French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville formulated an opinion of America that Americans still strongly believe in today, the myth of American Exceptionalism. It argues that while Europe and other continents have suffered from internal strive between nation states and ethnical conflict, America takes an exceptional position in the world, being a country of immigrants who are united by the common fulfillment of opportunity and the equality guaranteed by the constitution and democracy.

In the New York Times this weekend an article by Sam Tanenhaus, In Texas Curriculum Fight, Identity Politics Leans Right analyzing the ‘cultural war’ in America between progressives and conservatives.

The article refers to an influential essay The Search for Southern Identity by Vonn Woodward, an American historian.

This Land is a weekly column by Dan Barry for the New York Times with in-depth stories about American towns and people.

The BBC radio program Assignment has a 20 minute long report on Poland’s moral revolution:

“Seventeen years after Poland swept aside communism, the government is trying to launch a moral revolution.
Under the leadership of the Kazycinski twins, the old communist archives are to be used to exclude from public life anyone who collaborated with the former regime.
The Kazycinskis talk of purifying the country, and bringing the values of the Catholic Church to the heart of public life.”

Dear readers, contributors and visitors of Szirine Magazine,

We are currently upgrading our website to Wordpress 2.0.4 and thus not all articles and functionality will be available at the moment. Please bear with us during this migration, we hope to be up and running with an improved site soon.

update (20061203):
Finally, we have transferred all our archive to our new site! Still missing are the comments and the images, but we are nevertheless feeling again a sense of completion. (more…)

Fear No.1

One day I will understand
that straight lines are necessary,
but optimism will quiet me
and I will conclude: this is not enough!
I will start burrowing in the garbage to become surer of my belief,
and right there I will find my childhood
and, overwhelmed with hope for despair,
Mania Grandioso will take me to the eighth floor,
where a blue-eyed Angel will make me feel deeply
the existence of The Eighth Day.

Fear No.2

Standing on one leg,
until I resemble my recognition, (more…)

The white minaret of a neighbouring mosque pierced the lazy blue sky. Warmth caressed my skin. Unbelievably though, it did not come from a radiator, heater or sunlamp, but the sun itself. The cords of the string bed made their presence felt by imprinting themselves on my back. If proof were needed, there it was: I was finally back in India, where time had a tendency to flow at its own leisurely rhythm.

Sounds and smells of the street came wafting up on a warm breeze and if I was still not convinced, then India had conjured up a pair of inquisitive black eyes to confirm the fact that this was indeed an Indian kotha – the flat top of the roof which most Indian homes are endowed with, in order to make the most of the cool breeze during summer evenings, and the sun during winter.

I was lazing around, half-reading a book, avoiding the moment when I would have to put on my uniform. It would be accurate to say that no other uniform in the world was shinier than mine, for it was not brass, but real gold. Like all good, even mildly prosperous Indian housewives, I had to adorn myself with jewellery everyday.

Most women slept with the armour on, so they didn’t have to go through the daily ritual of putting it on and taking it off. I had lost the habit, due to time spent away from barracks. In any case, I had never been a good recruit because I used to quietly take off the metal, heavy or otherwise, every night, even as a new bride. (more…)

One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything – Occam’s Razor*

The problem is he’s never had any insight. Perhaps being a microbiologist is overcompensating somewhat. Looking at traces of things as opposed to the things themselves is far too easy to be consumed in. All those billions of atoms comprising millions of molecules that constitute just one strand of any helix. And that helix could be anything from the minutest strand of hair or what helps make dust.

Occam’s Razor never cut as sharp as it does here, he thought, to dissuade a remark about his lack of insight, turning away from the microscope, which isn’t all that small, and yawned.

Pieces of him in the air now. From the sound he made, the long heavy breath he exuded, the energy that took, which he was responsible for, to the thought he had; all now in and a part of the air of the laboratory around him. Interconnected. One. And individual. Separate. All so easily forgotten. Or not thought of at all. (more…)

Vancouver is my home and it’s not my home; it could be anywhere. I could be anywhere. You are left alone; I am left alone — most of the time, whether I want to be left alone or not. This is not purely a matter of disinterest, no. People sniff around for a year or more, (You need that much time to invent elaborate rejection scenarios); donít scoff, no one ever died of being too timid.

We tried to have discussion groups at my college; it didnít work, people kept agreeing with each other too quickly. All this agreement, however, should not be confused with actual agreement. You can’t even take for granted that anyone is awake.

Still, I live here. I’m alone most of the time. It rains. Rain, however, is too simple a word to convey the full variety of wetness. There is, first, the darkness. Sometime in October the sun retreats. Light becomes depressed, muted, not its usual self. She gets lazy, heart broken. She’s unable to rouse herself until later, later in the day. Mornings start at eight, then at nine and then even later. What follows is a hung over version of brightness; muted, fuzzy-tongued grayness. You remember all your most embarrassing moments, in slow motion. It looks like used cotton balls, it hums with the soft whine could have been. It smells of regret. Rain. (more…)

Afar, the large polite world of language
here, the wide serenity of things
in the ocean’s bottom where it lives
how could it be considered otherwise?
In this art in which it exalts
if the first to pick up the chisel
united in words the brilliance of the humble color
the trace of what was seen the wide serenity of things
one half is night the other half is deception (more…)

Today begins
light with

sun-scraped
skies swim

in the
distance belowing

over greens
and the

golden mist (more…)