Editorial Note - Issue 11

Ihadn’t reserved enough energy to continue the fight once the battle was over. I had presumed my tattered body would be lying vanquished on the floor. But no, here I sit at the table once more. Good god, I thought I was free. My master plan of retreating to the countryside to pen my masters has failed spectacularly.

It was brilliant to see so many writers gathering together to listen and discuss ideas, writers actually showing an interest in global affairs. To be honest I thought the only thing that would save my neck was the old enemy, that most wretched of afflictions, apathy itself. I thought that apathy would prevent anybody from caring for the other. Over two hundred of you turned up to have your say. This was delightfully encouraging to see. It was good to be able to listen to you and take on board your criticisms and support. Thanks for that.

What I need are your contributions though. I still need you to come forward and contribute, come and represent yourselves in the pages of your magazine. Review a book, a film or write a gargantuan volume of material on why your favourite colour is a favourite. Write an opinion piece, or review a gig you went to recently. You could also engage in some serious reporting or social commentary. Get in touch if you want direction.

Bollocks.

Can we get back to dismantling the institution we are embedded in and dissecting the elements of the bureaucratic hypocrisy that surround us? The environment we find ourselves in is one dominated by administration rather than academia. A place where the art of management trumps the art of learning. The neoliberal way of thinking that reduces us to mere components of a machine that deals only in ‘real’ measurable outcomes, quantifiable commodities in the financial marketplace, dehumanises us and makes a mockery of the basic composition of thought itself.

The system is schizophrenic (in the Deleuzian sense); it loves us and hates us at the same time. Can we keep talking about these things? We are just now beginning to identify the interests of this institution as being constituted in a sinister tryst with the financial institutions that sponsor our education. This makes our education, our ‘social good’ a commercialising project that saps any potential for real freedom and progression in our thought and studies. Mainstream publishing act in a way that takes power away from the ever increasing writer community. They perform this task under the guise of de-centralisation but it only serves to centralise power around the demands of capital, a financial market that ravages all else in the pursuit of profit.

What does this mean for creativity? The generic, sterile and pointless are promoted and celebrated. Paradoxically, the architecture within which we are encouraged to think has been purposefully designed to limit our thinking. The structure of the education itself violates us all. After all, how long can we go on with the worldly-wise axiom of “adjust a little”? How much is too much?

It is up to us to keep the ground fertile. We have all been colonised by capital and a mentality that reduces us to pseudo-individuals looking for an occasional eureka. How do we liberate ourselves? We look, we see, we discuss, we act. We need to re-invigorate the community of the university. We need to work with each other, writers, editors, illustrators and publishers. We need to re-imagine and work on possibilities.

The world we are inheriting is disastrous; we can not afford to continue business as usual. Institutions have not prepared us well for the world. It is not up to us to merely innovate, it is up to us to invent. We must be fundamentally transformative.

They are littered with colonial monoliths that pay tribute to our oppressive colonial past and are testament to the continued colonisation of our imaginations.

We must challenge the entire architecture of our worlds. We must raise our voice and strive to be heard. In any way we can.

 

Nikhil Sharda
Managing Editor