Diary

We watched the film "Only the Animals" (Seules les Bêtes) directed by Dominik Moll. Wikipedia has a good article about without too many spoilers. I agree with what most of the critics say about it; I would also give it about 4 stars. It could be categorized as a black comedy; but it's many things. Not a feel-good film; all of the characters are suffering badly - all of them want something they can't get and therefore end up hurting each other.

Most of what people are writing about in my social media timeline is quite boring to me, and, I think, because that is true, I skim, therefore missing the posts that might be more interesting.

So many of the posts concern the social media network itself. Since Mastodon has become so dominant, people are usually writing about Mastodon, or comparing it to Twitter. It's true that the phenomenon of so many joining Mastodon can be a subject for endless discussion, but I am not so interested in reading it.

Awhile back someone attempted to put a different spin on this observation. They said that the best movies are always about making movies, the best novels are always about novel writers, the best blogs are always about blogging, etc. But actually I have never looked at it like that. Instead, I usually tend to stay clear of content that is about the making of the content, because it generally shows that its creator shows a failure of the imagination. Not always, but often enough.

If I'm reading a novel, I expect the writer to be able to step away from the mirror, and show me something other than his own image. If I'm reading a blog, I don't want the medium to take over, but remain properly in the background. I'm aware that very often I fall into the trap myself (like now), but I'm always sorry when my blog becomes, post after post, obsessed with some aspect of the medium itself.

I watched the first episode of the BBC documentary. I may watch the second, but I think I sort of got the message already. It's clear that Modi, as Gujarat's chief minister, wanted, for whatever reason, to let his Hindus let off some steam. There was a massacre of Hindus on a train. The Hindu population was seething with anger. For three days, he allowed them to run amok, and then he stopped it. His reasons were probably political, though perhaps not only so. The psychology of allowing the masses to "let off steam" is a theme that I've seen before in Indian governance.

Anyway, the result was that about 2,000 people were butchered and Modi went on to become prime minister. The Modi Question is not such a difficult one. What did we not understand? I don't think we even need to accuse Narendra Modi of racism. Political expediency (on a party-political level and on the level of governance) is sufficient to explain his motives. It's the way things work in India.

Modi is right that the British should be the last to speak about human rights, unfortunately. That anger is genuine and justified. It would still be great if he could put aside such blame games, and answer a reporter's questions straight without throwing back counter claims about the inappropriateness of their asking, on account of national culpability. Asking questions of leaders is not parallel to the parable of "casting the first stone." Giving complete answers is what we should expect of our leaders.

Modi can, with a degree of justification, claim that the issues being raised in the documentary have been settled in India's supreme court. But if he and the BJP are so confident, we can't help wondering why the documentary has been banned from screening in India, under emergency regulations. Someone has already pointed out that meanwhile, in the BJP's India, a new film that presents a controversial portrayal of Nathuram Godse (Gandhi's assassin) is allowed to be screened without issue. Gandhi's killer Godse is a "real patriot" for some Hindu nationalists. "Many visit a temple near new Delhi dedicated to him." (Aljazeera).

There's a new publisher in Israel called Radical (https://radical.org.il/en/), which specializes in translation of books that focuses mostly on climate change. They have four books out so far and yesterday they had an event in honour of the translation of Thich Nhat Hanh's book Saving the Planet. The place was packed. Among the speakers were the translator, Hagit Harmon and a scientist Dror Bornstein. They also showed a film about the life of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Afterwards we sat with Hagit to discuss the evening and a similar evening about the same book that will be held next week in Wahat al-Salam.

Other books that Radical have put out in Hebrew are "Less is More" by Jason Hickel and David Attenborough's "A Life on our Planet". Greta Thunberg's book is now being translated and it looks like "The Dawn of Everything" is coming. It's inspiring to see a bunch of mainly younger people doing something radical to change the consciousness in this country.

The audience at the book launch for translation of 'Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet'