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By Ahmed Latif
The events of the Civil Rights Movement unfolded in Selma, Alabama in 1965, but the passing of the Voting Rights Act later that year does not equate the achievement of social justice. Unrest following police brutality and the systematic violent discrimination against minorities are as commonplace today as they were in the 1960s. The answer that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X highlighted to this social problem is societal engagement. It is seen in Ava DuVernay’s 2014 Civil Rights film Selma, but it is not a shockingly new answer. Engaging the public in a conversation of what kind of society we want to be requires more than the storm of righteous indignation and bouts of apathy we see in social media presently. By Ahmed Latif
As an avid reader of The New Yorker it is no wonder that I am also a fan of James Thurber. His wit is always relevant regardless of the era. He writes to satirize human nature. His 1939 short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, is a thesis on the imagination and the functional instigation of boredom brought on by the modern urban lifestyle. The mundane life of the titular Walter Mitty is emancipated by the very human realm of the daydream. Mitty is aloof and silent; but he is also driven mad by the crushing blandness of his life. He finds salvation through imagining his destruction in incredible adventures. These wild adventures do not add spice to his stubborn life, but they are the in fact the only spice of his life. By Ahmed Latif
It was a sunny day but there was nothing beautiful about it. Harold called me out to Cartwright Station just on the edge of the city, in the part of the suburbs we’re supposed to call quaint. I arrived and found this heaping mess of misery thrown into my lap; thrown by Miss Fortune herself, what a dame! By Ahmed Latif
Cement, the 1925 Russian novel by Soviet writer Fyodor Gladkov is a powerful amalgamation of raw emotion and disconsolate intelligence. It brings to light the human cost of an ideological revolution. The story tells of a young Red Army soldier returning to his home following the Bolshevik revolution against the Tsar’s White Army loyalists. Gleb finds that life has changed in every way and not necessarily for the better. He must deal with his new job at a cement factory, his post-traumatic stress disorder, a crumbling social order, and the changes the revolution brought to his relationships with his wife, daughter, and friends. By Ahmed Latif
During tough times, readers and audiences often seek an escape from the banality of life. The turn of the twentieth century was unequivocally a disconcerting time of transition for Europe. It is in this context that Franz Kafka captured the complex surrealism and absurd loneliness of urban life. His writing functioned as a condemnation and a vindication of an era that provided no simplistic answers to pressing social questions. Anarchist overtones, Marxist critiques, and deliberate existentialism; all of it dark and none of it clear-cut. By Ahmed Latif
As playful as the morning, witty and wistful, I saw your ghost twirling in the day moon’s light. I lazily conjured a cozy little dream for us two. I plucked my harp to songs of Leningrad in the spring. Your ghost and my spirit danced on the terrace. We spiralled and spun Like concentric circles drunk on straight lines. There is nothing to regret, The pain will leave such beautiful scars. By Ahmed Latif
The Seven-Arm Octopus or Haliphron atlanticus is one of the world’s largest species of octopus. This mysterious giant of the deep possesses a hidden eighth arm. It only becomes visible when the octopus finds a suitable mate. The eighth arm uncoils from under the right eye and reaches out for the mate… By Ahmed Latif
A residual of a memory clings like sunrise on a dirty street. If you could hear the horns howl, you wouldn’t mind it. But it’s all too dangerous, colouring outside the lines we never drew. Clichés and inevitable turns of the screw mock everything haphazardly. I hate sprained ankles because of their lack of coherence. Trying to function as an urban soul is a challenge to linguistic metrics. |
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