A golf course
may appear to be nature, but only to the unconsidering eye. It is what Masanobu
Fukuoka would call ‘imitation green’, it is nature oppressed, bent to the will
of man. And not – thank God – the will of lumpen peasants raising Brussels
sprouts and knobbly root vegetables, but to the will of old, rich, white,
powerful men. O, how firm one feels surveying a golf course. All disorder,
death, decay is banished; each tree, each smooth expanse of sward, the very
contours placed and tended and controlled purely for one’s gratification.
And, O, if you own the golf course … and, O, if they
call you the most powerful man in the world!
*
The Prince of
effing Peace may have mumbled on about love but there are those that one
inevitably hates, those one hopes the worst may befall – the undeserving and
self-obsessed; privileged, arrogant and unconcerned by the situation of others;
convinced that the world owes them a living and that everyone else should bow
and bend to their indulgent whims; born on third base and thinking they hit a
triple; life served up to them on a silver plate; a silver spoon in their mouth
… people like … Afghan schoolgirls. Whiney, self-indulgent little pigs!
*
Andisha
Dawlatzai climbed the slope behind the house in the dark. The hill was rough
and seemed made all of sharp-edged rocks but her father would not countenance
the wasting of kerosene by taking the lamp on a purposeless walk.
To the east,
the sky was just beginning to lighten – the tones of hope rose slowly from the
dark horizon promising a new day. The light caught Andisha’s desolate face. She
whispered to the sky, ‘Huddu yaem tashreef-rawrhal’ – ‘I am not coming.’
*
‘The Young Robot-Builders of Afghanistan
Six teenage girls from Herat, ranging in age
from 14 to 16, have been denied entry to the US to attend FIRST Global
Challenge, a robotics competition in Washington to present robots designed to
clean contaminated water …’
Barnaby McBryde
No comments:
Post a Comment