Shikasta

I see now that one of the reasons they wanted George away was to free Benjamin from George. Apart from George learning the cycle of the seasons. But that made things worse, the way I see it. Benjamin felt George had been given something he hadn't been. Yet he didn't want to go to Wales, and scorned George for being a farmer's boy. Benjamin is a bit of a snob.

I see there are a lot of facts I have taken no notice of at all. I wonder if you have to spend your whole life suddenly understanding facts that were perfectly obvious all the time.

When George came back he asked me several times, What has happened? Tell me what has happened? So I told him about Spanish and French and played him my guitar.

He was impatient, but he tried not to show it. He said, No, I don't mean just you. So I told him about Benjamin, though he knew about Benjamin, he spent so much time with him, and then when he was quiet, and I knew that that wasn't it, I said about our mother organising the big new hospital, and our father helping her. That was better, but it wasn't right. For he said, Rachel, our family isn't everything, we aren't all that important. So I got panicky. I do, when I know he is disappointed in me. I gabbled on about Mother and Father and what they had said, but he lost interest. He went on being kind to me, when he had time. But he was very restless just then. He could not keep still ever. He was with a group of boys at the college a lot and they were wild and noisy and I could not believe this was George. But I did understand that they talked about things I wasn't interested in then.

I started to listen when my parents discussed the state of the world and I enrolled in the Current Events classes at the school, and I listened a lot to the News and Information programmes.

I see that our family is different from most others in this way. Everywhere we go, everyone is passionately for some Party or other. Or pretends to be. It is easy to see when they are pretending. Our parents often say people who pretend must not be blamed. It is surviving, and that is more important than waving flags. Sometimes when they say that people are shocked. But I know they think politics is a mistake. They think that political people are on the wrong track. All they are interested in is doing things, like reorganising hospitals and making things work. They don't often say this, except with us or close friends. They don't say it so much actually, it's what they don't say that makes it obvious. But everywhere politics is so important, and I can see that this must have been a big problem for them, now I think about it. I mean, it must be like saying you were an atheist in the Middle Ages.

Facts. England. The first two times we children visited it were before the Dictatorship, and there was nothing much to notice but things being inefficient. But the third time, food was short, even though it was on a farm, and Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones were worried. I have been asking Simon and Olga and they say that a lot of people were in prison and people got arrested suddenly and then vanished. Well, there's nothing new in that. And the people who couldn't get work, particularly the young ones, were rampaging about. That was before they were put in armies and kept in camps. Wales and Scotland were the same, although they were Independent. The Dictatorship was trying to be all English, and not to have so many foreigners. When George went for his year farming, it was hard to arrange. Travel got difficult after the Dictatorship and anyway, people couldn't afford it. Mother says that it was only because of special contacts that George was allowed in. Although we are all English. I mean, visits are all right, but difficult, but living there for a whole year was nearly impossible. I have underlined the special contacts because I see more and more how important that is.

America. Olga and Simon say that it is so rich anyway, the crisis was masked. But I remember seeing lines of people waiting for food. And Olga says it was the same, like England, the unemployed milling about and rioting and smashing things, and when we were there the begi

I see I have got away from politics. I meant to write about all the political parties. Governments. That kind of thing. But it seems to me that in each country our family has been in, the same things have happened. Are happening. But America is a Democracy. Britain is Socialist. Nigeria is a Benevolent Dictatorship. (I have just asked Olga and that is what she said.) Kenya is Free and Developing. (Mother says, Benevolent Oligarchy.) Morocco is Islamic and Free and Socialist and Developing. (Benevolent.) I don't know if this is the sort of fact I ought to be dwelling on? I can't believe it matters. Well, everyone else seems to think it matters. But it seems to me to show that our education has been very peculiar to say the least. Nearly everyone is passionate about whatever political party it is. When we have visitors, they have certain things to say, and they say them, one after the other. Often I and George have had to stop ourselves giggling. And even gone out of the room. And this happens in each country, it doesn't matter what the government is. Of course Mother and Father are never part of any political thing, but they are always Experts employed by the Government. That means, if you are in the habit of thinking like that, they must be supporters of that government. Or might be. And this means that visitors have to say certain things for the benefit of Mother and Father and for the other visitors. It is very boring. Well, that is all I am going to say about that.

Special contacts. I see that this is important. I see that it has been important always and I didn't understand that. Because of writing this I keep seeing things. I am trying to be careful to write down everything as I think now and not as then, but it is difficult, because I keep slipping back into that frame of mind.