The Other Capital

This capital here is different to the other. Here the problems lie in the execution. There it is in the executions. Today I passed the public galleries and worked my way through time-honoured streets and rich biography. This punishment of luxury of sorts is important and not deemed unworthy by its present relative peace. Just because one part of the world is in turmoil does not mean the rest of the world should suffer too. The body global is like the body politic and is connected enough. Besides, we from this more stable capital are also represented in the other. Many people far more accomplished than me work very hard indeed to eradicate the poverty over there, to unshackle the women, stimulate the growth, becalm the fundamentals, and unpoison the crime chalice. When I look at the city here and admire its engineered elegance I do not feel any guilt; I feel only a kind of non-jingoistic pride. There you go, I sometimes think. This is how it can be done. Yes, it is full of flaws. Full of them. No, it is not perfect. By any means. But it does meet and greet and it does accommodate. Debate thrives here and is spectacular. I wandered into a famous map shop in the centre of the capital this afternoon. There on the shelves was the bristling of a kind of nomadic erudition. Silent wanderers had done their research of ancient lands and the testimony stood before me pret-à-lire and sheathed in evocative covers. I had met up with a friend earlier, the friend who travelled alone across the desert. Friendship is not the preserve of this capital alone, I was thinking as I looked at the spine of one book exhibiting sepia-tinted palm trees and sand. Indeed, where there is poverty and where there is hardship, as indeed there is in and around the other capital, there will always be friendship. It may not be to the visitors. It may not be to everyone. But it will exist. This - friendship that is - is life at its best. With friendship life does not discriminate. Only with war. I also wonder how the gallerist is getting on with her holiday.