A song of hate and death or the origins of irony and cynicism of the metamodernist g<strong>en</strong>eration TEKLAL NEGUIB Reflecting about metamodernism and the characteristics of our g<strong>en</strong>eration (irony, cynicism, naivety, sincerity), I realised that these characteristics were/are part of resili<strong>en</strong>ce. Consequ<strong>en</strong>tly, I wondered why this resili<strong>en</strong>ce happ<strong>en</strong>ed and what its origins were. This text is born from a previous and a work-in-progress text about aids in the 80’s and its impacts on the young g<strong>en</strong>erations. Completely rewritt<strong>en</strong> and completed, the text is now a song, published here. The “we” used here is a g<strong>en</strong>erational “we”, the “we” of our g<strong>en</strong>eration (1976-1995). Of course, the list pres<strong>en</strong>ted in the song is not exhaustive. It’s important to precise that it’s a song, and not an essay.
We were babies, we were 5,6,7,8,9,10 years old, we were girls and boys, we were colored and white childr<strong>en</strong>, we were future gays, bis, lesbians, trans, heteros, ev<strong>en</strong> if we didn’t know at that time, we were growing up in occid<strong>en</strong>tal countries and in the third world, and we lived a horrible time. I have just read an article about the index case 1 in AIDS epidemic and his research during the early 80’s. And that makes me reminding of these years which built our g<strong>en</strong>eration 2 and which were a horrible time for growing kids… Wh<strong>en</strong> they (sci<strong>en</strong>tists and journalists) thought they had found him, he was a gay steward. From now on, a lot of homophobic things were writt<strong>en</strong> and said against him. It was the excuse for hating gays and bis more than before, with the famous cliché of an irresponsible gay having (a lot of) sex without any protection. This article breaks my heart, and reminds me what I have lived as a very young kid during the 1980’s, and it reminds me too of some articles about Michael Stipe, REM former and queer singer speaking about discovering his sexuality at the aids time, the madness of that time and the accusations against bi-people (his interview broke my heart too). A very horrible time for growing kids… In the ESMA of Bu<strong>en</strong>os Aires 3 , our par<strong>en</strong>ts were tortured for fighting against a dictatorship. Our mothers were murdered wh<strong>en</strong> we were born, and we were kidnapped and educated by their torturers. We began our life by our par<strong>en</strong>ts’ death. We were babies, we were 5,6,7,8,9,10 years old, we were girls and boys, we were colored and white childr<strong>en</strong>, we were future gays, bis, lesbians, trans, heteros, ev<strong>en</strong> if we didn’t know at that time, we were growing up in occid<strong>en</strong>tal countries and in the third world, and we knew how the beautiful closed shutters of the beautiful bourgeois houses hid horrible thoughts and acts. With the emerg<strong>en</strong>ce of aids, a lot of heterosexuals sp<strong>en</strong>t their time being happy to see gays dying of the “gay cancer”. At the same time, they accused bi people with being at the origin of the hetero infection. The bi were insulted, and d<strong>en</strong>igrated. It was a really horrible thing from the heteros to make gays and bis responsible for the epidemic, and concerning the bis, for the hetero epidemic (ev<strong>en</strong> if it was not true). In Canada, we, the Natives, were kidnapped from our par<strong>en</strong>ts by the authorities which got rid of us in orphanages 4 , where we were molested, raped, acculturated, and whitewashed. And we began our life by the destruction of who we were… We were babies, we were 5,6,7,8,9,10 years old, we were girls and boys, we were colored and white childr<strong>en</strong>, we were future gays, bis, lesbians, trans, heteros, ev<strong>en</strong> if we didn’t know at that time, we were growing up in occid<strong>en</strong>tal countries and in the third world, and we realized adults were not reliable persons. People who said all of these dreadful things wer<strong>en</strong>’t racist people, hateful people. They were normal persons, our par<strong>en</strong>ts, our families, our neighbours, our fri<strong>en</strong>ds’ par<strong>en</strong>ts, the bread baker, the butcher, our teachers … Normal persons we lived with… Normal persons who had to teach us respect of the others, love for people, and acceptance of the differ<strong>en</strong>ce. At that time, they made beautiful speeches about that, about racism but at the same time, about the gays and the bis, what did they do, what did they say in front of us?
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