In my community (not country, not society but community, to which i identify with), a liberal and irrelegious viewpoint puts me off the bandwagon for sure.
3) I don't accuse my peers of not making conscious thought or decisions. You have been at pains to prove that my statements to this effect are unfounded on this, and I concede you are correct. However, I do feel that a number of my peers have non-liberal, right wing thoughts that make them unable to accept and adapt their viewpoints to the changes that are and will happen in the world. As i referred to in my piece, I believe that people should be challenged to make decisions that do not seem totally informed by a world war 2/holocaust mentality of fear and paranoia. As important as those cataclysmic events are, I believe (my personal belief) that we should inform our lives by the current situation of the world in which we live, which includes HAPPILY a modern and thriving jewish state, a strong and flourishing religion and, most awesomely, the beginnings of a post-racial society with the election of Obama!
4) My final point is coming up. Before I say it, I hope you take it to heart and don't write some lame poem that embarasses me so that you can get high fives from your spiritual leaders. My writing is what it is. I write to be controversial. I write to be heard. I write to be laughed at. I write to be challenged. I write to write and thats that. I do not write because i have an agenda. I do not write to be known as a self hating jew. I just write.
The obama piece is non-controversial, inspirational and hopeful, in my opinion, and marks a departure in tone from my younger days, which was more aggressive, angry and wrong.
But I want to clear something up for the future. I just write. I just blog. I don't want to or intend to threaten anyone. I have a view that i want to express in public. Mitch, I respect your right to write without attacking or embarassing your beliefs. I wish you could do the same for me. Otherwise, we will be stuck in a repititive cycle that will only end once one of us agrees with each other.
And that, my friend, will never happen.
(It’s a little funny, and an interesting paradox; after just about finishing reading your reply I was about to begin mine, this latest reply, saying how much I agree with you. But then your last two lines say we never will. How can I disagree with that, to say I don’t disagree )
Literary Catch-22’s aside...
Let me start by apologising. You are right that I shouldn’t let an attack on your style or intention colour my opinions on the content of your note. Also, I am sorry for any possible embarrassment I might have caused you. That poem really wasn’t meant to cause you any, if nothing else it was just a tongue-in-cheek poetic opportunity to stroke my own ego. Moreover though, I wasn’t being snide in it – I genuinely was, and still am, jealous of you in many ways.
---
The reason why I can agree with the basic theme of your latest blog – and please understand that this is not an insult – is because, from your reply, I honestly believe you’ve misread a lot of what I wrote. (I believe I do have definitive and noble defences for all of my statements. Other than to point out that in actuality I made NO personal attacks against you, squabbling about this, as you say, defeats the point of the real discussion, which is about the signs of a new dawn of hope...)
I think in essence we are making the same observation, just on either sides of the spectrum. I’m saying I was consternated by the many people (in my subjective and short-scope view) who support Obama for reasons unknown to them, because they lack the awareness to self-analyse their conditioning versus their critical conscious thoughts. And, unless I too am misreading what you’ve written, I think you’re saying that a lot of people (on the more orthodox or republican side of society) do the same thing.
While I do think that change can happen without improvement, and disagree that revolution for the sake of revolution is wrong, what we do agree on, the point of your note, is that “we should never lose doubt in our ability to make an impact, or effect change, or change our minds, or go against the norms, or do anything”.
I just have my reservations that that is indeed what many Obama-supporters are doing.
Mitch,
Fair enough - apology accepted. I return the apology for my harsh response - I just want to ensure that the parameters of debate are not shaped by any misgivings you have over my "agenda"...whatever that means..
-----------
I think that the discussion is about the "bandwagon" - with myself sitting comfortably on the liberal bandwagon, and you on the conservative bandwagon. It is this difference between liberal and conservative that forms the basis of our debate about religion, race etc etc.
While I agree with you (you see, i do agree with you - and have happily proved myself wrong :)) on the point that obamania has swept ppl up - i don't see much to worry about in ppl being swept up by a hopeful new dawn. I see this man's success as symbolic of a new worldview - that is not configured on fears about change, different opinions and alternative views.
My concern, or fear, is that for the most part, I feel that anti-obama sentiment is configured strongly on conservative ideologies, which is not something I believe that the world needs right now.
The imbalances, the suffering, the global torment of the past few years can be attributed greatly, in my opinion, to the rise of conservative, religious fundamentalism. The atrocities conducted in the name of islamic fundamentalism, the rise of the fear-mongering christian religious right in America, all of which (in my opinion) are not good things, stemmed from a dissatisfaction with contemporary values by various religious factions.
I also believe that this dissatisfaction with contemporary values is reflected in our own community, but i won't get into that right now.
So, essentially, my argument is that the rise of liberalism, in the form of Obama, is a good thing for the following reasons:
1) Because I am a liberal.
2) Because I want to live in a world where race is not an issue.
3) Because finally, our generation has inherited the earth - and our generation is inherently more accepting, more tolerant, than any other generation passed.
----
once again, my sincere apologies for my harsh response.
Post a Comment