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A review by drifterontherun
The Age of Skin by Dubravka Ugrešić
4.0
You may have noticed that nationalism has been on the rise for the last few years, resulting in the election of absolute morons from sea to shining sea.
But there's something funny about nationalism — it's idiotic. Ditto nationalism's more socially acceptable, though no less inane, cousin, patriotism. It seems that many — the MAGA crowd comes to mind — don't quite understand that you don't choose where you're born. One key difference between the 'Merica worshipping, gun toting crowd of Trump harpies and the illegal alien doing odd jobs to feed his or her family is luck. Luck and, for the immigrant, will and determination. While I was born here, others had to actively choose to come here, many risking life and limb in order to do so.
George Bernard Shaw put it best when he said, "Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it."
I think about this when certain Americans scream at athletes from the comfort of their couch for kneeling during the national anthem, or when, faced with protesters who believe that healthcare is a universal right and that not just anyone should have access to a gun, the same crowd furiously spews, "This is America. Love it or leave it."
Having pride in your country's accomplishments is similarly bizarre. When you read about the great deeds done by Americans, English, Irish, etc etc, before you were born, does your chest swell with pride?
"I'm proud to be a/an (insert nationality here)" — OK, but why? What part did you play in whatever there is to be proud about? More so, if you take pride in the great things you had no hand in, don't you also have to accept some shame for the bad things that have happened in your country too?
It seems that, in America anyway, Republicans often say that the bad wasn't that bad while simultaneously exaggerating the good. "Celebrate America's Independence Day and pat yourself on the back for being such a patriotic American, and yeah, maybe there was a bit of slavery and a few Native Americans that got massacred along the way, but look at all the happy black people and Native Americans here now!"
Many Democrats, ironically, are on the exact opposite page. "There's little to be proud of, and think how much there is to be ashamed of. Antiracism needs to be taught at an early age in every school so that our children don't grow up merely to be colorblind, because that would be bad, but to understand that if they're white, they're privileged, and if they're black, brown, gay, or transgender, they're victims."
What good does any of that do? How about we do away with this whole nationalistic fever dream, as well as the liberal victimization, and simply highlight the importance of personal responsibility? You're born into this world equal, neither better nor worse than anyone else, regardless of birthplace, race, gender, etc, and you go from there.
All of that is my roundabout way of getting to this essay collection by the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić, the second of hers I've read this year, after "American Fictionary."
Ugrešić reminds me of a Balkan version of Christopher Hitchens in some ways, and her writing has the same delightful contrariness about it. Like Hitchens, she doesn't shy away from greeting society's sacred cows with a sledgehammer.
But she is very much her own person, and both her gender and her nationality figure heavily in these essays. Whether she's writing on misogyny (like in her essay "L'ecriture Masculine") or the Balkan War (which she references in the majority of these essays), she is always ruthlessly direct when exposing humanity's hypocrisies and absurdities.
Nowhere does this come through clearer than on the topic of nationalism, something Ugrešić would know a bit about given where she originally comes from. One of these essays, "The Scold's Bridle," concerns flag desecration. In many countries, this is a severe crime, and Ugrešić notes that in Croatia, for example, the penalty for desecrating the flag is three years in prison.
In this very same country, which, if you recall, is a member of the European Union, the penalty for rape that results "in the death of the raped person, or serious physical harm, or the person's health is gravely compromised, or the raped female person was thereupon impregnated, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to no less than three years in prison."
Three years. "According to Croatian law," Ugrešić adds, "the perpetrator is to be sentenced for 'desecrating a woman's honor,' (to use the patriarchal phrase) for just as long as one would for desecrating the Croatian flag."
Croatia is not alone in having strict penalties for "flag desecration," either. In France, desecrating the flag will get you five or six months in prison, in Austria, six months, in Turkey and Romania, three years, and in Germany as much as five years.
In Denmark, on the contrary, there's no penalty for desecrating the Danish flag, but desecrating the flags of other countries can get you into serious trouble.
The people of the Faroe Islands, meanwhile, rightly believe that "it is not possible ... to desecrate their flag with words or deeds."
There are less serious subjects that draw Ugrešić's ire here as well, one of which is the 2016 film "La La Land." Ugrešić bemoans the fact that "to stand up and declare in public that La La Land is a bad movie is tantamount to social isolation, another form of suicide."
For the record, I really liked "La La Land," but more than one or two people expressed to me their dislike of it, and I did not socially isolate them for it, but perhaps Ugrešić and I hang in different social circles (although let it be known that I'll vehemently argue with any who speak badly about "Love, Actually").
Ugrešić's anger and frustration over these things, her cynicism, are endearing and make "The Age of Skin" a blisteringly good read.
While occasionally a dark education, it's also a lot of fun.
But there's something funny about nationalism — it's idiotic. Ditto nationalism's more socially acceptable, though no less inane, cousin, patriotism. It seems that many — the MAGA crowd comes to mind — don't quite understand that you don't choose where you're born. One key difference between the 'Merica worshipping, gun toting crowd of Trump harpies and the illegal alien doing odd jobs to feed his or her family is luck. Luck and, for the immigrant, will and determination. While I was born here, others had to actively choose to come here, many risking life and limb in order to do so.
George Bernard Shaw put it best when he said, "Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it."
I think about this when certain Americans scream at athletes from the comfort of their couch for kneeling during the national anthem, or when, faced with protesters who believe that healthcare is a universal right and that not just anyone should have access to a gun, the same crowd furiously spews, "This is America. Love it or leave it."
Having pride in your country's accomplishments is similarly bizarre. When you read about the great deeds done by Americans, English, Irish, etc etc, before you were born, does your chest swell with pride?
"I'm proud to be a/an (insert nationality here)" — OK, but why? What part did you play in whatever there is to be proud about? More so, if you take pride in the great things you had no hand in, don't you also have to accept some shame for the bad things that have happened in your country too?
It seems that, in America anyway, Republicans often say that the bad wasn't that bad while simultaneously exaggerating the good. "Celebrate America's Independence Day and pat yourself on the back for being such a patriotic American, and yeah, maybe there was a bit of slavery and a few Native Americans that got massacred along the way, but look at all the happy black people and Native Americans here now!"
Many Democrats, ironically, are on the exact opposite page. "There's little to be proud of, and think how much there is to be ashamed of. Antiracism needs to be taught at an early age in every school so that our children don't grow up merely to be colorblind, because that would be bad, but to understand that if they're white, they're privileged, and if they're black, brown, gay, or transgender, they're victims."
What good does any of that do? How about we do away with this whole nationalistic fever dream, as well as the liberal victimization, and simply highlight the importance of personal responsibility? You're born into this world equal, neither better nor worse than anyone else, regardless of birthplace, race, gender, etc, and you go from there.
All of that is my roundabout way of getting to this essay collection by the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić, the second of hers I've read this year, after "American Fictionary."
Ugrešić reminds me of a Balkan version of Christopher Hitchens in some ways, and her writing has the same delightful contrariness about it. Like Hitchens, she doesn't shy away from greeting society's sacred cows with a sledgehammer.
But she is very much her own person, and both her gender and her nationality figure heavily in these essays. Whether she's writing on misogyny (like in her essay "L'ecriture Masculine") or the Balkan War (which she references in the majority of these essays), she is always ruthlessly direct when exposing humanity's hypocrisies and absurdities.
Nowhere does this come through clearer than on the topic of nationalism, something Ugrešić would know a bit about given where she originally comes from. One of these essays, "The Scold's Bridle," concerns flag desecration. In many countries, this is a severe crime, and Ugrešić notes that in Croatia, for example, the penalty for desecrating the flag is three years in prison.
In this very same country, which, if you recall, is a member of the European Union, the penalty for rape that results "in the death of the raped person, or serious physical harm, or the person's health is gravely compromised, or the raped female person was thereupon impregnated, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to no less than three years in prison."
Three years. "According to Croatian law," Ugrešić adds, "the perpetrator is to be sentenced for 'desecrating a woman's honor,' (to use the patriarchal phrase) for just as long as one would for desecrating the Croatian flag."
Croatia is not alone in having strict penalties for "flag desecration," either. In France, desecrating the flag will get you five or six months in prison, in Austria, six months, in Turkey and Romania, three years, and in Germany as much as five years.
In Denmark, on the contrary, there's no penalty for desecrating the Danish flag, but desecrating the flags of other countries can get you into serious trouble.
The people of the Faroe Islands, meanwhile, rightly believe that "it is not possible ... to desecrate their flag with words or deeds."
There are less serious subjects that draw Ugrešić's ire here as well, one of which is the 2016 film "La La Land." Ugrešić bemoans the fact that "to stand up and declare in public that La La Land is a bad movie is tantamount to social isolation, another form of suicide."
For the record, I really liked "La La Land," but more than one or two people expressed to me their dislike of it, and I did not socially isolate them for it, but perhaps Ugrešić and I hang in different social circles (although let it be known that I'll vehemently argue with any who speak badly about "Love, Actually").
Ugrešić's anger and frustration over these things, her cynicism, are endearing and make "The Age of Skin" a blisteringly good read.
While occasionally a dark education, it's also a lot of fun.