truth is rarely pure and never simple

.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Πεθαίνω σαν χώρα

« (…) “… Μισώ αυτή τη χώρα. Μου έφαγε τα σπλάχνα. Γράφω σʼ εσένα γιατί μαζί ποθήσαμε να είναι γόνιμα αυτά τα σπλάχνα, κι αυτός ο πόθος μάς ένωσε νύχτες και νύχτες… και σʼ άλλες ώρες της μέρας, όταν ξαφνικά γινόταν ένα θαύμα και ξεχνούσαμε τον τρόμο που έτρεχε στους δρόμους καθώς μες στις φλέβες μας… τα εφιαλτικά δελτία ειδήσεων που μας εμπόδιζαν ακόμα και να κοιταζόμαστε… διαβασμένα από θεότρελους εκφωνητές… τα ουρλιαχτά που σκέπαζαν ακόμα και τις σειρήνες των ασθενοφόρων… Ποτέ δε θα το πίστευα πως η ανθρώπινη φωνή μπορεί να φτάσει σε τέτοια ύψη… να είναι τόσο απύθμενη… να προκαλεί τόση αναστάτωση με την επιβολή της… Τέλος πάντων, ποτέ δε συνήθισα τους ανθρώπους αλλʼ αυτό είναι μια άλλη μου αναπηρία. Βιάζομαι τώρα να σου πω μερικά πράγματα κι αυτά τα λόγια θα είναι και τα τελευταία που θα ʼχεις από μένα. Μισώ αυτή τη χώρα. Μου έφαγε τα σπλάχνα. Μου τα ʼφαγε. Τη μισώ. Ναι, τη μισώ, τη μισώ. Δεν μπορεί μια γυναίκα να ζήσει με τέτοια σπλάχνα μέσα της. Όσο το σκέφτομαι, μου ʼρχεται να ξεράσω τον ίδιο τον εαυτό μου. Νιώθω σαν ξέρασμα. Μπορεί και να ʼμαι. Μια γυναίκα… δεν είναι σα μια χώρα που αξιοποιεί τα ερείπιά της, τους τάφους της… που τα ξεπουλάει όλα για εθνικό συνάλλαγμα… ζώντας απʼ αυτά. Εγώ δε θέλω να ʼμαι χώρα. Δεν είμαι χώρα. Δε θέλω να είμʼ αυτή η χώρα. Αυτή η χώρα είναι νεκρόφιλη, γεροντόφιλη, κοπρολάγνα, σοδομίστρια, πουτάνα, μαστροπός και φόνισσα. Εγώ θέλω να είμαι η ζωή, θέλω να ζήσω, θα ʼθελα να ζήσω, θα ʼθελα να μπορούσα να ζήσω, θα ʼμουν ευτυχισμένη τώρα αν ήθελα να ζήσω… όμως αυτή η χώρα δε μʼ αφήνει να το θέλω, δε μʼ αφήνει να είμαι η ζωή, να δίνω τη ζωή. Έχει φάει σαν καρκίνος τα βυζιά μου, τα μυαλά μου, τα έντερά μου, έχει κατεβάσει όλες της τις πέτρες στα νεφρά μου και τα ʼχει ρημάξει, έχει μαγαρίσει όλες τις πηγές απʼ όπου θα ʼτρεχε το γάλα μου, έχει μαζέψει όλο της το χώμα μες στις φλέβες μου και μου ʼχει σαπίσει το αίμα, έχει κάτσει όλη πάνω στην καρδιά μου και την έχει κουρελιάσει απʼ τα εμφράγματα και τις εμβολές, κάθε θεσμός της κι ένα έμφραγμα, κάθε νόμος της και μια εμβολή, τα ήθη της μου ʼχουν σμπαραλιάσει τα πνευμόνια, η ιστορία της με κάνει να τρέμω συνεχώς ολόκληρη σα να έχω προσβληθεί από την πάρκινσον, ο πολιτισμός της μʼ έχει ξεπατώσει, μʼ έχει ξεθεώσει, δεν πάει άλλο, η θέση της η γεωγραφική είναι το άσθμα μου, ολόκληρο το σχήμα της άλλοτε απλώνεται πάνω στο σώμα μου σα γιγαντιαίος έρπης ζωστήρ και με τρελαίνει… κι άλλοτε παίρνει τη μορφή τσουγκράνας και μπήγεται στα μάτια μου, τεράστιας βελόνας και μου τρυπάει το κρανίο, βράχου ολόκληρου που κρέμεται από την άκρη των μαλλιών μου και με παρασέρνει σε μια θάλασσα πικρών δακρύων… κι όλο νιώθω στον τράχηλό μου το ζυγό της κι όλο δένει τη γλώσσα μου το τραύλισμά της κι όλο μου φέρνει κρύα ρίγη η χυδαιότητά της… η προσήλωσή της στα φαντάσματά της, οι υπεκφυγές της, οι αντιγραφές της, τα φρακαρισμένα της μυαλά, τα πτώματά της, τα κιβούρια της, τα εγκλήματά της… Αυτή η χώρα είναι το χτικιό μας. Θα μας πεθάνει, θα μας ξεκάνει. Πώς θα γλιτώσουμε; Μας πίνει το αίμα, μας το πίνει. Δε μʼ αφήνει πια ούτε να κοιμηθώ, μου έχει κλέψει και τον ύπνο. Πώς θα ζήσω χωρίς ύπνο; Δε θα ζήσουμε… όλο το σπέρμα όλων των αντρών της γης δε θα μπορούσε να ζωντανέψει εκείνη την κόχη του κορμιού μου απʼ όπου ξεκινάει η ανθρώπινη ζωή… Έχεις αδειάσει όλη τη ζωή σου μέσα μου αλλά μʼ έχεις αφήσει χωρίς ζωή… Κι εσύ δεν μπορείς. Μʼ έχεις σπείρει μα ο σπόρος σου δεν πρόκειται ποτέ να πιάσει, δεν μπορεί πια ο σπόρος σας να πιάσει… δε θα ξαναβγεί ποτέ πια ζωή από μέσα μας… Το παλιογύναικο. Ένα θα ʼθελα, να την είχα μπροστά μου και να την έσφαζα με τα ίδια μου τα χέρια. Αχ, θε μου, να μπορούσα να τη σκοτώσω.

Κατάφερε οι δολοφόνοι της να φτάσουν ως τις μήτρες μας και να τις σκάψουν σαν τάφους, τα γουρούνια, τα γουρούνια, είνʼ όλοι τους γουρούνια, από ποιον νʼ αρχίσω και σε ποιον να τελειώσω, όλοι τους δολοφόνοι, όλοι τους, αυτοί με κάνουν να νιώθω την ανάγκη για το πιο μεγάλο έγκλημα, για μια ατέλειωτη σφαγή, ατέλειωτη σφαγή… αχ, πώς αντέχουμε δω μέσα, πώς δε μας τρελαίνει ακόμα αυτή η παλιοσκύλα, αυτή η γκαρότα, αυτό το στραγγουλατόριουμ, σωστή αγχόνη… με τους επίσημους μαχαιροβγάλτες της που βγάζουν επίσημους λόγους σʼ επίσημες τελετές μπρος σʼ επίσημους μαχαιροβγάλτες… Ο κάθε πόρος της είναι και μια τσέτα, κάθε γωνιά της κι ένα λάζο, κάθε χιλιοστό της και μια τσάκα, είναι γεμάτη ξόβεργες θανάτου και κοφτερούς σουγιάδες, άντρο φονιάδων, απατεώνων και ηλιθίων, λημέρι άναντρων γαμιάδων κι ανίκανων σωματεμπόρων, μας πατάει το κεφάλι μέσα στα σκατά της, μας δίνει λυσσασμένες κλωτσιές στʼ αρχίδια, μας λιώνεις, μωρή, μας στραγγίζεις, μας ρημάζεις, μας διχάζεις, μας πνίγεις, μας καταδικάζεις, μας πεθαίνεις, μας πεθαίνεις, σκρόφα, ξεπουλημένη, μολυσμένη, ψειριάρα, φαρμακοδότρα, φιδομάνα, λύκαινα, γύφτισσα, αιμομίχτρα, που όλο μαϊμουδίζεις και παπαγαλίζεις, κατσικοπόδαρη, δίσεχτη, κακορίζικη, δε σε μπορώ, δεν τη μπορώ, τη δολοφόνα, την παιδοκτόνα, τη ζαβή, τη χολεριασμένη, τη στραβοκάνα, τη ζαβή, το τσόκαρο, την παλιόγρια, την παλιόγρια, που κακό χρόνο να ʼχει, δεν αντέχω πια τίποτα δικό της, τίποτα, τίποτα, τη μισώ, τη μισώ, αχ, αχ, σε μισώ, σε μισώ, σε μισώ, σε μισώ, θα πεθάνω, τέρας, και θα εξακολουθώ να σε μισώ, ναι, το μίσος βράζει μέσα μου, θέλω να γράψω τους ανάποδους ύμνους απʼ αυτούς που γράφτηκαν ως τώρα γιʼ αυτήν, λέξη προς λέξη να την τουφεκίσω και να την παραχώσω σα σκυλί με τα ίδια μου τα χέρια… Δεν είμαι πια γυναίκα… Ούτε κι εσύ πια είσαι άντρας… Μας τα πήρε όλʼ αυτή… Τι θα μείνει όμως απʼ αυτήν χωρίς εμάς; Τι θα είνʼ αυτή όταν δεν θα ʼχει μείνει τίποτʼ από μας;… Το χώμα της έχει πάρει το σχήμα μου… Το σώμα μου έχει πια τις διαστάσεις της… Έχω μέσα μου τη μοίρα της… Πεθαίνω σα χώρα…” (…) »

Δημήτρης Δημητριάδης, «Πεθαίνω σαν χώρα»

Sunday, October 17, 2010

(Και τώρα τι ρε μαλάκα; Τι θα πούμε στους κλέφτες; Δεν τους έχουμε αφήσει τίποτα στο
παράθυρο ν’αρπάξουνε, καμιά φυλακισμένη χαραμάδα να τρυπώσουνε, κανά χρυσαφικό τουλάχιστον, έστω απ’αυτά τα φώ. Θ’αναγκαστούν να σπάσουνε την πόρτα πάλι και μετά θα ζητάμε και τα ρέστα)

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Η πρόσληψη του έργου της Κατερίνας Γώγου

Η Κατερίνα Γώγου εμφανίστηκε στα ποιητικά πράγματα το 1978 με την ποιητική συλλογή Τρία Κλικ Αριστερά, κι έλαβε εξαρχής την εύνοια του ορίζοντα της εποχής –σε επίπεδο αναγνωστών και μετάφρασης της συλλογής–. Η ποίησή της συγκεντρώθηκε στο αμφισβητησιακό αίτημα της γενιάς της και στην προβολή της επικράτειας του περιθωρίου, στον προσδιορισμό του αρνητικού πόλου σημασίας και των θεματικών ορίων της ποίησης.
Τα Τρία Κλικ Αριστερά αφορούν το εγώ ή τις ταυτότητες που το διατρέχουν: το φύλο, η κοινωνική θέση, η πολιτική θέση, η εθνική ταυτότητα, ο φεμινισμός, η ποιητική στόχευση είναι τα βασικά θέματα της συλλογής, η οποία αξιοποιεί τη γλώσσα του δρόμου -το ζωντανό περιθώριο της γλώσσας- για να κάνει ποίηση, μεταφέροντας στον λόγο της «something of a street sensation», όπως σημειώνει ο μεταφραστής της συλλογής Jack Hirschman (Three clicks left).
Το ποιητικό υλικό της συλλογής δεν θέτει λεξιλογικούς περιορισμούς, η τεχνική είναι κυρίως κινηματογραφική –η Γώγου θήτευσε στον κινηματογράφο ως ηθοποιός και σεναριογράφος– αποδίδοντας με τη μορφή της σεκάνς όσα συνήθως, αποκλείει η προσωπική παρατήρηση. Η κάμερα διϋλίζει όσα βρίσκονται στην επικράτεια του περιθωρίου και σχηματοποιούνται στη βάση του κοινωνικού διπόλου, αντιστρέφοντας συχνά τη σημασιολόγησή τους, μέσα από τα εκφραστικά μέσα της ειρωνείας, της μεταφοράς, της σατιρικής επίθεσης. Στίχοι της ανακαλούν συχνά τρόπους διαχείρισης του ποιητικού υλικού παρόμοιους με αυτούς της πρώτης μεταπολεμικής γενιάς:

"Αυτός εκεί
Ο συγκεκριμένος άνθρωπος
Είχε μια συγκεκριμένη ζωή
Με συγκεκριμένες πράξεις.
Γι’ αυτό και
Η συγκεκριμένη κοινωνία
Για το συγκεκριμένο σκοπό
Τον καταδίκασε
Σ’ έναν αόριστο θάνατο".

"Εδώ αναπαύεται
η μόνη ανάπαυση της ζωής του
Η μόνη του στερνή ικανοποίηση
Να κείτεται μαζί με τους αφέντες του
Στην ίδια κρύα γη, στον ίδιο τόπο".
(M. Αναγνωστάκης)


Παρότι εκδίδεται αργότερα, η συλλογή βρίσκεται κοντά στους εκφραστικούς τρόπους και το ποιητικό αίτημα της γενιάς του ’70, έτσι όπως εκφράζεται στις αρχές -οι δρόμοι της Γώγου είναι συχνά, οι δρόμοι του Λευτέρη Πούλιου στις πρώτες ποιητικές συλλογές του:

Δρόμε, σάβανο του Γρηγόρη, του Σωτήρη, του Τάσου.
Δρόμοι-παιάνες. Δρόμοι γιορτής.
Δρόμοι-αγωνία. Δρόμοι-φονιάδες.
Ποια κατάρα πάνω σας έχει πέσει;
Περιμένουμε ο καθένας στη στάση του.
Περιμένουμε όλοι μαζί στο τσίγκινο υπόστεγο.


Η επίδραση από την beat αμερικανική γενιά και την pop κουλτούρα είναι επιπλέον χαρακτηριστικά που μοιράζεται η ποίηση της Γώγου με την ποίηση άλλων εκπροσώπων της γενιάς της. Ο Jack Hirschman, μεταφραστής της συλλογής Τρία Κλικ Αριστερά, είναι ένας από τους συνδετικούς κρίκους της ποιήτριας με τους αμερικανούς beat. Η στράτευση στο περιθώριο ή η αμφισβήτηση της στόχευσης της ποίησης ανακαλούν συχνά κείμενα όπως το Howl του Ginsberg, με την επικράτεια του ατόμου να ορίζεται παρόμοια:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night […].

Εμένα οι φίλοι μου είναι μαύρα πουλιά
Που κάνουν τραμπάλα στις ταράτσες ετοιμόρροπων σπιτιών
Εξάρχεια Πατήσια Μεταξουργείο Μετς [...].


Η επικράτεια της Γώγου ορίζεται συχνά σε σχέση με το κοινωνικό μόρφωμα, την ένδειξη της διπολικής βάσης της κοινωνίας, η οποία δημιουργεί στη διαδικασία διαμόρφωσής της, επικράτειες αποβλήτων και επικράτειες υποκειμενοποίησης. Ο λόγος της λαμβάνει τις διαστάσεις μιας καταγγελίας σε σχέση με το ήδη υπάρχον, αρνούμενος τη διαχείριση παλαιωμένων ποιητικών υλικών ή λεξιλογίου που βρίσκεται εκτός της επικράτειας που επιλέγει να αναπαραστήσει και να τροφοδοτήσει.
Η αναγνωστική προσδοκία εκείνη την περίοδο βρίσκεται κάτω από το ρεύμα της αμφισβήτησης, συνεπώς, οι πρώτες συλλογές της Γώγου, τυγχάνουν μεγάλης αποδοχής από τον αναγνωστικό ορίζοντα της Ελλάδας και της Αμερικής, η ίδια παραμένει ωστόσο, μεταγενέστερα, εκτός των συλλογικών ανθολογιών, της επίσημης κριτικής και των ιστοριών νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας, προκαλώντας προβληματισμούς σε σχέση με τους τρόπους διαμόρφωσης του καλλιτεχνικού ορίζοντα κατά τη μεταπολιτευτική περίοδο και των διαδικασιών επικράτησης ποιητικών τάσεων.

Την περίοδο που ακολουθεί το ’80, κατά την οποία η ποιητική παρουσία της Γώγου είναι ενεργητική, συνυπάρχουν δύο κυρίαρχες τάσεις στην ποίηση: αφενός, της αποκήρυξης, της ανατροπής των παραδοσιακών μέτρων, της αποδομιστικής προσπάθειας, η οποία εκφράστηκε δυναμικά στις αρχές του ’70 και αφετέρου της επαναφοράς του παραδοσιακού και της διερώτησης ως προς την αποκήρυξη των παλαιότερων μορφών. Ποιήτριες όπως η Κατερίνα Γώγου, ο Νίκος Αλέξης – Ασλάνογλου ή ο Λευτέρης Πούλιος αντιπροσωπεύουν την πρώτη ποιητική τάση, της απουσίας και της α-σημασίας ενώ ποιητές όπως ο Γκανάς ή ο Διονύσης Καψάλης επιδιώκουν μέσα από τα έργα τους την αισθητική μιας ‘επαναφοράς’ σε σχέση με ό, τι αποκηρύχθηκε δυναμικά από τη γενιά του ’70 και παραμένει ανολοκλήρωτη διαδικασία - ο καθένας μέσα από τα ιδιότυπά του χαρακτηριστικά.

Η έννοια της αμφισβήτησης συνεπώς, τη δεκαετία του ’80 αρχίζει να αμφισβητείται. Η συλλογικότητα του εγχειρήματος της γενιάς του ’70 διασπάται με τους ποιητές να ακολουθούν ο καθένας διαφορετικούς εκφραστικούς δρόμους. Η ποίηση της Γώγου εκτροχιασμένη από το καθεστώς, παραμερίζεται μέσα στον διάλογο που προκύπτει με τη νέα κατάσταση σε σχέση με τα εκφραστικά μέσα, τα ειδολογικά χαρακτηριστικά της ποίησης, την ελευθέρωση των μορφών-τα αποτελέσματα εν τέλει, του αμφισβητησιακού αιτήματος της γενιάς του ’70. Η κοινωνική και πολιτική κατάσταση μεταβάλλεται σημαντικά μετά το '84 τροφοδοτώντας τάσεις ακραιφνώς διαφορετικές από το αίτημα της αμφισβήτησης των αρχών του ’70. Η φωνή της Γώγου εμμένει στη στράτευσή της, στο αμφισβητησιακό αίτημα της γενιάς της εκφράζοντας αιχμηρά τον λόγο της και εισάγοντας στην ποίησή της ένα προβληματισμό αυτοαναφορικότητας, άλλοτε σε πεζόμορφα ποιήματα άλλοτε σε στίχους:

Λέξεις ανάκατες
Ασφυκτιούν, σαλεύουνε
Να βρουν θέλουνε
την πρώταρχική τους Αρχή.
[…] Δεν έχω Μνήμη Αύρα Ποίημα Μουσική
Προδότες του φωτός την Πύλη του Δάντη με
υπόκωφη βοή μ’ ανοίγουνε
ίσα ίσα μόλις λοξά περνάω.


Κάτω από τις παρούσες συνθήκες ωστόσο, η φωνή της Γώγου περιορίζεται στην επικράτεια που την αφορά άμεσα – τα ταξικά επίπεδα της κοινωνίας οριοθετούν την αναγνωστική προσδοκία, ιδιαίτερα όταν το συλλογικό αίτημα της αμφισβήτησης αρχίζει να διασαλεύεται. Η εκτροπή της και η απουσία της από τις ιστορίες νεοελληνικής λογοτεχνίας και από τις περισσότερες ανθολογίες της γενιάς της, είναι αναμενόμενη αν συνυπολογίσει κανείς τα δεδομένα της εμφάνισής της, τη στόχευσή του έργου της, τους τρόπους διαμόρφωσης του καλλιτεχνικού ορίζοντα και της κριτικής της μεταπολιτευτικής περιόδου.

Σκόρπιες αναλύσεις του έργου της φιλοξενούνται με μεγαλύτερη συχνότητα σε εφημερίδες από το 1993 και εξής ενώ σήμερα, το διαδίκτυο παρέχει σημαντικό αριθμό πληροφοριών για τη ζωή της και το έργο της. Βιβλιοκρισίες σε εφημερίδες φιλοξενούν την έκδοση κάθε ποιητικής της συλλογής, ενώ στις ποιητικές ανθολογίες η παρουσία της επισημαίνεται αργότερα, για πρώτη φορά το 1993 και κατόπιν, το 2004.

Η πρώτη ποιητική ανθολογία που περιέχει ποιήματά της είναι αυτή του Βασίλη Βασιλικού , στα 1993: από τα Τρία Κλικ Αριστερά το 4/Θέλω να κουβεντιάσω, το 22/ Η ελευθερία μου είναι και από τον Μήνα των παγωμένων σταφυλιών, το 1/ Το σπίτι μου, το 2/Κι ανυπόδετη, το 7/ Νύχτωνε στον ουρανό, το 9/ Τώρα και το 22/ Και ήρθανε. Το 2004 ακολούθως, κάνει την παρουσία της στην ανθολογία των Peter Bien-Peter Constantine-Edmund Keeley-Karen Van Dyck , με το ποίημα «Οι λυπημένες μητέρες στα σούπερ μάρκετ». Αναφορά γι’ αυτήν γίνεται και στο Λεξικό Νεοελληνικής Λογοτεχνίας του Πατάκη, το 2007, σε ένα μικρό λήμμα με ενδεικτική βιβλιογραφία .

Σε άλλες ανθολογήσεις της ποίησης του ’70 ακόμα και γυναικείας ποίησης, δεν αναφέρεται. Το έργο της αποκλήθηκε συχνά εποχικό, χωρίς ιδιαίτερη εξέλιξη , ωστόσο, είναι σημαντική η διαφορά των εκφραστικών μέσων στην τελευταία της τουλάχιστον, συλλογή, τον Νόστο, στην οποία το θέμα της ποίησης και του Λόγου, της σημασίας των πραγμάτων, εκφράζεται μέσα από πεζόμορφες κατασκευές συνειδησιακής ροής που θεματοποιούν ένα διάλογο με λογοτεχνικούς προδρόμους κάθε είδους.

Η θέση που κατέχει στην ιστορία η Γώγου είναι αναμφισβήτητα θέση ποιητικής αμφισβήτησης, χώνεψης ποιητικών προτύπων, κυρίως αντλημένων από την αμερικανική beat γενιά και επαναπροσδιορισμού της ίδια της στόχευσης του ποιητικού φαινομένου-ακόμα και αν η προσπάθεια αυτής και των συγχρόνων της στέρησε πολλά από την ποίηση ανακαίνισε ένα προβληματισμό πολυεπίπεδο που απαιτεί πολυεπίπεδη ανάλυση και δεν στηρίζεται σε a priori ορισμούς της λογοτεχνίας και του κοινωνικού εκτοπίσματός της. Όπως επισημαίνει ο Eagleton , δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει κανένα αντικειμενικά υψηλό έργο τέχνης ανεξάρτητα από το ιδεολογικό και κοινωνικό περιβάλλον μέσα στο οποίο παράγεται και οι τάσεις που ενυπάρχουν στην ποίηση σε κάθε περίοδο εξαρτώνται άμεσα από το καθεστώς που τις διαμορφώνει, τις ασπάζεται ή τις απορρίπτει.

[…] Τώρα, στο σπίτι που μ’εχει κρύψει η φίλη μου, σβήνω πάντα το φως και τριγυρνάω συνέχεια μ’ένα μικρό καφέ κερί, να περάσω μέσα από τη λίμνη χωρίς να σβήσει η φλόγα του, σ’ έναν παλιό νοσταλγίας καθρέφτη

Έφυγε σαν σήμερα.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

κκάμ μπακ

Μετά που καμπόσο σταφύλι τζαι φύλλα των δέντρων, ο Βουκώλος αποφάσισεν να στραφεί ξανά πίσω, διότι στην τουρκία μια πεταλούδα κούνησε τα φτερά της.

Τζαι όπως είπεν ένας μιτσής μια φοράν όστις θέλει οπίσω μου ελθή. Επειδή όμως εσταυρώσαν τον, μάλλον επειδή το πουπίσω εν ακούετουν πολίτικλι κορέκτ καλλίττερα να το κάμουμε δίπλα αντί πουπίσω.

Στείλτε στο voukwlos@hotmail.com Ό,ΤΙ ΘΕΛΕΤΕ: ΚΕΙΜΕΝΑ, ΦΩΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΕΣ, ΣΤΕΝΣΙΛ ΤΖΑΙ Ο,ΤΙ ΑΛΛΟ ΝΟΜΙΖΕΤΕ ΟΤΙ ΜΠΟΡΕΙ ΝΑ ΤΑΡΑΞΕΙ ΤΑ ΝΕΡΑ ΤΖΑΙ ΤΕΣ ΛΑΝΤΕΣ, έτσι άμα γουστάρετε, αν όι εμπειράζει.


Λέμεντα τον Οκτώβρη.


Sunday, August 29, 2010

Μιχάλης Κατσαρός

Μπαλάντα για τους ποιητές που πέθαναν νέοι

Οι ποιητές κλειστήκανε στο σπήλαιό τους
δε βγαίνουν
φοβούνται
δεν παραδίδουν τίποτα -
Με ποιόν με ποιόν να μιλήσω;

Κρατά γερά το μυστικό ο Παπαδίτσας
παίζει
βγαίνει απ'το παράθυρο σαν το πουλί
βρέχεται ξαναμπαίνει -

Με ποιόν λοιπόν να μιλήσω;
Ο Σαχτούρης μαζεύει με ένα φακό τις λέξεις του
ταχτοποιεί σε δέντρα τα συμβάντα
χτυπάει μετά τη χορδή του
ξαφνιάζεται σαν το μικρό παιδί -
Με ποιόν λοιπόν να μιλήσω;
Χάθηκε ο Αναγνωστάκης στο Βορρά
ούτε ένα θρήνο νέο
λες και να πέθανε τώρα αλήθεια
ούτε ένα Χάρη δεν κλαίει ούτε τον ήλιο

Με ποιόν λοιπόν να μιλήσω;
Σκοτεινός περιφέρεται ο Σινόπουλος
με τους νεκρούς νεκρός δειπνεί
τρέχει μοναχός σε υπόγεια με πυρσούς
φανούς και σπίρτα.

Με ποιόν με ποιόν να μιλήσω.
Ο Δούκαρης ένας πιστός του εαυτού του
έτοιμος για σφαγή ο Καρούζος
χτυπάει το άδειο γκόγκ η Ελένη Βακαλό -
Κανείς δεν αποκρίνεται.

Με ποιόν με ποιόν να μιλήσω;
Κανέναν άλλο δε θυμάμαι πια
παρά στ'αυτιά μου ακούω φωνές
του Χριστοδούλου
μ'ένα φανάρι τριγυρνά σ'άγνωστους διαδρόμους
κραυγάζοντας σαν το σκυλί το πληγωμένο.
Ιάσονα θρηνείς Δεπούντη - μόνος;
Νίκο Φωκά ψάχνεις σε "ακροπωλεία" ακόμη;
Γιώργο μου Γαβαλά πού είσαι;
Αχ Σαραντή το έδωσες το αίμα;
Νικό Βρανά μη με κοιτάς
μ'αυτό το κρύο μάτι
είμαι εδώ κοντά σου - μόνος.

Με ποιόν με ποιόν να μιλήσω;
Και σεις ποιητές όλοι εσείς μονάχοι
τι γίνατε; Ποιός άνεμος σας έδιωξε σας πήρε;
Τώρα που σας καλώ όλους εδώ -
θυμάστε αλήθεια θυμάστε
τα καφενεία τα πεζοδρόμια τα μυδράλια
τα δωμάτια με τα χρυσά πουλιά
θυμάστε
κείνο το βράδυ που μιλούσαμε
θυμάστε;
Ο ποιητής ο Λίκος ήταν άγνωστος
και παραμένει.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Δρόμοι παλιοί

Δρόμοι παλιοὶ ποὺ ἀγάπησα καὶ μίσησα ἀτέλειωτα
κάτω ἀπ᾿ τοὺς ἴσκιους τῶν σπιτιῶν νὰ περπατῶ
νύχτες τῶν γυρισμῶν ἀναπότρεπτες κι ἡ πόλη νεκρὴ
Τὴν ἀσήμαντη παρουσία μου βρίσκω σὲ κάθε γωνιὰ
κᾶμε νὰ σ᾿ ἀνταμώσω κάποτε φάσμα χαμένο τοῦ τόπου μου κι ἐγὼ
Ξεχασμένος κι ἀτίθασος νὰ περπατῶ
κρατώντας μια σπίθα τρεμόσβηστη στὶς ὑγρές μου παλάμες
Καὶ προχωροῦσα μέσα στὴ νύχτα χωρὶς νὰ γνωρίζω κανένα
κι οὔτε κανένας κι οὔτε κανένας μὲ γνώριζε με γνώριζε

Saturday, July 17, 2010

1993 - Louise Bourgeois -

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Α λα Μαργαρίτα Καραπάνου

Αθήνα, ετών ποτέ.

Οι μύγες ανακατεύουν τα σκουπίδια. Η Νεφέλη λέει πως ο κόσμος είναι σαν τις μύγες που ανακατεύουν τα σκουπίδια. Δεν ξέρω τι θέλει να πει η Νεφέλη γιατί οι μέρες εδώ είναι ηλιαχτίδες κι αυτό θα σήμαινε ότι οι μέρες και οι ηλιαχτίδες τρέφουν και τις μύγες και τα σκουπίδια. Τα σπίτια είναι μεγάλα και ψηλά λέει η Νεφέλη. Έχει τρύπες κάθε σπίτι, πολλές τρύπες από πάνω ως τα πόδια κι αυτό λογικά θα πρέπει να γίνεται για να αναπνέουν αυτοί που μένουν μέσα και να μπαινοβγαίνουν οι μύγες από τις τρύπες τους και να πηγαίνουν στα σκουπίδια τους.
«Είσαι ένα κουνούπι» μου λέει η Νεφέλη.
«Είναι καλύτερα τα κουνούπια από τις μύγες;» ρωτάω εγώ.
«Ναι» μου λέει.
«Γιατί;»
«Επειδή αυτά ρουφάνε το αίμα και κάνουνε όπως το λένε οι μεγάλοι ιντράξιο».
«Ιντεράξιον» λέει η μαμά.
«Αυτό».
«Μα και οι μύγες κάνουν ιντεράξιο με τα σκουπίδια» λέω.
«Ναι αλλά δεν τους ρουφάνε το αίμα. Και τα σκουπίδια είναι κατώτερα ενώ το κουνούπι πάει ολόισια στους ανθρώπους».
«Εγώ λέω καλημέρα σε όλους», της λέω. «Η μαμά λέει ότι δεν πρέπει στους ξένους και μάλλον θα έχει δίκιο κάποτε διότι μοιάζουν με τους πίνακες που είδαμε στο μουσείο, τους θυμωμένους. Κι αυτούς που με φιλάνε τους φιλάω πίσω στο λεωφορείο. Πού και πού έχει κάποιες μεγάλες που έχουν πλάκα γιατί δεν έχουν ισορροπία και πέφτουνε και κάνουν αστεία και φιλάνε τον κόσμο, μετά όμως τσακώνονται και θέλουν λεφτά. Ύστερα έρχεται ο διάβολος στο μετρό κι εγώ νομίζω πως ο πάτερ νικόλας έχει δίκαιο που έλεγε πώς υπάρχουνε μόνο δύο πράματα στον κόσμο, ο θείος και ο διάβολος και η Ασπασία που με φώναζε διαολισμένο πλάσμα γιατί από όλους μόνο εμένα βλέπει αυτός όταν έρχεται. Έχει πολλές στρώσεις στο πρόσωπό του σαν ζελές και ζητάει από τον κόσμο να του δώσει λεφτά κι όλοι γυρνάνε από την άλλη και τραβάω το φόρεμα της μαμάς να του δώσει γιατί ο πάτερ μιχάλης έλεγε ότι θα ρθει κάποτε ο μεσσίας και όσοι δεν του δώσουμε λεφτά ή κλείσουμε την πόρτα θα χάσουμε την ευκαιρία να πάμε στο μέρος με τα φρούτα που μας έδιωξαν παλιά, αλλά εγώ τους λέω πως έχουμε σπίτι φρούτα και στη λαϊκή κάθε Πέμπτη ο δρόμος είναι γεμάτος και να έρχονται και γελάνε και ποτέ δεν έρχονται-από κει πήρα το συνήθειο και δεν πάω πια στη λαϊκή με τη μαμά».

«Εμένα δε μ’αρέσουν τα λεωφορεία, λέει η Νεφέλη. Όποτε μπω εκεί κανείς δε με χαιρετάει, άμα καλοκαιριάσει έχουν όλοι τρελαθεί, περιμένουν τις πόρτες να ανοίξουν για να τους δει ο αέρας που είναι σκατά και βρωμάει όπως εκείνη τη φορά που πήγαμε στον πειραιά και τα καπέλα τα είχε κατουρήσει η ξινισμένη βροχή που λέει η δασκάλα μας και διάβασα σένα βιβλίο ότι ο Θεός κάνει εμετό εκείνη την ώρα όμως μην το πεις στον παπά αυτό, ούτε και στη δασκάλα για τα βιβλία που διαβάζω, ούτε και σ’αυτους τους μεγάλους που είναι στο γκρίζο κτίριο και διαβάζουνε πολύ. Νομίζω δεν τους αρέσει. Είναι και ο άνθρωπος δέντρο κάποτε με τα πράσινα μαλλιά εκει μέσα και το παιδί που φοράει μαύρα και ποτέ δεν χαιρετάει τον κόσμο γιατί λέει η μαμά πως μπορεί να έχει κάνει κακά πάνω του και να φοράει πάνα, και να μην ξεσινερίζομαι τον κόσμο έχει τα δικά του, αλλά εγώ πάλι δεν καταλαβαίνω τίποτε, διότι τη δική μου κούκλα σου τη δίνω κάποτε και παίζεις και το ίδιο κάνουν ο πάτερ με τη δασκάλα.
Όταν θα πάμε στο σχολείο πάντως, θα καθίσω έξω να περιμένω εκείνο το παίδί από το Πακιστάν που μου είπε θέλει να γίνουμε φίλοι γιατί κανείς εδώ δεν τον κάνει παρέα. Μπορεί να θέλει να παίξω και με τη δική του κούκλα αυτός. Κι άμα θέλεις έλα κι εσύ μαζί μας. Θα πούμε στη μαμά ότι πάμε για παγωτό χωνάκι».

Στη μαρή.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Long live the ''other''? Ημέρα της Γυναίκας.

Η ημέρα απαιτεί Simon ή Butler. Η Νόρα λέει πως αν υπάρχει ένα 'μουνί'-όπως μας αποκαλούν τα γενναία αρσενικά- που να θεωρείται genuinely γυναίκα on this planet αυτή τη στιγμή είναι η Butler. mporei. Ακολουθεί Simon de Beauvoir: (η ελληνική πειρατεία δεν μας επέτρεψε να το παραθέσουμε στα ελληνικά-read and weep, in english):


The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir (1949)


Introduction
Woman as Other




FOR a long time I have hesitated to write a book on woman. The subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new. Enough ink has been spilled in quarrelling over feminism, and perhaps we should say no more about it. It is still talked about, however, for the voluminous nonsense uttered during the last century seems to have done little to illuminate the problem. After all, is there a problem? And if so, what is it? Are there women, really? Most assuredly the theory of the eternal feminine still has its adherents who will whisper in your ear: ‘Even in Russia women still are women’; and other erudite persons – sometimes the very same – say with a sigh: ‘Woman is losing her way, woman is lost.’ One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should, what place they occupy in this world, what their place should be. ‘What has become of women?’ was asked recently in an ephemeral magazine.

But first we must ask: what is a woman? ‘Tota mulier in utero’, says one, ‘woman is a womb’. But in speaking of certain women, connoisseurs declare that they are not women, although they are equipped with a uterus like the rest. All agree in recognising the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity. Is this attribute something secreted by the ovaries? Or is it a Platonic essence, a product of the philosophic imagination? Is a rustling petticoat enough to bring it down to earth? Although some women try zealously to incarnate this essence, it is hardly patentable. It is frequently described in vague and dazzling terms that seem to have been borrowed from the vocabulary of the seers, and indeed in the times of St Thomas it was considered an essence as certainly defined as the somniferous virtue of the poppy

But conceptualism has lost ground. The biological and social sciences no longer admit the existence of unchangeably fixed entities that determine given characteristics, such as those ascribed to woman, the Jew, or the Negro. Science regards any characteristic as a reaction dependent in part upon a situation. If today femininity no longer exists, then it never existed. But does the word woman, then, have no specific content? This is stoutly affirmed by those who hold to the philosophy of the enlightenment, of rationalism, of nominalism; women, to them, are merely the human beings arbitrarily designated by the word woman. Many American women particularly are prepared to think that there is no longer any place for woman as such; if a backward individual still takes herself for a woman, her friends advise her to be psychoanalysed and thus get rid of this obsession. In regard to a work, Modern Woman: The Lost Sex, which in other respects has its irritating features, Dorothy Parker has written: ‘I cannot be just to books which treat of woman as woman ... My idea is that all of us, men as well as women, should be regarded as human beings.’ But nominalism is a rather inadequate doctrine, and the antifeminists have had no trouble in showing that women simply are not men. Surely woman is, like man, a human being; but such a declaration is abstract. The fact is that every concrete human being is always a singular, separate individual. To decline to accept such notions as the eternal feminine, the black soul, the Jewish character, is not to deny that Jews, Negroes, women exist today – this denial does not represent a liberation for those concerned, but rather a flight from reality. Some years ago a well-known woman writer refused to permit her portrait to appear in a series of photographs especially devoted to women writers; she wished to be counted among the men. But in order to gain this privilege she made use of her husband’s influence! Women who assert that they are men lay claim none the less to masculine consideration and respect. I recall also a young Trotskyite standing on a platform at a boisterous meeting and getting ready to use her fists, in spite of her evident fragility. She was denying her feminine weakness; but it was for love of a militant male whose equal she wished to be. The attitude of defiance of many American women proves that they are haunted by a sense of their femininity. In truth, to go for a walk with one’s eyes open is enough to demonstrate that humanity is divided into two classes of individuals whose clothes, faces, bodies, smiles, gaits, interests, and occupations are manifestly different. Perhaps these differences are superficial, perhaps they are destined to disappear. What is certain is that they do most obviously exist.

If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through ‘the eternal feminine’, and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question “what is a woman”?

To state the question is, to me, to suggest, at once, a preliminary answer. The fact that I ask it is in itself significant. A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: ‘I am a woman’; on this truth must be based all further discussion. A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man. The terms masculine and feminine are used symmetrically only as a matter of form, as on legal papers. In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity. In the midst of an abstract discussion it is vexing to hear a man say: ‘You think thus and so because you are a woman’; but I know that my only defence is to reply: ‘I think thus and so because it is true,’ thereby removing my subjective self from the argument. It would be out of the question to reply: ‘And you think the contrary because you are a man’, for it is understood that the fact of being a man is no peculiarity. A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong. It amounts to this: just as for the ancients there was an absolute vertical with reference to which the oblique was defined, so there is an absolute human type, the masculine. Woman has ovaries, a uterus: these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within the limits of her own nature. It is often said that she thinks with her glands. Man superbly ignores the fact that his anatomy also includes glands, such as the testicles, and that they secrete hormones. He thinks of his body as a direct and normal connection with the world, which he believes he apprehends objectively, whereas he regards the body of woman as a hindrance, a prison, weighed down by everything peculiar to it. ‘The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities,’ said Aristotle; ‘we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.’ And St Thomas for his part pronounced woman to be an ‘imperfect man’, an ‘incidental’ being. This is symbolised in Genesis where Eve is depicted as made from what Bossuet called ‘a supernumerary bone’ of Adam.

Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being. Michelet writes: ‘Woman, the relative being ...’ And Benda is most positive in his Rapport d’Uriel: ‘The body of man makes sense in itself quite apart from that of woman, whereas the latter seems wanting in significance by itself ... Man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without man.’ And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex’, by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being. For him she is sex – absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.’

The category of the Other is as primordial as consciousness itself. In the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies, one finds the expression of a duality – that of the Self and the Other. This duality was not originally attached to the division of the sexes; it was not dependent upon any empirical facts. It is revealed in such works as that of Granet on Chinese thought and those of Dumézil on the East Indies and Rome. The feminine element was at first no more involved in such pairs as Varuna-Mitra, Uranus-Zeus, Sun-Moon, and Day-Night than it was in the contrasts between Good and Evil, lucky and unlucky auspices, right and left, God and Lucifer. Otherness is a fundamental category of human thought.

Thus it is that no group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the Other over against itself. If three travellers chance to occupy the same compartment, that is enough to make vaguely hostile ‘others’ out of all the rest of the passengers on the train. In small-town eyes all persons not belonging to the village are ‘strangers’ and suspect; to the native of a country all who inhabit other countries are ‘foreigners’; Jews are ‘different’ for the anti-Semite, Negroes are ‘inferior’ for American racists, aborigines are ‘natives’ for colonists, proletarians are the ‘lower class’ for the privileged.

Lévi-Strauss, at the end of a profound work on the various forms of primitive societies, reaches the following conclusion: ‘Passage from the state of Nature to the state of Culture is marked by man’s ability to view biological relations as a series of contrasts; duality, alternation, opposition, and symmetry, whether under definite or vague forms, constitute not so much phenomena to be explained as fundamental and immediately given data of social reality.’ These phenomena would be incomprehensible if in fact human society were simply a Mitsein or fellowship based on solidarity and friendliness. Things become clear, on the contrary, if, following Hegel, we find in consciousness itself a fundamental hostility towards every other consciousness; the subject can be posed only in being opposed – he sets himself up as the essential, as opposed to the other, the inessential, the object.

But the other consciousness, the other ego, sets up a reciprocal claim. The native travelling abroad is shocked to find himself in turn regarded as a ‘stranger’ by the natives of neighbouring countries. As a matter of fact, wars, festivals, trading, treaties, and contests among tribes, nations, and classes tend to deprive the concept Other of its absolute sense and to make manifest its relativity; willy-nilly, individuals and groups are forced to realize the reciprocity of their relations. How is it, then, that this reciprocity has not been recognised between the sexes, that one of the contrasting terms is set up as the sole essential, denying any relativity in regard to its correlative and defining the latter as pure otherness? Why is it that women do not dispute male sovereignty? No subject will readily volunteer to become the object, the inessential; it is not the Other who, in defining himself as the Other, establishes the One. The Other is posed as such by the One in defining himself as the One. But if the Other is not to regain the status of being the One, he must be submissive enough to accept this alien point of view. Whence comes this submission in the case of woman?

There are, to be sure, other cases in which a certain category has been able to dominate another completely for a time. Very often this privilege depends upon inequality of numbers – the majority imposes its rule upon the minority or persecutes it. But women are not a minority, like the American Negroes or the Jews; there are as many women as men on earth. Again, the two groups concerned have often been originally independent; they may have been formerly unaware of each other’s existence, or perhaps they recognised each other’s autonomy. But a historical event has resulted in the subjugation of the weaker by the stronger. The scattering of the Jews, the introduction of slavery into America, the conquests of imperialism are examples in point. In these cases the oppressed retained at least the memory of former days; they possessed in common a past, a tradition, sometimes a religion or a culture.

The parallel drawn by Bebel between women and the proletariat is valid in that neither ever formed a minority or a separate collective unit of mankind. And instead of a single historical event it is in both cases a historical development that explains their status as a class and accounts for the membership of particular individuals in that class. But proletarians have not always existed, whereas there have always been women. They are women in virtue of their anatomy and physiology. Throughout history they have always been subordinated to men, and hence their dependency is not the result of a historical event or a social change – it was not something that occurred. The reason why otherness in this case seems to be an absolute is in part that it lacks the contingent or incidental nature of historical facts. A condition brought about at a certain time can be abolished at some other time, as the Negroes of Haiti and others have proved: but it might seem that natural condition is beyond the possibility of change. In truth, however, the nature of things is no more immutably given, once for all, than is historical reality. If woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes the essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about this change. Proletarians say ‘We’; Negroes also. Regarding themselves as subjects, they transform the bourgeois, the whites, into ‘others’. But women do not say ‘We’, except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say ‘women’, and women use the same word in referring to themselves. They do not authentically assume a subjective attitude. The proletarians have accomplished the revolution in Russia, the Negroes in Haiti, the Indo-Chinese are battling for it in Indo-China; but the women’s effort has never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received.

The reason for this is that women lack concrete means for organising themselves into a unit which can stand face to face with the correlative unit. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such solidarity of work and interest as that of the proletariat. They are not even promiscuously herded together in the way that creates community feeling among the American Negroes, the ghetto Jews, the workers of Saint-Denis, or the factory hands of Renault. They live dispersed among the males, attached through residence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain men – fathers or husbands – more firmly than they are to other women. If they belong to the bourgeoisie, they feel solidarity with men of that class, not with proletarian women; if they are white, their allegiance is to white men, not to Negro women. The proletariat can propose to massacre the ruling class, and a sufficiently fanatical Jew or Negro might dream of getting sole possession of the atomic bomb and making humanity wholly Jewish or black; but woman cannot even dream of exterminating the males. The bond that unites her to her oppressors is not comparable to any other. The division of the sexes is a biological fact, not an event in human history. Male and female stand opposed within a primordial Mitsein, and woman has not broken it. The couple is a fundamental unity with its two halves riveted together, and the cleavage of society along the line of sex is impossible. Here is to be found the basic trait of woman: she is the Other in a totality of which the two components are necessary to one another.

One could suppose that this reciprocity might have facilitated the liberation of woman. When Hercules sat at the feet of Omphale and helped with her spinning, his desire for her held him captive; but why did she fail to gain a lasting power? To revenge herself on Jason, Medea killed their children; and this grim legend would seem to suggest that she might have obtained a formidable influence over him through his love for his offspring. In Lysistrata Aristophanes gaily depicts a band of women who joined forces to gain social ends through the sexual needs of their men; but this is only a play. In the legend of the Sabine women, the latter soon abandoned their plan of remaining sterile to punish their ravishers. In truth woman has not been socially emancipated through man’s need – sexual desire and the desire for offspring – which makes the male dependent for satisfaction upon the female.

Master and slave, also, are united by a reciprocal need, in this case economic, which does not liberate the slave. In the relation of master to slave the master does not make a point of the need that he has for the other; he has in his grasp the power of satisfying this need through his own action; whereas the slave, in his dependent condition, his hope and fear, is quite conscious of the need he has for his master. Even if the need is at bottom equally urgent for both, it always works in favour of the oppressor and against the oppressed. That is why the liberation of the working class, for example, has been slow.

Now, woman has always been man’s dependant, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shared the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change. Almost nowhere is her legal status the same as man’s, and frequently it is much to her disadvantage. Even when her rights are legally recognised in the abstract, long-standing custom prevents their full expression in the mores. In the economic sphere men and women can almost be said to make up two castes; other things being equal, the former hold the better jobs, get higher wages, and have more opportunity for success than their new competitors. In industry and politics men have a great many more positions and they monopolise the most important posts. In addition to all this, they enjoy a traditional prestige that the education of children tends in every way to support, for the present enshrines the past – and in the past all history has been made by men. At the present time, when women are beginning to take part in the affairs of the world, it is still a world that belongs to men – they have no doubt of it at all and women have scarcely any. To decline to be the Other, to refuse to be a party to the deal – this would be for women to renounce all the advantages conferred upon them by their alliance with the superior caste. Man-the-sovereign will provide woman-the-liege with material protection and will undertake the moral justification of her existence; thus she can evade at once both economic risk and the metaphysical risk of a liberty in which ends and aims must be contrived without assistance. Indeed, along with the ethical urge of each individual to affirm his subjective existence, there is also the temptation to forgo liberty and become a thing. This is an inauspicious road, for he who takes it – passive, lost, ruined – becomes henceforth the creature of another’s will, frustrated in his transcendence and deprived of every value. But it is an easy road; on it one avoids the strain involved in undertaking an authentic existence. When man makes of woman the Other, he may, then, expect to manifest deep-seated tendencies towards complicity. Thus, woman may fail to lay claim to the status of subject because she lacks definite resources, because she feels the necessary bond that ties her to man regardless of reciprocity, and because she is often very well pleased with her role as the Other.

But it will be asked at once: how did all this begin? It is easy to see that the duality of the sexes, like any duality, gives rise to conflict. And doubtless the winner will assume the status of absolute. But why should man have won from the start? It seems possible that women could have won the victory; or that the outcome of the conflict might never have been decided. How is it that this world has always belonged to the men and that things have begun to change only recently? Is this change a good thing? Will it bring about an equal sharing of the world between men and women?

These questions are not new, and they have often been answered. But the very fact that woman is the Other tends to cast suspicion upon all the justifications that men have ever been able to provide for it. These have all too evidently been dictated by men’s interest. A little-known feminist of the seventeenth century, Poulain de la Barre, put it this way: ‘All that has been written about women by men should be suspect, for the men are at once judge and party to the lawsuit.’ Everywhere, at all times, the males have displayed their satisfaction in feeling that they are the lords of creation. ‘Blessed be God ... that He did not make me a woman,’ say the Jews in their morning prayers, while their wives pray on a note of resignation: ‘Blessed be the Lord, who created me according to His will.’ The first among the blessings for which Plato thanked the gods was that he had been created free, not enslaved; the second, a man, not a woman. But the males could not enjoy this privilege fully unless they believed it to be founded on the absolute and the eternal; they sought to make the fact of their supremacy into a right. ‘Being men, those who have made and compiled the laws have favoured their own sex, and jurists have elevated these laws into principles’, to quote Poulain de la Barre once more.

Legislators, priests, philosophers, writers, and scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of woman is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth. The religions invented by men reflect this wish for domination. In the legends of Eve and Pandora men have taken up arms against women. They have made use of philosophy and theology, as the quotations from Aristotle and St Thomas have shown. Since ancient times satirists and moralists have delighted in showing up the weaknesses of women. We are familiar with the savage indictments hurled against women throughout French literature. Montherlant, for example, follows the tradition of Jean de Meung, though with less gusto. This hostility may at times be well founded, often it is gratuitous; but in truth it more or less successfully conceals a desire for self-justification. As Montaigne says, ‘It is easier to accuse one sex than to excuse the other’. Sometimes what is going on is clear enough. For instance, the Roman law limiting the rights of woman cited ‘the imbecility, the instability of the sex’ just when the weakening of family ties seemed to threaten the interests of male heirs. And in the effort to keep the married woman under guardianship, appeal was made in the sixteenth century to the authority of St Augustine, who declared that ‘woman is a creature neither decisive nor constant’, at a time when the single woman was thought capable of managing her property. Montaigne understood clearly how arbitrary and unjust was woman’s appointed lot: ‘Women are not in the wrong when they decline to accept the rules laid down for them, since the men make these rules without consulting them. No wonder intrigue and strife abound.’ But he did not go so far as to champion their cause.

It was only later, in the eighteenth century, that genuinely democratic men began to view the matter objectively. Diderot, among others, strove to show that woman is, like man, a human being. Later John Stuart Mill came fervently to her defence. But these philosophers displayed unusual impartiality. In the nineteenth century the feminist quarrel became again a quarrel of partisans. One of the consequences of the industrial revolution was the entrance of women into productive labour, and it was just here that the claims of the feminists emerged from the realm of theory and acquired an economic basis, while their opponents became the more aggressive. Although landed property lost power to some extent, the bourgeoisie clung to the old morality that found the guarantee of private property in the solidity of the family. Woman was ordered back into the home the more harshly as her emancipation became a real menace. Even within the working class the men endeavoured to restrain woman’s liberation, because they began to see the women as dangerous competitors – the more so because they were accustomed to work for lower wages.

In proving woman’s inferiority, the anti-feminists then began to draw not only upon religion, philosophy, and theology, as before, but also upon science – biology, experimental psychology, etc. At most they were willing to grant ‘equality in difference’ to the other sex. That profitable formula is most significant; it is precisely like the ‘equal but separate’ formula of the Jim Crow laws aimed at the North American Negroes. As is well known, this so-called equalitarian segregation has resulted only in the most extreme discrimination. The similarity just noted is in no way due to chance, for whether it is a race, a caste, a class, or a sex that is reduced to a position of inferiority, the methods of justification are the same. ‘The eternal feminine’ corresponds to ‘the black soul’ and to ‘the Jewish character’. True, the Jewish problem is on the whole very different from the other two – to the anti-Semite the Jew is not so much an inferior as he is an enemy for whom there is to be granted no place on earth, for whom annihilation is the fate desired. But there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of the Negro. Both are being emancipated today from a like paternalism, and the former master class wishes to ‘keep them in their place’ – that is, the place chosen for them. In both cases the former masters lavish more or less sincere eulogies, either on the virtues of ‘the good Negro’ with his dormant, childish, merry soul – the submissive Negro – or on the merits of the woman who is ‘truly feminine’ – that is, frivolous, infantile, irresponsible the submissive woman. In both cases the dominant class bases its argument on a state of affairs that it has itself created. As George Bernard Shaw puts it, in substance, ‘The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.’ This vicious circle is met with in all analogous circumstances; when an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior. But the significance of the verb to be must be rightly understood here; it is in bad faith to give it a static value when it really has the dynamic Hegelian sense of ‘to have become’. Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should that state of affairs continue?

Many men hope that it will continue; not all have given up the battle. The conservative bourgeoisie still see in the emancipation of women a menace to their morality and their interests. Some men dread feminine competition. Recently a male student wrote in the Hebdo-Latin: ‘Every woman student who goes into medicine or law robs us of a job.’ He never questioned his rights in this world. And economic interests are not the only ones concerned. One of the benefits that oppression confers upon the oppressors is that the most humble among them is made to feel superior; thus, a ‘poor white’ in the South can console himself with the thought that he is not a ‘dirty nigger’ – and the more prosperous whites cleverly exploit this pride.

Similarly, the most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women. It was much easier for M. de Montherlant to think himself a hero when he faced women (and women chosen for his purpose) than when he was obliged to act the man among men – something many women have done better than he, for that matter. And in September 1948, in one of his articles in the Figaro littéraire, Claude Mauriac – whose great originality is admired by all – could write regarding woman: ‘We listen on a tone [sic!] of polite indifference ... to the most brilliant among them, well knowing that her wit reflects more or less luminously ideas that come from us.’ Evidently the speaker referred to is not reflecting the ideas of Mauriac himself, for no one knows of his having any. It may be that she reflects ideas originating with men, but then, even among men there are those who have been known to appropriate ideas not their own; and one can well ask whether Claude Mauriac might not find more interesting a conversation reflecting Descartes, Marx, or Gide rather than himself. What is really remarkable is that by using the questionable we he identifies himself with St Paul, Hegel, Lenin, and Nietzsche, and from the lofty eminence of their grandeur looks down disdainfully upon the bevy of women who make bold to converse with him on a footing of equality. In truth, I know of more than one woman who would refuse to suffer with patience Mauriac’s ‘tone of polite indifference’.

I have lingered on this example because the masculine attitude is here displayed with disarming ingenuousness. But men profit in many more subtle ways from the otherness, the alterity of woman. Here is a miraculous balm for those afflicted with an inferiority complex, and indeed no one is more arrogant towards women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility. Those who are not fear-ridden in the presence of their fellow men are much more disposed to recognise a fellow creature in woman; but even to these the myth of Woman, the Other, is precious for many reasons. They cannot be blamed for not cheerfully relinquishing all the benefits they derive from the myth, for they realize what they would lose in relinquishing woman as they fancy her to be, while they fail to realize what they have to gain from the woman of tomorrow. Refusal to pose oneself as the Subject, unique and absolute, requires great self-denial. Furthermore, the vast majority of men make no such claim explicitly. They do not postulate woman as inferior, for today they are too thoroughly imbued with the ideal of democracy not to recognise all human beings as equals.

In the bosom of the family, woman seems in the eyes of childhood and youth to be clothed in the same social dignity as the adult males. Later on, the young man, desiring and loving, experiences the resistance, the independence of the woman desired and loved; in marriage, he respects woman as wife and mother, and in the concrete events of conjugal life she stands there before him as a free being. He can therefore feel that social subordination as between the sexes no longer exists and that on the whole, in spite of differences, woman is an equal. As, however, he observes some points of inferiority – the most important being unfitness for the professions – he attributes these to natural causes. When he is in a co-operative and benevolent relation with woman, his theme is the principle of abstract equality, and he does not base his attitude upon such inequality as may exist. But when he is in conflict with her, the situation is reversed: his theme will be the existing inequality, and he will even take it as justification for denying abstract equality.

So it is that many men will affirm as if in good faith that women are the equals of man and that they have nothing to clamour for, while at the same time they will say that women can never be the equals of man and that their demands are in vain. It is, in point of fact, a difficult matter for man to realize the extreme importance of social discriminations which seem outwardly insignificant but which produce in woman moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to spring from her original nature. The most sympathetic of men never fully comprehend woman’s concrete situation. And there is no reason to put much trust in the men when they rush to the defence of privileges whose full extent they can hardly measure. We shall not, then, permit ourselves to be intimidated by the number and violence of the attacks launched against women, nor to be entrapped by the self-seeking eulogies bestowed on the ‘true woman’, nor to profit by the enthusiasm for woman’s destiny manifested by men who would not for the world have any part of it.

We should consider the arguments of the feminists with no less suspicion, however, for very often their controversial aim deprives them of all real value. If the ‘woman question’ seems trivial, it is because masculine arrogance has made of it a ‘quarrel’; and when quarrelling one no longer reasons well. People have tirelessly sought to prove that woman is superior, inferior, or equal to man. Some say that, having been created after Adam, she is evidently a secondary being: others say on the contrary that Adam was only a rough draft and that God succeeded in producing the human being in perfection when He created Eve. Woman’s brain is smaller; yes, but it is relatively larger. Christ was made a man; yes, but perhaps for his greater humility. Each argument at once suggests its opposite, and both are often fallacious. If we are to gain understanding, we must get out of these ruts; we must discard the vague notions of superiority, inferiority, equality which have hitherto corrupted every discussion of the subject and start afresh.

Very well, but just how shall we pose the question? And, to begin with, who are we to propound it at all? Man is at once judge and party to the case; but so is woman. What we need is an angel – neither man nor woman – but where shall we find one? Still, the angel would be poorly qualified to speak, for an angel is ignorant of all the basic facts involved in the problem. With a hermaphrodite we should be no better off, for here the situation is most peculiar; the hermaphrodite is not really the combination of a whole man and a whole woman, but consists of parts of each and thus is neither. It looks to me as if there are, after all, certain women who are best qualified to elucidate the situation of woman. Let us not be misled by the sophism that because Epimenides was a Cretan he was necessarily a liar; it is not a mysterious essence that compels men and women to act in good or in bad faith, it is their situation that inclines them more or less towards the search for truth. Many of today’s women, fortunate in the restoration of all the privileges pertaining to the estate of the human being, can afford the luxury of impartiality – we even recognise its necessity. We are no longer like our partisan elders; by and large we have won the game. In recent debates on the status of women the United Nations has persistently maintained that the equality of the sexes is now becoming a reality, and already some of us have never had to sense in our femininity an inconvenience or an obstacle. Many problems appear to us to be more pressing than those which concern us in particular, and this detachment even allows us to hope that our attitude will be objective. Still, we know the feminine world more intimately than do the men because we have our roots in it, we grasp more immediately than do men what it means to a human being to be feminine; and we are more concerned with such knowledge. I have said that there are more pressing problems, but this does not prevent us from seeing some importance in asking how the fact of being women will affect our lives. What opportunities precisely have been given us and what withheld? What fate awaits our younger sisters, and what directions should they take? It is significant that books by women on women are in general animated in our day less by a wish to demand our rights than by an effort towards clarity and understanding. As we emerge from an era of excessive controversy, this book is offered as one attempt among others to confirm that statement.

But it is doubtless impossible to approach any human problem with a mind free from bias. The way in which questions are put, the points of view assumed, presuppose a relativity of interest; all characteristics imply values, and every objective description, so called, implies an ethical background. Rather than attempt to conceal principles more or less definitely implied, it is better to state them openly, at the beginning. This will make it unnecessary to specify on every page in just what sense one uses such words as superior, inferior, better, worse, progress, reaction, and the like. If we survey some of the works on woman, we note that one of the points of view most frequently adopted is that of the public good, the general interest; and one always means by this the benefit of society as one wishes it to be maintained or established. For our part, we hold that the only public good is that which assures the private good of the citizens; we shall pass judgement on institutions according to their effectiveness in giving concrete opportunities to individuals. But we do not confuse the idea of private interest with that of happiness, although that is another common point of view. Are not women of the harem more happy than women voters? Is not the housekeeper happier than the working-woman? It is not too clear just what the word happy really means and still less what true values it may mask. There is no possibility of measuring the happiness of others, and it is always easy to describe as happy the situation in which one wishes to place them.

In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that of existentialist ethics. Every subject plays his part as such specifically through exploits or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence; he achieves liberty only through a continual reaching out towards other liberties. There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future. Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation, there is a degradation of existence into the ‘en-sois’ – the brutish life of subjection to given conditions – and of liberty into constraint and contingence. This downfall represents a moral fault if the subject consents to it; if it is inflicted upon him, it spells frustration and oppression. In both cases it is an absolute evil. Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects.

Now, what peculiarly signalises the situation of woman is that she – a free and autonomous being like all human creatures – nevertheless finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other. They propose to stabilise her as object and to doom her to immanence since her transcendence is to be overshadowed and for ever transcended by another ego (conscience) which is essential and sovereign. The drama of woman lies in this conflict between the fundamental aspirations of every subject (ego) – who always regards the self as the essential and the compulsions of a situation in which she is the inessential. How can a human being in woman’s situation attain fulfilment? What roads are open to her? Which are blocked? How can independence be recovered in a state of dependency? What circumstances limit woman’s liberty and how can they be overcome? These are the fundamental questions on which I would fain throw some light. This means that I am interested in the fortunes of the individual as defined not in terms of happiness but in terms of liberty.

Quite evidently this problem would be without significance if we were to believe that woman’s destiny is inevitably determined by physiological, psychological, or economic forces. Hence I shall discuss first of all the light in which woman is viewed by biology, psychoanalysis, and historical materialism. Next I shall try to show exactly how the concept of the ‘truly feminine’ has been fashioned – why woman has been defined as the Other – and what have been the consequences from man’s point of view. Then from woman’s point of view I shall describe the world in which women must live; and thus we shall be able to envisage the difficulties in their way as, endeavouring to make their escape from the sphere hitherto assigned them, they aspire to full membership in the human race.

view this also

Friday, March 5, 2010

Τ/κ και Δικοινοτικές Εκδηλώσεις για τη Μέρα της Γυναίκας




6 Μαρτίου 2010 – Σάββατο

“Μη Μ’ Αγγίζεις” – “Don’t Touch My Body”
Εκδήλωση Ενάντια στη Βία

Οργανώνεται από το Φεμινιστικό Ατελιέ και την Αντι-Ομοφοβική Πρωτοβουλία
Lokmaci / Οδός Λήδρας
10:00 – 12:00
————————————————–

8 Μαρτίου 2010 – Δευτέρα
Εκδήλωση Γυναικών για την Ειρήνη


Οργανώνεται από τη Γυναικεία Πρωτοβουλία για τη Λύση
Lokmaci / Οδός Λήδρας
11:00 – 13:00
————————————————–

8 Μαρτίου 2010 – Δευτέρα
Πορεία για τα Δικαιώματα των Γυναικών - των Λεσβιών – Ομοφυλοφίλων – Αμφιφιλόφιλων – Τρανσέξουαλ.

(Η ματαιότητα προσδιορισμού της σεξουαλικής ταυτότητας)

Οργανώνεται από το
Baraka Kultur
στην Οδό Dereboyu Street, 5 μ.μ.

φαλιες.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Anne Sexton


The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator

by Anne Sexton


The end of the affair is always death.
She’s my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


Finger to finger, now she’s mine.
She’s not too far. She’s my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night alone, I marry the bed.


I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out. I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute’s speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today’s paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.


Music Swims Back to Me

by Anne Sexton


Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.


Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.


They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?

Sunday, January 10, 2010

judith butler-gender trouble

Monday, January 4, 2010

μωρά στη φωτιά




baby this town rips the bones from your back.
it's a death trap.
it's a suicide rap.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

2010