Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Sun, Dec 14 2003
What A Victory We Have All Suffered
And so what of Saddam Hussein, who rose to announce his own power in war-torn Iraq? One of the writers in this article (written over a year ago) suggests that Saddam was like a character in one of his favorite stories, The Old Man And The Sea. If Saddam is not the old man, then maybe he is the fish. "It is hooked, but it refuses to accept its fate."
Some say when we dream that we are every character in a dream. Maybe Saddam has seen himself as the old man, the fish and even as the water in which the fish lived. An author or dreamer also makes part of himself, or herself, vulnerable when telling a story. Ernest Hemingway did it. Saddam did it too, in his novels. We all do it, whether we write a great novel, or sit at the dinner table and tell our family what happened to us throughout the day.
No extermal war begins externally. It begins in the mind, and is formed not in a vacuum, but in a familial, cultural, religious, political setting brought to us by previous generations. And no external war begins or ends with one person. No one outside can say for sure when another's war is won, or lost. We can all pat ourselves on the back and say how much better we feel about Hussein's capture, but the truth is that we have all lost. We lost the talents of a man who could have been a springboard for good in the world of all people. Saddam Hussein has failed himself, his family, his tribe, his country and his fellow human citizens of earth with his hate and selfishness. And the basic atmosphere that allowed him to fall over the edge into delusion still exists. I celebrate the end of his regime and I look forward to more freedoms for the people of Iraq. But I would never be so pompous to assume that we've changed anything except a few external details in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
posted at: 10:14 | category: /Politics | link to this entry
And so what of Saddam Hussein, who rose to announce his own power in war-torn Iraq? One of the writers in this article (written over a year ago) suggests that Saddam was like a character in one of his favorite stories, The Old Man And The Sea. If Saddam is not the old man, then maybe he is the fish. "It is hooked, but it refuses to accept its fate."
Some say when we dream that we are every character in a dream. Maybe Saddam has seen himself as the old man, the fish and even as the water in which the fish lived. An author or dreamer also makes part of himself, or herself, vulnerable when telling a story. Ernest Hemingway did it. Saddam did it too, in his novels. We all do it, whether we write a great novel, or sit at the dinner table and tell our family what happened to us throughout the day.
No extermal war begins externally. It begins in the mind, and is formed not in a vacuum, but in a familial, cultural, religious, political setting brought to us by previous generations. And no external war begins or ends with one person. No one outside can say for sure when another's war is won, or lost. We can all pat ourselves on the back and say how much better we feel about Hussein's capture, but the truth is that we have all lost. We lost the talents of a man who could have been a springboard for good in the world of all people. Saddam Hussein has failed himself, his family, his tribe, his country and his fellow human citizens of earth with his hate and selfishness. And the basic atmosphere that allowed him to fall over the edge into delusion still exists. I celebrate the end of his regime and I look forward to more freedoms for the people of Iraq. But I would never be so pompous to assume that we've changed anything except a few external details in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
posted at: 10:14 | category: /Politics | link to this entry
