Month: November 2015

“Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now?

What are they here -violent, savage, lawless?

or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?”

The Odyssey by Homer- VI, 131-133

In these days of agony—horror at the events in Paris last weekend, further horror at the bombings in Beirut, the hostage taking in Mali…outrage at the response of the politicians in the USA using these events as an excuse to reject those fleeing from the very perpetrators of this terrorism—the words of Odysseus ring in my ears.

At the heart of the Homeric universe is  Xenia: 

(Greek ξενία, xenía): the Greek concept of hospitality, or generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home or unknown. It is often translated as “guest-friendship” (or “ritualized friendship”) because the rituals of hospitality created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host. XENOS (the singular form) translates to: guest, host, foreigner, stranger and friend. For the ancients, stranger is a temporary state that with right protocol translates to friend.

 

Those that do not offer—or go so far as to desecrate- the rituals of hospitality show themselves to be ‘savage, lawless’—and are isolated, rejected and fought if they have invaded.

 

I am thinking about how in the ancient world as humans attempted to move from lives of violent struggle for survival to civilized existence, negotiating the encounter with strangers was vital. The way in which two people come to know each other, the movement from stranger to guest to friend, sits in core of our social system and is the early testament to our ascension into civilization—towards the best of human enterprise.

 

So although members of the US government (along with other anti-immigration advocates in mostly western countries) may not understand this—their response to reject desperate migrants from ravaged places shows their collapse of civilized behavior in the face of fear.

 

At times this past week I have felt frozen with inaction in the face of the deaths and sufferings of the people of Paris—and then appalled by the critique of the efforts on social media as people tried to come to terms with the events and their own fears and sense of helplessness. I sat down to a wonderful group working their way through Proust’s epic and felt the absurdity of discussing social manipulations and aristocratic degeneracy while the world burns. Unlike a dear friend who is dedicating her work to the Syrian migrants, I sit here in North London and agonize and promote reading literature.

 

I do not think that however iron clad we make our borders, however much we employ surveillance on ourselves or those we have defined as our enemies, we will ever eradicate terrorism until people everywhere have homes that are safe and food to eat and the freedom to live as they choose. I am so appreciative of the glimpses of defiant life in Paris following the attacks—the spontaneous choruses of La Marseillaise, the demonstrations, the cartoons and rejection of fear and hatred on the part of the Parisian people—even, and especially—those who lost loved ones in the attacks.

 

This offers the best response to the inhumanity shown by the IS/ISIS/ Daesh militants—along with the xenophobic US representatives. Live in a way that models civilized, progressive human behavior over violent and random inhumanity: and that means welcoming people in need, negotiating with right protocol your encounter with a stranger, offering a meal before you ask someone to tell their story. We can probably skip the offer of a bath with the scented oil rubdown as the precursor to the sharing of food and drink—although maybe that would help.

 

I accept that refusing to treat every migrant as a terrorist may mean that I will suffer—that me or my family or someone in my community will be killed because desperate people are rejecting the claims of the civilized society. I also understand that safety is not a guaranteed right –because my safety usually comes at the expense of another’s: for me to be absolutely safe the enforcing powers would make some assumptions about who is good and who is evil (always those defined as outsiders) and reject those whose profile causes concern. It seems to me a kind of arrogance that suggests I deserve to be totally safe while Syrian children are sleeping in freezing forest as their desperate parents risk everything to scrape out a life away from immediate fear.

 

In Ancient Greece, communities would take the risk of welcoming a stranger into their midst not knowing if their hospitality would be reciprocated with gifts or blood. Taking that risk: offering humanity first outweighed the risk that the stranger would respond inhumanely. In parts of Greece today, that same generosity is still being enacted as refugees are brought to shore on the island of Rhodes, Lesbos and other shores.

Imagine that, from beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Western countries had responded by spending billions on aid instead of the billions spent on military response—on supporting Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and Jordan in welcoming the migrants –how would this have changed the perceptions of Syrians toward the West?

 

Coming out of ten years of fighting the Trojan War, Odysseus had to learn to approach strangers & unknown communities without the impulse to attack. Here I may find the start of action in the face of my helplessness: approach the stranger with humanity. Accept the risk that there are people who have learned inhuman responses—but I will not let their inhumanity instruct mine.

 

Sometimes you need to return to the source to retrace the outlines– where you have been, what you are and why….though these are the questions that drive us forward into our lives. It is too easy to become distracted with the daily rhythms and not pull yourself up- look around, and remember what you have missed. The Paris Salon group was the source of the original Salon and worked through the early bumps and learning curve as we figured out together how to engage deeply with literature and how to open each other up and into the beauty of language, the challenge and wonder of our humanity. So it is a great gift to return to Paris and offer a new study in the astonishing power of Toni Morrison’s art.

November 27th Salon Intensive on Toni Morrison’s A Mercy 5:30- 10 PM Register here.

The next set of Paris Salons will be in February the weekend of 13th-15th. Please vote now (contact me) as to preferred books for study: William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Beowulf, Shakespeare: what’s your pleasure?

See you in the Parisian pages…