As often as possible, we should take breaks from watching the remarkably vivid, large-format faces and figures of the national scene.
They will stay with us at least until mid-October. And with a certain degree of fatigue and irritation, most of us think and decide a bit worse.
That’s why breaks are important, where one can detach from what’s close.
There’s an opportunity to detach in a cosmic dimension. India has landed on the Moon. Not entirely, for now, though the expression of the Indian Prime Minister promises much. Every strong, effective power in the 21st century relies to some extent on rockets (not necessarily armed). There’s no sign that power can be wielded solely based on programs and technologies that help level social differences, promote healthy behaviors, support culture and ecology. Spectacular demonstrations of strength and the limits of one’s own actions will be needed by any authority. Rather, the continuous crossing and shifting of such boundaries. This is a spectacle on the scale of proverbial games, without which mere bread delivery does not strengthen any power too much.
The face of the Indian Prime Minister gazing at the rocket is a pleasant diversion.
A wave of patriotic enthusiasm in a country of over a billion is something to watch.
Such lunar episodes, seemingly detached from reality, create informal rankings in the global race of “forward, onward!”. Soon, we too will be celebrating the presence of a Pole in space, though here it seems that a calm, unhurried reading of Gombrowicz’s “Cosmos” in the school curriculum would give Our Nation much more. Unfortunately, this is far more complicated than a trip to an orbital station.
It gets most interesting when we free ourselves from the context of political rivalry. India may undergo a deep transformation, probably taking more than just one measly century, but who knows.
But what would that mean? Literally mean. Those who can land on the Moon and send images from there usually ignore problems like the significance of the saffron color or the shade of green on the national flag. They simply don’t have time for it.
It’s different for politicians: those, jumping with enthusiasm during successful technological missions, should already be considering whether it’s possible to decide on a transformation so deep, so radical, so cosmic, that it leads to the rejection of the traditional image of the Dharma Wheel or the Ashoka Chakra that appear in the center of the Indian flag.
We still believe (we in the West, the Indians, the “black South”, and the Inuit too) that the laws of mathematics, the kind of arithmetic symbolism that describes physical movement in space and time, are the same for everyone. We still believe that direct, efficient action should be based on such symbolism. But where are its limits, since we can’t, we don’t want to give up other types of symbolism formed over millennia, which today serve for quick ethnic identification, giving a sense of belonging to a strong community.
There will be more cosmic troubles from this. Fortunately, “not her”, “not now”. Let’s rest.
