Read All About It!

          If only it were possible, when you buy a book, to purchase also the time in which to read it, there would be less of what the Japanese call tsunduku – acquiring books without reading them. Personally, I manage this tendency by compiling a wish-list rather than a pile of books, though I still have the time conundrum: I would love to read the latest novels but, having only just finished Tristram Shandy, which was hot-off-the-press in 1759, I am a bit behind. To make matters worse, I have undertaken the restoration of a folding wooden chair that I have had in my possession since 1979. It has been 40 years since I was a hands-on furniture maker and, though I have not lost the skills, I had forgotten just how time-consuming they are. So, while scraping away at the chair-legs of a revered Danish designer, I have been fretting about all the reading that awaits.  On top of this there is a sense of urgency sparked by the tide of illiberalism that is rising across the world, stifling the voices of writers.

          Still, I found half an hour (while the first coat of oil was drying) to nip to the library for a tourist guidebook for my next foray abroad. Before I made it to the travel section, however, I was distracted by flamenco music coming from the ‘performance space’ (libraries are no longer silent shrines to the written word) so I poked my nose in. “Welcome,” said a man with a lanyard. “It’s a celebration for Refugee Week. Help yourself to the buffet.” I did and, though falafel and cous-cous – at a stretch – might be associated with Andalusia, it is surely not the daily fare of the Paraguayan dancer who appeared next. I must have missed the Arab oud session. Or, maybe there wasn’t one. After all, I had recently read about how traditional forms of Arab music are on the edge of extinction, driven there by globalisation and – worse – tyrannical regimes bent on ensuring that theirs are the only versions of culture and history that should be allowed.

          The guidebook was not available but, in any case, brief contact with the refugees had cast a different light on my planned journey, leading me to try to see travelling from their point of view. What for me is a leisure activity to be enjoyed for the cultural enrichment it delivers – involving choice of destination, timing and convenience – for refugees is a necessity: a bleak, harsh and sometimes dangerous experience. Moreover, many are fleeing drought, starvation and poverty caused by environmental degradation linked to the carbon emissions of the jet planes upon which we have become so reliant. It is beyond time, therefore, to develop a conscience about flying and, while it is possible to assuage that conscience with the purchase of carbon credits as we await the arrival of electrical aircraft, it would be better to travel by train where possible. Train journeys, in any case, allow more time for that reading list.

          We can and should help refugees, but it would be better for all concerned to prevent the causes of their flight – conflict, repression, hunger – rather than just alleviate the miseries of their displacement. While we as individuals may help by choosing to live a more eco-sustainable lifestyle, many of our political leaders, the likes of Bolsonaro, Trump, Orban, Erdogan, Putin, Mohammed bin Salman and Duterte are not similarly motivated. They are supported and funded by corporations and individuals whose motive is greed for riches at any cost and their actions continue to drive a destructive, unsustainable world economy. Their success is ominous and must be reversed. Time is short, not just for reading but also for the restitution of liberal, enlightened values that can give the bulk of humanity some hope of salvation.