Old age of my youth – 2017 – Page 2

The desire to write comes and goes

THURSDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2017

I am busy going through 1500 pages of notes, essays, and other pieces of text in an effort to fill a few collections with material that deal with certain themes. The process has led to some interesting insights – for me anyway.

An example: In 2001, apart from other work – like a project that became an EFL resource, and a project that became a booklet with English-Chinese phrases – I wrote a lot about writing and my ambition to organise my life in such a way that I can spend most of my time on literary projects. That year gave me some of my personal favourites: “The purpose of my life”, “Exile nine”, and “To talk about God”.

Here’s the interesting part: the following year, 2002, I produced the incredibly small number of 200 words that I later considered useful enough to include in a project. Two hundred words! (I also wrote two other pieces – one about how I had more or less made my peace with the middle class, and another one about my plans for the following year, but I decided not to use those for any projects.)

So, the year after I had so much to say about how I’d like to write and how important it is for my identity and even for the purpose of my existence and the meaning of my life, I produced two short notes of barely a hundred words each.

And then came 2003, and an absolute explosion of creativity, obsessions, fears, hopes, dreams, theories, and opinions. The year produced more than sixty pieces. In September 2003 alone I wrote more than twenty pieces. The pace hardly slowed down over the next two years. Although I started failing hard in 2006 in attempts to make more money, I still produced enough material to compile a neat bundle.

But 2002? Two hundred words.

Just goes to show: Inspiration, and desire to write, like other things, come and go. And come back again.

FRIDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2017

After further investigation I discovered another 471 words I wrote in 2002 that I might work into a project. This brings the total for that year to almost 700 words.

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Point, and what makes my life worthwhile

MONDAY, 14 AUGUST 2017

The POINT of my life is to report. I live; I experience things; I think about things; I write about it. Perhaps someone else finds an insight or opinion useful.

What makes my life WORTHWHILE is to be a witness to the life of the woman I love, to be her partner, and to make her feel loved. What also makes my life WORTHWHILE is maintaining good relationships with family and friends, caring for our pets, eating good food, reading interesting things, relaxing when I’m tired, watching interesting or funny movies, travelling, or visiting places I like, and pursuing the POINT of my life.

Does my life have a PURPOSE? Look at the POINT of my life, and what makes my life WORTHWHILE.

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Some thoughts on Dietrich Bonhoeffer

FRIDAY, 28 JULY 2017

I recently read an article entitled “The Troubling Truth About Bonhoeffer’s Theology” by Richard Weikart, on the ideas and statements of the well-known German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945). The idea I got about Bonhoeffer is of someone who inherited a ton of apples from an uncle who suddenly died. Not one to waste a good inheritance, the guy thinks: “These are good apples. Woe to me if I let them go to waste. I’ll just have to get creative.”

For example, Bonhoeffer wrote in 1925 that if Biblical critics proved that the person Jesus was unhistoric in an empirical sense, it would not affect the content of God’s revelation, seeing that his truth was revealed even through fallible words as written or uttered by human instruments, like the apostles. He further wrote that it didn’t matter if specific miracles did not really take place, that people shouldn’t regard it as irrelevant, but should rather interpret it as evidence of God’s revelation.

It sounds to me like an honest man who grew up with a certain religious tradition, felt intimately attracted to this tradition, who started doubting its real truth as he grew older and learned more about the world, but decided there was no way that this rich 2000-year-old tradition that had such a huge impact on European culture and civilisation, and cultures and civilisations around the world, should be rejected just because it could be proved that God did not really say something, or that miracles did not really happen.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian active from the 1920s to the early 1940s. He was an outspoken opponent of National Socialism on both moral and theological grounds. As a leading figure of the Confessing Church he was arrested in April 1943. He was detained for two years in military facilities and concentration camps. One month before the surrender of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer was executed in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. His ideas received renewed attention after the war and had some influence on the “God is dead” theology of the 1950s and 1960s.

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Devils in the White House – second notes

TUESDAY, 11 JULY 2017

Did Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, their CIA chief William Casey, and other people in the Reagan administration know how the people whom they had trained and armed attacked villages in Guatemala and brutally murdered men, women, and children? Did they know how children’s heads were smashed against rocks? Did they know how the people whom they had trained and armed and given moral support laughed because old people cried like sheep when their throats were cut with blunt knives?

Did the political leaders in Washington launch investigations when such rumours started making the rounds? If not, why not?

If they knew yet dismissed it as the price that had to be paid to stop “communism”, it is not unreasonable to claim that if Lucifer himself had sat in the White House with a bloody goat’s head on his shoulders instead of Reagan and his cohorts, he would not have had a more destructive impact on the lives of millions of people in Central America than Reagan, Bush, Casey and dozens of other shrieking demons actually had during that period.

Make no mistake: The Soviet Union might have been the “Evil Empire”, but you do not have to look far for evidence that America under Ronald Reagan was the “Kingdom of Lucifer”.

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More information:

Dos Erres massacre

Buried On a Hillside Clues To Terror; Scientists Uncover Evidence of a Massacre

Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration: Guatemala

Guatemalan Slaughter Was Part of Reagan’s Hard Line

Call Attention to Ronald Reagan’s Criminal Involvement in Guatemalan Genocide

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas

And a rather weak attempt to defend Reagan:

‘Did Reagan Finance Genocide in Guatemala?’

[Briefly: The Dos Erres massacre is considered one of the most horrific incidents in the history of Guatemala’s long and bloody civil war. The massacre occurred during the regime of General Efrain Rios Montt, who was known for his brutal tactics against suspected left-wing guerrillas and their supporters. The Kaibil Unit was a particularly notorious special forces unit of the Guatemalan military, known for their extreme brutality and ruthlessness.

The massacre at Dos Erres began when the Kaibil Unit arrived in the village to search for weapons and suspected guerrilla sympathizers. The soldiers gathered up the villagers, then separated the men from the women and children. The men were taken away and executed, while the women and children were subjected to terror and violence that included rape and torture. The soldiers then systematically killed the women and children, throwing their bodies into the village well and burning down the houses.

The aftermath of the Dos Erres massacre saw a number of legal proceedings against those responsible. Pedro Pimentel Rios, a former Kaibil soldier, was extradited from the United States to Guatemala and sentenced to over 6,000 years in prison for his role in the massacre. Two other former Kaibil soldiers were also sentenced to the same prison terms. However, the international response to the massacre was largely muted, with many Western governments continuing to support the Guatemalan military despite their well-documented record of human rights abuses.

The legacy of the Dos Erres massacre continues to haunt Guatemala and serves as a reminder of the horrors that were committed during the country’s long and bloody civil war.]

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Devils in the White House – first notes

THURSDAY, 22 JUNE 2017

I was on my way back from the Chinese restaurant when I thought of America’s history of injustice against nations who were not strong enough to protect themselves. Could have thought of the Philippines almost 120 years ago, Iran in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s.

Specifically, this time, I thought of how the US government acted to protect the concerns of a single company (the United Fruit Company) in Guatemala in the 1950s; how they played dirty tricks, lied, and deceived people in order to overthrow a progressive, democratically elected national leader; a leader who had already begun to give the people of Guatemala a little human dignity after decades of suffocating poverty and exploitation by the American company.

Then I wondered: What justice is there for the victims?

This: History condemns the shameless criminals who robbed these people of their dignity and of any chance of a decent life.

I know it’s cold comfort for the countless men, women and children who suffered and died because these greedy, stupid devils walked the earth. But at least the truth has been recorded, black-on-white, for anyone who wants to know.

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If you are interested in reading more about this history, these links are a good start:

1954 Guatemalan coup d’état

Congress, the CIA, and Guatemala, 1954

An Apology for a Guatemalan Coup, 57 Years Later

[Briefly: In 1954, the United States government, with the support of the United Fruit Company, orchestrated a coup in Guatemala that overthrew the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. The pretext for the intervention was the accusation that Arbenz was soft on communism and thus a threat to US national security. However, the real motive behind the coup was to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company, which owned vast amounts of land in Guatemala and was concerned about Arbenz’s land reform policies. (John Foster Dulles, then US Secretary of State, and his brother, then CIA Director Allen Dulles, had a significant relationship with the United Fruit Company through their partnership at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, where they facilitated numerous transactions for the company.)

The operation was carried out by the CIA and involved a range of tactics, including psychological warfare, propaganda, and the use of local anti-communist groups. Amongst other things, the CIA created a fake radio station that broadcasted messages designed to sow discord and confusion among the Guatemalan people. They also spread rumours and false information about Arbenz and his government in order to turn public opinion against him.

After the coup, the new dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, reversed many of the social reforms that Arbenz had implemented, including land reform and labour protections. He also banned opposition parties and established a regime of terror and violence that lasted for decades. Thousands of people were tortured, disappeared, or killed by government forces during this period.

The United Fruit Company continued to profit from its operations in Guatemala, and the US government continued to support the regime, providing military and economic aid. The legacy of the US intervention in Guatemala is still felt today, as the country struggles to build a democratic society and address the human rights abuses of the past.]

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