The Republic of Dissent

Proof of life

I'm not dead, just undead for a few more days.

To reassure yourself that I'm not just saying it, you can watch my interview on TV5 by clicking here.

Radio interview

If you are  missing me or just want to hear my voice in French, you can listen to an interview I did with the sublime Yasmine Chouaki here or just click on the embeded links below.

I'll be back soon.

En sol majeur

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En sol majeur

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Les temps changent et la vie bouscule

Happy new year to all of you! I know I know I have been unfaithful, but sometimes life is too beautiful to do more than just living knowing that you will be ablee to write about all of it soon. Thus, I am enjoying life and I will write about it soon.

Pour saluer Christopher Hitchens

 

I liked Christopher Hitchens even when I disagreed with him. He had the elegance to  resist  conventional wisdom, easy arguments and the temptation to be agreeable and blandly likable.

In short, Hitch was boldly relevant and  I will miss him because he was substantively and abrasively authentic!

Birthday !!!!

Taking the rest of the week and Monday to celebrate my birthday.

Where? Agassiland! It's important to enjoy the simple things in life!

Sweet and sour

Two words, no one sentence: I'm back!

Slow November

It's going to be a slow November.

Life is catching up with me, which in this case, is a good thing.

So be patient, email me to yell at me (elegantly) or just to vent, but try to be understanding. Oh, by the way, if you read French, you may want to read this, it's an article on slate africa about me (in part) about me, me, me.

Il me souvient...

Unbelievably, it is hard to find my words in English to express what I feel on this tenth anniversary of 9/11. It has to do with the fact that English is my working and analytical language. I don't do feelings and poetry well in English or at least not to the level I do in French. 

So?  9/11 is a hard moment to remember, but it's the one that made me come to terms with my Americanness and cherish that part of me. I'm trying to say that I took America for granted before 9/11 and that it was only after that I realized that it has been like a nurturing parent who gives you all you need to blossom and never asks for nothing, not even for a thank you. 

9/11 reminds me that I owe America too much to accept when others or  even its citizens sell it short.

The end of summer time

Just one sentence: I'm back and one question: is it a good thing?

Summerbernation

I'm going to my hut in the desert to meditate the usefulness of the examined life !

I'm not stopping to blog, although I have been blogging with less frequency and will continue to post when I have something to say, which doesn't ruin my meditative vacation.

See you soon or tomorrow for I''m leaving although I'm not really leaving ! Now what does that say about me that I'm an adrenaline junkie or just too me for my own good?

The insignificance of the writer

Shameless, but needed self-promotion. If you read French, you can read my latest interview here. 

Thanks to Idriss Linge. 

My reaction: I don't like to look at my navel.

The beginning of the year is next week

I will start to blog again on Monday.  I've been all over the world, well, kind of. I'm not back in New York yet, but I will back to a place where blogging is possible tomorrow.

There is so much to say. I'm just wondering how to say it....

By the way, it's funny, almost frightening how much L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées, my book, is devouring my life and my being.  Unhelpful confession: I love being devoured.

Je vous le dis quand même

I'm in a place where it isn't possible to blog, but I used my one wish for the last day of the year to grab the opportunity to say happy new year to you all especially to my favorite economist. I hope that he will forgive me and understand that after Paris, life took me some place else, which means that I will have to make the time to keep my promise in a few weeks.

Happy New Year !!!!!

I won't forget about Paris

I'm done with Paris or rather Paris is done with me. So what did I learn? A lot, too much, but all of it is helpful.

I know I haven't written, but hey, sometimes a writer has to do what a writer has to do. I'm trying to say that Paris taught me to love myself and to love writing in itself without questioning my love for it and its usefulness. Paris forced me to mature in a few days and to learn that love is overrated and even dangerous when it becomes existential...

Am I going to blog more before the end of the year? I will try, but the end of 2010 is magical and I have to clean up some of the mess that came with my fresh enlightenment. If you are worried about me, don't be, I'm  just crossing the Gobi and I will be back stronger.

On the outside

I'm still in Paris, bravely facing the cold even though it is kicking my you know what.

I had my 'presentation' for my book on Friday and I have to admit that I have no idea how things went. I'm mentally exhausted so it will take me a while, or not, to blog again. In the meantime, be patient for I will be back with a vengeance.

Birthday and change of schedule

It's after 5 am in Paris, but still my birthday in the states. I'm in such in terrible shape physically that I'm not sure how I should feel about being a year older...

The most important information is that my public event in the Lucernaire is canceled until further notice (it will probably happen at the end of January). The bad weather in Paris and my cold forced me to realize that it was too much to ask people, especially those who wanted to come to listen to me, to get out on a hellish winter weekday when they know they have to work the next day and would be worried about how to get home. Thus, I have decided to do a closed event in the Pavillon Élysée around the same question : are africanity, sexuality, and identity broken things?

The new event will be in the Pavillon Élysée, but by invitation only on a week from Friday. If you really wanted to come to hear me talk or that you really want to come to this event, email me and we will talk.

Yesterday (the Eight, my birthday) was such a moody day because of the snow, the icy roads, and the impossible conditions that truly, I felt like a New Yorker in Paris,  I missed Manhattan and my fellow villagers can do everything attitude.

A writer in Paris

I'm in Paris. Sick, cold, anxious, and trying to prepare for my event. That's the only thing that could have prevented me from blogging. In short, life is just as messy as I am with this cold  that is beating the hell out of me. But I'm back not for good for I'm not in my 'natural' environment (a hotel room in Paris), nevertheless, I will be blog as much as I can.

Radio France Internationale

I appeared on a show called le débat africain (in French) on RFI in which I asserted that there isn't such a thing as Africanity. It is a position on which I will elaborate on December 13 when at last, I'm having, at the Lucernaire in Paris (7 pm), a soirée to present my book, L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées and of course to sign copies. So if you are in Paris or just want to pick a fight with me or just to listen to something fresh on identity, sexuality and les choses brisées, come and bring a friend.

 

1. La diaspora africaine aux Etats-Unis

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2. La diaspora africaine aux Etats-Unis

(19:31)

Uneasy fusion

Pertinent:

If the contemporary right is an uneasy fusion of conservative and libertarian articles of faith, the contemporary left is an uneasy fusion of technocratic progressive and liberal-democratic conviction. One sees progressive managerial elitism most clearly in the left's public-health and environmental paternalism. The rarely uttered idea is that the people who know best need to force the rest of us to do what's good for us. Whatever you think of this sort of state paternalism, it isn't liberal or liberty-enhancing in any non-tortured sense. The progressive technocrat's attitude toward liberty is: "Trust us. You're better off without so much of it." The more the left is inclined to stick up for this sort of "activist government" as a progressive, humanitarian force, the less it is inclined to couch its arguments in terms of liberty.

It is the fact that I value too much my liberty and that I hate to be told what to think that I am more than uneasy about the American left; it is too self-righteous and increasingly shallow because it wants to be fashionable, which makes it too complacent for it is convinced of its grandeur.  So what will 'change' (ah the magic word, America is discovering doesn't mean anything) after the left gets a spanking tonight? Not much, it will just wait for Republicans to overreach and Obama will remain at the center right of the political spectrum and get reelected if he doesn't get in his own way.

Podcast soft of L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées

In an act of shameless self-promotion, here is a podcast of me talking in French about my book, L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées. I speak too fast, but that's because I was forced to do it by my very own Frankenstein... there is melodramatic music playing in the background, which you may enjoy even if you don't understand French.

Podcast soft

Une vie nouvelle commence

I'm back in New York. It feel different, but I have to say that I was impressed for the first time in a long time with Paris. When I write "impressed," I'm trying to say that I have been in love with Paris for so long that I had forgotten that it was a magical place where dreams can come true even though crashes can occur.

I'm back. My vacation is over. My book is still out there.

I'm going to see how it feels to live in New York as a published author and a happy person. Une vie nouvelle commence...

The trouble with the writer

The trouble with writing or rather with becoming a published author is that people are looking for you for answers and are never satisfied solely with good questions. I have this obnoxious feeling that I'm becoming a saltimbanque, a show piece for people who I'm going to have trouble to still respect at the end of this extraordinary, but bugging experience. What happens when the writer is eaten up alive. 

14 Juillet

It's Bastille Day ! Today, it is just a good excuse to shut my yap, relax and enjoy my free time.

Happy without an exclamation point

The dreadful world Cup (I'm complaining here about the quality of the matches not anything else) ended with a positive outcome after the worst final I ever watched. In any case, fifty years from now, the sole thing that I will remember is that Spain won and that Ghana crumbled under the intolerable pressure of something that doesn't exist: Africanity.

Quand ça ne change pas, le hic est ailleurs

My reaction to reading this from Paul Sagar is no, you don't say!:

The claim or insinuation that campaigns for women’s rights and equality are rooted in a lack of family to cater for (“no homes”), rejection by men (“no husbands”) and infertility or barrenness (“no children”) are apparently as old as the hills yet very much alive and kicking.

Unfortunately, Sagar misses the mark by focusing on the omnipresent reality without asking the key questions about the the issues 'women's right' and feminism and what it says about them that they haven't been revolutionary or even solely effective in accomplishing their aims! To be blunt, I'm tired of the same realities being examined as if the convenient acknowledgment of their unsavoriness were enough to change it or to make one feel good for not being part, at first glance, of the problematic and everlasting statu quo. Assez de bons sentiments et un peu d'actions please!

España, mi corazón

Quick and useless thought: there is nothing as fun when you are on vacation as seeing a team that you enjoy watching get to the final game of the World Cup. I was afraid that the Germans were going to win and that the last match of this dreadful competition would thus become unwatchable. Thus, I am happy to see Spain win today because while watching its team, one still feels that soccer, football is a game that must be fun instead of battle that has to be won. I don't know if Spain is going to win Sunday, but I hope that they try to play their football instead of playing solely strategically and trying to outsmart the Netherlands instead of just outplaying them, which should be enough to win.  In short, I believe that Spain will win Sunday if it isn't afraid of losing its first World Cup final by letting itself believe that it can't win with its football.

In awe of Nadal !

Nadal made my summer !!! That's all I have to say.

Ghana not Africa

Ghana lost yesterday. I had predicted that the Black stars would win if they were capable of ignoring the symbolic "crap" about Ghana representing the whole African continent and some type of imaginary "Africanity." Ghana lost yesterday mostly because the pressure of representing something other than itself crushed its players. Asamoah Gyan, the poor guy who missed the penalty that would have sent his country to the semi-final, thought undoubtedly about all the fluff, about the idiotic and anti-intellectual notion that he was carrying the hopes of 'Africa' on his shoulders instead of calming himself down to remember that Ghana isn't 'Africa'  and the game against Uruguay wasn't another absurd and futile identity struggle.
Next time, because there will be a next time for Ghana, its players should just think of themselves, their country, and ignore the burden of a nonexistent common identity and of a idealized history. Ghana isn't 'Africa' and remembering it can only be productive for it is a liberating reality.

Before or after whatever

Scenery: It's hot, humid, and quiet, but this calme trompeur will not last for it is less than an hour from the game between Ghana and Uruguay... It's amazing to see how all-encompassing sports can be when it becomes about something other than fun, but about identity. I'm sports fanatic, but I wouldn't die for it. In any case, I'm not watching the game for I'm going to bed. I watched too much tennis (Nadal  won!!!) and Brazil lost, which made my day. Besides I know the outcome of the game already: Ghana is going to win. The Black stars will win because they are the better team and because the only thing that can stop them is all the fluff and the burdensome symbolic noise, which may paralyze them and make them believe that they are fighting for something bigger and that football is an identity struggle which can repair injustices or rather fix a country's and  a continent's ills. Thus, Ghana will win if the Black Stars make the temperate choice to play just football and to ignore the chatter about its meaning.

Paucis verbis

Passing and short remark: I'm enjoying my boring vacation. It forces me to realize how fast and often unnecessarily loud, things are in New York. This kind of boredom feels great for I know that it shall pass and because it reinvigorates my brain.

In short, ennui can be fruitful.

Who am I?

I was unapologetically for the US yesterday in their match at the World Cup against Ghana. Somebody asked me how I couldn't support the Ghanaians and I have to admit that I was puzzled by the question because the assumption was that identity is 'racial' and I had to identify with Ghana rather than with the US because I share the color of their skin. My answer was that I have never been to Ghana while I love the US and that I am too cultured and too well read to make the stupid assumption that race skin color trumps everything else including experience. I am proud to say that I wanted the Americans to win against Ghana yesterday and that it broke my heart that they didn;t win. Their loss hurt me because I 'identify' with the American players, because I know America more than I know Ghana and because I love America not in the shallow way people from afar do but in a Tocqueville way: I admire its strength and acknowledging its ills.

In a time, when people are drunk with the disturbing sacrality of race while forgetting conveniently that for everybody, even those with a darker skin color, existence precedes essence, I refuse to follow the majority and to let the past or whatever else define who I am or rather whom I should be.  To quote once more time Hannah Arendt quoting René Char: notre histoire n’est précédé d’aucun testament.

Return to earth

I'm back from nointernetland. I spend a week in a little corner with no internet, which explains my long absence. Stupidly, I had assume that even in my own surreal Macondo, I would be able to blog. That assumption should show  how passionate I am with blogging that I often fail to take into account practical things such as internet access.

I'm back and  I will write as much as I can while enjoying my vacation.

Vuvuzela and monotony

Deaf from all the sound of the Vuvuzela while I'm watching all the world cup game. That said I'm addicted to that painful noise and believe that I'm going to miss it after it is going even though I suspect that it is bad for my health.

I can't believe that Spain lost, but I'm grateful that it was to my new favorite country, Federeland Switzerland. I'm hoping that this world cup will get better. So far, the games have been forgettable. Can somebody please beat Italy, Brazil, and all of  those teams who have won it all so that we have so some exciting novelty or something other than monotonous continuity?The problem is that in football, very few things are offered to you, you need to take them or die with regrets.

Still R&R

I'm taking full advantage of my vacation and watching the World Cup in a surreal atmosphere. I feel as though I'm in in another time for life goes by so slowly here that I'm always have to resist the urge to rush it along and to get caught up in the modern notion that time is money.

To talk about serious matters, football that is, I'm happy the US tied England, that Ghana (which is the most down to earth team, I've seen so far) won, and I'm expecting France with a somewhat heavy heart to lose to Mexico. 

To put things simply, I'm having a good time and trying to take things easy while working on pleasurable things. Sometimes, the unexamined life can be delicious.

Slow mo

I've started my vacation slowly and I'm enjoying it even though it's hot as hell.

I'm watching Argentina play Nigeria and I have the feeling that the Argentine cannot win the World Cup, but I wouldn't bet on it because they have the talent to overcome the limits of their coach, Diego Armando Maradona.

I had a great time in my brief stop in Zurich. I bought some Cuban Rum, and realized how nice the Swiss are.

For now, I'm relaxing. I love being away from New York... I'm taking it easy, while getting myself ready to work differently.

Working vacation

I'm starting my vacation today, well not really for I'm going to spend the afternoon and most of the day tomorrow in airports and planes. I will be a few hours in Federerland then go to a destination that is almost as disturbing as it can be exhilarating. In any case, although I won't write tomorrow and more than likely Friday, I will resume blogging this weekend and if everything goes well, my blogging won't be light as it has been for the last two weeks.

Thus, my location changes, but I will keep on blogging wit the same frequency as I usually do. My goal is to rest mentally while doing what I love to do.

By the way, have I said how much I love Switzerland? It is a country that is too eccentrically good just to be enjoyed by the Swiss and the well-to -do.

World Cup fever

I've finally caught World Cup fever. It took a long time, but I have it. The best thing for me about this World Cup is that I'm not going to watch it in the US for the first time in 16 years !!! It's a pain when you are a soccer football fan to watch the World Cup in the US because Americans don't care and  have other worries while the rest of the world is following religiously what it considers to be the most important sporting event. Thus, even though I'm going to have a working vacation, I can't complain and I'm actually looking forward to the summer: Rafa Nadal is back and I won't have to watch the beautiful game on ESPN, everything is perfect in my small universe.

Rough transition

I'm preparing my summer. It explains the fact that I haven't posted as much as I wanted to for the last few days. I'm going away for the summer for a working vacation next Wednesday; I have so many things to do before I leave and I'm disorganized because my perfectionism is paralyzing me. Nevertheless, everything will should back to normal after next weekend when I will be in my new and more 'exotic' environment. So please be patient with me and forgive the lack of post. I will post relentlessly this summer, but right now life is just too chaotic for me to write for I have neither the time nor the mental energy to think.

By the way, I'm going to spend a few hours in Switzerland and for some reasons, that excites me more than it should even though the short stay will be expensive. But I love the Swiss especially when they speak Romansh, German, or Italian.

Football Sunday

The English Premier league is ending today and I'm solely interested because I hope that Manchester United finds a way to get the title for I'm a Chelsea hater. Chelsea represents everything that is wrong with soccer football and sports, which is the idea that money is all that matters. It is a club with no soul. So even though, there is next to little chance that Chelsea won't win its last match and outlasts Man U, I'm watching the game hoping against hope that it loses.

Hung and dud

I have to say that the outcome of the British elections bugs me. It's like a great movie having the most disastrous, frustrating, and ugliest ending thus undermining the pleasure that you felt while watching and making you feel cheap for going along for the ride for the plot was always unrealistic to begin with. I don't know what is going to happen, but I have a feeling that there will be another election fairly soon. At least, I got the answer to one of my big questions: the Brits are not as excitable as Americans, which explains in part in my opinion why Cleggstasy was solely an entertaining fantasy, which they liked because it gave them the illusion that they could be daring with their politics to, at the end, when they were alone in the voting booth realize that they are not comfortable with unknown unknowns (a hung parliament is a known unknown). I'm just wondering how good/bad a prime minister David Cameron will be. The good news for Britain is that sometimes bad campaigners make good leaders. 

Going to Obamaland

I'm going to Chicago this morning just for a few hours (10 hours). But do not despair, I will be back in New York by the evening, which means that I may post Thursday if I'm not too exhausted by my fast trip to Obamaland.

Needed time off

Taking a short hiatus from blogging, but I will be back on Monday with renewed energy. Enjoy the weekend.

Cool

Ambiguously deep thought: Sometimes, it is more important to keep one's cool than to be smart and skilled because with a hot head, it's difficult to make good decisions.

Experiencing the harsh realities of healthcare

I went to the Doctor this morning. It was an unpleasant experience because of the long wait in spite of the fact that I had an appointment, because I felt that my needs weren't met and finally because of the cost. It led me to wonder whether the problem of the American healthcare system isn't precisely the fact that the emphasis is placed on cost and not on quality and that in the middle of it all, patients get lost and the importance of quality is forgotten.

My worry about the watered-down version of Obamacare is that it doesn't place the patient back at the center of the process and instead assumes that Americans will be happy about whatever healthcare they get as long as it is affordable and that they get to go to the doctor. I may be too French on this issue, but I believe strongly that on some subjects, quality is priceless (especially for rich countries) and that focusing on costs and on whatever else is a mistake. However, this view is based on my limited experience, which is the one of a person who is lucky enough to be able to pay for good care and who still feels that she isn;t getting it.

Health Reform and Change

I have to admit that I don't know what to make of the healthcare reform. I'm conflicted because I know that it is a bad legislation, but I know that it does good things.  I don't want to approve it to it just by arguing that it is better than what the US had before and better than nothing because I know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. My brain is telling that there is something wrong here, but my heart feels that in few occasions, small changes can be good. I just don't think that we are in a era where small changes are good enough especially if you are not a conservative.

???

There are days such as today when Manhattan's darkness reflects so perfectly what you feel that the obscurity and analysis force you to wonder what is the point of asking yourself great and fundamentals questions, if there are going to remain unanswered.

The usefulness of a Philosophy Department

As a Philosophy major, I enjoyed reading Harry Brighouse of the purpose of philosophy departments at American Universities. Sugary excerpt:

Ideally we’d be attempting to provide every single student with the experience and resources which will be most valuable. In practice, in large classes and deciding under uncertainty, we can’t do this; we design our syllabuses and instruction with the aim of providing quite specific things to particular groups of students. For myself, in the large lecture Contemporary Moral Issues course which is the course I teach most often, and which I have taught to many many more students than all my other courses put together, I have two main aims – one is to get the students thinking more carefully and in a richer way about moral issues that will affect their lives or about which they will be called to deliberate as citizens, by providing them with resources that our discipline has developed; and to give some of the students a realistic insight into what moral philosophy is and why it might be interesting to them. Both are, I hope, good for the majors, and I do try to ensure that students who either will major in, or are majoring in, Philosophy, will get a realistic sense of what one small corner of the discipline is like from my class—but that’s a secondary, not a primary, goal.

I have probably gotten more from being a philosophy major than I did from any from other degrees.  Most of the classes that I took to earn were classes that I wanted to take; they were small and full of students who, for the most part, wanted to be there and were thus more eager to discuss complicate subjects exhaustively. There were so few philosophy majors during my undergraduate years that we knew that the ones who stuck it out were dedicated, knew a lot about almost anything, could demonstrate it and wrote very well.

Women's day and other absurdities

I'm wondering what it says about me that I don't care about Women's day and more importantly that I feel that it is an absurdity designed to placate women by forcing them to remain predictable and thus manageable. I mean how grotesque is it that women are the majority of the planet and yet feel great about having a day to celebrate them as if they had no right to want more and to expect at the very least to be treated normally instead of always having to be cherished, debased or  just exploited?

In the spirit of those contradictions, to celebrate the absurdity of Women's day, I'm working, to use an unsavory stereotype, like a Mexican.

The pains of looking "diverse"

Boy do I agree with Ariane Sherine on this:

It's not that I'm embarrassed about my ethnic background. I don't think about it much, though it's good for jokes ("I'm half Iranian, half American – so basically, I hate myself"). But some people seem to want me to think about it. "Why don't you visit Bombay?" they enthuse. "You'd love it." They may be right, but have yet to explain to me why I'd love it more than Tokyo, or Guatemala, or any of the other places I haven't yet been. It's an odd misconception that you should somehow feel connected to a far-flung country because your ancestors lived there centuries ago, even if your entire life has been spent morris dancing in Loughborough.
It's not that I think the questioners are all differently faced versions of Nick Griffin, either. I don't – they're probably just curious (except perhaps for the bloke who made a constipated noise when I told him my Dad was white). People with a different appearance often seem more interesting than those who look everyday, and questioners are clearly hoping for a more satisfying response than the mundane "Right here". When they don't receive one, they probe.
So my reluctance to enter The Conversation isn't due to shame or to fear of any dubious ulterior motives. It's partly down to exasperation at people thinking I'm less British than them because I'm brown; but it's mainly down to extreme boredom. The rundown of my convoluted four-continent-spanning genealogy takes ages unless I lie, and I've started to deliver it in a funereal voice more monotonous than Tiger Woods's public apology.

This reminds of a personal encounter I had a few years ago. I was buying some groceries when I noticed a old man staring impolitely at me. I looked at him, he came to me and said to "you are from Haiti, right?" I answered truthfully, "Hum, No." He insisted, "You don't have to ashamed of it, I was in Port-au-Prince last week and met a lot of people just like you." I said to him jokingly, "Are you trying to say that we all look alike?" He answered emphatically, "Yes !" I looked into his eyes and said, "In that case, can you tell me where Ben Laden is, I really need to talk to him." His face turned red and he shouted at me, "You are an Islamophobe and an anti-Arab racist !." The moral of the story is that nobody likes people to assume that they either know where they are from based on the way they look or that they know who they are because of the way they look. What shocked me was that it never even occurred to the man that I didn't have any Haitian origins and it is possible to look "Haitian" whatever that means ( I suspect that for a woman it means being black, having wide eyes, and red lips, which is my case,) and not be Haitian.
The point is that when you look "diverse" you are never allowed to be yourself, you must be from somewhere, represent something, and more importantly, you must be different in a culturally interesting to teach others about exotic parts of the world. The trouble is that, as Sherine asserts, it gets tiresome especially when you have a mind of your own and when your sole eccentricity is caused by your intellect and your refusal to accept totalitarian normality not any exotic experience.

An exorcist at the White House

I have thought about it and I have concluded that there needs to an exorcist brought to the White House. I'm thinking that Obama is possessed, not yet totally, for he is still resisting the malicious being within him. However, if something is done quickly, I'm sure that change will come or at least that America won't be getting too much of the same when they voted for "real" change. The good news is that there is something that be done. The bad news is that not all exorcisms are successful.  So let's get into contact with the Pope so he can send the Michael Jordan of exorcists to save the Free world.