Kıymetini Bil Herşeyin: Hayata Tutunma ve Direnişe Dair Notlar

by John Berger, Beril Eyüboğlu (Translator)

John Berger'ın 11 Eylül'den Irak Savaşı'na, Filistin'den Katrina felaketine, Nâzım Hikmet'ten Pasolini'ye birçok siyasal soruna ve sanatçıya ilişkin duygu ve düşüncelerini dile getirdiği yazılarından oluşan bir kitap Kıymetini Bil Herşeyin. İçtenliğini yansıtan zarif bir sadelikle kaleme aldığı bu yazılarla John Berger bizi dünyaya adil, müşfik, ama en önemlisi gören gözlerle bakmaya davet ediyor.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Politics, Art, Poetry, Philosophy, History

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

John Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a college text.

Later he was self exiled to continental Europe, living between the french Alps in summer and the suburbs of Paris in winter. Since then, his production has increased considerably, including a variety of genres, from novel to social essay, or poetry. One of the most common themes that appears on his books is the dialectics established between modernity and memory and loss,

Another of his most remarkable works has been the trilogy titled Into Their Labours, that includes the books Pig Earth (1979), Once In Europa (1983) Lilac And Flag (1990). With those books, Berger makes a meditation about the way of the peasant, that changes one poverty for another in the city. This theme is also observed in his novel King, but there his focus is more in the rural diaspora and the bitter side of the urban way of life.

Reviews

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Berger’den okuduğum 3. kitap bu, en etkileyici olanı aynı zamanda. Düşünce insanı yönü edebiyatçı tarafına ağır basıyor olsa da güçlü kalemi ile sizi kendine bağlıyor. Filistin ve İsaril ile ilgili yazdıkları çok dokunaklı, baba-oğul Bush’lar ve avaneleri hakkında yazdıkları etkileyici, Nazım Hikmet ile ilgili düşünceleri ise tanıdık. Bazı kitaplar vardır zamanlaması tam oturur, bu kitap ülkemizde ve dünyada olan bitenlerle (tabii benim ruh halimle de) zamanlama olarak “cuk” oturdu. Öneririm.
.....
sözlerin
ekmeğin
kapının ardındaki doğrulara uzanan çocuğun
İnsanların, odadaki insanların, sokaktaki insanların
kıymetini bil herşeyin...

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are seven levels of despair -- one for each day of the week -- which lead, for some of the more courageous, to the revelation that to offer one's life in contesting the forces which have pushed the world to where it is, is the only way of invoking an all, which is larger than that of the despair."

[Katie]

I think, though I'm probably wrong, this is a mediation on freedom. It's the more lucid and realistic novel I've read of Berger's (though I've only read one other , which is probably my favorite book ever). His landscape isn't much sullied, or gloified, by the unconcious. This is how the realist poet should write; it attempts to understand the sadness and sometimes desperate empathy people usually keep hidden without talking about it directly. Isn't that the job of a minimalist, mostly because it so accurately reflects real life? How do we bring to the forefront real change, or should we? Berger aptly states, "Survival is the worst part of the human condition." Is fear the only thing catapulting us toward change? Is freedom any good if we are always afraid?

Someone please tell me because I'm still searching for answers to Berger's questions.

[Justine Paradis · Rating 5 out of 5]

how to survive "the state of emergency in which we must live" (Benjamin)?

resist not seeing, every consciousness is an open door
ordinary people are trying to live -- undefeated despair
trauma does not die, trauma is inheritance - Israel, Palestine, the wealth that is olive oil from an ancient tree, cut down by a bored soldier
fear is obvious and stupid, it is walls and institutions and armament
love, the self-disappearance in the timelessness of your arms
forest in-between times
let the dead speak to you, remember that you are already amongst their number

[alper]

John Berger’i bir kez daha takdir ettim, gözümdeki yeri daha da büyüdü! Gazze, Batı Şeria, Ramallah; Filistin meselesini dert edinmiş kendine. Irak işgali, 11 Eylül, Londra saldırısına bir “Küresel İktidar” okuması yapmamış. “Mekanla İlgili Notlar” yazısına “Hala marksist misin? diye soruyorlar” diye başlıyor. Yazıların geneli de dünya görüşünü yansıtıyor.

2000'lerin başından itibaren ele aldığı yazılarda Berger tarihin yeniden yeniden iktidar erklerinin elinde değiştirilerek yazılmasının da önüne geçmeyi çabalamış. "Post Truth" çağının öncüsü niteliğinde. Ben bir tık öteye gitmesini bekleyip durdum kitap boyunca. Anlattıkları çok da uzak olmadığımız konular çünkü. Bilmiyorum haksızlık mı yaptım? Son yazıda serzenişlerime de cevap veriyor daha fazla dayanamayıp herhald: “Son duraaaak!”. (Belki de durağı kaçırdım? Sıkılınca konsantrasyonum bozuluyor, olabilir.)

Alexandra bahçede oturuken yüzüne bakıyorum yeniden; aklıma Anton Çehov’un bir cümlesi geliyor, o da doktordu. “Yazarın rolü bir meseleyi hakikate en uygun şekilde tasvir etmektir… öyle ki okur onu asla görmezden gelemesin.” Bu anlamda bizler, siyaset mekanizmalarının silmeye çalıştığı yaşanmış tarihi tecrübelerimizin hem okuru hem de yazarı olmak zorundayız bugün… Bunu başarmak elimizdedir. (135)

Anladığım & anlamadığım kadarıyla biraz canınızı sıkacağım affola:

Kitabı artan gelir adaletsizliğini, yaygınlaşan toplumsal eşitsizliği merkeze alarak kurulan siyasi yazılar olarak değerlendirdim genel olarak. Sınıflar giderek çok zengin ve çok yoksul olarak ayrışmakta. İşlerin bu şekilde gitmediği, gitmeyeceği ("acak" / "ecek"leri ben yumurtladım ona göre🙈) çok açık. Başımıza gelen ve gelecek olan her türlü bela bu sebepten. Konuya mitolojik manalar yüklediğim sanılmasın, hem sınırlar hiç olmasın, her yerde olalım, her yeri sömürelim, herkesi sömürelim deyip; insanları yaşamaya mahkum ettiğiniz açlığın, sefaletin, hastalıkların, terörün tüm bu pisliğin üzerinize sıçramamasını beklemeyin.

Günümüz dünyası modern yoksulluğun bir başka türünü yaşıyor. Sayıları belirtmeye gerek yok; zaten yaygın şekilde biliniyorlar, tekrarlamak bir istatistik duvarı daha örmekten başka işe yaramaz. Dünya nüfüsunun yarısından fazlası günde 2 dolardan az bir parayla geçinmek zorunda…(90)

"Duvar Çağı, Berlin Duvarı yıkılınca, her yerde duvarlar inşa etmek için hazırlanmış birtakım planlar ortaya döküldü. Betondan, bürokratik, ırkçı duvarlar, gözaltında tutma ve güvenlik duvarları" (85)

Duvar Çağı tarzı bir yaklaşım belirli bir zümreyi de bir yere kadar koruyabilmekte. Evet olan yine yoksula oluyor, geçim sıkıntısı çekene oluyor ama saydığım sayamadığım sebeplerden bu çamurdan herkes nasibini alıyor & alacak. Sınırlı hayal gücümle başımıza gelecek yeni felaketleri öngöremiyorum şimdi. Bu “ah” bu küre üzerinde yaşayan hepimizin üzerinde.

"Kıymetini bilin her şeyin- Hayata dair ve direnişe dair notlar" yordu beni. Bu konularda direnç kazanma olabilir mi bilemedim. Kafayı kuma gömme, yadsıma, duyarsızlaşmayla, kanıksama, dışındaki seçeneklerde; üzerine eğildikçe, duyarlılığınız arttıkça hayatın acımasızlığı, insanların çaresizliği içinizi parçalıyor, lime lime ediyor. Bilemiyorum… Kitaptan hiçbir şey anlamamış olabilirim.

Bu yeni tiranın vaazlarını dinlemeyi reddetmeliyiz. Safsatadan ibaret söyledikleri. Sonu gelmeyen tekrarlarla dolu konuşmalarda, açıklamalarda, basın bildirilerinde ve tehditlerde yer alan başlıca terimler: Demokrasi, Adalet, İnsan Hakları, Terörizm. Bu bağlamda kullanılan sözcüklerin her biri bir zamanlar ifade edilenin tam zıddını temsil ediyor.

Ben kendi aramızda hepimize ulaşması dileğiyle birkaç sözcük daha tuşlamak istiyorum: KÜRESEL İKTİDAR BU KARA CAHİLLERİN HİSSİZ ELLERİNDE DAHA NE KADAR KALACAK? (s.104, yıl 2005)

Not: Lafı getiremedim ama kitapta bir de Nazım'a mektup var. "Söylesem sevdamı yumuşacık, Ocak 2002" 🤗

Nazım'ın şiirlerini ilk keşfettiğimde beni en çok çarpan şiirlerin yarattığı enginlik duygusuydu... Bu alanı tasvir etmiyor, onu kat ediyor, dağları aşıyordu şiirler...(35)

[Frank Karioris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beauty of the written is matched only by the pain of what is written.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s funny, this was first published in 2007, but in a lot of ways it feels like it could just as easily have been written in the last year or so. Berger brings together poetry, political commentary and personal travel narratives in this moving collection. He focuses in particular on Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq but in some essays (“Wanting Now”, “Seven Levels is Despair” and “Another Side of Desire” stood out especially to me) he zooms out and delves into different aspects of human life that many if not most readers can relate to, tying these into an impassioned critique on unnecessary suffering caused by interventionist foreign policy. Not a very light read but definitely a worthwhile one.

[Ferda Nihat Koksoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

-Dünyada küresel bir “İKTİSADİ-ASKERİ TİRANLIK” düzeneği işlemektedir.

-Berlin Duvarı’nın yıkılması sonrasında, yoksullarla aralarına beton duvarlar, etnik/dinsel duvarlar ve polis duvarları ören ZENGİNLERİN PERVASIZLIĞI, dünyada kol gezmektedir.

-TERÖR yoksulların savaşı, SAVAŞ ise zenginlerin TERÖRÜDÜR.

-ADALETE özlem olmadıkça MUTLULUK kurulamaz.

-Çok Uluslu Şirketler, KÂR engellerine karşı CİHAT ilan ederler.

-PARA, giderek ZİHİNSEL-BEDENSEL- TOPLUMSAL etkinlikten kopmaktadır.

-SAVAŞ, AÇLIK VE SOYKIRIM, her zamankinden daha YAKIN.

-Muktedirler HİKAYE ANLATAMAZLAR; sadece BÖBÜRLENEBİLİRLER. Hikâye ise KRALDAN GÜÇLÜ VE KALICIDIR.

[Meric Aksu · Rating 5 out of 5]

...
sözlerin
ekmeğin
kapının ardındaki doğrulara uzanan çocuğun
dünya meclisinde coşkulu hayvanların
yeniden birlikte başlama özleminin
insanların, odadaki insanların, sokaktaki insanların
kıymetini bil herşeyin diyen Gareth Evans'ın nefis şiiriyle başlıyor başka şeylerin yanı sıra hala Marksistim diyen John Berger'in anlatısı. Bir yandan değişen dünyaya ayak uydururken diğer yandan da tarihi önemsemeyi, ona katkıda bulunmayı ve böylece ona ait olmayı seçmiş olanlarla, tarihten söz etmeye cesareti olmayan, pusulasız politikacılar var kitapta. Gönül yarası olmazsa olmazı olan arzu var her satırında. Eşeklerinkiyle kıyaslandığında tedirgin bacaklı atlar, Ahlam Shibli ve İzsürücüler, Jitka Hanzlova ve Orman, "kervan yayılmamalı, yoksa her kol kendi önündekini görmekte güçlük çeker" diyen Frantz Fanon, uzun ve meşakkatli yolculuklarda, başkalarının ne denli alçalabileceğine bizzat tanıklık eden mülteciler, işgalciler ve Mahmud Derviş, adalete duyulan özlem ve Pasolini, köylülerin çilekeş yüzüne sahip Filistinli yaşlıca bir adamın anlattığı ölümün yaklaştığını hisseden tavuğun ölene kadar delicesine yumurtlama hikayesi ve de ömrünce komünist Nazım Hikmet var bir bölümünde de en anlamlı dizeleriyle birlikte-daha erken gidemediği en güzel denize layıkıyla kavuşmuş, en güzel günlerini en nihayet yaşamakta olan.

"Bu gece uyanmadan önce parmağını usulca onun saç diplerinde gezdir." J.B.
"Ta uzaktan canavar düdüklerinin sesi geliyor. Korkma, kollarımdayken bir şeycikler olmaz sana." J.B.

[Robert Isenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd little volume -- essays, prose-poems, modest reportage, you name it, all signifying the end of freedom and justice. For years, I have treasured my edition of "Ways of Seeing," which was such an essential introduction to art and its social context. Berger reminds me of Chatwin, the way he combines an appreciation for art with anthropological curiosity and gutsy travel to dangerous lands. But "Hold Everything Dear" is particularly scattered; he leapfrogs from topic to topic, place to place; first he's talking about the walls (metaphorical and real) that confine the Palestinians; suddenly he's sitting in his rural French home, pondering the beauty of a quartet of nearby ponies. The book ends with "Two Women Photographers," a chapter of art criticism that is only tangentially related to the earlier chapters. Spanning only 150 pages, "Hold" spits and garbles like a cantankerous grandfather; there's no doubt that grandpa's an intellectual, but he's getting a little too bitter, even a little too foggy, to express his great ideas. And between the great ideas, there's a lot of bellyaching, and that doesn't do anybody any good.

[Polly Jirkovsky]

A poet translates the newspaper, taking the imediate explosions and sifting through them to find terrible urgent beauty. The book begins with an invocation to the dead, and they remain present throught the journey to fear, despair and desire. After examining the terrible kinds of survival that is to left to people who have lost everything and still live, Berger brings us to desire and its ability to create another world, a chance for something to work right, to give a reprieve from pain, even if just for a moment. Art, of course, is present, as endurance, as witness and as creation. Berger has successfully added a depth and weight to discussions of our current times.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Survival is the worst part of the human condition”. Poetic yet extremely lucid short essays on survival, empathy and humanity this book was written post 9/11 but resonated strongly during the time of corona. Highly recommend.

[lilac · Rating 4 out of 5]

“it was as if she were alone in the world, free from happiness and sorrow, and she wanted to dance a little, right away, to listen to music, to hold hands with other people ”

[Nils Jepson · Rating 5 out of 5]

berger writes in sentences, and not paragraphs, and sometimes that can be a lot. each sentence kinda pounces on you, as if out of nowhere, and it can get frustrating. i was taught to write and read, in essays especially, looking for the thesis and the evidence. the thesis can be one sentence, or two or three sure, but the majority of the argument is usually evidence. you make points but 90% of that writing is building points.

berger goes straight for the thesis. fuck the stats. fuck fluff. fuck anything besides pure honesty and truth. and fluff isn't truth; it's filler and word count and, to berger, wholly unneccessary. i don't think we're used to reading this way or, at least, i wasn't. i'm a big fluffer. i like to elongate points because i'm paranoid and don't trust the reader or even myself. berger trusts us. it's a bit of a burden, his trust. he trusts us to take our time and read each sentence and, somehow, take things from each sentence. he trusts our attention or, better yet, he's busy training our attention. each sentence in this little little big book is a point so big, so cutting, so kind that each sentence leaves you taken aback. we're not used to truth like this. we're not used to the kindness, and brutality, of ber ger's truth. words for berger hold power and agency and, if not sanctity, then autonomy. he values words more than i do. he sees the long haul; the stories that must be told, not as acts of resilience even if they accidentally become that, but as acts of survival. and how survival becomes rebellion. words are not weapons, for berger, although they are monsters. whose closet are they hiding in? not yours or mine? probably bush's and tillerson's and modi's and barr's? probably in the janitors closet of Amazon, although the janitor doesn't fear the monster. bezos does. he knows the words, the stories, contain his demise. he knows the act of hope, forced hope, and decency spells out his and Amazon's end. he fears us and he fears death. he spends no time imagining his workers, or even many of his consumers. to imagine is to feel and to feel would burn Amazon to the ground.

berger's interest lies in walls. how we construct real walls, of course, slowly infringing on Palestine, leaving only stones and groves for protection, or seawalls lining the golf, but mental walls constructed around neighborhoods, workplaces and corporate interests. walls dictating who not only depends on who but whose imaginations are allowed and who refuses to engage. walls that separate a cruel, easy world for you and me, and a brave, violent world for others. berger doesn't force a choice on us. he knows his readers. but he does give space to the other side of the wall and the people there, every day, surviving. We fear their survival. It means a decent world and our demise.

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Within minutes of starting this, I was very strongly reminded of Rebecca Solnit's Hope In The Dark. Berger actually mentions this in the last essay. So if you liked that book, I reckon you'll like this.

I have some ... Questions, I guess, about Berger and his, for lack of a better word, 'authenticity', a strange feeling about how easily he takes on the voice of 'peasant' or poor. but mostly, I enjoyed this for good political empathetic arts-tangental writing.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essays. A radical view of the world post 9/11. Extremely intelligent and thought provoking. A very good look at life on the ground in Palestine - disturbing to say the least, with a lot more detail than any of us get from the newspapers. The essay, "Stones," the longest in the book, is worth the price of admission.

Should piss a lot of people off.

[Ana Rita Mateus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A set of insightful essays that range from reflections on time, capitalism and how geopolitics is driven by power struggles and corporations interests and, of course, art. And even before walls were so commonly discussed as inhumane separations between people, Berger sees, analyses and foresees them clearly. All beautifully written.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 stars; this little volume is all over the place, some interesting observations but overall this felt like a grandfather rambling on about his dearly held convictions on life and freedom; do check out the author’s best known (and worth your time) work; ‘ways of seeing’.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humans live in two time-scales at once -- the biological timescale of their bodies and the timescale of their consciousness.

Gorgeous.

[Alex Fallis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, thoughtful, heartbreaking essays. Berger always gets me thinking in new ways.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Democracy is a proposal ... about decision making; it has little to do with election campaigns. Its promise is that political decisions be made after, and in the light of, consultation with the governed. This is dependent upon the governed being adequately informed about the issues in question, and upon the decision-makers having the capacity and will to listen and take account of what they have heard. Democracy should not be confused with the "freedom" of binary choices, the publication of opinion polls or the crowding of people into statistics. These are its pretences.
– "Where Are We?"

The term "US interests" can lead to confusion here. It does not refer to the direct interest of US citizens, whether poor or well-off, but to the interests of the most extensive multinational corporation, often dominated by US capital, and now, when necessary, defrended by US armed forces.
– "Let Us Think About Fear"

The Israeli government claims that they are obliged to take these measures to combat terrorism. The claim is a feint. The true aim of the stranglehold is to destroy the indigenous populations’ sense of temporal and spatial continuity so that they either leave or become indentured servants. And it’s here that the dead help the living to resist. It’s here that men and women make their decision to become martyrs. The stranglehold inspires the terrorism it purports to be fighting.
– “Stone”

The film lasts only an hour, an hour that was fashioned, measured, edited forty years ago. And it is in such contrast to the news commentaries we watch and the information fed to us now, that when the hour is over, you tell yourself that it is not only animal and plant species which are being destroyed or made extinct today, but also set after set of our human priorities. The latter are systematically sprayed, not with pesticides, but with ethicides – agents that kill ethics and therefore any notion of history and justice.

Particularly targeted are those of our priorities which have evolved from the human need for sharing, bequeathing, consoling, mourning and hoping. And the ethicides are sprayed day and night by the mass news media.

The ethicides are perhaps less effective, less speedy than the controllers hoped, but they have succeeded in burying and covering up the imaginative space that any central public forum represents and requires…. And on the wasteland of the covered-over forums … Pasolini joins us with his Rabbia, and his enduring example of how to carry the chorus in our heads.
– “The Chorus in Our Heads”

Has not the world always been pitiless? Today’s pitilessness is perhaps more unremitting, pervasive and continuous. It spares neither the planet itself nor anyone living on it anywhere. Abstract because deriving from the sole logic of the pursuit of profit…, it threatens to make obsolete all other sets of belief, along with their traditions of facing the cruelty of life with dignity and some flashes of hope.
– “A Master of Pitilessness”

The multitudes have answers to questions which have not yet been posed, and they have the capacity to outlive the walls.

The questions are not yet asked because to do so requires words and concepts which ring true, and those currently being used to name events have been rendered meaningless: Democracy, Liberty, Productivity, etc.

With new concepts the questions will soon be posed, for history involves precisely such a process of questioning. Soon? Within a generation.
– “Ten Dispatches About Endurance”

Recommended.

[Zuhal Aksulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Duru ve samimi üslubuyla yürekleri fetheden bir Berger klasiği... Gündeme ve günlük hayata dair, insanlığın çektiği acılara, Filistin, Lübnan, Irak, Afganistan gibi tüm dünyanın üç maymunu oynayarak müsaade ettiği insanlık ayıplarına bir sanatçı dokunuşu ile naif ve ince yorumlar. Keyifli ve bir o kadar dokunaklı okuma.

Her arzu özgürlüğe yol açmaz, ama özgürlük bir arzunun ta­nınması, seçilmesi ve peşine düşülmesi yolunda bir deneyimdir. Arzu sadece bir şeyi elde etmekle sınırlı olmayıp, bir şeylerin de­ğişme sürecini de kapsar. Arzu bir eksiklikten kaynaklanır. Şu an­daki bir eksiklikten. Özgürlük bu eksikliğin tatminini içermez ama önemini teslim eder. (s.16)

Ümit dişlerin arasındayken yorgunluk vız gelir, ihtiyacın olduğunda direnme gücü bulursun; bu gün sayesinde olmadık yerde bağırılmayacağını, asla yakarmamak gerektiğini bilirsin. (s.41)



Günümüz dünyasında halihazırda yaşanan ıstırapla ilgili hiç değilse bir çift söz söylemek istiyorum.

Gezegenimizde aşırı güçlenen ve saldırganlaşan tüketim ideolojisi, bizi bu ıstırabın geçici olduğuna ve kendimizi ondan koruyabileceğimize inandırmaya çalışıyor. İdeolojinin merhametsizliğinin mantıksal temeli bu.

Istırabın hayatın bir parçası olduğu herkesin malumudur ve insanlar bunu unutmak ya da kendilerine göre bir açıklamada bulunmak ihtiyacındadır. Cennet'ten, ıstırap nedir bilinmeyen bu yerden Kovulma efsanesinin birbirinden değişik anlatıları, yeryüzünde yaşanan acılara bir kılıf bulma çabası olarak açıklanabilir ancak. Komşu Cehennem Krallığı'nın icat edilmesi de bu yüzdendir; acı çektirerek cezalandırma krallığı. Fedakârlık da aynı mantıkla keşfedilmiştir. Sonra, çok daha sonra Bağışlama ilkesi devreye girer. Felsefenin doğmasına ise, "Neden ıstırap çekilir?" sorusunun yol açtığı iddia edilebilir. (s.43)

[Frabe · Rating 5 out of 5]

In questi anni difficili, quella di Berger è una delle voci che “parlano chiaro, non per mettere fine a una discussione, ma perché sarebbe vergognoso, vista la durata dell’esperienza e della sofferenza umane, se quello che avevano da dire non fosse detto”. Partendo dai fatti più rilevanti della storia recente e dalle dinamiche sottese, Berger denuncia la violenza del potere, quella palese e quella subdola, ponendosi al fianco degli oppressi e tentando di stimolare i distratti ad una maggior attenzione per quel che accade e a fare la propria parte. Per essere dentro la storia che viviamo, insiste Berger, dobbiamo “aver cara ogni cosa” e dunque prendercene cura. Ci sono troppi muri che dividono gli uomini, ma ognuno ne ha pure uno dentro, che impone la scelta più decisiva: “tra rispetto di sé e caos di sé”.

[Soo-Min · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading this at the end of 2025 during a week where the Australian govt has decided to declare what feels like their own version of post-9/11 “war on terror” (restricting pro-Palestine voices and really any form of protest culture- witnessing the terrifying rise of authoritarianism and conservatism and individualism). I’m reading this nearly two decades after it was first published and I mourn- I mourn so deeply, so calcified in my bones I cannot even name it as mourning yet. This is the kind of book where I might reread it every year for two decades and still find a new refraction of light to guide me through darkness. The kind of book where the gasp catches in your throat and burns there like an ember.

i despair that the occupation in Palestine continues and has become even more draconian and inhumane since 2007. I despair that the imbalance of power now is even more skewed, more insidious than ever before.
And yet as Berger reminds us, defeat and despair can sharpen us. As he reminds us, it’s precisely at these times of despair that we must unflinchingly and unwaveringly hold everything dear: with gratitude and most of all, fury.

[Sevim Ekren · Rating 5 out of 5]

ağacın oldum olası tohum diye bildiği şeye dönüşen belleğin
sözlerin
ekmeğin
...
yeniden birlikte başlama özleminin
insanların, odadaki insanların, sokaktaki insanların

kıymetini bil her şeyin
GARETH EVANS

[Alba · Rating 4 out of 5]

El desig es una combinació de llàstima i voracitat; proporcions a banda, ambdós formen l’enfilall. El desig sense ferida es inconcebible. En aquest món, algú sense ferides viuria sense desig.

[katryna · Rating 5 out of 5]

perfect

[Justin Labelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walls, War and Unwarranted Westernization...
Berger's Hold Everything Dear is a wonderful collection of essays and carefully collected thoughts about a specific time and place, namely, a post 9/11 America.
Throughout these essays, Berger discusses the Iraq war in depth and brings about many acute and ultimately piercing critiques of war and the human toll of lies and propaganda.
A particular essay about walls and their negative impact on day to day life is just as important and true as it was 15 years ago.
Strongly recommended though a little research into particular names may be necessary for some younger readers.
Bold and perceptive, a deeply moving book.

'The present period of history is one of the wall. When the Berlin one fell, the prepared plans to build walls everywhere unrolled. Concrete, bureaucratic, surveillance, security, racist walls. Everywhere the walls separate the desperate poor from those who hope against hope to stay relatively rich."
September 27, 2018 – page 88

'The walls cross every sphere, from crop cultivation to health care. They exist too in the richest metropolises of the world. The wall is the front line of what, long ago was called the Class War.'

'The choice of meaning in the world today is here between the two sides of the wall. The wall is also inside each one of us. Whatever our circumstances, we can choose within ourselves which side of the wall we are attuned to. It is not a wall between good and evil. Both exist on both sides. The choice is between self-respect and self-chaos'

[Bob Connors · Rating 3 out of 5]

Berger's introspection, as I have come to expect, is spot on. His writing is sure of itself; comfortable enough, and I think this is key, to avoid hysterical realism and leave the text room to breathe.

I take issue with this wonderful little book only insofar as his politics are, at times, not quite so sophisticated: "Many fear that before long, US military forces will be launching the 'preventive' war against Iraq so that the US oil corporations can lay their hands on further and supposedly safer oil supplies." Griping that the US gave "blood for oil" looks great on a roadside sign; I know, I've been holding them. But the disastrous simplification , which, fortunately or not, does not begin to explore the multitudinous financial tendrils snaking through that country, has no place in an otherwise serious study of terrorism.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this collection of essays written post-9/11, Berger again manages to lucidly describe the world and relationships around us. Easy to pick up after being put down for a while, Berger's prose continued to give me pause.