tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19113349030167957182024-03-01T06:39:43.543+01:00Attempted EssaysIdeas, philosophy, politics, current events and happenings, music, literature, art and simple incidents out of my everyday life; Reflections and observations which, I hope, might just get you thinking ...Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-3174947203089186312015-12-22T17:39:00.000+01:002015-12-22T17:57:56.477+01:00The Sum of All Fears<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“ … the only thing we have to fear is fear itself …”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Inaugural Address (1933)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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"There is always
an easy solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong."<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>H. L. Menken, The
Divine Afflatus (1917)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBPKQdvRoLJbGZrNaPXVs9P8y8PlrnHiNMnfWGfGEYb15f59xD_REeOG6DKlg2im_jwHolV4bySXFFOex04f_w_-o-eKBEd8XMly2NpAYUmyCCjzkuuZOk8BzbHjBRknaLFbffEbpSq1F/s1600/fear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBPKQdvRoLJbGZrNaPXVs9P8y8PlrnHiNMnfWGfGEYb15f59xD_REeOG6DKlg2im_jwHolV4bySXFFOex04f_w_-o-eKBEd8XMly2NpAYUmyCCjzkuuZOk8BzbHjBRknaLFbffEbpSq1F/s320/fear.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Let me begin here with an admission: When I look at our
world today, at the end of 2015, I am afraid.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am not afraid of terrorists, Islamic or otherwise. They
want me to be afraid – that’s what terrorists do, attempt to incite terror. I
know that there is an infinitesimal chance that I, or someone close to me, may
become their victim; we may be in the busy centre of a large European city, or
on an aeroplane – just a question of being in the wrong place at the wrong
time. I could also be driving along the motorway/highway/autobahn when some
confused or crazy fool comes shooting onto it through the exit ramp. Or I could
just be struck by lightning. But I repeat, I am not afraid of terrorists; I
refuse to grant them this power over me. They are attacking the values of the
open society in which I live. The vulnerability we have towards their attacks –
despite all the reasonable security measures in place – is the inevitable price
we pay for the values of openness and tolerance which are at the foundation of
any society which truly claims to be civilized.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not afraid of migrants, be they refugees fleeing from
war or persecution, or so-called “economic” migrants, those prepared to uproot
themselves, abandon their homes, families and friends, give up everything they
know in order to seek a better future for themselves and their children. I
realise that their arrival will challenge the country, culture and society in
which I live. But I believe that this challenge can be fruitful, creative and
positive if we face up to it with courage, honesty, openness, and generosity. I
accept that the arrival of larger groups of migrants will change the culture in
which I live; that there will be an inevitable interaction and mingling between
my (Western European) culture and the different life-experiences and traditions
that these migrants bring with them. But cultures are and have always been
dynamic and fluid realities, constantly shifting, and frothing, and mixing, and
growing. My grandfather wouldn’t have known what to do with a pizza, or a
vanilla latté, my grandmother would have been scandalised by Madonna and Lady
Gaga, or the use of the word “fuck” on prime-time TV.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not afraid of Islam. I don’t much like it, but then a
general attitude of scepticism and suspicion regarding all religions has been
growing continuously in me in the past decades. There are aspects of Islam,
particularly the ambivalence regarding violence towards non-believers in many
places in the Quran, which I find disturbing. (On the other hand, there are
passages of the Old Testament which aren’t particularly edifying in this sense
either.) I find the cultural misogyny of most Islamic determined traditions
deeply distasteful. But I am also aware that the Christian and other religious
traditions have anything but a pristine history when it comes to their
treatment of women – and that not all of these historic attitudes have been
left behind. I believe that secularism and the freedom to believe and practice
religion (in so far as this practice does not restrict the freedom of others)
are some more of those basic values I mentioned earlier, those foundational
values of civilized society. As long as its practitioners accept these basic
values, any religion, no matter how idiotic it may seem, can be practiced in a
free society. Ultimately, I believe, the basic values of the secular, open, and
free society will prevail over backward-looking, exclusivist, chauvinist and
fundamentalist versions of every religion, though it may take generations. And
that includes Islam.</div>
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As long, of course, as we hold fast to those values, born
in the Enlightenment and matured – with much struggle and suffering – primarily
in Europe and North America – in the 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup>
Centuries; openness, tolerance, secularism, participation, democracy, civil
rights, the rule of law and an independent judiciary, freedom of thought and
expression, a critical press, the social securing of the basics necessary for
life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But as I look around the world at the end of 2015, these are
the values which I see increasingly under threat. And not only that, they are
being challenged and scraped away bit by bit in their original heartlands;
Europe and North America.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is this of which I am afraid. I take Roosevelt’s
observation seriously. For what I perceive increasingly in the past year is a
growth of uncertainty and fear in our society. I am becoming more afraid of
fear itself; more specifically of the exploitation of that fear and the
consequences of that exploitation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-3HwPfTXWSaWvlBx4t8KI8eEgGZDGUDIofpBc92GomDyrkBjOoTm6Jrg2DuY0SUYXwchf4n_S7VHUTzA9YLALY6gj4xbe5K5zTjoU6SWCDh3pfQm-gHhN-Vc5tcDSgkxmRlNaTwHQYTs/s1600/trump2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs-3HwPfTXWSaWvlBx4t8KI8eEgGZDGUDIofpBc92GomDyrkBjOoTm6Jrg2DuY0SUYXwchf4n_S7VHUTzA9YLALY6gj4xbe5K5zTjoU6SWCDh3pfQm-gHhN-Vc5tcDSgkxmRlNaTwHQYTs/s320/trump2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Living in the centre of Europe I don’t have to look far to
see it. There’s Putin in Russia and Erdogan in Turkey. Closer to home, to the
east there are Viktor Orban in Hungary and <span lang="EN">Jarosław Kaczyński and his PiS party in Poland. Looking west, Gert Wilders
in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France and UKIP in Great Britain. And all
the other populist right-wing demagogues in many other European countries. In
this context – despite the perennial tendency of US Americans to
perceive their culture as exceptional – Donald Trump is also just another
confirmation of a widespread trend in the developed democracies. Here in
Germany, where Angela Merkel has taken a courageous stand on the question of
migrants (and if you’d told me a year ago that I would find myself praising the
German chancellor I’d have replied with an expletive!) and where the country
has provided a safe haven for a million people this year, <i>Pegida</i> and the <i>Alternative
für Deutschland </i>have been gaining in popularity.<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Despite all their
particularist agendas, all of these various obnoxious figures are pretty much
carbon copies of each other. All feed off and exploit the same fear that is
widely present in our societies. This fear has many sources, but basically it
is rooted in the apprehension many (particularly those who are less educated)
feel when faced with a world in which change is all prevailing, in which the
shape of the future appears to be less certain and more threatening. The
demagogues all put forward the same kind of analyses and strategies;
retrenchment, stigmatization and persecution of those who are obviously <i>other</i>, building walls and fences, narrow
nationalist pride, appeals to cultural (and often religious) chauvinism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">They are all
offering (to paraphrase Menken) simple and easy solutions for complex problems.
These solutions are not only wrong, they are dangerous. For, playing to and
exploiting the inchoate fears widely present in our societies, they deny the enlightenment
values which are the fundament of our societies, appealing instead to emotional
irrationalities. To anyone with any sense of the sorry history of the 20<sup>th</sup>
Century it should be obvious where this leads. Make no mistake, my friends,
even if these people are democratically elected, even if they keep the forms of
democracy in the countries they control, regularly having themselves
re-elected, they are proponents of an evil the world has already seen too much
of. Putin, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Kaczyński, Farage, Erdogan and all the others
are proponents of what might best be described as <i>fascism lite</i>. And they are quite prepared to use many of the
techniques perfected by their predecessors. To give but one example, all of
them are prepared to publicly trumpet untruths and continue to do so, even when
these statements have been repeatedly rationally proved to be untrue. Both
Hitler and Goebbels described this strategy as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie" target="_blank">the big lie</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">So, faced with
this resurgence of irrational, dangerous, fascist demagoguery, what can we do?
How should we, in our ordinary little lives, react to this exploitation of fear
which will, if it continues to grow, destroy the fundamental values of the
societies in which we live?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"> "All that is necessary for evil to
triumph is for good men to do nothing," is a quotation usually attributed
to Edmund Burke, though in this form it goes back to Tolstoy. No matter, it
gives us a strategy for responding to these attempts (far more dangerous than
anything ISIS can do) to destroy the character of our societies. We must
respond immediately to the facile, dangerous lies put about by these fear
mongers wherever we encounter them; from friends, family members, work
colleagues, acquaintances; at home, at work, in the bus, in the pub, on
Facebook. Many of us are just too polite, or too apprehensive of conflict, or
just too lazy (I know that all these reasons frequently apply to me) to engage
here, to get involved. But, I am becoming increasingly convinced, the failure
to contradict the nasty simplistic views, grown in fear and cultivated in
ignorance by neo-fascist ideologues, only leads to their growth and spread. If
they are not countered, they will lead us into a new Dark Age.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/29Mg6Gfh9Co/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/29Mg6Gfh9Co?feature=player_embedded" width="420"></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Images retrieved from: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/06/26/fear-used-turn-spirituality/ </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://ntrsctn.com/irl/2015/09/throw-things-at-donald-trum-in-new-game-trumpealo </span></div>
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<span lang="EN"> </span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-62793735928570988412015-01-07T20:42:00.000+01:002015-01-07T20:42:45.700+01:00The Sad, Mad World we Live in<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Do you know the feeling, that feeling of anger and disgust
at the amount of fucked-up stupidity, evil and hopelessness in the world? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiORw32HLFEZYq19bwf3m597LCi-sv9zBYqALTgTL6t6KuJdprP_Cv1E3zAvuS00gZqznc4EdExEGhTEJ8NpasYXkPAOOlxDAveBp8VLBuC0S0HlAXv-SqHnm_S7jMkXsGzmXocxnsE_RuL/s1600/killing+in+paris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiORw32HLFEZYq19bwf3m597LCi-sv9zBYqALTgTL6t6KuJdprP_Cv1E3zAvuS00gZqznc4EdExEGhTEJ8NpasYXkPAOOlxDAveBp8VLBuC0S0HlAXv-SqHnm_S7jMkXsGzmXocxnsE_RuL/s1600/killing+in+paris.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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Today a couple of (almost certainly) Islamicist fanatic
terrorists attacked the offices of the French satirical paper <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo" target="_blank">Charlie Hebdo</a></i>, killing twelve people.
There is video coverage online of two gunmen shooting a policeman down in the
street and then finishing the execution with a headshot, even as the man on the
ground raises a hand, possibly in a last plea for mercy. It’s horrific in its
brutality so I’m not going to post a link to the video itself here. The photo shows enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Charlie Hebdo </i>is
not a particularly pleasant newspaper; but that’s not what its makers want it
to be. It is relentlessly satirical, regards nothing as sacred, and is prepared
to lampoon anyone and anything in the news, be they pope, prophet or president,
moron, mullah, or messiah. That’s their job as they see it. And it’s their
right in a free, pluralistic, secular society. If you don’t like what they
publish you don’t have to buy it or read it. If you feel personally damaged by
something they publish you can sue them. That’s the way a civilized society
works, particularly a civil society which sees freedom of expression and the
press as a basic value.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One result of this barbaric event will certainly be calls
from the populist (partly proto-fascist) right in France (led, no doubt, by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Le_Pen" target="_blank">Marine Le Pen</a> and the <i>Front National</i>) and
worldwide for clampdowns on Islam, and Islamic foreigners, and foreigners
generally; migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The usual cacophony of
ignorance, fear- and hate-mongering. Indeed, this may have been one of the
perverted, calculated aims of the mad, evil bastards who planned and carried
out the attack.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here in Germany in the past number of weeks we’ve been
treated to the dubious spectacle of thousands of ignoramuses marching every
Monday night in the streets of Dresden under the banner of a strange
organisation calling itself <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEGIDA" target="_blank">PEGIDA</a> </i>[Patriotic
Europeans Against the Islamization of the West]. According to the Saxon
Interior Ministry in 2010 0.1% (around 4,000) of the population of Saxony (of
which Dresden is the capital) describe themselves as Muslims [<i>Source: <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/pegida-die-thesen-im-faktencheck-a-1008098.html" target="_blank">Spiegel Online</a></i>]. Biiiiig threat.
Last Monday night, as a sign of some hope for sanity in my adopted
home-country, thousands of people marched in Cologne, just a few miles down the
road from me, in favour of tolerance and an open society. Cologne has 120,000
Muslims out of a population of around a million. For those who can’t do the
math, that’s 12%. Around a hundred times higher than in Saxony. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Personally, I’m not a great fan of Islam. But then, I’m not
a great fan of evangelical Protestantism, traditionalist Catholicism,
neo-liberal free-market capitalism, or Justin Biber either. This nevertheless
doesn’t mean that I would ever contemplate or tolerate any calls for or moves to
forbid people their right to believe whatever they want to and to freely
profess and express those beliefs, however idiotic I may consider them to be.
This freedom is one of the constituting principles of a humane civil society.
It goes further; even people who profess beliefs abhorrent to these
constituting principles – like, I am forced to conclude, quite a number of
those marching in Dresden – have a guaranteed right to do so, as long as they
don’t resort to violence, or incitement to violence, against others. That’s
what a humane civil society has to be able to tolerate and, I have no doubt,
any healthy civil society is well able to withstand the irritation caused by
such misguided fools.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, that does imply that those of us (the vast
majority, I like to think) who value these basic principles of humane civility
sometimes have to speak out for them and defend them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A journalist friend just told me the story of an initial
interview she did this afternoon. It was with a young man who’s been in Germany
for four years now. He was born in one of those war-torn countries we
frequently hear of in the news but his family fled terror and conflict when he
was a child, finishing up in Iran. He spent seventeen years there and managed
to obtain a degree in computer-programming before realising that, as a
stateless person with no official identity-papers, he had no future in the
mullah-dominated Islamic Republic. His mother sold the last of her jewels to
provide the necessary money and he (alone of his family) made a long,
dangerous, illegal journey, culminating in a frightening boat-trip across the
Aegean from Turkey to Greece before finally ending up here in Germany four
years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In Germany he has the status of a <i>tolerated </i>(but <u>not recognised</u>) asylum seeker. He still has
no legal papers, so that his “official” status, such as it is, can be described
as <i>stateless</i>. Inquiries at the embassy
of his native country have resulted in no practical prospects of ever getting a
passport. He is given enough to live on – barely – in Germany. He is not
allowed to work, although he has good training in a field where his skills are
demanded everywhere. His freedom of movement here in the country is extremely
uncertain, since he has no official papers. Without them he cannot open a bank
account or make a contract for telephone and internet access with a
telecommunications provider. He spends his life in fear of police controls, of
suddenly being thrown out of the country. He has little hope for the future and
has been suffering – increasingly – from depression.<o:p></o:p></div>
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No wonder.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This is one of those people the fools in Dresden seem to be
protesting about. This is one of those people who will be regarded with
increased suspicion and even hatred as a result of the brutality of the terrorists
in Paris today.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This is someone who only wants to live an ordinary life,
someone with the skills and potential to offer a positive contribution to any
society which would welcome him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The way our world is so screwed up, it doesn’t look like
he’ll be welcomed anywhere.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That humane civil society I was defending earlier in this
essay still has a long way to go.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/gLG91tOLPdQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Picture source:</span> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charlie-hebdo-french-satirical-magazine-paris-office-attack-leaves-casualties/" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charlie-hebdo-french-satirical-magazine-paris-office-attack-leaves-casualties/ </a></span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-38339923686973559602014-07-27T19:54:00.000+02:002014-07-27T19:54:07.560+02:00Ukraine: Conflicting Narratives<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Narrative” has become one of those buzz-words or
buzz-concepts which one cannot avoid nowadays. At its most basic, it simply
means “story”; in the more precise cultural context in which it is generally
used, it is a <i>story told or shared</i>
within a group as an instrument to define a common reality, or at least
perception of reality (whether in fact there is any difference between these
two is a more complex philosophical question I have no intention of going into
here). The following is an attempt to analyse the current situation in and
around the Ukraine with the help of this concept.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>The Conventional Wisdom Narrative<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxnSJ0rNX30heEDGJHZUexL1Mz9QRCOFoCkZ-oX11sQ3N4_13B8lgDAzGahuFgUOpSKRJP6D2HbQTkR_5OhB9ywYAnfwvD7YKvvLo5GLVE3bxPHk6YOgPHEea5NHwu8ZGLCyZ7gxeAcVWC/s1600/mh172.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxnSJ0rNX30heEDGJHZUexL1Mz9QRCOFoCkZ-oX11sQ3N4_13B8lgDAzGahuFgUOpSKRJP6D2HbQTkR_5OhB9ywYAnfwvD7YKvvLo5GLVE3bxPHk6YOgPHEea5NHwu8ZGLCyZ7gxeAcVWC/s1600/mh172.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the one that that is prevalent in the West – in the
US and (maybe somewhat less stridently) Europe. The Ukraine is a democratic
post-Soviet country where the majority of the population wants more distance
from an aggressive, powerful neighbour, which used to be its imperial master,
and therefore wants to orientate itself more towards the West. In this, the
Ukrainians are simply following the course already taken by other former parts
of the Soviet Empire in the past twenty five years. All the former Warsaw pact
countries, as well as the three Baltic republics, are now members of both the
EU and NATO. They have been able to take advantage of the freedom they
(re)gained following the collapse of the USSR at the beginning of the nineties
to reposition themselves as part of the “free” world, developing and deepening
their democratic, economic, political and social structures to integrate
themselves into the new European model which has brought such prosperity,
stability, and democratic standards to those countries which have embraced it
since WWII.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All the majority of Ukrainians want is to follow the same
course. But Russia won’t let them. It has been consistently trying to
destabilise (with varying degrees of success and failure) every attempt the
Ukraine has made in the past twenty years to position itself in the western
camp. Putin sees the Ukraine as an essential part of the Russian sphere of
influence and is not prepared to accept, under any circumstances, a reorientation
of the Ukraine towards the Western block. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the chaos following the fall of the pro-Russian
Yanukovych government at the beginning of this year, Putin judged the situation
favourable for more direct action and, basically, annexed the Crimea. Though
the West condemned this, there seems to have been a fair deal of international
understanding for this move. The majority in the Crimea is pro-Russian,
Russian-speaking and ethnic Russian. The Crimea is of major strategic
importance for Russia – particularly with regard to naval emplacement in the
Black Sea – and there had been special status agreements regarding Russian
military interests there ever since Ukrainian independence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Encouraged by the Crimean experience (which, he judges, he
had basically got away with), Putin has now decided to repeat this process for
the whole of the Eastern Ukraine, where there is much stronger (possibly even
majority) support among the population for a pro-Russian course. As a result,
he has been covertly – and increasingly overtly – supporting separatists in
this area, who have declared the independence of the region from the Ukraine.
This support has included weapons and weapons-systems, (almost certainly)
military advisors, and (probably) troops. This is the kind of stuff that’s
difficult to control tightly. On July 17 a group of separatists almost
certainly used a military-grade anti-aircraft system to shoot down a Malaysia
Airline jet, killing 298 innocent people, probably because they thought it was
a Ukrainian Air Force fighter. Put bluntly, they fucked up, probably because
they weren’t sufficiently trained, weren’t patched into the intelligence
air-traffic control systems which would have told them that the plane they were
aiming at was a civilian one, and/or were possibly even drunk.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This put Putin in the position of the sorcerer’s apprentice;
he never wanted <i>this</i>. Damage control
swung into place, the <i>Buk</i> anti-aircraft
battery used to shoot down the plane was swiftly disappeared back into Russia,
jubilant posts on the web were quickly deleted (though not quickly enough), and
a whole plethora of smoke-screening diplomatic, media, and PR-spin measures
have been put into place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following the conventional wisdom narrative, my take on Putin’s
tactics is this: The Crimea is essential to Russian interests, he wanted it, he
got it, and he’s going to keep it. I also feel that the West (and even the
Ukraine) has generally been prepared to accept this. As far as the Eastern
Ukraine is concerned, my suspicion is that, while he might <i>like </i>to have it, he’s not set on it. Keeping some low-level
conflict going there, stirring the pot, keeping the general chaos level up, is
probably sufficient for him. It keeps the whole Ukraine unstable, blocks any
real movement to cement the country into the Western alliance and means the levels
of tension with the West won’t rise above a controllable volume. The US and EU
will scream and complain and will do some little PR-spin economic sanctions
(which will hurt Russia a bit, but they’re worth it from his point of view).
The situation remains fluid, so he still has some freedom to act and react,
depending on the way the situation develops. The downing of Flight MH17
disturbs this strategy, it ups the ante for him to a level which is
uncomfortable. So I would expect the Russian position in the wake of this
murderous disaster in the next weeks and months to be a mixture of obfuscation,
half-assed cooperation, talking things up, playing things down, introducing red
herrings and pink elephants; generally muddying the waters and judiciously
stirring the shit until things simmer down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, all of this is set within the Conventional Wisdom
Narrative. It’s even all true. But it’s only one narrative.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>The Russian Counter-Narrative<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3ppVZTOCh-BPJ-QDirf063Hmu4nnrdVqZCgXVe8WnpEvkSdYcKJRTN6sBnBwoxGMP0qEzjLn58FOtiXh-uyG7VX6eWPhc6jLAK9lGDFP7h13SpcNK31NQMsVbr-tLhD5yW8-s8vpum06/s1600/putin-in-mother-russia-poster-2322.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3ppVZTOCh-BPJ-QDirf063Hmu4nnrdVqZCgXVe8WnpEvkSdYcKJRTN6sBnBwoxGMP0qEzjLn58FOtiXh-uyG7VX6eWPhc6jLAK9lGDFP7h13SpcNK31NQMsVbr-tLhD5yW8-s8vpum06/s1600/putin-in-mother-russia-poster-2322.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a Cold War and Russia (in its Soviet iteration)
lost. The whole of the Eastern European buffer-zone (aka Warsaw pact) and the
Baltic Republics, which the Soviet Union occupied to protect the <i>Rodina </i>[the “Motherland”, a Russian
expression of identity, almost mystical in its cultural and nationalist
meaning], are now all firmly part of the Western sphere of influence. Russia
has historically suffered on an almost unimaginable scale as a result of
aggressive invasion from the West. Tens of millions of Russians have been
killed and huge destruction has been wrought on them, from Napoleon to Hitler.
The basic Western attitude to Russia historically has been to regard them as
sub-human, Asiatic barbarians, who don’t really belong in what Gorbachev (in
his boundless naïveté) called the “Common European House”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The West simply cannot be trusted. Its leaders speak in fulsome
tones about values such as freedom, democracy, and self-determination and then
aggressively proceed, under cover of these phrases, to follow their deeper
instinct to keep Russia weak, perhaps even destroy it completely.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the negotiations about German reunification, following
the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West made solemn promises to the Soviets. <span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">"The Americans promised that Nato wouldn't
move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of
central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It
shows they cannot be trusted."</span> (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1933223/Gorbachev-US-could-start-new-Cold-War.html">Michael
Gorbachev, 2008</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But the losses following the end of the Cold War go far
deeper. Not only were the strategically necessary Soviet conquests in Eastern
Europe gone, the losses were even greater. From Peter the Great onwards, Russia
had followed a consistent path to push Christian civilization and values
eastwards, in the Caucasus, Central Asia and further. Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and
Siberia were all conquered, settled and civilized by the Tsarist Empire. What
the United States had seen and realised as Manifest Destiny to the west, Russia
had done eastwards. Only (unlike the US), this had never been accepted by the
rest of the residents of the Common European House. Russia was not seen as expanding
European values eastwards, rather as building up a dangerous barbarian
Asian-infested imperium to threaten the real Europe from the East. All these 18<sup>th</sup>
and 19<sup>th</sup> Century Russian conquests, with the exception of Siberia,
are now lost. The scale of the secession of all these former Soviet Republics
from Russian hegemony has only one modern historical parallel; the attempted
secession of the Confederate States of America from the Union in 1861 (and we
all know what that led to).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And that’s not all. The original heartland of Russia is not
just Moscow-based Russia, but rather, from the very beginning, a kind of
federation of three closely-related proto-nations; Russia, Belarus, and the
Ukraine. The origin of later Muscovy and subsequent Russia, is, historically, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27"><b><i>Kievan</i></b> Rus’</a> (9<sup>th</sup>
Century). In an exercise of (from the Russian point of view) desperate damage
limitation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus could ultimately be
stabilised under the firmly pro-Russian dictatorship of Lukashenko (1994).
Despite continuous Russian attempts, a similar stabilisation of the Ukraine
within the Russian orbit has not been possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">From a Russian point of view, the role of the West in all
this has been deeply suspect. At best, the West has been cheering on all the
centrifugal tendencies within the former Soviet/Russian Unity from the side-lines.
There is a widespread – indeed almost general – perception among Russians that
the West has actually been actively encouraging and fomenting every possible
movement towards fragmentation, when and wherever they occur. This is not
simply paranoia; the involvement of a plethora of Western groups (with clear
pro-Western agendas) within the former Soviet hegemony, and particularly the
Ukraine, is generally accepted and well <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa">documented</a>.
To this has to be added the enthusiastic involvement of all sorts of Western
business (and state-supported) interests in the massive garage-sale/robbery of
practically all the national resources of the former Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics in the chaos of the Yeltsin years, which led to a transformation from
a state-owned to an oligarchy-owned economy in less than a decade, the
consequences of which Russia is still attempting to deal with – or just live
with.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This is the background to the Putin era and is essential to
any understanding of where Russians are today. It explains a lot about how
Putin understands himself and the goals he sets for the country he rules. It
explains why Russians tend to perceive <i>anything
</i>coming from the West (apart from consumer goods which you can buy and <i>own</i>) with the deepest suspicion and
cynicism. It also explains Putin’s enduring popularity with the great majority
of Russians. Faced with a collective psyche deeply traumatised by what his
people experience as defeat, humiliation, and betrayal by the West, he’s giving
them back their dignity; a sense of strength. And worth. Balm for a badly
wounded soul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #282828; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23u2s-JfqBbNGWPiRawRhLqWX3dn9Pfbr4VkkijnEZvE1yWj4pO8n6qjRPCOgxwXlFgfpPaVwioYejuze5dNPELghwkyZPT41WP0pmjFCEwPzhsKvJlvIWE0vZaOd8yXU5An6iBuwNcIk/s1600/mh171.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23u2s-JfqBbNGWPiRawRhLqWX3dn9Pfbr4VkkijnEZvE1yWj4pO8n6qjRPCOgxwXlFgfpPaVwioYejuze5dNPELghwkyZPT41WP0pmjFCEwPzhsKvJlvIWE0vZaOd8yXU5An6iBuwNcIk/s1600/mh171.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is it then any surprise that ordinary Russians are willing
to believe the spin/propaganda put out by the overwhelmingly state-controlled
media in their country since the current Ukrainian crisis gathered momentum?
That they accept the official line that the present regime in Kiev is fascist?
That dark, abstruse conspiracy theories about sinister US-agency involvement in
the downing of flight MH17 are given widespread credence?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such narratives of cultural identification are immensely
powerful. For those who identify with them they supply a coherent world-view, they
provide a conceptual framework which allows both individuals and groups to define themselves
and relate to the chaotic, complex wider world in which they find themselves.
We all have our narratives, for the simplest and most fundamental of all is the
individual personal biography, merging into family narratives, the stories
which express the experiences of particular communities, moving into all sorts
of larger-scale instruments of group identity such as religions and nations.
They bind stories of the past, value systems and questions of the present,
shared vocabularies, dialects and languages, common ways of seeing the world
and interpreting individual and shared experiences to provide those contextual structures
of meaning which we all need at a basic level to define our very identity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Narratives are also
wonderfully and necessarily flexible. They are not monolithic. We all identify
with and buy into multiple narratives, which – and this is centrally important –
need not be consistent with each other. So, to give just one example, there are
many people who manage to combine a particular fundamentalist Christian
world-view with a scientific one, so that they can simultaneously work, say, as
molecular biologists while denying evolution.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This particular example also offers a good illustration of
how important and powerful narratives can seem to be completely resistant to
what others, who do not subscribe to them, regard as self-evident “facts”. No
matter how much “evidence” you bring, you will not be able to bring a
creationist, whose world-view is based on a particular religious narrative
which is a central element in that person’s self-identification, to abandon his
position in favour of an understanding of the world based on evolutionary processes
going back for billions of years. And such considerations also help to explain
just how difficult it would be to persuade the majority of Russians that their
perception of the “realities” of the current Ukrainian conflict, and
particularly the destruction of MH17, is “wrong”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>The </i>Realpolitik<i> Narrative<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the starting point and context for those who regard
themselves as illusionless realists. They are adherents of a narrative
encapsulated by such expressions as, “Politics is the art of the possible” (Bismarck),
“France has no friends, only interests” (de Gaulle, paraphrasing Lord Palmerston
on England), or “Those who have visions should go to the doctor” (Helmut
Schmidt). It tells the story of a world where the ultimate reality is a social-Darwinist
one, going all the way back to Thucydides’ famous description of the Athenian
position in the <i>History of the Peloponnesian
War</i>, “the strong do as they can and the weak suffer as they must”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Certainly this narrative is one of those which inspires
Vladimir Putin. Following its premises, the most likely future scenario looks
much better for the Russian position than the Ukrainian one. For all the
platitudes being spouted in the EU about the primacy of international law, its
members will do nothing serious to change the current status quo, one in which
Russia has grabbed the Crimea and may even possibly go on to occupy additional
territory in the Eastern Ukraine, or at least control it by proxy through a
Russian-supported separatist regime.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are already some indications of this. Despite economic
sanctions being talked-up at the moment, France is still going ahead with the
delivery of <a href="http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/russia-to-order-french-mistral-lhds-05749/">Mistral
amphibious assault ships</a> to the Russian navy. But the real test of principles
against interests will develop in the coming months, particularly if Russia
maintains its current aggressive position. At the moment, the EU imports around
a third of its natural gas and oil from Russia. Germany’s dependence is even
greater (<a href="http://www.dw.de/germanys-russian-energy-dilemma/a-17529685">36%
of natural gas and 39% of oil</a>). Expanding sanctions to cover this area –
something that <i>would </i>genuinely hurt
Russia – would mean the EU would have to put its money where its mouth is.
Higher prices at filling stations would certainly be one result. Literally hundreds
of millions of EU citizens heat their homes and power their workplaces with
natural gas, a significant amount of which is imported directly by pipelines
from Russia. (Just to make the situation even more complicated, the most
important pipeline runs through the Ukraine.) Would anyone like to bet what
would happen to Angela Merkel’s currently high popularity ratings in Germany if
home heating prices rise sharply this winter or (worst-case scenario) the
situation so deteriorates that no gas flows<i>
</i>from Russia, the winter is particularly long and cold, the gas reserves are
used up, and rationing has to be introduced? And this doesn’t even address the
question of what consequences real economic sanctions on Russia (and Russia’s reactions
to these) would have on a world economy still in a state of precarious, fragile
recovery from the disaster of the Crash of 2008. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Are the leaders of the western democracies, compelled as
they are to win elections at regular intervals, prepared to gamble their
popularity and positions for the sake of principles? How important are the
international rights of a former Soviet republic to the citizens of the West,
compared with their economic well-being and comforts? How long will the shock
and indignation at the killing of a few hundred plane passengers last before
our short attention spans are diverted to the next crisis or scandal, driven as
we are by a continuous, ubiquitous media frenzy for the next new big story?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXIoT9S7r7PpvOZdaK6qrnFjiab_We9fzZLuqeOyWMb7MpmE7Ab-Trp6DxcmKSffcRmWSAc8xtmqpUFg2areeP5bzk3LU6GM_otr1YnwXu3cN2esMmbh2QhKzoo6hmueo-NOGlWML_vT3p/s1600/oscar+wilde+cynic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXIoT9S7r7PpvOZdaK6qrnFjiab_We9fzZLuqeOyWMb7MpmE7Ab-Trp6DxcmKSffcRmWSAc8xtmqpUFg2areeP5bzk3LU6GM_otr1YnwXu3cN2esMmbh2QhKzoo6hmueo-NOGlWML_vT3p/s1600/oscar+wilde+cynic.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The <i>Realpolitik</i>
narrative teaches that interests always trump principles, that bread and
circuses are always more important to the masses, and that public opinion is
always infinitely malleable. The reality of the world is that it <i>spins</i>, and the only thing you really
have to do is to make sure that <i>your </i>spin
works.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, anyway, nearly all the real power in the world belongs
to a tiny elite of the super-rich who use their wealth to consolidate, maintain
and increase their position and privileges. This is also part of the defining
reality of human existence; it has always, basically, been this way and there
are no good reasons to assume that it will ever substantially be different.
Revolutions and upheavals may sporadically occur, but such wobbles in the basic
spin of the world correct themselves relatively quickly and everything reverts
to business-as-usual.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Awareness of multiple narratives<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The narratives I have outlined here are not the only ones
relevant to the current crisis in and about the Ukraine; I have not, for example,
delineated the Ukrainian Narrative, a central one for any complete
understanding of the situation there. There is also a Polish Narrative which
has some significance. I have especially
avoided the <i>Moral Narrative</i> (which is
related to but not identical with the International Law Narrative) since the complexity
of <i>that</i> particular story would at
least double the length of an essay which already threatens to be too long. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The important point is that in every complex human situation,
particularly where differences and conflicts are involved, there are multiple
narratives and that these narratives can be (and usually are) simultaneously
contradictory and true. A realisation of this is essential for any attempt at
conflict resolution. It also moves the work of conflict resolution beyond the
search for simple compromise on the level of a lowest common denominator
towards a search for some kind of metanarrative which can encompass the most
important elements of all the narratives involved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Writing this as I do in the summer of 2014, my thoughts inevitably
turn back a hundred years, to the summer of 1914. Anyone reading Christopher
Clark’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalkers-How-Europe-Went-1914/dp/0061146668/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406477822&sr=1-1&keywords=christopher+clark+the+sleepwalkers+how+europe+went+to+war+in+1914&dpPl=1">The
Sleepwalkers</a>, </i>a magnificent account of the beginning of World War I,
cannot fail to be struck by the parallels between the aftermath of the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, and the
aftermath of the downing of Flight MH17. Very few people, particularly those
who were responsible for making the crucial decisions, really wanted war in
1914. They all thought that they could manage a situation of brinkmanship. That
the world stumbled into a cataclysmic conflict was in no small part due to the
inability of the major responsible actors to realise the strength of all the
other narratives which were not their own.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a lesson we would do well to remember.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/MgEqCzWhbYI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Images retrieved from:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/07/19/article-2698106-1FCCB86300000578-472_634x423.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://escapekappertisle.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/putin-in-mother-russia-poster-2322.jpg?w=640</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://i.cbc.ca/1.2710270.1405693912!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/image.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518lVu-hASL._SY300_.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-5901494261495320202014-01-27T20:29:00.001+01:002014-01-27T20:29:35.884+01:00Complexity Meditation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE394BWGz76rw-4dhtNe2rC_6DdX55EO49YUJkaafkWjNrkZjQ4tR0CMbbO__nUGhMRGrRlpSt79NyQnkgEkpsumJmV42_tNH5zBHQw9IvcGgpkcclQ0vQzMnHGviTu72mmf3y3oPkmWNY/s1600/hamsterwheel_original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE394BWGz76rw-4dhtNe2rC_6DdX55EO49YUJkaafkWjNrkZjQ4tR0CMbbO__nUGhMRGrRlpSt79NyQnkgEkpsumJmV42_tNH5zBHQw9IvcGgpkcclQ0vQzMnHGviTu72mmf3y3oPkmWNY/s1600/hamsterwheel_original.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a>I was in an aeroplane, more than seven miles up, when I
started thinking about the complexity of things.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For people who do meditation, one of the major goals is to
achieve simplicity, that sensation when all is one, when the constant ephemera
of daily experience disappear into ragged wisps of illusion, where there is
only the reality of breathing in and breathing out, holding on and letting go
until you transcend the duality, moving beyond thought and feeling into monad
unity … <i>Ommmm</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have never been very good at this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There’s a hamster in my head; a driven, energetic little
bastard who gallops away on his exercise wheel all the time. I’ve spent much of
my life (futilely) trying to stop him, or at least slow him down. Most of the
times I try meditation – and it doesn’t make much difference what technique I
use – I generally manage to get through the initial phases quite easily, into
that area of inner stillness and relaxation and then, in the growing silence, I
start to hear that bloody hamster more clearly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Most of those who teach meditation counsel not to worry
about this. “Don’t fight it,” they say. “Let the thoughts come … and go. They
will arise and then fade away, leaving growing peace, emptiness and goalless
fulfilment in their path.” <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_mani_padme_hum" target="_blank">Om mani padme hum</a></i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They don’t know my fucking hamster.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He’s a persistent little bugger, and he enjoys the space
provided by the initial phases of the meditation process. One his nastiest
little tricks is to take the role of the observer of my progress, analysing it,
commenting on it, making the process of voluntary not-thinking into an
interesting, obsessive, conscious subject of thought – and thus neatly
derailing the whole process.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He’s given me quite a bit of grief in my life. For many
years I found I could slow him down, or even put him to sleep altogether, by
using (ever increasing) amounts of alcohol.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Not </i>a good idea.
Dealing with the consequences of that took a <i>lot </i>of time and effort. Generally, I believe that using
psychoactive substances to try to modify aspects of your personality isn’t good
for you in the long term, because you’re only putting temporary “No Entry”
signs on major areas of yourself, which only function as long as you’re
actively taking the substance. (<i>Disclaimer</i>:
This observation should be no way seen as applicable for prescribed and
monitored medication for mental health issues such as serious mood disorders or
potentially psychotic personality problems.) And, as my experience with alcohol
painfully taught me, such strategies often have <i>serious</i> – and lasting – downsides.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, I have learned to accept, I have to live with my hamster
and develop other strategies for dealing with him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Choose your battles</i>,
they say. <i>Don’t get into a fight unless
you’re pretty sure you can win it</i>. Sometimes, instead of trying to wrestle
my manic hamster into silence, or to ignore the constant rattling of him
whirling away on his wheel in the corner of my mind’s living room, I take a
different tack. I consciously open the door of his cage, inviting him to come
into the room and really stretch himself. <i>Reach
for the ceiling, </i>I tell him. <i>Be
welcome. Show me what you can do. </i>(And, very quietly, whispering to myself
so that he can’t hear the furtively hoped intention; <i>Knock yourself out.</i>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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And so, in a kind of anti-meditation, instead of relaxing
and emptying my mind, I relax and consciously allow it to fill up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Which brings me back to the aeroplane. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETEEc64xHH9_Avoc3rkX75jlxeyEtdNRawWcH-IN6FXSFjtysfWBzygq45bB7ZmxTMuf_DiDn0aruPCHcthtkhUHnj-8h5PPJ9cyBvWYR5mFF0Aw-K1bkmiEsAyqAIB4sd0S52XrYzdB3/s1600/aer+lingus+airbus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETEEc64xHH9_Avoc3rkX75jlxeyEtdNRawWcH-IN6FXSFjtysfWBzygq45bB7ZmxTMuf_DiDn0aruPCHcthtkhUHnj-8h5PPJ9cyBvWYR5mFF0Aw-K1bkmiEsAyqAIB4sd0S52XrYzdB3/s1600/aer+lingus+airbus.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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I’m in an Aer Lingus Airbus A320-200, more than seven miles up in the
air, travelling at about 500 mph. Along with around 150 other people, I’m
securely enclosed in a warm and comfortable environment, which is just as well;
a few feet away, outside the aircraft, the lack of oxygen in the thin air would
be competing with the very low pressure and a temperature of -60° C to kill me
within a matter of minutes, long before I’d hit the ground at the end of my
fall.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I start to think about the number of people involved in the
process which has me here. There were the thousands of people involved in
building this plane, which was manufactured either in Hamburg or Toulouse (or
even quite possibly both – since Airbus has a very complex assembly process,
the result of intricate political horse-trading). The CFM engines were almost
certainly built in France, though many of the components were made by GE in the
USA; thousands more people involved in building, selling and transporting the
hundreds of thousands of individual components incorporated in the actual
aircraft in which I am now flying.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But, my expanding thoughts about complex human connectivity
realise, this is only part of the picture. What about all the people involved
in making the ancillary fittings; the companies which did the final fitting for
the airline, for example? It’s quite possible that some of the stitching on the
faux-leather/plastic seat cover on which I am sitting was done by some Chinese
woman, working a sewing-machine on a twelve hour shift in a sweatshop factory
for three euros a day. The list of those involved in making my journey possible
expands again to include all these people, and all those who were part of the
myriad operations of packing, transporting, unpacking and installing stuff from
many corners of the globe.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then there’s the crew, and all the people working in the
two airports getting this plane into the air and back down again safely. The
ground-staff and the baggage handlers, those who did the security checks and
signed off on the passenger, cargo and fuel manifests. The air-traffic
controllers who are guiding our flight safely through the night. The people
working on pumping the crude oil out of the deposits where it has lain under
the ground or the sea for millions of years before those complex hydrocarbon
molecules began their final journey to be refined into kerosene now being
burned to provide energy for the jet engines pushing us through the skies above
Germany, Holland, the North Sea, Britain, and the Irish Sea, all the way from
Düsseldorf to Dublin. Was the man who oversaw the pumping of that original
crude a well-paid shift worker on a North Sea oil-rig, or a much more
poorly-paid Filipino migrant worker, sending remittances home to his family
from Saudi or Kuwait? All the people involved in refining that kerosene and
finally transporting it to be pumped into the plane’s fuel tanks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Still more human connectivity; As I order a chicken and
lettuce wrap to eat, my thoughts turn to all of those involved in producing
this, from those working in a food-processing plant somewhere to put it all
together to the farmers who raised the chicken (probably somewhere in a
battery) to the ones who grew the lettuce and the other ones who grew the wheat
baked into the wrap. And who were the people who mined the salt which was used
to season it, and where did they live and work? And how many people were
involved in buying and selling and transporting and assembling all the
ingredients of the snack I’m eating?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIdnkppdjrmAaBU3X9s8zFqdtS89s4bC9s-J9MbSEXYa1GDghtIs7LNHXjt-YKxoKR9idUzsTvsE4ygMLgnM8-2UFNWTcQxrqSSdBNyO3_NFNZiLKb7jXXXF0Xf1FaFkr8thjTuea7z3Rk/s1600/Om-mani-padme-hum_02.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIdnkppdjrmAaBU3X9s8zFqdtS89s4bC9s-J9MbSEXYa1GDghtIs7LNHXjt-YKxoKR9idUzsTvsE4ygMLgnM8-2UFNWTcQxrqSSdBNyO3_NFNZiLKb7jXXXF0Xf1FaFkr8thjTuea7z3Rk/s1600/Om-mani-padme-hum_02.svg.png" height="140" width="320" /></a>Ephemeral, momentary, fragmentary connections with literally
hundreds of thousands of people who have all been involved in some way in
making this journey I am on possible, but connections which are none the less
real for all that. Our modern lives are perfused with incredibly complex
interconnectivity; in thousands of everyday situations, which overlap and fuse
into each other, we live lives of wonderfully complicated interdependence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Without noticing, my racing thoughts become weaker, quieter,
fall away. I find myself becoming quieter, more peaceful, more relaxed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The hamster has lain down in the corner and fallen asleep.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Om mani padme hum.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Fee fi fo fum.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Dum di dum.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Ho hum.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>…..<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Om …<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Images retrieved from:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://tristathorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hamsterwheel_original.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aer.lingus.a320-200.ei-den.arp.jpg </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Om-mani-padme-hum_02.svg</span><br />
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-68782915143026050842014-01-17T16:24:00.001+01:002014-01-17T16:24:18.978+01:00Walking Slowly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVwDeVxUvT3FnJayVs-I27sEOH_DHSuJyGIGgOxR-WcfsXq2s_NqCZCVZy6lie5IqNdA64RPHreNpAsmk2oUVG0J-xPbebaNwkMcldTMEAwJrrbJZTxUoQ9dpaHINz0k8ZUM4VCJhlqN3/s1600/Festina+Lente.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVwDeVxUvT3FnJayVs-I27sEOH_DHSuJyGIGgOxR-WcfsXq2s_NqCZCVZy6lie5IqNdA64RPHreNpAsmk2oUVG0J-xPbebaNwkMcldTMEAwJrrbJZTxUoQ9dpaHINz0k8ZUM4VCJhlqN3/s1600/Festina+Lente.jpg" height="276" width="320" /></a>I have started to practice walking slowly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As a little boy, around fifty years ago now, I decided that
there was something virtuous about walking quickly. I suspect that this is a
common phenomenon among little boys who go walking with their fathers; fathers
have longer legs and just cover the distance faster. And therefore, because
little boys look up to their fathers and want to be just like them, they decide
that it must be good to walk quickly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At any rate that’s the way it happened with me. Walking was
primarily a way from getting from A to B, and it was obviously advantageous to
do so as quickly as possible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As an adult, many years later, I discovered another use for
walking; exercise. In a society in which we have become increasingly conscious
of things like cardiovascular performance, body-fat ratio, the potential health
dangers of obesity, overeating, and a too sedentary life-style, keeping
physically fit has taken on many of the characteristics of a religious
proscription. To admit, as I do, that I find every kind of sport (personally
practiced – being a spectator is something quite different) supremely boring is
comparable in many circles to someone confessing in medieval Spain that they
were a Jewish atheist with an interest in witchcraft.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Walking then was something I saw as a possibility to combine
the necessary with the useful. If I did have to walk somewhere, then the thing
was to do it as quickly as possible; get the old circulation working, push the
heart-rate up, get the muscles flexing and bunching, burn up some of those
endless extra calories which would otherwise (in a lipid form) congeal around
the waist-line or (more dangerously) within the artery walls.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Necessary. Useful. But never really pleasurable. The idea of
“going for a walk,” something millions of people unselfconsciously accept as a
normal form of recreation has never really appealed to me. I have always tended
to see the time needed to get from A to B as a period to be practically and
rationally managed in order to reduce it to the minimum possible. Which meant
that if I was going to walk anywhere I planned the time necessary on the basis
of a brisk – a <i>very </i>brisk – walk. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Last April I moved house. It was a project which was quite
significant for me, in all sorts of ways, most of which I won’t go into here –
not now anyway. But one aspect of my move was that my new flat was much more
central than my old one. And as the summer bloomed and I finally started to
feel settled in, I made a resolution; with butcher, baker, supermarket and
pharmacy all just a few hundred yards away, and my place of work only a fifteen
minute walk distant, I would consciously strive to walk when I could – thus ensuring
a minimum of exercise and even massaging my liberal light-green conscience
about the size of my carbon footprint.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Life was good, and the future was bright, bright. Only by
the end of August I was forced to the realisation that I had slowly, unknowingly
been slipping ever deeper into a condition which I knew all too well. Knew intimately
and still not recognised in its insidious approach, even as it dug its talons
deep into my soul.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have written about depression on this blog before, a
number of times, and I don’t want to go into too many details about it; it
happened, it was bad, I’m slowly coming out of it again. The frightening thing
about this episode was that there was no real reason for it – everything was
okay, I had the feeling that I was in control of my life in a way which I hadn’t
been for years. In retrospect I was able to identify certain factors which had
possibly (probably?) triggered it, but I have had to face up to the unpleasant likelihood
that this is a condition to which I am simply prone. I have to accept that it
may happen again, and that there is little I can do to prepare for it, except
practise a certain kind of relaxed watchfulness so that I am not quite as
blindsided as I was this time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Indeed, in writing this it strikes me that the roots of this
last episode may be even farther in the past than I have realised up to now. It
is well over a year since one of my creative wellsprings started to dry up – by
this I mean my inclination to write. My essays here became more seldom, and
harder to write. If I had had to explain it last April or May, I would have
simply said that it was due to the increased busy-ness and heightened stress
involved in moving house, a few months later, when I finally accepted that I
was at the bottom of a very deep pit, the idea of writing was simply
unthinkable. If this is really the case, then the fact that you are reading
this is a sign that I am well on my way back to the light (though I’ll make no
promises about how long it will take for me to post the next essay!).<o:p></o:p></div>
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But even at the worst of the depression in September I still
walked. On the occasions when I had to leave the flat, something I found hard
to do, I marched forth, desperately striding to an appointment or to the
supermarket to buy groceries.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then one day, returning from a session with my therapist
(seven and a half minutes brisk walk away), I realised something. There was no
reason to hurry. I had nothing planned for the rest of the day. It didn’t
matter a fucking toss whether my walk home took a few minutes longer. It was a
beautiful autumn afternoon and the more my pace slowed, the more I found myself
appreciating it. In a seeming inversion of the logic to which I had chained
myself, the more leisurely I walked, the more time seemed available to me. And
the more time there was available, the more my racing thoughts slowed, my mind
moving into a freer, more relaxed space, a space which it had so desperately
longed for and needed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was not a miraculous, spontaneous healing, that would be
a drastic exaggeration. It was, rather, an intuition, an inkling, a brief
glimpse of a reality different to the negative, worried, obsessively and
futilely circling inner world in which I was captured and held.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like most such inklings, this one was quickly gone. I
completed my short journey home (walking slowly) and then forgot the
experience. But the next time I was returning from a therapy appointment I
remembered it once more, and once more I slowed down. I remember consciously
deciding to generally walk more slowly when I was returning home from therapy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Initially, my thinking was still typically purpose driven. I
found myself formulating the explanation that I was giving myself this extra
time afforded by walking more slowly to reflect on what had happened during the
hour of psychoanalysis, what insights I had achieved, how the whole process was
<i>progressing</i>. An opportunity to
increase the value of the session, to retrospectively continue to mine the
depths just plumbed. For I am, indeed, a typical child of my time and culture,
formed by and embedded in a world obsessed with <i>development</i>, with <i>efficiency</i>,
with <i>optimizing</i>, doing things better,
and faster, and more comprehensively, and (usually presented as the most
important of all) more economically.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGhuOHcxnKXexhbUTX-5IEOu84jZI2vyWLbGcqcDa5w_t_clgRzYgaSijbLx9Fhwa4zK_lrW-_7NmCfgZhlF7yFvIg1M4U1obT2heT4YA-85B0TfnpiDfVI4-TM_H0J7BXMi4L20nlvOq/s1600/sitsandthinks_punch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGhuOHcxnKXexhbUTX-5IEOu84jZI2vyWLbGcqcDa5w_t_clgRzYgaSijbLx9Fhwa4zK_lrW-_7NmCfgZhlF7yFvIg1M4U1obT2heT4YA-85B0TfnpiDfVI4-TM_H0J7BXMi4L20nlvOq/s1600/sitsandthinks_punch.jpg" height="262" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Sometimes I sits and thinks; and then again I just sits."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Only, I found myself gradually realising, it wasn’t true.
The therapy session may have been very productive, I may have found myself
suddenly exploring a whole new area of my psyche, or achieving a wonderful new
insight about the way I tick, but I wasn’t using the more “relaxed” state of
consciousness I was achieving by slowing down on the way home to reflect on and
deepen the therapeutic experience I had just gone through. Instead, I was using
it to do … nothing. Oh, I might start thinking about something, but, I realised,
my thoughts usually petered out, spreading out and thinning before vanishing
into emptiness like the fractal silhouettes of the leafless winter trees I
found my wandering gaze idly and momentarily focussing on before moving on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have started to expand the experiment. I no longer just
walk slowly when I’m coming home from therapy; I now try to do it whenever I’m
walking somewhere without a definite time that I have to be at my destination. Which
means, for example, that I continue to walk briskly <i>to </i>work but when I walk home <i>from
</i>work I do it slowly. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I usually work the night shift, which means that my journey
home takes place around 7.30 in the morning. It’s an interesting time to be on
the move if you have the leisure to do it slowly in a relaxed way. There’s a grammar
school on my street, and a primary school at the end of it (and German schools
generally begin their day at around 8.00 a.m.) so there are lots of kids
underway, the small ones lugging bags on their backs nearly as heavy as
themselves, most of the older ones in groups practising and living the all-important
and ever-demanding teenage attitude of <b><i>cool</i></b>. A splash of headlights, brake-lights
and rushed activity in front of the schools as hordes of parents fulfil that basic,
most essential parental duty, being a taxi-driver for their offspring, the cars
backing up behind halting school-buses. Adults on their way to work, moving
determinedly, their faces generally closed and concentrated. At this time of
year it’s dark when I begin my way; by the time I get home the sky has
lightened and the day has come. And I’ve found myself noticing and rejoicing in
the fact that, as the planet precesses on its cosmic path deeper into 2014, the
dawn begins a few minutes earlier from day to day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It still doesn’t come naturally to me; this strange exercise
of walking slowly. The habits and attitudes of a lifetime are deep, and I often
catch myself unnecessarily striding forward and have to remind myself to <i>slow down</i>. But maybe, for me, walking
slowly is something like playing the piano or learning to drive a car;
something I have to <i>practice </i>quite a
bit before it starts to come easily or naturally.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a mild January afternoon as I finish writing this – the
sun breaks out frequently from behind a scattered cloud cover.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think I’ll go for a walk.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<i>There were lots of musical options for this topic; Dionne Warwick, "Walk on by," Fats Domino, "I'm walking," Katrina and the Waves, "Walking on sunshine," etc. In the end, it had to be Lou ...</i></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hUntj4z3v0w?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Images sourced from:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://www.pittsburghlegalbacktalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FestinaLenteCorrect.jpg </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2012/02/sitting-silent-open-minded/ <i>This quotation is most often - incorrectly - attributed to the baseball player Satchel Paige. Some say its author was the great philosopher, Winnie the Pooh (sadly it isn't, though it suits Pooh). In fact, the first use of it seems to have been in this Punch cartoon, over a hundred years ago.</i></span></div>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-69503312300859423502013-03-24T03:49:00.000+01:002013-03-24T04:44:16.537+01:00Back Home to Sligo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">“The past is a foreign country; they do things
differently there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 106.2pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">(L.P.
Hartley, <i>The Go-Between</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I had
occasion recently to visit a part of my past, a period immensely important and
formative for me, a place which was, for seven years, both focus and circumference
of my whole world, the centrality of which was so self-evident to me that I
could not then imagine that it would ever be otherwise in my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMea-hnHVgys2G4eWtxHSle_uWU7hANQODk0rkJnANF2Pa9KzxaWlv8u_e4W0iLQH36mmb7IgMVkSdBDv5KPS0JMj6PAXFIyLS8Op9l-U_h2-xOzGocCFIuqY1xOZ9IzasqoFSS8h-nAqA/s1600/SligoTown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMea-hnHVgys2G4eWtxHSle_uWU7hANQODk0rkJnANF2Pa9KzxaWlv8u_e4W0iLQH36mmb7IgMVkSdBDv5KPS0JMj6PAXFIyLS8Op9l-U_h2-xOzGocCFIuqY1xOZ9IzasqoFSS8h-nAqA/s320/SligoTown.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I was
seventeen years old when I left <st1:place w:st="on">Sligo</st1:place>. The
leaving was a wrench, soul-tearing, ambiguous; on the one hand I was taking a
self-chosen step into a different world, a new life, for I had decided to join
the Dominican Order, on the other hand I was leaving nearly everything and
everyone I knew behind me. The parting was all the more radical, for at the same
time, my father was transferred and our whole family moved to the other end of
the country. Although I was to return there frequently in the years that
followed, the basic bond was broken; the continuous connection formed by the
unity of family and place was gone. It meant that the inevitable decay of most
youthful friendships was greatly accelerated in my case, for <i>home</i> had been sundered and the most
basic part of it had moved elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">It hurt,
that sundering. I remember feeling very aggrieved, with the unthinking, naïve
selfishness of youth, that my parents had moved away from <st1:place w:st="on">Sligo</st1:place>
while at the same time being perfectly self-righteous about my own move into a
new life, which also took me to other places. But I recovered. After all, in
the following years, I still went back there, even if not as frequently or for
as long as I might have wished, and I still retained my basic feeling of
identity with and love for the place. Given my peripatetic history, the simple
question “Where are you from?” has always been a little problematic for me, but
<st1:place w:st="on">Sligo</st1:place> still remains one of the default
answers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">After I was
ordained a Catholic priest, therefore, in 1985, it was completely clear to me
that Sligo would be one of the places where I would celebrate a formal “First
Mass.” And if someone had told me that day that it would be twenty eight years
before I would return, I would have laughed in disbelief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">But that is
what happened. In the following year, primed by the potent fuse of love, my
life exploded into scintillating chunks and shards of new directions,
possibilities, preoccupations and priorities. I found myself in a different
country, living a very different life, with a wife and baby daughter, and practical
decisions concerning job and career to be made and carried through. While I
continued to visit <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>
throughout the following nearly three decades, limitations of time and
practical considerations somehow never made the journey to the north-west of
the country possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Another in
my family had made a very different choice; my sister, Máire, had found her way
back to Sligo and has lived in the coastal <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">village</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Strandhill</st1:placename></st1:place>,
six miles from the main town, for many years now. So when she invited the whole
family to join her in celebrating her fiftieth birthday this month I finally
found myself on my way back to the town of my youth, on a journey into the
world of my own memories and the contrast between their local background and
the reality of the present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-GB"> has changed enormously since the
mid-1980s. The country I left was still, for the most part, traditional and
conservative. It was poor, in recession, unable to provide attractive prospects
for many of my generation, who were leaving to find decent, interesting jobs
and adventure in a world of much wider horizons. But then the Celtic Tiger
came, nurtured in its infancy by a massive transfer of structural funds from <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>. It grew up, roared mightily for around ten years
before becoming so bloated on a diet of hubris, fantasy and speculative funny games
with international capital that it crawled into a corner and died – of a
strange combination of economic gluttony and malnutrition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRJrIKEJY9N0B9v_dyGA8AYo9Em7fAg_6P8BHrwtCdBhRiPu6OmcvYiBOkRMtI6GOZI3FxwhyphenhyphenCTwhyp0GEQY83oV0unLtNrzy9iv2qkfliVASu5TeikUSE7GH3LjQZA4LgGjrRgt5pz1x/s1600/sligo+arial+view.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbRJrIKEJY9N0B9v_dyGA8AYo9Em7fAg_6P8BHrwtCdBhRiPu6OmcvYiBOkRMtI6GOZI3FxwhyphenhyphenCTwhyp0GEQY83oV0unLtNrzy9iv2qkfliVASu5TeikUSE7GH3LjQZA4LgGjrRgt5pz1x/s320/sligo+arial+view.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The traces
of all this were clear to be seen on my journey, from the new motorway leading
out of Dublin to the empty property developments in towns like
Carrick-on-Shannon along the way. Even the approach to Sligo was completely
different to that of my memories; the towns of Collooney and Ballysadare bypassed,
a new road to the town itself, leading to a new bridge across the Garavogue river.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The
following morning, Saturday, I spent a couple of hours walking around town. It
was very strange. The basic geographical skeleton remained as I remembered it
but much of the flesh on the bones had changed; new buildings, new shops and
businesses in old buildings. Deeper, stranger changes too; children of African
and Asian backgrounds speaking with the distinctive Sligo accent, a Polish
butcher’s shop – signs of the internationalisation of Ireland through
immigrants, drawn by the boom of the Tiger years, something unimaginable in the
mono-cultural world of my youth in the seventies when Ireland was a country
which exported rather than imported people. In the past five years the export
has begun once more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I knew, of
course, that things would not be as I remembered them; I had no expectations
that the place would spontaneously open its arms to me, recognising and
welcoming the long lost son. It was curiosity which led my steps, a desire to
see just what had changed. But as my feet led me along the streets I had walked
so often as a teenager, I found myself becoming more detached. The time elapsed
was just too great, the changes – perhaps, most of all, the changes in myself –
too profound. Though I had already intellectually known that there is no such
thing as time travel, that the past is irrevocably gone, it was something more
to really practically experience it in this fashion. “Something’s lost and
something’s gained,” Joni Mitchell sings, “in living every day.” Over ten thousand
days had past since I last set foot in Sligo, so much lost and so much gained
in all that time that it had, I thought, become impossible to regain any sort
of deep contemporary contact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And so my
urge to walk further waned. There was a Sligo which was real for me, that town
which had been the stage for my life during those oh so intense years of the
ending of childhood and the unbearably exciting and frightening growth into
increasing adulthood, but it had little to do with the town in which I now
found myself. Looking at my watch, I realised that I still had an hour before
the next bus would leave for Strandhill where I was saying. Finding myself at
the junction of <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Wine Street</st1:address></st1:street>
and <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Quay Street</st1:address></st1:street>,
I noticed that <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lyons</st1:place></st1:city>’
Café was still there and decided to spend the time I had to wait with a
cappuccino.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJyRAWkpj94nib5ongXFhSWIohjtvKsbPycy-m-Mx__5cnLUzb7tHd8N8W1D3L8JyOyX0-7h4Ceb_LFQ6SFeHhnuJCSeZMDDd-kxkJyp6KhMXL2PglBWgOSAsZwQGTPbCaxlQVEoaaGN1/s1600/lyons_cafe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJyRAWkpj94nib5ongXFhSWIohjtvKsbPycy-m-Mx__5cnLUzb7tHd8N8W1D3L8JyOyX0-7h4Ceb_LFQ6SFeHhnuJCSeZMDDd-kxkJyp6KhMXL2PglBWgOSAsZwQGTPbCaxlQVEoaaGN1/s320/lyons_cafe.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Climbing
the stairs to the hundred and fifty year old café, I discovered that here at
least much remained as I remembered it. Oh, the menu is more extensive,
sophisticated and cosmopolitan but someone has been careful to preserve the
basic character of the place and the small tables and wooden chairs are still
the same as they were in the seventies when this was one of the favourite
haunts of the teenagers of the town. There weren’t all that many places where
the boys from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Summerhill</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place> and the girls
from the two nuns’ schools could meet on common ground and do all those things
which are so important for teenagers; preening, flirting, talking, teasing,
laughing, showing off, making dates and plans … just hanging out and wasting
time. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lyons</st1:place></st1:city>’
was one of the few establishments back then which tolerated us, though we were
all experts in making a Coke or a coffee last for a whole afternoon, far more
interested in each other than in giving custom to the café. Today the coffee
was good and the place, I was glad to see, was doing a brisk business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">As I drank
a second cappuccino, I tried to understand what I was doing; what I had
expected of my perambulation and what exactly I had experienced. Perhaps some
part of me had been hoping for the kind of epiphany described by Proust in his
famous <i>madeleine </i>episode in </span><i>À la recherche du temps perdu</i>, where a particular
taste throws his protagonist completely into a memory of the past. If so, it didn’t happen
for me; sitting there in the café, many recollections of my youthful years did
come to mind, but still far away and detached from me, the teenagers of the
mid-seventies populating the room around me like barely perceived, transparent
ghosts. Reality, I thought, was more like L.P. Hartley described it, the past <i>is
</i>a foreign country.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And then, that evening at my sister’s party, I had an encounter which
changed everything. One of the guests was someone I had known back in the time,
the memories of which I had been attempting to recall with my walkabout through
town. She was another member of that clique to which I had belonged as a
teenager – to be honest, I’d had quite a crush on her when I was sixteen, but
had been too uncertain and insecure to ever mention it to her then, or to
attempt to move it beyond the confused desires of my youthful wishes into the
realm of practical action. Now we were meeting again after more than thirty
five years of life and all that it had done with us during that time. I had
gone away and never returned; she had left for a number of years but had come
back, and married another of my friends from that time. Our children are now
older than we were back then.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And as we talked, I suddenly I realised that I had somehow come to the
place I had been looking for that morning. Having exchanged the broad outlines
of our stories of the long interim, we started reminiscing together about that
faraway world of our youth. I discovered myself (and so, in a real sense, <i>re</i>discovered
my earlier self) asking about people I hadn’t thought of for decades and she
(who had remained in – or, rather, returned to – Sligo) knew a lot of the
answers. We found ourselves sharing memories of things that we had done
together, of events commonly experienced. The past, which had seemed so
irretrievably far away to me just a few hours earlier, was suddenly just around
the last corner we had turned, the years between not negated but somehow
bridged. It occurred to me later that I’d had this kind of experience on a
number of occasions over the past decade or so, a period where I have had the
great good fortune to reconnect with quite a few friends with whom I had lost
contact. It’s what happens when you meet old friends and discover that you can,
amazingly, just pick up where you left off.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-oP1QXO19FIk41uxtAkr8UTQBMQH4_rkUELbJi4KCoaANuvyWbvc8u6hktv1MJdN9rgTHuiMQPn1RvXj1rRklucAWsv3QDIFfHTg-fmGpV7tpmZoFB6kVKGXIn-lZ1P1P1gv6C5nzlMtV/s1600/Benbulben.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-oP1QXO19FIk41uxtAkr8UTQBMQH4_rkUELbJi4KCoaANuvyWbvc8u6hktv1MJdN9rgTHuiMQPn1RvXj1rRklucAWsv3QDIFfHTg-fmGpV7tpmZoFB6kVKGXIn-lZ1P1P1gv6C5nzlMtV/s320/Benbulben.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And I realised a truth – at least something that is true for me. While
place is important (and one would suffer from some kind of serious deficiency
not to cherish the beauty of Sligo, magnificently set as it is on an Atlantic
bay to the west, framed by the mountains of Benbulben to the north and
Knocknarea to the south), in the end it is people and not place which are more
central to a feeling of <i>belonging</i>, of <i>home</i>. And though in memory
we organise things by assigning them a location, this is only background, the
setting of the stage of life on which we perform the stories of our lives in
interaction with others. In my case, I would wager (and I suspect that my
mistake is not uncommon) that I had tended to confuse the importance of people
in my life, and the stories we created together, with the place in which these
stories took place. Setting is of course important – context is everything, as
Derrida once remarked – but people, not place, are the most significant
component of context.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is a realisation
with which I, for one, am quite content.<o:p></o:p></div>
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"Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that
time would take me<o:p></o:p></div>
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Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow
of my hand,<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the moon that is always rising,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly
with the high fields<o:p></o:p></div>
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And wake to the farm forever fled from the
childless land.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his
means,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Time held me green and dying<o:p></o:p></div>
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Though I sang in my chains like the sea."<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dylan Thomas, <i>Fern Hill<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">See
more at: <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15378#sthash.gzT4zz0E.dpuf">http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15378#sthash.gzT4zz0E.dpuf</a></span>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/-wgAfD5UCvI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Pictures retrieved from:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.blogspot.com/_paRKpxGMuCE/Sttfal6-u6I/AAAAAAAABpw/2MOzvtaXyz8/s400/0909_HSligoTown.jpg </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.askaboutireland.ie/_internal/gxml!0/2ocqn930ubywvi8z0wl9dhefnm6z926$eb12sbh0qz22rny8m0x0tay0mjelewi </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.menupages.ie/images/550x344/6585_lyons_cafe.jpg </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4YZ-2TRtqmongpHxTWThgHFp9c3xj2-ezJRsBiT7Agi0aITmvudIS-JCqh56juTDpOJ1Y2G9799QhwQOzRT-LNpAcSZf7Mfsz3Ft48xaJaIMJk8WS2t7DxBGYKHZbSRzeMTwBtZrgmM/s1600-h/0909_FBenbulben.jpg</span></div>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-78685148534989312102013-02-24T03:56:00.000+01:002013-02-24T03:56:48.325+01:00Family Histories 1: The Cowboy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was a fine
Sunday morning in early summer 1865. James Hunt opened the door of his new home
and looked south over the road and the downward sloping land towards the lake.
He gave a sigh of contentment and muttered a brief prayer of thanks in Irish to
the mother of God.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCiRaCGRlvGfVDTH6zWPeDAwWzVlF4xwPOAuDAv-AzAnSkhvW1a4IvFLrjQPvhme1KXmKmte46-G4n6yRI9yRGEiCiVcaCDjg-xJhXTdouG-7SW8aDWdVissuTOl0C1i2s4-Q54dWgqe7i/s1600/smutternagh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCiRaCGRlvGfVDTH6zWPeDAwWzVlF4xwPOAuDAv-AzAnSkhvW1a4IvFLrjQPvhme1KXmKmte46-G4n6yRI9yRGEiCiVcaCDjg-xJhXTdouG-7SW8aDWdVissuTOl0C1i2s4-Q54dWgqe7i/s320/smutternagh.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It had been
a long, hard journey to this point of his life, but he could now allow himself
a feeling of achievement that he had finally managed to be standing here this
morning, on his own land in the townland of Smutternagh, on the shores of Lough
Key, in the county
Roscommon. Though the
term “his own land” was a relative one; the land belonged to the King-Harmon
family as did all the land in Smutternagh and thousands of acres more all
around Boyle. Indeed, as far as his own family memories extended back, through
the hard years scratching a living from a barely usable Curlew mountain
allotment, back to the fabled days of comfort on good land in the townland of
Eastersnow on the Plains of Boyle up to their catastrophic eviction in the
1830s, the landlords had always been the King family – whose place in the
Anglo-Irish stratosphere had been achieved with the noble title of Lorton.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As his gaze
moved across the green wooded islands on the lake, over to Rockingham House,
the residence of the King-Harmons, he reflected that beyond lay the Plains of
Boyle – and Eastersnow. He had been born there, but was only a little boy when
Lord Lorton had decided that the holdings there were too small for modern
progressive farming. He had evicted the smallholders, including James’ father
and his family, to restructure his lands there into bigger tenancies, suitable
for large-scale cattle farming. The growing cities of industrial England had an
insatiable appetite for beef, and prosperous cattle-tending tenants could pay
better and more certain rents.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">His father,
Thomas, had never really got over it. On his deathbed, he urged his sons to do
everything possible to regain the family holding there. It was their
birthright, he always claimed, taken from them by the heartlessness of English
landlords. The tribulations of the Hunt family mirrored the tribulations of all
the Gael, dispossessed and persecuted in their own country by a foreign invader.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Lord Lorton
doubtlessly would have seen it differently. Had he not accepted responsibility
for the evicted tenants and given them an alternative, land reclaimed from the
mountain in the townland of Cornameelta? Thomas Hunt could only laugh bitterly
– an exchange of land valued at 18 shillings an acre for land valued at 3 shillings
an acre! Land where you could barely grow a few potatoes, good for nothing else
except a few scrawny sheep and cattle, who could hardly find enough grazing
there to put meat on their bones.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A blessing
in disguise perhaps; scratching a living from the side of the mountain in
Cornameelta, relying on scrawny sheep and cattle, may have helped the Hunts
avoid the fate of millions of Irish who had been living on tiny tenancies and
relying completely on potatoes for their sustenance. When the blight came,
three years running in the 1840s, the whole family survived where a million
others died.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ShlZyAuj_fvYjlIBUaGNj9kgqW4t0MGc9puUnjT5lzCsnwYsf859AQrXRF1YXa06PWA6SgBFEyLTcQh455UnI1BsdVVdBos5OvSkokeubqfs5Pnv7gnGhijS-y24UhMyfZZuCwcepgOt/s1600/loughkey+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ShlZyAuj_fvYjlIBUaGNj9kgqW4t0MGc9puUnjT5lzCsnwYsf859AQrXRF1YXa06PWA6SgBFEyLTcQh455UnI1BsdVVdBos5OvSkokeubqfs5Pnv7gnGhijS-y24UhMyfZZuCwcepgOt/s320/loughkey+2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">James
looked over the fields which were now his and considered the strange connection
his family had with them. For, though his tenancy was new, he had memories of
this farm from his childhood; after they had been evicted from their holding in
Eastersnow, the family had spent a brief period here, sharing the land with a
family called Brady. But the Bradys had sucked up to the land agent and had
been awarded tenure while the Hunts had to move on.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You couldn’t
trust the Bradys, his father had always said. During the Famine years, a Brady
had led a group of desperate hungry thieves from Smutternagh to steal a
bullock from the Hunts, drive it back here and slaughter it for food. It couldn’t
be proved, of course, but the Bradys knew that the Hunts had a way with cattle
and that it would be relatively easy to rob a Hunt animal from the sprawling
common mountainside at Cornameelta.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Well, the
Bradys were gone now, along with the Monaghans who had lived in the other half
of the house at the door of which he was standing. One of the Monaghans, who
had given up their tenancy earlier in favour of shopkeeping in Sligo, had told him that Brady had lost his taste for
farming and wanted to emigrate. James had visited him, here in this house, and
had agreed to pay the passage for the Brady family from Sligo to Scotland thus
vacating the farm.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Just one
expense among many involved in securing this new future for himself and the
family he would found. Between the passage for the Bradys, the backhander paid
to Lord Lorton’s land agent, the first year’s rent, the cost of the stock which
would be the basic business of the farm, and even furniture (for the Bradys had
left nothing in the house but one fire-iron), he reckoned the whole venture
would finish up costing him ₤100, everything he had managed to scratch together
over the previous fifteen years.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For, as a
young man, in the years immediately after the Great Hunger, James had decided
to try to earn his living by putting the one skill he had to practical use, his
knowledge of cattle. Not that he had much choice. His brother Thomas would take
over the paltry tenancy on the Cornameelta mountain; James was left with the
option of either emigrating or trying to survive somehow in the collective
trauma which was post-famine Ireland.
He’d started to trade in cattle, travelling all over the north Connacht
counties, Roscommon and Sligo, Leitrim and Mayo, buying store cattle from
individual farmers or at small fairs and driving them to the port of Sligo, or
Derry, or even occasionally all the way to Dublin, to sell them at a profit for
export to the industrial cities of Britain.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Drovers
they were called in Ireland,
those men who earned a living buying and selling cattle. They were the original
cowboys, though the Irish version didn’t ride horses. They walked,
painstakingly gathering their herds and driving them along the narrow winding
roads towards the larger fairs, sleeping in barns, or under hedges, walking
behind the cattle, whacking them occasionally on the withers with sally rods to
keep them under control and moving in the right direction.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In
following this profession, James was living and acting in a way which went back
thousands of years in Irish history. At the end of the 12<sup>th</sup> Century,
Giraldus Cambrensis distainfully described the native Gaels’ reliance on cattle
in his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographia_Hibernica" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Topographica Hibernica</i></a>, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1in_B%C3%B3_C%C3%BAailnge" target="_blank"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Táin Bó Cúailnge</span></i></a></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">,
the great Irish epic, comparable with the <i>Ramayana </i>or the <i>Illiad</i>,
is, in essence, the story of a cattle raid. The story of the attack by the men
of Connacht on Ulster to
steal Cooley’s bull, the single-handed defence of Ulster by the young hero,
Cuchullain, and all the other tales and destinies decribed in the saga, begins
with Queen Maeve’s jealousy of the fine bull owned by her husband and her
determination to obtain a finer one for herself. The <i>Táin </i>is
traditionally dated as taking place in the first century A.D. Maeve’s capital
was at Cruachan (today’s Rathcroghan) and is less than 20 km as the crow flies
from Eastersnow. If there is an historical core event at the basis of the <i>Táin</i>,
then it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a distant ancestor of
James Hunt was a member of the raiding party which set out at the behest of
their warrior queen to salvage her pride and honour by stealing a bull owned by
a prosperous farmer in Ulster. Eighteen hundred years later, my
great-grandfather spent around fifteen years of his life doing much the same
thing, though unlike his ancestor (and the Bradys), he paid for the cattle
which came into his possession.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">His father’s dream had been a return to
Eastersnow. Given the fact that the small tenancies there had been consolidated
into much larger farms, James realised that he could not achieve this; but Smutternagh
was an acceptable compromise and he was content.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_2GEQDq9rtJeZ45rwyaKX6mxOfY36gEFUHJ_igR23wKuUYb1Dco2j6eWAXn35M0zeKgehNtrJnoiMKnfHI1aDrTdAbnUAqmeXrb0rdBvHx3rJ4Zz3awmH5BQLgsqTtblJqv5I-NU1WRki/s1600/lough+key+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_2GEQDq9rtJeZ45rwyaKX6mxOfY36gEFUHJ_igR23wKuUYb1Dco2j6eWAXn35M0zeKgehNtrJnoiMKnfHI1aDrTdAbnUAqmeXrb0rdBvHx3rJ4Zz3awmH5BQLgsqTtblJqv5I-NU1WRki/s400/lough+key+1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As he stood there, surveying his new domain, a
man came up the road and greeted him. In the way of the customary easy
hospitality then common, James invited him into his new home to share his
breakfast of boiled potatoes and a salted herring. The stranger accepted and
the two ate together. When the meal was over the visitor remarked, “I must be a
very humble man to sit down to breakfast with a new tenant and I married to
Lord Lorton’s daughter.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">While most tenants had little or no contact
with the Anglo-Irish ascendancy living in the big houses, there was of course
one major exception; those who took positions in service. Lord Lorton had
something of a reputation for an appetite for pretty young servant girls, so
the visitor’s comment may well have been more than just an empty boast. If I
had not decided to limit this account, as far as possible, to facts which were diligently
researched by James’ grandson, my late Uncle Séamus, I might be moved to
speculate as to the identity of the visitor, since he was certainly one of the
neighbours. I might begin to wonder about the fact that the son of Odie
McLoughlin (whose farm was a couple of hundred yards up the road from the Hunt
place), Pat, who was born around 1860, was shown special favour by the landlord
and was assisted by him to build the first two-story house in the townland. But
as Pat McLoughlin was my other paternal great-grandfather, I am not going to
continue my thoughts in this direction, which is, after all, nothing more than
pure speculation …</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Returning to verifiable facts, James Hunt
ultimately had ten children, of whom six were girls. The five oldest girls all
emigrated to the USA
while in their late teens. None of them ever took a position in service to the
King-Harmon family at Rockingham House on the other side of the lake.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Nearly a hundred and fifty years later, James’
small tenancy of twenty one statute acres now forms the nucleus of a much
larger unit, farmed by my cousin, who has built himself a fine new house beside
the one James Hunt moved into. That small Irish cottage still stands, though it
is no longer inhabited. And while the population of Smutternagh has been
decreasing for nearly a hundred years now, there are still descendants of James
Hunt there. And will be, hopefully, for a long time to come. </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4w7CE1xs5A?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Pictures retrieved
from:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://lakesidecottageireland.blogspot.de/">http://lakesidecottageireland.blogspot.de/</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.panoramio.com/photo/37756908"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">http://www.panoramio.com/photo/37756908</span></a></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">©
PaulH123</span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-15259091715237314912012-12-23T21:54:00.000+01:002012-12-24T01:22:06.387+01:00A Kind of Christmas Card ... <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwH5_Z9xjFFeCo_f4od7PxC_-FMUtagDErkEGM5LSwDMXNOg3NZM_mMDs8K-pFaIm9FIo_MhaGc1_bFPGwXkqQPB6ssZLm7uFnxmDu4vqzKX-VAMZe5XTw7AhFUbMLtF48kuM_8JlYRh23/s1600/CIMG0408.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwH5_Z9xjFFeCo_f4od7PxC_-FMUtagDErkEGM5LSwDMXNOg3NZM_mMDs8K-pFaIm9FIo_MhaGc1_bFPGwXkqQPB6ssZLm7uFnxmDu4vqzKX-VAMZe5XTw7AhFUbMLtF48kuM_8JlYRh23/s320/CIMG0408.JPG" width="240" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The (temporary)
<a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2012/11/listening.html" target="_blank">creative pause</a> from posting regularly on this blog which I decided to acknowledge
(or give myself – I’m not sure which is closer to the truth; probably both) is something
that I’m actually finding very pleasant. Just tooling around, doing the stuff
that has to be done, spontaneously doing other stuff I feel like doing, it’s
all very relaxing. But then there are other things; the things that fall into
that wide convergence zone between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want
to </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have to</i>, between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Including
writing this. I’ve never been a Christmas card person, though I remember their
contribution to that exciting crescendo of anticipation which is my childhood
memory of December, the expectation which is the very soul of the season known
as Advent. Back in the day; a pre-digital age, a time when we didn’t even have
a telephone (imagine that, if you can!) so that communication between people
who didn’t meet regularly was limited to pen and paper, envelopes and stamps,
and a postman on a bicycle.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">They came
daily through our letterbox, first a trickle, increasing to a daily flood as
Christmas grew nearer. I remember my mother making a long list of people,
buying cards and sheets of stamps and then writing them all. A few would be
left in reserve to be sent to those from whom cards were received who had been
forgotten on the original list.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And the
cards poured in, being opened and set out on every available surface, when
these were all used up hung from the walls or ceiling on string catenaries. We
use to decorate the house for Christmas in those days too, paper and tinsel
chains and garlands hung from the ceiling. As a kid I loved it all; it turned
the familiar geography of our living room into a wonderful world of glitter and
magic, ruled by the twin sovereigns of the Christmas tree and the crib, Mary
and Joseph, the ox, the donkey and the shepherds all gathered around a central
empty focus, that space where the baby in the manger would be placed on the
evening of Christmas Eve, the first certain signal that Christmas was actually,
inevitably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">here</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I don’t
know if people still decorate their living rooms in Ireland today they way they used to
do when I was a child. I suspect that fewer do – increased sophistication and a
more developed sense of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kitch </i>are
always purchased at the price of a certain innocent naïveté, and one of the
basic facts of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">temps perdu </i>is that it
is like virginity, once lost it is irretrievable. Maybe this is one of the
deeper reasons why so many adults are ultimately so often disappointed by Christmas;
it is a seductive, insatiable longing for the innocent joy of childhood – a joy
which, if truth be told, was probably never as unalloyed in reality as memory
likes to present it. But memory is inclined to do that, isn’t it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">However, I
realise that my thoughts are wandering in a direction which I had not planned,
a direction with intimations of more darkness than I want in this … this what?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I started
this by mentioning that I’ve never been a Christmas card person – after I left
home, where such things fell primarily in my mother’s area of responsibility, I
somehow never managed to make the exercise part of my own personal
self-organisation. For too long, I suppose, I was intoxicated by the ephemeral,
self-centred, invulnerable immediacy of youth, for too long afterwards I was
involved in struggling with my own private demons and the trip-wires they had
been busy installing for me in my life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s well
over a decade now since I managed to banish most of those demons, or at least
to cage them so securely that they can no longer urgently threaten my life or
my happiness. In those early days of putting my life back together again I
realised the importance of friends and people who love me, and it became clear
to me that the ordinary rituals of keeping in touch, however fleetingly, are an
important part of nourishing those relationships.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Although I
realised that the sending of Christmas cards is one of these important rituals,
I consciously decided not to take that way. There had been too many caesuras in
my life, too many friends for whom I had no longer addresses, for many of whom
I had no contact details whatsoever. But the realisation of these losses, and
the personal impoverishment they had given rise to, fortunately coincided with
the spread of general digital connectedness at the beginning of the new century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I had
started to renew contact with many old friends, often using the internet to
find them. And, as more and more people acquired e-mail accounts, I decided,
instead of sending Christmas cards, to commit myself to the new virtual reality
and send a longer personal e-mail to all the friends who could be reached by
means of a web-tag containing that old mercantile symbol - @.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, for
many years now, I have been writing my Christmas e-mail. But the digital world changes,
changes, changes, and my use of it changes too. In the past decade I have made many
new acquaintances and established a number of what I regard as real friendships
with people whom I have never met in real life. There are people, old friends
and new, people all over the world, with whom most of my regular contacts now take
place through various social networks; facebook, Google+, blogger, wordpress, and
all the other virtual equivalents of the Irish pub, or the 18th Century coffee
house.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Therefore,
my friends, I have decided to move my Christmas mail here this year. And all of
this has been nothing more than my usual rambling, roundabout, long-winded way
of getting around to wishing you all a very happy Christmas.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Over the
past couple of years I have published a number of essays here on Christmas and
I feel no urge to repeat myself – if you really feel like reading them, just
type “Christmas” into the search bar on the right of the page. But there was
just one idea that occurred to me, which I would like to share with you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the
Christian version of the much older urge to celebrate mid-winter/new year which
seems instinctive to humanity in the northern hemisphere, the angels sing of “peace
on earth.” There is something deeply quiet, inherently peaceful, about these
shortest days of the year, when nature sleeps and we follow a deep urge to seek
sharing and harmony with those we love. It is, perhaps, this longing for
fellowship, generosity and solidarity which we try to express in the circle of
our loved ones at this time which makes all the violence, injustice and
needless pain which humans are capable of inflicting on each other appear so
particularly horrible and useless. Whether in Newtown,
Connecticut or Aleppo,
Syria, in Timbuktu,
Mali or Bethlehem,
Palestine, the
wrongness and futility of violence, hatred and killing strike us particularly
at this time of year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This
Christmas, my friends, I wish you and me, us all and the world peace. Peace in
our hearts, in our families, our communities, and our countries. Peace on
earth. A wish as unfulfilled now as it was two thousand years ago. And yet, a
wish still worth wishing. Maybe our wishing it – our really wishing it – is the
only thing which stops us from finally and completely destroying ourselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Happy
Christmas. And peace on earth. Salaam. Shalom. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RkZC7sqImaM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-44542808477321811772012-11-22T04:46:00.000+01:002012-11-22T04:46:28.300+01:00Ireland's Abortion Legislation Mess<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWZq4yqiS8LVjt_WlnnBPJSSoJDq7fwGYgyZ0AcB_IzOnHN2MTZ1fSNzVt-RL8XzMiqMuhkHg2VzD9zsG7-5n8v1HYh0dhQ0K0Acx7vqncQcBXlqVRRhSKEK-B629kKJD8fzxqSv8iFWZ/s1600/savita.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWZq4yqiS8LVjt_WlnnBPJSSoJDq7fwGYgyZ0AcB_IzOnHN2MTZ1fSNzVt-RL8XzMiqMuhkHg2VzD9zsG7-5n8v1HYh0dhQ0K0Acx7vqncQcBXlqVRRhSKEK-B629kKJD8fzxqSv8iFWZ/s320/savita.jpeg" width="190" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is not
an easy thing to say, particularly to say publicly in a forum like this for the
whole world to read. But it is the way I have been feeling for the past week or
so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At the
moment, I am ashamed to be Irish.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On November
14, the Irish Times published an <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/1114/1224326575203.html" target="_blank">article</a> telling the story of Savita Halappanavar, who died in an Irish hospital on October
28. The immediate cause of death was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">septicaemia</i>,
more commonly known as blood poisoning, resulting from the miscarriage of a
foetus in the 17<sup>th</sup> week of pregnancy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A tragedy.
Something which commonly happened a hundred years ago, which – thankfully –
seldom happens now, at least in developed countries with a generally well
functioning health system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The massive
septicaemia was able to take hold because Savita spent three days in a
condition of cervical dilation with amniotic fluid leaking. There is an
overwhelming medical consensus that in such a situation the foetus is not
viable and will inevitably die. The basic medical procedure is, therefore, to
terminate the pregnancy as quickly as possible in order to avoid the kind of
complication which killed Savita. As a medical professional (a dentist), Savita
was well aware of this and repeatedly over the three days begged that the birth
be induced so that her life could be saved – a procedure which is, technically,
an abortion. According to her husband, she was told that this was not possible,
because Ireland
was “a Catholic country.” Savita spent three days in great pain until the
foetal heartbeat finally ceased without outside assistance and the dead foetus
was removed. In all probability, the septicaemia had gained such a hold during
this time that it was impossible to combat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In all
probability, Savita need not have died.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Abortion
has always been illegal in Ireland
(well, at least since 1867). Around thirty years ago, a number of right-wing
Catholics decided that this was not enough. They argued that there was a danger
that the elected politicians might some day decide to change the law, that, as
they saw it, the right to life of the unborn child needed to be copper-fastened
in the Irish constitution. In Ireland,
the constitution cannot be changed by parliament; any amendment must be
approved by a popular vote. A well-orchestrated public campaign began.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I remember
it well; it was extremely sophisticated and very nasty. Anyone who expressed
doubts about the wisdom of such a course was immediately accused of being
pro-abortion, politicians were put under pressure, questions of the wisdom of
trying to constitutionally regulate such a complex area of law, morality and
religious belief were swept aside. Though I was a member of the Dominican Order
of the Catholic Church at the time, I remember feeling very uncomfortable about
the whole thing; even leaving aside my (perhaps for a “professional” Catholic
unusual) personal doubts about the moral clarity of a blanket condemnation of
abortion, and my deep reluctance as a man to take a definitive position on
something which I regarded as really being a women’s issue, I felt that
changing the constitution was no way to deal with the subject.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I voted
against the amendment. Not that it mattered – it was passed by a two-thirds
majority. Four years after the pope had come to visit, the Irish people felt a
need to express how Catholic they were. The fact that any Irish woman who had
the courage, the necessary information (and the money) could easily travel to Britain to have
an abortion was generally known, accepted, disapproved of, ignored, and
conveniently forgotten. Holy Catholic Ireland had won a famous victory against
the menacing forces of godless international liberal left-wing secularism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nine years
later that victory came back to haunt the self-proclaimed “pro-lifers.” The
wording of the eighth amendment had been framed to try to comprehensively
express Catholic teaching in a positive formulation:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“The State acknowledges the right to life of
the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother,
guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to
defend and vindicate that right.” (Irish Constitution, Article </span>40.3.3°)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The parents
of a 14 year old girl who had been raped by a neighbour planned to take their
daughter to England
for an abortion (the so called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_v._X" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">X case</i></a>). Their principle reason for this was because the victim had threatened
suicide should she be forced to give birth to the child. Before going to England, the
authorities were asked whether DNA from the aborted foetus could be used as
evidence against the accused rapist. The state applied for a court injunction
to prevent the girl from leaving the country, the issue quickly landed before
the Supreme Court, which ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for the
girl to obtain an abortion as the danger of suicide constituted a threat to her
life and so was a case which fell under the category of “due regard to the
equal right to life of the mother.” Ironically, the danger of the amendment
actually providing a constitutional ground for abortion in certain
circumstances had been pointed out by its opponents during the campaign leading
up to the referendum (among others by Alan Shatter, who is now the Irish
Minister for Justice), but this opinion had been dismissed by its proponents.
(In the event, the girl had a miscarriage before she could travel to England,
the rapist was subsequently convicted.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgcvkGpWLDbxqrhwl3wDiZtytXC16gSI51BMV6F9q9AZdJhrZfiYU-c-Tc6Qdo6RIjF-3Yck_vHXWaM2BpqDaBdFHMC4My3obHuIZiCvKJAeM96Th5Rkpoz0TSHzOpWfZlVTNy9TP7mUa/s1600/lady%252520justice%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgcvkGpWLDbxqrhwl3wDiZtytXC16gSI51BMV6F9q9AZdJhrZfiYU-c-Tc6Qdo6RIjF-3Yck_vHXWaM2BpqDaBdFHMC4My3obHuIZiCvKJAeM96Th5Rkpoz0TSHzOpWfZlVTNy9TP7mUa/s320/lady%252520justice%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Justicia, ironically, is female</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In a wider
context, the eighth amendment, the X case, two further attempted (and rejected)
“pro-life” amendments, as well as a number of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._B._and_C._v._Ireland" target="_blank">other cases</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._B._and_C._v._Ireland"></a>
taken through the courts all the way to Europe, can all be seen as part of an
ongoing transition of values in Ireland, particularly with regard to the waning
influence of the Catholic Church in the country. But this provides only part of
the background to Savita’s tragic and scandalous death a few weeks ago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the
course of the past twenty years, the judges in the Irish Supreme Court and the
European Court of Human Rights have been explicitly critical of the failure of
the Irish Dáil (parliament) to legislate concretely for the whole area of the
termination of pregnancies, even within the extremely limited circumstances
they have defined as existing according to the eighth amendment to the constitution
following the X Case. The judges have pointed out that it is their job to
interpret the law; it is the duty of legislators to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make </i>it, to give practical form to the consequences of the
interpretations provided by the courts. For twenty years now Irish governments
(containing every significant political party in the state with the exception
of Sinn Fein [the radical left-wing party which has historically been the
political wing of the IRA] in one coalition or another) have frequently
promised action and done … nothing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As a
result, doctors, counsellors, and other care professionals have no clear legal
guidelines when it comes to dealing with specific situations. It is possible
that the doctors in Savita’s case were reluctant to terminate the hopeless
pregnancy because they could not be sure that they might be acting illegally
and thus exposing themselves to possible (however unlikely) judicial
consequences. This is all the more ironic, given that that the termination of
her pregnancy could even possibly be justified by a line of argument following
traditional Catholic moral philosophy using the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/" target="_blank">Principle of Double Effect</a>
(a line of reasoning which has always struck me as being just a little <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">too </i>clever; casuistry, in other words).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Whatever.
Why have Irish politicians failed to legislate to regulate such cases, to
provide legal certainty for all involved? There are two possible reasons, both
reprehensible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It may be
that they are just indifferent. The situation of pregnant women with health or
serious mental conflict issues just isn’t important enough for them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Or, more
deeply, perhaps they are simply afraid. Afraid of the negative image of them
the vituperative groups calling themselves “pro-life” are capable of and expert
in projecting of them. Any politician who supports any legislation to legalise
abortion, even in the most limited of cases, will be open to be portrayed as “anti-life,”
“murderer,” promiscuous, irreligious, anti-Catholic, even, somehow, not truly
Irish. An exhibition of honesty and backbone might well be toxic at the
ballot-box, especially if the well-organised and well-funded (there are reasons
to believe that large sums flow from the religious right-wing in the USA)
anti-abortion groups decide to run negative campaigns against them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
horrible thing about it is that they may be right. I have a sneaking fear that
large numbers of my compatriots are still deeply influenced by a
self-righteous, holier-than-thou picture of themselves as “pro-lifers,” secure
in a reality-denying mindset made possible by the fact that any woman who
really wants an abortion can easily go to godless England and get it there. And we
won’t talk about it honestly. A nasty Irish version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Maybe I am
too pessimistic. Maybe the erosion of that particular narrow-minded hypocritical
version of Catholicism which dominated Ireland for a large part of the past
century has finally reached a stage where my countrywomen and men are finally
prepared to be honest with themselves, to face up to hard truths and harder
realities about their collective responsibility for the society they want to
make for themselves in a world in which moral opinions about the rights and
wrongs of what people do (especially in the whole complex area of relationships,
sex and reproduction) are informed more by humility, tolerance, compassion and honest
doubt than simplistic expressions of religiously grounded infallibility.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN66WPPgQ7ZCmp_HPzB0r7AFoNJ0TDv6ZQrkPICSSi3WbWliXX_YJpfpIcEedhUEpYj3fCJYabMngFUQQ1HG3vfu1a9WRawYRoYKYVFGksybuetGo_qhf7z9v4722jc6lA3KG-aXLfD5t3/s1600/Question-Mark_Woman1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN66WPPgQ7ZCmp_HPzB0r7AFoNJ0TDv6ZQrkPICSSi3WbWliXX_YJpfpIcEedhUEpYj3fCJYabMngFUQQ1HG3vfu1a9WRawYRoYKYVFGksybuetGo_qhf7z9v4722jc6lA3KG-aXLfD5t3/s320/Question-Mark_Woman1.jpg" width="294" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There are
all sorts of things I could write here about the difficult question of
abortion. About the women I know who have had one and have told me about it. About
the agonising they went through concerning their decision, both before and
after. About serious moral arguments in favour of abortion. About the dangers
of black-and-white absolutist arguments and the use of horrible emotive
language and images to browbeat those who may not agree with you. About the
fundamental truth that women become pregnant and men can’t and that, therefore,
this is one issue where women should be leading the discussions and decisions
on the subject and men should be playing a subordinate role.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But precisely
because this is primarily a women’s issue, I, as a man, won’t go into any of
these points more deeply here. I will only hope that the Irish will become more
honest with themselves, that their politicians will face up to their
responsibilities and at least legislate for the very limited, specific cases of
abortion allowed by the present constitution. Of course, ideally I would like
to see a more general debate leading to the replacement of that misbegotten
1983 amendment to the constitution, but I honestly don’t think that’s going to
happen in the near future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But Savita’s
case may just have started a ball rolling. The pressure of public opinion, both
within Ireland
and worldwide, will probably twist the politicians’ arms enough to make them legislate
for cases like hers. Then this beautiful, vibrant woman won’t have died
completely in vain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And perhaps
then, my feeling of shame at being Irish will start to fade.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">T<span style="font-size: xx-small;">his is not a great version of the song, but the Boomtown Rats' music is as inaccessible on YouTube as that of Bob Dylan - at least here in Germany. But it really <b>did </b>have to be this song!</span></span></i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RiIVT7fH-wQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Images retrieved from:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/files/2012/11/savita.jpeg">http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/files/2012/11/savita.jpeg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKw1_k70vosYqyAjB4rb2-vRc0J8Jvi9ElLN5RXmEREnhWvsjorDAyo3DSzs0H8XNlIQ0Q5CFYj2lFTcYPIe55QBpu0hsFbtlcUppRCNcnT0jj6O87oxjxM5TXUneuR2gqwBiLVh-bMirD/s1600/lady%252520justice%255B1%255D.jpg">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKw1_k70vosYqyAjB4rb2-vRc0J8Jvi9ElLN5RXmEREnhWvsjorDAyo3DSzs0H8XNlIQ0Q5CFYj2lFTcYPIe55QBpu0hsFbtlcUppRCNcnT0jj6O87oxjxM5TXUneuR2gqwBiLVh-bMirD/s1600/lady%252520justice%255B1%255D.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.360degreewoman.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Question-Mark_Woman1.jpg">http://www.360degreewoman.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Question-Mark_Woman1.jpg</a>
</span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-29635339742829027152012-11-12T02:02:00.000+01:002012-11-12T03:36:11.051+01:00Listening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s four in the morning and I’m on the night shift. Things
are quiet; the five children who are my charges are all sleeping peacefully. I’ve
just been outside for a cigarette, leaving the door slightly open so that I can
hear the signal, should any of the monitors to which they are all attached give
alarm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIsHDNuzzQqSoL0Ww5UqBed2NvFufY7BPUi4CZsHtCb9CgaBEhdQGuwrlATg8qjx54eOBnG5sZ8AFWiv2i7Ge1p8TSBle-j9uqZBm3GQdM1hd5pCko0pHvRkr3VYWDE1-e4Vtvd_WJ3yl/s1600/hare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLIsHDNuzzQqSoL0Ww5UqBed2NvFufY7BPUi4CZsHtCb9CgaBEhdQGuwrlATg8qjx54eOBnG5sZ8AFWiv2i7Ge1p8TSBle-j9uqZBm3GQdM1hd5pCko0pHvRkr3VYWDE1-e4Vtvd_WJ3yl/s1600/hare.jpg" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Though our little group is housed in the middle of the
city, it is quiet outside. The night is slightly misty, the temperature three or four degrees above freezing point. There is plenty of light; street lamps, the
neon signs on the big shopping mall next door, the illumination of the city theatre
across the way. Between our little garden and the theatre is a small
playground. Looking across just now, I spotted a what looked like a fat rabbit
grazing on the grass between the swings and the climbing-frame. From time to
time he raises his head, his ears twitching. Has he registered my presence? I
move towards the fence, the distance between us finally around five metres. Now
he has seen me. He raises his head head once more, looks briefly towards me,
then hops slowly away. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned. Caught for a
moment in the stronger light of a street lamp, I can see him even more clearly.
Now I realise that my initial judgement was mistaken – from his greater size
and the shape of his tail, I can see that my night-time acquaintance is, in
fact, a hare.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">An old acquaintance, then. I have seen him before, in
the dawn light of April. Then he was much livelier, gambolling on the grass, as
they are wont to do in spring. Now, as winter approaches, his life is quieter,
its most dominant aspect being the need to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=silflay" target="_blank">silflay</a> </i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>as much as possible before the dark,
hard, hungry season gets into its stride.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Posts on
this blog have become a bit more seldom of late. Exactly why, I am not sure. I
have been playing around with a couple of ideas in my head, have even started
writing about a few before giving up on them. Bored with my own ideas before I
have even worked them through? Perhaps.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I feel an
urge to create something special, something beautiful. Some kind of instinct to
make a leap forward, move to another level, without being clear about how to go
about this. Writer’s block, creative logjam, perhaps a slight attack of plain
old laziness? Maybe a combination of all this, along with a significant amount
of something else, some kind of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">factor x</i>.
If I actually knew what it was, then I might be able to do something about it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I feel two
conflicting instincts with regard to dealing with this. The first is the
generally excellent piece of advice; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If
you’ve got nothing to say, don’t say it</i>. Surfing the web recently I’ve been
struck by a sense of how much useless, superfluous bullshit is out there. Maybe
it’s just a side effect of the US
presidential campaign. Although I am an Irishman, happily living in Europe, I
have the feeling that, all around the globe, you’d have had to be blind, deaf
and terminally stupid not to realise that the USA was choosing a new (actually
re-electing the old) boss. A cacophony of shrill attempts at persuasion – of
whom? A few hundred thousand voters in a couple of swing states who finally decided the election? Was all
the rest of it then just the convinced preaching to the converted, modern
versions of the indignation, shrieking and threatening gestures between two
rival groups of monkeys meeting in a disputed forest clearing. Ritualised
hind-brain aggression, formally channelled to let dangerous instinctive
feelings bleed off without anyone getting the shit beaten out of him, or even
killed. And in the course of this, the two tribes involved spent up to six
billion dollars. Not to mention the millions of words churned out in blogs,
Facebook posts and tweets. What a way to run the world! And why on earth should
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I </i>add anything more to this strange
circus?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tredLDDfR9wLfchOx6zdhOuVKbqRlDcNsEJd3Hp1w-Z2BDrdNWH_q1IShJ89-jezpY9NaPhm66anZqEwCO08Fq3HNWXN54OTn-u2teLUAIXvKOuOOZs8Xz02HN_Qq1aiXlapxVlZ_M-t/s1600/writers-block.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tredLDDfR9wLfchOx6zdhOuVKbqRlDcNsEJd3Hp1w-Z2BDrdNWH_q1IShJ89-jezpY9NaPhm66anZqEwCO08Fq3HNWXN54OTn-u2teLUAIXvKOuOOZs8Xz02HN_Qq1aiXlapxVlZ_M-t/s200/writers-block.jpg" width="200" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The other
instinct is to just start writing without any clear idea about where it’s going
to go. Just type away, immersing myself into the stream of ideas swirling in my
head, reflecting my own subjective perception of all the concepts and impulses
and stimuli churning around in my own particular personal and cultural
environment and see where it takes me. Which is, more or less, what I am
actually doing now. Some kind of intuition that I generally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>have something to say; one of the
basic purposes of this blog being the ongoing attempt to work on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how </i>I say it – learning by doing, honing
whatever kind of ability I have to create something (however modestly)
worthwhile, combining form and content, media and message, into that flexible
and somewhat amorphous literary category known as “the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">essay</i>.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Writing,
formulating my thoughts and ideas, just doesn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">flow </i>easily for me at the moment. That … hesitancy … I mentioned at
the beginning of this piece is still there, a feeling that that I’m trying to
carve this out of hard wood, with tools that aren’t sharp enough. I’ve been
writing this on and off (more off than on) for more than a week now, finding
myself taking directions which I then subsequently revise and ultimately
reject. They don’t quite fit, though (thanks to the possibilities offered by
writing with a computer) I can save these rejected fragments to perhaps revisit
and use later.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One of the
memes which seems to be flashing about at the moment is that of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stories</i>. Narratives. Even President Obama
took it up in his victory/acceptance speech the other evening. We structure the
world in which we live by creating narratives, telling stories. Crises occur in
societies when narratives no longer work, when the shared collective stories
become unbelievable, incapable of providing a coherent explanation of past,
present and future – from families all the way up to nations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Since 2008
the global economic story has been in fundamental crisis, a crisis much deeper
than the “crash” itself. The general consensus on an economic meta-narrative,
told in the language of markets, the belief in the story of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Invisible Hand</i> guiding all to the best
of all possible prosperity through free, unregulated markets, is breaking down,
along with many of its themes, such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trickle
Down</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unlimited Growth</i>. In the
midst of all the doom and gloom there may just be a small hope that we can
build better stories; new narratives, based perhaps on values other than those
of economic worth, such as decency, morality, solidarity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I know, I
have a strong personal tendency to (unjustifiable?) optimism. Or maybe just
hope.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdkRjF_AXMWAEJLkiiu4xZ0LqJJ1OLuAJ8CZWJrNznjrx6V78NhPXwn22SN4LHxAWq4HobLlvhUjc92jc-pew0QBXYGOJWSOLZ6C1k3aIePlUMIegJdY3c5xFTs4sxryA69SOcr3caQH_/s1600/shhhh.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUdkRjF_AXMWAEJLkiiu4xZ0LqJJ1OLuAJ8CZWJrNznjrx6V78NhPXwn22SN4LHxAWq4HobLlvhUjc92jc-pew0QBXYGOJWSOLZ6C1k3aIePlUMIegJdY3c5xFTs4sxryA69SOcr3caQH_/s320/shhhh.gif" width="266" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Personally,
I have also reached a stage in which I am increasingly examining my own
narratives. One result of the <a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2011/08/burnout.html" target="_blank">Burnout</a>
I went through a year and a half ago was a decision to go into psychoanalysis. Currently
in the middle of this process, I find myself at a point where I feel the urge
to say less and listen more – to others and to myself. I have no intention of
going deeper into details here – it is a process which I consider to be intensely
private – but there is one realisation which I am prepared to mention. I have a
tendency in many areas in my life to turn <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“can”
</i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“want to” </i>into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“must” </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“have to”</i>. It is a personal characteristic I don’t particularly
enjoy and one I hope to be able to give less power to in the future. Writing
here is something I do because I enjoy it, because I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want to </i>do it; I will not allow it to become something I feel I am
doing out of some kind of obligation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There are
themes I have briefly mentioned here which I intend to come back to;
particularly that of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">narrative</i>. But
for now, in common with my long-eared friend, the meeting with whom I described
at the beginning of this, I feel the need to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">listen </i>more and, perhaps, say less. So there may be fewer posts
here in the next while. But those that I do publish (and I have no intention of
abandoning this project) will appear because I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wanted </i>to write them, not out of any sense that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had to </i>publish something.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/dTCNwgzM2rQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Images retrieved from:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://students.cis.uab.edu/ricnik/s_hare.jpg">http://students.cis.uab.edu/ricnik/s_hare.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://anthropinos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/writers-block.jpg">http://anthropinos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/writers-block.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://gastrogirls.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/shhhh.gif">http://gastrogirls.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/shhhh.gif</a>
</span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-60116776084881804402012-10-24T03:58:00.000+02:002012-10-24T12:57:32.280+02:00Life - interrupted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_Cl5zh5m0H2qOJLnY5U929jlFFBPMHKAZVU0DCl_RSO5fax_H7WYe1VKrI81mSeltGTb1TW5S6iOdjL72mq-RYN5H6uEuiRoh3W7ppi-uTacmktqToyK9kIKcSxaR8CfXXLtRhNvnsdL/s1600/Child%E2%80%99s-Birthday-Party1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_Cl5zh5m0H2qOJLnY5U929jlFFBPMHKAZVU0DCl_RSO5fax_H7WYe1VKrI81mSeltGTb1TW5S6iOdjL72mq-RYN5H6uEuiRoh3W7ppi-uTacmktqToyK9kIKcSxaR8CfXXLtRhNvnsdL/s320/Child%E2%80%99s-Birthday-Party1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Just the
other day I was at a birthday party; a birthday party for a five year old. There
were presents, a cake, and a gang of kids creating excited mayhem. There were
even more adults present – but that too is not unusual for a large extended
family of Turkish immigrants to Germany.
A perfectly normal, happy occasion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Except that
it wasn’t. The birthday girl was physically there for the occasion, but that’s
about all you can say about her, because she wasn’t involved in the proceedings
in any other significant fashion. It is debatable whether she had any real
perception of what was going on at all. And to really explain why that is the
case, I have to tell a very sad story.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When
Sümeyye went to the local hospital to give birth to her second child, five years
ago, there was no unusual cause for concern. She had already given birth to a
healthy son, the pregnancy had been unremarkable – everything seemed routine.
But during the birth the first warning biometric signs started to crop up,
showing that the baby was in some distress. Ultimately, the instruments could
record no more signs of life – but this was at a stage where the top of the
child’s head was already showing, so a Caesarean section was impossible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Little
Kübra was pulled with forceps lifeless into this world; something having gone
wrong with the supply of blood and life-giving oxygen through the umbilical at
some stage of the birth. But the delivery team got working with all their
collective expertise, and all the wonderful modern machines available to them
and they got Kübra’s heart beating and her lungs (at least intermittently)
working.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As the days
went by, Kübra’s basic bodily functions stabilised. Unfortunately, the massive
brain damage caused by the prolonged lack of oxygen during the birth was not
reversible. Kübra was in a persistent vegetative state and would, in all
likelihood, remain in this state for as long as she lived.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’ve been
working with people in a PVS for over a decade now, and I’ve written about it a
number of times <a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2012/04/brain-damage.html" target="_blank">here</a> already.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But Kübra’s case is particular in its
poignancy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We know
next to nothing of the internal world of those in a PVS, we don’t even know for
certain if there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>such a world. We
know that these people are not brain-dead; at some levels large parts of their
brains are working normally. The greatest damage – particularly in those who
have landed in this state due to oxygen deprivation – is in the cerebral
cortex; the part of the brain which Hercule Poirot called “the little grey
cells” and which is (at least to a very significant degree) the seat of our
consciousness, the physical matrix of our rationality. There are even some
neurological experts who would argue that in such cases there is no more individual
personality present. No more than a vegetable. Nobody home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We just
don’t know. Although our knowledge of how the brain works has been growing
rapidly in the past few decades, and will certainly be one of the great fields
of medical advance in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century, our explanations and maps of
the brain still resemble, in many ways, the work of pre-Colombian
cartographers, with many blank regions decorated only by fancy cursive scripts
stating, “Here be dragons.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There are
reasons to believe that many people in a PVS do sometimes seem to perceive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i>, that there is some kind of
awareness there, even if weak, intermittent, or badly damaged. We know that for
many functions of the brain a number of different regions are simultaneously
involved, and that long-term memory is stored in a different way to short-term
memory. There may be reasons to believe that some of the essential parts of our
personality and character are rooted deeply in multiple areas of the brain. And
so, for an adult in a PVS, there are all sorts of reasons for doing
biographical research, making sure that they live in a familiar environment,
are in contact with people they knew and loved, playing them their favourite
music, etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But think
about Kübra and her situation. At the very moment of birth nearly everything
was switched off – and then the switch itself was broken. She came into the
world so badly brain-damaged that even the sucking reflex, that most primitive,
necessary instinct to secure nutrition during infancy, had been wiped out. She
does not suck, or chew or swallow; her eyes don’t even close when she sleeps.
Even using the vastly simplified (and inaccurate) picture of a baby as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tabula rasa</i>, a blank page which begins
to be written with all sorts of wonderful things from the moment of birth
onwards, in Kübra’s case there is no pen, no stylus; the page remains simply
blank, there is no development of personality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK-giXOGmiB2P9Hz36kbUhR4ck8eZY5-gRGXBMcylS4mPBRbUWU3G2t7qp68xC9iZO3mj-GDGgV6Iuyg8oFXsgWXul9yeG7U2ZPL8PlrZcuqT0f4DYRkH1JPGF6hZx40emGbB84pKTcqjb/s1600/emptymind-c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK-giXOGmiB2P9Hz36kbUhR4ck8eZY5-gRGXBMcylS4mPBRbUWU3G2t7qp68xC9iZO3mj-GDGgV6Iuyg8oFXsgWXul9yeG7U2ZPL8PlrZcuqT0f4DYRkH1JPGF6hZx40emGbB84pKTcqjb/s1600/emptymind-c.jpg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But her
brain-stem seems to be generally all right; she breathes, wakes, sleeps and
digests normally. Apart from a feeding tube into her stomach, and a tracheotomy
tube in her windpipe (necessary because she cannot cough up phlegm), she’s not
dependent on any machines. She lives on from one day to the next, locked away
from the world in an, at best, permanent dream. But, being realistic, it is as
least as likely that there is no self-awareness there at all, like a computer
where nearly every component is ok but where the RAM just won’t work, is broken
and can’t be fixed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But, as
awful as it is, Kübra’s situation isn’t really the tragic one here. For most of
the time, as far as anyone can observe, she seems to live her life in supremely
absent equaminity. Encapsulated within herself, her inner world – whatever that
may be – seems to suffice for her. If pressed, I would have to say that
generally – if she’s not disturbed by anything acute – she is quite content.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">* * *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My first
encounter with Sümeyye, Kübra’s mother, was around four years ago. For some
reason which I no longer remember, Kübra was to spend a few days in our unit
for long-term care of people in a PVS. She was very tense, worried and nervous
about leaving her daughter alone with us. We smoked a cigarette together. I had
the impression of a woman in a state of permanent outraged shock, someone
caught up in a ghastly, unending horror film. Her baby had been horribly,
irretrievably damaged and the only purpose she could see for her life was to
care for her, do everything necessary for her, fight for her. And yet, so much
of this constant, soul-sapping struggle was without any result; all the efforts
she made would never be rewarded by as little as one smile from her baby. She
would never see her walk, play, make friends, never hear her laugh, never
experience her child smiling at her, embracing or kissing her, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loving her back</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But beside
her shock, the vast personal insult of her concrete situation, there was also
another impression I had, one not quite so noble perhaps, but maybe an attitude
necessary for her own essential psychic survival. I had a sense that at some
level she was consciously assuming and playing a role; that of the tragic
heroine – a woman hounded by fate and the cruel, malevolent gods, but bravely
shouldering an unspeakably unjust, impossible burden. Well, as John Lennon once
put it, whatever gets you thru the night – and Sümeyye had a lot of hard nights
to get through.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Our company
was involved in caring for Kübra from the beginning – from the day, a couple of
months after her birth, where they finally sent her home from hospital,
admitting that there was nothing more that they could do for her. A team was
set up, with colleagues spending eighteen hours daily in the family home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
intensive nursing care of such a child at home is a hugely difficult
undertaking for all concerned. These families are living with a constant,
unhealing, open wound in their midst. To enable them to cope, they have to put
up with the presence of strangers – a continually changing parade of strangers
– constantly there in the middle of their very private space. Given the stress
they are under, it is understandable that they seldom have the energy and the
mental balance necessary to bring the kind of tolerance, openness and sensitive
respect which might form a stable foundation for a longer-term creative
relationship with the nurses who daily invade their family. If some of those
nurses are personally insecure or inexperienced, this quickly becomes an
occasion for comment, indignation, complaints and ultimately demands that the
offending person be replaced. If the nurse is competent then the problems
usually take a little longer to become apparent, but they are often just as
severe. Because a competent nurse will almost inevitably commit an unforgivable
sin – he or she will, in many situations, know better than the mother what’s
right for her child. And for desperately wounded mothers like Sümeyye, this is
simply intolerable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Our company
spent around three years nursing Kübra at home and then Sümeyye fired us. She
thought she had found another nursing company who could do it better. It was
all part of that kind of fevered, desperate activism in the face of the
hopelessness of her child’s illness so common among parents in her position. It
is part of human nature to hope beyond hope, to believe in a brighter future
even if the present offers no prospect of it. We tell stories like that of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo%27s_Oil" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lorenzo’s Oil</i></a>, asserting a fundamental conviction that if you do everything possible,
don’t give up, carry on fighting against an unjust fate, storm heaven with
prayers, then, finally, you will triumph over adversity and achieve your dream.
Reality is often much harder; Snow White dies of the poisoned apple and Sam and
Frodo are caught by the Orcs long before they reach Mordor. But after Pandora
opened the forbidden box and released all the ills to which humanity is heir,
hope remained – without it, however ungrounded it may be, life would most
probably be unbearable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The new
nursing company brought no miracle. At the beginning of the year Sümeyye
renewed her contact with us. She just couldn’t go on any longer. An agreement
was reached that Kübra would spend a couple of months in the little group of
five children we had just set up. In the meantime, our company would try to set
up a new team to take over the care of the little girl at home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Six months
after she came to us, Kübra is still there. Unlike in Hollywood, we’re in the
nursing, not the miracle business and, as yet, our firm has not been able to
find enough trained and willing nurses to establish a team for her in her home
city, around fifty miles away in the Ruhr area. Being realistic about it,
probably every qualified available nurse in her city interested in this kind of work has already been there and
doesn’t want to go back. Such home assignments are something hardly anyone can
do for an indefinite period; the contradictions you have to endure, day in day
out, are just too wearing. I should know – I spent a year doing it in three
different settings and it nearly resulted in <a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2011/08/burnout.html" target="_blank">my own ruin</a>. <a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2011/08/burnout.html"></a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy303SPLFN8S7I6DPZPhLV-_SEN37BXVRMyZQHNBZMvwSrLmnI0Cq4fuHGHuawhfAiGT2f8kl6mjkzFTqhORDpMCXiW_6l1IqqoTw2f4BsuZEonqdIUK9ADYN8lDJ5J8ai3R_ODxY7hIpp/s1600/mother-and-daughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy303SPLFN8S7I6DPZPhLV-_SEN37BXVRMyZQHNBZMvwSrLmnI0Cq4fuHGHuawhfAiGT2f8kl6mjkzFTqhORDpMCXiW_6l1IqqoTw2f4BsuZEonqdIUK9ADYN8lDJ5J8ai3R_ODxY7hIpp/s320/mother-and-daughter.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Another
development has also taken place. Sümeyye is more relaxed, more engaged in
living her own life. She handed her child over to us, taking the leap of faith
that we can look after her. She can finally get on with living, begin to free
herself from the nightmare which began five years ago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Maybe.
Perhaps. The situation is still very fragile. The facts that I have outlined in
the previous two paragraphs are not discussed openly. Officially we are doing
everything possible to establish a team to nurse Kübra at home, ostensibly Sümeyye
can hardly wait for this day to come.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Unspoken
truths. Truths which are probably better left unspoken, because they are just
too hard to be too clearly expressed at the moment. Sümeyye has a long journey
ahead of her before she can hopefully accept that the situation of her child is
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>her fault, that having us care
for Kübra is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>a sign that she is
abandoning her child, that she has other responsibilities in life – her son,
her husband. That the most basic responsibility she has is that for herself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is her
journey and she must make it at her own speed. If she makes it at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">* * *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, having
explained all this, you can now better understand why I spent last Friday
afternoon and evening accompanying Kübra to her own birthday party, an occasion
which didn’t interest her in the least. Indeed, the whole business was more
stress for her than anything else. But then, this celebration wasn’t really
about her anyway. It was the commemoration of a dream, and the refusal to
accept that its mutation into a nightmare is the only truth there is. It was a
signal that all concerned understand the deeper, unspoken truths and understand
that the others also understand them, but that these truths are too fragile to
be spoken aloud. And so all collude to keep up the official fiction.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Life is messy. Sometimes everyone doesn’t live happily ever after. And sometimes you
have to accept uncomfortable compromises, because they’re the best you can get
at the moment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/IMPC5OMYflg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pictures retrieved from: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.losebabyweight.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Child%E2%80%99s-Birthday-Party1.jpg">http://www.losebabyweight.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Child%E2%80%99s-Birthday-Party1.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://blogs.psychcentral.com/dbt/files/2012/06/emptymind-c.jpg">http://blogs.psychcentral.com/dbt/files/2012/06/emptymind-c.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://indyeahforever.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mother-and-daughter.jpg">http://indyeahforever.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mother-and-daughter.jpg</a>
</span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-85148995749827504922012-09-30T15:11:00.000+02:002012-09-30T15:11:03.617+02:00Michael Schumacher and the (Male) German Psyche<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQCfbJw7T7TzrffZekf926x0Kxta0jEeYF9j8MSxTQmfUZHz5ZBNwd5fV1pmRVcxH1Fg_ISD6fblWVXj-zlqsOK7ZdVO9Pnxej6zeaH1AnoLsPjbA9n0T_vnHs6CljnT1fHcj4WjelJh9d/s1600/Michael-Schumacher-Mercedes-GP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQCfbJw7T7TzrffZekf926x0Kxta0jEeYF9j8MSxTQmfUZHz5ZBNwd5fV1pmRVcxH1Fg_ISD6fblWVXj-zlqsOK7ZdVO9Pnxej6zeaH1AnoLsPjbA9n0T_vnHs6CljnT1fHcj4WjelJh9d/s320/Michael-Schumacher-Mercedes-GP.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The news
spread like a brushfire through the German media on Friday morning: Mercedes
had fired their legendary Formula One driver, Michael Schumacher. Well, to be
completely accurate, the reports were that they would not be renewing his
contract beyond the end of this season, which amounts to more or less the same
thing. Therefore the chances are good that, at the age of forty three,
Schumacher will be retiring for the second time from the first division of
motor racing – this time for good.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So what?
Another overpaid top sportsman finally quits. Like Michael Jordan, Zinedine
Zidane, Carl Lewis, David Beckham, and all the others. They entertained and
were idolised by hundreds of millions, earned hundreds of millions and then
rode off into the sunset, turning up occasionally as experts or “celebrities”
on TV, their doings (particularly if there was even a whiff of scandal about
them) being breathlessly reported in illustrated magazines and the more
sensationalist of newspapers and (increasingly) web-sites. Big deal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And the
same is largely true of Schumacher. In 2010, one <a href="http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/15812.html" target="_blank">source</a>
estimated his net worth at around 830 million US dollars. That was the year he
came back to Formula One after three years in retirement, Mercedes reportedly
paying him around 30 million US$ annually to do so (not including what he earns
from endorsements).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
argument often made with regards to the insane amounts earned by top sportsmen
is that – in terms of returns – they are actually worth it, earning through
their success much larger sums (through sponsorships, advertising value,
TV-rights – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">especially </i>TV-rights) for
those who are actually paying them their millions. The irony about Schumacher
is that success has eluded him and his Mercedes paymasters for the past three
years; the best he has achieved in that period is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one </i>third place in a Grand Prix. 90 million dollars plus for that
kind of performance? Nice work, if you can get it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But maybe I
shouldn’t be so small minded. Formula One is a global business where the
millions are simply sloshing around, and Bernie Ecclestone, the geriatric Andy
Warhol lookalike who actually owns the whole circus,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>is much richer than Schumacher. Economically rising and wannabe prestige-hungry
countries like India, Russia, Turkey
and Bahrain
(to mention but a few) are all spending millions on purpose-built circuits just
to attract this circus for an annual visit. They are also prepared – according
to most reports – to pay Mr. Ecclestone handsomely for the privilege. And if
there are human-rights or other such issues (as, most famously, in Bahrain
recently), well, that kind of thing doesn’t really bother Bernie. Sport is
sport and politics is politics and, hey folks, the show must go on. Bernie has
been known to express some rather strange political views (about not everything
being old Adolf’s fault, for instance) but then, there may be the onset of some
slight senility here. His comrade in arms for much of his career, Max Mosley
(boss of the FIA, the sporting body responsible for Fomula One), had the
dubious distinction of being the son of the old British fascist, Sir Oswald
Mosley – but then, we can’t choose our parents, can we?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Schumacher
– to be fair to him – doesn’t really seem to be driven by greed; not as much as
many of the others involved in his business/sport at any rate. He is quite a
generous philanthropist, most famously donating $ 10 million in the wake of the
Indian Ocean Tsunami/Earthquake of 2004. On the other hand, he moved his main
residence from Germany to Switzerland,
apparently for tax purposes. But then, a reluctance to pay taxes on their
massive earnings in their native countries is a characteristic he shares with
many of his racing colleagues, quite a few of whom prefer Monte Carlo as their place of residence. And
from the beginning of his career up to a few years ago he was managed by the
notorious, larger-than-life Willi Weber, a German impresario with a tendency to
occasionally questionable business practices and a sharp eye for the best deal
in every conceivable situation. Weber discovered the young Schumacher, gambling
on his talent and bankrolling his entrance into Formula One in 1991 in return
for a fifth of all Schumacher’s earnings for the next ten years, thus gaining
him the nickname “Mr. Twenty Percent.” That deal gave Weber a powerful
incentive to maximally market his client in every conceivable way, and he was
diligent indeed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">No, no, no! I could easily carry on in this vein for
the rest of the essay, the slightly supercilious tone of the
university-educated, left-leaning, eco-conscious, culture-vulture,
politically-correct intellectual I suppose I am, doing the usual condescending
deconstruction of one of the favourite sports of the shallow, media-conned
masses. This kind of thing practically writes itself. I could sneer about all
the things that irritate me about Michael Schumacher, particularly his
deification by so many ordinary German men, the kind who read the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>Bild</u></i> newspaper, pin up Playboy
centrefolds in their places of work, wash their cars every Saturday, go to
Majorca with their mates from the bowling-club for a long weekend of boozing
and tail-chasing every year, and dream of driving expensive cars with
three-pointed stars or blue and white badges. Let me try another approach …</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-AhkdGN3VA3rnejAp-yCm0F3QkjDi17wrBqi8mcNl_2yO_lOBhxGVI1-H73KL1FaWYMtC68GLT4t3y7WI2PV1bpa486xH9xjTQEN1soxShaDdL27ZntkKzpoJjdtp4o7LhmjyreyIe8g/s1600/benz+patent+moterwagen+1885.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-AhkdGN3VA3rnejAp-yCm0F3QkjDi17wrBqi8mcNl_2yO_lOBhxGVI1-H73KL1FaWYMtC68GLT4t3y7WI2PV1bpa486xH9xjTQEN1soxShaDdL27ZntkKzpoJjdtp4o7LhmjyreyIe8g/s320/benz+patent+moterwagen+1885.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Benz Patent Motorwagen 1885</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Germans
have a particular fascination with motor cars. Although there were many people
working on the concept of the “horseless carriage” in the second half of the 19<sup>th</sup>
Century, it is generally agreed that the inventor of the automobile was the
German Karl Benz, who took out a patent for it in 1886. Many of the other
significant names working in the area were also German, Gottlieb Daimler and
Rudolf Diesel, for instance. So from the very beginning there has been a deep connection
between Germans and the automobile, something they themselves are well
conscious of, frequently calling the car <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“des
Deutschen liebstes Kind</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">/ </i>the
German’s favourite child.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
argument I am developing here may be contradicted by many Americans, who can
justifiably mention the central role the automobile has played in American
consciousness for a hundred years, referring to Buicks and Chevrolets, Pontiacs
and Chryslers and pointing out that Henry Ford was mass-producing Model Ts
decades before Adolf Hitler ordered Ferdinand Porsche to design a “Peoples’
Car” / <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volkswagen</i>. And there is, of
course, much truth in this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">However, I
would contend that the essential difference between Americans and Germans in
this regard is that the American fascination is fundamentally that with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">road</i>, while the German obsession is with
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">car </i>itself. Both have to do with
mobility, of course, but the meme of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">road</i>,
as central to the understanding of the American psyche, goes far beyond the
means of transportation to encompass all sorts of themes like freedom,
frontier, adventure, leaving it all behind, a whole way of life and
consciousness. The German preoccupation with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">car </i>has more to do with the object itself; its possibilities, its
design, its engineering, speed and comfort. The car as a symbol of … status,
power, even freedom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For many
Germans, the car itself quickly becomes an object of obsession, almost a
fetish. While the dusty, battered pick-up is one of the cultural icons of a
particular American rugged identity, the idea of driving a dirty, dinged car is
almost physically painful to most German motorists. The following ad,
highlighting one of the differences between the French and the Germans,
illustrates the point I am trying to make very well:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/v1vvLQd53Ps?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For the
typical German male, his car is one of his most treasured possessions. It is
carefully looked after, regularly serviced, the smallest defect is immediately
taken care of, and it is washed, waxed and polished regularly (traditionally on
Saturdays, though for environmental reasons the private washing of cars is
today generally prohibited). Even the smallest, most insignificant scrape
between two cars will, in Germany, immediately lead to the police being called
(so that questions of liability can be cleared up immediately, in case of
possible dispute), where everywhere else people are quite happy to simply
exchange insurance numbers. Though in many respects I have become completely
“Germanised” after twenty six years in this country, in this case I am, and
will remain, obstinately foreign; I regard an automobile as nothing more than a
comfortable means of conveyance from A to B and still do not understand why
nearly all modern cars are sold with bumpers painted the same colour as the
rest of the vehicle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While I
don’t want to get into sexism or genderism here, I think it is generally
accepted that an interest in the “mechanics” of things is more prevalent among
the male of the species. Combine this with a fascination for speed, and a
strong competitive instinct (also more typical masculine preoccupations) and
you start to understand the seemingly mindless pleasure men derive from
watching cars driving at speed around in circles, or – even better – driving
them themselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Almost
uniquely, the Germans – normally so uptight and controlling about things –
actually allow everyone with a driving licence the possibility to live this out
to an extent. On the German <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Autobahns </i>there
is no speed-limit, so that you can actually personally check out the top speed
specifications the manufacturer claims for your car. Of course, large parts of
the motorways <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>have speed limits
for all sorts of safety reasons, but there are also enough long straight
stretches where you can really let it rip. Despite a general acceptance of all
sorts of “green” consciousness by Germans, none of the major political parties
(with the obvious exception of the Greens) are prepared to put general <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Autobahn </i>speed-limits into their
programmes – it’s an absolute vote killer. And let me tell you, there is
something viscerally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very </i>satisfying
about driving at well over a hundred miles an hour, your concentration
completely on what you are doing – and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fuck
</i>the fact that you’re burning twenty per cent more fuel than you would be by
driving more sedately. Need for speed, yeah!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But, of
course, to do this at the really top speeds possible, in competition with
others, demands a level of skills very few of us have, a willingness to risk
one’s life continually in order to win, and the kind of motorised technology
beyond the financial possibilities of most of us. Hence motor racing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwW2w0_aqP5sAcuzyru3XOFKZj56Opy5PI-s4NOhouCrTjQPfDasW91WM00MqAivm9uuaUidYPCxNLerMiemBWiBp7rc9pg2VUCN49T0KYhgkUToVrU7icpwP5GaM2wE83ilDt9kLSvIp/s1600/Formula1-crash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwW2w0_aqP5sAcuzyru3XOFKZj56Opy5PI-s4NOhouCrTjQPfDasW91WM00MqAivm9uuaUidYPCxNLerMiemBWiBp7rc9pg2VUCN49T0KYhgkUToVrU7icpwP5GaM2wE83ilDt9kLSvIp/s320/Formula1-crash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And then
there’s that other thing, the thing we don’t like to admit to, that deeper
truth which comes from that more savage, dark, primitive part of our nature.
The thing that set our ancestors howling on the stands of the Roman
gladiatorial arenas, hissing at medieval beheadings, or heretic or witch
burnings, looking on with grim, self-righteous approval at 19<sup>th</sup>
Century public hangings. That part of us which isn’t just appreciating the
speed of the competitors, their skills in overtaking opponents, the clever
strategy of a pit-stop judged just right. The cruel, bloodthirsty part of us
which is just waiting for – to be honest, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hoping
for </i>– the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">crash</i>. Wreckage and
maybe even blood and body parts flying all over the place. Burn, baby, burn!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Ok, so what about Schumacher? Get on with it!</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A
combination of circumstances can sometimes give rise to a situation where a
figure of general public interest may become something more than this; an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avatar </i>of the hopes and aspirations of a
whole group or nation. The most complete and perfect way to this kind of
transformation comes through sudden, usually (though not always) violent death.
Examples of this kind of apotheosis are Elvis, John Lennon and, of course,
Princess Diana. But it happens to the living too, like a kind of aura which
comes over them and lets them shine in an almost inhuman way for particular
groups, nations or transnational groups for a while. It happened to Bob Dylan
in the early sixties, and the Beatles soon after that. Muhammad Ali was one, so
was Michael Jordan. Bob Marley (already before his death in his native Jamaica, after
it worldwide).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">During the
1990s Michael Schumacher’s popularity grew steadily in his native Germany,
particularly after he won the World Championships in 1994 and 1995. In the 1996
season he moved to Ferrari and over the next few years worked with the Italian
team to establish the combination of the best driver in the best car in Formula
One. The result was an unprecedented period from 2000 to 2004, when Schumacher was
World Champion for five years in a row.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This was
the period when Schumacher became immortal for his German fans and an icon of
the hopes and dreams of millions of German men. Ordinary men, what you might
call “blue-collar” men.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At the end
of the last century, many of the traditional self-defining characteristics of
the ordinary German blue-collar male were coming under pressure. The increasing
mainstream acceptance of much of the feminist agenda had much to do with this
(as in the rest of the developed world), but there were also other,
specifically German factors. The economic and social pressures caused by
reunification were starting to make themselves felt, as were the effects of
increasing globalisation. Immigrants were making up an ever more visible part
of the human landscape.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The old
social consensus of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bonner Republik </i>was
in flux, the model according to which anyone prepared to work hard would find a
job, be able to live a decent live with a modicum of comfort with his family
and look forward to a happy old age, backed up by a secure contributory state
pension. Tax money was flowing in billions into the former GDR, leaving less
for the old West Germany,
semi-skilled jobs were melting away, wandering into Eastern Europe or Asia where wage-costs were much lower. The old, relaxed,
certain world of the work place was coming more under the turbo pressure of
performance maximisation and targets, rationalisation, increased continual
training and expertise requirements. Brain trumped brawn everywhere and it was
the young business graduates with their suits and computers who seemed to be
taking control of everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwxBAay0n40RI8fqZ4VZ3YVaVEfAN0STba2lHqrE6e0h3qNNLnFaYdQ7D-0WPnXBPyWJU0lLUWU5aeq21LkgqhGcZtugpNQIsYxq1YdqVspPwPH2g3a1Oz8G9opu1Fw0dS5muBNQD6CmhV/s1600/michael-schumacher-ferrari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwxBAay0n40RI8fqZ4VZ3YVaVEfAN0STba2lHqrE6e0h3qNNLnFaYdQ7D-0WPnXBPyWJU0lLUWU5aeq21LkgqhGcZtugpNQIsYxq1YdqVspPwPH2g3a1Oz8G9opu1Fw0dS5muBNQD6CmhV/s320/michael-schumacher-ferrari.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But against
all this, there was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schumi</i>, the kid
from an ordinary working-class family, without privilege and attitude (or even
much formal education), who wouldn’t even had had enough money and influence to
break into the elite super-rich world of Formula One, despite his talent, if
Willi Weber hadn’t financed him. But he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did
</i>break into it and showed the world what an ordinary German man, possessing
the characteristics of an ordinary German man, the ability to work hard, be
dependable, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know </i>motors, could do.
He was the typical kid next door and allowed the fantasy that – had Lady Luck
just tossed the dice a little differently – you or me could have done this as
well. After all, every German man is secretly convinced that he too is an excellent
driver. Not to deny, of course, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unser
Michael / </i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>our</u></b> Michael is
supremely talented, a consummate sportsman, and deserves every million he
earns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Unser Michael</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">. For a particular segment of Germans,
Schumacher became an embodiment of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everyman</i>,
a universal figure of identification. Even in the name the connection was
there, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutscher_Michel" target="_blank">Deutscher Michel</a>
</i>being a personified representation of ordinary Germanness, like John Bull
or Joe Bloggs in the UK, or
Joe Sixpack in the USA.
All of this cannily encouraged by Weber’s comprehensive marketing and the fact
that RTL, the most popular private TV channel in Germany and one whose strategy was
to broadcast programmes for the “ordinary” German with a large dollop of naked
tits, sensationalist reporting, Jerry Springer-like talk shows, and docu-soaps,
had the franchise for Formula One. And it was this identification which turned
Schumi into a figure of adulation; important enough to get millions of German
men up before 6.00 a.m. on a Sunday morning to watch him race live in the
Australian or Japanese Grand Prix. And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">win</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Such avatar
phenomena are finite. Dylan gradually lost his after his controversial decision
to go electric and Schumacher’s slowly faded after his (first) retirement in
late 2006. The comeback was always going to be a risky business – of all such
icons, Muhammad Ali was the only one who can be said to have managed it, and
Ali was a special case because his retirement was forced at such a young age.
And (dare I say it?) because his whole personality and character are
exceptional in a way that Schumacher’s are not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of course, all this could just be pseudo-intellectual
bullshit and Michael Schumacher may still really be the latest incarnation of
Jesus Christ. Whatever, I <u>still</u> don’t like the lantern-jawed bastard!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/dKa9uZyfM64?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pictures retrieved from:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.f1zone.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Michael-Schumacher-Mercedes-GP.jpg">http://www.f1zone.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Michael-Schumacher-Mercedes-GP.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1885Benz.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1885Benz.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.foxcrawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Belgian-Formula1-crash.jpg">http://www.foxcrawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Belgian-Formula1-crash.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/aug/04/red-bull-block-michael-schumacher-ferrari-testing">http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/aug/04/red-bull-block-michael-schumacher-ferrari-testing</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(Comments: I'll be away for the next few days and my internet presence may be sporadic, so don't worry if it takes some time for your comments to appear.)
</span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-44490062894555094642012-09-25T10:47:00.000+02:002012-09-25T11:04:10.940+02:00Expletive F***ing Deleted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span lang="EN-GB">Fuck it. I wonder if others who write have
often had that experience of roughly knowing what they want to say, but not
being able to find the proper beginning. That bitch of a Muse of mine doesn’t
seem to have got her lazy ass out of bed this morning. Shit!</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKDdopaR3xGhcIHzWucrPGZ8HDqFWB25gt3OArF9O2iRtsOlVzeL3WW4zxwSPY8IQ_HlLd_lwtHIUyAn-oFHc67fMK_K2wBpJs-oLsBNenvAB-OY6ua-85G3LmT8mCyOx_Q_NNJvMeGCYz/s1600/f-ing-awesome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKDdopaR3xGhcIHzWucrPGZ8HDqFWB25gt3OArF9O2iRtsOlVzeL3WW4zxwSPY8IQ_HlLd_lwtHIUyAn-oFHc67fMK_K2wBpJs-oLsBNenvAB-OY6ua-85G3LmT8mCyOx_Q_NNJvMeGCYz/s320/f-ing-awesome.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I started
thinking about this whole subject after reading something my fellow blogger,
<a href="http://lisahgolden.blogspot.de/2012/09/you-let-your-mind-out-somewhere-down.html" target="_blank">Lisa Golden</a> wrote, “I'm trying to not curse.<b> </b>It's an experiment, an exercise in self
restraint …” and where she went on to talk about “season[ing] every sentence
with a sulfuric dash of that oh so versatile word <i>fuck</i>.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Actually, I
don’t. Or at least don’t very frequently, if only because of the fact that
around 90% of the time I’m generally speaking German rather than English and
cursing is different in German. Indeed, of around the half dozen languages in
which I manage to be more or less incoherent, in none of the others can what is
sometimes called “foul language” be so consistently and comprehensively
integrated as in English.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Oh, there
are certainly flowery and expressive expressions available in other languages. One
need only think of the Spanish, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“La puta
madre que te pario!”</i> or the Italian, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Stronzo!
Figlio di puttana!” </i>The Mediterranean languages seem to have a tendency to
go beyond simply calling someone a bastard to directly stating that his mother
was a whore. But English is the only language I know which offers the
possibility of taking a vulgar word for copulation and then inserting it as an
adjectival or adverbial qualification with almost unlimited frequency in every
sentence.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It makes me
wonder about how translators sometimes deal with this particular variety of
colloquialism. Of course, colloquialism is always a difficult area for
translation, since it involves a very good command of both languages as well as
a healthy portion of imagination.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Many years
ago, after first coming to Germany,
I spent a while working as an English teacher. There is a German colloquial
expression for extreme indifference, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scheiss
egal</i>. I remember a student once telling me with some pride that something
was “shit equal” to him.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“No,
Stefan, you can’t say it like that in English,” I told him.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Ok, well
then, how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>you say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scheiss egal </i>in English?”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I thought
about it for a moment and then grinned. I had the perfect English equivalent.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Right,
Stefan, remember this one, because this is really good English. Though you
wouldn’t say it to your granny, any more than you’d say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scheiss egal </i>to her. The English for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Es ist mir scheiss egal </i>is … I don’t give a fuck!”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But on
reflection, that one was easy. There are however other scenarios.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is not working, at least not the way I
want it to. There’re all kinds of ideas I have about this subject but they’re
just not gelling. Fragments. No fucking </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><u>flow</u> <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">…</span></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There is a
nexus about bad language; it’s all associated with sex and digestive waste elimination,
penis and vagina and anus, urine and faeces – fuck and prick and cock and cunt,
piss and shit. And it all has to do with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">common</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">low</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vulgar </i>words. Calling a woman “you copulating vagina!” doesn’t
really cut it, anymore than telling someone to urinate or copulate off does.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is all
very Freudian, of course, perhaps even a kind of practical proof that the old
papa of psychoanalysis was onto something pretty basic with his categorisation
of oral, anal and genital phases (though the oral phase doesn’t play any
significant role when it comes to cursing). And in terms of national
characteristics, the Freudian interpretation can also be carried through to an
interpretation of the German psyche as based on linguistic characteristics.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Where in
English bad language the copulatory “fuck” or “fucking” is the most common
linguistic qualifier, in German it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scheisse
</i>or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scheiss-</i>. And whereas in
English probably the most common denigratory personal expression is “bastard,”
in German it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arsch </i>[arse] or, most
frequent of all, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arschloch </i>[arse-/asshole].
Which suggests that Germans are – in the Freudian sense – extraordinarily
anally fixated. Which explains why Germany is a country where so much
emphasis is placed on organisation, discipline, administration and efficiency
(even if it often doesn’t work and is frequently counterproductive). Anally
fixated, the whole lot of them, real controlling arseholes. Just ask the
Greeks.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzMpyuYIMbvXXFAkh_4dD8A8FBO8xEXsCYoV4ncANW8DVl63shObFHCD6w1xDTMkAOrfvkPNRdx_DfZqelRLLKcUYpevCa2mW50Bpp4E4uuDLYvQopSfVCtt15A37d8WZme2ofeJ2WMslt/s1600/Fear_of_Flying_%2528novel%2529_1st_ed_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzMpyuYIMbvXXFAkh_4dD8A8FBO8xEXsCYoV4ncANW8DVl63shObFHCD6w1xDTMkAOrfvkPNRdx_DfZqelRLLKcUYpevCa2mW50Bpp4E4uuDLYvQopSfVCtt15A37d8WZme2ofeJ2WMslt/s320/Fear_of_Flying_%2528novel%2529_1st_ed_cover.jpg" width="216" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">[If my
memory serves me correctly (for it is many years since I read the book) Erica
Jong’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fear of Flying </i>offers
corroboration for this viewpoint. She describes a particular kind of toilet
bowl, common in Germany
at the time, which has a kind of porcelain shelf on which the turd lands after
a bowel movement rather than landing directly in the water, so that it can be
examined by its producer before being flushed away – another indication of anal
fixation. However, I can also report that in the almost forty years since the
book was published, such toilet bowls are becoming increasingly rare in Germany.
Whether that is a deeper indication of a “loosening-up” in the collective
German psyche is a judgement I’m not prepared to make.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All right, all right, this shit is finally starting to go
somewhere! Down the toilet. But, Jesus Christ, there’s that fucking wall again
– just when I think I’m on a roll, my shite imagination runs out of fucking
ideas and I have to start on another track. Bollocks!</span></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There is
also a tremendous amount of ambivalence, not to mention hypocrisy, about this
whole subject. We were taught as kids (and, indeed, most kids are still taught
today) that these are all naughty words, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bad
</i>words, and that it’s wrong to use them. But of course children do, teaching
each other all the words, whispering them to each other before they have an
idea what many of them actually mean, giggling about them. Because they know
that, somehow, they are words of secrecy and power, words which refer to that
uncertain world of pleasure and danger which is adult and seductive and scary
all at the same time. Sex, in other words. Ah, Freud, there he is again!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bad
language, it’s called; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cursing </i>or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">swearing</i>. In fact, of course, it is
neither of these. Cursing means a formal wishing or calling down of ill or evil
on someone. Swearing is a formal declaration of the truth of something. Saying
“fuck,” “shit,” “cunt,” “prick,” or “arse” has nothing to do with either of
these activities. But, in my old-fashioned, early Catholic education, I was
taught that this was “cursing,” and cursing was a sin. So you went to
confession and said, “Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It’s two weeks since
my last confession. I cursed twenty seven times.” And you got absolution for
it, and a penance – maybe three Hail Marys, something like that.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now,
exclamations like “Jesus Christ!” or “Mother of God!” are something of a
different case. From a religious point of view they could be conceivably called
sinful on the basis of “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” On the other hand,
their frequent use could also be seen as a sign of fundamental religiosity, an
expression of a subconscious awareness of the continual presence and support of
God and his saints in one’s life, so that one is constantly moved to
spontaneous prayer, the repeated invocation of divine support in every moment.
Calling on God, even in the moment of climax.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Oh God! That bitch of a Muse of mine is really
fucking lazy today. I need a blow-job from her to finish this and I don’t even
get a prick-tease. Cunt!</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Our society
has been loosening up in this whole area over the last fifty years or so. In
1960, the publication of the unabridged version of D.H. Lawrence’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lady Chatterley’s Lover </i>was finally
allowed by the courts in the UK
(a year earlier in the USA).
Apart from the explicit descriptions of sex, one of the major complaints about
the book was the use of the words “fuck” and “cunt” in it. Today, broad-band
networks are being clogged with millions of downloads of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fifty Shades of Grey </i>and no one gives a shit. You’ll find “shit”
and “fuck” turning up even in quality newspapers occasionally – without
conventional circumlocutory asterisks – particularly in interviews or quoted
speech. In Germany,
it was the young Green politician, Joschka Fischer (who later became Foreign
Minister), who first broke a parliamentary taboo in the Bundestag in 1984 with
his famous statement to the deputy speaker, "<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mit Verlaub, Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch.</i>". ["If
I may say so, Mr. President, you are an arsehole"] – using, one notes in
passing, the polite <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sie </i>rather than
the familiar <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">du </i>form of address. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_that_most_frequently_use_the_word_%22fuck%22" target="_blank">list</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of 105 films which use the word “fuck” more
than 150 times in Wikipedia, only five were made before 1990. Martin Scorsese
makes the Top 30 twice (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Goodfellas</i>
[1990] 11 – with “fuck” or its derivatives occurring 300 times in the course of
the film – and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The Departed</i> [2006]
28 – 237 “fucks”). But the use of “explicit” language has even spread beyond
cinema and into television. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i></a>, in my opinion probably the best series ever made (though fans of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breaking Bad</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2011/02/mad-men-advertising-illusions.html" target="_blank">Mad Men</a>
</i>may, with some justification, disagree), has a classic scene, where two
cops, Bunk and McNulty, spend five minutes investigating a crime scene and
solving a mystery in the process and in which the entire dialogue consists
solely of “fuck” or derivatives thereof. It doesn’t get any better than this.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RJeli0GbDho?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> “Bad”
language is a characteristic of almost every character in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i>, from the drug dealers on the street, to the politicians
in City Hall and beyond. Worth mentioning particularly here is State Senator
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70eU840lc38" target="_blank">Clay Davis</a>, with his marvellous, “Sheee-it!” And, speaking of politicians, it
is reported that President Obama has stated that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire </i>is his favourite TV show. Which gets me to wondering about
how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire </i>would have portrayed the
president telling Secretary of State Clinton about the planned attack on Osama
Bin Laden:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yo, bitch, we gonna <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">fuck </b>that motherfucker Bin Laden, shit,
we gonna waste his nigger Ay-rab ass!”</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Though to
be completely accurate, motherfucker would become <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mo-fuh </i>in Baltimore
project slang.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Well, fuck you, Muse, I’ve finally managed to
get to the home stretch of this bitchin’ essay, Just goes to show that you
haven’t left me entirely on my fucking own. Gimme a last little kiss, you cunt!</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nothing is
as sensitive to inflation as bad language. My general philosophy is not to
forbid myself its use – either in speech or in my writing here – but to use it
very sparingly (with the obvious exception of this somewhat experimental
essay). It works much better that way, retaining its original potency to
emphasise, to shock, to pull the reader up suddenly and refocus her or his attention
on what you want to say. It’s like the difference between the marvellously
seductive promise of a skilfully erotic hint of a flashed nipple and the jaded
tawdry tiredness of a spread-legged full-frontal cheap porn centrefold.
Sometimes “fuck” is the only way to say it, more often you don’t need to.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFz3gA3G0GO0CrZDrutoTbH4zg8i1VBFFbLob4KSTVFd5v6Z0fFbUldHmJb27_j_gQ_iL1V16_-Ng9VqUYmbXoqbH7CrA55zON1ORLL5Ad6d-PQUhP7acvdl2w7DLpUbOHVxJGgnzfkL2H/s1600/FBomb1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFz3gA3G0GO0CrZDrutoTbH4zg8i1VBFFbLob4KSTVFd5v6Z0fFbUldHmJb27_j_gQ_iL1V16_-Ng9VqUYmbXoqbH7CrA55zON1ORLL5Ad6d-PQUhP7acvdl2w7DLpUbOHVxJGgnzfkL2H/s200/FBomb1.png" width="200" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And,
despite all the authenticity and spontaneity of modern film and TV, our use of
expletives is far more under our conscious control than we would often like to
admit. Even the most habitual serial foul-mouthed punk will be able to control
his expletives if he suddenly finds himself in the company of half a dozen
nuns. We have a remarkable linguistic flexibility which enables us to instinctively
almost completely adapt our language styles to the environment. Even people
who in many situations cuss with an instinctive fluid frequency will
automatically “tone down” their language in the presence of their children, or
children generally. Not to mention in the presence of their mothers …</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Shit! I’ve just realised my mother reads every
fucking thing I post here.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">* * *</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span> </span></span></span></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">[Note on the music: I usually put some music at
the end of a post which has some kind of connection to the theme I’ve been
writing about, and I usually don’t insult the intelligence of those who visit
my blog by explaining the connection. But this one needs some background.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When John Lennon recorded </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziwsjE1O4Ow&feature=related" target="_blank">Working Class Hero</a>”
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">forty-two
(!) years ago, the song caused some furore by containing the word “fucking”
twice at a time when this kind of language in the music of a major star was
almost unheard of. It’s a perfect example of an excellent use of “bad” language
– “fucking” being used naturally and perfectly to give just the right emphasis
to the mood and expression of the sentiments involved in their context. There’s
not a hint of gratuity or prurience about it. </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The two lines in question are:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“’Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow
their rules.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">and</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“But you're still fucking peasants as far as I
can see.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thirty seven years later, </span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Green Day <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">released an excellent cover of the song, as part of an Amnesty
International Campaign about Darfour. In the official video the two “fuckings”
are blended out. Ah, the eternal hypocrisy of the music business! If you prefer
to listen to an uncensored version you can find it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsTZ6sQHUsg" target="_blank">here</a>]</i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pictures retrieved from:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.signs-unique.co.uk/ekmps/shops/autounique/images/note-to-self.-you-re-f-ing-awesome-funny-fridge-magnet-ep--7766-p.jpg">http://www.signs-unique.co.uk/ekmps/shops/autounique/images/note-to-self.-you-re-f-ing-awesome-funny-fridge-magnet-ep--7766-p.jpg</a>
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Fear_of_Flying_%28novel%29_1st_ed_cover.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Fear_of_Flying_%28novel%29_1st_ed_cover.jpg</a>
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://teamhandballnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/FBomb1.png">http://teamhandballnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/FBomb1.png</a>
</span></div>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-72678246219500267662012-09-18T04:30:00.000+02:002012-09-18T04:30:37.972+02:00Islam and Freedom of Opinion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/08/muslim220806_228x266.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/08/muslim220806_228x266.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s
happening again. Once more, somebody has been less than respectful about Islam,
or the prophet Mohammed, and once more throughout the Islamic world –
particularly the Arab world – enraged mobs are demonstrating before embassies
and consulates, burning them down when they get the chance and not even
stopping short of killing westerners, should they get their hands on them. Whether
it’s Salman Ruhsdie’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Satanic Verses</i>,
a film by Theo van Gogh, caricatures in a Danish newspaper, the provocative burning
of the Qur’an by a lunatic American fundamentalist – any perceived insult to
Islam seems to provoke protest and violence by thousands of adherents of that
religion against the easiest target they can find to which some kind of tenuous
connection can be constructed with those responsible for that insult.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In common
with millions of others, I’m getting really sick of it. I am the last person to
deny that the ordinary – and particularly the poor – people of countries like Egypt, Libya,
the Yemen, Sudan, etc., may have many good reasons to be
angry with the USA,
and western countries in general; reasons associated with colonial history,
economic exploitation, the support of brutal dictators. That’s fine; if they
were (peacefully) protesting about such issues before western embassies
throughout the world, I’d be the first to be cheering them on. But they’re not.
What they are doing, in essence, is protesting at the fact that our societies
allow people to have free opinions and to express those opinions, even if these
opinions are offensive to a few, some, many, or even the majority of their
fellow citizens or the whole population of the planet.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let me just
get a few things straight – for the record. The film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Innocence of Muslims </i>is a badly made, artistically worthless, obnoxious
piece of junk. I’ve watched a few clips from it on YouTube and I’m not putting
up a link here because, honestly, it’s really not worth viewing and I do not
choose to help its makers reach any more viewers. If you’re really interested,
you can google it easily enough anyway. Moreover, the sole purpose behind it
seems to be to provoke Muslims to precisely the kind of reaction we have been
seeing worldwide in the past days. It is a reprehensible, worthless product of
small-minded, fundamentalist bigots, designed to insult and elicit a violent
reaction from other small-minded fundamentalist bigots. The only real
difference between the Christians initially behind this film and the thousands
of Muslims protesting against it is that most of those Muslims have at least
the excuse of being very poorly educated members of societies without a
democratic secular tradition. Worse, they are being manipulated by more
intelligent, better educated bigots called mullahs or imams, dangerous ideologues
who really want to create some kind of Islamic-theocratic world order by
whatever means they regard as necessary, or cynical people in power who
encourage this kind of thing to divert the attention of the masses they are
exploiting from the real scandals in their societies.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In this
context, I want to look at what has been happening here in Germany a
little more closely. Last week an angry demonstrating mob attacked the German
embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. The demonstrations were
reportedly instigated by a number of Muslim preachers who had picked up on
reports that anti-Islam protests had taken place in Germany this summer, which had
involved caricatures of Mohammed. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Those
reports were true – as far as they go. In the past couple of years, a new
extreme right-wing group has been growing in Germany. It began in Cologne, coalescing
around protests against the building of a large mosque there. In a cynical move
to gain support, the group called itself <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pro-Cologne</i>.
It has now organised itself on a national level and calls itself <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pro-Deutschland</i>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let’s keep
this in perspective. There is a continual, very small minority in Germany which
is consistently prepared to vote for the far right. Such nuts are present in
every country; in Germany
we have been lucky that they have never amounted to more than two or three
percent nationally. In their latest incarnation, they have taken an overt stand
against Islam, realising that they may be able to gain support from many people
worried about the problems arising around the whole question of the integration
of Muslim immigrants into German society.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.miteinander-in-remscheid.de/grafik/remscheid_tolerant_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.miteinander-in-remscheid.de/grafik/remscheid_tolerant_.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">They have
turned up in my home town of Remscheid
too, where we have quite a substantial Muslim minority (around 12%), mostly of
Turkish origin. On Mayday this year, they announced a demonstration against the
proposed building of a new mosque. A spontaneously formed group (“Remscheid
Tolerant”) quickly called for a counter-demonstration. My regard for the views
represented by Pro-Deutschland being around the level of my enthusiasm for
root-canal work without benefit of anaesthetic, I decided to take part.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was a
nice, sunny first of May afternoon as a work colleague and I joined of group of
maybe four hundred to march through town to the planned site of the new mosque.
About two thirds of the demonstrators were of Turkish origin, but the rest was
a motley crew, from local politicians to punks and even some representatives of
the near-anarchist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonome" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Autonome</i></a>
movement. As my colleague had some friends among those general left-wingers, I
finished up marching with them.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was fun.
The atmosphere was good humoured and I found myself reflecting on other demonstrations
I had taken part in when I was younger. With a feeling that I was indeed
getting older and more staid, I realised that it had been nine years since my
last demo – the huge protests against the impending Iraq war in 2003.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When we got
to the site of the planned Mosque, the demonstrators from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pro-Deutschland </i>were there – all eleven or twelve of them. They
were a sorry little group, separated from us by around sixty policemen and
women, around half of them in riot gear. They half-heartedly waved a couple of
placards, featuring reproductions of Kurt Westergaard’s famous
Mohammed-as-a-bomb caricature. They tried to chant a couple of slogans, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deutschland für die Deutschen</i>, stuff
like that, but were comprehensively shouted down by our much larger group, the
punks delightedly challenging them to, “Piss off home, you Nazi wankers!” and
inviting them to go fuck themselves. Meanwhile, the politicians and trade union
leaders were making speeches about tolerance and solidarity and a group of Turkish
schoolgirls were doing a folk dance. Just an ordinary demo, a practical public
expression of the democratic rights of anyone to express their opinions in
public. The cops looked attentively bored and there was no suggestion of
violence, though in neighbouring Solingen,
another little group of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pro-Deutschlanders</i>
were stoned by some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi" target="_blank">Salafis</a>
- planned provocation and a planned response. After about an hour everyone went
home.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the
midst of the current controversy, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pro-Deutschland
</i>have announced that they plan to hire a cinema in Berlin and publicly screen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Innocence of Muslims</i>. There are also
reports that they have invited Terry Jones to attend, that mad Florida pastor who is so
keen on burning Qur’ans. Made nervous by the events in Sudan last
week, and under pressure from various Muslim groups, there are reports that the
German government is looking into the possibility of banning the showing.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That would
be, in my opinion, a mistake. At the core of this issue is not the question of insulting
Muslims, or Mohammed, or Allah, but the question of freedom of opinion and
freedom of expression. And this is a value which is central to any free, open
society.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkmnCeyzC3hBEBuvWOrl87IYqPGQ3q_Yy3gqSQRRQAZXRe03yULUtBpP680bksJUNTMObaYHJy8R6dqFIM2DZ_Lq02NvKytEXMvHA9Bp-hRAhdfS2SyqyYzmagPeEjlSOOfsDaKuFHRHe6/s1600/voltaire.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkmnCeyzC3hBEBuvWOrl87IYqPGQ3q_Yy3gqSQRRQAZXRe03yULUtBpP680bksJUNTMObaYHJy8R6dqFIM2DZ_Lq02NvKytEXMvHA9Bp-hRAhdfS2SyqyYzmagPeEjlSOOfsDaKuFHRHe6/s320/voltaire.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The freedom
of opinion, of belief, of expression has, at its foundation, the realisation
that people will have different, often contrary opinions, and that no society
has the right to force anyone to believe particular things. This also has the
corollary that no group or section in that society has the right to forbid
others from holding different opinions to themselves, or from expressing them –
even if they find that expression personally offensive, providing that
expression does not infringe on the particular rights of others (as is the case
with libel or slander). There are also limits with regard to questions like
incitement to violence or crime, but otherwise the right to one’s opinion, and
the right to express that opinion, is a central component of any free society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Religions
often have problems with this necessary aspect of secular society, because
religions tend to claim to possess absolute truth. If Christians are right,
then atheists are wrong – and so are Muslims. If Muslims teach the truth, then
Christians are in error.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Christianity
has two advantages over Islam in this regard. Firstly, it has had over two
hundred years, since the American and French Revolutions to get used to the
idea. Secondly, the modern philosophy of the secular state, as a-theistic as it
may be, evolved initially within Christian dominated cultures. Even so, the
Catholic Church only finally made its peace with modern secular society in the
1960s with the Second Vatican Council (and I frequently think that there are
many among its current leadership who would like to roll that back).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Islam still
has a long way to go here, but it is a road that it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must </i>take. No religion has the right to dictate how any modern
society should be organised on the basis of its self-proclaimed divinely
inspired teaching. The very right to freedom of opinion and expression for
everyone, including – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">especially</i> – those
who think differently than we do, is the only guarantee that any religious
group has for its own security in a multi-cultural world. To claim otherwise
would be to acknowledge that the interpretation of this world religion as held
by Osama bin Laden and the Taliban is implicitly correct. And if that is the
case, then the modern world is indeed at war with Islam and we will all have to
accept that the teachings of this religion are incompatible with the way most people
– including many Moslems – understand themselves and the world.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And so,
much as I find their views disgusting and reprehensible, I must argue that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pro-Deutschland</i>, that ghastly group
against whom I protested a few months ago, should be allowed to go ahead with
their laughable screening of that worthless film. To prohibit it would be to
concede that anyone who claims to be insulted – for whatever reason – by someone
else on religious grounds would have the right to prohibit that other person
from expressing their views. It is an admission of the superiority of religious
beliefs over all other ideas, views, and opinions. It is incompatible with any
vision of an open, tolerant and free society.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the end,
the whole Muslim perception of insult is rather pitiable anyway. It is a sign,
for me, of a deeply seated insecurity, even a self-perception of inferiority. How
can a God who is as great, compassionate, merciful and all-powerful as Muslims
proclaim Allah to be, really be mocked by the writings of a Salman Rushdie? How
can a man as reputedly wise and blessed as the prophet Mohammed, who has been
dead for nearly 1.400 years, really be insulted by a Danish caricature or a worthless
film produced by a vindictive, criminal American Christian of Coptic origin?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The author
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses" target="_blank">The Satanic Verses</a>
</i>has been much in my mind while writing this. Twenty three years ago, the
Ayatollah Khomeini spoke a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fatwa</i>,
basically condemning Salman Rushdie to death for blasphemy. Rushdie spent many
years under police protection and had to endure major forced changes in his
life because of his literary treatment of the prophet. In an interview in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/17/salman-rushdie-blackest-period-of-my-life" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>
</i>yesterday, he commented on the current controversy,</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">‘"The
film is clearly a malevolent piece of garbage," says Rushdie. "The
civilised response would be to say of the director: 'Fuck him. Let's get on
with our day.' What's not civilised is to hold America responsible for everything
that happens in its borders. That's crap. Even if that were true, to respond
with physical attacks and believe it's OK to attack people because you're upset
at this thing, that's an improper reaction. The Muslim world needs to get out
of that mindset."’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/PJxKtOwgLdw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pictures retrieved from:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/08/muslim220806_228x266.jpg </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.miteinander-in-remscheid.de/grafik/remscheid_tolerant_.jpg">http://www.miteinander-in-remscheid.de/grafik/remscheid_tolerant_.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.quoteslides.com/large/Slide047.JPG">http://www.quoteslides.com/large/Slide047.JPG</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Note: The famous quotation from Voltaire isn’t, unfortunately, from him,
but rather attributed to him (as a summary of his position) by Evelyn Beatrice
Hall (1906)</span></div>
<br /></div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-36816211226123217452012-09-11T13:39:00.000+02:002012-09-11T21:35:18.981+02:00Dada wouldn't buy me a Bauhaus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9KjMnE6KUheku-mFOucM3lDdlaq0JDqxy2wav4WvK9hy8Bu3hD3HDvbY3hGPJFapwW2SLUZ0QAHpI0z0MwJ43uLuXDZ6uDByhFfd_wfOj5zJVDVtEqY8YdyrEhL-DKN6Q__uSP2kj1_xA/s1600/Dada+Hannan-Hoch-Cut_With_the_Kitchen_Knife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9KjMnE6KUheku-mFOucM3lDdlaq0JDqxy2wav4WvK9hy8Bu3hD3HDvbY3hGPJFapwW2SLUZ0QAHpI0z0MwJ43uLuXDZ6uDByhFfd_wfOj5zJVDVtEqY8YdyrEhL-DKN6Q__uSP2kj1_xA/s400/Dada+Hannan-Hoch-Cut_With_the_Kitchen_Knife.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was a
post by my blogger friend Gina about the <a href="http://thepagansphinx.blogspot.de/2012/09/surrealistic-sunday.html" target="_blank">Dada</a>
movement which got me thinking about a number of different cultural/artistic
movements in the first third of the last century. I have nothing like Gina’s
deep understanding and expertise in the whole area of art – a comprehension
which always leads me to visit her <a href="http://thepagansphinx.blogspot.de/" target="_blank">Pagan Sphinx</a>
site with a delicious combination of anticipation and admiration – so it is
with some trepidation that I dare to put my toe into this particular pond. And
it is because I am intensely aware of my limited understanding in this area
that I will endeavour to take a more historical approach here, an attempt to
consider particular “artistic” schools or movements within the broader context
of general societal and cultural developments, a stage (without meaning to be
presumptuous) on which I feel more comfortable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moreover,
it is probably inevitable that I further limit this essay (in the particular
consideration of two artistic movements) to a largely German, or at least
Central European in a somewhat wider sense, perspective, given that I have been
living in Germany for the past quarter century and feel marginally more secure
on this ground than on a wider one, encompassing a wider European, or even
global perspective.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">After all
that the 20<sup>th</sup> Century subsequently brought, it is difficult for us
today to fully realise how massive the cataclysmic shock the First World War
was to the consciousness of those who experienced or were affected by it. In
the more than forty years since the Franco-Prussian War, which saw the
humiliation of France and the formation of the German <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kaiserreich</i>, the general atmosphere had been one of continual,
apparently boundless progress. Indeed, despite some discrete, largely local
upheavals, such as the revolutions of 1848, many would have regarded this
period of progress as going back almost a hundred years, to the post-Napoleonic
settlement of 1815. At any rate, the general mood of the world was one of
optimism. Things just seemed to be getting so much better all the time; from Edison’s
electric light bulb to those magnificent men in their flying machines, from
motor cars and modern armaments to the spread of the benefits of civilization
all over the world through enlightened European Empire and the spread of US
manifest destiny from sea to shining sea. And if that meant the killing of
millions of savage negroes in Leopoldian Congo, or the annihilation of the
cultures and lives of the Plains Indians, well, those were just the inevitable
results of Darwinist survival of the fittest and the unavoidable collateral
damage of the spread of superior and more powerful cultures, nations and races.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Admittedly,
the situation between the five major European powers (France, Great
Britain, Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Russia) was
continually tense. But that had been the case for over forty years now and
dealing with that continual tension was what professional diplomats were for.
For decades they had moderated and orchestrated the complex, dangerous game of
chicken the great powers continually played with each other, dancing defiantly
to the edge of confrontation and war, threatening, feinting, pulling back,
brokering new compromises with new promises of future confrontations and gains.
The Tangier Crisis, the Bulgarian Crisis, The Agadir Crisis, etc., etc., etc.;
then all as significant as the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missiles or the Prague
Spring were to the Cold War generations, now forgotten except to professional historians.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The world
of the early 20<sup>th</sup> Century culture was already much too complex to be
encapsulated by the description of any one “movement.” An additional problem
arises because the general cultural flavour of the time is generally classified
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism" target="_blank">Modernism</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism"></a></i>, a catch-all term which tends to describe everything by defining nothing
and which, as generally used, is extended to include and go beyond WWI. But –
generalising and simplifying enormously – pre-war Modernism was still
characterised by an optimistic view of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">progress</i>,
despite deeper questions of meaning and sense raised by thinkers like
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche or Kierkegaard, the abandonment of conventional form by
the early Cubists, or Einstein’s demolition of the classical Newtonian universe
with his Special Theory of Relativity (1905). The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avant-garde </i>might be challenging progressive Realism on the
cultural edges; for the mainstream such challenges were generally seen as
dilettantish. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And then in
Summer 1914, in the wake of the assassination of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the diplomats finally dropped the ball and Europe collapsed into conflagration. Although
propagandist jingoism, confidently predicting victory by Christmas, was
generally believed on all sides, it was the British Foreign Secretary, <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/%20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lamps_are_going_out" target="_blank">SirEdward Grey</a>,
whose prescience in August 1914 turned out to be truly prophetic; “<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: xx-small;">Raoul
Hausmann ABCD (Self-portrait) Photomontage, 1923-24</span></div>
</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the
German dominated cultural area of Central Europe,
two artistic reactions to the incomprehensible carnage and destruction of the
Great War emerged. At the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, a group of artists, many
of them German exiles, were in 1916 the origin of a movement which came to be
known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dada</i>. Dada was deliberately,
almost despairingly provocative, one of the original group, Hans Richter, even
describing it as “anti-art.” In retrospect it can be seen as an attempt to
express the sensation of horror and loss of meaning and all moral foundation,
all structure even, resulting from the experience of the war. Despite other
possible etymologies, I personally prefer the explanation of the word “dada” as
an expression of ultimate meaningless glossolalia. Dadadadadadadadadadada… But
in German the word carries further connotations. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Da </i>in German means <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there</i>.
Dada is a kind of despairing showing, a pointing at the hopelessly shattered
fragments of meaning, of decency, of sense; the rubble of everything governed
and destroyed by the prevailing world order, acted out in the hopeless carnage
of the trenches. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There! And there! And
there! And there! </i>… Seen against this background, the frequent use of
collage by Dada inspired artists takes on extra significance.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.personal.kent.edu/%7Eareischu/Ernst%20Murdering%20Airplane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://www.personal.kent.edu/%7Eareischu/Ernst%20Murdering%20Airplane.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Max Ernst,
Murdering Airplane, 1920</span></div>
</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Dada was
chaotic, unorganised, anarchic; it couldn’t be anything else. It was an
outpouring of enraged creativity, not confined to art alone, but also finding
expression in workshops and absurdist literature, like the writings of Kurt
Schwitters (a good example is <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/%20http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/Anna_Blume_Dichtungen/index.htm%20" target="_blank">Anna Blume</a>). As such it quickly surpassed itself; many of those who identified with it,
such as Max Ernst, developing themselves further in Surrealism, which, at least
partly, grew out of Dada.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Bauhaus
building in Chemnitz </span></div>
</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Bauhaus
movement also emerged as a reaction to the experience of the Great War, but
took a very different direction – a new attempt to find meaning and order, to
learn from the horrors of the war, to find an integrated approach to the
individual and his/her place in society so that all the suffering would not
have been in vain. The emphasis on form and structure is inevitable, given that
Bauhaus was initially and primarily an architectural and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">design </i>movement. Though its first leader, Walter Gropius, was
non-political, many of those involved were left-leaning. Bauhaus was, by its
own definition, radical: “The underlying idea of <a href="http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/das-bauhaus/idee" target="_blank">the Bauhaus</a>, which was formulated by Walter Gropius, was to create a new unity of crafts,
art and technology. The intention was to offer the right environment for the
realisation of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). To this end, promising
artists were to be taught in a school with an interdisciplinary and
international orientation.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWjGEnHiTsNTrwBDISXbs8ALlS_jtjCZowc76jb1-PSHSMqW_lkkMBJ1h7Zr3Tq9QXaKm3u7HoiIevPoSxaysfKpn3zU4Ir8lib4QIeCnZ06HKGXMyS0T-IU425fI9LaP24cmHqn2WjkP/s1600/bauhaus+klee+1922+Die_Zwitscher-Maschine_%28Twittering_Machine%29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWjGEnHiTsNTrwBDISXbs8ALlS_jtjCZowc76jb1-PSHSMqW_lkkMBJ1h7Zr3Tq9QXaKm3u7HoiIevPoSxaysfKpn3zU4Ir8lib4QIeCnZ06HKGXMyS0T-IU425fI9LaP24cmHqn2WjkP/s400/bauhaus+klee+1922+Die_Zwitscher-Maschine_%28Twittering_Machine%29.jpg" width="293" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Klee, The Twittering Machine, 1922</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Gropius and
his successors, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, were at pains to
involve various artists and craftsmen in the realisation of their concept and
both Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky taught for years at the Bauhaus School in
its successive homes at Weimar, Dessau
and Berlin.
Piet Mondrian, not unexpectedly, also lectured there. Identifying itself with
the wider Modernist movement, the Bauhaus emphasised simplicity and
functionality – an architectural and design expression of the “form follows
function” aphorism, while not abandoning at any point a striving for aesthetic
excellence. The interaction between art and design is well exemplified by
Kandinsky, who taught both basic design for beginners as well as advanced
theory at the Bauhaus during a period in which he himself was intensely
exploring geometrical elements and relations in his own work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The basic
philosophy of the Bauhaus was humanist, egalitarian; it envisaged a cooperative
equality of skilled workers, artists, artisans and architects, a
democratisation of art, a demystification of design. This had political,
revolutionary aspects, and there were many committed Marxists at the Bauhaus.
But even without them, the whole direction of the movement was deeply
suspicious to other, darker forces.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.metroretrofurniture.com/images/knoll/newblackbrnoarmpads2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://www.metroretrofurniture.com/images/knoll/newblackbrnoarmpads2.jpg" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe, The Brno Chair (1929-30)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On January
30 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The Bauhaus was soon wound
up, and in the following years most of its talent left the country. As did many
of those who had been involved in Dada. For, although their reactions to the
brutal lunacy of the First World War were in many respects antithetical, the
attitude of the New Vandals who had taken control of Germany to them was essentially the
same. According to the Nazis, both schools propagated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">entartete Kunst </i>[degenerate art] and as such were subjected to
bannings, persecution of those artists who had not left the Reich, and the
destruction of some of their works.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nonetheless,
their legacies survived. The anarchic freedom, the celebration of apparent
meaninglessness expressed by Dada bubbles up repeatedly ever since, exerting
its spell on figures and movements as diverse as Josef Beuys, Ken Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters, Malcolm McClaren and punk. The Bauhaus left a lasting
influence on modern architecture ever since, as well as all sorts of areas of
design. Just think about Scandinavian furniture – even that IKEA bookshelf
you’ve got in your study. And, looking at the works of Andy Warhol, I like to
think one can see the inspiration of both movements.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Note on the Title: Much as I would like to
claim it as original, honesty forces me to admit that I first heard the phrase
over twenty five years ago from my old friend, the philosopher Paul O’Grady, of
Trinity College, Dublin.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The walrus was Paul</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/qxY3jqObZ2U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container"><tbody>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
Pictures retrieved from: </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
First image:<span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> Hannah Höch, Cut with the Dada
Kitchen Knife through the last Weimar Beer Belly, 1919</span></div>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-43497191047538428532012-09-03T02:06:00.000+02:002012-09-03T08:05:41.777+02:00Human Dignity; My Friend Jimmy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6LBp-7UdwABrVC1O3UVtuebYTOVDc_4w8EqdViZ5FkYQQovVUjbH1SL6ADBEKpFHGkV-3nPlm4Y2EV2AbG7eXqEljfv_Y6McH57Nw0tGatBF0hwhvDaf9w3_8woSgKytNgFVS4907bGaC/s1600/pink-floyd_hearbeat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6LBp-7UdwABrVC1O3UVtuebYTOVDc_4w8EqdViZ5FkYQQovVUjbH1SL6ADBEKpFHGkV-3nPlm4Y2EV2AbG7eXqEljfv_Y6McH57Nw0tGatBF0hwhvDaf9w3_8woSgKytNgFVS4907bGaC/s320/pink-floyd_hearbeat.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For all of
my working life in nursing – over twenty years now – I’ve been involved, in one
way or another, with the basic limits, the boundaries of life. Either in
geriatric care (accompanying people who are coming to the end of their life’s
journey), or with people suffering from such serious, complex, debilitating and
restricting illness that their continued survival would rapidly be impossible
without the comprehensive, continuous support of professional health workers
(in my case, people in <a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2012/04/brain-damage.html" target="_blank">Persistent Vegetative States</a>). Even in the little group of five children with whom I currently work, three
are in a PVS.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is an
area where some very fundamental questions arise. What’s the basic point of
life? What is tolerable, intolerable? Where do we draw the line, or can we draw
any lines at all? When is a life not worth living any longer? What does “basic
human dignity” mean?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Hard
questions, questions for which I am ever more unwilling to offer comprehensive
answers, or even any answer whatsoever. There are those who find such things in
faith, or dogmas derived from faith (though most believers who actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">work</i> in this area – in my experience –
aren’t big into dogmas), but many of us are not believers, or don’t find our
motivation to continue actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doing </i>this
work in any kind of religious faith.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I suppose
one of the basic things which keeps us at it (apart from the fact that we know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how</i> to do it and we need to earn a
living) is the very practical experience that this is work which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">has </i>to be done; done now, done
immediately, done continuously. I think it is this daily experience which leads
most of those of us who do this kind of thing to a reaction of genuine
bewilderment when others praise us for it, you know, “I really admire you for
the work you do…” that kind of thing. There is, I suppose, a kind of deep
satisfaction in doing the kind of work which you know (at some level) makes a
literal life-or-death difference every day, every hour you’re doing it. It
certainly beats processing piles of paper or data (something I once did for a
year, and which nearly drove me batshit crazy), even if the ultimate results of
being a part of such a complex process actually means that practical things
happen somewhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nonetheless,
we do often find these deeper questions coming up in the course of our daily
work. It’s inevitable in this kind of job. And, as I’ve already mentioned,
there aren’t any easy answers. Sometimes, faced with someone who seems to be
suffering a lot and, at the same time, doesn’t seem to be able to just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">die</i>, there are no good answers at all.
You learn to cultivate a kind of staid attitude of compassionate resignation;
you do the best you can, the best possible for the person you’re looking after
and try to leave the questions aside. Because, honestly, they don’t help.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">No, I often
don’t know any answers. What I do know are some stories, one of which I’d like
to tell now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jimmy was
the son of immigrants to Germany
from a Mediterranean country. They had left their homeland as young adults over
forty years ago, with little education or training, no knowledge of the German
language, and very limited concrete knowledge of the kind of life they were
going to lead. All they had – like millions of other migrants – was the hope
that life elsewhere would offer them and their children more possibilities than
a continued existence in the place of their birth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">They
quickly found somewhere to live, and jobs to do. There was plenty of work
available, even for people without high levels of training and very rudimentary
language skills. And, though the work was hard and often monotonous, the money
was good and the standard of living (material things like electricity and
washing machines and motor cars, and other stuff like health care) almost
immediately available to them was far beyond what they could have attained in
the old country. Certainly they were homesick, and getting by in a foreign
country was often stressful, but they felt sure that their decision had been
the right one. If nothing else, their children would have opportunities which
would have been impossible at home. And they themselves could dream of moving
back home when they retired, the modest amount necessary to build a really
comfortable house in their home village saved and a good German pension to give
them security in their old age.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">They soon
had a daughter, but she died shortly after childbirth. And then Jimmy came along.
It was a difficult birth and the doctors told the mother that there would be no
further children. But Jimmy was a healthy and happy baby and grew up to be a
healthy and happy boy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He became
the repository of all his parents’ love, and all of their hopes and
expectations. And he lived up to all of these splendidly. He was a lively,
fun-loving kid, bright as a button at school, helpful at home, popular in the
neighbourhood. He became an altar-boy and learned to play the piano. After
finishing secondary school with very good grades, he went back to his home
country for a year to do the mandatory military service demanded of all young
citizens, even those born and living abroad. When he came back to Germany, he
could have gone to university, but elected instead to train as a bank-official.
It meant he could continue living at home and it offered him the kind of career
his parents could never have hoped for. While Jimmy could have aimed higher, he
was quite content with the choice he had made and the life which was unfolding
for him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He had
saved some extra money from summer-jobs he had done during his last years at
school, and his parents topped up those savings and bought him a car for his
twenty-first birthday. And, a few months later, driving to a placement in a
branch of the bank which was training him, a few miles from his home town, on a
cold January morning, Jimmy hit a patch of ice in a curve on the road and
collided with a tree.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The tree
won.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh68DPo_Tly8aQmDGG7Yv__m-he6e7dSF-Cp2qCzmPagvqa524nh9TONtrGJfK2Mozwx3B4R3ponqlUoqI5efXC6FVmfRiAc6ay9YS510sKy6tfTPg6xpblysiXrTpdcfLvX1jayKw78XH/s1600/car-crash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh68DPo_Tly8aQmDGG7Yv__m-he6e7dSF-Cp2qCzmPagvqa524nh9TONtrGJfK2Mozwx3B4R3ponqlUoqI5efXC6FVmfRiAc6ay9YS510sKy6tfTPg6xpblysiXrTpdcfLvX1jayKw78XH/s320/car-crash.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The car
wasn’t the newest, which meant in January 1997 that it wasn’t equipped with
airbags. And, if truth be told, Jimmy was probably travelling a bit faster than
was wise when he hit that ice – he was, after all, young and didn’t have all
that much driving experience. At any rate, when they pulled him from the wreck
he had broken fourteen different bones and had a very serious skull fracture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For months
he wasn’t expected to survive. But his condition slowly stabilised, he came off
most of the machines and started to heal. The problem was that skull fracture;
Jimmy had very serious brain damage which was irreversible. But he had regained
consciousness, and that was both the wonder and the tragedy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Apart from
leaving him almost completely paralysed, the brain damage had wiped out large
parts of his rational capacities. It’s hard to really describe his situation to
those who do not know him. In a vastly simplified sense, he is frozen at a
mental age around equivalent to that of a six-month-old baby. Speech is beyond
him, though he is able to understand some of what is said to him. He has a
generally friendly disposition, though he is inclined to be a bit reserved with
strangers – for he is able to recognise people he knows well. He can shout, or
rather, howl, which is something he does continually when he is in discomfort or
pain, a situation in which he becomes quite agitated. This happens regularly
when he is being washed, cleaned up, or dressed, for all of these operations
are both stressful and painful for him. Jimmy’s paralysis is that of the
spastic variety, one with an enormously increased muscle tone. This means, for
example, that his left forearm has – in the course of the years – completely
pulled up flush with his upper arm, so that it takes all the strength of an
adult to pull it far enough back to wash it, and check for irritation in the
crook of the arm, something which frequently occurs as a result of skin chafing
on skin and which then has to be treated. Something Jimmy does <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>enjoy. Or that his fingers are
hopelessly twisted around each other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As I
mentioned, describing his mental state as that of a baby is only a first
approximation, for it is no more accurate to describe people with traumatic
brain injury as children, than it is to use the same comparison for people
suffering from Alzheimer’s. There are superficial, almost coincidental similarities
with babies (such as incontinence or linguistic inability), but the basic
situation is quite different. And Jimmy has retained some capabilities which
are far beyond those of a six-month-old.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chief among
these is a sense of humour. In one sense it has become a little cruder than it
used to be – or it may be that some adult limiting conventions
have just been burned away. At any rate, Jimmy loves slapstick, the broader the
better. Somebody stubbing their toe and then cursing loudly in annoyance will
send him into peals of laughter. Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy would
be right up his street, but – for some strange reason – Jimmy doesn’t seem able
to process TV pictures. The sound alone of somebody cussing is something he
finds amusing and the fouler the language the better, as far as he’s concerned.
I’ve often driven him into paroxysms of laughter (and distracted him from the
most uncomfortable aspects of what I was doing) while caring for him just by
making farting noises.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
marvellous thing about Jimmy’s sense of humour is that it’s completely honest,
and absolutely total. And it is a gift which he is capable of putting to work
in a delightfully mischievous manner. Imagine a group of people sitting around
a table, engaged in a serious discussion. Then imagine that Jimmy is there too.
This can happen, for he is often sitting in the day-room of the ward where he
lives during a staff meeting. Sometimes he simply appears thoughtful, lost in
his own special world. But sometimes he feels like establishing communication
and he starts looking around at the group, trying to catch someone’s eye. Beware
– for if you look at him you’re lost!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When he
gains eye-contact with you, he grins. Almost instinctively, you smile back.
That’s all the encouragement he needs, indeed, even if you don’t respond,
catching your gaze is usually all he needs. He starts to chuckle and this
chuckling quickly develops into hearty laughter. Trying to hush him only makes
it worse, as he finds such attempts hilarious.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-2mTVtM0J5GRIlozldg6xueqk7UDIhOfkndPZObUfA-WFiKdr05T27yQ4kmhKbktKsiHajSDYCwsfIxf5Qqj5CNe5W8fkhulKTysmJPnPYX-1DtdNq8_hqh0ey93ayQNEj0jzRfvAHNx/s1600/laughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-2mTVtM0J5GRIlozldg6xueqk7UDIhOfkndPZObUfA-WFiKdr05T27yQ4kmhKbktKsiHajSDYCwsfIxf5Qqj5CNe5W8fkhulKTysmJPnPYX-1DtdNq8_hqh0ey93ayQNEj0jzRfvAHNx/s320/laughter.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It really
doesn’t matter what you do anyway, because Jimmy’s laughter has another killer
characteristic. It is irresistibly infectious. There is something so honest, so
complete, so true about his laugh that it conquers all attempts to gainsay it. Before
you know it, you are laughing too, in the way that you found yourself
uncontrollably laughing at something you found funny when you were a child. And,
just like it used to happen when you were a child, you soon find everyone in
the group trying unsuccessfully to control that urge to laugh, to laugh until
your belly hurts and tears are running down your cheeks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jimmy has
done it again. Wrecking all the pretentions of serious adults at a meeting, he
has given them – us – all the priceless gift of joy, taking us beyond the
mundane concerns of our reality into a realm of simply revelling in the sheer
inexplicable fun of just being alive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When I hear
people discussing situations in which they imagine it would no longer be worth
living, in which they feel they would rather be dead, I often find myself
thinking of my friend (for this is the best word I can use to describe how I
feel about my relationship to him), Jimmy. He is confined to a wheelchair, is incapable
of almost every voluntary movement, drools and dribbles, has to be fed through
a tube, would lie in his own piss and shit if he were not cleaned up regularly.
Is his human dignity worth any less than mine – or yours – because of all this,
and because he has been so severely mentally damaged? Is his joy worth less
than that of a physicist discovering a new sub-atomic particle, or of a
musician in that moment of performance when everything <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gels</i>, or that of lovers during a shared orgasm?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Despite the
conventional tragedy of his story, Jimmy is possibly the happiest person I
know. The price he has paid for it in his life is, seen in a conventional way,
unacceptably high – one none of us would willingly pay. The loss of the Jimmy
who was, all that potential, the life destroyed the moment his car hit that
tree, is, of course, heartbreaking. Yet does that detract in any way from the
value of his happiness as he is today; make it somehow worth less than those
all too seldom and fleeting moments of unalloyed joy the rest of us have to get
by with?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I don’t
have any answers to questions like that. But then, when I see Jimmy, I don’t
need them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/gkav2kjB0qc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pictures
retrieved from:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://wallpoper.com/images/00/32/45/90/pink-floyd_00324590.jpg">http://wallpoper.com/images/00/32/45/90/pink-floyd_00324590.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.medexassist.com/images/Odyssey/pc/fall-08/car-crash.jpg">http://www.medexassist.com/images/Odyssey/pc/fall-08/car-crash.jpg</a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://jameswoodward.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/laughter1262542393.jpg">http://jameswoodward.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/laughter1262542393.jpg</a>
</span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-67543861311889241592012-08-20T22:09:00.000+02:002012-08-20T22:59:50.864+02:00Social Health Care<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh892cSqvHZZt9N56txq6nklQUwbD-Uwuf_CjjCeBuG12TjN1FN-vxDyfo24tmRk7y5zSo0sjdXfSwlP-YmAW0VFLBnE1bXY931DaLJAF5sRCg_QARerw2991gLb4s-0p_FIVbxGyIzbUT0/s1600/Olympic-Games---Open-006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh892cSqvHZZt9N56txq6nklQUwbD-Uwuf_CjjCeBuG12TjN1FN-vxDyfo24tmRk7y5zSo0sjdXfSwlP-YmAW0VFLBnE1bXY931DaLJAF5sRCg_QARerw2991gLb4s-0p_FIVbxGyIzbUT0/s320/Olympic-Games---Open-006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When Danny
Boyle (Trainspotters, Slumdog Millionaire), the prestigious director chosen to
conceptualise and stage the opening ceremony for the recent Olympic games in London sat down to decide how he was going to do it, he was soon faced
with a problem. Not with the concept itself; he quickly came up with the idea
of using the occasion to showcase the history of Britain. Moreover, most of the
elements were clear; start with a bucolic vision of England’s “green and
pleasant Land,” move on to the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> Centuries
and the Industrial Revolution – the forging of the Olympic rings against a
“Satanic Mills” background was a nice touch, I thought – and the final section
was easy, from the swinging sixties – Carnaby Street, the Beatles, etc. – into
contemporary pop/mobile/internet culture. But what could he chose as the theme
for the penultimate, connecting piece?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The basic
problem lay in conventional historical British iconography and legend. Ask
almost any Britain about the
first sixty years of the last century and two themes will automatically come to
mind; the Empire and, above all, the war – the Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, the Blitz, brave Britain
standing alone against the Nazi juggernaut which had blitzkrieged its way
through most of Europe. Yes… Well… Not exactly
the most suitable themes for a global Olympic celebration.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Boyle came
up with a marvellous concept. Taking the idea of illustrating various themes
from Britain’s wonderful
panoply of children’s literature (with Mike Oldfield providing the background
music), he set this before the background of Britain’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service_%28England%29" target="_blank">National Health Service</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This portion of the show took its title from
the legendary directions in J.M. Barry’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Peter
Pan</i>, “second to the right, and straight on till morning.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The choice
of the National Health Service, as the official programme put it, “the
institution which more than any other unites our nation,” was inspired. And it
sent a clear message to the world about what Britons regard to be the real
enduring legacy for them of the epic struggle of the Second World War; the
welfare state as embodied, above all, by the comprehensive right of every
British resident (and visitor) to free health care. And it is an institution
which, despite all the problems, all the complaints, all the shortcomings,
bureaucracy, inefficiency and everything else, still enjoys overwhelming
support in the British population at large. Even Margaret Thatcher, at the
height of her crusade to privatise every aspect of British life except the
military, never dared to try to seriously attack the National Health, much
though I suspect she would have liked to.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Olympic
opening ceremony was, of course, designed as a spectacle; a playful and
artistic presentation, designed to touch us on as many levels as possible,
primarily the emotional ones. Were I in a mood to cavil, I would point out that
most European countries have a more or less comprehensive public health system,
the origins of quite a few of them older than those of Britain’s NHS. But such
a criticism would indeed be small-minded, because Danny Boyle’s choice of the
NHS as a fundamental icon in the British consciousness of the history of the 20<sup>th</sup>
Century, particularly as a replacement image for the war, makes a much more
profound point.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Beyond the
concrete territorial aggression of Nazi Germany, the war fought throughout the
world in the middle of the last century was a conflict between two ideological
systems; to use the title of Karl Popper’s seminal work, the struggle between
the Open Society and its enemies. In that respect – and Churchill was the only
allied leader who really recognised this while WWII was still going on – the
war itself was only half ended in 1945; it took 45 years more for the second
form of totalitarianism, Stalinist centrally controlled statism, to follow its
dark fascist twin.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The point I
am making here is that it seemed perfectly clear to Europeans that a major part
of the values which were at stake in the life-and-death struggle with
totalitarian ideologies was the right of every man, woman and child to a decent
life. And a prerequisite for a decent life is basic health and the treatment of
illness. Society cannot guarantee happiness, but one of its most fundamental
functions is to make possible for every last member – in the words of the US
Declaration of Independence – “the pursuit of happiness.” Illness and disease
are a major cause for suffering and, as such, make the pursuit of happiness for
those afflicted much more difficult, if not, in many cases, impossible.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Seen in
this way, basic health is a fundamental human right, a necessary condition for
securing human dignity. This was a widespread consensus among Europeans, faced
with the challenge of building up their societies after the trauma of the war,
and the defeat of an ideology which despised and rejected the fundamental
liberal Enlightenment consensus of what it meant to be human. And so the
concept of a right of all citizens to comprehensive health care became a
corner-stone of social policy in most post-war western European societies.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Even the USA,
reluctantly and in a very limited form, followed this development, this
maturing of realisation of the wider consequences of the recognition of the
rights ensuing in a society based on the recognition of the inalienable dignity
of every human person. In 1965, in the middle of what can well be called the
civil rights decade, Medicare and Medicaid were introduced. But in the wake of
this, an ideological change started to gain force.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmEhHxLUnXtlzlq0BpmLgvpZmWXCwmvtthlDOqDeeQO9PqvqAFV4Ri_8LFTQvteQkAO0-h0AAIynKrYIHDTwECMUej417oGu2kQPQ7sjRBL-UzMGOBSdIIoVLJJibS__6vudQILj1qtF8/s1600/neo_liberalism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmEhHxLUnXtlzlq0BpmLgvpZmWXCwmvtthlDOqDeeQO9PqvqAFV4Ri_8LFTQvteQkAO0-h0AAIynKrYIHDTwECMUej417oGu2kQPQ7sjRBL-UzMGOBSdIIoVLJJibS__6vudQILj1qtF8/s320/neo_liberalism.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The story
of the roots and development of what can be called neo-liberalism or
neo-conservatism is beyond the scope of this essay. The very fact that it is
vicariously named after two traditionally opposed ideological positions is an
indication of the complexity of the subject. Suffice it to say that a
combination of economic ideas (Hayek, Friedman, monetarism, etc.), deeper
philosophical concepts (Randian Objectivism for example), the growth in size and
power of corporations, moving beyond single nations to become transnational
molochs, the determination of certain powerful individuals to roll back
developments in societies word-wide which increasingly threatened their power
and economical bases, and a dollop of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity
tossed in to complicate the mix, led to an increasingly popularised basic idea
that state/societal/communal acceptance of responsibility for any aspects of
life was generally bad, always a curtailment of freedom and only to be accepted
as a measure of last resort, to regulate areas of life which could not be
regulated any other way. The eighties saw the first concrete political fruits
of this new societal paradigm under Reagan in America
and Thatcher (who famously stated that there was no such thing as society) in Britain.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A
development of the basic concept of general health care as a basic human right
became, within this context, almost impossible in the USA, as the Clintons were forced to accept in the early
nineties. In Europe too, the public health
systems came increasingly under attack from proponents of the political opinion
that the state was the root of all evil and that, left to themselves,
deregulated “markets” would provide a better world for all. As someone who has
been working as a professional within the German social health system for more
than twenty years now, I have experienced continually the stress induced by the
ongoing war of thousands of attempted cuts and programmes to increase
“efficiency.” They have nearly all been carried out at the expense of the
weakest of those treated within the system and those who work in the front-line
of actually delivering health care. What they have actually managed to save is
debatable – the only certainty is that the profits of the most powerful
involved in the system (the big pharmaceutical and insurance companies, for
example) have been secured and grown.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Fortunately,
in most of Europe – despite all the debates,
half-truths, propaganda, and downright lies – the fundamental popular support
for social health care has been too strong for the neo-libs to succeed in their
goal of dismantling it. That is what Danny Boyle was celebrating in the Olympic
opening ceremony; even in Britain,
the European country most strongly seduced by neo-liberal chimeras, the NHS
remains untouchable.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is why
Obamacare is so important. Despite all its considerable flaws, probably
inevitable as something resulting from a complex process of political compromise
and horse-trading, it represents an enormous step for the USA in a direction of
communal moral development, one in which it had so long been behind most of the
rest of the western world. And this is why its winding-up in the wake of a
Republican victory at the end of this year can be seen as nothing less than a
step backwards towards barbarism.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yes, public
health care <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>expensive. But so is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any </i>good health care, and the question
remains as to how any society can look at itself in the mirror, knowing that
thousands of its members are suffering and dying because they cannot pay for
what they need to save their lives.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5g9h9yDr9mqvi8iuhbV0_cmJcttg92vroDealD8if-k9jX_yf9828cRIQcxfMYL3Xw2hjsxANlE0N9bxnmGYsngPMtZIOXpCeuluOx1Mmhxbqupd6_tOy_KHtS3Qd6ub_m7Kchrm00SMF/s1600/medical-cost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5g9h9yDr9mqvi8iuhbV0_cmJcttg92vroDealD8if-k9jX_yf9828cRIQcxfMYL3Xw2hjsxANlE0N9bxnmGYsngPMtZIOXpCeuluOx1Mmhxbqupd6_tOy_KHtS3Qd6ub_m7Kchrm00SMF/s320/medical-cost.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Moreover,
the very question of the costs of comprehensive health-care in any society is
more complex than liberal critics would have us believe. Money spent in this
area is money which, to an overwhelming extent, remains in circulation in the
local areas where the costs are actually produced (apart from the exorbitant
sums frequently creamed off by, for example, big pharma), creating secure jobs
for thousands of people at all sorts of skill and educational levels, and
adding stability and economic life to many communities.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Then there
is the oft cited problem of efficiency. It remains an unquestioned aphorism
that the profit-driven private sector is always more capable than bureaucratic,
over-regulated public enterprises. There is some truth in this. However, two
points should be remembered. Quite a proportion of this bureaucratic regulation
is occasioned by the need in a complex, publicly-run service to guarantee <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fairness </i>and accountability. Secondly,
it can be asked whether increased efficiency in a predominantly privately
organised system actually profits the patients in the end, or whether the end
result is not frequently the delivery of the most minimal service possible, for
the highest price attainable – frequently at the cost of the weakest people
working in the system, not to mention the many patients who are deprived of
treatments because there is no money to be made on them, or because they weren’t
able to afford an insurance package which would have covered a necessary
complex treatment.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I have
worked for over twenty years now within a health system which is predominantly
publicly organised. There are many aspects of it which are ridiculous,
frustrating, badly-organised and just stupid, something about which I tend to
frequently rant, as friends and relatives will readily testify. But even in
doing this, I realise that I am complaining from a position of relative luxury.
In a structure as complex as modern health care, dealing with situations in
which many of the people who actually need to avail of the service are in truly
extreme situations, defined by pain, uncertainty and fear, there will always difficult
issues, with no easy – and sometimes no good – answers.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And, given
the fact that research and human ingenuity is always pushing the capability of
what medicine can do, there will continually be the question of costs. But for
any society which sincerely subscribes to basic values like respect and human
dignity, the question must always be; “how much can we afford?” rather than, “how
little can we get away with?”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When it
comes to the basic question of human health, I am very glad to be living in
Western Europe rather than in the USA.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/6YP7GCXqdqU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pictures retrieved from</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Columnist/Columnists/2012/7/28/1343487586975/2012-Olympic-Games---Open-006.jpg">http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Columnist/Columnists/2012/7/28/1343487586975/2012-Olympic-Games---Open-006.jpg</a></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQw-LFiH7wjUWV75elShXZ1_YMSoCbCCljCaArLjSVRhF_ulhHR9X6gsRy_Xjhni9mRI7XGyQTB5Aj-FPwnOc0w15_eLnp6Z7EcghiDV-R8srwEEo-sRNo3j47BC6BScFYE79zsBunseU/s1600/neo_liberalism.jpg">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQw-LFiH7wjUWV75elShXZ1_YMSoCbCCljCaArLjSVRhF_ulhHR9X6gsRy_Xjhni9mRI7XGyQTB5Aj-FPwnOc0w15_eLnp6Z7EcghiDV-R8srwEEo-sRNo3j47BC6BScFYE79zsBunseU/s1600/neo_liberalism.jpg</a>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.creditnet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/medical-cost.jpg">http://www.creditnet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/medical-cost.jpg</a>
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Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-29733318040657594792012-08-11T21:30:00.003+02:002012-08-11T21:30:53.724+02:00Rastaman in Barbados<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78d2FEnWw8TDLk-ayMgTRah0kdoGRedqQg0_LIjz033-WWFTxftrXqBACJUN3JA6CetmD_Icot_T98Bb1r7DlOL1sgqRvkYq4P5jqaclqJgqxESzU8VdZLAR-7iAm30vLWPq_JogwtEZ5/s1600/Barbados+Saint_Lawrence_Gap,_Christ_Church-16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78d2FEnWw8TDLk-ayMgTRah0kdoGRedqQg0_LIjz033-WWFTxftrXqBACJUN3JA6CetmD_Icot_T98Bb1r7DlOL1sgqRvkYq4P5jqaclqJgqxESzU8VdZLAR-7iAm30vLWPq_JogwtEZ5/s320/Barbados+Saint_Lawrence_Gap,_Christ_Church-16.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sometimes a
holiday has to stand for more than just rest and relaxation. By the middle of
the nineties, my marriage was floundering. Following a huge row, I left our
home on a Sunday evening for a week-long training course, convinced that the
whole thing was over. But during a telephone conversation a few days later, my
wife suggested we take a holiday and try to see if we could put Humpty Dumpty
together again. Her mother would take the children so that we could have the
time for ourselves – time to see if we could take all that was good, all that
was strong and deep between us, rediscover its value together and put our
relationship, functioning, back on the road.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Late
winter/early spring is not the best time to look for warm holiday destinations
in Europe. But my wife had visited the
Caribbean as a girl and had good memories of one particular holiday there and
so in March 1995 we found ourselves crossing the Atlantic, our plane stopping
to refuel in Newfoundland, on the way to Barbados.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Barbados</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> is the most eastern island in the
Caribbean, belonging geographically to the island group known as the Lesser Antilles. It is small (166 sq. miles) and quite
densely populated (284.000 inhabitants). Historically a British possession,
with an economy based on sugar cane, today it is independent and its major
industry is tourism.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Coming from
Europe and (I suspect) from the North American continent, the first thing you
have to get used to when you arrive in the Caribbean is that time is simply
different there. It moves somehow more slowly, languidly. It probably has a lot
to do with the balmy temperatures which prevail nearly all the time but I think
some of it also comes from the basic attitude to life which seems to be part of
the general philosophy of the people who live there. I remember someone who
knew Trinidad well once trying to explain it
to me with hoary old racist stereotypes about black people being prepared to
sit under coconut trees enjoying the sunshine instead of getting up off their
asses to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>something.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The sad
thing about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>particular cliché is
that it does contain a grain of truth, wrapped up in a huge mantle of prejudice
and misunderstanding. The history of the black people (the vast majority of the
inhabitants) of the Caribbean is one of hundreds
of years of slavery, followed by a further period of notional freedom but
systematic continued exploitation by an elite white minority up to around fifty
years ago. This kind of experience isn’t exactly conducive to identification
with all the values of a system which that elite has used to keep you down, and
from which the colour of your skin more or less automatically shuts you out. In
fact, independent states of the Caribbean (like Trinidad, Jamaica, the Bahamas,
St. Lucia, Barbados, etc.) have generally been doing pretty well since their
colonial masters pulled out. (Exceptions like Haiti
and Cuba
can arguably place most of the blame for their major problems since
independence on their former [colonial] masters.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What the
people of the Caribbean do seem to have
learned from their history is a certain relaxed attitude to life, an attitude
which sees time as the servant of people and not the other way around. You may
have to wait a little longer for service in a shop here, but this isn’t because
the salesperson doesn’t respect you; rather it’s because (s)he is taking lots
of time for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every </i>customer, which may
include a longer conversation with the person who is ahead of you. Things seem
to move more slowly, because there is a feeling that life continuously offers
spontaneous small pleasures, pleasures which are there to be savoured. It is,
therefore, perhaps not coincidental that the most beloved relic of British
colonial rule in the Caribbean is the game of cricket, in which the West Indies
are a world power, and where the time for a game is measured in days, not
hours. Yet, within the relaxed framework of a cricket game, there are occasions
where speed is important, even vital, and anyone who claims that things in the Caribbean are just too <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">slow</i> should just take a look at Usain Bolt.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At any
rate, I will admit that, while I found the laid-back, friendly atmosphere in Barbados very
pleasant, I experienced some difficulties in adjusting my own attitude to it. I
had started an extremely demanding job the year before and it wasn’t easy to
just leave it behind me – in my head, I mean. But far more than that, the
future of my marriage was also at stake in these two weeks, and this was
overshadowing everything else.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One
afternoon in the course of the first few days there, somewhere in the middle of
the interminable negotiations involved in that summit meeting of hearts, I
found myself on my own, walking down Dover
Road towards St. Lawrence Gap. Maybe there’d been
a row, maybe my wife was just taking a nap, I don’t remember any more. The sun
was shining, it was warm, walking was like wading through warm treacle. I seem
to remember that I was heading towards the nearest supermarket, probably to
pick up a six-pack of Banks beer.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAEoBRWKSdQGAcJdLk3kKCcE1hfjPskOyC6K_PwhE16YvipzyjmS_T90YHUNH2XLmJaJxH7gvi44t5Rn7I0h7KzVvaKOkl3Al3c33fdM1tPhD_ZFO31KnQKx9Z3eKQEOGOqJqI1KG4mYv/s1600/Rasta_rules_485080279.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAEoBRWKSdQGAcJdLk3kKCcE1hfjPskOyC6K_PwhE16YvipzyjmS_T90YHUNH2XLmJaJxH7gvi44t5Rn7I0h7KzVvaKOkl3Al3c33fdM1tPhD_ZFO31KnQKx9Z3eKQEOGOqJqI1KG4mYv/s320/Rasta_rules_485080279.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m sure I
was instantly recognisable as a tourist from Europe or North
America; white, slightly sunburnt, obviously preoccupied with my
own important affairs. Suddenly I heard a voice calling out to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Hey, mon!
How are you, mon?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I looked
around. There was a Rasta-man, sitting on a low wall in the shade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Fuck it, I
thought to myself, I just don’t feel like this shit! All he wants is to hassle
me, probably beg a few dollars, or maybe engage me in a discussion about how
the white man and Babylon
had oppressed the children of Jah. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really
</i>don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need </i>this …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Hey mon!
Doan you wanna talk to I? What’s your problem, mon?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Damn it! If
I just ignore him he might get nasty. I’ve heard that these brothers can get
quite aggressive, although it’s supposed to much better in Barbados than in Jamaica.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“No
problem, I’ve just got something to do, that’s all. Bit of a hurry …”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“What’s the
hurry, mon? Come over here a minute. Need to talk to you, my friend.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Reluctantly
I went over to him. He patted the wall beside him. I sat down.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“So, you’re
on holiday, hey? You enjoying yourself? You like Barbados?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I admitted
that I found Barbados
very pleasant, very nice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“So why you
look so stressed, my friend? You wanna carry all the cares of the world on your
shoulders? I thought you were on holiday. You need to lighten up a bit.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He looked
at me keenly and grinned, his strong white teeth shining warmly, and sang a
snatch of Bob Marley’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Three Little Birds</i>,
“Don’t worry about a thing, ‘Cause every little thing’s gonna be all right …”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Then he
laughed, free and spontaneous, and clapped me on the shoulder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Even now, I
find it hard to describe the feeling that came over me then. It was a strange
combination of shame, relief and insight. Caught up in my stereotypical, suspicious,
white-bred, first-world superiority, I had misjudged this Rasta-man very badly
and I felt ashamed for it. I felt relief, for my feeling of threat was gone and
I realised that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was </i>on holidays and
didn’t have to carry all my worries around with me. This feeling moved into
insight as it became clear to me that, despite all the problems I had to deal
with, the world, the day, the moment here and now was beautiful and that,
somehow, every little thing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was </i>gonna
be all right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTdslp1Bxp_TziMoCe6BtyWVmaHXaaCyiim60J1LhrBpO5vJHffnYiezzwJMy1NHFPdkZ4xbRwDLCIH-g74mG71egJoxmkRviiWPsy7MBJAoGANEN8RhI3GucshFqjWnIGPx5fQscTlGG/s1600/Aloe_Vera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTdslp1Bxp_TziMoCe6BtyWVmaHXaaCyiim60J1LhrBpO5vJHffnYiezzwJMy1NHFPdkZ4xbRwDLCIH-g74mG71egJoxmkRviiWPsy7MBJAoGANEN8RhI3GucshFqjWnIGPx5fQscTlGG/s320/Aloe_Vera.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We chatted
easily after that for a couple of minutes. He asked me about my sunburn and
gave me some aloe vera, showing me how to break the thick leaf and rub it on my
leg, the cool gel-like sap soothing my irritated skin immediately.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“There’s an
answer for everything in nature, mon,” he told me. “Aloe vera is good for
sunburn. Even for I-and-I. ‘Cause, you know, the black man can get sunburn too,
maybe not so easily, but it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can </i>happen.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He asked me
where I was from, how long I was going to stay and wished me all the best for
my holiday.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Now you go
on, bro’, and do whatever it is you were going to do. And just remember … Don’t
worry about a thing …”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I grinned
back at him and we finished the line of the song together.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“…’Cause
every little thing’s gonna be all right.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And so I
went my way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">* * *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
holiday, for me, really started after that encounter. My wife and I completed
our summit of hearts with a treaty of forgiveness and new beginnings. It didn’t
ultimately save the marriage which irrevocably broke down three years later,
but, in retrospect, that breakdown was unavoidable. The burden of mutual hurt
and the fundamental differences between us led to a situation where we both had
to accept, as the German saying puts it, “better a horrible end than horror
without end.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But back
then, in March 1995, that was in the future. For the present, we still had the
best part of two weeks in Barbados
and it turned out to be a wonderful holiday. Thanks in no small part, as far as
I’m concerned, to that Rastafarian who helped me get my head straight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A moment of
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/%20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari_vocabulary" target="_blank">overstanding</a> where I-and-I learned to aprecilove irie!
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/YrBdCghy76A?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB">Pictures
retrieved from:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Lawrence_Gap,_Christ_Church-16.jpg">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Lawrence_Gap,_Christ_Church-16.jpg</a>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rasta_rules_485080279.jpg">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rasta_rules_485080279.jpg</a>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aloe_Vera.jpg">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aloe_Vera.jpg</a>
</span></span></div>
</div>
Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-69847748722077901272012-08-03T23:08:00.002+02:002012-08-03T23:09:36.144+02:00Pussy Riot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On February
21 this year, a group of women, wearing brightly coloured dresses, tights, and
balaclavas, rushed into the sanctuary area of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of
Christ the Saviour in Moscow and for around two minutes performed a protest
song in front of the altar, parodying the Christian <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sanctus </i>prayer, calling the patriarch of Moscow a “bitch,” and
praying to the Mother of God to deliver Russia from Vladimir Putin. The women
were members of the political punk group, Pussy Riot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='350' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/GCasuaAczKY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In March,
three alleged members of the group were arrested and – having spent the time
since then in custody – were brought to trial on July 30, charged with “premeditated
hooliganism performed by an organized group of people motivated by religious
hatred or hostility,” the Russian criminal code legalese for what would more
commonly be called blasphemy, an offence for which the accused, if found
guilty, can be punished with up to seven years in a labour camp. While
admitting to participation in the action, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda
Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevitch have pleaded not guilty, insisting
that the action was not meant to be offensive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In terms of
the usual judicial ballet, the womens’ plea and their officially stated
motivation is understandable, the standard public position for the legal record.
It is, of course, also patently untrue. The whole point of actions like this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>to be offensive. In fact, seen from
this point of view, the courageous action of these women has succeeded beyond
their wildest dreams. An action in the course of the election campaign which
saw Putin elected as president in Russia in March, protesting against the
complex manipulation which is the order of the day in Russian society, to
ensure that particular tiny elites retain control of all the major areas of
politics and economics, has brought the whole Putinist system into the
uncomfortable glare of the global public spotlight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Faced with
structures within which the letter of the law is always scrupulously adhered
to, even while its spirit is routinely trampled under foot by those who possess
power, this kind of provocation is one of the few avenues of protest open to
those who have the civil courage to really challenge established systems which
strive to disempower and silence any significant criticism. And the Pussy Riot
performance has certainly achieved results. The video of the action which they
uploaded to YouTube five months ago has had over 1.5 million clicks, and a
quick search of the web reveals many other versions of the same, some of them
with hundreds of thousands of views. And the course of events since then has
put them firmly at the centre of a worldwide publicity storm, with regular
reports and op-eds in practically all the major newspapers and TV channels
around the globe, from the New York Times to Al Jazeera.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4A8VruZUOgXQDOoNWEi5b36fwuJXio_vCMaSVQcceX4RXTIvO-acv-18_dGtskbrYJF_g3zi6wsdKmLfDow6r9wLzxWyyLeczZ0XC8qUcjnBvfCDWeND5G-UMmygaepxlvJtyYp4zdnl/s1600/PUSSY-RIOT-570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4A8VruZUOgXQDOoNWEi5b36fwuJXio_vCMaSVQcceX4RXTIvO-acv-18_dGtskbrYJF_g3zi6wsdKmLfDow6r9wLzxWyyLeczZ0XC8qUcjnBvfCDWeND5G-UMmygaepxlvJtyYp4zdnl/s320/PUSSY-RIOT-570.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Agit-art,
seen as political provocation, follows the same basic rules as most other acts
of public civil disobedience. As much as making your own statement, the whole
thing is about getting your opponent to react in a particular way, hopefully
overreacting to your initial action in such a fashion as to focus much wider
attention on the issue which inspired you to act in the first place. If you do
it right, if you’ve gauged your opponent properly, he’s the one who’s going to
pick up the ball you placed and run with it. Of course, like any other act of
public disobedience, the price <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you </i>have
to pay is measured in your capability to suffer. The Pussy Riot girls have got
all this spectacularly right and have managed to manipulate the Russian
authorities – on all sorts of levels – to multiply the effect of the initial
protest. Moreover, the course of the whole affair and, in particular, almost every
action taken by the powers-that-be have served to demonstrate many of serious
defects in post-Soviet society about which they are protesting. Like a good
judoka, following the principle of <i>seiryoku zen'yō</i> [</span><span class="tnihongokanji"><span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">精力善用</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">, maximum efficiency, minimum effort], they use
the strength, speed and momentum of their opponent to bring him to a fall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
opponent here is clearly Vladimir Putin, but also the whole system which he
controls and which supports him and keeps him in power. And there is, indeed,
quite a lot to oppose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thirteen
years ago this month, the increasingly erratic Boris Yeltsin appointed the then
almost unknown Putin as Prime Minister and made it known that he regarded him
as his successor. Putin became President in 2000 and served two terms until
2008. Constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term, Putin moved sideward
for the next four years, serving as his successor’s, Medvedev, Prime Minister,
and keeping the reigns of power firmly in his own hands. At the end of last
year, Medvedev let it be known that he did not intend to stand for a second
term and nominated Putin as a candidate for the presidency<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1911334903016795718#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: DE;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>.
The plan was obvious and it was implemented; Putin would resume the presidency,
another two terms would be open to him and thus he could remain the
unquestioned strong-man in Russia
until at least 2020 (in which year he will still be only 68 years old, still
young enough to possibly pull the whole trick off again). And it’s all
perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And stinks
to high heaven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHE3mXla-IU7wSrcT4r04kpmCfQITymr5vpjrK7nyAuv5M0dtOJvz30p_2FOawujkoiuviQtLRSNYLCJMpQsHctKQ0AoXzPwoijd2SoGgJlEys3iXYKOx1W3wsEca2qXFLIcqQ4QdG8RXF/s1600/Putin_beefcake-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHE3mXla-IU7wSrcT4r04kpmCfQITymr5vpjrK7nyAuv5M0dtOJvz30p_2FOawujkoiuviQtLRSNYLCJMpQsHctKQ0AoXzPwoijd2SoGgJlEys3iXYKOx1W3wsEca2qXFLIcqQ4QdG8RXF/s320/Putin_beefcake-2.jpg" width="213" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Giving him
the benefit of some quite serious doubts, I don’t think that Putin is a
sociopathic megalomaniac like Kim Jong Il, Stalin or Mao. Oh certainly, he’ll
always make sure that his own ass is well covered and he can’t be described as
a committed constitutional democrat. He is, above all, a pragmatist and he
seems to really believe – with some justification – that he is by far the best
at the very difficult job of cat-herding which is governing post-Soviet Russia. Of
course, after over a decade of plenitude of power, he is definitely showing
major signs of that increasing dissociation from reality which is the endemic
sickness of any politician who makes his way to the top, and this is likely to
get worse rather than better over the next eight years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Putin, like
all of us, is a product of his experience. He spent his young years as a KGB <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">apparatchik</i> during the last declining Brezhnev
years and during the frothy, chaotic reform period of Gorbachev he was
stationed in East Germany
where he experienced at first hand the implosion of the Soviet imperial system.
His rapid climb in the political system took place during the anarchy of the
nineties under Yeltsin. And anarchy it was; the Soviet system had collapsed
under the weight of its own contradictions and no-one knew what should follow. While
others were still debating it, an unprecedented wave of criminality rolled over
Russia,
at the end of which a few hundred men had succeeded in – basically – stealing everything
worth taking from the Russian people, including all the natural resources. And
being legitimised by the Yeltsin regime while doing so. These are the so-called
oligarchs, men like Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Potanin, Malkin and Abramovich. A
level further down, criminal Mafia syndicates had filled most of the niches in
the post-Soviet vacuum and were operating in ways which make Tony Soprano look
like an altar-boy. At the end of the millennium, Russia was characterised by crime,
corruption and incompetence on all levels of society, from an unstable,
increasingly incompetent, alcoholic president downwards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When
Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned the presidency at the end of 1999, Putin (who had
been Prime Minister for less than five months) basically succeeded him as last
man standing. He was determined to put Russia back on its feet and was,
according to many yardsticks, pretty successful at it too; getting things
working, dealing firmly (even brutally, as in Chechnya) with separatists,
finally growing the economy. He did a basic deal with the oligarchs, leaving
them a generally free hand in business as long as they kept out of politics. Those
who weren’t prepared to accept this were also dealt with – today Berezovsky lives in
exile in the UK
and Khodorkovsky is in jail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Well,
right, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs … and Tsar
Vladimir the Competent was making a pretty big omelette. One of those eggshells
which was troublesome was the whole area of a free, independent press,
particularly in an era where the internet was exploding. During the Yeltsin
years, the old <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pravda </i>monopoly had
become a thing of the past, and in the chaotic anarchy of that time the free
press bloomed. More, the Fourth Estate became the one part of society which
really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">worked</i>, and there were lots of
people in Russia
prepared to watch those in power closely, to dig around and find out what was
going on, and to publish or broadcast it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">An
uncomfortable group for someone trying to bring a huge chaotic country under
control … under his control. All sorts of measures have been taken to bring the
media under control, some legal, some semi-legal, some … remember that
omelette? Journalists digging around what had been going on in Chechnya were
coming up with some serious dirt, and most of them were extremely critical of
Putin. Many of them have been killed, most prominently <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/%20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya%20" target="_blank">Anna Politkovskaya</a>. While, of course, nobody will ever find any direct connections, there are
whispers of Henry II’s comment about being rid of a certain turbulent priest,
particularly in a society where there is a strong tradition of absolute
obedience to the wishes of political bosses, irrespective of legality, and a
still prevailing culture (from the Yeltsin years) of ruthless lawlessness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And, even
while the Pussy riot case is drawing ever more publicity, a new case is
developing, with a Putin-critical blogger, <a href="http://draft.blogger.com/%20http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/31/russian-protest-alexei-navalny-charged" target="_blank">Alexei Navalny</a>,
being bizarrely charged with stealing timber. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcAD5xdZGJ9INjuEFXqCySctPIZoPzdV01EwTMdzthuN5AvMvjWcyPYLsq-qiA6naeC3qJzglquIeNOMvRg7vvfUmrvdQkWPN69Rh4CIWuHP6_CRirJnXTld_LrzwzmjXEWI0Je6G5hiil/s1600/vladimir_putin1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcAD5xdZGJ9INjuEFXqCySctPIZoPzdV01EwTMdzthuN5AvMvjWcyPYLsq-qiA6naeC3qJzglquIeNOMvRg7vvfUmrvdQkWPN69Rh4CIWuHP6_CRirJnXTld_LrzwzmjXEWI0Je6G5hiil/s1600/vladimir_putin1.jpg" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Though
there can be no real doubt that Putin enjoys a lot of popularity in Russia, and
that his majority in the last election probably reflects the wishes of the
majority of Russians. But Tsar Vladimir and his henchmen didn’t get where they
are – and don’t remain where they are – by leaving things to chance. So
potential opponents are discredited or worse, long before they can pose a real
threat, and the free press has been continually pruned back in the past decade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All of
this, but particularly the transparent power-swap deal with Medvedev, forms the
background to the Pussy Riot protest in February. The reaction of the Russian
authorities has simply served to prove the point the courageous young women
were making.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is
absolutely clear that this is a politically motivated prosecution, and the
harsh treatment the women have been subjected to since their imprisonment proves
it. It is a clear attempt to break them, something confirmed by the fact that
they have been offered lenient treatment if they plead guilty. But this they
will not do. They are adamant that they had no blasphemous intent, though they
were extremely annoyed that the patriarch of Moscow had openly called on believers to vote
for Putin this was a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">political </i>protest.
You can read a comment from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the three, <a href="http://dangerousminds.net/comments/free_pussy_riot_a_statement_by_nadya_tolokonnikova" target="_blank">here</a>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And all the
publicity, all the pressure both from within Russia and from abroad, looks like
it is finally working. The hard hand of the authorities has boomeranged and on
Friday Putin himself was reported to have commented that the women should be
treated “leniently.” The consensus seems to be growing at the top of the
political pyramid that the overreaction of the authorities has been counterproductive
and even Patriarch Kyril of Moscow has also become more moderate in his tone. Already
the women of Pussy Riot have won a great deal and, if they remain true to
themselves – despite the mistreatment, the fear, the uncertainty, all the cruel
implements of a state judicial system – they can win even more. What they
already have is the respect of hundreds of thousands world-wide. If you want to
show them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your </i>support and
solidarity, you can sign the Amnesty International petition <a href="http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b=6645049&aid=517749" target="_blank">here</a>.
In this case, international outrage does seem to be working. And I feel, somehow, that knowing that all these people support them will give the girls strength too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the
West, we can regard all this with a warm feeling of moral superiority. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We </i>have a free press, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we </i>have fair and free elections, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our </i>presidents retire when their
constitutional time is up …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqxQxxWFSvcIAu85sn9UeszFAl9tY_hD8MXeoeCognZlxIFmOwAFbkol8Qz0aEn4MyU1CPA5KHqZJVcVqX9RkIeJoiASGU6y3SmYoheJzePsuFe1AzuMVpW2WeAfhnu3uluH8qznTbmuW/s1600/russian+super+rich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqxQxxWFSvcIAu85sn9UeszFAl9tY_hD8MXeoeCognZlxIFmOwAFbkol8Qz0aEn4MyU1CPA5KHqZJVcVqX9RkIeJoiASGU6y3SmYoheJzePsuFe1AzuMVpW2WeAfhnu3uluH8qznTbmuW/s320/russian+super+rich.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Hmmmm – I
wonder whether the difference is really so great. We have our oligarchies too,
our 1%, and they seem to be able to manage society so that they remain in
control, so that their fortunes can continue to grow, secure and untouched. If
you have to blackmail the taxpayers of sovereign countries to guarantee your
investment losses, well, that’s just too bad. And if you come from a privileged
background but feel you have to make your millions by asset-stripping working
companies, putting thousands out of jobs (like a certain US presidential
candidate) … that’s more elegant than simply burning their factory down because
their bosses have fallen behind with their protection money.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And if some
are perceived to pose a real threat to those in power? Ask Julian Assange. Or
Bradley Manning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I wonder
whether the only real difference between the West and Russia is that
our potentates have had more time to develop real finesse when it comes to
protecting their positions. In the relatively young post-Soviet Russia they’re
still a little crude about such things. They like to show off their wealth,
often with tasteless ostentation. Look at the oligarch, Abramovich, buying
Chelsea FC, for chrissakes. It’s so … well … <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nouveau-rich</i>, darling. Real money, real power has learned to be
more careful. Let the masses <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">believe </i>they
have control. The reality is different.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1911334903016795718#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: DE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: DE;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> <span lang="EN-GB">Medvedev has, inevitably, become President Putin’s Prime
Minister – musical chairs in Moscow.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/_NR9kuMvJ4o/0.jpg" height="350" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_NR9kuMvJ4o&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="420" height="350" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_NR9kuMvJ4o&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pictures retrieved from </span></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></i></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> http://freethinker.co.uk/images/uploads/2012/08/o-PUSSY-RIOT-570.jpg</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vladimir_Putin_beefcake-2.jpg</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"> http://planetwashington.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/vladimir_putin1.jpg</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-GB"> http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49629000/jpg/_49629197_49629196.jpg</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-71796772959284621752012-07-27T03:18:00.001+02:002012-07-27T05:31:38.302+02:00Using up the Planet<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Vq08COsPIB7TqmFJLBfhk54QpFKWgR-2_8edmQGvdC9GMxOlw5goDibl-RZNwxOq8WR8XxMxkjRH_HZsgJhzqtPwg4PAACBb0APo8X8KBcgVCTsbGDyRdv645HaAZgRPfWbmd-XbSBgn/s1600/planet_earth-13848.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Vq08COsPIB7TqmFJLBfhk54QpFKWgR-2_8edmQGvdC9GMxOlw5goDibl-RZNwxOq8WR8XxMxkjRH_HZsgJhzqtPwg4PAACBb0APo8X8KBcgVCTsbGDyRdv645HaAZgRPfWbmd-XbSBgn/s320/planet_earth-13848.JPG" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">Over the
past few months I’ve been working my way – very pleasurably I may add – through
the novels of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master and Commander </i>or
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aubrey-Maturin </i>series by Patrick O’Brien.
For those who do not know them – and I cannot recommend them highly enough –
the books tell of the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and
his friend, the doctor Stephen Maturin, during the Napoleonic Wars.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In twenty
books, published over thirty years up to 1999, O’Brien immerses us completely
in the world of 200 years ago, a literary and historical <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tour de force</i>, which critics have favourably compared with the
works of C.S. Forester, Anthony Trollope and, above all, Jane Austin, all the
more remarkable for the fact that he was writing at the end of the 20<sup>th</sup>
Century. While there are all sorts of themes in the novels about which I could
comment here, I was struck today by an aspect which, while mostly incidental to
the development of plots and characters, provides a major contrast to our
contemporary world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Stephen
Maturin, a well educated and highly intelligent man, is typical of a particular
kind of character of that era in which the ideas of the Enlightenment and the
Scientific Revolution were spreading throughout the world; the polyglot who is
interested in almost everything. His major hobby is one which he describes as
that of a “naturalist” or, occasionally, a “natural philosopher,” someone who
occupies himself with the scientific discovery, observation and cataloguing of
all sorts of living things (his primary area of interest is birds, but he by no
means limits himself to the area of ornithology, naming a new species of turtle
which he discovers after his friend, Aubrey, and regularly collecting
interesting specimens of beetle for his friend and espionage boss, Sir Joseph
Blaine). In the course of the books, Maturin regularly takes advantages of his
world-spanning voyages with Aubrey to observe all kinds of birds and animals,
going into raptures, for example, at his first sight of an albatross and
frequently having to bargain with the captain – whose primary concern is the
pursuit of his various naval orders – to obtain the opportunity to observe
the local fauna in the many parts of the world they visit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
impression one gets from O’Brien’s descriptions of Maturin’s naturalist activities is one, above
all, of burgeoning abundance. So much of the world is still undiscovered, uncatalogued
and, even in many of the regions where people are present, most of the birds
and animals are largely unimpinged upon by humans. Even in those areas where
men are making a living from the hunting of animals – the activities of whalers,
particularly those from New England, play a
role in a number of the books – the profligate abundance of nature is so great
that it seems unimaginable that the activities of humans could ever make a real
dent in it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Well, not
quite unimaginable. The Dodo of Mauritius had been rendered extinct by the end
of the 17<sup>th</sup> Century, a fact of which Stephen Maturin is aware. He is
also aware of the encroachment of human beings on the habitats of various other
creatures, thus making it at first difficult for him to catch a glimpse of the
platypus in New South Wales.
But around 1812, the planet still seems to be so huge – even if the seafaring
adventures of Aubrey and Maturin send them extensively travelling around it,
including a circumnavigation – and so teeming with life, that the possibility
of humanity significantly damaging it would hardly have occurred to anyone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBvBKW4fue4ErEX8UztwIWw_g5qKuiWrrk6BeO988HwjMUFnKSSnlcfYhEK-uSEECQgzuYRwtPEW8ieiNUMKnHbueIRhfhyeYlkP5Ck9ElNRZ9xU_nKHAvCFYBFImVJ-JmECdRKYRgsB0J/s1600/Master_and_Commander-The_Far_Side_of_the_World_poster.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBvBKW4fue4ErEX8UztwIWw_g5qKuiWrrk6BeO988HwjMUFnKSSnlcfYhEK-uSEECQgzuYRwtPEW8ieiNUMKnHbueIRhfhyeYlkP5Ck9ElNRZ9xU_nKHAvCFYBFImVJ-JmECdRKYRgsB0J/s320/Master_and_Commander-The_Far_Side_of_the_World_poster.png" width="213" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">A month
ago, Lonesome George, the last remaining representative of one of the
subspecies of the Galapagos Tortoise, died. Aubrey and Maturin visited the
Galapagos on one of their voyages – the visit forms part of the 2003 film of
some of their adventures, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master and
Commander</i>, starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. Given the longevity of
the animals, it is possible that some of thousands of tortoises which they saw
there were parents of the far fewer representatives alive today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Although
the world described in O’Brien’s novels is so different to our own, it is not
really all that long ago. I’ve described a thought experiment <a href="http://francishunt.blogspot.de/2010/11/two-hundred-years-ago-visiting-1810.html" target="_blank">here</a>
and it’s worth repeating at this point. Imagine that when you were a baby, a
very old person (maybe a neighbour or a relative), over ninety years old, came
to visit you and caressed you on the head. Now imagine that that person also
had the same experience as a baby, being personally “blessed” by the oldest
person in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their </i>neighbourhood. If you
are over twenty years old today, then <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>
old man or woman was already alive by the time Napoleon was finally defeated at
Waterloo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In that
short period, less than the span of three human lives, the world population has
grown from around one billion to seven billion people. And those seven million
are claiming more and more of the room and resources of the planet for their
own exclusive use.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There’s
nothing special about this – it’s a basic characteristic of all life forms to
exploit their environment to best suit themselves, usually regardless of the
consequences, even the consequences for themselves. Any biosphere is in a state
of continuously changing dynamic stability, a stability which is always
fragile. Balance is always an interplay of a myriad of complex factors and
relationships and is always subject to change. In a way, it’s like riding a
bike; balance is only possible when there is movement, change.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But
generally (and there are always exceptions of sudden, usually catastrophic
change) alteration takes place slowly, over hundreds, thousands, millions of
years. Against this background evolution unfolds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Enter human
beings. Like no other animal, we are always in a hurry. And we are endlessly, frequently
for other species fatally, adaptable. We think, we learn, we plan, and change
our behaviour within single generations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Let’s be
clear about this; this is not a modern phenomenon. By the time Europeans were
starting to settle Australia
(the era of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin) their aboriginal predecessors,
arriving on the continent around 50,000 years earlier, had quickly wiped out
all the large herbivore animals, and consequently the large carnivores which
had preyed on them (megafauna). The same thing happened in North America,
leaving only some wolves, bears and the bison around 15,000 years ago, and –
most recently – in New
Zealand only 700 years ago. That such major
extinction events were less common in Eurasia and, above all, Africa,
is most probably due to the fact that these were the parts of the world where
humans first evolved and developed and thus other large animals had the necessary
time to achieve a kind of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">modus vivendi </i>with
the strange non-conforming naked ape.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6u_JKbihCycYjbjHdQhtb23U6L7n4_TiCdF_D1ZGAx9AFN5uYNsqsEcbCwJJeqOwoAFPbLVS-SMsJTNvLIVgn2GUmlb6JEm7CiVa6fUxs9Hd6oNDMEE55b2v-pkxCYUGHhJZF4wU6nQoc/s1600/Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6u_JKbihCycYjbjHdQhtb23U6L7n4_TiCdF_D1ZGAx9AFN5uYNsqsEcbCwJJeqOwoAFPbLVS-SMsJTNvLIVgn2GUmlb6JEm7CiVa6fUxs9Hd6oNDMEE55b2v-pkxCYUGHhJZF4wU6nQoc/s320/Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haast's Eagle attacking Moas</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Nonetheless,
as catastrophic as these human settlements were for megafauna species like the
giant wombat (diprotodon), the American lion, the sabre-toothed tiger
(smilodon), the moa or Haast’s eagle, humans managed to settle into their
biospheres in Australia and the Americas – having basically taken over the
position at the top of the food-chain. But even within such systems, small new
impetuses could lead to massive change. Thus, the reintroduction of the horse
(one of those megafauna species wiped out by the first human waves of
settlement around 12,000 years ago) into North America
by the Spaniards gave rise to the great Plains Indian societies (Apache,
Navaho, Comanche, Sioux, etc.) from the end of the 16<sup>th</sup> Century
onwards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But it was
the spread of Europeans in the past five hundred years, driven by a new nexus
of ideas and their results, like an aggressively missionary religion,
Enlightenment ideas and the mind-set of the ongoing Scientific Revolution,
which moved change and the rate of change onto a whole new level. By the
beginning of the 19<sup>th</sup> Century this was really beginning to gather
momentum and since then it has simply exploded.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Increase
and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it …” (Genesis 1:28) Well, we’ve
certainly done <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>. The question is
whether we haven’t overdone it a bit. The whalers Aubrey and Maturin encountered in their voyagers have largely
disappeared – because nearly all the whales have been killed off. The oceans
from which the crew of the frigate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surprise
</i>regularly fished myriads of anchovies, mackerel or tuna, and which even in
my childhood (less than half a century ago) were deemed to be endlessly
bountiful are now in danger – in large areas – of being fished out. Just ask
the (former) cod fishers of the Newfoundland Grand Banks. And there are many
other more complex chain reactions which can also be observed; anyone has gone
swimming in or walking on the beaches of the Western Mediterranean in recent
years will have noticed the explosive increase in the number of jellyfish …
because we have killed off too many of the larger fish which prey on them. Remove
one component of a food chain and you can cause all sorts or cascades of
change, many of them unforeseeable, and the ecological effects can be colossal.
It was rats, who travelled with the first Maoris to New Zealand and who preyed on the eggs
of the flightless moas, which were as much responsible for their extinction as
their hunting by humans. Rabbits in Australia. More aggressive American
grey squirrels driving out the more timid native red varieties in the British Isles. There are countless examples of such
unintended consequences and many of them lead to the extinction of species. Some
experts predict that the number of existing species on the planet may have been
halved by the end of this century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So what? We
need the room and what does it really matter if the final lesser spotted humpbacked
toad croaks his last? The law of evolution is the law of the jungle, the
survival of the fittest and if humans are the meanest, baddest sons of bitches
in the valley of death, well, then, that’s just too tough for the others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Except that
the rules of evolution say nothing about the survival of the winners. Any
species is faced with the continual danger that it will become too successful,
that it will wipe out all its competitors, neutralise all who would prey on it
and thus reproduce until it finishes up destroying the biosphere on which it is
dependant. It’s always a danger in any closed system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7xAyomY4JK5uUWc3ggIh4OR7aQ-wUbg2bUg1_b8_tVzPbyEqFtjq1OWDKMSACRZNfELlueaysGX-h_fe-KH6ksk0Y5plJipPh7R0wnPxswkP8OfR1EPqQnCWR8IJrLwwd4YQfmSq_EwH3/s1600/chem+reaction.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7xAyomY4JK5uUWc3ggIh4OR7aQ-wUbg2bUg1_b8_tVzPbyEqFtjq1OWDKMSACRZNfELlueaysGX-h_fe-KH6ksk0Y5plJipPh7R0wnPxswkP8OfR1EPqQnCWR8IJrLwwd4YQfmSq_EwH3/s320/chem+reaction.gif" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">We humans
have spread all over the planet and, large and complex though it may be, Planet
Earth itself is a closed system. The signs are increasing that we are causing
rising stress for the planetary eco-system itself. Like an organism with a
bacterial infection, we are – in a real sense – giving our planet fever. Seven
billion humans produce a lot of heat, particularly as our demand for energy is
much higher than any other animal and, ever since we discovered fire, our basic
way of producing energy is by burning stuff, and most of the energy produced
this way is lost as waste heat. Moreover, from our own biological cellular energy
production, to the metabolising of the billions of domestic animals we keep to
feed us, to the cars that transport us and the oil-fired power stations which
produce our electricity, the basic chemical reaction used to produce
energy/heat is always the same. Take any variety of carbon bonded with
hydrogen (carbohydrates or hydrocarbons - sugar, wood, oil, etc.), add oxygen and a spark of some kind and you
get a more or less energetic reorganisation of elemental molecules to form
water and carbon dioxide. It’s simple high-school chemistry and the only
process working in the other direction on this planet is photosynthesis. That
we are producing lots of heat and carbon-dioxide cannot be disputed, the only
question that can be debated is how much of this we have to do before it
reaches significant, dangerous levels.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So, as
Lenin once asked, what is to be done? Wiping out 85% of the present population
of the planet to return to the levels of two centuries ago isn’t really an
alternative – although one of the last stages for a species which has become
too successful in a closed system is the phenomenon of die-back, where, within
a very short period of time, most representatives of the species simply succumb
to the consequences of overcrowding and too few resources, The result is
either, in the best case, the achievement of a new equilibrium with only a tiny
fraction of the species or, at worst, a situation in which this fraction is so
small that it is no longer viable and becomes extinct.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But, unlike
lemmings, we humans have the value of our intelligence, our ability to plan and
anticipate our future. We cannot bring back all the species we have managed to
inadvertently kill off, but we can modify our behaviour so as to develop new
ways of living on our planet in the future. However, this means changing some
of our most basic attitudes. Above all, I believe, we need to look very critically
at the whole idea of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">growth</i></b>, which is at the basis of the
economic and societal models we follow. In the world of Aubrey and Maturin, when the world
seemed so huge and so bountiful, there was no need to question it, but today,
when the reality of the finite capacities of our planet, large though they may
be, is becoming more evident, it will soon become unavoidable. To believe that
we can go on growing indefinitely within a finite system is fundamentally
illogical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This does
not mean that we must condemn ourselves or our children to restrictive,
soul-destroying poverty. A good start, in my view, would be to apply our
intelligence, ingenuity and imagination to examining the possibilities involved
in the idea of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sufficiency</i></b>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We don’t
really have any other alternatives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">What would the world be, once bereft<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1911334903016795718" name="13"></a>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1911334903016795718" name="14"></a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">O let them be left, wildness and wet;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.</span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 35.4pt; text-align: right;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/122/33.html" target="_blank">Inversnaid</a>, </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">Gerald
Manley Hopkins</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='340' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/TtoaS50Vbjs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;">Pictures retrieved from</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUFhvD5hfmA5IyKXOcUM4FeG7wKnLspZgOkRZLwqwCzuY1h_mN3ZVcn7qR9m3BL2guAUYTqnb0t69l96EmCXq0PUnH6_00nUddUg4eSKPRLnJwMGUzGuZ9Ke46Q39yf-GfAaSBatL9l4A/s1600/planet_earth-13848.JPG">https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUFhvD5hfmA5IyKXOcUM4FeG7wKnLspZgOkRZLwqwCzuY1h_mN3ZVcn7qR9m3BL2guAUYTqnb0t69l96EmCXq0PUnH6_00nUddUg4eSKPRLnJwMGUzGuZ9Ke46Q39yf-GfAaSBatL9l4A/s1600/planet_earth-13848.JPG</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Master_and_Commander-The_Far_Side_of_the_World_poster.png">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Master_and_Commander-The_Far_Side_of_the_World_poster.png</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Giant_Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Giant_Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://mac122.icu.ac.jp/biobk/chemrxn.gif">http://mac122.icu.ac.jp/biobk/chemrxn.gif</a></span></div>
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</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-53342513444732843712012-07-22T05:09:00.000+02:002012-07-22T05:23:30.017+02:00Fiddler<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJWkph2sFgoDyW6JoYCEOnc9WephuZLLyfooMQK-34jFsgNF8e9VX9tzxT7XoJW3-KrK1cp_B7fbWDwcSRFpi9XloxzYZTgSEon28f2Sou1-92697d9STDgcLRT2v89qFpwg8_aDirB67/s1600/fiddler.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJWkph2sFgoDyW6JoYCEOnc9WephuZLLyfooMQK-34jFsgNF8e9VX9tzxT7XoJW3-KrK1cp_B7fbWDwcSRFpi9XloxzYZTgSEon28f2Sou1-92697d9STDgcLRT2v89qFpwg8_aDirB67/s1600/fiddler.JPG" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">An item
posted on various networks on the world-wide-web shocked many people this week;
Kenneth Dunlap had died.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
internet has changed – and goes on changing – our lives; creating realities
unimaginable for our grandparents. One of the most enriching changes it has
made for me is the boundless possibilities it offers for making contact and
developing friendships with all kinds of fascinating people worldwide. In my
case, this has had an emphasis on people interested in meeting for the purpose
of presenting, developing, discussing and exchanging <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ideas</i>; people engaged in what might best be called “the life of the
mind.” It has been, and continues to be a rich and fascinating adventure – one in
which I have made many contacts, more than a few of which have developed into
genuine friendships.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Given my
interests, it is therefore not surprising that – long before things like
Facebook and Google+ – one of the first places I started to make real contacts
was on a Google Group known as <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=de&fromgroups#%21forum/minds-eye" target="_blank">Minds Eye</a>.
A couple of years ago, a new contributor exploded into the group, posting
extensively and intensely on all sorts of subjects, someone with an
online/group identity known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fiddler</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Minds Eye
has always been a group of very diverse free spirits, with different views
about everything under the sun, views which are staunchly presented and
defended and, as such, achieving a consensus among those active there has
always made the challenge of herding cats look like a piece of cake. But –
unusually among the thousands of forums which evolved out of the old talk-rooms
and Usenet groups – Minds Eye was characterised by an predominant atmosphere of
… civility, coupled with an exceptionally high standard of erudition and discussion
on all sorts of subjects; philosophical, theological, anthropological,
political, cultural, etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Fiddler
irritated, irritated massively. He had very definitive opinions on all the
subjects about which he posted and he did not suffer fools gladly – and his
definition of a fool would have encompassed anyone who took up an opinion
contrary to his own. His passion for the positions he held often made it
difficult for him to distinguish between the ideas of those he saw as his
opponents and their persons, so that his argumentation often became seriously
personal and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ad hominem</i>. It was on
Minds Eye that I first encountered one of his favourite words for describing
someone with whom he did not agree and whom he consequently regarded as being
seriously deficient in reason; “fucktard.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Some of
those involved in the group regarded him simply as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29%20" target="_blank">troll</a> and a few even suggested banning him. But many more of us sensed that there was
real sincerity here, combined with intelligence and education, but also with
anger and a tendency to flame. I, for one, tried to engage with Fiddler,
attempting to point out that, for example, there were many sane, intelligent,
rational people who sincerely believed in God and who could not all be simply
dismissed as “fucktards.” Moreover, there were more (and usually better) ways
to win a debate than to try to bludgeon your opponents into submission, using
your arguments as a cudgel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
course of that discussion, Fiddler – or Ken, for that was his real name –
revealed something more of himself; he had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome" target="_blank">Asperger Syndrome</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome"></a>
It explained a lot, particularly about his difficulties in relating “normally”
with other people. He was well aware of this, though not particularly
apologetic about it – in common with many other “Aspies,” he did not regard his
condition as an affliction or illness, but rather as a different way of being;
one which made his social relationships more complicated but which also had
compensations in other areas. He described being able to “taste” numbers, for
example, something which made mathematics a real source of joy for him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the end,
Fiddler/Ken quit Minds Eye. It was a reaction he made, I believe, in something
of a huff, as he had received some sharp rebukes for the way in which he had
been addressing others and there had been renewed calls for his banning. But we
soon met again, at various other online hangouts, like <a href="http://www.convo.io%20/" target="_blank">Gravity</a> (which kind of went and
died) and <a href="http://obnoxi.us/">obnoxi.us</a> (which
is sadly also currently moribund) and we hooked up on Facebook and Google+. Ken joined
that increasing network of virtual friends my burgeoning on-line life was
producing, friends with whom you (just like in “real” life) sometimes have more,
sometimes less interaction, but with whom you always keep up some kind of loose
contact.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMVFZTNzEatyz5nr7xEanvS4CpTpPN4efPhDLUcQxeo2L58buHCWfFXK1pm2fxKZRbG9iCeebFBfUa_MAuwV9qt_vyEVPolkUnX6no6QVhsEqge-AhFb9LlLY3o7XXPHxw87m9QOka00E/s1600/fiddler3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMVFZTNzEatyz5nr7xEanvS4CpTpPN4efPhDLUcQxeo2L58buHCWfFXK1pm2fxKZRbG9iCeebFBfUa_MAuwV9qt_vyEVPolkUnX6no6QVhsEqge-AhFb9LlLY3o7XXPHxw87m9QOka00E/s320/fiddler3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
course of the last couple of years I learned quite a bit about him. He had
lived, and continued to live, a chequered life, full of drama, conflicts and
discontinuities. He grew up in an abusive family and had a sister who was
murdered as a teenager. He had six children, from two different marriages. He
had spent much of his youth in a religious fundamentalist setting but had abjured
this in favour of a pretty muscular type of atheism. He had struggled with
poverty for most of his life, but never let this stop him doing anything. He
was a student, and passionate about learning – though his major area of study
was geology, he was interested in almost everything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For
somebody with such innate difficulties in social relationships, there was
something about him which seemed to fascinate people. I can only imagine how it
must have been in real life, but over three and a half thousand people had him in
their circles on Google+, a social network which he (inevitably) much preferred
to Facebook. It was perhaps easier to be a friend to him on-line than it was in
real life, for I have no doubt that Ken could be very strenuous. Even on-line
he could be strenuous, but a computer you can always switch off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I suspect that
it was very hard to switch Ken off in real life. He was one of those people
whose transmissions have one gear, full steam ahead, and whose brakes only work
intermittently. But all that power, that energy, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rage </i>which drove him, he channelled into a struggle for the rights
of others, for the weak, the oppressed, any group or minority he perceived as
being put down or persecuted by the forces of illiberality, intolerance,
ignorance or small-mindedness. It got him practically involved in actions to
free women in the Middle East who suffered
under misogynistic forms of Islamic practice. And it frequently put him at
loggerheads with the practices and values of Middle
America.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ken had a
vision of what a free, pluralistic, caring and tolerant society could be like
and it made him furiously, relentlessly rant against the present complex of
hypocritical religious fundamentalism, heartless, profit-driven, corporate
capitalism and anti-intellectual, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">petit-bourgouis
</i>jingoism he described – with his typical, savage wit – as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teathuglicanism</i>. Though he was
disappointed in Obama, he regarded the prospect of a President Romney with
genuine horror, and his ascerbic, cutting commentary will be sadly missed in
the coming months.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">De mortuis nihil nisi bonum </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">[Speak of the dead naught but good],
they say, but Fiddler would have been contemptuous of this, also in respect of
himself. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">De mortuis nihil nisi <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">veritas </b></i>[truth], I am certain,
would have been much more to his liking. Truth, in that scientific, open,
testing, questioning sense, was for him synonymous with the good and it was the
lodestone of his life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQeQlJhrZMXxQQj2dzS47LpFHS5Qg-92mkL5l34vhl56GbithP_wxxV8kz1pMi2v6lfqcEND0ERFESm9MNhuFPinXiQqTvch1cGjzJ-IAJBtt5qinuq7vbuvroTSB6LXQSR87Rscwhbvi/s1600/fiddler2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNQeQlJhrZMXxQQj2dzS47LpFHS5Qg-92mkL5l34vhl56GbithP_wxxV8kz1pMi2v6lfqcEND0ERFESm9MNhuFPinXiQqTvch1cGjzJ-IAJBtt5qinuq7vbuvroTSB6LXQSR87Rscwhbvi/s1600/fiddler2.jpg" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">I can only
speak of those truths about Ken which I know; his engagement for tolerance and
liberalism (in its best, original sense), his championing of the rights of the
weaker and those discriminated against, his campaigning for more social justice
and a more caring society. The many other truths of his life – those which I
sense or suspect, like the centrality of his love for his children in his whole
being, are for others to tell, perhaps even today (July 22) when a service in
celebration of his life will be held in Ferndale, Washington State.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ken’s death
was a shock to everyone. He had been seriously unwell in the past months and
had found it hard to get adequate medical treatment, an indictment of the
current American health system and something which is very difficult for a West
European like myself, with our unquestioned systems of socialised medicine, to
understand. But he also seemed down recently, feeling the weight of the
seemingly constant struggle which was his life. Of course he carried his own,
not insignificant share of responsibility for the many misfortunes to which he
was prone, but he was also – at least in part – a victim of the callous,
unfeeling harshness of the society in which he lived and, I feel, he deserved
to live in that better world, the establishment of which he spent so much of
his fury and energy for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For those
of us who knew him – if only in the attenuated virtual world – he was a figure
somehow larger than life, his struggles heroic, his difficulties epic. Thinking
of him in the past few days, since hearing of his death, it strikes me that his
character and story offers the stuff for a marvellous film, with Sean Penn, at
best (for they share many characteristics), in the title role. But, for now,
Fiddler is finally at peace. I will miss him, him and his outraged, idealistic
fury. But I also feel honoured and lucky to have known him, even if only from a
digital distance. Goodbye, my friend. Rage on.</span></div>
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<br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The photos in this post are all from Ken's Google+ profile page</span></i></div>
</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-39674654383846348272012-07-06T03:20:00.000+02:002012-07-06T05:09:36.910+02:00Travelling ...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB">The
thunderstorms which swept through during the night had wakened me briefly, but
they had left the summer morning air with a wonderful cleanly-washed feeling.
The sun was shining and the pleasant fresh warmth promised to become close and
muggy later but that didn’t worry me. By the time that later came, I’d be gone,
flying nearly a thousand kilometres westward to Ireland.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOcAt6Y916NSAfocfLD1fWLF6Rpjv54OxmZWxm5ji2XDy-l-kTfvn1oZ7vk8zGko5rctMo4jNb1v02npz-GASFBTUlwrfX4LRyd5uJPt85pb9XT6VG1wd5dZ2x8Iw3XvOl6vAXQphdzcM/s1600/Muengstenerbruecke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOcAt6Y916NSAfocfLD1fWLF6Rpjv54OxmZWxm5ji2XDy-l-kTfvn1oZ7vk8zGko5rctMo4jNb1v02npz-GASFBTUlwrfX4LRyd5uJPt85pb9XT6VG1wd5dZ2x8Iw3XvOl6vAXQphdzcM/s400/Muengstenerbruecke.jpg" width="400" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">The first
stage of the journey was by rail; from my home town Remscheid
to Düsseldorf, with a change of train in Solingen.
The highlight of this is the crossing of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCngsten_Bridge" target="_blank">Müngsten Bridge</a>,
the highest steel railway bridge in Germany. Remscheid
and Solingen
are both built on hills, and you can see one town from the other, but they are
divided by the deep valley of the river Wupper. You look 350 feet down from the
train at the river, winding its way through a densely wooded canyon. A
magnificent sight on this fine morning, with wisps of water vapour lazily
writhing above the water. The bridge itself has a something of a sinister
reputation locally as a popular attraction for desperate people, planning to
end their own lives.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I change
trains in the Solingen
suburb of Ohligs. Like both the other two cities in the so-called
Bergisch-Metropolitan-Triangle, Wuppertal and Remscheid, it is an
amalgamation of various pre-existing smaller towns. Solingen
is known as the “City of Blades” and has a
tradition of steel and cutlery making going back for many hundreds of years,
with an historical reputation comparable only with Sheffield and Toledo. Ohligs itself is
on the border between the old Duchy of Berg and the Rhineland
and has, if the truth be told, more a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rheinisch
</i>than a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bergisch </i>character.
Historically, the Rhinelanders have a reputation for being relaxed, laid-back
and fun-loving, while the inhabitants of Berg are more frequently described as
being dour, taciturn and serious. It is, perhaps, not entirely coincidental
that the Reformation made a lot of ground in Berg, while the Rhineland
remained largely (if generally unfervently) Catholic.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The journey
from Remscheid to Dublin
is one I’ve been doing three or four times annually for the past years, ever
since my parents moved to Dublin.
As the train moves smoothly towards Düsseldorf, I find myself thinking about
how routine it’s become for me. I was twenty one years old before I flew for
the first time; now it’s just part of my life. But the world has changed in the
past thirty years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The most
basic defining fact about Ireland
is that it is an island. This has always made it harder to get to or leave than
countries with land borders. In my youth, the most common way to and from the
country was the “boat” across the Irish Sea to Liverpool
or Holyhead. I’ve taken the boat too, often enough in my youth, crossing
England to take yet another boat to finally reach the continent, where the way
generally continued by train.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I realise
that it has been quite a few years since I took a long train journey. There’s
something lost there, for I find rail travel more comfortable and relaxed than
flying. You have more room, you can look out the window and watch the
ever-changing variety of towns and countryside, you can get up and walk around.
You’re more inclined to get into conversation with your fellow travellers – or
perhaps I’ve just become older and more taciturn. But that loss of relaxation
is what you exchange for that most highly rated modern commodity, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">time</i>. To get from Remscheid
to Dublin by
train and boat would take a couple of days; the way I do it now, I travel from
door to door (including all the waiting at airports) in less than six hours.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Though,
even in terms of relaxation, I have nothing to complain about. I do this
journey so often that I have long since personally optimised every phase of it
and, from the moment I arrive at the first railway station, I have moved into a
personal, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">time out </i>mode. I know where
to get tickets, which platforms to go to, where to check in, etc., and all this
stuff runs semi-automatically. So I have the inner space to just enjoy the
feeling of being on the move, without pressure.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">My flight
is from Düsseldorf International Airport,
the third biggest in Germany
after Frankfurt and Munich (though it will
probably be relegated to fourth after the new single Berlin airport finally gets up and running
next year). Düsseldorf, with a population of just under 600,000 isn’t one of Germany’s
biggest cities, but it’s one of the most successful. There are various reasons
for this, one of the most important being the decision by the western allies
after the Second World War to make it the capital of Germany’s largest (by
population) province of North Rhine-Westphalia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYsmH_Bfowl-63jlQZo9vvvn52t0ElP2oRTbXsNYehCO50dyMOd7fqqQAzzHlKTdFUTF5zboyTUd2NlS2AO1IJLXhJtBngV6cBrur_RHfbRJhqQwBn4A9t_NnbucY3ZAyQhOgVONCHagDl/s1600/k%25C3%25B6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYsmH_Bfowl-63jlQZo9vvvn52t0ElP2oRTbXsNYehCO50dyMOd7fqqQAzzHlKTdFUTF5zboyTUd2NlS2AO1IJLXhJtBngV6cBrur_RHfbRJhqQwBn4A9t_NnbucY3ZAyQhOgVONCHagDl/s320/k%25C3%25B6.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">Düsseldorf
has an intensively competitive relationship with Cologne,
just a few miles farther up the Rhine. Cologne is bigger and
over a millennium older, having been founded by Agrippa, the faithful adjutant
of the Emperor Augustus, while Düsseldorf isn’t mentioned historically until
the Middle Ages. Cologners tend to regard Düsseldorfers as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">parvenu</i> and claim that the insecurity resulting from this is the
reason why the residents of their rival city are so concerned with status,
fashion, and being “in.” Certainly, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Königsallee
</i>(popularly known as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Kö”</i>), the
premier shopping street in Düsseldorf, would claim to compete with New York’s
Fifth Avenue, or the Via Condotti in Rome, and you might be forgiven for a
feeling of taking the tone of the place down if you find yourself driving down
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kö</i> in a car which isn’t a
Porsche, a Mercedes, or a BMW.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Düsseldorf
and Cologne
both have their own varieties of beer. In Düsseldorf it’s a dark ale known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alt</i>, while in Cologne they brew a light, lager-type beer
known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kölsch</i>. It’s more than your
life is worth to try to order an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alt </i>in
Cologne, while
the Düsseldorfers generally say that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kölsch
</i>is a liquid which passes unchanged – apart from the temperature – through
the human body.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">With its finely-tuned
consciousness of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chic</i>, Düsseldorf is,
inevitably, a major centre of culture, although here there is also a keen
rivalry with Cologne.
One of the city’s most successful cultural exports in the past thirty years is
the cult band, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die Toten Hosen </i>(literally
“Dead Trousers,” the phrase being a slang expression meaning “nothing going
on,” or “boring.”), who play a good-humoured form of punk rock, often with a
healthy dollop of social criticism thrown in.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtpU_xaetWXUj7Dlnfu5GSuTe00rHlVeYRcjBvZG8d-HTlHI3Za0HvGOs-OwSewXKFaKaLhdxvTpfaNaWQYRhbMnZY4adAwqraRNdAKtcL6Cs9K8HgMaLV8Avpus1VQt8tp_6SfwVjd2tR/s1600/skytrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtpU_xaetWXUj7Dlnfu5GSuTe00rHlVeYRcjBvZG8d-HTlHI3Za0HvGOs-OwSewXKFaKaLhdxvTpfaNaWQYRhbMnZY4adAwqraRNdAKtcL6Cs9K8HgMaLV8Avpus1VQt8tp_6SfwVjd2tR/s1600/skytrain.jpg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">The airport
is, thankfully, easily reached by rail. Thankfully, I say, because, in common
with nearly all others, it costs an arm and a leg to leave your car there for
anything more than an hour or two. The last stage of the journey involves a
short trip on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sky Train</i>, a
hanging monorail which takes you from the station right into the terminal
building. This is large and airy, the result of a comprehensive rebuilding
programme after a major fire there sixteen years ago, thus providing enough
room to handle 20 million passengers a year.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Air travel,
as I’ve already mentioned, has changed considerably in Europe
in the past couple of decades. The key phrase is “low-cost flying.” Whereas
thirty years ago flying still had a cachet of being a bit exclusive, it has now
become affordable travel for the masses. Part of the philosophy behind this is
the optimisation of every element of every element of the process and the reduction
of the fundamental fact to its minimum, the flying from A to B. The basic
flight price – on a route where the size of the planes and the frequency of flights
have been carefully analysed to ensure that the vehicles are always well
occupied – is kept as low as possible. Everything else costs extra; luggage,
meals and drinks on the plane, choice of seats, often even personal
checking-in. One of the most successful of the low-cost carriers is the Irish
firm Ryanair, with its spectacular in-your-face Managing Director, Michael O’Leary
(if you’re interested, you can watch him outlining the company’s philosophy
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJCuYNvrE8g&feature=related" target="_blank">here</a>).
Fortunately, I don’t have to travel with O’Leary’s firm, who are pretty
ingenious at thinking up new methods to make you pay extra (they don’t fly from
Düsseldorf, claiming that the landing charges there are too expensive) – as the
pressure of competition with them has forced to Irish national carrier, Aer
Lingus, to go low-cost too, so that I can generally get a return flight from
Düsseldorf to Dublin for less than US $ 150.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDl4LfREvCDXhgWn-AzPu1zoBKIIHUDPrXUFh58QKFPgjV-ZK4xRx1tPoQ8GWvtJKbPegqNC3hLTeuT37NXDGfHztVSE0VfhY_oEr1vvb1fCT7AagRlRe0fwAuylQ1fomXSoJV4OX8GiT5/s1600/AerLingus-EI-DEA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDl4LfREvCDXhgWn-AzPu1zoBKIIHUDPrXUFh58QKFPgjV-ZK4xRx1tPoQ8GWvtJKbPegqNC3hLTeuT37NXDGfHztVSE0VfhY_oEr1vvb1fCT7AagRlRe0fwAuylQ1fomXSoJV4OX8GiT5/s320/AerLingus-EI-DEA.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">“I used to
think Genitalia was an airline until I discovered Aer Lingus,” some comedian
once commented. Personally, I’d prefer sex to flying any time. To be truthful,
I find flying both boring and frequently annoying, uselessly annoying. It
starts with the security check. Even today, years after the ridiculous measure
has been introduced, there still seem to be passengers who haven’t realised
that you’re not allowed to carry liquids onto the plane. It doesn’t matter
which queue I choose, I always seem to finish up behind the lady who wants to
bring her shampoo, face-cleaning fluid and Chanel No. 5 in her hand-luggage and
engages some bored, underpaid security worker, who only speaks broken German,
in an interminable and increasingly bad-tempered discussion. Forget it lady,
ditch your Chanel or get another flight!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But even in
the world of proposed extra charges for using the aircraft toilets, Aer Lingus
still retains some of its old charm. The flight attendants are always very
friendly and helpful, and they still offer a warm traditional Irish breakfast,
with sausages and rashers, black and white pudding, fried tomato, potato cake,
brown bread and butter with orange juice, coffee or tea. It’s not free of
course – though, on reflection, it never really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i>, after all, it was all part of the princely price you paid for
your ticket – but at € 7.50 it’s still a bargain. As I usually take the morning
flight, and only drink a cup (or two) of coffee before leaving home, it has
become another ritual of mine whenever I take this flight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">An hour and
a half after taking off, we land. And now, another aspect of low-cost flying
really comes into its own for me. All the cheap carriers make you pay extra for
checked-in luggage. I have become expert at travelling light, carrying everything
I really need in my hand-baggage. And so, only ten minutes after the plane as
stopped, I saunter past the people standing hypnotised at the baggage carousel,
waiting seemingly forever for their bags to be spewed up out of the innards of
the airport, down the green customs line and out of the airport. A little more
than five hours after leaving home, I’ve arrived. Now there’s just the short
bus and car trip to my parents’ place.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It would
have taken me just as long to drive from home to Berlin
or Munich – and
would have cost me just as much. Funny old world, isn’t it?</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><i>This little piece from the </i>Toten Hosen <i>is a love song from an extremely jealous lover, who first offers to kill himself to prove his love ... and finally decides to kill both himself </i>and <i>his girlfriend.</i> </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/Li2t_XbXaRY/0.jpg" height="366" width="440"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Li2t_XbXaRY&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="440" height="366" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Li2t_XbXaRY&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;">Pictures retrieved from:</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Muengstenerbruecke.jpg&filetimestamp=20070205172830">http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Muengstenerbruecke.jpg&filetimestamp=20070205172830</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://www.duesseldorf.de/thema/sights/koenigsallee/grafik/koe440.jpg">http://www.duesseldorf.de/thema/sights/koenigsallee/grafik/koe440.jpg</a>
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://www.h-bahn.de/de/skytrain.php">http://www.h-bahn.de/de/skytrain.php</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://www.airliners.nl/images/170805-AerLingus-EI-DEA.jpg">http://www.airliners.nl/images/170805-AerLingus-EI-DEA.jpg</a></span></div>
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</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-13992836882627094802012-06-27T01:35:00.001+02:002012-06-27T01:35:26.332+02:00Schland: Football and National Identity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi2hR1STXTGyjxj24XuZ8MMbZgkkI61qkZegDJAjPy_Yxsdf6aNf9Z8dt_-Qvi3U55PLIVJVXP89G4f7TOaQGdoVXvmhxlVKz1a2iufuJ4lyGFYaX80QQd7Ut9aDxK6XNUzKeANP7W519a/s1600/euro-2012-website-marketing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi2hR1STXTGyjxj24XuZ8MMbZgkkI61qkZegDJAjPy_Yxsdf6aNf9Z8dt_-Qvi3U55PLIVJVXP89G4f7TOaQGdoVXvmhxlVKz1a2iufuJ4lyGFYaX80QQd7Ut9aDxK6XNUzKeANP7W519a/s320/euro-2012-website-marketing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">In the
course of the current European football championship, the exclamation, “Schland,
o Schland!” can be heard and read frequently here in Germany – most commonly as
an exclamation of joy by generally younger people on Facebook – after the
German team has scored or won a game.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schland </i>was invented six years ago by
the German TV comedian and personality, Stefan Raab. Raab is a difficult
phenomenon to explain to non-Germans. He’s like a cross between Jon Stewart
(though without Stewart’s absolutely biting political side) and Conan O’Brien,
and is immensely popular, particularly with people between fifteen and thirty
five. From his beginnings as a clown with an MTV-clone in the early nineties,
he has become involved in all kinds of media projects, including a number of
attempts at the Eurovision Song Contest, which his protégée, Lena Meyer-Landrut,
won with the song “Satellite” in 2010.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
course of the World Cup in Germany
in 2006, Raab coined <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Schland </i>as an
abbreviation for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deutschland</i>, as
spoken by a drunk. When Meyer-Landrut won the Eurovision four years later, a
student group from Münster, who called themselves Uwu Lena, covered her song in
a spoof version as a statement of national pride in the German team playing at
that year’s World Cup in South Africa. They replaced Lena’s
lyrics “Love, o Love,” with “Schland, o Schland,” and landed a surprise hit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">All right,
so now I’ve presented you with a load of trivia about German pop culture and
you’re starting to wonder about where I’m going with all this. Actually, I see
it as exemplary for the development of a new kind of national identity in Germany – an identity
of a new generation which has finally managed to liberate itself both from the
abomination of megalomanic Nazi racism and the cringing, ashamed self-doubt of
the post-war generations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’ve lived
in Germany
for over a quarter of a century now. In many respects I feel completely at home
here, yet there is a part of me which clings to my essential Irishness, that
part which refuses to apply for German citizenship (though I would be entitled
to do so), that part which still chooses to see myself as an outsider, an
observer of the culture in which I today probably feel more comfortable, if I am
to be completely honest, than in the Ireland I left in my mid-twenties. It is a
Germany
which – in common with most Western European countries – is becoming ever more
multi-racial and multi-cultural, even if this process is (also in common with
most Western European countries) accompanied by persistent teething troubles. Certainly
there are nationalities and cultures which contain significant proportions who
have major problems with integration into modern western societies
(particularly those with an Islamic component), but the statistics now claim
that nearly a third of all those living in Germany today have a migrant
background of some kind, and in many areas the majority of children being born
have migrant roots. If you look at the German national football team currently
competing in the European Championship, five of the eleven players at the
beginning of each game up to now have had a migrant background of some kind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’m back to
football again. And this is no accident, for – in a very strange way – football
has been one of the major catalysts for the formation of this new German
identity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">By football
I mean, of course, soccer – in common with most of the world. Sport seems to be
an area in which the USA
travels a different road. America
may cling to that strange ritual involving quarterbacks, line-outs, touchdowns
and other incomprehensible terms surrounding what seems to be some arcane form
of rugby; most of the rest of the globe regards it as a weird eccentricity. And
as for baseball … well, there’s no accounting for tastes, I suppose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For
Germans, at any rate, football (soccer) is very definitely a part of the
national soul, and an important one at that. It is a generally accepted fact
that the Football God moves in mysterious ways which cannot be divined by his
countless millions of worshippers worldwide, but, in the case of Germany,
football has played a significant role in the history of a country trying to
redefine its national identity in the wake of the indescribable catastrophe of
Nazism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In 1954,
the German Federal Republic
(then in its initial West German iteration) was in its infancy, and very much
under probation. The decision to grant a generous peace, to allow a rebuilding
of Germany was controversial; while the American line, championed above all by
Secretary of State George Marshall, prevailed, there were many among the allies
(especially in France) who would have preferred to see Germany permanently
politically and economically annihilated. And most Germans themselves were
deeply traumatised; after having followed the ghastly Nazi chimera for over
twelve years, they were profoundly defeated, dazed with guilt, uncertain as to
their capabilities regarding the future, insecure about their very identity. Millions
had died, millions more been made homeless and turned into refugees, hundreds
of thousands of young men had disappeared as prisoners-of-war into the Soviet
gulags. Numb, they had started to tidy up the rubble and take refuge in two of
their most familiar qualities, their ability to work hard and organise well.
The result was the beginning of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wirtschaftswunder,
</i>the Economic Miracle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhII2ibIJad-KbxoP6ge_iYQlT_CyGWeTFXuHMG3WcWMQCcoRtdMJy3lTJ-od7J0DjntQOuhSXq9Dif4aL2DB7F5Au7WEITlG7XiFNFFDLIv83mqQW3NUkgNVIjiH0V8VwztpR80QFXwFFI/s1600/World-Cup-Final+1954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhII2ibIJad-KbxoP6ge_iYQlT_CyGWeTFXuHMG3WcWMQCcoRtdMJy3lTJ-od7J0DjntQOuhSXq9Dif4aL2DB7F5Au7WEITlG7XiFNFFDLIv83mqQW3NUkgNVIjiH0V8VwztpR80QFXwFFI/s320/World-Cup-Final+1954.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As part of
the post-war normalisation, a German team travelled to the World Cup in Bern in 1954. Against all
expectations, they reached the final and defeated the highly fancied Hungarians
3-2. The Miracle of Bern became one of the defining moments of the fragile new
(West) German identity. Suddenly, nine years after the end of the war, it
became possible to be momentarily proud to be German. In the midst of all the
guilty confusion there was an instance where there was a collective feeling of
national oneness, one that was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allowed</i>,
legitimate. It was a signal that things could move on, that the past – while
not forgotten, never to be forgotten – could perhaps be surmounted; that
whatever it meant to be German need not be exclusively, definitively and
eternally defined by jackboots and swastikas, by fanaticism and Auschwitz – by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shame</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was, of
course, only football. But football can be a lot – a channel where national
pride, competitiveness, the innate, almost crazy human impulse to prove one’s
group/clan/tribe/nation to be and be recognised to be the best, the greatest,
can be ritualised, played out and expressed in a way in which nobody is hurt,
exploited, made homeless, enslaved or killed. In the words of Peter Gabriel,
“games without frontiers, war without tears.” In 1954, balsam for the
traumatised German soul.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Thirty-six
years later, in a period of less than a year, the post-war European (and world)
settlement, stabilised and set in a concrete balance of fear between two blocs
was swept away. In a historically unprecedented peaceful revolution, the
hegemony of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe had basically dissolved and
even in the USSR
the Soviet system was winding itself up. The most concrete symbol of the Iron
Curtain, the Berlin Wall, had been torn down and the reunification of the
divided Germany
had been agreed and was in the last stages of preparation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">1990 was
once more a World Cup year and in Rome West Germany, playing in their final
tournament before the accession of the GDR to the federal union established by
the western allies in their zones of control after the war, once more became
the world champions. Those were months of euphoria in Europe, and especially in
Germany,
where anything seemed possible, where everything seemed positive. Germany winning
the world cup appeared, as it happened, to be almost inevitable, the Football
God for once in accord with all the other portents and tendencies of history.
The icing on the cake, the unity of heaven and earth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yet 1990
also marked the end of an era. The World Cup of that year was the last major
global event in which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West</i> Germany
appeared as a separate entity. It was not only the GDR which disappeared;
though formally the states making up the former territory of East Germany
simply joined the already existing Federal Republic of Germany, in fact this
accession factually also meant the end of that entity in which Germans had
proved that they could be good European democrats, what German historians today
are increasingly beginning to call the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bonn
Republic</i>. Seen from this aspect, the victory of the West German team in the
1990 World Cup can be regarded as a final accolade, a way of proclaiming to a
brave new world, “Mission Accomplished!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">These brave
new world moments tend not to last. In the euphoria of unification, the elder
statesman, Willi Brandt proclaimed, “Now let what belongs together grow
together!” That growing together has not always been an easy process,
economically, socially, culturally, and it is by no means complete. But in 2006
an event occurred which became a moment of coalescence, when a new kind of
German identity first expressed itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
months before the World Cup began in Germany there was a lot of the
usual public worrying about the whole affair. No nation or culture (except
possibly the Jews – that itself some kind of statement about the complex,
close, fateful relationship between these two cultures) is as good at public
worrying as the Germans. The opening ceremony had to be completely cancelled
because of a row. There were warnings about possible dangers for blacks and orientals
in particular areas of the former East Germany, because of neo-Nazi
gangs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViV3zMePe8gg6BiwsOm0Ds92Pme0bFWrC2z7vE8efVONDn37deygrhKx2AZ6uquIncRgjrYLcYAg-1HkcKPJD9eyIElJTafeJ6ZtRF2LZCshxCrlBggBgf0v9QXw1YVkokrGw7zYZT363/s1600/World_Cup_2006_German_fans_at_Bochum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViV3zMePe8gg6BiwsOm0Ds92Pme0bFWrC2z7vE8efVONDn37deygrhKx2AZ6uquIncRgjrYLcYAg-1HkcKPJD9eyIElJTafeJ6ZtRF2LZCshxCrlBggBgf0v9QXw1YVkokrGw7zYZT363/s320/World_Cup_2006_German_fans_at_Bochum.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And then
the competition started and a month-long spontaneous party broke out. For the
first time since the war, Germans started waving their flags, decorating their
cars and themselves in the national colours of black, red and gold, simply
cheering the fact that they were German – just as the visitors from all over
the world were cheering the fact that they were Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian,
Australian. The German team reached the semi-finals, with every game being
watched by literally millions in public viewings in the major squares of every
German city. The event became known as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sommermärchen</i>,
the Summer Fairy Tale.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
phenomenon has been repeated biannually ever since, whenever the European
Championships or the World Cup take place. And it has become even more than
just a celebration of being German; the other nationals resident in Germany
also celebrate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their </i>identities and
German towns become a multicoloured carpet of German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
Croatian and Turkish flags – with good-natured rivalry and ribbing between the
various nationalities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sixty years
after the end of the war, young Germans finally seem to have become comfortable
with their own identity – and the vehicle they choose to express it is
football.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They could
do worse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">* * *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This is
all, of course, a very particular view. It is true but it is not the whole
truth, for reality is more complex. Nationalism, in all its expressions, has a
dubious pedigree and is, arguably, the most destructive ideology the world has
seen in the past two hundred years. And German economic nationalism is a major
component in the current complex of financial and economic problems currently
facing Europe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In an ideal
world, I would hope we could go beyond those bloody, sterile, exclusivist
expressions of nationality which have so shaped and malformed the world in the
past centuries, to a more inclusive, sharing vision of our common solidarity on
this planet which so many of us share. More and more thinking Europeans are
beginning to see these deeper questions as a positive possibility resulting
from the current Euro debt crisis. (Angela Merkel, the current German chancellor,
seems unfortunately completely ignorant of these deeper questions.) But the
need to belong, to feel part of a nation, and to express that identity seems to
be very deeply rooted in us – probably part of our primate hard-wiring. And,
for as long as a deeper feeling of fundamental human solidarity remains in a
(hopefully growing) state of development, I’m prepared to see those expressions
of nationalism like the German one I’ve described here as basically positive. Better
by far than pogroms, marching armies and terrorist bombs anyway. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='420' height='346' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/GYUGXuTNsic?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;">Pictures retrieved from:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://www.website-marketing.ch/wp-content/uploads/euro-2012-website-marketing.jpg">http://www.website-marketing.ch/wp-content/uploads/euro-2012-website-marketing.jpg</a>
</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://cdn.worldcupblog.org/www.worldcupblog.org/files/2010/10/1954-World-Cup-Final.jpg">http://cdn.worldcupblog.org/www.worldcupblog.org/files/2010/10/1954-World-Cup-Final.jpg</a>
</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/World_Cup_2006_German_fans_at_Bochum.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/World_Cup_2006_German_fans_at_Bochum.jpg</a>
</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-58031021797736416542012-06-02T17:41:00.000+02:002012-06-02T19:14:02.680+02:00The Debt Crisis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhabW0BGpWker3lq53pWJzJLgkw4hyphenhyphenxem9PQgzhAwn2XOFkA39g_wK86mTvbDrekt5EinvRmqtvAkt7W_-fa7Vg0A6BlVnW4VWcgpgTp0S-KVBAju9GPcgFpFYrUph0zQ3KVgd1QcUOIOJO/s1600/Debt-crisis-280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhabW0BGpWker3lq53pWJzJLgkw4hyphenhyphenxem9PQgzhAwn2XOFkA39g_wK86mTvbDrekt5EinvRmqtvAkt7W_-fa7Vg0A6BlVnW4VWcgpgTp0S-KVBAju9GPcgFpFYrUph0zQ3KVgd1QcUOIOJO/s1600/Debt-crisis-280.jpg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">If there is
one issue more than any other which has been exercising the public
consciousness for the past four years, it has to be the question of <b><i>debt</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">From the
bursting of the US property bubble, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the
systemic threat of a global banking failure in 2008, through the first measures
taken by many governments, individually and collectively, to try to head of
that danger, to the current, deep-seated crisis in the Euro-zone, the theme of
debt – public and private – has dominated world thinking, doings and commenting
constantly, obsessively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">With
serious consequences for millions; whether dispossessed hopeless home-owners in
the USA, pensioners in Greece, or the more than half of the Spanish population
between 18 and 30 who are currently unemployed. The “<i>markets” </i>are uneasy and, apparently, when “markets” are uneasy, the
little people worldwide suffer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I am
reminded of nothing so much as the stereotypes of fearful, primitive,
superstitious civilisations in bad adventure novels, where the natives,
threatened with the outbreak of catastrophe, are convinced that they have
become victims of the anger of the gods. Indeed, the analogy can be developed
farther, for the general reaction of the natives in such pot-boilers is to offer
ever more and ever more costly sacrifices to these angry gods, to try to
propitiate them, before finally reaching the inevitable ghastly conclusion that
nothing less than the sacrifice of their own children will serve to (possibly)
appease the divine anger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Substitute <i>markets </i>for <i>gods </i>in the previous paragraph and you get a description of the
world of 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the past
couple of months, I have intended many times to write something about this
theme here. The reason I have not, up to now, is that I have a deep suspicion
that most of the discussions being carried out on the subject are based on
misrepresentations, subterfuges, and downright cynical lies. I am prepared to
accept that many of those involved are sincere and genuinely believe the
arguments they are making – but I am becoming more and more certain that most
of those who really matter know that much of what they are saying is no more
than platitudinous window-dressing and that they well recognise, at a deeper
level, what it is really about … the retention, protection, and even expansion
of power and wealth in the hands of those who have it, whatever the cost to
those who do not have it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Writing
over 2,400 years ago, the famous Greek historian, Thucydides, records how the
more powerful Athenians expressed their view of the world to the weaker <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0200:book=5:chapter=89:section=1" target="_blank">Melians</a></span><span lang="EN-GB"> on demanding their surrender, “the
strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Since then, despite
all kinds of declarations of rights and facades of agreements and legality, very
little has changed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is a
conventional view of the current ongoing global crisis and, on the basis of
this view, it’s fairly easy to describe what’s going on. For various reasons –
to which nobody pays much attention now – speculative trading of finance
products got out of control. The result was a bubble which burst, the crash of
a few financial institutions and the threat of a crash in the whole banking
sector in 2008. To avert this, most sovereign states intervened, providing
billions of tax-payers’ money to prop up the banks and keep the whole system
going (or at least limping). The new atmosphere of sobriety and financial
rectitude focussed increased attention on the deficits and borrowing debts of
those sovereign states – deficits which had had to be drastically increased to
provide the money to prevent the banks from failing. The “markets” became
increasingly nervous about the dependability of those sovereign debts, with the
result that costs of servicing such debt rose steeply for a number of countries,
thus putting ever more pressure on their “real” economies, which weakened their
position even further in the eyes of the markets. A vicious circle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This
problem became particularly acute in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>,
where a large number of countries within the EU had adopted a common currency,
the Euro, over a decade ago. The euro had brought considerable prosperity for its
members – particularly those with strong export-based economies – by significantly
simplifying trade, both between its members and with the wider world. But it
also created a one-size-fits-all monetary situation for the member countries
and the pressures caused by the financial crisis exacerbated hidden fault-lines
enormously. Countries like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Greece</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ireland</st1:country-region> could
conceivably have eased their situation somewhat by currency devaluation, but
such devaluation was not in the interest of other countries such as <st1:country-region w:st="on">Finland</st1:country-region>, <st1:city w:st="on">Luxemburg</st1:city>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Austria</st1:country-region> and, above all, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Ireland,
for example, could have let some of its banks fail and default, but, as these
debts were practically all held in Wall Street, the City of London and
Frankfurt thus potentially putting the powerful economies of the US, UK and
Germany under pressure, this wasn’t allowed either. The Irish were told to unconditionally
guarantee the debts of their – private – banks and the then Irish government,
terrified at the prospect of being otherwise abandoned by its international “friends,”
meekly complied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmvyQUxrqpT3gV-lQgdA2E-Qpc7B-GFcpECtyN4x7H5HMh1hkiYAeBYsBk00sQfzbXsivbEHti15zX_Rv0_fFJ3KpzwDirCUDA_7PmXHwLYBDFqLmsfoBi1lfsG2v6W3uC42IWm9bzUvwN/s1600/euro-debt-crisis-medium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmvyQUxrqpT3gV-lQgdA2E-Qpc7B-GFcpECtyN4x7H5HMh1hkiYAeBYsBk00sQfzbXsivbEHti15zX_Rv0_fFJ3KpzwDirCUDA_7PmXHwLYBDFqLmsfoBi1lfsG2v6W3uC42IWm9bzUvwN/s320/euro-debt-crisis-medium.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">For nearly
three years now, the Euro-zone has been trying to deal with a situation in
which the debt problems (which have different causes in each country) in
Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy are putting the common currency
under continual pressures of all kinds on the markets, thus exposing all the
other member countries to major risk. All sorts of imagery is used to describe
what’s going on, the most popular one being that taken from the language of
illness – the threat of <i>“contagion.” </i>Or
the other hoary old image, beloved of proponents of the Vietnam War nearly
fifty years ago, the “domino theory.” A full-scale collapse in Greece, or
Spain, or Italy, would serve to knock down the economies of all the other
Euro-members, even the strongest, and rapidly lead to world-wide economic recession
and ultimate collapse, the scale of which would make 2008 look like an
insignificant blip on the line of global progress. <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>
and the world are under threat of economic Armageddon and the only way to stave
this off is to get the rampant sovereign debt problem somehow “under control.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So there
has been an ongoing series of frantic conferences, and bail-out measures, and
stability mechanisms, and fiscal pacts, and injections of billions by the European
Central Bank, etc., etc., etc. Three countries (Greece, Portugal and Ireland)
have been put into a kind of international receivership and the domestic
measures their partners (and the world in general, as represented by the IMF,
which is one of the “receivers”) are demanding as conditions for their
continual financial support, mean that their citizens – particularly their
poorest citizens – are suffering badly. And the generally touted fear is that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Spain</st1:country-region> or <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region> could be next; in contrast to
the three already hospitalised patients, economies “too large to fail.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And still,
despite all the measures taken so far, the mighty markets are still not
impressed and the Euro members are divided on the question of what sacrificial
offering might suffice to appease these gods and make them mild and
gentle-mannered; even more austerity, measures to stimulate growth, Euro-bonds,
the expulsion of Greece from the common currency …?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I am
becoming increasingly convinced that all of this is just … pardon my French …
bullshit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I do not
believe that it will be possible to solve the various problems besetting the
global economy in any kind of enduring fashion using any of the various tools
or mechanisms suggested, because the system is fundamentally broken. It has, in
fact, been basically flawed all along, because it is based on axioms and
assumptions which have no foundations, which have never applied, and which are nonetheless
generally presented and accepted as being unquestionably true and self-evident.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Markets are
natural and, in general, self-regulating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The price
of something is its value.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The basis
of relations between people is one of exchange, with each party primarily
pursuing his/her own (material) advantage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Exchange
usually makes everyone happy; everyone wins, nobody loses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The
fundamental principle of morality is that one should always pay one’s debts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Our basic
nature is one of lonely autonomy and our social relations and networks are
secondary, conditional and ephemeral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Everything
is quantifiable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Money “works”
and can thus, somehow, increase itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Continuous
growth is perpetually possible – even on a finite planet with, ultimately,
limited resources.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">These are
the basic premises on which the so-called science of “economics” is based. They
are all statements which can legitimately be challenged and, indeed, would be
denied by most of us with respect to the way we live our everyday lives with
families, loved ones, friends, neighbours, colleagues and communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">How do you
pay your debt to your parents, who gave you life and cared for you – not only
materially – until you were able to stand on your own feet? How do you quantify
kindness, or love, or beauty, or joy? Can you change your friends the way you
change your socks? Is not a sincere “Thank You,” frequently a more than
adequate payment for a favour/debt? Is monetary wealth really a measure of
respect and regard? Do you always (or even usually) weigh up your own advantage
before helping someone?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yet, if
economics – particularly the conventional economics upon which we seem to base
our communal lives, as in my description of the current international debt
crisis above – is an unquestionable science, then why does it not seem so
easily applicable to our ordinary, <i>real </i>lives?
It seems to me that there is a deep sort of schizophrenia present in the way we
understand ourselves. If we really want to find solutions for the deep problems
besetting our current global societies, I suspect this will only be possible if
we find ways of surmounting this strange bifocal way of seeing things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I am no
utopian, no starry-eyed optimist. The current situation is the result of long,
complicated processes, and concrete decisions will have very real effects on
millions of people. Much as it might seem attractive, I don’t think we can just
simply push some kind of “Reset” button. But I do see possibilities and
potential for us, if we reflect on the way we see and understand things and are
prepared to consider alternative ways of seeing and understanding them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">To admit,
for example, that our various models of economic analysis may be deeply flawed
and don’t provide us with an awful lot of good answers. To accept that
economics, even as far as it goes, has very little basis in any of the basic
moral principles which govern nearly everything we regard as important in our
lives. To give this basic morality and decency the weight it deserves in our
dealings, including our political and “business” dealings with each other, a
weight far superior to simplistic “economic” considerations. To chose to do
things, in the words of John F. Kennedy, “not because they are easy, but
because they are hard.” But because they are truly worthwhile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Czi2FGF1UA8SZp5DubSiFzWzGhhXvpnfB9e7UcK9jApmnjx_foqWeZOrATfd2-yBPIj07oKATadGlAqOsoJzvamATRvoaG34J83aZbB3w9yfQQjLO2HqVSfhamc_GhkM4mhI5V61QxiT/s1600/debt+book1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Czi2FGF1UA8SZp5DubSiFzWzGhhXvpnfB9e7UcK9jApmnjx_foqWeZOrATfd2-yBPIj07oKATadGlAqOsoJzvamATRvoaG34J83aZbB3w9yfQQjLO2HqVSfhamc_GhkM4mhI5V61QxiT/s320/debt+book1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">The
questions I have been asking here crystallised, in part, for me after reading
David Graeber’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Debt-The-First-000-Years/dp/1933633867/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338646002&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Debt: The First Five Thousand Years</a>.</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"> You don’t have to agree with all
the author’s basic arguments to find this book compelling reading, but his
analysis and the questions he asks will certainly open your mind to seeing
things differently, above all, hopefully, to question the basic assumptions of
the all-pervasive standard economics way of seeing things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">One final
thought. The “Debt Crisis” can just as easily be called the “Credit Crisis.” The
roots of the word <i>credit</i> are in the
Latin word, <i>credire</i>, to believe. Credit
is a basic fact of life, one of the fundamental things which keeps life going,
on all sorts of levels. We believe each other, have faith in each other, trust
each other, e<i>xtend each other credit,</i> in thousands of ways every day. Even on the level of conventional
economics, trade, exchange, banking can only function at all on the basis of
trust and faith. Yet, the whole world of the “markets” has abandoned this
principle completely, and all those engaged in it seem to be operating on the
principle that they are living in a vastly dangerous jungle, with every man’s
hand raised against the other and where values like faith and trust are an
immediate invitation to self-destruction. How sick is that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is no
wonder, then, that the system is – possibly irrevocably – breaking down. Perhaps
the first step forward would be to change our attitudes to all those involved
in working in this area. Instead of admiring them as Masters of the Universe,
or fearing them as powerful Priests in the Temple of the Gods of the Market, we
should regard them with disdain and faint contempt; as sad and pitiable people,
unfortunately condemned to work in an area where it is almost impossible for
someone to work without losing their honour, their decency, and, ultimately,
their basic humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Pictures
retrieved from:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://assets.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/Debt-crisis*280.jpg?v=1"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://assets.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/Debt-crisis*280.jpg?v=1</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/euro-debt-crisis-medium.jpg"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/euro-debt-crisis-medium.jpg</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1933633867/ref=dp_otherviews_0?ie=UTF8&img=0&s=books">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1933633867/ref=dp_otherviews_0?ie=UTF8&img=0&s=books</a></span></div>
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[<i>To all bloggers: Friends, you may have noticed an absence of comments from me recently on your sites. I have some kind of glitch in my Blogger account at the moment, which is making it impossible for me to leave comments. I actually can't even leave comments on my <b>own </b>site! Believe me, please, I'm not snubbing you. I hope to get around to doing something about it soon. Sorry!</i>]</div>
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</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911334903016795718.post-23560382153835943052012-05-26T19:17:00.000+02:002012-05-26T19:17:17.880+02:001987 - A Very Good Year?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimiW9j8MoKpWaR7RsDNtB46mCgW_bEv3KicpcYodfDE01EU9UHx3ggF7jp6d43FOwKz54tzOfSnIYJtFikwZApQRWPpo2bxPoTFwD4sB-X0FrHhlqNZwtlNbIAeKhulQndYxfs8DnPg_Jy/s1600/1987-madonna-rolling-stone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimiW9j8MoKpWaR7RsDNtB46mCgW_bEv3KicpcYodfDE01EU9UHx3ggF7jp6d43FOwKz54tzOfSnIYJtFikwZApQRWPpo2bxPoTFwD4sB-X0FrHhlqNZwtlNbIAeKhulQndYxfs8DnPg_Jy/s320/1987-madonna-rolling-stone.jpg" width="261" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">In her
latest <a href="http://lisahgolden.blogspot.de/2012/05/im-excellent-driver.html" target="_blank">post</a></span><span lang="EN-GB">, my fellow blogger, Lisa Golden,
asks the question, “Imagine 1987 as the future and not the shrinking image in
the rearview mirror. What do you see?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">At first I
thought I’d do the usual thing and post a comment. But as I started thinking
about it, I realised that the question was just <i>too </i>good for that. And then I discovered that I didn’t really want
to imagine that year, a quarter of a century ago, as the future, but rather
remember it as it was then. And, instead of replying on Lisa’s blog, writing
something about it here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Although,
when I think about it, I suppose I can remember it as the future if I just
place myself in the me that was then, seeing in the New Year for the first time
in Western Germany, watching the fireworks rising into the sky above the Rhine
and Cologne Cathedral illuminating a snowy city, wondering what the year would
bring, still marvelling at the amazing new life I had begun, only a few months
earlier, to lead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For in the
previous year, fuelled by the irresistible, all-devouring power of falling head
over heels, completely, totally in love, I had trashed all the certainties and
goals of my life up till then, abandoning my life and existence as a Catholic
priest to start a new life in a new country. We had dared to take the words of
Bowie’s <i>Absolute Beginners</i> (one of
the big hits of 1986 and one of the songs we used as the soundtrack for the
perfect microcosm of our dramatic love story) literally, “As long as we’re
together / the rest can go to hell,” and set up our love-nest in Heidelberg. We
were visiting the Rhineland where Eva’s family lived for the holidays, which was
why we were greeting the New Year 1987 in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cologne</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">At the
beginning of any year, nothing is fixed. Anything can happen – and most
certainly will. Billions of stories, great and small, public and private, will
begin, end, continue. Out of all this we each construct our own realities, our
own stories, future flowing into present before becoming immutable past before
the background of everything else which is happening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What was
the background of 1987? Musically, Madonna is travelling the world with the <i>Who’s That Girl </i>tour, Michael Jackson
releases the album <i>Bad</i>, Whitney
Houston is warbling that she wants to dance with somebody (who loves her)<a href="file:///C:/Users/francis/Documents/Blog%20files/1987.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a>
and the film <i>Dirty Dancing </i>will be
released, turning Patrick Swayze into an idol for untold millions of adolescent
girls even beyond his death twenty two years later. Joss Stone and Kate Nash
are born. Liberace dies (of AIDS). And, for me as well as millions of others,
the music which still fills the role as soundtrack for that year is that of
U2’s <i>The Joshua Tree</i>; “With or
Without You,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Where the Streets
Have no Name.” Like me, they too came from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>, I had seen them live years
before when they were still learning to play. They had achieved heights on the <st1:place w:st="on">Olympus</st1:place> of rock previously unimaginable for an Irish
band. A symbol for me that year of the attainability of all kinds of
unimaginable dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But a year
which also taught me about how reality can bite. An immediate, fundamental
change happens. The few months of just enjoying freedom from all the constraints
of my previous priestly church-bound existence, a time of idle meditation on
what I might best do with the rest of my life comes to a sudden end. On New
Years Day Eva tells me of her suspicion that she is pregnant. I am faced with
the immediate reality of having to take on responsibility – for a child, and a
wife, for we also decide to marry. Life becomes challenging, in some ways even
threatening. Less than a year earlier, <st1:city w:st="on">Chernobyl</st1:city>
has exploded, spewing radioactive waste all over <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>,
and there are lingering worries about the consequences for women who are
becoming pregnant. Unfounded, as it happens, for most (apart from thousands in
the vicinity of the reactor in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place></st1:country-region>) but the worry is there.
And I’ve got to find a job, any job. There will be mouths to feed, and bills to
pay. I’m in a foreign country, my command of the language is rudimentary, and
employers aren’t exactly lining up to offer interesting, fulfilling, well-paid
jobs to young ex-priests. The little bit of money I had has almost run out.
Eva’s family will help us, but the luxury of taking time to find and orient
myself has abruptly run out for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luckily, <st1:city w:st="on">Heidelberg</st1:city> is a major centre for the US Forces in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> and they’re always looking for civilian employees
who can speak and write English fluently. As a native of a European Community
country, I have the same employment rights as a German in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>, so
there is no trouble there. And so, in March I start work as a Voucher Examiner
at the 266<sup>th</sup> Theater Finance Company of the US Army.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkFTfDFEVnt26LDLaTEb9TLLorbeX90vCIqRn7N3bQCf9nfNpMR_2KABMghSeqRo-_aUgPOOCjG9b3OuJ0sxQ8I5WeZWs_wWo0dksrGDR3v_9_8mSyXGeQYLGPXIWWXS6LSRmlJIX4mtr/s1600/reagan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkFTfDFEVnt26LDLaTEb9TLLorbeX90vCIqRn7N3bQCf9nfNpMR_2KABMghSeqRo-_aUgPOOCjG9b3OuJ0sxQ8I5WeZWs_wWo0dksrGDR3v_9_8mSyXGeQYLGPXIWWXS6LSRmlJIX4mtr/s320/reagan.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">It is
strange how practical circumstances can change your attitude to things. Three
years earlier, back in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ireland</st1:country-region>,
I’d been marching in a huge demonstration, proudly carrying a Sandinista flag,
against <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> foreign policy
and militarism generally on the occasion of Ronald Reagan’s visit to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dublin</st1:place></st1:city>. Now I was working
for the man, and glad to have the job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">The Cold
War was still – officially – going on, and my job was processing a tiny amount
of the tonnes of paperwork involved in paying the bills caused by the thousands
of US servicemen and women who were in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>
to protect us from the Evil Soviet Empire. But the thaw was on. Gorbachev had
come to power in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USSR</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and he was a man, as Margaret Thatcher famously said, with whom one could do
business. Reagan came to <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Berlin</st1:place></st1:state>
in 1987 and urged Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” but later that year
the two of them amicably made history by signing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INF_Treaty" target="_blank">INF Treaty</a>.</span> <span lang="EN-GB">In the near but as yet
unimagined future the Wall would come down, the Soviet Union disappear, and in
the wake of the huge realignment in world politics, most <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> and NATO troops would leave <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>. But in
1987 it was still business as usual in divided <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The work
itself was soul-destroying – taking a pile of paper which had already been
worked on by someone else, doing some more work on it, and then passing it on
to the next person to process it further. At some stage, a little farther down
the line, the bills actually got paid. The work environment was fascinating. We
were three distinct groups; soldiers, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> civilian employees (mostly
relatives of soldiers) and German/European employees. You got used to having
two currencies in your pocket, for the Coke machine only functioned with
quarters, nickels and dimes. The Americans were paid in dollars, we got our
wages in deutschmarks. Our conditions and duties at work were governed by
German labour law, the Americans followed army rules. They worked on German
public holidays, we had to turn up on the Fourth of July. They paid less taxes,
we could send our kids to college without it beggaring us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I got to
know an amazing world; that of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>
forces in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> – a little
bit of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
completely sealed off (for those who wanted it so) from the host country. In
places like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Henry_Village" target="_blank">Patrick Henry Village</a></span><span lang="EN-GB"> you could live for years, shopping
at the Commissary or the PX Store, buying your (American) car from an American
import dealer, going to an American movie theatre or McDonalds, sending your
kids to an American school, worshipping in an American church, without any
contact with the wider world around you. I worked with people who had been in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place>
for ten years and had never learned a word of German.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The radio
was on in our office all the time, and it was US stations we listened to. That
year, the major theme was Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Affair (given
increasing rumours of Reagan’s Alzheimer, one joke going around at the time
took Howard Baker’s famous Watergate question and amended it to, “What did the
president forget and when did he forget it?”).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But outside
Thompson Barracks where I worked, my life was becoming increasingly German. My
command of the language was slowly improving and I was making new friends. In
the course of all this I was also making a discovery which astounded me. As an
Irishman, I had grown up speaking English and I would always have claimed that,
behind my particular Irish conscious identity, my default cultural conditioning
was that of the English-speaking, American-dominated cultural world; literature,
music, film, TV. Yet the more I worked for and with Americans, the more I found
myself identifying myself as a European. On some sort of profound level I felt
that I had more in common with the Germans, to whose country I had come less
than a year earlier and whose language I still spoke very badly, than with the
Americans, with whom I shared a language and whose popular culture I felt
completely familiar with, and at home in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In
retrospect, it probably had much to do with the fact that, in that year of
1987, I was finding and developing a new identity for myself, an identity built
on my exciting new role as lover and husband and – most fundamentally – father.
A real one this time, as opposed to the pointless honorific conventionally
offered to Catholic priests, something I had never felt comfortable with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Many famous
people died that year; Andy Warhol, Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire, John Huston
and James Baldwin, to mention just a few. And, on a wonderfully sunny August
morning, the last of the top Nazi elite, the sole inhabitant of Spandau prison
in <st1:place w:st="on">East Berlin</st1:place>, the sad, evil old bastard,
Rudolf Hess, ended his sorry life by his own hand. On that day my daughter was
born and I remember thinking, in the midst of my swirling, astounded joy and
wonder, that this was a sign of some kind, the end of one ghastly chapter and
the beginning of a new one, full of hope and endless possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On that day
in August 1987 I knew that my life had changed irrevocably. The future was, as
always, unknown, but now it would contain this marvellous new life, completely
dependent on my wife and me. That she would be joined by a sister was something
I might perhaps have suspected then. That the love which had made me toss my
life on its head and give rise to her very existence would prove unequal to the
everyday challenges of life and time was something I could not have imagined. Yet
that happened too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">All in the
future then, the past now. Time is a river and it only goes in one direction. What
an adventure! Or, in one of the best phrases <i>The Grateful Dead </i>ever coined, “What a long, strange trip it’s
been.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">1987 … it <i>was </i>a very good year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/francis/Documents/Blog%20files/1987.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[i]</span></span></span></a> <span lang="EN-GB">Coincidence is sometimes frightening. The radio is
playing in the background as I write this. Thirty seconds after typing this
phrase, I hear the introduction to <i>I
wanna dance with somebody (who loves me) </i>begin. Honestly! Life is strange
indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt;">Pictures retrieved from:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="http://allaboutmadonna.com/images/interviews/1987-madonna-rolling-stone.jpg"><span lang="EN-GB">http://allaboutmadonna.com/images/interviews/1987-madonna-rolling-stone.jpg</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="https://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2004/06/08/2091-8-6-04_FAREWELLGIPPER.jpg">https://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2004/06/08/2091-8-6-04_FAREWELLGIPPER.jpg</a></span></div>
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</div>Francis Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00422476000328664994noreply@blogger.com10