W.H.


" 'Who is the Father of Revolution? Tell me. The mothers of all who were slaughtered in the Napoleonic wars grieve for their sons whom they may never see again. France invaded Russia. Two gods not One. The sons of France accumulated themselves into a revolutionary/tyrannical god. The sons of Russia fought under the shadow of a peasant/hierarchical god. Two gods, though they swore they worshipped One. Then again Germany and Russia fought in the two World Wars and Germany invaded Russia in the Second. Russia this time was revolutionary/Leninist/Stalinist/Trotskyite, Germany was exclusive/diabolic/Hitlerite. Several gods not One. Who is the Father of Revolution? I ask because of Immigrants who have come to South America, ghostly Immigrants, fleshly Immigrants, whom we need to read and understand differently from their individual pretences if we are to appreciate their flight from terror.' He stopped again and looked at me as at the Mother of Space in whom he invested hope for a new vision based on understandings long suppressed in him and in myself."

{ Wilson Harris, The Mask of the Beggar, Faber & Faber, 2003 }