Elif Shafak
PEN HG Wells Lecture
Democracy is not a medal that once earned can be framed and hung on a wall to hide the cracks. It is a delicate ecosystem, a living and breathing environment of interacting beings, checks and balances, diversity and inclusion, cooperation and coexistence. As such, it has to be nourished all the time.
What I like about this formulation besides its enumeration is that it does not rely on balancing between two poles. It’s not about meeting in the middle. Justice is ineluctable. The smooth operation of the whole dynamic systems depends upon addressing in an ongoing fashion inequalities before they tip into an unrelenting feedback loop. Nourishment here is indeed a forceful metaphor but also a practical activity.
And so for day 3018
17.03.2015