Subject: Grass, Palestine, Indonesia and Toytown
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 12:37:11 +0200


1st August 2000

Dear Pocolist,

Just read the dialogue (?) between Bourdieu and Grass which Marwan Dalal
kindly posted to the list. Marwan has been busy lately and from Marwan's
postings I also see that the Palestinians seem to be well organised with
regard to websites and action groups. Considering the pro-Israeli lobby will
have plenty of support in Jewish America, I think it's a good thing that the
other side can muster some support and publish arguments. Let's hope Camp
David isn't the end. Peace for all sides is the optimum.

Another thing: Marwan pointed out to me that not all of Indonesia is Moslem.
I should have realised that when I wrote what I did, because nearly every
day at work I translate bits of news about how Christians and Moslems are
rioting and burning down houses in various parts of Indonesia.

But to come back to Pierre Bourdieu and Guenter Grass, I do rather get the
feeling they're talking past one another. Bourdieu is the suave
intellectual, Grass the ex-politician (Social Democrat) and novelist.
Personally, I find what Grass says more convincing, not least because he
brings up the issue of humour. (Remember Grass also had to spar with the
humourless guru of German literature, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, within the last
few years.) I always find humour is a kind of safety valve for those who
think their opinions absolutely right. I fear Bourdieu is easily baited on
this point. Grass is, like it or not, more of a man of the people. One
phrase of his: "progress is a snail". Indeed, progress which comes to fast,
disappears again with the same rapidity.

Though I was not desperately flattered by Amandi Esonwanne's remarks that
"...and the likes of Eric will continue to spout trash couched in empty,
high falluting
language.", I do think some of what s/he said displayed a good deal of
common sense. I try not to be high fallutin, and had hoped I'd brought the
list a bit out of the doldrums of book searches and complex theoretical
debate back to real life. If the sun were here a bit more, I too would go
and lie on the lawn. Perhaps the miserable July weather has caused me to
over-produce.

I think Amandi is bringing up a red herring with the fact the aborigines of
America and Australia didn't put limits on immigration. We know why the
white man came to those countries. We know who had superior weaponry. We
know who gave infected blankets to South American Indians in the hope they'd
be killed off as they had no resistance to disease.

But we can blame colonial powers till the cows come home and still not find
a solution for what's going on now. This isn't Toytown, and powerful Western
countries have their vested interests and agendas. As I keep saying,
indulging in a British-Empire-bashing exercise from the safe groves of
academe is not what I call genuine debate. More facts and less posturing. If
you read the "Migration News" website I pointed the list to yesterday,

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/mntxt.html

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/default.shtml

you would see that Europe and elsewhere have a real problem with illegal
immigrants. An
excellent website run by the University of California - not the British
National Party. Lots of facts and statistics. As we're not going to make
Europe less desirable to live in just to deter illegal immigration, I
imagine it is in the interests of the rich, attractive countries in the
world to start schemes which will help people stay at home without the fear
of being murdered, or remaining poor for the rest of their lives.

Although the internet is very handy for us, I do accept Amandi's point that
giving internet access to hungry people is absurd.

Best wishes,

Eric Dickens



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