Sometime in ~1977/8/9 Newsweek runs a cover story about Europe's "terrorism crisis". Grim simulacrum of a businessman in sniper crosshair (was it meant to be Jurgen Ponto), hijacked plane, and other objects I can't recall. It's my virgin encounter with revolutionary utopia degenerated to anarchy principle. Time freezes as I look at Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pleading letter. Ask my government to negotiate, save my life. I trace step 1>7 of event pictograms (karlsruhe, oberursel, ramstein), as if I'll uncover hidden clues the police missed.
Hysteria & hypnosis.
Finally, the emergence of a singular, unrelated icon. Gaddafi reaches the cover of Newsweek, with a tagline about international terrorism. In Tripoli the American/British oil executives start leaving. A green passbook is given out to us, food rationing is introduced. My father decides it's time to leave Libya.
Much later, a decade later, I excavate the "indigene" version of these movements. The Sarbahara Party in Bangladesh. Another leader with dark eyes and startling good looks. The same sanguinary fate-- but not quite a suicide as for Baader, but "death in custody". Shot while "trying" to escape. Always a father, coming to collect his son's corpse.
Projects
