Mahan's

Oxfam Bombast

Every street in Britain seems to have a horde of attractive young hippy-esque charity collectors; they spring on you, ever-ready with a smile and an engaging story of the inordinate good you £5 a month direct debit will engender in the planet. My question is this: how can the request for money be refused? Most of the causes are worthy; the amount of money is not much; we are affluent and buy cappuccinos. Yet structurally we can not say yes to everyone, or we will in fact have no money. But what is the medium used by charity collection? Guilt, just like all other superego messages which surround us and infect us.

We must be hedonists, but sculpt our bodies dawn to dusk and eat only cauliflower.

We must be caring and 'tolerant' but report any suspicious behaviour or bags left unattended.

We must be secular but spiritual.

We must exercise our freedom of choice, but make only the right choices.

We must feed ourselves, and not expect State handouts, but give all our money to charity.

Fail any of these (and the myriad other double-binds) and the upshot is guilt.

In reality what do these charity organisations do, not physically, but psychologically to us? They keep suffering at an arms length. We pay gap year students and those with Big Hearts and sublime souls to do aid for us. When we don't give to charity, we don't keep suffering at arms length; it is right upon us. We have not paid anyone to help. We feel guilty.

Charity functions like the Buddhist prayer wheel, where a strip of paper with a prayer inscribed upon it is clipped onto a wooden wheel. This wheel turns; the wind carries the prayer; we can keep doing whatever else it is which needs doing; we are objectively praying. Oxfam is my prayer wheel. That is why charities always have the hook 'just a few pounds a month...' You are objectively helping.

EXCEPT that they do not help that much. They plaster over cracks, and only then when aims become large. Oftentimes cracks remain unplastered. Yes a few people may be helped, even a million, and yet, have the structural coordinates which created disaster been altered?

The Nazis killed the Jews rather than destroy the capitalists who were really exploiting German workers; the Jews were a terrible sacrifice to the impotence and unwillingness of the Nazis to genuinely effect the coordinates of exploitation. That is why communists were the first to die in the Third Reich -they were trying to strike directly at those coordinates, and the fascists couldn't be having that; after all, many wealthy capitalists were of 'fine Aryan stock', plus the State needed their money and expertise.

Charities are our liberal act of impotence and unwillingness. We don't want to slow consumption, pay more for commodities, to lower trade barriers, to open our borders totally. We don't want to effect genuine change and openness. We don't want them here. To keep them there we have tight immigration policy and Orwellian border police, and so that we aren't all stick and no carrot, we send charities over. The subtext to the whole system is: 'we want your minerals, your agricultural produce, you university graduates, and we want them all cheap. But once we have ravaged your land and people we do not want you. I know this sounds harsh, but here is clean drinking water and a tent. And do not worry, you suffering is justified. It is fate. A mere competitive market disadvantage. The IMF will be along shortly to give further help.'

The Algerian Water's Diseased

Algiers is burning again and it seems as if the global media is intent on linking the recent bombings as a part of the skein of jihadism. God-forbid the Algerians acutally have their own political struggles. God-forbid some reject our own ideological ordering of the world. Let's hold hands and leap across the vast chasm of understanding and find bleary-eyed refuge in these incessantly colorful re-runs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,2225908,00.html

Madame Rieux

She always is standing
On a ledge atop the landing
And we feign a smile
Because we’ve reached an understanding
Not to think or dwell on anything of import
Despite this precarious precipice

Our conversation drifts
From the slight to exegesis
Her voice begs for comfort
And I cannot resist
To lie about my relationship with abstraction

Algiers 'Gospel 3'

She laughs like the dying
She's glued her hands in patience
Its too early to worry, its too early to wait
Erased from her memory
She's erased all the feeling
She has no remorse and she just doesn't care
Its come to an end.

"You shine from the window.
You shine from the seal, my love"
As grey as the morning
Your love lingers there
Outside of her patience
Inside fornication
She has no remorse and she just doesn't care
She'll wait for him there
With a gun in her hand
With a cross around her neck
With a cross in her hand
"Its over...I said its over."

Your memory is teeth now
And you gnash with persistence
To the last of the sinful and the bottomless smiles
The smiles of delusion
The smiles of division
All the smiles that she gave you and made you tremble inside
its come to an end.
she said its over.

Algiers 'Remains'

Sown grains,
Carelessly placed,
Now vines upon the house's frame,

The sun invades,
Through a cracked window pane,
The burnt floor content to sunbathe,

Ghosts now,
Spectral remains,
Inscribing names on the cenotaph,

Undisturbed and,
Unaware chests,
Gasp for breath in the attic,

Resolute doors,
And broken frames,
Grasp and tame unwieldy contents,

And down, down, down,
By the side of the road,
Lays a note addressed to God in phlegmatic prose,

In the margins,
Repeats the phrase,
“I don’t remember.”

r. mahan

Algiers 'The Violent Bear it Away'

Of course my debt to Flannery O'Connor is great...

She was young,
Ingenuous,
Her mouth formed catechisms,
Her body invited lust,
She dreamt of marriage idyllic,
Recoiled from sin she thought endemic,
From without,
Some boys from school,
Coaxed her to their favorite place,
They took her there,
Down by the lake,
Mixing her blood with the water,
They painted a landscape,

"The violent bear it away,"
it read,
then the newspaper listed the names of the innocent,

The violent bear it away,
but it could not reconcile their intent,

He was there,
But not directly involved,
Determined guilty,
While the others were absolved,
They said he's possessed,
Of melanin,
Years later set free,
Plagued by his sin,
So he took a wife and child,
Facing self-doubt,
To his co-workers an exception,
His friends a sellout,
So he stole to his room one day,
With a gun and a clenched fist,
And his head against the wall,
He painted a canvas.

r. mahan