Sunday, May 27, 2007

Human Bondages: love!

Maybe it is the difference in age between a person like me (70) and a person like Elly (30) which lets me believe that she is wasting her time looking for "love" and complaining that she cannot find it!
Also I think she wants a taste of everything: to be a "normal" middle class person which means accepting the norms of her class and "belonging" to it and at the same time criticising her class and rebelling against it. She could easily see the paradox of this attitude, but she cannot and will not free herself from it; she is a great example of the conscientious intellectuals of the West: a bit leftist, a bit conservative and a bit patronising; They - and she - are the grandchildren of the great missionaries who went to the savage people in the jungle (without invitation of course) and after them came the soldiers. There is not much difference between the Thomas Cooks and the Livingstons and the Gordons of Khartoum.

But what do the Ellys of our worlds have to do with this bloody history of her great nation? She is the product of this nation she hates, but clings to: the Sunday schools and gloomy intellectual sand the guilt of not being useful enough to herself and her fellow men and women. She is looking for "acceptance" and the easiest way is to find a man who will give her this: forgiveness for her laziness. her arrogance, her skin colour, her class and the history of her country.
And a man who tells her he sleeps with her because of love and her great legs etc.
But there are no men around - now or later- concerned with such issues (because they have their own); they are bored also and want to fuck and go to the pub or watch TV soaps!
And of course her family are busy producing new "Ellys" for this world so she is bored and lonely. Or that is what she thinks.
She knows that sex could be useful for sometime ... as with everything else: reading, seeing people, helping the family and so on
There is no quick remedy
Life in general disappoints her, her body betrays her and gives her pain.
She is too intelligent and sensitive and aware to ignore what is happening in the world around her and too wrapped in herself and her pains to participate in anything which demands a real effort from her.
She is the product of Western society where no brother would kill her because she is not a virgin (as in eastern societies). She can live with income support from the state and have health insurance and she can decide what she is going to do or not do about almost everything concerning her - not like a girl in Iran or Egypt from the same class (we are nor speaking here about Darfour or the camps ... so as not to be melodramatic)
My only advice to her when she is feeling bad or useless or lonely or bored: sit and listen to Qaradawi advising girls not to masturbate!
Sorry I have no serious advice though what she is passing through and feeling is very serious

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