Poetry in the most negative sense

June 16, 2012 I asked an Iranian-British poet I met here about the balance of power in Iran. And I came to realise from what he said that some nations share a rather basic fault: the rhetoric of religion as a screen and a cover for the desire for territory/power/& money-as-a-manifestation-of-power. That is, religion is not in fact the essential motivation for the behavior of these governments, but their rhetoric – their poetry in the most negative sense. Naive or not so naive citizens with a tendency to thuggery may be motivated (and encouraged by rulers) to use the poetry of religion (or religious nationalism) as a bludgeon against the Other. And the nationalism of exclusion provides a kind of religious rhetoric too. People who aren't thugs constitute the majority of any country's citizens, but they aren't armed. One expression of their powerlessness is the way they are prevented from ever meeting each other and figuring out the scam. An international poetry festival allows at least some possibility of dialogue. And here in Rotterdam, these meetings can take place in some quiet place, and probably do.