‘And this debasement of our vision, the retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters from free-swimming life into safe crannies, the desperate instinct that our life passes unlived, is reflected in proliferation without joy, corrosive money rot, the gross befouling of the earth and the air and water from which we came.’ –The Snow Leopard
“Students aught to be angry” said Peter Matthiessen, writer of ‘The Snow Leopard’, at the Prague Writers’ Festival. I asked him how should students get angry?
“Most immediate things are environmental. I think the environment is overwhelming. I think they should demand alternative energy. Fossile fuels should be finished. I’m hoping that this terrible oil spill will make people realise that the horrors will get worse & worse. People have to realise how much cover up there was, how much irresponsibility there was. I hope they do criminal cases. I hope a few of those people go to jail.”
In June 2010 various writers traveled to Prague to discuss issues on the theme of heresy & rebellion. At this time it had been 44 days since the explosion of the BP-licensed Transocean drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. Shares in BP had rose as much as 4% to 450p, making it the biggest riser on the FTSE 100. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) an estimate of 5 thousand barrels (210,000 gallons) was spilt per day. It that is correct it would mean that 220,000 barrels would have spilt into the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the commencement of the Prague Writers’ Festival. However the estimate could also be as much as 60 thousand barrels (2,520,000 gallons) per day.
In conversation with Iain Banks And Bahaa Taher, Matthiessen said: “it just pisses me off about the oil companies. They behave so badly & so greedily & still awarding themselves enormous salaries. While millions of there countrymen are suffering, really suffering. They don’t seem to care & they don’t care about their kids or their grandchildren. All they care about is material.”
While the oil from BP still spills Shell is carrying on plans for next year to go ahead with offshore oil exploration on the north of Alaska. If this happens then it is likely that Shell may cause the first climate refugees.
Taher explained his thoughts on the importance of heresy & what it means in the modern world:
“Heresy had a very positive impact on history it did stop the dominance of orthodoxy all over the world. Those sub-groups had a plurality of thinking & plurality of action that has helped mankind develop. That is my view on heresy. Now I am not at all happy with the way things are. I believe that what we need now is a kind of heresy because now with the triumph of the free market economy society, & the consumer society, & Mr. Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’, & the international bank governing almost all parts of the world. We are living in a kind of dictatorship, which needs heresy. There is a very bad need for heresy. The same kind of heresy that has played a positive role in the history of humankind before, against orthodoxy, against communism, against all kinds of dictatorial ideas.”
The word heresy did not seem as important to Matthiessen but he did clearly state the need for a fundamental change in society.
“There is a growing inequity between the rich & poor…I think we have to face the fact that millions & millions & millions of people haven’t got a shot in the way we are arranging society.”
Banks wondered if heresies now are just disagreements but whatever the word for it is he agreed that there is a need for it.
“What we need is some form of an increased form of democracy. We might even need to change the laws of capitalism. One obvious change would be to allow no public limited companies, only to use partnerships, people who are risking everything, their homes & entire livelihood if it all goes down the tubes. That might stop the more insane speculations that has landed us all now in so much trouble in the last couple of years. If those people had been risking their own money & the roofs over their heads they might not have been so daring in their wonderful new financial instruments.
“But that takes an entire international and fully global outlook and it’s one that we are at the moment nowhere near in getting and the tragedy of what happen in Copenhagen last year when we were able faced with this gigantic and palpable and obvious and basically not really deniable problem, challenge, of global warming, human caused global warming, and we fumbled it. We dropped the ball and doing nothing. We’re doing little bits and pieces but that is just not going to be enough.”
Baher wondered why it is that there seems to be a lack of public response to be outraged when recalling a time when a writer could cause a riot.
“I am very much concerned. Because of the lack of mass protest all over the world against the current state of affairs we are going to a very gloomy future. Now we are not living in democracies or dictatorships. All regimes are changing little by little into what the Greeks call a cleptocracy, the government of the thieves. All governments now are composed of people who have been rightly described as greedy persons who are using all means to rob from the public with whatever they have. Unless we do something & we really struggle against this affair then we will have a cleptocracy.”
On the 15th of July the oil flow halted after 87 days of spilling. In a best case scenario the amount of barrels per day already spilt has been 2,198,574,21. At worst it is 7,803,244.36 per day.
On a hopeful note Matthiessen told me “It’s a great chance for young people everywhere to say ‘No more!’ I think the environmental impulse to change things is there. It is there. I think they need to know that we’re screwed up. It needs an episode like this to really get people up in arms & I am hoping. It is the only good thing I see coming out of this, especially for young people. It is so important”
Sources Used:
Videos of PWF conversations can be viewed here: http://www.pwf.cz/en/pwf-2010/
Matthiessen, Peter, The Snow Leopard. (Great Britian: Chatto & Windus Ltd 1978) p43
"Ever sice then I've asked myself why"
ReplyDelete