It's snowing!

It started a little bit as I was getting ready for class. I thought it would stop, because no snow had been forecast today. Wearing white pants was something I'd later regret.

A fascinating class it was today, about the origins of international law, and how it expanded and became so-called 'universal' in the age of colonialisation. You see, law was a product of the 'civilised nations', and only applicable to 'civilised' people. And in the last scramble for colonies at the end of the nineteenth century, law was used to promote and project European influence to the (literally) 'darker' reaches of the world. Land was taken, because the 'savages' were not civilised enough to own land. Uttterly unequal and biased treaties were drafted and signed, which basically signed away the rights and sovereignties of rulers in Africa and Asia. 'Savages' needed 'enlightened' ideas and practices to be 'liberated', and this was done through force, as well as institutions of law. The 'white man's burden' it was called, to spread civilisation (and to some extent, religion) throughout the darkened continents. A history and policy of hypocrisy, blatant racism, self-proclaimed superiority under the guise of 'humanity' and the supposed benign. Some would say the history has continued to this day.

So far, I've had the feeling the degree I'm doing and the university where I study is pretty... 'tame', in the sense that it sort of goes along with (conservative) mainstream theories. As I was preparing the readings for today last night, I was smiling. The very things I had studied and became indoctrinated with at SOAS were alive and kicking. The world is not as black and white as it seems. Democracy and law aren't neutral ideas that can be imported and exported like everything else this neo-liberal capitalist world society seems to produce and market. The critiques of post-modernism on the current world order, the Foucauldian discourse on us vs them, the vices of seeing the world through Eurocentric and ethnocentric perspectives all came flooding back. The left didn't die after all.

And all of a sudden, in the middle of class, a girl gasped as she looked out the window. It began to pour with snow, softly and silently it was almost surreal. The girl had apperently never seen snow before, so was excited, and she excited the rest of us too.

Soon class was over, and we all rushed outside. I stood there, stuck my tongue out and tasted the falling flakes. I cycled home, as quickly as I could, but the roads were horrible and jammed with cars. Quickly I got my camera, and in the snowfall that was getting bigger and bigger, I headed for the forest.

Winter had finally come.