Report Back: 122nd Durham Miners' Gala

John Berger is great- everyone should read his books.

Just curious, though, about your comment about the quote being "dangerous". Could you elaborate?

as the passage continues it talks about a time of "justified vengeance". Although it uses those two words it also uses another word which is more politically loaded --

"when finally people realize this, they may also hear, striking in their head, the hour of assassinations, of justified vengeance."

I didn't want to use it -- not so much because I have no doubt that there are federal computers combing this site in search of that word and because its use can be construed as a federal crime, but because it would, as I said, overwhelm the photo essay.

Then the passage goes on to discuss how, alternatively, art can sometimes "achieve what you are setting out to do in another way, a way less likely to fall out on your comrades and less open to confusion."

And then...

"I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art had judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. I know too that the poweful fear art, whatever its form, when it does this, and that amongst the people such art sometimes runs like a rumor and a legend because it makes sense of what life's brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us, for it is inseparable from a justice at last. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the enduring, guts, and honor."

-- John Berger

I appreciate the fuller explantion.

It's terrible that things have come to this- where we feel a measure of intimidation in expressing ourselves- call it self-censorship?- because of what it may mean- for ourselves, for others.

As to censorship of books- there was a time when even Berger's writings were difficult to find in the US. Maybe they still are?


And thanks for providing the great continuation of his words, too.

It's been way to long , so very over do fOR a REVOLUTION , Some type of revolution any thing , someting .
The horse can't be dead can it ? sometimes it only takes one person , one movment a bit of wind perhaps .. someting .



I'll start , to day I burn my S.U.V. What will you do ?

John Berger's books are not hard to find now, except that, they are kept in two different places in the stores. Novels and short stories in literature and art commentary in the art section. And then films (For Jonah who will 25 in the Year 2000) at the video rental shop.