Seeing

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THE DEFENSE MINISTER'S FAVORITE EXPRESSION, A DEPTH CHARGE launched against the system, partially inspired by the unforgettable experience of an historic trip he had made aboard a submarine, a trip that had lasted all of half an hour and had taken place in flat calm seas, began to gain in strength and to attract attention when the interior minister's plans, despite one or two minor successes of no appreciable significance to the situation as a whole, revealed themselves to be impotent when it came to achieving the main aim, namely, persuading the inhabitants of the city, or, more precisely, the degenerates, delinquents and subversives who had cast the blank votes, to acknowledge the error of their ways and to beg for the mercy and the penance of a new election to which, at the chosen moment, they would rush en masse to purge themselves of the sins of a folly which they would swear never to repeat. It had become clear to the whole government, with the exception of the ministers of justice and culture, who both had their doubts, that there was an urgent need to tighten the screw still further, especially given that the declaration of a state of emergency, for which they had both had such high hopes, had produced no perceptible shift in the desired direction, for, since the citizens of this country were not in the healthy habit of demanding the proper enforcement of the rights bestowed on them by the constitution, it was only logical, even natural, that they had failed even to notice that those rights had been suspended. As a consequence, a state of siege proper was declared, one not purely for show, but complete with a curfew, the closure of theaters and cinemas, constant army street patrols, a prohibition on gatherings of more than five people, and an absolute ban on anyone entering or leaving the city, along with a simultaneous lifting of the restrictive, although far less rigorous, measures still in force in the rest of the country, a clear difference in treatment that would make the humiliation of the capital all the more explicit and damning. What we are trying to tell them, said the minister of defense, and let's hope they finally get the message, is that, having shown themselves to be unworthy of trust, they will be treated accordingly. The interior minister, forced somehow to disguise the failure of his secret agents, thoroughly approved of the immediate declaration of a state of siege, and, to show that he still had a few cards in his hand and had not withdrawn from the game entirely, he informed the council of ministers that, after an exhaustive investigation, and in close collaboration with interpol, he had reached the conclusion that the international anarchist movement, If it exists to do anything more than to write a few jokes on walls, and he paused briefly for the knowing laughter of his colleagues, then, feeling equally pleased himself and with them, completed the sentence, Had absolutely nothing to do with the election boycott of which we have been the victims, and that this is, therefore, merely an internal matter, Forgive me saying so, said the minister of foreign affairs, merely does not seem to me the most appropriate of adverbs, and I must remind this council that a number of other states have expressed their concern to me that what is happening here could cross the border and spread like a modern-day black death, You mean blank death, don't you, said the prime minister with a placatory smile, In that case, the minister of foreign affairs went on unperturbed, we can, quite correctly, speak of depth charges launched against the stability of the democratic system, not simply, not merely, of one country, this country, but of the entire planet. The interior minister sensed that the role of major national figure to which recent events had elevated him was slipping from his grasp, and in order not entirely to lose his grip, having first thanked the minister of foreign affairs and, with great magnanimity, acknowledged the truth of what had been said, he was now keen to show that he, too, was capable of the most subtle of semiological interpretations, It is interesting to observe, he said, how the meanings of words change without our noticing, how we often use them to mean precisely the opposite of what they used to mean and which, in a way, like a fading echo, they still continue to mean, That's just a normal consequence of the semantic process, muttered the minister of culture, And what has that got to do with blank ballot papers, asked the minister for foreign affairs, Oh, it has nothing to do with blank ballot papers, but it has everything to do with the state of siege, declared the interior minister triumphantly, You've lost me, said the minister of defense, It's quite simple, It may be simple for you, but I don't understand, For example, what does the word siege mean, it's all right, that's a purely rhetorical question, I don't expect an answer, we all know that siege means blockade or encirclement, isn't that right, As sure as two and two are four, Therefore, declaring a state of siege is tantamount to saying that the country's capital is besieged, blockaded or encircled by an enemy, when the truth is that the enemy, if I may call it that, is not outside but inside. The other ministers looked at each other, the prime minister pretended not to be listening and started shuffling through some papers. But the minister of defense was about to triumph in this semiological battle, There's another way of looking at it too, What's that, That in unleashing this rebellion, and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I call what is happening a rebellion, the capital's inhabitants were, and quite right too, besieged or blockaded or encircled, the choice of term is, to be frank, a matter of complete indifference to me, May I remind our dear colleague and the council as a whole, said the minister for justice, that, when they decided to cast their blank votes, the citizens were only doing what the law explicitly allows them to do, therefore, to speak of rebellion in such a case is, as well as being, I imagine, a grave semantic error, and you will forgive me, I hope, for venturing into an area of which I know nothing, is also, from the legal point of view, a complete nonsense, Rights are not abstractions, retorted the minister of defense, people either deserve rights or they don't, and these people certainly don't, anything else is just so much empty talk, You're quite right, said the minister of culture, rights aren't abstractions, they continue to exist even when they're not respected, Now you're getting philosophical, Has the minister of defense got anything against philosophy, The only philosophy I'm interested in is military philosophy, and then only if it leads us to victory, I am, gentlemen, a barrack-room pragmatist, and my approach, whether you like it or not, is to call a spade a spade, but now, just so that you don't start looking down on me as someone of inferior intelligence, I would appreciate it if you could explain to me, as long as it's not a question of demonstrating that a circle can be transformed into a square of an equal area, how a right, if it isn't respected, can still continue to exist, Very simple, that right exists potentially in the duty of others to respect and comply with it, No offence, but civic sermons and demagoguery will get us nowhere, slap a state of siege on them and see how they like it, Unless it backfires on us, of course, said the minister of justice, How exactly, That I don't know yet, we'll just have to wait, no one had even dared to imagine that what is happening in our country could ever happen anywhere, but there it is, like a tight knot we can't undo, here we are gathered round this table to make decisions which, despite all the proposals put forward as sure solutions to the crisis, have, until now, achieved nothing, let's just wait, we'll find out soon enough how people will react to the state of siege, Sorry, but I can't just let that comment pass unchallenged, spluttered the interior minister, the measures we took were unanimously approved by this council and, as far as I recall, no one present at that meeting brought to the debate any different or better proposals, the burden of the catastrophe, yes, I'll call it a catastrophe and I'll call it a burden, even though some of my fellow ministers may think I'm exaggerating, as that smug, ironic air of theirs so clearly demonstrates, the burden of the catastrophe, I say again, has fallen, firstly, as is only right, on his excellency the president and on the prime minister, and secondly, given the responsibilities inherent in the posts we occupy, on the minister of defense and on myself, as for the others, and I refer in particular to the minister of justice and the minister of culture, who have been so kind as to shine the light of their intellects upon us, I have yet to hear a single idea that was worth considering for longer than it took us to listen to it, The light with which, according to you, I was kind enough to illuminate this council, was not my own, but the light of the law and nothing but the law, replied the minister of justice, And as regards my own humble person and my part in this wholesale ticking-off, said the minister of culture, given the miserable budget I'm allotted, you can hardly expect more, Ah, now I understand those anarchist leanings of yours, said the interior minister tartly, sooner or later, you always come out with the same old gibes.