Flashbacks (part 2)

yes, I know, my previous flashback was in Dutch, so this one goes out to all you non-Dutch speakers out there. This one took place in 2010, once again in Peru. I was working on a research project in Lima about fear of crime amongst upper middle class citizens and how this fear is related to already existing racial/socioeconomic tensions within the country. Moreover, the research delved into how these tensions could not only be considered to be the product of this fear, but also the machination to maintain it. In other words, a partial reinterpretation of Norbert Lechner’s theory on the authoritarian appropriation of fear.

But yeah, here we go!

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.”
-Henry Rollins

Think, think harder, stop thinking, thank you! I’m boiling an egg inside my brain, random thoughts on silent racism, cunnilingus, that one album, the Idiot by Iggy Pop, tonight’s dinner and scientific relevance float through my head. I’m realizing that my time of being unproductive and distracted wasn’t that useless. Sure there are things I could have done or would have liked to do and did not do, but there have also been things I’ve observed without consciously looking for them. First is infrastructural violence, I’ve found some patterns of spatial segregation which could be deemed as infrastructural violence in Lima. Whilst I have only seen a glimpse of them, I have a start. Furthermore I have been noticing the coping strategies that are being applied in daily life as a means of dealing with (the fear of) crime. Large walls, barbed wire, noting down the number plates of taxis, only entering certain areas, avoiding certain people, use of security guards, social networks, and so on. I know I should delve deeper but currently my brain is boiling with random thoughts on how cool that unplugged album by KoRn sounds, that Slayer should come to Peru, that guns are cool, monkeys riding on a polar bear, sixty-nine, Christian Slater in that vampire movie and how fucking annoying most vampire movies actually are. I’m currently delving through some newspapers to find more information on crime and racism and how these things are portrayed by Peruvian media, in the background Iggy Pop tells me that he is a street walking cheetah and I can’t help but think of her (no not Iggy Pop…) legs kicking me in my face, I’d probably end up with a foot fetish or something. Iggy Pop is cool, so is Batman, Slayer, that Soviet assault rifle, Jaime Bayly, Geer & Goor, girls that squirt, pancakes with cheese and bacon, Law & Order (also known as “Cops Fucking with People’s Heads”), red wine, living off cans of sardines, Ministry, that film with Jason Stattham, erm…Crank, the second one please, putting your beer on a girl’s ass while fucking her doggystyle, violence, did I already mention Iggy Pop? Crime rates in Peru are pretty average if we are to believe the statistics, this doesn’t mean that there is no crime or that there isn’t that much of it. Fuck, there is more crime here than back home in Europe, only thing is that Peru seems to be on the total middle/average/median/whatever when it comes to these numbers compared to other Latin American countries. Organized crime and violence aren’t present a scale as seen in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina or Brazil, but we currently do have a whole bunch of Mexican drug dudes here who once in a while get killed. I want to smoke a cigarette and have some wine. I know that once I’m back in the “Old Country” as the Yanquis call it, I’m gonna be a chain-smoking alcoholic, I can hardly wait!

Fuck you, I’m gonna get some more wine…

I really should go to Peru again sometimes, I miss the madness of it…