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Stay safe! #40 – 27 maggio

Durante la chiusura al pubblico dell’Istituto, in questa pagina vi proponiamo testi e riflessioni di amici e scrittori, talvolta scritti per l’occasione, scelti ogni giorno per voi. Oggi, Hanif Kureishi.

Over a long time, I have many happy memories of the Italian Institute, having enjoyed a lot of talks, exhibitions and parties in that beautiful building, which I consider to be one of London’s glories. It is a peaceful and stimulating place to visit and meet people. Let’s hope normal life will resume there soon!

Like most people, I haven’t done much recently, but here are two pieces I did manage to write, one about the past, and one about the present. This is the second piece. The first one was published yesterday.

Hanif Kureishi

Courtesy of the author

 

WHAT WILL WE MAKE OF THIS.

You might have noticed an odd thing which happens when you walk down your street at this time: others will take a step, or indeed several steps, away from you. They might even walk in the road, or cross the street entirely, to avoid you, while certainly regarding you suspiciously.

Apart from the good news that what we are living through is something of a party for paranoiacs, this street crossing is an uncomfortable and disconcerting reminder. It highlights the idea that you yourself are toxic to others, and could infect them, or they you. Anyone on the street could kill you; or, one day, you may have to bear the guilt of having infected someone. Whichever way round it might be, other people – who were always already far too exciting, if not dangerous – have become even more lethal. The enemy might be unseen, but there it is once more – justifiably located in others.

Not that the neighbour isn’t always a problem. We were told as children, you might remember, to be sure to love our neighbour. But, at present, that neighbour, a wonderful horror, is not only a source of envy – having, at least in our imagination, a far better time than us – he or she might actually prove to be ruinous.

This recent toxicity of the other is alienating and disturbing. Even when we finally escape our lockdown, the remains of this so-called social distancing will be profound and long-lasting.

Yet at the same time, this potential danger of the other, which exposes our helplessness and dependence, also clarifies something which is usually covered up.

Are we not being made aware, more than ever, that we are, as a group, made up of linked and reliant individuals, none of whom could, or should want to, survive alone, each link in the chain being indispensable. As babies, and as children, the need for this confidence in others is clear, but as adults we might prefer the illusion that we are independent and strong, when in fact our strength comes from unacknowledged others.

Recently, as it happens, with time on my hands, I’ve been reading Stefan Zweig’s remarkable autobiography, The World of Yesterday, which Zweig began in 1934. It opens with a description of the security in which he was privileged to grow up, the Austro-Hungarian Empire toward the end of the nineteenth century, ‘which offered the noble delusion of security, progress, and moral advancement.’ It seemed, at the time, that nothing could touch this highly developed and cultured civilization, but we know what happened with the rise of Hitler. Zweig, a humanist and activist, and one of the world’s most popular writers, despairingly killed himself in Rio in 1942.

We don’t yet know what will be swept away for us, but what has already gone is our sense of invulnerability, the idea that the depredations of history happen elsewhere and to others, while we look on, untouched in our private worlds.

And so, we have to ask ourselves, what will all this turn out to mean?

War didn’t suit Zweig, depriving him of everything he valued. But some disasters, conflicts and wars do suit people. There are many, surprisingly, who seem happier, stronger and less anxious during exceptional circumstances. The psychical war within can be a worse war than the one without. External dangers are simpler. Melitta Schmideberg, Melanie Klein’s daughter, wrote during the second world war, ‘the Blitz situation provided ample libidinal, sadistic and masochistic satisfaction.’

Wars, of course, are elective and usually avoidable; pandemics, probably not, though they can be mitigated. There are those who adapt, and those who can’t. Boredom, for instance, which we don’t like to allow ourselves, since we like regard ourselves as busy, involved and productive, might [or might not] be generative here. It is necessary to keep speaking, while maintaining our balance, critical facilities and intelligence. Zweig was aware that what he called the ‘cynical amorality’ of charismatic, huckster leaders, has to be countered everyday.

Zweig’s dream of a borderless, tolerant Europe – a buffer of reason against fascism – died, was revived and died again. Zweig didn’t believe he could survive the loss of everything he knew; the destructiveness he witnessed provoked a fatal disillusionment. What he calls ‘the most monstrous things’ had become ‘natural’. It was too much.

This is not a war, but it is a trauma, which offers a particular opportunity for reconstruction. We will need to think about Zweig’s important question: what is a civilisation?

Where is greed, consumerism and self-absorption now? Our values were wrong. Now we can see it. How did everything get so distorted, and why were we so misled for so long? What will our values be when we emerge from this? What social forms will be really important?

We might not be able to gather in groups or stand next to one another, but in this mixture of horror and boredom, language is the one thing that keeps us close while we sustain our individuality against the necessary collective, as well as the state. Big cultural changes are exercises in re-description, and we will require re-describers. The paradigm is shifting, and, despite everything, the future is open.

Hanif Kureishi, author. His latest title is What Happened? (Faber and Faber, 2019)

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