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April 28, 2015 edition

Born: 1927, died April 13, 2015
Gnter Grass read a poem. I heard him at a poetry gathering in Rotterdam in June 1973. He read slowly, as though every phrase burdened his jaw and made his sour face even sourer.
Nun zogen sie durch die Strassen, 3,800 Propheten...
Now they moved through the streets in procession,
3,800 prophets...

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More Sidelines articles in other editions

April 21, 2015 edition

Whenever someone says there is nothing universal in people of diverse backgrounds; whenever someone says once again that 'our values' differ from 'Western values' as far as the drive for justice and freedom is concerned, I reread Bung Karno's 1930s defense speech Indonesia Accuses! Then I read something else, for instance this time, Liao Yiwu.
One night in June 1989, Liao Yiwu, a Chinese poet from the Sichuan region, was startled to hear that thousands of students who had gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and who were demanding that the ruling Communist Party establish democracy, were fired upon by the army.

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April 14, 2015 edition

How exhausting politics is. Particularly for those unable to endure in antagonism. Towards evening on April 5, 1794 in Paris, a revolutionary leader who had lost the struggle was dragged off to the guillotine. On the way to his beheading, he said, "Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with the government of men."

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April 7, 2015 edition

A great leader departs, Lee Kuan Yew dies; and then what? One hopes: an empty seat.
The world acknowledges Lee's greatness as the builder of Singapore: he laid the foundations that made his country, the tiny former British colony with no natural resources, manage over the last ten years to overtake the United States in prosperity.

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January 1, 1970 edition

I want to be free of everything
Independent
Also from Ida
-Chairil Anwar, July 14, 1943
But not everyone is like Chairil Anwar.
Seventy two years after this poem was written, it seems as though there are people who do not want to be free, are afraid to be free, tired of being free, and who regret that people are free.

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January 1, 1970 edition

I do not agree with the death sentence. When I was not even six, my father was executed by the occupying Dutch forces. Whenever shots are directed at killing someone, there are destructive side effects. Our family did not regret that our father had met his death in that wayhe was not a criminalbut, stealthily, the trauma left its mark. Even though it changed.
My case was not extraordinary. Hundred of thousands, millions of Indonesian children and mothers experienced this. Indonesian history is built out of millions of shots and death.

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January 1, 1970 edition

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words:
White, white! L-L-Love! My God!"
-Life of Pi
Atheism is a kind of faith. An atheist believes that God does not exist. An atheist is not an agnostic, who holds no belief.

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