{"id":775,"date":"2022-11-03T08:12:16","date_gmt":"2022-11-03T08:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/?p=775"},"modified":"2023-07-16T19:02:57","modified_gmt":"2023-07-16T18:02:57","slug":"tragical-realism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/tragical-realism\/","title":{"rendered":"Tragical Realism"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Text by Nicolas Calmes)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor’s Note:<\/strong> While the following slam poetry poem is not necessarily speculative fiction, Nicolas has asked the Aner Welten team if he could publish this text on our platform. Considering that Salman Rushdie is a pillar of magic realism and thus also speculative fiction, and the recent attack has shocked many of us, we decided to agree and accept the text. Nicolas has won with the following text the second Luxembourgish Slampionschip, which took place at the <\/em>Kulturhaus Niederanven<\/a>, organized by our friends over at <\/em>G\u00e9isskan Kollektiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\ud80c\udda3<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m one of those stupid motherfuckers who don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about but still feel the need to say their piece. I don\u2019t know jack shit about Islam. I haven\u2019t read Salman Rushdie\u2019s The Satanic Verses<\/em>, this piece of fiction so controversial the Iranian government called for the heads of its author and all those involved in its publication. Years ago, I bullshitted my way through an university assignment on Midnight\u2019s Children<\/em>, Rushdie\u2019s magnum opus. I did read Home<\/em>, a short collection of extracts of his writings. We can argue about what I know and what I don\u2019t, what I\u2019ve read and what I haven\u2019t, but it doesn\u2019t take extensive knowledge and research and a PhD to come to the conclusion that sentencing people to death based on what they write is wrong \u2013 be it fiction, be it news, comedy or hate speech. Just to be clear, I don\u2019t think what Rushdie has written is hateful. It\u2019s playful. Again, I don\u2019t know so, I just don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

What I do know is that Ettore Capriolo, The Satanic Verse<\/em>s\u2019 Italian translator, should never have been stabbed. William Nygaard, its Norwegian publisher, should never have been shot. Hitoshi Igarashi, its Japanese translator, should never have been killed. The hotel Aziz Nesin, its Turkish translator, was staying at should never have been set on fire and thirty-seven people should never have died. And Salman Rushdie should never have had to fear for his life. He should have never been stabbed.<\/p>\n

To blaspheme is a right and a right is still a right even if it were to be abused. I wrote the following poems with this in mind. I wrote them to not just exercise my right to blaspheme, no, I wrote them to abuse it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\ud80c\udda3 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dedicated to Salman Rushdie<\/p>\n

Protect the strong from the weak, the wolves from the sheep
\n\u2018cause the sheep want to be shepherds while the wolves want to be free
\nThe weak need to be lead, see they\u2019re deathly afraid of freedom
\nWhile the strong know fully well that a free world don\u2019t have a leader
\nTake heed from the weak for prejudice is their leitmotif
\nMistranslated patterns of suffering, projections of fantasies
\nThat, when applied to reality, tend to end violently
\nMimetic desire breeds mimetic rivalry<\/p>\n

Protect the strong from the weak, the wolves from the sheep
\n\u2018cause the strong are soft-spoken and the weak doublespeak
\nBetter read between the lines, see the subtext\u2019s oblique but
\nWhat\u2019s clear\u2019s they suffer more in imagination than in reality
\nTake heed from the weak and their masochistic epistemologies
\nSee, wolves will lick their wounds when they bleed
\nWhile sheep will keep picking their scabs and never heal
\nThey kiss ass of those above and piss on those beneath
\nSo protect the strong from the weak, the wolves from the sheep
\n\u2018cause the strong are soft-spoken and the weak doublespeak
\nProtect the strong from the weak, the wolves from the sheep
\n\u2018cause the sheep want to be shepherds while the wolves want to be free
\nProtect the strong from the weak, it\u2019s something to bethink
\n\u2018cause the strong want to grow while the weak want the world<\/p>\n

To shrink<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\ud80c\udda3 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here I pray to the Jesus of Suburbia
\nMay You come back to earth and separate the sane
\nFrom the maniacs to give all what they deserve
\nSend the former through the mill and thereafter to the mall
\nMay they taste Your glory in between bathroom stalls
\nAnd find a number to call up on the wall
\nA hotline that will them they\u2019ve long lost their souls<\/p>\n

Never absolve anybody\u2019s fault<\/p>\n

Taint the sane with the shame they\u2019ve cast and spread
\nSee to they use sexual tension to cope with emotional stress<\/p>\n

Break moldy bread, share stale cigarettes
\nMake the sick cough out their cancer and abscess<\/p>\n

And have the healthy lick the floor and swallow the whole mess, yes
\nMay You molest priests, kill police and spread doubt and disbelief
\nCanonize the Index and defile the corpus of Saint Augustine<\/p>\n

Kill god and do as you please
\nHere I pray to the Jesus of Suburbia
\nAd perpetuam memoriam of Christian and Gloria
\nAb abusu ad usum non valet consequentia
\nMay You travel back in time and fuck up the timeline
\nPut out the fire hazard at the top of Mount Sinai
\nGlue the fragments of the ten commandments\u2019 tablets
\nBack together and chisel in a few additional letters<\/p>\n

After all, it\u2019s called Mosaic law<\/p>\n

Thou shalt let people pray to what they want to pray
\nThou shalt make sure thy neighbor owns neither wife nor slave
\nThou shalt take the lord\u2019s name in vain and have a good laugh
\nPet the golden calf, protect the polytheistic heathens
\nFrom Moses\u2019s wrath, stand with Goliath against David
\nAid the Babylonians in their conquest of the West
\nTell Your flock to worry not, it\u2019s all just part of their test
\nErect from its gravel the Tower of Babel ziggurat
\nAnathematize the coward Pontius Pilate
\nKeep his fat hands dirty, have him take responsibility
\nFor what happened on the hills of Golgotha in thirty-three<\/p>\n

Still kill god and do as you please<\/p>\n

So it be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Text by Nicolas Calmes) Editor’s Note: While the following slam poetry poem is not necessarily speculative fiction, Nicolas has asked the Aner Welten team if he could publish this text on our platform. Considering that Salman Rushdie is a pillar of magic realism and thus also speculative fiction, and the recent attack has shocked many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[68,67],"ppma_author":[66],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-salman-rushdie","tag-slam-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Nicolas-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":66,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"nicolas-calmes","display_name":"Nicolas Calmes","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url2x":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g2x"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":"Skateboarding culture introduced Nicolas Calmes to punk rock and hip hop. Both influence his writing. All of his poems are written to a rap beat and characterized by the brutal honesty and inherent criticism of punk mentality."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1063,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/1063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anerwelten.lu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}