Hold Everything Dear – Dispatches on Survival and Resistance
‘The eternal,’ according to Spinoza, ‘is now’, and this book is John Berger writing to the moment. The ‘dispatches’ collected in it exemplify a rare, because brave, form of journalism. They are a way of taking history personally.
‘The present period of history is one of the Wall,’ he writes, for example. ‘When the Berlin one fell, the prepared plans to build walls everywhere were unrolled. Concrete, bureaucratic, surveillance, security, racist walls… The walls cross every sphere, from crop cultivation to healthcare. They exist in the richest metropolises in the world…’
Written between 2002 and 2006, there are notes on a visit to the Palestinian Territories and on the America that now offers the world ‘shock and awe’. The fiction of Andrei Platonov, still little known outside Russia, is explored, as are the work of the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and the music of Dvorák. A film of Pasolini’s, never publicly shown, is reviewed 40 years after it was made.
‘[Berger] writes about what is important, not just interesting,’ Susan Sontag observes in the blurb and her distinction is, now more than ever, to the point. We ‘can choose within ourselves,’ he writes, ‘which side of the wall we are attuned to. It is not a wall between good and evil. Both exist on both sides. The choice is between self-respect and self-chaos.’
It is this unflinching internalization of the bigger picture which makes this kind of writing different. Read Berger attentively for how much more words can do.
- Product information
- by John Berger
- Publisher
- Verso
- Product number
- ISBN 978 1 84467 138 0
- Star rating
- Product link
- http://www.versobooks.com
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
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