algebra of infinite justice

here's something i thought i would share. i remember reading this in an email that floated around shortly after 9/11 when i was in camerooon... can't remember exactly when, though. it's Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things, on the events of september 11th... in an article in the Guardian entitled The Algebra of Infinite Justice.

it's not short-short (~4000 words) but really worth reading... or re-reading now, in hindsight. a lot of what she writes i also find in my journals. but in a much more refined and tempered way. i need to admit here that i've been editing much of my entries in response to 9/11. there's bitterness and anger in there that i don't like reading/sharing, even if i know why it was there.

more than that, though... there's also less of a sense of oneness amongst all people (especially b/w my american and muslim sides) than i now feel and live. it's as if i buy into Bush and bin Laden's "us versus them" rhetoric... even though i saw myself on neither of their sides, so to speak. and, as roy points out in the article, i often see them both on the same side.

what i'd like to end with is where i'm at now... which is closer – though certainly not fully there yet – to not seeing sides. not Arab or American or African... nor Christian or Muslim or "Animist"... not even Human or Animate or Inanimate... just being. existing. i won't say much more... just thankful that my 2 years in cameroon got me a little closer to this. a little.