At the Zoo

“It was not like any human face. It was as long as his arm, and ghastly white. Breath jetted in vapor from what must be nostrils, and terrible, unmistakable, there was an eye. A large, dark eye, mournful, perhaps cynical? gone in the flash of the car’s lights.

‘What was that?’

‘Donkey, wasn’t it?’

“An animal?’”

—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

On the 10th of July, 2024, a celebrity was born: Moo Deng. Interestingly named after a Thai variety of pork meatball that resembles the newborn hippo’s roundness and bounciness, she quickly became an internet sensation. In addition to the many videos and photos shared by the Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s Instagram account and gleeful visitors, artists from all over the world also shared their fan art, and wanting to cash in on Moo Deng’s global popularity, Sephora’s Thai account even shared a post that shows a number of products which could help potential customers to “wear [their] blush like a baby hippo.” For a few months following Moo Deng’s birth, the algorithm made it seem like this family of hippos in a Thai zoo were the only animals on the planet. Images of Moo Deng were guaranteed to grace my timeline on a daily basis, and I couldn’t complain because I, too, became a fan.

Over a year has passed and Moo Deng is no longer a baby and her celebrity status appears to have waned since her first few months on this planet. Anyone who has seen videos of Moo Deng would know that her unique character is one the reasons behind her fame. The videos in which she interacts with her zoo keeper shows how much of a personality she has. She was not a calm baby—she was an “angy” one. Even though her size was minuscule compared to her mother’s, her energy was a lot larger. She always seemed to be doing something, even when she was just resting. Moo Deng entertained us. 

My digital drawing of a baby pygmy hippo

What does it mean to experience joy from watching animals in a zoo? The screen might have temporarily made us forget the fact that Moo Deng resides in what is ultimately a large cage. She is loved and adored, but she is not where she is supposed to be. Over four decades before the Moo Deng craze, John Berger wrote in “Why Look at Animals?”:

“Public zoos came into existence at the beginning of the period which was to see the disappearance of animals from daily life. The zoo to which people go to meet animals, to observe them, to see them, is, in fact, a monument to the impossibility of such encounters.” 

These days, the concept of animal rights is not the fringe issue that it once was. From the linguistic choice of using terms such a “adopting” or “fostering” pets instead of “buying” or “owning” them (though arguments against anthropocentrism can indeed be made) to marketing strategies that highlight cosmetics or skincare products that have not been tested on animals, we might be led to believe that there is an air of care towards the wellbeing of animals. However, zoos still exist, and they are still popular. Even ones that are spacious and boast of near-authentic conditions for each animal, at the end of the day, are still zoos. To say that one zoo is better than the other is like saying that electric cars are more environmentally-friendly than regular cars even though both vehicles rely on extractive industries in order to function. While zoos are one of the few recreational places in highly commercialized cities that are affordable for people across different classes and so many cities have them that their existence is taken for granted, they did not come into being for the sake of animals.

Like the museum, the zoo as an institution is a product of European colonial conquest. It is no coincidence that the oldest zoos are located in Europe: The Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna was established in 1752, The Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1793, the London Zoo in 1828, the Artis Royal Zoo in Amsterdam in 1838, the Antwerp Zoo in 1843, and the Berlin Zoo in 1844. The most powerful European nations did not only loot precious objects—many of which have not been returned to their places of origin—during the long and violent era of colonialism, but they also took plants, animals, and even humans, to put on display in the metropoles. Berger writes that zoos “brought considerable prestige to the national capitals” and gifting exotic animals to zoos was also a common form of diplomacy. Both zoos and museums were (and still are) part of the propaganda machine. Berger continues:

“Yet, like every other 19th century public institution, the zoo, however supportive of the ideology of imperialism, had to claim an independent and civic function. The claim was that it was another kind of museum, whose purpose was to further knowledge and public enlightenment.” 

I read Berger’s essay many years ago, and it is one among his many brilliant pieces of writing that has stuck with me. Since the pandemic—perhaps due to a severe lack of human interaction—I have been nurturing an interest in animals, particularly birds. Earlier this year, I discovered that sparrows had been gathering grass, twine and even clumps of hair to build a nest for the mating season behind my condenser unit. Luckily they had only just begun to collect things and no egg was in sight. After carefully removing what could have been a cosy home for a family of sparrows, I started to really pay attention the birds that would often come by. Apart from the little sparrows, there were at least three other species that would make regular visits. My husband refers to my obsession as “research” and though I think that sounds too serious and methodical for my amateurish endeavor, I am starting to embrace it. So I decided to celebrate my birthday with the birds at the Ragunan Zoo or Taman Margasatwa Ragunan. As I was sitting in the bus, I kept thinking about John Berger. “Putri, why look at animals?” I imagined him asking (or interrogating) me. And yet I didn’t get off the bus, even though it had started to rain.

When I arrived at the zoo, I was surprised that it was crowded as it was a weekday. I had anticipated the presence of schoolchildren, but not families and large groups of adults. I also did not expect the zoo to be enormous, so upon walking through the entrance gate, I decided to simply follow the directions on the signs that showed the names and small illustrations of the animals. The rain stopped not long after, so I began to walk in the direction of the birds. On my way there, I stopped by the primate enclosure. As I was observing the macaques, I quickly registered how bored they seemed. There wasn’t much to do in such a small space. Some of them were eating, while others were just sitting in the corner of their cage. I was suddenly reminded of something my father had shared with me when I was in my 20s, “When I brought you to the zoo when you were little, you didn’t find it fun.” When I asked why he thought I wasn’t having fun, he then said, “You asked me, ‘Why are the animals in there, but we’re out here?’” I couldn’t recall ever having posed such a question, but now that I think about it, I don’t have many memories of going to zoos in my childhood, so I guess my father took my question to heart and chose other places to take me to instead. The macaques were still chewing an unidentifiable fruit. I then made my way to the bird section. Berger again:

“A zoo is a place where as many species and varieties of animal as possible are collected in order that they can be seen, observed, studied. In principle, each cage is a frame round the animal inside it. Visitors visit the zoo to look at animals. They proceed from cage to cage, not unlike visitors in an art gallery who stop in front of one painting, and then move on to the next or the one after the next. Yet in the zoo the view is always wrong. Like an image out of focus. One is so accustomed to this that one scarcely notices it any more; or, rather, the apology habitually anticipates the disappointment, so that the latter is not felt. And the apology runs like this: What do you expect? It’s not a dead object you have come to look at, it’s alive. It’s leading its own life. Why should this coincide with is being properly visible? Yet the reasoning of this apology is inadequate. The truth is more startling.” 

Scheepmaker's crowned pigeons

In the bird section, I saw peacocks, pheasants, macaws, cockatoos, and large pigeons. I spent quite some time there, watching and taking photos for my “research.” The birds were undoubtedly beautiful, but their predicament also dulled their beauty. I tried to imagine how differently they would have moved and how much more beautifully the colors of their feathers would have shone if they had been in their natural habitats. Though the cages they were in weren’t exactly small, no cage would ever big enough for them or for any of the other animals within the zoo. Berger:

“However you look at these animals, even if the animal is up against the bars, less than a foot from you, looking outwards in the public direction, you are looking at something that has been rendered absolutely marginal; and all the concentration you can muster will never be enough to centralise it.”

A northern cassowary (or single-wattled cassowary)

The bird I really wanted to see, however, was the cassowary. I had only seen photos and videos of cassowaries, which always reminded of dinosaurs, so I was looking forward to “meeting” one in person. The cassowary enclosures turned out to be quite a long walk away from the rest of the birds. There was hardly anyone there. Only a couple of other visitors passed by on electric bikes. There were several cassowaries and each one had it is own enclosure. They were large, but also smaller than I thought they would be. I had brought my sketchbook with me, but since there weren’t any benches near the enclosures, I decided to take as many photos as I could for reference so that I could draw and paint the animals at home. The longer I observed the cassowaries, the eerier they looked. They were quiet and didn’t move much, but in my mind, they were orchestrating an epic prison break. I noticed that some of the wire mesh looked a little damaged. Perhaps when all the visitors had gone home, and none of the zookeepers were around, the cassowaries furiously pecked at their obstacles to freedom. None of them seemed to be bothered by my presence, which was a relief, because based on the videos I had seen, they could get quite loud and scary when they’re angry. I kept looking at the cassowaries, but they did not return my gaze. Berger:

“The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. They scan mechanically. They have been immunised to encounter, because nothing can any more occupy a central place in their attention.”

A Bornean orangutan

After having seen most of the birds, I wanted to see the orangutans and elephants on my way out. Unlike the macaques and other smaller primates I had seen earlier, the orangutan was not in a cage. This is not say that the absence of bars or wire mesh indicates freedom, of course. As Berger notes, in zoos, “visibility, space, air, have been reduced to tokens.” Two small children, who I assumed to be siblings, were acting like sports commentators. They announced every single action they observed. “Orangutannya lari!” (The orangutan is running!) “Wah! Orangutannya manjat!” (Whoa! The orangutan is climbing!) They kept following the orangutan and one of them looked up at me as I was taking a photo of the majestic creature. As I marveled at the orangutan (which literally means “forest person” or “jungle person”), I began to wonder if people are able to feel sympathy for the great primates more than for other animals because of how much they resemble humans (another case for arguing against anthropocentrism). The children were still commentating, and I was starting to get tired. Soon, the children’s parents, who looked as I tired as I was, approached them, probably to tell them it was time to move on to the next enclosure. “One sees the animals through the curious face of one’s children,’ writes Kate Zambreno in “The Winter Zoo.”

A Sumatran elephant

The final stop was the elephant enclosure. When I got there, the elephants were busy eating. They were so far away from where I was standing, so I couldn’t get a good look at them. Still, I asked my husband to take a photo of me and the elephant in the distance to commemorate my birthday visit. 

Later that night, I looked up the history of Ragunan, and a simple Google search led me to the zoo’s website and a number of relevant news articles. Unsurprisingly, the zoo has colonial roots. It was founded in 1864, during the Dutch colonial era, and is not much newer than the European zoos I listed earlier. It was originally called Planten en Dierentuin and was managed by the Culturele Vereniging Planten en Dierentuin (Cultural Association for Botanical Gardens and Zoo). The zoo used to be located in Cikini, which is impossible to picture in present-day Jakarta. Interestingly, the land it was built on was gifted by Raden Saleh, a famous painter who often depicted tigers in his paintings. After the struggle for independence, Planten end Dierentuin was renamed Kebun Binatang Cikini. Then in 1964, the zoo, along with its 450 animals, were relocated to its present location and on the 22nd of June, 1966, it was officially open to the public. The years in which this move took place carry the heavy weight of one of the darkest periods in Indonesian history.

Last month, my sister-in-law told me that she went out of her way to see Moo Deng during her most recent trip to Thailand. She said that Moo Deng mostly looked annoyed. But why wouldn’t Moo Deng be annoyed if visitors constantly came in droves, waiting to get a reaction? The social media hype clearly attracted one too many visitors, but since zoos are profit-seeking enterprises, ticket sales would trump the animals’ comfort. Berger:

“Looking at each animal, the unaccompanied zoo visitor is alone. As for the crowds, they belong to a species which has at last been isolated.

This historic loss, to which zoos are a monument, is now irredeemable for the culture of capitalism.”

So the question still remains: why do we look at animals? In my case, why paint them? At the zoo, there were moments when I was filled with awe. We share the world with so many forms of life, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about the ecological damage that has been done over the past few centuries, and how it has put so many animals, plants, and humans at risk. Far from being safe havens for animals, zoos are part of a wider web of capitalistic decay. The longer I observed the animals, the more I was able to notice the frayed feathers of birds, the patches of discolored elephant skin, and the sluggish movements of macaques. Are they lonely? Do they ever dream of freedom, even the ones born in captivity? My much younger self seemed to have understood that the sight of animals in cages induces discomfort. Maybe children know what it means to have limits imposed on them, to be denied full agency. The gap between zoo animals and human visitors is vast, but I could sense an affinity that made me want to keep looking, in the futile hope that I would be able to confront my own loneliness in their gaze.

The Present Is a Scream

“One protests (by building a barricade, taking up arms, going on a hunger strike, linking arms, shouting, writing) in order to save the present moment, whatever the future holds.”

—John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook

“A significant thing: it is not the head of a civilization that begins to rot first. It is the heart.”

—Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism

From Palestine to Indonesia to Nepal. Death and revolt appear on screens around the world—screens which are the windows of devices constructed from yet more death and suffering across the African continent—but before they became photos and videos, they took place in the realm of the flesh, of people who dream of being free. 

In the past decade, any sense of the future has become increasingly difficult to envision, or to be more precise, it has become almost impossible to imagine a promising future in which everyone, everywhere can thrive. The walls of the ever oppressive present are closing in, leaving a narrow gap that we can slip through if we are lucky. But like all walls, they can fall; better yet, they can be destroyed by the hands of all of us who refuse to accept the way things are going. 

As someone who works with young people (and by young people, I mean children and teenagers), I always try to picture how they experience this world. How do they see themselves in it now? Do they plan their future in the same way many people in my age group—arguably the last generation who had been raised to wrongly believe that we could “make it” if we simply worked hard enough—did? Are they, without being fully conscious of it, preemptively mourning? These young folks have, after all, grown up in a time that feels, for lack of a better term, compressed. Global economic instability, mass unemployment, the emergence of fascistic forms that shape-shift as quickly as they increase their capacity for enacting violence, capitalist-induced climate crises, deadly pandemics, mental health crises, the hollowing out of art and culture, and of course, a live-streamed genocide continue to define the early decades of the 21st century. It is easy to complain that kids care about little else but TikTok trends, but look at all the loudest voices that are against the injustices that plague our world today: they overwhelmingly belong to young people. If they don’t scream, there will be nothing left for them. If we don’t scream, there will be nothing left for any of us.

How is one supposed to scream within this anxious state of existence we have been forced to experience? What kind of scream would pierce through the cacophony of this moment? Perhaps there is only one scream, even if it expresses itself in a variety of ways. Some may take to the streets, while others might cook and care for their families and communities. Some people might choose to make music or engage in reading groups. In the face of heightened surveillance and state suppression, that scream may manifest itself in an even wider range of forms. For years, I have been thinking about what shape it would take in my own life. What are the ways in which I can contribute to the collective scream as a partner, a friend, a teacher, a writer, a poet? It is often said that there is no act that it is too small, but I can’t help but feel that what I try to do is always, always far from being enough. As much as I try to fight the temptations of despair and defeatism, I sometimes struggle to convince myself to keep going, to keep trying and learning no matter how small the impact of my efforts may be. Words almost snap when tested by the seismic shifts of socio-political or even personal calamities, but it’s strange that it’s also during such times that they can help strengthen our grasp of language as we try to educate ourselves and each other to not only see through the blatant lies and shameless propaganda of the oppressors, but to also begin to name our desires, our dreams, our great hope of liberation. When I began to type this essay, I did not quite know where I was going to go with it, but the more I wrote, the more it became clear to me that this is how I scream.

Producing literature, art or music seems to pale in comparison to taking direct action against oppression—be it in the form of protests or other strategies that aim to throw a wrench in the gears of the machine that is the status quo—but I believe that the two can complement each other. I think of all the revolutionary writers, poets, artists and musicians from around the world whose work continue to inspire and fuel the spirit of contemporary movements. I think of all the poems, songs and images that have made generations of people gain the courage to imagine a world that is not constantly suffocated by pain and loss. But more importantly, such work reminds us that people have always found ways to use their creativity to reshape their present, and it is now our turn to reshape ours.

Palestine and Poetry

Much has been said about poets—

that we are daydreamers, 

that we are detached from reality, 

that we see everything through rose-tinted glasses.

Such accusations only prove that poetry has been severely misunderstood and underestimated by those who wish to quell its potential. I’m under no illusion that poetry can save us from this burning planet, but then again it was never supposed to. What makes poetry important is what it is more than capable of opening up. 

 

Write down on the top of the first page:

I do not hate people

Nor do I encroach

But if I become hungry

The usurper's flesh will be my food

Beware...

Beware...

Of my hunger

And my anger!

–Mahmoud Darwish, “Identity Card”

 

Every poet should learn from the Palestinians. They weave poetry into their daily existence. Their poetic sensibility is unmatched, even if they are not poets by trade. Take for example the grieving grandfather who referred to his martyred grandchildren as “the souls of my soul,” or the man who wrote a farewell poem on his martyred wife’s shroud. I’m not suggesting that Palestinians are poetic because of their suffering, but I believe that poetry offers them a space for gentle defiance, if not outright resistance. I mean, what is there to do when your existence is denied over and over again? What is there to do when every piece of evidence of violence inflicted upon you and your people is dismissed as a lie? Poetry then becomes a way of archiving life.

 

I document as argument;

I exist. I learn this from watching my father

alone in the night

drawing and redrawing

a map

of Palestine, green ink.

—Noor Hindi, “I Once Looked in a Mirror but Couldn’t See My Body”

 

I’m reminded of Bifo’s assertion that poetry is "language's excess." The oppression that Palestinians continue to endure and fight against is something that goes beyond language not because there aren’t enough words to describe it, but precisely because there can never be enough. Bifo again: “Poetry is the reopening of the indefinite, the ironic act of exceeding the established meaning of words.” Perhaps this is why poetry comes so naturally to Palestinians. It is the perfect medium for them to articulate their grief and most of all, their love for one another and for their land, from the river to the sea. 

Visit Publishers for Palestine to access works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.

Time Belongs To No One

A lot of my writing revolves around time—time, this inescapable thing that generations of humans have grown accustomed to understanding in the form of numbers. But you can also see them in the wrinkles of a face, the colors of the sky and the slang words that come and go from your screen—all of which, coincidentally, can be counted. Sometimes time makes itself big—like a threatened animal—while more often than not, it shrinks to the point that it becomes small enough to slip between your fingers like the finest grains of sand. When I was a child, I imagined time as an anaconda: long, heavy, and completely capable of swallowing me whole. This is how the school holidays always made me feel: of being eaten alive. I pictured my small body pressing against the innards of time. The end of summer meant that time was ready to take a huge shit; and back to school I went, a place where time was even bigger and scarier and never belonged to me—though of course it never did and never will belong to me, or anyone else—not even the most consistent watch wearer.

 

Being punctual is associated with discipline. Punishment is in store for those who fail to meet the hands of the clock. Look at us; we're all trapped.

 

"Thank you for your time," we say out of politeness and gratitude. But like other cliched expressions, they don't mean much when you really think about it. Time belongs to no one, which is why the concept of "working hours" upsets everyone except bosses. The rich think they can buy time by putting slabs of anti-aging cream onto their faces. Or by injecting all kinds of vitamins into their veins to cheat their fate. Or by devouring the lives of workers. Time is money and money is the time that all the working people on this planet have to part with in order to keep on living, in order to have money so that they truly live, to love and to be with the ones they love, to truly embrace time. 

 

Time can't be owned, but it is worth fighting for.

 

Was it Mark Fisher who once compared writing with time travel? Writing is not knowing what your thoughts will end up looking like in advance and yet also already knowing it. It's like a mysterious technology that beams us into the past and the unknown future as it also forces us to hold our ground in the here and now, all at the same time. Writing = Letting time take over. Considering the writing process through this lens, it does indeed feel a lot like sci-fi despite its disregard for advanced tools. 

 

An acute sensitivity to reality gave birth to sci-fi; in other words, the seeds of what the imagination is capable of conjuring have already been sown.

 

But just because sci-fi is an obvious intersection between writing and time, it doesn't mean it is the only effective one. Over the years, it has occurred to me that poetry simultaneously gives in to time and resists it. A line break disrupts time as much as it shapes meaning. There are many poems about time, just as there are many poems that pull you back and forth through time—and consequently through space and subjectivities. In rare occasions, poetry lets you catch a glimpse of our desires. And desire, of course, permanently resides in the future—one that we may or may not ever arrive at.

 

A poet can be a nostalgic, a realist, a futurist, or a nihilist. Whichever one you are, you bend time. Perhaps the empty spaces between lines are not reserved for meaning that has silently been inserted, but rather for the time it takes for the experience to reach the reader. Maybe it's more important for the poet to accept the fact that while the poem is free, they, on the other hand, are still locked within time.

 

It has been a while since my last serious attempt at writing poetry. The answer I'd normally give to well-meaning friends and peers who'd sometimes ask me about my next book: I'm working on it. It's been about six years and "I'm working on it" has, by this point, become a joke. But what if it's a prayer? Funnily enough, it only recently occurred to me that I've never actually stopped working on my next project. After all, writing entails a lot of things and the writing itself—the putting pen to paper—is, I'd like to argue, not the most important part of it. Observing, remembering, reading... all are necessary. 

 

No work of art can be created in a vacuum. Inspiration is a scam. Learning and reflecting requires time, patience, determination, and humility.

 

I find it useful to look back. The word I can use to best describe my childhood is "fragmented." While I have loving parents, my upbringing was not untainted by tragedy and loneliness. Needless to say, this is in no way unique to my life. Having to be uprooted several times at a young age certainly did not make things easier, despite all the positive experiences that came along with it. The dull ache of being stuck in a limbo still lingers long after I finally had the chance to establish (what I think of as) my own roots. My memories are like phantoms; I can sense their proximity, but I repeatedly fail to confirm their existence, their realness. 

 

I am always haunted by them. 

 

I always let them.

 

In the corner of my eye, I see the ghosts of what was and what could have been. Where am I now? What time is it? The question isn't whether or not the past will be returned to me; it's whether or not I'll be able to return to the present so that I'll finally allow myself to move an inch closer to what's to come.

 

Years ago, I came across Silvina Ocampo's poem "The Towns." I instantly recognized and sympathized with her nostalgia. The poem begins as follows:

 

I am inhabited by many towns. Like dreams they are
within my province, in me; they are memories of bread 

from bakeries or light from a grocery store,

or evenings in the square as I watched the train arrive.

 

I had had no previous knowledge of Ocampo's work, or the fact that she was born into extreme wealth at the dawn of the 20th century—meaning that her nostalgia was rooted in conditions that were temporally and materially far removed from my own lived experience. Our lives couldn't be any more different and yet I understood the feeling of "being inhabited by many towns. Like dreams they are / within my province, in me." This goes beyond the slightly distanced phenomenon of hauntings. She's talking about possession. To be inhabited by the memory of having lived somewhere else is to be possessed by the spirit of that place—that place that is not here, not now. It becomes even more frightening once you consider that the past can never be accurately reconstructed. Time distorts what you remember, so by extension your memory is guaranteed to deceive you. Still, you desperately try to bridge that gap.

 

I sense that someday I will die in every town,

 

at the same time of evening, without discriminating

that I may love them all, ubiquitous, with many hearts.

 

By the end of the poem, Ocampo realizes that going back is not an option. So to soothe the pain of remembering, of being made to remember by the possessing spirits of all those towns where she used to live, she hopes to at least be granted a reunion with her lost love objects in death. 

 

According to my mother's family lore, not long after she was born, my late grandfather threw the placenta into the sea in hopes that his daughter would grow up to be a perantau. There are various translations of the word, common ones being "nomad" or "one who settles elsewhere." My mother was born in a coastal town in Sumatra and has since lived in several towns and cities within Indonesia and abroad. 

 

"So what is nostalgia?" asks Grafton Tanner in The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia. To which he answers, "It's an emotion of intense longing for things lost."

 

Some people might experience it more often and more strongly than others, but it's hard to believe that anyone is immune to it. Life is peppered with loss, and it is never easy to let go. He goes on to write: "Ultimately, nostalgia is one way we can fight against finality and come to terms with the devastating knowledge that some things disappear."

 

The people, places, and things that are dear to us will not be around forever. Nostalgia can therefore be a helpful—albeit temporary—coping mechanism. But as Tanner lays out in his book, there are things that the future shouldn't have space for. Not all forms of nostalgia can help us move forward—especially when streaming platforms and politicians often take advantage of this powerful sentiment.

 

This is why learning from the past, from history, is so crucial. Examining our emotions and their significant role in understanding our place in time can increase our chances of survival—and I mean that quite literally, considering the undeniable climate crisis in our midst.

 

To demand for a better future is to fight the grotesque ideologies that keep being reanimated by conservative nostalgics.

 

Now is not the time to give up. There is still so much to do. For the time-being, this text is what I’m able to offer.

Confronting the Family*

To plant a flag 

To name a mountain 

To name a child with a number 

To give a woman your name 

—Arto Lindsay, “Titled” 

1 

The Family Is a Logo 

There is perhaps one thing more detestable than a typical reckless driver in this city’s rush hour traffic: the “happy family” rear window sticker. If you have never seen one, you have probably never left your house because these stickers are everywhere. Mom, Dad, First Child, Second Child, Baby, Cat. Those with an ambition to present themselves as more than just another generic middle class family even add each member’s nickname. A white apple or a sign of allegiance to a particular religion or community is no longer prestigious. The family is today’s trendiest brand, made visible by the logo of the happy family. 

2 

Affection and Exclusivity 

A child is a gift from God, or so the saying goes. Having one is a blessing. Having three is a blessing multiplied by three. In a culture where brags often masquerade as humble gratitude, blessings of all kinds need to be announced. Yet this public display of familial intimacy ironically amplifies its exclusivity. This is my family. My family is special. These are our names. Know us. Remember us. But you cannot be a part of us. Where does the eagerness to unveil our families for the world to see come from? Do society’s high expectations of this perceived sacred institution oppress us so effectively that we try to convince ourselves we are perfectly happy with the family we “have”? 

3 

Related to an Image 

If we were to play along with the idea that a family is something that one is able to have in the same manner that one has a smartphone or a comb—in other words, something to own—then the family is no longer seen as a group of living, breathing human beings. The family becomes a thing. At best, it turns into a product to be advertised; at worst, it becomes another image to be desired yet impossible to truly obtain. Nowhere is this oddly inverted metamorphosis more visible than on social media. There is at least one parent who just cannot seem to stop sharing photos of his or her precious child. Some even go as far as to set up an account on behalf of the poor, oblivious infant who most likely does not even know her or his own name yet. “Show, don’t tell,” used to carry some weight. Now, it is eerily the only fitting slogan for our sleepless society. 

4 

Roles and Ownership 

The family, at least as far as this society is concerned, has a large impact on the status and identity of both men and women. A man is not a man until he has a wife and preferably several miniature versions of himself. A woman is not a woman until she is able to bear miniature versions of her husband. Resistance is slow and suppressed. Even the strong-willed can crumble under pressure. The logo is under the spotlight once again. Uncontested. Celebrated. The father takes pleasure and pride in his role as the main breadwinner. The mother accepts that her husband and children are her only sources of pride. The children are possessions. We cannot escape the distorted image of the family that continues to appear among countless images of children in various stages of growth. It is owned but it is elsewhere, like a memory that can never be retrieved. 

5 

A Tragic Cycle 

Unconditional love, one of the central components of the myth of the family, is crucial because the concept is alluring. It suggests that one is able to get away with anything while still being accepted, protected and loved by a group of people. It also implies that one is entitled to loyalty without making even the tiniest contribution to the group as a whole. Sentimentality and selfishness are a crude yet highly productive couple. The two end up producing much more than they have to, and we find most of that excess in the modern workplace. Employers exploit the family narrative by borrowing the values and roles of the family in order to control their employees without looking like they do, in fact, exert all the power. Employees are made to believe that they are truly at home, at work. Going on office trips, being on a first-name basis with superiors, engaging in silly office group chats are strategies to make the workplace feel less like one. The fact that one is a mere foot soldier magically disappears. Such is the tragic nature of the urban workplace. The ultimate tragedy occurs, however, when the employees get home and have to do it all over again. The family lives on. 

6 

What Is Wrong with the Right and Left 

But why does it live on? In The Anti-social Family, Michèle Barrett and Mary McIntosh write: “We live in a society where the ‘average family’ is continually evoked. We are continually addressed as belonging to it, by the left and the labour movement as much as from any other source.” Their criticism is specifically aimed at men, who have been more dominant across the political spectrum. The male pride that stems from being responsible for (and therefore in charge of) the family reveals patriarchy’s ambidexterity. But to simply turn the tables would not solve the existing problem of the family. If women, gay men, or other (gender) minorities were to seize the throne of the traditional head of the family, we would only manage to change the features of the family image instead of changing the family itself. Getting a new face for an old problem will not eliminate the problem. 

7 

Towards New Ties 

Despite the many weaknesses of the family, it is impossible to deny its ability to evoke powerful feelings of solidarity. This is certainly one element that can be used to create a more inclusive unit of society. Concepts of exclusive membership and blind loyalty only sustain the family’s suffocating patterns. Loyalty cannot be inherited. Nobody owes anybody love. We have to learn to see the “idealized family” for what it is: an illusion. If we do not start to challenge our own assumptions about the structure and function of the family, we will never grasp the many aspects of society it has successfully penetrated. Focusing on its physical features alone would only lead to the creation of variations of the current problem. Societies, like trends, are not immune to change. And since families make up societies, they too, can change and be changed. 

*The first version of this piece was published as “Scribbles #2: Confronting the Family” under a pen name. Some alterations have been made.

Dear friends

I am sorry that I have to begin with a question: What is friendship?

When we have our hands tied with work, bills, money (or the lack thereof), broken hearts, abandoned creative aspirations, the daily commute, illness, or the illness of loved ones, friendship can so very quickly become pushed to the side, creating a sense of alienation where it is least expected. It is frightening how quickly all of those things can contribute to the dissolution of solidarity. 

I ask because I want to know what can be saved, or if “to save” is even the right verb to act out in this scenario. I ask not because I am afraid of losing my so-called chosen family, but exactly because friends are nothing like family. Friendship, or to speak in more general terms—camaraderie—requires a lot of work. The second that effort dissipates so does the friendship, the camaraderie. All it takes is a bridge and some fire. Let the idiom set itself alight.

We live in a despicable system that constantly strives to push us into loveless situations and interactions where the end goal is an existence so devoid of compassion and meaning that humans might as well be replaced by robots. The fact that we have to remind ourselves that we are, in fact, humans who want and need love to live is ludicrous. Our souls have been so crushed and our willpower so dilapidated that all we can do is hate. We hate those who are as destroyed as we are, and we resort to that because it is easier than hating ourselves—and yet, we still hate ourselves. No positive affirmation, gym membership, organic skincare or flight to some faraway country can ever alleviate that hatred. Why? Because nothing will ever be solved until we hate what we are supposed to hate, and that is, yes, you know exactly what it is. I don’t want to be too on the nose here.

Now, let’s think about how and how much each and every one of us has been complicit in the fragmentation of the very thing that is supposed to keep us, all of us, afloat in this endless ocean of exploitation and exhaustion. How many times have I forgotten that the enemy is not you, not my coworkers, not even the assholes that always find a way to cut in line at the convenience store? How many more times do I have to keep slapping myself across the face so I remember that it is not you, but the system and everyone who enables it that should be blamed, hated, resisted, and held accountable. 

I am sorry for letting my misdirected anger get the best of me. This is not the end.

Love,

Your friend

The Ninth Moon in a Sky of Red

These crazy days

replace

The good old days

that never existed

nostalgia is the boogeyman, the monster under the bed,

the faceless woman standing outside your window at midnight—

it’s what we see

when we’ve spent

hours

and

hours

staring into

Nothing

truth and memory

melt under the sun

that never seems to set

on this empire of demons

what is there to remember if your only memory

is one you’re forced to never forget

there’s no use in recalling what hasn’t left your mind

it’s like looking for a pair of glasses

that’s already propped up on your head

It makes you feel stupid.

And that’s exactly the point.

every year the same tale, the same slogan, the same warning

the same rhetoric, the same fiery voice, the same fire

banner after banner in every corner, on every street

spouting allegiance to the flag of blood and bones

sure, you can’t forget what you don’t know

but with that stupid smartphone and that internet connection

you have no fucking excuse

the ninth moon

is here to illuminate the red sky

a bull can’t ignore red

it can only charge

but this is not the end

history is no rock

that can’t be thrown at the brittle walls of

Today

demands to remember come in waves

violent waves thrashing against each other

Remember! they said, Remember! the others said

So which one should it be??? Which one is it???

you can’t remember what you don’t know

but you can ask, you can look

into that puddle of truth and memory

and tell me what you see

go on, take a look & be on the right side of

remembrance

you know what I mean?

These crazy days

                        replace

The crazy days

                        that brought us here.