The traditional residence of Mongolia is called the yurt. It's a pretty big round canvas house with fire in the middle of it. The Mongols are therefore walkers and can disassemble the yurt and settle down everywhere. It is said that the structure of the interior of the yurt is highly coded. For example, the head of the household is usually placed in front of the door and each sex corresponds to one side (left or right) of the yurt. On the other hand, it must respect various prohibitions and rules that enter the yurt: it must not pass between the two main pillars located in the center, it cannot stand for long, and above all, it must not touch the central fire, which, for the Mongols, is the center of the universe. And I’m not generalizing, or speaking in an abstract way: the fire at the center of each yurt is the center of the universe. In other words, the yurts are the center of the other universe.

I have always found interesting the symbolism of the yurt, which in its traditionalism is completely postmodern, since it supports the idea of the polycentric universe. It also offers us the opposite image of the colonized spirit: that is, I don’t depend on anyone, I don’t look at anyone to know who I am or how I should be, because I am myself – wherever I am – the center of my world.

The ideal is not reality. Our world, although we are told every day that it is very postmodern, is not a vast network of self-sufficient yurts. Our world – both geopolitically and socially – is an eternal world, a chessboard structured by the rivalry of contradictory powers, in which each has its own function and limitations. Kings, queens, alfilas, towers, horses... and pawns. And how to disguise the unique and cruel truth on both the world and social chessboard? The king attracts us all, and in general what is above us attracts us, seduces us.

Of course, no one accepts this: “Great bourgeois, what degenerate and miserable people!” “The United States of America, what a degenerate and miserable country”... But we can only see the success of the pink press and/or how Hollywood cinema shapes our lifestyles to realize (unconsciously) that we live looking at these models. And those who are looking for countermodels (those who are in alternative mobidas, a snoba cinefilo who only sees films produced in small towns), give an involuntary recognition or homage to these models at all times, because basically they are the ones who make the decisions and the directions, even if it is to go against them. In short: the empire attracts us.

My ideal is the yurt. My reality is living under the empire. That doesn’t make me pessimistic. I need the mental yurt of the ideal to continue living every day as a pawn in the empire. The Empire is the elusive object of desire that keeps me excited and frustrated at the same time, that makes me mercilessly remember my impossibility. The yurt that I reinvent at all times, which brings me dignity and consolation. A healthy and constructive lie. Yurt, sweet yurt...
but we can't live in serrated yurts drinking fermented mare's milk. Because we are also a kind of empire, after all. To make a connection with the debate of our last weeks, Juanjo and Josi, we would better than mourn and mourn the difficulties we face in living in the world with our culture and accept that we, too, calmly pass by books that come from cultures less insignificant than ours or from the inner peripheries of our empire. We're all somebody's pawns... and somebody's kings.