Ece Temelkuran 2

Together : 10 choices for a better now
4th Estate, 199 pagina's - € 17,50 

De Nederlandse vertaling is nog niet verschenen

Wikipedia: Ece Temelkuran (1973)

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In 2020 protest movements across the world revealed the inequalities sewn into the fabric of society. The wildfires that ravaged Australia and California made it clear we are in the middle of a climate catastrophe. The pandemic showed us all just how precarious our economies really are, and the conspiracy theories surrounding the US election proved the same of our democracies. Those in charge do not have the answers. In fact, those in charge, more often that not, are the problem.

So, what do we do? In Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now, award-winning political commentator Ece Temelkuran puts forward a compelling new narrative for our current moment, not for some idealised future but for right now, and asks us to make a choice. To choose determination over hope; to embrace fear rather the cold comfort of ignorance; to save our energy for an unwavering attention on those in power and the destructive systems they uphold, rather than wasting time spewing out anger and outrage online.

Above all, this book asks you to choose to have faith in the other human beings we share this planet with.

Fragment uit Choose to be together
Many think that there are an endless variety of problems and that each of them calls for different solutions. But living in the age of differences, and overstating those differences, keeps blurring the fact: by now enough of us have learned what choking is. Isn't it clear enough that we are all negotiating with the system for a single breath?
  I am looking for irrefutable words so that we can gather around them, and stand together during this negotiation with our times. The word democracy does not do the trick, and demanding human rights does not invigorate the masses as it used to do. Thus, I prefer to choose dignity
  We need words that are too close to the human heart to be alienatied in our hazardous communication sphere, words that cannot be torn apart by political polarisation. These words must be as indispensable as breathing, and they must mean the same thing in every language. They must be words that we can walk behind together, as naturally and effortlessly as when asking for our right to breathe. And if and when we are put down, we will know clearly that our right to breathe has been denied. Only then, when the confrontation becomes clear, can we move on to the big words that evoke blood and pain.
  Together, both as a word as the titel of this book, is a political proposal as well as a moral one. What I see in the world today is that the conventional political institutions are too damaged to offer a solution to the political challenges we are facing. Both national en international institutions have lost the last residue of their prestige, not to mention their already problematic moral high ground. Whatever we have witnessed as a positive political event in the recent decades has come from new political organisms, movements developing around the old ones or outside them. We all know that these political movements have not sufficed to cure the system. However, they all have changed our perception of the world and ourselves. They have created new moral and political triangulation points to help us sense a new direction in history. They have neither been as decisive as penicillin nor as invasive as surgery. They have rather operated like antibodies, helping us to at least survive the disease so far. What is true of all these political events is that they happened when we came together.
  Together, therefore, is the only word that might be dangerous that I am choosing to include as an ingredient in this new polotical and moral antibody. However, my choice is to no avail unless yours is the same. For it is, perhaps surprisingly, at moments when the word seems at its most dangerous, that coming together feels most inevitable. (pagina 190-191)

Draadje van de Engelse editie (juni 2021)

Lees ook: Verloren land : de zeven stappen van democratie naar dictatuur (uit 2019)

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