Monday, September 19, 2005
Date symbolism
On September 11, 2005 came a reminder of the powerful symbolism of dates.
This came not from the ugly video-taped threats - about "blessed bombs" - from a former Californian goat farmer.
Nor was said reminder inferred from the apparent ambiguity of commemorative Muslim conferences that took place on September 11. Notable, for the writer, amongst these was the publicised meeting of Australian Muslims on that date that seemed to draw muted ire from Prime Minister John Howard.
Salafists and their like of course either enjoyed or planned for overtones associated with September 11 fear-mongering.
One can easily imagine the conspiracy theories and deranged prayers of thanks aroused regarding the then-ongoing ravages of Hurricane Katrina.
However, no-one could or would have planned the timing of reports in the press that day regarding the first successful splitting of a human female embryo without semen. The creation of a baby, that is and in case you missed it, completely by a female. Without any input from a male.
This largely unheralded event took place, apparently, at the same UK premises where Dolly the sheep was cloned. Whether it happened on the same day that the report hit the presses is unlikely, and whether the report is completely accurate, I have no real idea.
Nevertheless, assumptions in the affirmative on both counts were easy to consider. They conjured a poignant showcasing of both the lie and power of date symbolism.
There we were, or may well have been, on the very day in history that men were or could have been rendered scientifically obsolete. Yet we were transfixed with the 9/11 pseudo-science of atavistic male supremacists.
Ladies in philosophy classes 100 years hence may laugh or marvel at the paradox, the blindsiding by emotional elements that contributed so heavily to the male's downfall.
Alternatively, the mullahs dominating the 22nd century may nostalgically reconstruct, every 9/11, their triumph over "evil".
