...how shameful (thinks the writer) is our invasion of Iraq: attacking and killing people with what is intended to be overwhelming force in order to keep our countries immune to attack by terrorists...
...what if Iraq, or perhaps all the Arabic or Islamic countries together, did the same to us - to protect themselves from colonialism and globalisation?
or, more likely, what if China (the United States of the 21st century*) begins pre-emptive warfare (from outer space?) against USA and Europe? It could happen in the future - how would we like it?
But suddenly he sees the future happening: China splits up, and India too, also Russia, Europe and the USA (the Spanish, French, Portugese, Austrian, Dutch, Belgian and British Empires**, and the USSR, are already gone) - and the resulting smaller states, forming ethnic or religious units, unite in global order via the UN as do the commercial corporations and the non-governmental organisations (now decentralised and democratised)...that is our future history!
but this will never happen says the crow flying over a level playing field... no it won't says the fox, running across it in the dusk...
Four hundred people fly over in a jumbojet unaware that a version of their history is being written here beneath them.
The playing field is deserted. The future is decided. The trees and other plants and animals do not react. Nor do the clouds... but they will all be affected, whatever happens.
The writer leaves and goes to a party. To celebrate everything... it is springtime in Europe.
This is (not) (what?) is happening (say the voices of doubt and reason)- but here it is, a connective moment... don't interfere... for this is poetry and colours.
4 april 2003: He climbs a hill in the dark and realises that the old states we assume, defend, attack are fictions all... and then, passing through a hole in a hedge, he finds that the states of the world are all small, united and more diverse than any one of us can imagine!
...My visit to China impressed me much (it was the first time). It is the 21st Century US (that is a very ambiguous compliment!)
**On re-reading the writer thinks of other empires that have vanished - those of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mongolia, Arabia, Japan, the Aztecs, Turkey, Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, and many he does not recall...
But is the world now post-imperial?... The word exists.
12 july 2006: what happened?
this page keeps recurring in mind and in colours... as the states of the world keep evolving, so slowly... as the climate gets warmer... while the conflicts do not lessen and the fighting does not cease...
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