“Ci sono stagni, nel deserto di Sonora. Potresti finirci dritto in mezzo e non saperlo, perché di solito sono asciutti. Non sospetteresti mai l esistenza di rane addormentate pochi centimetri sotto i tuoi piedi, il battito del cuore rallentato a un paio di pulsazioni al minuto. Dormono e aspettano, quelle rane del fango, perché senz acqua la loro vita non è completa. Per lunghi mesi dormono sottoterra. Finché arriva la pioggia. E allora centinaia d occhi sbucano dal fango, centinaia di voci risuonano ogni notte sull acqua. Fu uno spettacolo meraviglioso assistere al risveglio di noi rane del fango, vivere quel risveglio. Piccoli gesti, parole, empatie credute ormai estinte tornarono in vita. Per anni, le facce estranee incrociate nei corridoi avevano ricevuto solo sguardi corrucciati; ora guardavamo, salutavamo, sorridevamo. Se qualcuno prendeva un bel voto, anche altri gioivano. Se qualcuno si storceva una caviglia, anche altri soffrivano. Scoprimmo quale colore avessero gli occhi degli altri. Fu Stargirl a guidare quella ribellione: una ribellione per invece che contro. Per noi stessi. Per le rane assopite che eravamo stati così a lungo. Ragazzi taciturni prendevano la parola nelle discussioni in classe. La rubrica Lettere all Editore riempì un intera pagina dell edizione di dicembre del giornale scolastico. Un ragazzo fondò un associazione di fotografi dilettanti. Un altro arrivò a scuola coi mocassini invece che con le scarpe da ginnastica. Una ragazza timida e insignificante si dipinse di verde fluorescente le unghie dei piedi. Un ragazzo si tinse i capelli color porpora.”
“مَن لم يمُت في الحال، يمتلكُ أنفاسًا تقاوِم”
“ما أزال أميِّز هؤلاء الذين بلون الحنطة وكبرياء النخيل. لم يموتوا أذلّة”
“The frost which kills the harvest of a year, saves the harvests of a century, by destroying the weevil or the locust. Wars, fires, plagues, break up immovable routine, clear the ground of rotten races and dens of distemper, and open a fair field to new men. There is a tendency in things to right themselves, and the war or revolution or bankruptcy that shatters a rotten system, allows things to take a new and natural order. The sharpest evils are bent into that periodicity which makes the errors of planets, and the fevers and distempers of men, self-limiting. Nature is upheld by antagonism. Passions, resistance, danger, are educators. We acquire the strength we have overcome. Without war, no soldier; without enemies, no hero.”
“Some countries believe that, once they have rid themselves of a monarchy and become a republic, they have morphed into a kind of Utopia. When, in fact, they have merely created another set of compromises for themselves.”
“The Hungryalist or the hungry generation movement was a literary movement in Bengali that was launched in 1961, by a group of young Bengali poets. It was spearheaded by the famous Hungryalist quartet — Malay Roychoudhury, Samir Roychoudhury, Shakti Chattopadhyay and Debi Roy. They had coined Hungryalism from the word ‘Hungry’ used by Geoffrey Chaucer in his poetic line “in the sowre hungry tyme”. The central theme of the movement was Oswald Spengler’s idea of History, that an ailing culture feeds on cultural elements brought from outside. These writers felt that Bengali culture had reached its zenith and was now living on alien food. . . . The movement was joined by other young poets like Utpal Kumar Basu, Binoy Majumdar, Sandipan Chattopadhyay, Basudeb Dasgupta, Falguni Roy, Tridib Mitra and many more. Their poetry spoke the displaced people and also contained huge resentment towards the government as well as profanity. … On September 2, 1964, arrest warrants were issued against 11 of the Hungry poets. The charges included obscenity in literature and subversive conspiracy against the state. The court case went on for years, which drew attention worldwide. Poets like Octavio Paz, Ernesto Cardenal and Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg visited Malay Roychoudhury. The Hungryalist movement also influenced Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Telugu & Urdu literature.”
“Revolution meant shattering one structure and creating another one, but shattering was easier than creating, and so the two parts of the act were not necessarily fated to be equally successful. In that sense, building a revolution was like building an arch; until both columns were there, and the keystone in place, practically any disruption could bring the whole thing crashing down.”
“Thus did the typewriters clack through the night, until that historic document had been crafted which guaranteed for all Russians freedom of conscience (Article 13), freedom of expression (Article 14), freedom of assembly (Article 15), and freedom to have any of these rights revoked should they be “utilized to the detriment of the socialist revolution (Article 23)!”
“Enclosures have appropriately been called a revolution of the rich is against the poor. The lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down ancient law and custom, sometimes by means of vio¬lence, often by pressure and intimidation. They were literally robbing the poor of their share in the common, tearing down the houses which, by the hitherto unbreakable force of custom, the poor had long regarded as theirs and their heirs . The fabric of society was being disrupted; desolate villages and the ruins of human dwellings testified to the fierce¬ness with which the revolution raged, endangering the defenses of the country, wasting its towns, decimating its population, turning its over¬burdened soil into dust, harassing its people and turning them from decent husbandmen into a mob of beggars and thieves.”
“The falsehood of all the revolutions of history: they destroy only those carriers of evil contemporary with them (and also fail, out of haste, to discriminate the carriers of good as well). And they take to themselves as their heritage the actual evil itself, magnified still more.”
“Было, конечно, некоторое противоречие в том, что революционные лозунги и речовки вроде «Революция продолжается, значит нам ее продолжать» насаждались сверху донизу, от подворотен до Кремля, властными структурами – против которых и полагалось быть направленной любой революции”
“On the contrary, all experience shows that revolutionaries come from those who are economically independent, not from factory workers. Very few revolutionary leaders have done manual work, and those who did soon abandoned it for political activities. The factory worker wants higher wages and better conditions, not a revolution. It is the man on his own who wants to remake society, and moreover he can happily defy those in power without economic risk.”
“No one knew it then because it started, as revolutions often do, as something quiet and almost routine.”
“Freedom is a living concept, free in itself…”
“Well, it’s the story of the founding of a New Jersey town, and its citizens, and the American Revolution. With some singing and dancing and a turntable.”
“Oh, Oiseau, you want Independence, but that idea weighs you down like handcuffs. First, be free before the idea. Then: make a list of the things in your head and in your stomach that chain you up. That s where it starts, that struggle of yours...”
“شعبنا لا يثور أبدا وإذا ثار فسرعان ما يتخلى عن الثورة ، شعبنا ليس على استعداد لدفع ثمن الحرية”