Naveed Burney

My English professor, at university, an intellectual in every way, and recognized as one, used to repeatedly say: “Shakespeare is for all times.” I never gave too much thought to his words then, as I always assumed this was a bias he had in favor of a writer due to his overindulgence with the bard. He had specialized in Shakespearian literature and hence was overly impressed by him, or so I thought.

Yet later in life I have often debated the veracity of my professor’s contention and consciously assessed Shakespeare’s relevance to any era different than when he was writing and I have always been highly impressed by the applicability of the playwright’s work to different times, including the modern Age. I admit I have not studied Shakespeare as intensely as perhaps I did a playwright such as John Fletcher—a playwright perhaps more popular during his lifetime than even Shakespeare—but I can recognize why the claim that Shakespeare is for all times a very valid proposition.

The Jacobean playwright, John Fletcher (1579–1625) in his lifetime had a huge impact on Literature and the minds of his contemporaries and the general public of his time. It could be argued he was more famous than was Shakespeare in the early Restoration Period. But posterity has not awarded him the position it has given to Shakespeare. There is a reason for that and it simply is Shakespeare’s transcendence brought about by an innate quality in his work, which corroborates the opinion expressed by my erstwhile English professor and mentor.

Rather than outline the relevance of the different and strongly interwoven themes in Shakespeare’s work and their applicability to different ages and times, here I will point out the applicability of Shakespeare’s theme in Richard 111– while it can be detected in his other works—as being in proximity with the reasoning put forth by Obama in his recent speech at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Obama in an allusion to the barbaric deeds of the ISIS spoke for some soul searching before concluding ISIS atrocities as a unique historical event. He pointed out how misguided interpreters of Christian faith were as guilty in having committed atrocities in the past in the name of religion. He referred to the Spanish inquisition, the crusades and the ugly period where Jim Crowe was applied to brutally suppress the blacks and their human rights in America, justifying everything in the name of religion. Behind this rhetoric was Obama’s hope that Americans will discard and transcend evil, be contrite of their past, and turn a new leaf of fairness and religious tolerance to become those who have a right to criticize evil without being hypocritical and thus be the rightful heirs to the “crown”.

Referring to atrocities going on in other countries because of religious intolerance he said: “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

What Obama was saying in essence was that Christianity, the Western world and America, too, is not exempt from its sullied past. He was unconsciously reiterating the theme in Shakespearian plays where the person who is entitled to judge others be one that is not tainted by evil.

While we can find one line or perhaps even one paragraph of a similar notion expressed by Obama, in different plays and writings of various writers we find a whole thematic crescendo leading us to this type of emotion in Richard 111.

The play begins with Richard priming himself to a string of crimes he is prepared to commit to illegitimately be the crowned king. The rascal connives, he does not hesitate to get anyone killed who would stand between him and ultimate power. After murdering his own brother who would have been the rightful successor to the throne, he either gets murdered or manipulates with the sole purpose of wearing the “crown”. But his Machiavellian methods to power eventually fail when the Earl of Richmond is the victor over him and Richard staggers to cry like a mad man, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

Throughout the play we recognize how everyone who have a stained past are not the right candidates to wear the “crown”. They do not have the right because they are tainted by their past evil deeds. Only the upright Richmond is entitled to wear the “crown” because of his history of innocence and righteousness.

This is same as saying that with the history of the Christian religion’s past it has no right to judge others. The only time we can judge others and consider others evil and have the right to wear the “crown” is when we elevate ourselves to the point where we forsake evil and establish our innocence. Only then can we be like Earl of Richmond who deserved the “crown”.

It all starts with recognizing our past mistakes, being remorseful about it and endeavoring to be good enough to criticize evil without being phony. Then only can Americans speak with a sense of moral righteousness. Then only the bard would allow the no longer ugly Americans to be arbitrators of moral justice without being double faced.

The rapid pace of change in our world is not lost on anyone who speculates future trends. But underscoring the reality of how change is so omnipotent and omnipresent is more important than an ever-ready omniscient stance to provide a solution. The moral: There are no easy solutions to complex problems and bringing imminent future problems into limelight is more important as these need to be first unearthed and then seriously studied extensively before any adequate solutions can be formulated. Jumping to conclusions without thoughtful and sustained research to provide solutions is non-productive. An instant prediction or solution which is the response of most of the self-proclaimed gurus of futurology is more telling of a pressure on these people to produce quickly some fodder for the masses. At best it is a knee jerk reaction toward issues which require far more attention than some simple and misleading panacea. For sure, serious potential problems are not going to be helped by transient discussions on shows similar to Oprah Winfrey or through half-baked ideas formulated on the internet forums.

So without providing any quick fix, I would like to highlight a gigantic problem which is bound to break out and shake the world as we know it. The fact is that what is brewing is going to implode having a ghastly and unwelcome effect on the history of the world. I am talking here about the obsolescence of job skills that bring about the livelihood to millions; this would be a major paradigm shift and have a destructive impact on the world as we know it.

In the past there have been great social and economic upheavals but the scope of a problem that would affect millions upon millions is far more serious and gigantic this time around.

A good example of a change in social structure in the past which affected innocent people abruptly and was horrific was during the industrial revolution. The transition of societies, especially in the European world, in the eighteenth century, from an agragarain to an urbanized industrial economy caused great hardships and adjustments. It certainly was a paradigm shift offering insurmountable hardship and problems, especially for those without adequate new job skills and the poor who could not fend for themselves. High unemployment, no labor laws, draconian working conditions, the uprooting and destruction of the family institution, exploitation of people, starvation and host of other ugly trends as a result of the unrelenting misery and suffering were all a direct result of an unresponsive societal stance toward an imminent event. Time, of course, healed the ravages of an inevitable change and societies have to a great extent mitigated, if not compensated, for the terrible state of affairs, where elements such as harsh child labor, 14 hour work days in deplorable conditions and many more related events had devastated a huge section of the population.

But imagine for a moment that even such a big event such as the ill effects of the industrial revolution in the past may be considered a simple blimp. No doubt the next industrial revolution bringing a paradigm shift is going to be far more draconian. The fallout from it is bound to affect all industrialized countries—in effect the whole world. This should make us all shudder.

We could have a more devastating, albeit different, state of affairs than what Alex de Tocqueville described when examining a typical city during the industrial revolution. His conclusion “civilized man is turned almost into a savage” was very apt as were the concerns of Karl Marx and Engels and references to society in literature by writers such as Charles Dickens.

When the industrial revolution of the 18th century took place the total population of the whole world was relatively miniscule and mind you, the shock of rapid industrialization was limited to some European countries rather than the whole world, and yet it was catastrophic. The world population reported by the United Nation is 7.243 billion now and growing every day. Indeed, the recipe for disaster is more rife as globalization and industrialization has dug in its heels and interdependence of the world has peaked and any impact of what may be described as the “new industrial revolution”, certainly another paradigm shift, would result in unimaginable chaos affecting far more people.

Robots in the work place have been used before, but it is the enmasse introduction of more sophisticated and less expensive automation which is going to usher in huge unemployment, and irreversible hardship to most of the people of the world. Not only would the replacement be for unskilled labor but even professionals, as sophisticated robots and AI are developed and become cost effective to use and replace humans in the workplace.

Take Foxcan for example, it has already installed 12000 robots with an average of additional 40000 per year. In China itself, Foxcan employs upwards of a million people whose jobs will become redundant very soon. Foxcan is no exception and all big corporations in order to increase their ROI are eying at using robots almost in every field and eventually at all levels affecting both the professional vocations and others. For instance, even your medical practitioner could be terminally unemployed once the robots are able to master the right skills and become cheaper to produce.

So should we fear the rise of the robots and AI? Or is it the same stuff as the fictional movies falling in the category of Rise of the Planet Apes? I wish it was, but unfortunately that is not the case. The fact that one of the greatest intellectual, Stephen Hawking is also leery of the robots and the consequences of AI if unchecked, tells a lot about why this issue can’t be taken lightly.

Of course, we will not be able to change the inevitable trend of takeover by automation and I am not pretending this change will not happen, nor am I suggesting this change would be necessarily bad if it is ushered in the appropriate way. But the important point here is we have to insulate humanity and ward of an undesirable catastrophe by giving due importance to a reality which could morph into a grotesque form very soon.

The onus is now on the leaders and thinking public to acknowledge the problem of an inevitable paradigm shift, research its trends aggressively and devise appropriate ways to face it head on. Such an approach should certainly help in eliminating or downgrading chaos that is capable of destroying our world and human beings if not addressed in the right way.

Any writer of fiction has to learn a very basic point: Your novel should evoke live pictures in the mind of the reader as they turn page after page of your work. This primarily means, in the first place, you as a writer should be able to visualize in your mind the series of pictures your words bring to life as you write, when you read what you have written. The more successful you are in bringing the description of your characters to make them lifelike and the more you are able to create a sense of cascading scenes the better your novel becomes.

This is the reason you have to select scenes which are worth “watching” or reading in an interesting novel. Only premium scenes that are interesting and worth experiencing should find their way in your work. This is the reason revision of what you have written becomes ever so more important.

Remember. when any reader of your work is expending out money and time, the expectations become very high. And since you are pitted against fierce competition when it comes to good fiction which is being produced, your task becomes even stiffer. In fact, the present day internet age has afforded a chance for more people to write so there are more writers now than ever before. This number keeps growing and with it the competition.

However, if you become too choosy and inhibited and do not write unless you have thought over each and every detail before you write then your writing process will be too tardy and get stalled. This is bound to demotivate any writer and I feel is the main reason for what is termed as “writer’s block.” The better method is to think out before you write and just go ahead without editing until you have a fair amount of writing done. Then you may revise and edit and re-edit.

Enough can never be said about editing and revising of your writing. In fact, the best of writers feel they end up spending more time editing than in writing any piece of fiction.

You can never get too emotionally involved with what you have written so that you feel there is no way you can eliminate it. In other words, at times you have to throw away huge chunks of material you worked so hard at and spent so much time with.

Just think about how much an uncut diamond needs to be pruned and primed and the surplus amount thrown away before a perfect end product can be created.  Any gem before being perfected is simply a product of a secondary or alluvial deposit with gummy, opaque and rough exterior with hardly any sheen almost like an aggregate of washing soda crystals.  It is the polishing which changes everything and creates the value. So it is with writing.

Sage but traditional advice: Read a lot of novels before writing fiction. My advice: To be really original don’t read any novels for at least a month or two before you start writing. Of course, the advice to read a lot of novels prior to that is imperative.

Just busy yourself putting your thoughts together and get on to the planning stage.

Plan out a lifecycle of your future project.

Interesting anecdotes both personal, second or third party, all go into the repository under the title such as, FODDER or RESERVOIR.

At the very outset, create a file and set it on cloud computing. Keep your “brain dump” ideas coming and, save these in your created files. Every writer will have a different way of organizing their files.

You may want to collect in your files, pictures of different places and people you could later use in your novel.

For instance, the appearance of a picture of someone you found interesting can trigger the description of a character or part of a character’s appearance in your novel. Same with places, especially the ones you photograph and have been to. You can then get right into the virtual experience of positioning yourself at different places and be able to give fresh and original description of these places through firsthand experience, from your perspective, and readers will find this interesting. This will get you away from falling into the trap of using hackneyed descriptions and away from ,what I call a, “it was a dark and stormy night syndrome”

You will never write exactly what you planned and your planning has to be ongoing as you write.

A lady gave me a completed manuscript to read and critique. When I asked her how her novel evolved, she very proudly said, “Well, it never evolved as I knew from the very beginning what exactly I would write and what the end product would be.” Needless to say, I obliged her by accepting her manuscript but it was in the waste paper basket once she turned her back. Pretty callous, I know. But I am a stickler for creativity as the main ingredient in a writer, and I know rigidity of any form kills the creative process.

Like any good art, good writing is a “happening.”  If Von Gogh knew exactly the outcome of his “starry night” once he assumed the paint brush and the canvass or if Hemingway knew exactly what his end product would be, then they would not have been the darlings of the world of creativity. Same with the other darlings of the world of creativity. Sure you have to know the direction you will be heading before you write, but God forbid you know exactly where you would end up.

There is no place for clichés in your writing—“THINK FRESH!”

And a quick advice to the writers grown on Harry Potter series or obsessed by it. Please get it in your brains that you can be super imaginative but not produce that caliber of work. But I correct myself by saying, yes you could be the next J.K. Rowling, who knows, but it is a stupendous task. So best not to cultivate your plot and characters without some rationale or reasoning when you can’t deftly handle the outcome like Rowling can, and it is best to stick to something plausible. Plausibility creates more interest in the reader. For instance, sure there is a remote probability the dinosaur DNA may be replicated and we could have dinosaurs in our midst. And fantasy predicated on this premise is a more interesting proposition than a genie appearing from nowhere in your novel as a quick fix, to solve the problem you have run into in your writing.

              I will be discussing about how to get yourself into the proper mindset conducive to the art of writing in my next blog post.

I was planning to do this for a while but it was only yesterday when I decided to go visit the Berliner Ensemble. Now that I feel like a native in Berlin after having stayed here for a few weeks and after having visited different neighbourhoods close to the place where I am put up in Kreuzberg, the task of straying away from my immediate environs was no more a daunting task.

A couple of different rides on the tramway and I alighted at the stop near Hotel Emilie Berlin, south on Abrechtstrobe.  From there it was a short walk to ReinhardtsraBe and from here I could clearly see a circular sign spinning high over the Spree, north of the Friedrichstraße S-Bahn — it spelled out BERLINER ENSEMBLE in metallic letters.

The way the sign was rotating, in a circular ring, reminded me of my prized possession during my teenage years. Strange, but my close to heart acquisition used to be a bought for a pittance keychain with a medallion in its ring which would rotate to spell “I LOVE YOU”. I used to go close to the girl I had a crush on and without speaking a word, demonstrate the rotation mechanism to get the message across that, make no mistake, I love you. Of course, after having done this I would flee the scene of crime. In retrospect, not only has this been an  embarrassing episode from my past, but in addition, think about it, a  wanton waste of time which I could have otherwise put to better use had I followed my Dad’s advice to “STUDY!STUDY ! STUDYING NEVER GOES TO WASTE!” Whether my heart was broken first or the flimsy key chain fell apart earlier than that is something I don’t remember. But for sure both things happened in short order.

I don’t know why, as I approached the Berliner Ensemble, I was suddenly hoping that my effort to come here all the way, was not going to end up as a futile exercise and waste of time, similar to some experiences from my sullied past.

As I approached the building, I had decided It would be a disappointing experience and a waste of time for sure, as the BerlinerEnsemble appeared just like any other building, housing a small theater and nothing special.

I had seen the building from outside and was going to retreat, but for some reason I climbed the steps to the entrance, even though I knew all along that the theater was closed. As the sign near the entrance door clearly indicated– any idiot would have not missed it–that shows were scheduled for 7.30 pm, and that, too, during the appropriate season starting from May of this year.  And here I was at the doorstep of this building in April at 2 in the afternoon. As if it were incumbent on me to visit this place as if it was some holy site I would dare not ignore visiting, when in Berlin.

I pulled on the handle at the entrance door, perhaps because of my intrepid disposition or perhaps more as a reflex action. Voila the door opened. I entered the theater, a brave move considering this place obviously was not open to public and certainly not for a person whose German was as good as his Swahili. What if someone rudely asked me to get out? The only advantage I would have then is that if the person resorted to foul language it would not annoy me whatsoever.

No one was there in the theatre and I quickly seized the opportunity to observe the inside arrangement and layout of this place. A cosy looking place but nothing extraordinary, with the typical regular seats, not unlike those found in other theaters, positioned in semi-circles. The only thing unusual I noticed though was the stage, which could effectively convey a deliberate message of a psychological barrier between the audience and the actors, during the performance of the play. Perhaps it was intended this way or perhaps it was the result of an impulsive gesture on the part of the architect who designed this theater in 1949. How would I know?

I scrambled for the exit almost as quickly as I had come in.

For one thing, I have developed something akin to a theater phobia, after having seen the Phantom of the Opera. (Have to be ever so careful to make sure you don’t cross these phantoms who take their shows and theaters very seriously.) Besides, this is Germany, the fabled land of the skinheads hunting for errant tourists with the wrong color in the wrong place. So why invite an unnecessary bout of fisticuffs, I reasoned. So the best strategy was to ‘make out as a tree’ as my friend used to say in the 1950’s.

After ingesting a deep breath of the buoyant and radiant spring air, I was ready to march on to catch the next tram back to my tried and tested surroundings. After descending the stairs and having taken perhaps ten steps, I heard a noise at my back. I turned around and looked. A well-dressed gentleman in a corduroy jacket was trying to address me. He had locked the door of the theater and was now saying something in German. My response was the staple: Ich spreche kein Deutsch, making sure I did not pronounce ich as ish like the Turkish people do in Germany. Of course, I was being truthful in saying I don’t speak German.

This willowy character with a distinctive artistic look etched on his face, quickly joined me and I was pleasantly surprised to hear him speak fluent English. He was very friendly, personable and helpful. While he informed me about the theater timings and season of operation which I already knew, he started giving me other information I found very interesting.

He said the theater was the brainchild of Bertolt Brecht and his wife they founded in 1949. Then he pointed at the statue of a seated figure near the theater and said: “There is the old fellow.” Then he asked me if I would like to join him for coffee. I leapt at this opportunity.

The place we went to was just a little stroll away and was called ‘BRECHTS RESTAURANT’ on Schiffbauerdamm, with the name BRECHTS displayed on top of the entranceway in bold letters and pink colors. It exuded a romantic aura of a rustic cottage style roadside café with ivy clinging on to all the exterior walls but neatly trimmed, exposing its petite windows and door which looked as if they were there for ever. We seated ourselves in the front of the café where a bistro table with two chairs was available.

Franz Horst turned out to be a great reservoir of knowledge and any tourist would have considered it to be a privilege to have shared time and coffee with this gentleman. I felt the same way and considered myself lucky.

Franz pointed out to me that this place offered good food and especially their wiener schnitzel was excellent. We opted for coffee as originally planned and I let him do most of the speaking. Turns out, Franz is the chief Stage Technician at the theater and an old hand, having worked here for the past ten years.

Franz gave me a lowdown on the background of the theater and said the ticket prices for shows were 10 euros and upwards and a bit more pricey for special events.

When I narrated my impression of the stage as perhaps deliberately designed to be indifferent in its association with the audience, it triggered an enthusiastic response in him.

Franz very eagerly explained: In the 1920’s Brecht was very much impressed by Karl Korsch an avowed Marxist.  Brecthian plays very purposefully avoided the technique of traditional Aristotelian plays which were designed to let the audience experience together the onstage emotions of the protagonist as if these were some eternal and universal ones, applicable to any time period in history.  For instance, the emotions you find displayed by the main characters in Greek drama or Shakespeare’s plays, he said, could easily jibe with the emotions of the audience–emotions they can identify with in their own reactions. With Brecht it was different as he wanted the audience to, rather than identify with the characters in his play, view the play as a depiction of a different time or epoch  where the workings of the characters is influenced by the mode of production of the epoch they are from. The idea was to present dialectical materialism as a historical fact where material conditions determined the character and emotional manifestations of individuals.  Brecht wanted people to appreciate drama in a true Marxian way, as if it were a narration of epics from the past, and he used various techniques to distance the audience from the characters in his plays. He wanted them to leave his plays acknowledging that drama is not a depiction of the world we live in but an illusion of reality, ever-changing and dynamic flowing with the change in thinking brought about by the different epochs representing Marx’s materialism.

But now the theater does not simply present Brecthian drama. In fact, if I am not mistaken the next session starts with the staging of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Incidentally, I insisted and made sure I paid the restaurant bill.