- Oct 2017
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I find myself wondering too whether he has a private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men. Does he wash his hands very carefully, perhaps, or change all his clothes; or has the Bureau created new men who can pass without disquiet between the unclean and the clean?
The magistrate has all this disbelief for all of the inhumanity that Joll has been showing ever since he arrived, so he wants to believe that in order for Joll to walk this earth without remorse that he is somehow able to "clean" himself of all of the cruelty. By showing the inhumanity of Joll and the men that follow him, we are able to see the humanity in the magistrate. For him it is impossible not to feel empathy for the prisoners and even more so being that brutal; especially, not without having a ritual that would help him be a clean man.
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To testify to a history of oppression is necessary, but it is not sufficient unless that history is redirected into intellectual process and universalized to include all sufferers. Yet too often testimony to oppression becomes only a justification for further cruelty and inhumanity,
Here, Said is telling us that in order for history of oppression to have a purpose, it needs to be used in such a way where all of the voices of all of the oppressed can be heard or else we only hear the voices that justify tyranny. I think this is true and still remains true today, because if we only get that one part of history that has some justification, nothing changes. This is why history repeats itself; we don't look at exactly all of the suffering that happens.
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