Inspired by David Shulman
I'm interrupting myself, temporarily setting aside my rereading of the terrifying chapter in Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization [1] in which he writes about the unbelievable atrocities against Algerians carried out by Algerians 'in the name of God'. It's a mammoth chapter (pp. 631-719) that horrified me some years ago when I first read it, because of the supposedly 'principled' killing of children. I love children. To me they are sacred, all of them, regardless of the ethnicities and nationalities that society forces on them. This note is different from my usual stuff -- nothing about capitalism, socialism, competition, greed -- just about love, real love. I'm reprinting an essay from a man I'd never heard of until a few days ago, David Shulman. When I read his essay, it recalled to me the almost final words of the great writer and human being, Bruno Traven, who, three weeks before his death forty years ago, in 1969, wrote:[2]
This world, with all its troubles, shortcomings, disappointments, pains, problems, unwelcome events, occasional hailstorms is after all, still too beautiful to abandon even if you are sick, tired of life or close to a hopeless end. Stick it out. Keep on fighting, don't give up. Spit Death in its face and turn the other way. The sun is still in the sky surrounded by stars.[3]