disjuncture & desire

This morning two friends forwarded me two very different articles. I read them, back to back. One was a letter by a very eloquent journalist in Sri Lanka who knew that one day he would be killed for exposing corruption and abuse. The other exposed the woeful tales of no-longer-spoiled banker girlfriends who need to vent "free from the scrutiny of feminists." It was a strange experience of disjuncture, a kind of shock therapy.

For 15 years Lasantha Wickramatunga ran a newspaper, the Sunday Leader, on the principle of speaking truth to power. He wrote a letter to be published after his murder by government-inspired assassins. It begins:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last...

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognizing the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

In hopes of a little comic relief after shedding more than a few tears, I moved on to the trials and travails of Dating A Banker in these hard times. I clicked through to the blog:

Thanks to the recession, I now have a completely devoted BF, which is exactly what I wanted. So I should be happy, right? Wrong. I’m bored and can’t stop thinking about my perpetually unattainable Euro ex-boyfriend who is recession proof courtesy of an offshore trust account. To be honest, I’m only with my BF because I just don’t have the heart to change my facebook status from “in a relationship” to “I ain’t saying I’m a gold digger, but I ain’t messin’ with no broke banker.”

We don't need to be reminded that people live in completely different worlds, including those that live a lot closer than Sri Lankans and New Yorkers. But strangely enough, after the tears-to-disbelief shock wore off, it struck me that the Sunday Leader and Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) are both engaged in unpopular truth-telling. The Sri Lankan government doesn't like to hear about the consequences of greed and shallowness. Ditto for bankers.

I don't, by the way, consider the women of DABA in need of a safe haven from feminists. What could be more "feminist" than being confident in your beauty and reminding guys in power of the fragility of their wealth and glamor? Extra points for doing so with panache and humor, if not compassion ("Next time you are stressing over some finance guy remember that he is just a math club nerd with cash..."). Safe haven from romantics and contemplatives, perhaps, but not feminists en masse.

I hesitate to juxtapose these two articles, since they ultimately speak to such disparate circumstances. But part of what I found fascinating and unsettling, my own truth be told, is that despite their distance, I connected to both. I spend most of my time trying to engage in works of conscience, though so pale in comparison to Wickramatunga's endeavors. Yet, as I confessed in a previous post, I have a weakness for Sex and the City. I'm not above wanting a pair of calf-hugging boots and a gourmet meal once in a while.

Desires are complex. Sometimes I'm tempted to squeeze them all into a single framework of what I want out of life. But then I remind myself that I'm here to muse about the human condition, contradictions and all.