Victims' Day

Well, that was so refreshing! I hope you all appreciated those fifteen minutes of respectful silence as much as I did. I heard the cries of the victims in the silence. We should do this more often. Get away from the constant babble of words, words, words that our civilization is full of. Silence—it makes you realise just how much communication is wasteful, trivial, and unproductive. And how much speaking is about power over people—the dominant elites use language to intimidate women, children and ethnic minorities, excluding them from cultural capital and blinding them with false discourses. Sometimes, in the present climate, speech is even dangerous. Uncritical dialogue leads to unhealthy ideas, infecting the gullible and the discontented like a virus. And it can undermine morale. As they said in another war: ‘Careless talk costs lives’.