DISCUSSION: The Complete Works of...?

Many a time we read one or two works of an author, the ones which have become popular and everybody is talking about. Like music, people hardly listen to the entire works of ... except they are dedicated fans and incorrigible aficionados. As a reader I would like to know if there is any particular author whose works you read in its entirety or if there is any author whom you wish (or are on the course of reading) his or her entire works. I wish to read the entire works of Ayi Kwei Armah and Toni Morrison. However, since these authors have not stopped writing, one could only read as and when they write. What about you?

Quotes for Friday from Zadie Smith's White Teeth

I employ you to know things. To compute information. To bring into the light the great darkness of the creator's unexplainable universe.

Archie Jones attempted suicide because his wife, Ophelia, a violet-eyed Italian with a faint mustache, had recently divorced him. But he had not spent New Year's morning gagging on the tube of a vacuum cleaner because he loved her. It was rather because he had lived with her for so long and had not loved her. 

Archie's second marriage felt like buying a pair of shoes, taking them home, and finding they don't fit. For the sake of appearances, he put up with them. And then, all of a sudden and after thirty years, the shoes picked themselves up and walked out of the house. She left. Thirty years.

You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence, Archibald...

Desire didn't even bother casing the joint, checking whether the neighbours were in - desire just kicked down the door and made himself at home.

[W]hen the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intellect go away ... And one third of his religion.

What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll - then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greetings cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.

They were massively attracted by the fact that he had renounced women and the more he renounced them, the more successful he became. Of course this equation could only work so long, and now Shiva was getting more pussy than he ever had as a kaffir.

In Archie's experience anything with a long memory holds a grievance and a pet with a grievance (that time you got the wrong food, that time you bathed me) just isn't what you want.

But surely to tell these tales and others like them would be to speed the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect. And as Archie knows, it's not like that. It's never been like that.

155. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith's White Teeth (Penguin Books, 2000; 542) is a somewhat historical novel set in the not too distant past of two families, whose friendship was developed on the battlefield but fully fledged in London. It traces the life of Samad Miah Iqbal as an immigrant in Britain and his English friend Alfred Archibald Jones. Later on, the Chalfens - a middle class British family of Jewish descent - were introduced. Using a mix of humour, and a certain penchant (Smith's) for caricaturing, Zadie Smith portrayed the general issues of miscegenation, assimilation, acculturation, isolation and identity and their effects on the social, physical, mental, emotional and religious development of a migrants. And the extent to which one family went to in order to maintain the sanctity of their religious beliefs and traditional life, to preserve it from the invading army of bacteria. But what is the strength of a single man in the face of globalisation (spread through the television), precocity and willingness?

The story opened with Archie Jones on a suicide mission. Archie was a man who had never ever made a decision in his life. The mere act of thinking and making a decision was so difficult that he refrained from it whenever he could; but if he were hard-pressed to do so or the questioner pressed hard, he would toss a coin. Archie was the embodiment of failure; he had failed in all fronts of his life: his marriage which began on a beautiful note had failed irremediably after thirty years, the authorities had failed to recognise him as a WWII veteran (together with Samad) though he saw less of the war, and the Olympic committee failed to record his name for coming in 13th in cycling during the 1948 London Olympic games. But it was the major failure of his first life that offered him the chance to live a second. This was his failure to commit suicide when Mo Hussein-Ishmael, a halal butcher on whose property Archie had driven to gas himself, asked him not to kill himself there on his property. With this new lease of life, Archie was bent on living a kind of youngish lifestyle. He therefore descended into debauchery and hedonism together with some hemp-smoking, alcohol-imbuing teenagers. These young ones have gathered because the world did not end as was predicted and preached by the Jehovah Witnesses. It was during one of his visits to this house full of hedonists that Archie met the young Jamaican, with two missing front teeth, Clara Bowden. The two were soon married, against the warnings of Clara's mother, Hortense Bowden, and her boyfriend Ryan Topps. Clara had gone through a circuitous life that had seen her transformed from the shy, witnessing, Jehovah Witness she was to a hedonist, a change that had infuriated her spirit-filled mother.

Samad, Archie's closest and only friend had migrated to Britain, after the war, from Bangladesh with his wife Alsana. Alsana and Clara became friends after Archie's marriage and the two women conceived at approximately the same period. As the Iqbals tried to adjust to life in their new country and neighbourhood, the Joneses tried to come to terms of their 'accidental' marriage for Clara was nineteen when she married and Archie was forty-seven. Samad, a past scientist with a withered hand, had to suffer the humiliation of working as a chef under a family relative to whom he was much older and to whom he must obey, and Alsana must sew every day, every hour to keep the family going. At delivery time, Clara had a girl whom she named Irie Ambrosia Jones and Alsana had a set of twins, boys, whom Samad named Millat and Magid Iqbal.

Samad and Archie had now become fathers and must as well bring up their children the way they deemed best. And this was when the problems began, especially for Samad who, seeing his wife caught in that in-between most migrants find themselves - to let go of their traditions or the cling onto them, became afraid for Millat and Magid. But what could Samad, that archetypal patriarch, do to protect his roots and traditions from foreign infiltration, even if the foreign had become home to his children. Not even the separation or the sending home to Bengali of Magid, the precocious of the two who had shown excellent display of intellect, would solve the problem. Magid, through a series of incidences both at home in Bangladesh and in London, continued to seek education, defeating his father's quest for him to serve Allah and shun Western education. This failure in Samad's life weakened and saddened him, just as the refusal of both India and Britain to recognise or concede his great-grandfather's (Pande) demonstration of valour against the British soldiers. That his son was learning to become a lawyer was the greatest failure he could ever have in his life and for that he was almost always in a penance mood to Allah and irascible to Alsana, as if it was the latter who had brought up the idea rather than him colluding with Archie to kidnap the boy. Millat on the other hand was going through his own crises and confusions: morality, religious and identity (belonging). Moving from one hemp-smoking, women-chasing, alcohol-slurping gang to the other he finally joined KEVIN - Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation. This was after he had joined the Chalfen household through their son Joshua Chalfen. The three - Millat, Irie and Joshua - were part of the students caught when parents ambushed the school and arrested children smoking hemp. Their punishment was to attend biology studies at the Chalfen household. The Chalfens were Jewish and well-educated, opinionated and socially stupid: Marcus Chalfen was a famous geneticist (who through Irie had contacted Magid and, surprised by his intelligence, had gone on corresponding with him to the annoyance of Samad); Joyce Chalfen was a horticulturist (who doted over Millat, believing she understood him and could change him, which became detrimental to her own family); Joshua was the eldest of the Chalfen family.

As the Chalfens made all the fuss about the two: Irie and Millat - Millat because Joyce always wanted him to be around regardless of the cost she was incurring from all his delinquent behaviours and Irie because Marcus employed her to do his filing for him - Joshua was slipping away into a clique of friends who would shift his focus. Finally, when KEVIN took Millat and indoctrinated him about his religion and the need to defend it and informed him of Marcus' lifetime project, the FutureMouse project, which was not of Allah and that no one had the right to interfere with creation, a special domain for God, FATE had taken Joshua, who was initially attracted by his lasciviousness of Joely. FATE (Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation) was a radical animal right group that would stop at nothing to release an incarcerated animal or to punish the offender.

Now as a new millennium was about to unfold, Marcus Chalfen was about to unveil his new creation, the FutureMouse, which he had programmed to live for seven-years and to die at a given time. This research, as communicated to the public through Magid's (he had returned to Britain through Marcus Chalfen) expert writing skill, was supposed to help cure so many diseases including cancer and skin pigmentation. However, there were a lot of people with special interests in this creation: KEVIN - led by Millat - would stop at nothing to disrupt the programme and show Marcus that he was not Allah and should therefore not play one; FATE - led by Crispin and Joely and helped by Joshua would want to break the glass and release the mouse or if it failed injure the perpetrator; Hortense Bowden and Ryan Topps - Clara's mother (and Irie's grandmother) and her first boyfriend respectively - being Jehovah Witnesses and having found a new date when the world would end - have organised a singing and drumming ceremony in front of the hall where the exhibition would take place, to register their displeasure against Marcus for playing Jehovah. But Samad, Archie, Irie and some of their relatives were there to support, albeit grudgingly, Irie and Magid. These groups with different opinions converged at the same destination.

Regarding identity, Irie - to look beautiful for Millat - had to undergo chemical treatment to straighten her hair and when it failed had to fix the hair of an Indian onto hers. This is an issue that had raged forever and it is rare to see an African woman - both at home and abroad - who still cherishes her kinky hair. The statistics provided by Smith, regarding the amount of money blacks spend on their hair, was amazing and the saddest part was the poorer emigres would have to spend so much money to change their look. And there were those Indians who are also forced to shave and sell their hair for money. Aside all these, the most significant theme was that between religion and science. There were several overt derisions against religious zealots. For instance, Samad was bent on making his son Magid serve Allah rather than becoming a lawyer. Smith's themes were varied and, though most were germane to the migrant experience, transcended beyond it. It pitted religious fundamentalism and the blind fanaticism against science. Here some of the poor arguments espoused by these right groups and religious bodies were seen in all of its stupidity. Regardless of this, her argument against that self-conceited idea that we should be loved or that each person should be loved equally was brilliant:

What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll - then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greetings cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time. 

There were also several flagpoles to mark the time: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demonstrations and agitations that marked Salman Rushdie's publication of Satanic Verses. The story is filled with humour and satirical presentations; it philosophises a lot of the current debate between religion and science, the gradual homogenisation of cultures within an environment and miscegenation. The language was very smart for each of the characters. There was the Jamaican dialect, the street jargon, and academic and religious languages. Smith showed that she understands her subjects and have a comparable knowledge to carry out their emotions and fears, unadulterated, to the reader. At 542 pages, White Teeth has a lot to offer the reader and every émigré would find something in the book to relate to.

This book was read for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge and the Chunkster Challenge

154. SHORT STORY MONDAY: Set Me Free by Clifford Chianga Oluoch

Set Me Free, published in the Caine Prize for African writing 2010 anthology - A Life in Full and other stories - is a story based on the 2007-2008 Kenya electoral crisis that resulted when Mwai Kibaki was declared winner of the December 27, 2007 elections and Raila Odinga and his supporters claimed there has been electoral fraud leading to a somewhat Orange Revolution but worsened when some politicians invoked the tribal differences leading to violence. The resolution of the crisis led to the Kibaki-Odinga power-sharing government where Odinga became the prime minister and Kibaki remained the president. In this parallel story, narrated by the daughter of one of such rogue politicians whose name is on the list of the names the ICC has released, the woman tells of the events that took place within the next two days when the list came out. When as a temporary single-mother she had to make a lot of life-and-dead decisions amid threatening calls and text messages, and women who all want to be part of his father's wealth and so are reporting having had children with him. It also moves alongside the woman's five-year old son's eagerness to keep a fallen bird.

David Mavita collapsed in his room by his housemaid, already he was hypertensive and diabetic, after the ICC list came out and is on life support. He has been deserted by both family and friends; friends because none of them wanted to be associated with him after his name came up. His wife has divorced him and absolutely hates him, believing the greatest mistake she had made in her life was marrying David. His sons - Joni and Jerry - have been both disowned by David and having gone their own ways want to have nothing to do with him. Joni became a homosexual prostitute and Jerry was now in the US with her mother who was there to look after his children.

This breakdown in the family left his only daughter as the controller of his estate and by default the next of kin who had to ensure that the next few days after the event will pass smoothly. She had to decide to keep his father on life-support or not; and had to ward off all unnecessary and threatening calls. She made calls to all known family members but none was willing to help: her mother (David's wife) cut the line after she offered her tuppence, an uncle had his problem with David already and would not help him even in death, an Aunt (David's sister) would echo what his brother said and would also cut the line, she could talk to Jerry, and Joni was nowhere to be found. Friends have suddenly whittled and she is left alone. Finally, she set out to look for Joni in Nairobi's Red Light District. When she found him, he also had nothing to do with him; according to him he'd been dead since and that he had no father. But he followed her to the hospital and also advocated for the removal of the life-support which was the decision she had to make that led to her canvassing for opinions from family members. A call from her husband, Tim, from abroad also supported the removal of the life-support since there is no use keeping him alive: is it so that he would face trial by the ICC?

In all there were twelve women who called at the hospital claiming to have had children with David and that should be part of the funeral preparations. They also came with a fake court injunction on the cremation, but David's daughter also has her way around these things. She would take her father off life-support, watch him breathe his last breath, outwitted the authorities and the vulturing women and get him cremated. Together with Joni, they spread his remains over parliament building - the place their father had spent much of his life.

The story is also about the uselessness of earning all such stupendous wealth and gaining nothing in return; rejected by friends and family. In the end his ashes fitted in a little urn which fitted in her hand and when she asked if that is all, the usher responded:

Yes. Human beings are very small.

________________________

About the author:

DISCUSSION: Do you read Introductions?

Most often the republication of books considered classics are preceded by introductions. In the Vintage Classics (2007) edition of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, there were two introductions: the first was by Margaret Atwood written in 2007 and the other by David Bradshaw in 1993. These introductions were then followed by the literary life of the author again by David Bradshaw and then finally there was a foreword by author written in 1946. All these together comprises 50 pages and also gave insights to what the story is about and more.

The question is do you read these introductions and forewords as part of the novel? Do you read it at all? Do you read it before? Or do you read it after? What is your position on this? I do read all before the book.

Quotes for Friday from Bessie Head's Maru

The rains were so late that year. But throughout that hot, dry summer those black storm clouds clung in thick folds of brooding darkness along the low horizon. There seemed to be a secret in their activity, because each evening they broke the long, sullen silence of the day, and sent soft rumbles of thunder and flickering slicks of lightning across the empty sky. [1]

And if the white man thought that Asians were a low, filthy nation, Asians could still smile with relief - at least, they were not Africans. And if the white man thought Africans were a low, filthy nation, Africans in Southern Africa could still smile - at least, they were not Bushmen. [6]

It is preferable to change the world on the basis of love of mankind. But if that quality be too rare, then common sense seems the next best thing. [7]

Those who spat at what they thought was inferior were the 'low filthy people' of the earth, because decent people cannot behave that way. [12]

Something they liked as Africans to pretend themselves incapable of was being exposed as oppressive and prejudiced. They always knew it was there but no oppressor believes in his oppression. He always says he treats his slaves nicely. [37]

Prejudice is like the old skin of a snake. It has to be removed bit by bit. [40]

He knew from his own knowledge of himself that true purpose and direction are creative. [45]

________________

Read the review here

153. Maru by Bessie Head

Title: Maru

Author: Bessie Head

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: AWS Classics

Pages: 103

Year of First Publication: 1971

Country: Botswana/South Africa

In this book Bessie Head tackled an incipient but dangerous problem that Africans are not eager to confront but which had been the bane of the continent, stalling every development and fomenting and precipitating civil wars. Almost every crisis in Africa is either caused by this or act as a catalyst. It led to the electoral crisis in Kenya, the genocide in Rwanda, the Liberian war, the Ivorian crisis and more. Racism has been amongst us and has retarded our progress so much so that had it being eliminated a larger portion of our problems would have been solved concomitantly. For instance, if there were no internal racism (mostly referred to as tribalism or ethnicism) most forms of corruptions would be no more.

Today in every country, there are those who think the country belongs to them and look upon all others (tribes) as inferior and squatters deserving only the crumbs. This problem had become pronounced due to the great diversity within Africa's gene pool so that in a country the variation among people is as much as there are of ethnic or tribal groups. And because politics is about power and numbers corrupt politicians have fallen on this - whipping up sentiments, making ignorant and absolutely stupid ethically-biased statements.  In Botswana, the Masarwa tribe is one of those that have suffered extreme racial segregation. Even when the larger population were struggling against the western racialism they kept the Basarwa (or the Bushmen, their name itself deeply derogatory) as slaves. According to the Tswana people the Basarwa people cannot think, the very argument used against them by the western segregationists; they are considered not different from animals and are counted as part of the animals that inhabit the Kalahari. In this book, Bessie Head shows what a Basarwa (a girl in this case) can do when given the opportunity apart from hunting, gathering, herbal medicine and the art they are known for and the slaves the end up becoming. This is the subject matter of Bessie Head's novella Maru.

A Basarwa woman died after giving birth to a daughter. But because she is a Basarwa and an untouchable the people called on Margaret Cadmore, a white teacher, to attend to the thing. She also taught her several things including literature and art.She also taught her several things including literature and art. Margaret took the daughter and named her after herself, having had no child of her own. The young Margaret had to endure discrimination at school and had it not been her adopted mother, who ensured that she put those who laughed at her in their proper places, life would have been highly unbearable for her. And even though her colour could have allowed her to blend and be passed for a half-caste - a product of a black and white parents, which is itself considered as an abnormality but still above the Masarwa people - Margaret insisted on identifying herself with her people the first time she found out who she was and the meaning of the name of her people.

Fortunately for young Margaret she was a good student and with a British for a mother - albeit adopted - her English and the tonality of her voice was excellent. After she completed training college and her adopted mother left for her home country, young Margaret would be posted to a Delipe to teach at the Leseding School. There she met Dikeledi, the late chief's daughter, also a teacher at the school; the two quickly struck acquaintance. 

Dikeledi was in love with Moleka, a womaniser notorious for changing women like clothes and sending her rejects fleeing town or walking the streets talking to themselves. He had eight children with eight different women and there was no end in sight. Moleka found a place for Margaret. When Dikeledi got to know that Margaret was Masarwa she was amazed and advised her to keep it quiet as no one would suspect it, but she wouldn't hear of it. On the first day at school the head-teacher was all over himself, having already concluded that she was a half-caste, until he got to know that Margaret was a Masarwa and that was when the problem began. Afraid of parents revolting against this, of their children being thought by one of those things, he set out to devise a plan that would make life so much uncomfortable for Margaret so that she would leave by herself or get her sack, regardless of the fact that she had the best grades (in fact, he had started doubting if she never received help along the way and had sworn to investigate this matter).

Moleka had been taken in by Margaret's beauty, politeness, and mannerisms. He was now like a mad man. As a man of importance, he couldn't go out with one of the Masarwa people, what would people say about him? This dilemma glazed his eyes so much so that he saw through Dikeledi. The first thing he did was to release all his Masarwa slaves. And when the head-teacher prep Margaret's students to laugh at their teacher and ask her if she were a Masarwa and if so how could she teach them (the situation was saved Dikeledi whose no-nonsense attitude and education turned her into a somewhat strong woman) Moleka invited the head teacher into his house and invited him to eat with them all, including the recently-released Masarwa slaves. Infuriated the head-teacher left and fled the town.

Dikeledi's brother and heir-apparent, Maru, who had been away when Margaret made her entry into Dilepe was informed of all the happenings in the village by his spy, Ranko. Maru would also work on an elaborate plan that would entwine Dikeledi to Moleka and free him to whisk Margaret away.

This is a love story of some sorts but it is not romance-filled, even by 1970s African standards and the focus is not on building a suspense as to what would happen. The story begins with Maru married to Margaret; thus, the story is more about exposing how the Masarwa people are treated. Though the means by which Margaret was married, without her explicit consent for she loved Moleka (because Maru never showed any sign of love), bothered me. However, like most of Bessie's works there were a bit of surrealism in it where Maru and Margaret dreamt the same dreams. This is believed to be the activity of Maru's totems. Narrated in one long flashback, without chapters or numbered sections, in two parts, this is a fast read; it does away with any unnecessary issues and addresses what the author wants to say.

This is the most accessible of all three of Bessie Head's stories I have read. The importance of this story lies in the fact that even today the Masarwa are being discriminated against. There are stories of their total extinction and the loss of a culture, carefully preserved, because their lands have been found to contain diamonds.

______________
About the author: Click here to read about Bessie Head.

152. SHORT STORY MONDAY: The David Thuo Show by Samuel Munene

This short story is taken from the Caine Prize for African Writing 2010 anthology,  A Life in Full and other stories.

David Thuo runs a column in the Sunday News on social issues; actually, he claims to be a consultant on social issues. He is also the head of the Thuo family comprising of his wife, two daughters and a maid. For the first time mother and father quarrelled, the wife was accusing the husband of cheating and the husband was counter-accusing her for sleeping with her boss. The household dynamics seems to be weaker and there is no single bond binding them together. Again, there seems to be great tension among them so that even watching television becomes a platform to inflame passions.

The degeneracy of the family is not limited to the parents suspecting each other. Sharon the first child has two boyfriends and shares her time between them. The narrator, the second child, who pretends to be the best member of the household secretly reads a pornographic magazine she purchases every week.

Shinko, the maid, knows most of the things going on in the family. For instance she knows that Sharon has two boyfriends and the mother too keeps kissing a young boy who has been dropping her off every night. One evening, she came home late only to meet her maid sleeping with her husband on the sofa. A quarrel ensued and it was during the exchange of words that Dave got a hard evidence that the wife cheats on him using the demanding nature of her work as an excuse.

Author in green (Source)

The story seems to show how everything is not right with the Thuo, and for that matter every, family. The plot was difficult to follow and the story lacked something to connect all the different actions. Like most short stories, it remained in its nascent form and would have worked better if it had been fledged out.

________________

About the author: Samuel Munene is a young Nairobi poet, short story writer, and contributor to Kwani? as well as various literary online magazines. He holds an economics degree from the University of Nairobi, and currently earns a living as a freelance writer. (Source)

DISCUSSION: Why Finish Books?

I was surfing the net as usual, reading those articles that attract my attention and I found this article about why it is not that necessary to finish reading a book and that not finishing a book does not mean you did not enjoy it or that the reader's feeling towards the book was negative. According to Tim Parks, it could even be a credit to the writer. He writes

To put a novel down before the end, then, is simply to acknowledge that for me its shape, its aesthetic quality, is in the weave of the plot and, with the best novels, in the meshing of the writing style with that weave. Style and plot, overall vision and local detail, fascinate together, in a perfect tangle. Once the structure has been set up and the narrative ball is rolling, the need for an end is just an unfortunate burden, an embarrassment, a deplorable closure of so much possibility. Sometimes I have experienced the fifty pages of suspense that so many writers feel condemned to close with as a stretch of psychological torture, obliging me to think of life as a machine for manufacturing pathos and tragedy, since the only endings we half-way believe in, of course, are the unhappy ones.

I personally cannot stand not finishing a book and even though I have abandoned some books, I had gone back to read them fully. It's not just the satisfaction of completing a book; it's not just because I want to tell people I have read this book.

What do you have to say? Should a book be necessarily finished? Will you consider your reading complete even when you did not complete? Should the reader decide when he/she thinks the book should end? Kindly share your thoughts on this. 

Quotes for Friday from Jose Saramago's Blindness

The sceptics, who are many and stubborn, claim that, when it comes to human nature, if it is true that the opportunity does not always make the thief, it is also true that it helps a lot. [17]

To put is simply, this woman could be classed as a prostitute, but the complexity in the web of social relationships, whether by day or night, vertical or horizontal, of the period here described cautions us to avoid a tendency to make hasty and definitive judgments, a mania which, owing to our exaggerated self-confidence, we shall perhaps never be rid of. [23]

Although it may be evident just how much cloud there is in Juno, it is not entirely licit, to insist on confusing with a Greek goddess what is no more than an ordinary concentration of drops of water hovering in the atmosphere. [23]

It was my fault, she sobbed, and it was true, no one could deny it, but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt. The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality [75]

We all have our moments of weakness, just as well that we are still capable of weeping, tears are often our salvation, there are times when we would die if we did not weep [93]

We have a colonel here who believes the solution would be to shoot the blind as soon as they appear, Corpses instead of blind men would scarcely improve the situation, To be blind is not the same as being dead, Yes, but to be dead is to be blind [104]

Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are [121]

[T]here is nothing in this world that belongs to us in an absolute sense [136]

[E]ven in the worst misfortunes it is possible to find enough good to be able to bear the aforesaid misfortunes with patience [144]

[W]hat one does on one's own initiative is generally less arduous than if one has to do something under duress. [160]

However, to everything its proper season, just because you rise early does not mean that you will die sooner. [163]

[I]t is not from someone's face and the litheness of their body that we can judge their strength of heart. [165]

And when is it necessary to kill, she asked herself as she headed in the direction of the hallway, and she herself answered the question, When what is still alive is already dead. [183]

Just as the habit does not make the monk, the sceptre does not make the king, this is a fact we should never forget [199]

[T]he fact is that hunger has always had a keen sense of smell, the kind that penetrates through all barriers, just as dogs do. [216]

[T]he reply to be given is that all stories are not like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened. [251]

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are. [261]

It's a time-honoured custom to pass by the dead without seeing them [282]

________________

Read the review here

151. Blindness by Jose Saramago

Blindness (Vintage Classics, 1997; 309; translated by Giovanni Pontiero) is a story that investigates human behaviour with political undertones; what makes someone do one thing and not the other; does the conscience behind an activity matter?  Jose Saramago, the 1998 Nobel Laureate, used this experimental book to investigate these issues in ways similar to William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

People are suddenly going blind in an unnamed city. A man in his car, waiting for the traffic light to turn from red to amber and then green, suddenly lost his sight. The Good Samaritan who took him home and later stole his car also lost his sight. The doctor who looked at his strange case lost his sight in his house whilst researching more on the man's conditions; a prostitute who had just left the doctor's place and was meeting her client got blind whilst having sex with this man.

The authorities in order to contain, what became known as the white blindness - because the people were seeing a sea of milky white instead of the total blackness as described by the 'normally' blind people - quarantined them in a mental asylum where all contacts with the outside world were broken. All those who came into contact with these individuals were also detained and quarantined in a different section of the building. With time those who became blind were transferred, by their own people, to the blind section. The doctor's wife who was not blind but pretended to be in order to be close to her husband and five others, including the girl with the dark glasses, the boy with the squint, car thief, an old man with black eyepatch were the first six to be quarantined. When the first batch of the blind was settled in their wards, the authorities sounded the warning giving them a long list of rules and what is expected of them. Any attempt to escape will be met with instant death by shooting, they will do their own washing and bury their dead. Food will be given to them at specific times and they are to come for them themselves, near the gate. The doctor's wife, unaffected by the disease, tried to keep order but she would later give up because she was both overwhelmed and afraid (fear imbued into him by her husband) to inform the masses that she could see.

As the contagion spread and the number of inmates increase, the sanitation and personal hygiene began to  deteriorate. Prior to that the car thief, who had earlier been identified by the first blind man by his voice and who had tried fumbling the breasts of the girl with dark glasses and whom the girl had stamped with the heel of her shoe, had died from the wounds he sustained and had been buried. Amongst the masses there were those who were indolent and those who cheat people out of food. Though the level of organisation among them was low, the doctor's wife - who had still not been infected and would be the only one in the whole city to keep her sight - tried to put some form of order in whatever they do. But unable to control them completely lest they question her and also because the taps failed to run and the toilets were full, the people began desecrating their living spaces and, being blind, they walked in them and slept in them. Drivers who, in another life and place, had or would have complained and whom pedestrian had or would have described as inconsiderate and uncompassionate were now complaining about their being treated badly. As the numbers kept increasing (though the military and the authorities also became infected, they were not sent to a different place) chaos set in and because the asylum became a microcosm of the city in particular and by extension of the world, there were those who by their strength (and with their smart thinking had smuggled weapons into the asylum and were also able to fabricate new ones) gathered together and oppressed the people. They became the overlords and requesting the people to purchase the food, which was given to them free with their valuables, failure to obey would mean starvation for the entire ward; by then the rate of delivery had decreased and there was also no specific time for delivery. These thugs would later request the women from each ward to pay for their ward's food with a steamy orgy. These thugs excelled in their oppression of the masses, because they were organised so that a group of twenty could and did rule a people of over three hundred. It was clear that the people were set on the path to their devolution; moving from whatever they were at the time achronologically into the period when man was a base animal.

But the doctor's wife would lead a revolt one evening, during a blind orgy, and would kill the leader and that power that they held over them would dissolve and the people would be free. However, at this time the contagion had spread with such speed and ferocity that everyone in the city had already become blind, including the soldiers who were keeping watch, and the food producers. One of the women inmates, tired of the general life in the asylum, started a fire that caught the building in no time. It was this fire, while killing several inmates, that would set most of them free and it was then they would realise that their inability to get food, which most of them had blamed on the woman who had killed the leader - because had she not killed him they would still have had food, was because everybody was now blind. Back in the city of the blind, the group of seven - containing five of the first batch and two others: the old man with the eyepatch and the boy with the squint - led by the doctor's wife, had to find ways to survive this human catastrophe on their own. Having now been told them that she could seen and had was not blind, she would inform them of whatever was happening or had happened to the city. With stores looted and no food available she had to compose herself, physically (for she was an old woman of about fifty) and mentally (for the decisions she had to take and the filth and dirt she had to see and participate in, worse for her because she knows and sees what is happening) to keep her people alive. The six blind people were happy to know that they have one unblind person leading them; they each went to their homes only to be met by new occupants. People unable to find their way home had taken occupancy of the nearest rooms they could find. Needless to say water and food were a scarce commodity and dogs competed against each other for cadavers and corpses. So much filth had filled the city and so heavy was the stench of decomposition that windows now had to be kept closed. And when it rains they stand in it, clean themselves and collect some for drinking and through that the city got cleaned too, somewhat. 

The book could be describe as a compendium of scatology and not just for the shock value or to depict how we can be but rather how we are. It shows that it takes little to descend to the abyss of the social structure perhaps faster than it takes to ascend for all that is required is the breakdown in leadership, laws and awareness and all these are easy to lose than to develop or maintain. As a commentary on politics and governance there were several references to communal living, to the importance of working together to achieve a specific goal. For instance, regarding the idea of putting all the food supplies together and sharing the bulk, Saramago writes

[T]he concentration of food supplies into a single entity for apportioning and distribution, had its positive aspects, after all, however much certain idealists might protest that they would have preferred to go on struggling for life by their own means, even if their stubbornness meant going hungry. [144]

Then as a commentary against competition and its bias against the weak, he writes

There were blind inmates lying up against the walls, those who on arrival had been unsuccessful in finding a bed, either because in the assault they had lagged behind, or because they lacked the strength to contest a bed and win their battle. [146]

Thus, Saramago shows that the only way to come out of such a predicament is to work together rather than compete against each other which only worsens the situation. In the end bonds, that would under no circumstances be formed had there not been blindness, were formed. The girl with the dark glasses who was considered beautiful in all aspect latched onto the old man with the eyepatch. Rid of everything, of the very things that make us arrogant and think of ourselves superior, we are left with the purest form of love, a sense of affinity, which distinguishes not and calls out to whomever it wants. 

Using the case of the car thief and a prostitute (or the girl with the dark glasses) Saramago argues that choice and conscience are very important and it is what separates negative from positive. Though the girl is a prostitute in every sense of the word, Saramago admonishes against the use of the word because it is her decision to sleep with men in exchange for money and pleasure and that she does so by choosing the man she wants and when she wants. He writes

[T]his woman could be classed as a prostitute, but the complexity in the web of social relationships, whether by day or night, vertical or horizontal, of the period here described cautions us to avoid a tendency to make hasty and definitive judgments, a mania which, owing to our exaggerated self-confidence, we shall perhaps never be rid of. ... Without any doubt, this woman goes to bed with men in exchange for money, a fact that might allow us to classify her without further consideration as a prostitute, but, since it is also true that she only goes with a man when she feels like it and with whom she wants, we cannot dismiss the possibility that such a factual difference, must as a precaution determine her exclusion from the club as a whole. She has, like ordinary people, a profession, and, also like ordinary people, she takes advantage of any free time to indulge her body and satisfy needs, both individual and general. Were we not trying to reduce her to some primary definition, we should finally say of her, in the broad sense, that she lives as she pleases and moreover gets all the pleasure she can from life. [23/4]

Blindness is the work of an experiential writer but it is also experimental. Its experimentalism is on several fronts. First the narrative style is different. There are no inverted commas or apostrophes to indicate dialogues; full stops are sparingly used; and questions are to be inferred from the way they are written, there are no question marks to indicate them. The beginning of a dialogue is marked by capitalisation of the first word that begins the sentence and the response is separated from the previous by a comma - they are not arranged in paragraphs as is commonly done but flow into longer sentences. Initially, the reader might think this to be difficult but no such difficulty is observed. Consequently, the sentences were rather long and paragraphs lengthy. Another item to note in this masterpiece is names. There were no proper nouns in this book. No names of persons or of places. Each person is identified by something unique about him, temporary or permanent. There was the city, the man with the eyepatch, the girl with the dark glasses, the wife of the doctor, the doctor, the wife of the first man, the first man who went blind, the boy with the squint and others. And even with this, Saramago managed to keep his writing lucid so that the reader can forget that he met no such things. The universality of the issues discussed perhaps warranted this style of writing.

The narrative itself is different. Though I had met a similar kind of narrative in Palace Walk, where the narrator can break off to explain or converse with the reader directly, here it was extended. There were long monologues that philosophises the peoples' actions and distill what could be possibly learnt from it; there were places where the narrator becomes part of the struggle, using the first person plural 'we'; there were places where the narrator becomes omniscient. Generally, but not always, the omniscient narrator was used to tell the story (plot-wise) and the first person plural to 'discuss' the philosophies. Putting these styles together it was as if the narrator was holding the readers hand to navigate a complex architectural achievement and explaining to him or her how each facet works and how it is linked to the others.

Blindness is an excellent book. It is a book about relationship as it pertains to governance and power; about how we make decisions and how our decisions affect us; about the need for order and organisation. It is a book that those who have not as yet read should read.

150. SHORT STORY MONDAY: Happy Ending by Stanley Onjezani Kenani

After finding a love letter in his wife's handwriting with no name or address, Dama concluded that his wife of infidelity. He therefore sought the help of a spiritualist to deal with this offending man. The spiritualist, Simbazako, older than anyone in the village, listened to Dama's concerns and told him he had no problem. Simbazako is famous for the things he could do, though some were mere exaggerations. Before he proceeded he offered Dama the options available for him to make his choice.

There was one in which the man could die as if stung by a puff adder a few hours after the act. There was another in which the lover could be tortured slowly, feeling like a million needles were pricking his stomach. There was another in which the lover could go on for a month, every second, every minute, until death put the victim out of his misery. Dama, however, had decided not to be so cruel, so he'd settled for kuthamokondwa. The man should die in the act, he thought. [125]

Back home and Dama was still in between thoughts: should he or should he not. The spiritualist had told him that he could the food, after he had mixed it with the herbs he has provided, with her wife and nothing will happen to him but for his wife the moment he takes in the food, the medicine will starts its work. What he should realise was that if his wife doesn't cheat on him in a year he would be the one to die.

Now playing with the medicine it inadvertently fell from his hands into the food. So he removed it and stirred it. Dama had remained chaste and is afraid of any notion of sex outside marriage because of what happened to his father, which later shame the whole family. His father, a shameless womaniser who would follow anything female, was the first person in the whole of Malawi to be diagnosed of AIDS. After his and her wife's death, Dama became the item of gossips and a laughing stock to the people. People point hands at him as if he was the father and had committed the crime.

After the death of his parents, the young Dama was left to cater for his younger brother Abisalomu. To help him do all these, he married Tithelepo. But with time the two found that children will not be forthcoming and so adopted his brother as his son. But then the village folks began to gossip.

One day, coming from his daily rounds, Dama heard his wife shouting from behind the news. Rushing to the scene he found his brother, Abisalomu, dead.  Tithelepo ran away and Dama ran to the old Simbazako only to discover his decomposing body in his hut. Later Tithelepo will come back to her husband but between them lay an uneasy coldness. Dama had overheard a conversation between his wife and her friend as to how she forced Abisalomu to do what he did, that he was doing it to bring happiness to Dama. That month she got pregnant.

The first part of the short story was brilliantly told. But the denouement or the revelation in this case is artificial and too forced. The dialogue itself was constructed as if it were meant for Dama to hear and be convinced. Again, and this is personal, was this a happy ending because the woman became pregnant and the family had the child they had always wanted? Or was it a happy ending because the woman got the child that would erase the 'shame' of childlessness, even if in this case was the man's problem. Because sleeping with a man's brother is no justification for infidelity unless it has been agreed between the two. But then this is one of those moral issues whose answer is subjective.

_________________

About the author: Stanley Onjezani Kenani is a Malawian writer and poet. As a poet, Kenani has performed at the Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, Poetry Africa in Durban, South Africa, Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA), Zimbabwe, and at the Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia. Kenani has won several awards in his country for his short story writing. In 2007, his short story, For Honour, won the third prize in an HSBC/SA PEN Competition. The same short story was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2008 and appeared in the anthology African Pens: New Writing from Southern Africa 2007 (Source). Read more about the author here.

March in Review and Projections for April and a Look at the First Quarter

March in Review

March has been my all time best months for reading. I read some really great books and continued to dent my TBR pile. Perhaps it will be better if I don't refer to it as a pile anymore. I read all the books I projected to read. 

2012 seems to be moving in a good direction, at least so far as the first three months are concerned. After reading 7 books each in January and February, a total of 10 books were read in March. These ten books gave a total of 2424 pages; an average of 78 pages read per day (compared to the 62 per day in February and 58 per day in January) and 242 per book. I didn't read any single story in March. The following are the books:

1. A Life in Full and Other Stories by the Caine Prize for African Writing (read for the 100 Shots of Shorts Challenge and reviewed for the Short Story Monday)
2. White Teeth by Zadie Smith (for the Chunkster Challenge and the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge)
3. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
4. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
5. Harvest of Thorns by Shimmer Chinodya (Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners Reading Challenge)
6. Birds of Our Land by Virginia W. Dike
7. The Chicken Thief by Fiona Leonard
8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
10. Madmen and Specialists by Wole Soyinka (for the Africa Reading Challenge)

The Quarter

March 31 marks the end of the first quarter of the year and stock must be taken on the progress of challenges and commitments.

• I set out to read 70 books this year; I have read 24 (6006 pages) so far which is 34 percent. With 46 more books left and at an average of 6 books per month, this target will be achieved latest by October;
• I am currently 36 percent through the 100 Shots of Shorts Challenge, which is a Challenge to read 100 short stories (both single stories and anthologies count towards this);
• I joined the Chunkster Challenge at the Chubby level, which was to read four books with pages of not less than 450; at 1 Chunkster per month, I am 75 percent through this challenge. The last book to complete the challenge will be read in April;
• The Africa Reading Challenge hosted Kinna asked Readers to read at least 5 African books. I am 60 percent (3 out of 5) through.

At these rate I will be able to complete all challenges before the year ends. The only challenge I am lagging behind is the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge, which is geared towards completing a selection of 100 books. I am only 35 percent through this five-year challenge, with two years more to go.

Projections for April

April will not be different from the other months. I will still stick to my 'not less than 50 pages a day' reading and hope all things go on well. The following are the books I've scheduled to read:

1. Famished Road by Ben Okri. This book will be read for both the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge and Chunkster Reading Challenge. It will officially be the last book to complete the challenge though there are other books that need to be read which also qualify for the Chunkster Challenge;
2. Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer. This book will be read for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge and the  Africa Reading Challenge;
3. Atonement by Ian McEwan. For the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge;
4. Writing Free, edited by Irene Staunton. For the Africa Reading Challenge;
5. Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano.

Other titles will be added as and when it becomes necessary.

NEW PUBLICATION: Chapters of Me: Deep Thoughts vol.1 by Ben Hinson

Ben Hinson

New title from Musings Press - Chapters of Me:Deep Thoughts vol.1 by Ben Hinson.

Ben Hinson is a once-in-a-lifetime find. The Ghanaian native has lived in Ghana, Nigeria, England, and numerous locations within the United States. He captures his growth and observations on life in beautiful free verse and poetry in his first collection, Chapters of Me: Deep Thoughts vol.1. From his time as a cadet in a military academy in Pennsylvania, to living on the mean streets of Detroit Michigan with gang members, working overnight shifts as a laborer in warehouses, writing and directing theatrical performances, to eventually working as a manager and advisor for some of the top names in real-estate performance analytics and advertising in New York City, Ben Hinson has amassed a vast wealth of experience, which he channels effectively into this new collection. Each piece in the book highlights a unique theme, and is written in a raw and honest style, while at the same time being balanced with carefully constructed wordplay that makes the book nothing short of unique.

We encourage you to watch these videos that Ben himself produced and directed to promote his book by clicking here and there. You can also learn more about Ben by visiting his website or keep up with him and his events on his official Facebook page.

Chapters of Me: Deep Thoughts vol.1 is available online in both paperback and eBook formats for the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Amazon Kindle.

Publication: Chapters of Me: Deep Thoughts vol.1*

Author: Ben Hinson

Publisher: Musings Press

ISBN: 978-0615521091

Pages: 98

Paperback Price (Amazon): $8.93

eBook Price: $3.99

____________

*Leads to amazon

Quotes for Friday from Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values

Powerful lobbyists, both inside and outside government, have distorted an admirable American belief in free enterprise into the right of extremely rich citizens to accumulate and retain more and more wealth and pass all of it to descendants. [3]

Nowadays, the Washington scene is completely different, with almost every issue decided on a strictly partisan basis. Probing public debate on key legislative decisions is almost a thing of the past. Basic agreements are made between lobbyists and legislative leaders, often within closed party caucuses where rigid discipline is paramount. [8] 

This deterioration in harmony, cooperation, and collegiality in Congress is, at least in part, a result of the rise of fundamentalist tendencies and their religious and political impact. [8]

... A country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not its military strength; because it can be humble not blatant and arrogant; because our people and our country want to serve others and not dominate others. And a nation without morality will soon lose its influence around the world. [59]

There is a strong religious commitment to the sanctity of human life, but, paradoxically, some of the most fervent protectors of microscopic stem cells are the most ardent proponents of the death penalty. [78]

More than seven Americans out of a thousand are now imprisoned - most of them for nonviolent crimes. This is the highest incarceration rate in the world, exceeding Russia's former record of six per thousand. Among the busiest construction industries in many states is building more jail cells, and job opportunities for prison guards have skyrocketed. [79/80]

Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is the extreme inequity in its employment: it is biased against the poor, the demented, and minorities, and designed or least applied to protect white victims. It is not surprising that since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 76 percent of those sentenced to death, even in federal courts, have been members of minority groups. [84]

The fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted black men the right to vote in 1870, ninety-four years after the declaration "All men are created equal." It was fifty years later that American women finally won the same right... [86]

While I was leading a Carter Center delegation to Havana the following year, Bolton announced falsely that Cuba's pharmaceutical industry was involved in the production of biological weapons of mass destruction. The Cubans immediately offered to permit US scientists to inspect the facilities, but there was no response from Washington. When he could not force intelligence to corroborate his statements, Bolton attempted to have them discharged or transferred to other posts. This action epitomizes the politicization by top policy makers of intelligence information, which led to the fiasco over incorrect claims that Iraq had massive arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. [97]

"It is a big mistake four us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so - because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States" by John Bolton, United States' ambassador to the United Nations [98]

"[T]he United Nations is valuable only when it directly serves the United Nations." by John Bolton, United States' ambassador to the United Nations [98]

Either before or soon after 9/11, he [Richard Cheney] and his close associates chose Iraq as the first major target, apparently to remove the threat to Israel and to have Iraq serve as our permanent military, economic, and political base in the Middle East. [100]

Although there are many other complicating political factors, the tendency of fundamentalists to choose certain emotional issues  for demagoguery and to avoid negotiation with dissenters has adversely affected American foreign policy. One notable example is that some American political leaders have adopted Fidel Castro as the ultimate human villain, and have elevated the small and militarily impotent nation of Cuba as one of the greatest threats to our nation's security and culture. [102]

American policy toward our entire hemisphere has been misshaped by this obsession. It has become almost impossible for any career diplomat who does not demonstrate a near-fanatic commitment to the isolation of the Cuban people to acquire a high post in the State Department, and this philosophy permeates American embassies throughout the region. [104/5]

The ICC charter, signed in 2002 by 139 nations, was carefully drafted to prevent punishment of Americans for genocidal acts overseas, provided US courts will address any such crimes. However, the United States is now attempting to force subservient nations to guarantee blanket immunity for American military personnel, contractor employees, and tourists. [106]

An April 2005 public opinion revealed that 29.5 percent of South Koreans consider United States to be their greatest threat, compared with 18.4 percent who named North Korea. Among university students, 50.1 percent saw America as the major obstacle to peace in the peninsula. [111]

Two months in advance, as customary, I notified the State Department and the White House of my travel plans, and almost immediately received a call from the president's national security adviser. He informed me that Syria had not been cooperative in some issues involving the nearby war in Iraq, and that US policy was to restrict all visits to Damascus as a means of putting pressure on President Bashar a-Assad. After a somewhat heated discussion, he requested officially and on behalf of the president that our visit be canceled. [113]

Following the attacks of 9/11, the US government overreacted by detaining more than twelve hundred innocent men throughout America, none of whom were ever convicted of any crime related to terrorism. Their identities have been kept secret, and they were never given the right to hear charges against themselves or to have legal counsel. Almost all of them were Arabs or Muslims, and many have been forced to leave America. [118]

After visiting six of the twenty-five or so US prisons, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported registering 107 detainees under eighteen, some as young as eight years old. The Journalist Seymour Hersh reported in May 2005 that there were "800-900 Pakistani boys 13-15 years of age in custody." [119]

Military officials reported that at least 108 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and  other secret locations just since 2002, with homicide acknowledged as the cause of death in at least 28 cases. The fact that only one of these was in Abu Ghraid prison indicates the widespread pattern of prisoner abuse, certainly not limited to the actions or decisions of just a few rogue enlisted persons. [122]

"The president, despite domestic and international laws constraining the use of torture, has authority as Commander in Chief to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogations, up to and including torture" Department of Defense [127]

"In my judgment, this new [post 9/11] paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions" by White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales, now Attorney General, the chief law enforcer of the United States [127]

The techniques of torture are almost indescribably terrible, including, as a US ambassador to one of the recipient countries recipient countries reported, "partial boiling of a hand or an arm," with at least two prisoners boiled to death. [128]

The primary goal of torture or the threat of torture is not to obtain convictions for crimes, but to engender and maintain fear. Some of our leaders have found that it is easy to forgo human rights for those who are considered to be subhuman, or "enemy combatants". [129]

He [Alberto Gonzales] justifies an extension of the program permitting CIA agents to deal with suspects in foreign prison sites by claiming that the ban of the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment does not apply to American interrogations of foreigners overseas. [129]

There are now almost 30,000 nuclear weapons worldwide, of which the United States possesses about 12,000, Russia 16,000, China 400, France 350, Israel 200, Britain 185, and India and Pakistan 40 each. It is believed that North Korea has enough enriched nuclear fuel for a half dozen weapons. [135]

"I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous." Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense [136]

US policy is threatening the effectiveness of international agreements that have been laboriously negotiated by almost all previous presidents. Perhaps even more disturbing as a threat to the maintenance of global stability is the unprecedented adoption of a policy of preventive war. [149]

Exaggerated claims of catastrophe from nonexistent weapons of mass destruction kept fears alive, with Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly making false statements, such as "Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of lives in a single day of war." National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice backed him with horrifying references to mushroom clouds over the cities of America, and Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations to make a conglomeration of inaccurate statements to the world. The administration later claimed that its information was erroneous, but intelligence sources were rewarded, not chastised. [151]

We and our British allies have made an official decision to refrain from counting or estimating the number of civilian deaths, and there are wide ranges in the published  numbers. A respected British medical journal, Lancet, has reported that allied forces (especially the air force) have killed a hundred thousand Iraqi noncombatants. [157]

Another example is Washington's official announcement of one of its most noteworthy achievements:  that more than forty-one thousand AIDS victims in Botswana have received life-extending treatments from the United States. Top managers of the Botswana's treatment program were irate, reporting that no American money had arrived and calling the US claims "false, and gross misrepresentation of the facts." the more accurate number of patients in Botswana who had been put on treatment because of American help: zero. [188/9]

The annual United States foreign aid budget for fighting malaria, for instance, has been $90 million, but 95 percent is being spent on consultations and less than 5 percent on mosquito nets, drugs, and insecticide spraying to fight the disease[188]

Another indication of the growing division between the rich and poor in recent years is that the salaries for corporate chief executive officers have gone from forty times to four hundred times the average worker's pay. Even though there was a strong growth in corporate profits, wages for the average worker fell in 2004, after adjusting for inflation - the first such drop in many years. [193]

While there is a sharp downward trend in worldwide expenditures for weapons during the past twenty years, the United States has continued to increase its military budget every year. It now exceeds $ 400 billion annually, equal to the total in all other nations combined. [198/9]

American presidents have intervened about fifty times in foreign countries. In addition to supplying our own military forces, America's arms manufacturers and those of our NATO allies provide 80 percent of weapon sales on the international market. [198]