Politics, poetry and silence

"We have to discover the places of silence before the lyrical protest covers them up!"

- Michel Foucault, History of Insanity

Ever since I read this sentence formulated by Michel Foucault, it struck a chord. Not every poetry is justified. There is the criticism by Adorno of Rilke who was not exactly a protest lyric, but every German soldier when writing home to his sweetheart during First World War would cite Rilke to represent his emotions which he could not express himself.

Unfortunatley poetry as representative of something can come dangerously close to being like a flag linked to the nation, and therefore will add to one or another variation of Nationalism and Patriotism. This is the case when feelings are compounded into metaphors standing suddenly for collective feelings, and as often the case when on the side of revolts, express outrage. There are numerous examples of these throughout the history of poetry. It has become as well a question on whose side the poet stands with Erza Pound's enthusiasm for Mussolini just an often cited example.

Silence in terms of politics is not a sign of unrest, but rather the opposite: an indication of massive repression. Self censorship compounds with the fear of reprisal if one step or formulation of an idea goes too far. At the same time, there are cases when a poet no longer knows where to draw the line. He leaves then the poetic flow of words and crumbles the poem into an ordinary speech indicating very much a broken down spirit of humanity.

When an official report came out in Japan after what happened on March 11th 2011 with an earthquake triggering a Tsunami wave which hit among many buildings, villages and coastal landscapes as well the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, it stated two key factors were to be blamed for this massive failure to take safety needs into consideration: one, the powerful nuclear lobby interest group with intricate links to politics; and two, the collective obedience of Japanese people who stayed silent about the dangers of nuclear energy despite of having experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki what this force can do once unleashed. Collective obedience is another way to describe silence.

At the same time, the International Herald Tribune reports under the title "Shattering India's silence" on Monday, October 29, 2012. It is something which poetess Rati Saxena in India wishes to address, namely the injustices inflicted upon women especially of the lower caste and of the poor rural class. They can be raped and the entire village stays silent. Sometimes this happens out of shame but mainly it reflects a male dominated upper class type of governance and justice system. This means adopting a blame the victim theory so that the men who did commit the crime go unpunished.

Silence can be experienced every day. Take the incidence in a bus in Athens. A migrant woman enters at one bus stop and in so doing brushes a Greek man. He gets so angry that he raises his voice so that all can hear it in the bus. A commotion erupts. Others join in to throw not stones but ugly words at the woman. One man observes all of this but stays silent. Then one youngster speaks up. Calmly he cautions the furious man to observe some proportions in terms of what this woman supposedly had done to him and what he makes out of it. The man admires the youngster for having found a voice which does not attack that furious Greek man but does challenge him rightly so in public. It breaks especially the momentum in the bus to be felt as a danger when all gang up against just one person. Often such scenes can be experienced in many public spaces and then it happens as with the skinheads when one person lies on the ground and all kick the person but no one stopping this injustice of group behaviour tending very much towards group terror.

A discussion about silence started with R.K. Singh thanks to an introduction by Gabriel Rosenstock. The discussion has been passed on to Kids' Guernica especially due to the silence of the academics within this movement when it comes to naming bad practices and facing issues which do not go away by wishing in the name of peace to have a mere harmonious family like community spirit prevailing over everything and everyone. Since there was made the remark by Socrates Kabouropoulos about the silence of Greek poets, and which has been refuted by Yiorgos Chouliardes, the subsequent proposal has been made to follow up this topic about the poet and silence by inviting contributions. A start shall be made by conveying how it all started when R.K Singh wrote something to Gabriel Rosenstock and I responded in my usual, that is spontaneous way with the intention to give first of all some feedback.

Hatto Fischer

Athens 29.10.2012

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Politics, poetry and silence