someone who did a dangerous job is dead
Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist who sent highly critical reports from Chechnya - critical of the Russian conduct there, and critical for letting people know. You can read an example of her journalism here. You can read about the human rights situation in Chechnya here and here.
Maybe I came across her at an impressionable age, maybe it was her memorable Slavic name. Maybe she's a relative celebrity in the pond swum in by human rights fish, but she's someone i think ought to be known about. The following was my initial reaction, in an email to Jessie.
~
this is just so wrong and yet so predictable. at first i felt angry, then i realised this was, given the circumstances, more likely than not - there was no new anger to be had here, everyone involved was already an object of my anger. then i felt hurt, offended by the unfairness that means such a person can be killed. doesn't the world need superheroes? - but then i remembered, as we are told from before we can walk, that Life Isn't Fair, and drily accepted that such objective truths, such mechanical aspects of the universe can be the targets of judgements but are not fit for emotions. then i felt despair, for who is now going to do the work this committed and unrelenting woman did? who will bring the human side of the chechen war to the public consciousness? who will remind the world of the physical victims of this war, not just the arguable victims of ideological partisanship? who now will have the drive and intelligence to even try to hold russian armed forces to account? then i felt hypocrisy - what have i ever done to honour the work this woman did, to help publicise, deter and correct the injustices she devoted herself to? nothing but write a couple of letters several years ago. then i felt superficiality - won't i shed a tear here and promptly forget all about it? then consolation - perhaps this will refocus those who look at this context onto the human rights disaster, drawing them out of the relativism which has grown up around this conflict. then emptiness - who are 'they'? who the fuck is watching this conflict anyway? or any conflict; who with the power has the inclination to use it, who with the inclination has the power?
then - ex nihilo nihil. nothing comes of nothing, so when my internet connection comes back, i will do some research and write to someone a letter which she might have appreciated being written. please hold me to it.
Maybe I came across her at an impressionable age, maybe it was her memorable Slavic name. Maybe she's a relative celebrity in the pond swum in by human rights fish, but she's someone i think ought to be known about. The following was my initial reaction, in an email to Jessie.
~
this is just so wrong and yet so predictable. at first i felt angry, then i realised this was, given the circumstances, more likely than not - there was no new anger to be had here, everyone involved was already an object of my anger. then i felt hurt, offended by the unfairness that means such a person can be killed. doesn't the world need superheroes? - but then i remembered, as we are told from before we can walk, that Life Isn't Fair, and drily accepted that such objective truths, such mechanical aspects of the universe can be the targets of judgements but are not fit for emotions. then i felt despair, for who is now going to do the work this committed and unrelenting woman did? who will bring the human side of the chechen war to the public consciousness? who will remind the world of the physical victims of this war, not just the arguable victims of ideological partisanship? who now will have the drive and intelligence to even try to hold russian armed forces to account? then i felt hypocrisy - what have i ever done to honour the work this woman did, to help publicise, deter and correct the injustices she devoted herself to? nothing but write a couple of letters several years ago. then i felt superficiality - won't i shed a tear here and promptly forget all about it? then consolation - perhaps this will refocus those who look at this context onto the human rights disaster, drawing them out of the relativism which has grown up around this conflict. then emptiness - who are 'they'? who the fuck is watching this conflict anyway? or any conflict; who with the power has the inclination to use it, who with the inclination has the power?
then - ex nihilo nihil. nothing comes of nothing, so when my internet connection comes back, i will do some research and write to someone a letter which she might have appreciated being written. please hold me to it.
posted by chris at 10:42 AM
15 Comments:
The only thing I have to say that insn't said already in this precise and beautiful and sad blog is that Life Isn't Fair is one of the stupidest trusims that has ever been thought up. So what? Clearly it isn't fair. Does the fact that it isn't fair imply that it shouldn't be fair? And just because something is practically imposible to implement completely doesn't mean that we shouldn't attempt to implement it partly. Life should be fair and when it isn't we should get sad, get angry and then get active.
Getting active though is the hardest part to do.
All lives must someday have a death at the end of them, the most we can hope for is that the life that precedes that death had meaning, the journalist (I am deciding not to attempt to spell her name from memory, but please don't take my use of her occupation as a description to be dispassion... shit better start the sentance again, this has been far too long a bracket...)
The journalist in your blog certainly had much meaning in her life, and she managed to communicate that meaning and the meaning of others into articles that communicated to the meaning in other peoples lives, including yours, and now her meaning is spreading out and from your blog and pushing inself into other peoples meaning. That is a fitting epitaph to her death, I think.
x
Life Isn't Fair conjures up in my mind Death Is Equality, which I find irritating because a) not all deaths are equal and b) some lucky souls are off to heaven when they die, while I am going to sit in a dark corner forever drinking tepid tea and wishing the Pope hadn't abolished Limbo altogether when he lost his mind in 2022.
It also puts me in mindof a conversation Joe and I had in Budapest a few weeks ago. Despite managing to not understand one another at all, as is our usual form of communication, it helped me figure all deaths are not equal. Judging deaths as social phenomena takes into account both the person who has died and the manner of their death. (Of course, nearly all deaths have upsetting consequences for the individuals personally connected to the deceased, but even their grief will be affected by the circumstances of their death.) Thus, this death is more upsetting than many others (at least for me); for someone I despise, the judgement will be different; for those of whom I know nothing, only circumstances can lead to a judgement on their deaths - thus it is, to flip Stalin's formulation on its head, that one death is just a death, while a million statistically connected deaths are something I can take notice of as they may be the result of some human action. This doesn't apply to A. P's death. In such cases you have to hope that the reaction to the (entirely planned, executed and consciously deliberate) manner of her death will fit the reasons for being outraged, for which one must go beyond sad and angry, as you say, to active...
Ah, your comment is valid and therefore welcome (though I can't quite be taking it to heart, else I wouldn't respond). I would say, in brief, that that post is part of my response ot this killing, but by no means all of it. I will post three letters this evening, one to a friend in Prague and two regarding Chechnya and Ms Politkovskaya's death.
it's also worth remembering that this blog is a way for me to keep in touch with people (you included) who I probably wouldn't otherwise (notwithstanding the fact that hardly anyone comments...). Reading it back, my reaction seems self-indulgent, but it was an honest depiction of how I felt. I was sharing my personal experience, and gave you links to read the background. Very few people manage to be results-driven automatons all the time, and this is no bad thing if you ask me. Whether sharing it with all vous makes the blindest bit of difference is neither here nor there, but i do think extraordinary people like this need some publicising by those of us who look up to them. Perhaps Extraordinary Person of the Week would be in order...
As for the wikipedia quote - you might want to add that the Stalin "quote" on death and statistics is entirely unattributed wherever I may send you to read it. The point is that it doesn't matter. It served its purpose in illustrating my point (only tangentially related to Ms Politkovskaya's death, being instead about death more generally), which I would be happy to make clearer if desired.
I like having you around, despite our common disagreements. Also, and entirely unrelated (I hope you won't feel I am trivialising anything...): I didn't manage to read Lyra's Oxford. I think i'm satiated still by the first thousand pages, as i couldn't find it in me to get beyond the first couple of pages. It's back in the library, from where a better man than me may give it proper attention.
Back to work,
Chris
from your comment about op-ed writers, you seem to be objecting to how people (such as me!) feel the need to give their personal reaction to so-and-so's death, like it matters? i sympathise, although i would say a personal internet site is a more appropriate place for such than page seventeen of the Times. i have to say though, irritating as they may be to read, causes need recruitment posters, and awareness-raising is way important if people outside the community in any given know is to come across our friend's work. (that said, i didn't want to say all please now go do something to avenge this, as you are all capable of making such an action if so inclined.) perhaps your particular distaste for the op-ed folk lies in only ever reading such pieces as a voyeur, never getting worked up enough about anything to take any sort of action? (I'm asking - this isn't an accusation, but you know that.)
how close must one come in your mind to extending the specifics of the work of x to make themself worthy of feeling personally upset at x's death? you're clearly driving at something with shakespeare, but i'm not sure what. i don'tthink the analogy stands up, unless you're saying nobody should ever have written an obituary or tribute to miles davis? to perhaps be cheeky, if someone's work is to spread awareness of something, is it not an extension of that work to further spread the awareness of that something? (You can argue of course that nobody reading my blog is going to be spurred into action through that post, and i would say again, the whole blogadoodle is more than just a way of me telling people what to think. it needs be no more than me telling you what i'm thinking, what's going on in my life. and this was something that went on in my life. you can pretend to be offended on her behalf for such a trivialisation, if you insist, but you can't mean to deny that sometimes people (AP) mean something to other, unconnected people (me)? it may sound wanky to talk about inspiration, but she was one of a number of figures who i got to know (of) in my early days of human rights work and who somehow had an influence on me. if you want to get very tangential, the fact that i am still working in this field, and plan to continue doing so, is an extension of her work, but i would never argue this...)
typing this is annoying, as the formatting is fucked and i can't read what i've written above, so i'm going to leave it there. hope it makes sense : )
Okay, I think I hear you. I disagree, because I think to lump all words into one category called Writing is lazy and dishonest. But at the same time your point about what it takes to get her into my or anyone’s news is well made and well taken. The truth is that I don’t follow Chechnya week-in week-out, and I don’t know what to think about that. There are only so many hours around. The sense of personal connection you were attacking is based partly in her work and partly in when I came across her (which affects the context in which she exists for me). I might not have run into you in the champagne bar in Fleet Street, but your death might still make it onto my blogue.
A dry fish is a dead fish,
Chris
On a totally random note, I was roaming round Nchisi health centres yesterday with a guy called Roger from Norway, who is the nutritionist for UNICEF, who looks exactly like Aksel, and teases a bit like Aksel does too. I am a little worried that when we go for the four day trip to Kasungu I might start calling him Aksel. Reminded me that Aksel seems to have fallen off the face of the planet. Any news from him?
Wow... and I thought my obsessive friendships created long arguments...
Just wanted to say a few things about writing and/or politics.
First up there are very excellent songs about singers (I can think of the ballad of John Coltrane by Gil Scott Heron off the top of my head) and some great pieces of journalism written about journalists too.
Chis hits the nail on the head when he points out it is wrong to group writing into one group, it has a deverse spectrum of causes and effects.
The personal is the political it is also the part of the political that most people can identify with, thus to convince someone of an argument you must often make them care first.
Experiential evidence is also important. That is what the journalist was gathering. That is what Chris posted. Experience and people human reactions to things are vital ingredients to art and politics, I am not saying they are the only ones, or that they are always appropriate, just that they are vital. Miles Davis for example wrote powerful music that was as much about reaction and experience as it was about technical and formal inovation. Shakespeare must have stuck some personal reactive stuff in his plays somewhere, though his whole deal of being all sides of every thing makes it pretty hard to see where he is feeling or not.
The problem with all us political or artistic types is we spend all our time telling each other to get active and not actually getting active, none of us really can take the moral high ground. But in terms of very minor actovism a blog that accounts someones reaction to the death of a journalist that also introduces the reader to her work and expouses some ideas about how to view her work/the world is a small form of activism. That chris is writing letters as well is a testament to how much of a better person he is than me (and most other people.)The Miles Davis/Shakespeare thing was a bit of a false analogy but I do agree that Chris should be getting his own thoughts out there more, he certainly undervalues himself in some ways, but part of getting ones thoughts out there is reacting to external things. No one is a vacuum.
Also we should take advantage of any event at all that can allow us to explore the world and ourselves. It is sad to use deaths as ways of talking about the dead persons life, but why not. The only thing is that we should also strive to talk about our heroes/causes/whatever at other times too. I would hope that if she had made a break through Chris would have also written a blog about that.
Anyway, what do I know. Nice to sort of meet you Owen, your blog on ID cards is very funny and absolutely wrong. Your thoughts on Chris' blog are interesting and your obvious affection for him gives you extra brownie points in my eyes.
If only people commented this much on my blog :-( Ah well...
x
in time-honoured fashion, god ate my reply, so here's the bullet-pointed version:
- i don't share what seems to be your reverence for death. mother, friend, colleague etc as this woman was, it is not the sadness that accompanies every death which affected me, rather the fact that this life, a political matter even if seen through my personal lens, ended. i do not feel the need necessarily to try to separate the emotional and the political (see my comment before about results-based automatons). i'd'a thunk the front-centre political nature of this entire post was pretty clear...
- owen, your invocation of theory of interpretation is a shoulder barge: while legitimate, it is behoven on you to at least link to the 'basic terms' and the 'wider issue'. i admit that i'll take some convincing of the idea that all writing is the same, but linguisticademically, i speak from ignorance. of course, i think you should be able to explain what you mean without recourse to super-specialist knowledge, but this is the always-viewpoint of the ill-educated
- i agree with your assessment of our relationship. i don't think of you as an enemy, though - i don't think either of us is important enough to the other to be so classified. and i would definitely share several beers with you, were you not pretending to be half a world away.
perhaps i have been lazy in the specifics of the politics around this case. they seem highly unambiguous to me, in that say what you will about chechen separatism, even about the 'talibanisation' of chechnya under some of the filthy individuals on the chechen side, the kinds of things she reported are inexcusable (and arguably make russia/ns less safe). and events surrounding her death highlight yet again the difficulty of being an independent voice in russia (not that this should matter to you, of course).
as for the theory of interpretation, thank you for your clarification. i see no reason why being similar analytically somehow makes any or all writing the same judgementally or comparatively. a banana and a steak are not the same.
but your smoke signals are clear, and i shan't dwell.
in optimal sarcasm,
chris
and just for roundness, the independent today published a translation of anna politkovskays's final journailstic piece, unfinished.
it will be interesting to see whether the novaya gazeta, such a beneficiary (and facilitator, to be sure) of her work will do what is said in the last paragraph.
nighty night,
chris
I see no reason why chris should have the last word on his own blog, he got thie first world for gods sake and no one but obsessive people will read this far anyway.
Owen: what you say about writing is very very stupid. By which I mean it is highly educated. I went through university also and leant many things about interpretation of art, but I always remembered to ignore concepts that have no relationship whatsoever to reality. An academic may apply the same framework of analysis to all forms of writing ton prove some sort of odd little theory but no reader and very very few writers will do so (I say this very few in case you are an author yourself). Art isn't designed to be consumed by theorists but by people. Also by thinking of writing from one static position you deny yourself a multiplicity of different ways of consuming things. I'm afraid that that seems to have been why you interpreted Chris' original blog in such an innacurate way (though I use that word in complete knowledge that it is insufficient, you cannot interpret something innacurately according to certain "theories" and also emotional states).
Writing isn't a level playing field asn your obvious elegence to the cannon demonstrates. Read up on the death of the author (Barthes and Foucault) if you want to see ways that interpreting texts only through the authors intensions etc...) Or better still stop reading writing theories and start reacting to art instead. Academic stuff is all very good but ultimately it is empty without some instinctual and emotional responses. If we devide up the world into managable chunks we will never make any accurate sense of it.
It is naive to suggest someone is naive if they don't agree with you. In fact, in general, it is the people who call others naive who are naive.
Chris' piece was an effective example of the personal is the political concept. To say you agree with me about that idea is incorrect simply because we do not agree on Chris' blog. We may both think the personal is the political but clearly we don't think it in the same way.
Also it does indeed sound like you have an odd attitude to death. But then again it sounds like Chris does to. Death is just a part of things, being scared of it doesn't make sense, and nor does ignoring the sadness connected to it through the reactions of the family and friends affected. My dad is 83, ever since I can remember I've been aware of his potential to die anytime (he's had 2 heart attacks and a quadruple byepass) and yet I think it completely acceptable to use his potential (and eventually actual) death as a subject for any sort of writing: comedy, drama, political, whatever. Something being sad doesn't give it some sort of special aura.
And for Chris this death is not about the women as a person anyway, and why should it be, he didn't know her. For him it is the death of a symbol, or an inspiration, and so its completely valied for him to react to it. I remember how I felt when Arthur Miller died (in much less symbolic and political circumstances).
Anyway I am just waffling on now with no real point...
All I really have to say is that if academic study has made your views of art so shuttered it would have been better you had never studied it.
x
and thus you are welcomed to the weekend.
but i shall have the last word, and it shall be:
shibboleth
I generally agree with the view of writing presented there by Owen, as I think Dave would, but I don’t think it makes a steak any more like a banana, and for me there were a few mental steps missing between the initial comment on writing and the latest.
On the inappropriateness of the initial blog: I think your view (Owen) is pretty usual, overlapping with the PC view of death as something sacrosanct and sad far before anything else (though I wouldn’t suggest it is anything but your own, as little as anything can be). To get a little analytic, and possibly sound rather Theory of Interpretation, the reaction in the post was initially written for a different audience ( a) an individual whose reaction would be easier to predict than those of the hordes of amputees reading this blogue b) written in a private email, it would not, I suspect, have provoked the same reaction regarding appropriateness (though perhaps regarding personal/political)). I decided to post it because it I thought it important enough to expose to you. Almost without thinking, I decided not to edit it, because although statistics and more background mighta bin more helpful from a publicity point of view, these are all easily available to anyone who would be interested (and there are links, anyway); further, it was my straight-up, immediate reaction, and there are enough people among those who may read this blogue to whom I would have made a similar reaction in person. You-Owen are not one, you-Dave probably are. And you-Owen are probably who I am most glad read it.
I note the post has not provoked a single expressed thought on the situation in Chechnya and Russia; expectation of this sort of reaction is perhaps a reason it takes a catalyst like death for me to post political things. Also, I would have no idea where to stop… But to give an update: it took several days, but my letter finally convinced Putin to make some sort of public statement on the killing, vowing it won’t go unpunished. He also took the opportunity to play down her work and generally spin the whole thing. One Russian friend of mine thinks it’s connected to the sooncoming Chechen elections, but I’ve yet to read why. Of course it matters not a tickle which of the people with motive actually ordered her killing, and it was disappointing that angela merkel mentioned press freedom but not Chechnya in her response (at a joint press conference with Putin on something nobody took any notice of). Forget me and the response I make – I think if she is truly ‘shocked’, she should be talking about Chechnya, she shold be talking about the rule of law, human rights and civilisation. But she’s by no means the worst realist-coward who could have been at that press conference. Had it been with Bush, there would have been warm words for the journalist and further warm words for the war in Chechnya, its Iraqish government and the need to battle global terrorism.
One of the things I admire about AP is that she did this work keeping her two children fully aware of the dangers she faced, the relative likelihood that she would be killed; presumably (it would be in the spirit) she also prepared them for the fact that her death would not be the private affair death is ‘supposed’ to be.
Non-sequiturgically, following the pope’s efforts to further popularise catholicism by sending all babies to heaven, religion’s worth was again beautifully shown in this news story, Dalits in India converting from Hinduism in protest at their discrimination and subhuman treatment. If anyone hasn’t read it (hopefully anyone other than Dave and Owen still is here), The God of Small Things is the closest thing I have to a favourite book.
russia's problem is more massive and pervasive super-criminality than (arguable) restrictions on press freedom.
good luck with the move.
in a ness as round as the caterpillar we guarded yesterday,
chris
Just to say that people should feel free to write about my dad on the day of his death, the day after, or whenever...
Also, I was remiss in not mentioning in my first comment that I was clearly upset and interested in the cheyan (can't spell it) situation. I was however focusing on the personal because in matter of friendship I tend to be the personal first and the political later.
Owen: Yep, you got me, I'm a hypocrit, my narrow view about art is that it should have a diversity of ways of interpreting it and I do have a massive predjudice against academia because it is very elitist and deliberately obtuse. I went a bit far with the suggestion that I only like thibngs with a direct connection to reality though. I still don't agree with what I still consider to be a very stunted way of interpreting art, or rather I like the way you are talking about, I like to find poems in shopping lists etc..., but I still think their are many other ways of looking at things.
I agree to disagree but I wanted to make sure it was clear that I still disagree (whilst accepting that I do so in a blinkered way.)
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