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Dear Son: An Imaginary Letter from a Loving Dad

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Gift Gugu Mona

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“In light of my distanced telescopic exposure to the mayhem, I refused to plagiarise others’ personal tragedies as my own. There is an authorship in misery that costs more than empathy. Often I’d found myself dumbstruck in failed attempts to simulate that particular unfamiliar dolour. After all, no one takes pleasure in being possessed by a wailing father collecting the decapitated head of his innocent six year old. Even on the hinge of a willing attempt at full empathy with those cursed with such catastrophes, one had to have a superhuman emotional powers. I could not, in any way, claim the ability to relate to those who have been forced to swallow the never-ending bitter and poisonous pills of our inherited misfortune. Yet that excruciating pain in my chest seemed to elicit a state of agony in me, even from far behind the telescope. It could have been my tribal gene amplified by the ripple effect of the falling, moving in me what was left of my humanity.”

FictionRacismTerrorismHistorical FictionSyriaLiterary FictionPsychological FictionPolitical FictionRadicalizationPsychological NovelNon LinearNon Linear NarrativeCritical ConsciousnessPolitical Novel
Book:An Ishmael of Syria
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“In the mantra of shared hatred and placing the blame on Israel, our cowardice to face the barbarity of our heads of states was replaced with a divine purpose. Contemplating the manifestation of the eradication of hatred I often concluded, the entirety of the Middle East’s theocracies and dictatorships would be replaced by total anarchy. We would be left with nothing, as our brotherhood of hatred was the only bond known to us. Enculturated in the malarkey of that demagoguery, forces beyond our control and comprehension seem to deceive us into a less harmful and satisfactory logic as opposed to placing some blame on ourselves and thus, having to act to reverse that state of affairs.”

FictionRacismTerrorismHistorical FictionSyriaLiterary FictionPsychological FictionPolitical FictionRadicalizationPsychological NovelNon LinearNon Linear NarrativeCritical ConsciousnessPolitical Novel
Book:An Ishmael of Syria
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“I have to stress that my duties towards victims of all sorts, be it helping, taking their side, or caring, ends the moment their status becomes a bargaining chip. The moment the victim becomes a righteous sufferer. For in my short time on this planet, history and on-going affairs are full of those competing in victimhood.”

FictionRacismTerrorismHistorical FictionSyriaLiterary FictionPsychological FictionPolitical FictionRadicalizationPsychological NovelNon LinearNon Linear NarrativePolitical Novel
Book:An Ishmael of Syria
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“Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the atmosphere of hockey−fields and cold baths and community hikes and general clean−mindedness which she managed to carry about with her. He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers−out of unorthodoxy.”

ConformityFanaticismGender DifferencesRadicalization
Author:George Orwell
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“The issue is not merely one of false stories, incorrect facts, or even election campaigns and spin doctors: the social media algorithms themselves encourage false perceptions of the world. People click on the news they want to hear; Facebook, YouTube, and Google then show them more of whatever it is that they already favor, whether it is a certain brand of soap or a particular form of politics. The algorithms radicalize those who use them too. If you click on perfectly legitimate anti-immigration YouTube sites, for example, these can lead you quickly, in just a few more clicks, to white nationalist sites and then to violent xenophobic sites. Because they have been designed to keep you online, the algorithms also favor emotions, especially anger and fear. And because the sites are addictive, they affect people in ways they don't expect. Anger becomes a habit. Divisiveness becomes normal. Even if social media is not yet the primary news source for all Americans, it already helps shape how politicians and journalists interpret the world and portray it. Polarization has moved from the online world into reality. The result is a hyper-partisanship that adds to the distrust of "normal" politics, "establishment" politicians, derided "experts," and "mainstream" institutions--including courts, police, civil servants--and no wonder. As polarization increases, the employees of the state are invariably portrayed as having been "captured" by their opponents. It is not an accident that the Law and Justice Party in Poland, the Brexiteers in Britain, and the Trump administration in the United States have launched verbal assaults on civil servants and professional diplomats. It is not an accident that judges and courts are now the object of criticism, scrutiny, and anger in so many other places too. There can be no neutrality in a polarized world because there can be no nonpartisan or apolitical institutions.”

PoliticsInternetNewsSocial MediaAlgorithmsFake NewsPolarizationRadicalization
Book:Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
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“We must invent our enemy. If he doesn't exist, we must create him.' 'But that's crazy,' said Radius. 'It'd be like choosing to have hallucinations--seeing something that doesn't exist and saying that it does.' 'Comrade Radius,' said Flight, 'listen. There's no such thing as a perfect enemy. A real enemy is always imperfect: never perfectly evil and never perfectly invincible. He has mild, even gentle characteristics. He's vulnerable. The perfect enemy is the one you create yourself.' 'But why can't we have an imperfect enemy?' Radius persisted. 'If evil is imperfect, if it's so weak and helpless, why should we force things and give it a perfection it doesn't possess?' 'Because *we* have to be perfect,' said Flight.”

PropagandaGood And EvilFascismRadicalizationBlack And White Thinking
Book:Il tempo materiale
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