The End of History.
The Universe, the Cosmos, Awareness, Consciousness, Love, Hate, Friendship, Life...the triumph of Love over Death....All is made of many levels...so is History.
There is the Beginning and there is the End. There is the beginning of Civilization and there is the end of Civilization...and there are the gray areas in between, the pangs of Death and Rebirth.
History's many levels are made of beginnings and ends...and those gray areas.
Some beginnings illuminate the world and some of its endings darken it into total Obscurity.
So how do we define History ? Most probably by its contribution to Civilization - by its insertion in the Civilization process...
Civil-ization process.
Civil, civic, civility, civilization....
If I take the above as some preliminary definition of what History is, then Fukuyama is correct. This is the end of History - but not for the same reasons.
I don't know about you, but for me, History resides in tangibles...eternal tangibles, that withstand time, time and its erosion...maybe History resides in Archeology.
I never really liked that word - Archeology, because it implies something archaic, something past, gone...yet so present, so vibrant, so alive, so here...
In that sense, archeology defies or tries to defy Time and its passage...by carrying a stamp --called "eternal".
In this context, this is how I define History -- something that remains despite the passage of Time - something that aspires to Eternity...
Of course, there is also the other level -- who did what, where, and when. Yet, still, the stones speak for themselves...the pillars echo the story without the need for a touristic guide.
There is always something majestic about "ancient" sites - they call them in French "la magie des lieux" - the magic of places.
Ask anyone about the magic of places and you can be sure they will point to something ancient...Pompeii, Acropolis, Pyramids, etc...
Maybe the end of History is the end of Magic...in a world too sure of itself...yet too anxious about its own survival to bother discovering the magic...a new world too engrossed in itself...yet so petrified.
Yet, you will see thousands flock to the magic of these sites...they will cross oceans to witness the past...and derive a sense of continuity...
You see, we all need roots...despite all this homogeneity imposed upon us, the homogeneity of the New World Order, of the end of History.
You see, we all need to belong to something, someone, some place...however universal we may profess ourselves to be...
So what happens when a somebody has no roots ? What happens when a somebody is cut off from History - like a sail boat with no anchor ?
Two options present themselves here: either this person tries to connect through knowledge, learning or the flip side - destroys, making sure he annihilates what he believes he can never have, can never possess.
Such is the history of America.
Let me ask you something -- for History's sake. What has America and its Americans contributed to History and its civilization process ?
I do not consider skyscrapers, hamburgers and mass graves of Natives to be a contribution to Civilization. Nor do I consider highways, Coca Cola, and Mickey Mouse as eternal symbols of a quest for magic...
So what have these rectums of History produced ? What have they positively contributed to the movement of History - apart from its end ? Yalla, give it to me. Give me one thing that I can insert in those annals, one thing I can record....one thing I can note .... the record of some criminal who is beyond hope, a recidiviste - i.e someone who does it again and again...
I believe in cycles...and History is part of that cycle. Simply put -- what goes up goes down...
I really don't know why this is so...but it is so, inevitably so.
So what will Americans leave behind once their Empire crumbles? Because crumble it will...it will...no one, absolutely no one can resist the Movement...
What will they leave behind ?
Nature's site belong to God, to Allah...these don't count as contributions. These did not involve human sweat and pain...they did not involve contemplation, art, architecture, theorizing space, myth, legends, epics and poetry...
So what did the Americans leave behind ? I said -- what did they leave behind -- notice, I did not say what will they leave behind. For I consider the matter closed, ended.
What ? A Madame Tussauds look alike - a wax museum...of the greatest nation on earth - an Orlando or a Guantanamo ? Or maybe an Abu Ghraib or a Baghram ?
I chuckle...I chuckle as I see the hee haa, hillbilly, Rodeo, Buffalo Kid, Malboro Man, Lonesome Cowboy riding into the Sunset...towards his finality, towards his End...It's inevitable...inevitable.
Did you ever watch Americans flocking to the Magic, like moths to a burning lamp ? It's a comic tragic sight in itself. History chokes every time they sightsee her. Poor thing is propelled into violent coughs...she feels strangulated by the destroyers of History...they leave her gasping for air...
Here she is, choking, a rope around her neck...every time this gum chewing, hamburger and freedom fries farting, this nasally obstructed lot, cattle visits her...
She wants to chew them in turn and spit them out...like a fire dragon. But she patiently waits to see them swallowed in her belly like a Jonas in the belly of a whale who never makes it out...never makes it out to any shore...
History is patient, she sits and waits...because she knows, she possesses the wisdom...the wisdom of the cycle of Life..She knows this Jonas's end is inscribed. End of Story. End of His Story.
Let's leave aside for a while, the barbarians with no history and no roots...let's leave aside this gum chewing ruminating regurgitating wild cows, for a while...
Imagine a Pompeii, a Pisa Tower, an Acropolis, a Delphi (that's Italy and Greece, just so you don't need to rush to your maps to figure it out) imagine for one minute only...
An American military base right there, air jets shaking and cracking the grounds, some asshole writing some graffiti like "Bob fucked Lucy Ann" (please change your names, they're so fucking corny) or "Joe Blow did it here"...Imagine for a single moment, close your eyes and see it...
A Pompeii, a Pisa, an Acropolis, a Delphi...riddled with mortars, with tanks...Imagine for a moment someone climbing the pillars of the temple of Zeus and etching his Yankee name...imagine just that, nothing else....
I am not asking you to imagine the rest...am not asking to imagine the burning of Churches, the destruction of homes, the exile, the rape and torture, the massacre of young and old...no.
I am just asking you to imagine that little corner...
What do you think will happen ?
I tell you what will happen. Every Italian, every Greek will come out, armed with anything...
an ax, a hammer, a log, a rod, a knife, a gun...anything...absolutely anything...to stop the termination of History...of his/her history, story.
Can you imagine that for one minute ? Just an archeological site where History has presumably died...
So what about Iraq's history ?
Hatra, Ur, Sumer, Babel, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon....
Hanging...
Hanging, dangling...lynched
At the Gates of Ishtar,
Gilgamesh silenced,
Enheduanna's head rolling on a red carpet
of Blood...
The Myth exposed, the Legend died, the Epic ended,
so has History.
Video : Khaled Kaki - Iraqi Composer, musician, artist/painter.
There is the Beginning and there is the End. There is the beginning of Civilization and there is the end of Civilization...and there are the gray areas in between, the pangs of Death and Rebirth.
History's many levels are made of beginnings and ends...and those gray areas.
Some beginnings illuminate the world and some of its endings darken it into total Obscurity.
So how do we define History ? Most probably by its contribution to Civilization - by its insertion in the Civilization process...
Civil-ization process.
Civil, civic, civility, civilization....
If I take the above as some preliminary definition of what History is, then Fukuyama is correct. This is the end of History - but not for the same reasons.
I don't know about you, but for me, History resides in tangibles...eternal tangibles, that withstand time, time and its erosion...maybe History resides in Archeology.
I never really liked that word - Archeology, because it implies something archaic, something past, gone...yet so present, so vibrant, so alive, so here...
In that sense, archeology defies or tries to defy Time and its passage...by carrying a stamp --called "eternal".
In this context, this is how I define History -- something that remains despite the passage of Time - something that aspires to Eternity...
Of course, there is also the other level -- who did what, where, and when. Yet, still, the stones speak for themselves...the pillars echo the story without the need for a touristic guide.
There is always something majestic about "ancient" sites - they call them in French "la magie des lieux" - the magic of places.
Ask anyone about the magic of places and you can be sure they will point to something ancient...Pompeii, Acropolis, Pyramids, etc...
Maybe the end of History is the end of Magic...in a world too sure of itself...yet too anxious about its own survival to bother discovering the magic...a new world too engrossed in itself...yet so petrified.
Yet, you will see thousands flock to the magic of these sites...they will cross oceans to witness the past...and derive a sense of continuity...
You see, we all need roots...despite all this homogeneity imposed upon us, the homogeneity of the New World Order, of the end of History.
You see, we all need to belong to something, someone, some place...however universal we may profess ourselves to be...
So what happens when a somebody has no roots ? What happens when a somebody is cut off from History - like a sail boat with no anchor ?
Two options present themselves here: either this person tries to connect through knowledge, learning or the flip side - destroys, making sure he annihilates what he believes he can never have, can never possess.
Such is the history of America.
Let me ask you something -- for History's sake. What has America and its Americans contributed to History and its civilization process ?
I do not consider skyscrapers, hamburgers and mass graves of Natives to be a contribution to Civilization. Nor do I consider highways, Coca Cola, and Mickey Mouse as eternal symbols of a quest for magic...
So what have these rectums of History produced ? What have they positively contributed to the movement of History - apart from its end ? Yalla, give it to me. Give me one thing that I can insert in those annals, one thing I can record....one thing I can note .... the record of some criminal who is beyond hope, a recidiviste - i.e someone who does it again and again...
I believe in cycles...and History is part of that cycle. Simply put -- what goes up goes down...
I really don't know why this is so...but it is so, inevitably so.
So what will Americans leave behind once their Empire crumbles? Because crumble it will...it will...no one, absolutely no one can resist the Movement...
What will they leave behind ?
Nature's site belong to God, to Allah...these don't count as contributions. These did not involve human sweat and pain...they did not involve contemplation, art, architecture, theorizing space, myth, legends, epics and poetry...
So what did the Americans leave behind ? I said -- what did they leave behind -- notice, I did not say what will they leave behind. For I consider the matter closed, ended.
What ? A Madame Tussauds look alike - a wax museum...of the greatest nation on earth - an Orlando or a Guantanamo ? Or maybe an Abu Ghraib or a Baghram ?
I chuckle...I chuckle as I see the hee haa, hillbilly, Rodeo, Buffalo Kid, Malboro Man, Lonesome Cowboy riding into the Sunset...towards his finality, towards his End...It's inevitable...inevitable.
Did you ever watch Americans flocking to the Magic, like moths to a burning lamp ? It's a comic tragic sight in itself. History chokes every time they sightsee her. Poor thing is propelled into violent coughs...she feels strangulated by the destroyers of History...they leave her gasping for air...
Here she is, choking, a rope around her neck...every time this gum chewing, hamburger and freedom fries farting, this nasally obstructed lot, cattle visits her...
She wants to chew them in turn and spit them out...like a fire dragon. But she patiently waits to see them swallowed in her belly like a Jonas in the belly of a whale who never makes it out...never makes it out to any shore...
History is patient, she sits and waits...because she knows, she possesses the wisdom...the wisdom of the cycle of Life..She knows this Jonas's end is inscribed. End of Story. End of His Story.
Let's leave aside for a while, the barbarians with no history and no roots...let's leave aside this gum chewing ruminating regurgitating wild cows, for a while...
Imagine a Pompeii, a Pisa Tower, an Acropolis, a Delphi (that's Italy and Greece, just so you don't need to rush to your maps to figure it out) imagine for one minute only...
An American military base right there, air jets shaking and cracking the grounds, some asshole writing some graffiti like "Bob fucked Lucy Ann" (please change your names, they're so fucking corny) or "Joe Blow did it here"...Imagine for a single moment, close your eyes and see it...
A Pompeii, a Pisa, an Acropolis, a Delphi...riddled with mortars, with tanks...Imagine for a moment someone climbing the pillars of the temple of Zeus and etching his Yankee name...imagine just that, nothing else....
I am not asking you to imagine the rest...am not asking to imagine the burning of Churches, the destruction of homes, the exile, the rape and torture, the massacre of young and old...no.
I am just asking you to imagine that little corner...
What do you think will happen ?
I tell you what will happen. Every Italian, every Greek will come out, armed with anything...
an ax, a hammer, a log, a rod, a knife, a gun...anything...absolutely anything...to stop the termination of History...of his/her history, story.
Can you imagine that for one minute ? Just an archeological site where History has presumably died...
So what about Iraq's history ?
Hatra, Ur, Sumer, Babel, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon....
Hanging...
Hanging, dangling...lynched
At the Gates of Ishtar,
Gilgamesh silenced,
Enheduanna's head rolling on a red carpet
of Blood...
The Myth exposed, the Legend died, the Epic ended,
so has History.
Video : Khaled Kaki - Iraqi Composer, musician, artist/painter.
