in the gift shop they were playing my way

'it was 20 years ago today...' 

well actually it was twenty years ago a few days ago.

horsemouth has been avoiding various anniversaries. 

first 9/11 - horsemouth wasn't really surprised this happened. after the gulf war and palestine, after the end of the cold war when the US had won and become the presiding power on planet earth, it just looked to him like an inevitability that at some point someone would strike back at the US. there had even been an earlier attempt to blow up the twin towers (truck bomb in an underground car park).  there were escalating attacks on US ships in the gulf. 

horsemouth remembers where he was on 9/11. he'd gone into town to meet denise, they were going to write something together (about drum and bass) but by the time he got to bloomsbury she'd heard the news and was trying to phone up friends and family in new york.

horsemouth remembers visiting the twin towers when he was in NY in 1990. there was an exhibition about capitalism and trade on one of the top floors, sometimes the clouds would part and horsemouth would be able to see the ground, in the gift shop they were playing my way. further up, horsemouth later discovered, there was a disco. 

and what has happened since? the west has allowed and encouraged the arab spring which has resulted in military dictatorship in egypt, and full-scale civil wars in libya and syria, sanctions and invasions of  iraq have turned it into a sectarian hell-hole, afghanistan has fallen because after 20 years the west has decided it's not really that interested. 

horsemouth sees why disaffected people would latch on to these injustices. he just thinks that nothing can be done with them. refugees should be aided, civil rights 'sacrificed' to the war on terror should be re-instated. ultimately the 'anti-imperialist' struggles at the edges cannot be won, because the west can always impose sanctions or send drones and gunship helicopters. paradoxically horsemouth thinks only incorporation into global capitalism provides any hope of progress towards a better world and a better life for the people. 

within the empire you are 'safe'. outside the empire you are dead meat. 

similarly with 7/7 - he'd gone into work in the morning and been caught up in the transport chaos. eventually he made it back home and then he saw it on the news, he remembers texting a friend (laura) to get off the buses (she pretty much walked back from pimlico). the next day the police murdered an unarmed brazillian electrician (jean-charles de menezes) in a case of mistake identity, the officer who led that operation (cressida dick) has just been reconfirmed as head of the metropolitan police for another two years. soon after another friend was on a bus where the bomb only fizzled rather than exploded. 

occupy it's about 10 years since occupy NY. horsemouth has met people who'd been there. there are moments when people acting together successfully overcome the powerlessness of their existences, but these moments are rare and short-lived and ultimately on a much smaller scale than the evil they oppose. 

in many ways it was the antidote to horsemouth's quietism. there was a distinct uptick in the struggle after the financial crash of 2008 and the changes in higher education funding that placed a greater burden of debt upon the youth. but it took a while to come. 

and now it's a world of black lives matter, extinction rebellion and greta thunberg. horsemouth mostly stays home. (tbh he was staying home before the pandemic, probably since before even occupy) he's still in sympathy with movements that want to eradicate racism and stop us all dying in a climate crisis but his appetite for anything more radical than theoretical reflection, a march, a protest song or a bit of street theatre has pretty much dwindled. 

capitalism is throwing up windmills and solar panels (and mining the materials necessary to do this) to ensure its survival.

---------------------------------------- 

yesterday horsemouth sat in the garden and read in the sunshine. he read the ice monkey by m.john harrison which features a lot of disaffected protagonists engaged in drifting through existence (an existence which is harsh enough to remind them of its reality now and then). it straddles the divide between his science fiction and his book climbers. none of them takes up islamo-terrorism but you can imagine an m.john harrison brave enough to write about that (imagine four lions but not played for comedy). 

horsemouth is back at a moment of transition after 25 years inside the engine of work (thanks denise). the previous time he was here (after 10 years of off-on volunteering and the like in the anti-nuclear sector)  he got bored very quickly and his drinking increased. hopefully this time he will find a plan.  he's a calmer (and perhaps kinder) person (or at least he has been).