As Things Currently Are..

Just watched one of the most depressing news editions I’ve encountered lately. I guess none of this is new, but it’s overwhelming every time. The event was the Youth Zionist Congress in Kfar Saba. The content was sad.

“What is Zionism?” the reporter asks bluntly. “Zionism is us” a teenager girl answers assertively. Another says: “Zionism is making sure we are here to stay, in this land, and not letting .. err.. other people, divide it..”, the reporter adds: “you know some people might disagree with you definition..” and the teenager replies “could be..”. “If anyone is confused as to what exactly is Zionism, he can come to us, we’ll teach him from A to Z” says the representative of the Druze Zionist Organization (Sounds like an oxymoron to me..). “Can a Muslim be a Zionist?”, “I don’t really know…” says another Druze activist.

Blind patriotism. Everywhere. I’m not even talking about questioning oneself about identity and values. I don’t want to be pretentious. But seeing what the common teenager is thinking, from a close look, I know they can’t even justify what they’re saying. They attribute this supreme, invincible moral righteousness to themselves and to the Jews (Israelis, Jews, Zionists… of course they’re all synonyms for that matter) which leads them to believe Israel is not only the center of the Middle East (and the most developed, most cultural and most ‘Western’), but the center of the whole world. No further justifications are needed for anything except the Holocaust and the blood-thirsty Arabs.

I wish people started noticing things are a bit more complex than what they take them to be. That they face reality and understand what is going on around them. I’m trying, I think others around here should too.

Politics

Actually, not politics per se. I’d like to recall a statement (I credit it to Urmila, though she’s probably not the primary source)- “Everything is political”. I’d like to make a follow-up statement: “Photography is political”.

Taking photographs of glazing mountain tops and stunning sunsets is fabulous. But it is not in any manner passive. Every act of photography is active. Wrong- Every operating camera is active, political. The presence of the camera itself is enough to invoke reaction, emotional and ideological. Because the importance of visual imagery has risen, unlike the descending verbal communication, we are all aware of our visual representation. Images convey ideas, emotions and statements.

Besides the its being in-itself, the camera is also the mediator. A biased one. It is the photographer who observes, not the camera. What we see off the camera lens is maybe genuine, maybe (MAYBE) objective, but it is definitely not reflected in the photos we take (“click”, if you’re in India). It is our subjective image, not the one far away in the mountains, that we carry with us. You may go as far as to say that we photograph an experience, not a still image. We capture a moment, a certain concept, and not a multitude of objects. Every photo has a purpose, even it’s meant to be a private, personal artifact, and not a public one. It serves a purpose and thereafter follows its design. Its form.

:)

*This may be considered as a response to an individual with a speech impediment.

Am I Losing Touch?

It’s frightening how easy it is to fall back in place. Like I’ve never left. I feel right in place, so comfortable and secure. Or at least I did for a couple of days.

Euphoria is a tricky business. As soon as it’s realized, it slips right through. It cannot be grasped. Mainly, I feel, because it’s not reflexive. You don’t experience euphoria because of some great personal realization. It’s never internal, always external. That is why it’s so swift. As soon as you become conscience of it, it’s gone.

I’m still comfortable, yes. But not euphoric anymore. Because the first, genuine, lax, happiness was substituted in a much more tense, uneasy kind of time. Maybe lingering. It’s like I’m only able to live between a shift to another. Between the margins. Past and future. That as well is why euphoria is only seen in retrospective.

I feel remote. Unattached. As in daze, hovering over and above. It’s a bitter recognition, knowing that soon I’ll be coming back to myself, but only for a few more months. Then I’ll have to be trapped, enclosed, locked in myself again. Will I be able to keep touch?