In this interview, world-renowned and reliably wonderful author David Grossman talks about his book A Horse Walks into a Bar with euronews’ Isabelle Kumar.
The interview from 2016 in Jerusalem is strangely relevant to what is currently going on, I found, as I listened to it today. The central theme of fear in society dominates the conversation. One phrase by David Grossman that particularly struck me was “the air of despair”. It embodies a physical and metaphysical atmosphere that one is exposed to but also something which one participates in and co-creates.
Here is an excerpt from the interview:
David Grossman: “Maybe this is the thing that characterises the Israeli society now more than everything else and this is fear. It’s fear for our children who go to the army, but it’s also fear to walk in the street and the government and the right wing are making a cynical usage of this fear. We have a prime minister who is an expert in stirring together the real dangers that Israel faces and we do face real dangers here in the Middle East, but he knows how to stir together the real dangers with the echoes of past traumas.
Now I think that a society that is dominated by fears is a declining society, it does not have the energy and the vitality that it takes in order to flourish, to blossom and also to solve its existential problems. If you categorise things only in categories of fear, of despair, you will not get far. In the end, you shall have to realise your greatest fears.”
euronews: “We asked our online audience to send us in questions for this interview and I would like to bring in some of those voices. George Miller asks ‘how do we turn off this spiral of hate and rage, and we could add fear, that we see growing?’”
David Grossman: “The society is formulated by these fears by now, both the Israeli and the Palestinian societies. And people feel really that they are doomed to live like that forever and the air of despair is so heavy that people just do not have the mental energy to start to envision how a life of peace can look like.
“So we do need leaders and politicians and also intellectuals and writers to formulate the option of peace, to insist on revitalising the option of peace that today is not existing at all.”
euronews: “Do you think you will be able to see peace in your lifetime? Possibly even your childrens’ lifetime?”
David Grossman: “I very much hope so….