The Drone Sessions
The US military's drone program remains America's dirty little open secret: it's not often discussed that, for the last ten years, we routinely send remote-controlled bombers into other countries to kill people, including American citizens, without anything resembling due process.
Collateral damage (i.e. dead women and kids)? It's all for your security, so never you mind. Why don't targeted countries kick up more of a fuss? A few reasons, probably: the US is a a bellicose nation, which has been known to deploy its (human) military with relatively little forethought to long-term consequences, and smaller Middle Eastern nations are aware of this. Also, a country can lose face by admitting that someone else is running black ops at will within its borders.
However, can drones be art? In a manner of speaking, yes.
Nigerian author Teju Cole, probably the most effective user on Twitter at the moment, has crafted seven short stories about drones, remixing the opening sentences from seven classic works of literature. Can you name them? (Don't worry: a cheat sheet follows the tweets.)
1. Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Pity. A signature strike leveled the florist's.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
2. Call me Ishmael. I was a young man of military age. I was immolated at my wedding. My parents are inconsolable.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
3. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather. A bomb whistled in. Blood on the walls. Fire from heaven.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
4. I am an invisible man. My name is unknown. My loves are a mystery. But an unmanned aerial vehicle from a secret location has come for me.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
5. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was killed by a Predator drone.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
6. Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His torso was found, not his head.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
7. Mother died today. The program saves American lives.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
- Mrs. Dalloway, Virgina Woolf
- Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
- Ulysses, James Joyce
- Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
- The Trial, Franz Kafka
- Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
- The Stranger, Albert Camus
Would remixing Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts have been too on-the-nose?
By the way, a "signature strike" is when a drone is deployed to kill someone whose name the US military doesn't even know.
(Found via Gawker)
