Saturday, July 29, 2006
Ice Cold Indifference
Both Semezdin Mehmedinovic and Hans Magnus Enzensberger allude to the ice cold indifference of killers in the civil wars of the Balkans and West Africa that shows in the eyes of murderous malcontents as though their souls had left their bodies. Enzensberger in particular speaks to the malign neglect of a long-globalized free market that created the inhumane conditions that foster such psychotic symptoms.
But we see this heartless manifestation as well in less intense though equally lethal conflicts like the North of Ireland or South of America where privileged sectors of society are bolstered in their human indifference by both the persuasive and the coercive powers of the state. How else can one explain Orange Order marches or Ku Klux Klan rallies, let alone Zionist or Khmer Rouge massacres in UN refugee camps?
Like the character Walter remarked in The Big Lebowski, "They're not Nazis, they're worse--they're nihilists."
But we see this heartless manifestation as well in less intense though equally lethal conflicts like the North of Ireland or South of America where privileged sectors of society are bolstered in their human indifference by both the persuasive and the coercive powers of the state. How else can one explain Orange Order marches or Ku Klux Klan rallies, let alone Zionist or Khmer Rouge massacres in UN refugee camps?
Like the character Walter remarked in The Big Lebowski, "They're not Nazis, they're worse--they're nihilists."
