Living Through History

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.  On this day in 1989, a tile in the “iron curtain” separating Eastern and Western Europe came down.  More than just a physical separation, it represented two different visions of what post-NAZI life should be like.  After the fall of the old older in Word War I, the organisation of state and values of society were very much up for grabs.  Whilst to a large extent they still are,  this remarkable event effectively saw the end of one era in this debate- the end of the “Cold War”.

That is the end of my analysis of the event itself or its historical implications.  Whilst I could do some historical research (which I haven’t) and come to an informed opinion, I could not reliably relate its relevance to those who personally witnessed it.  I do not, therefore, want use specific details of it to make specific (and possibly gerrymandered) philosophical or political points.  It will have meant different things, but no less dramatic, to people who do not share my political views.  It is best to leave interpretation to the primary sources (its witnesses) which are still being formed and recorded.  To do any different would take away from the event’s human element.

Nevertheless, it is safe to say that, for good or ill, history decided against the Soviet style state.  Whatever the relative merits of the new situation compared to old, or socialist state compared to a free market one, there is no doubting it was a turning point.  Yet, to think that this is something that has happened in my life time is truly mind-blowing!  As a four year old I wasn’t aware of it and even if I had, I wouldn’t understood the significance of it.  It is nonetheless difficult to conceive of something so ‘out of the natural order’ happening with in my natural life.  Seemingly world-altering or apocalyptic moments seem the stuff of history and distant memory.    They are just too discordant with my experience  of the world to process.

Part of the reason is that we pick out “historical events” that are discontinuous but experience our live as continuous.  We do not experience events as sudden jolts that can alter the fabric of existence but as transitions between what comes before and what comes after.  History is digital but we are analogue.  Due to this,  we (or maybe just I) are not left breathless by events such Crusades, because everything about their life seems different to us now.  It doesn’t seem odd that an event can change history when neither its predecessor or successor seem normal or inevitable to us.  It is the discontinuity amidst continuity that leaves me speechless.  How can one event be so life-changing when everything else is the same? 

To illustrate: It is hard to believe that the Holocaust was only 70 years ago!  It is hard to believe that [many of] the eldest generation of Jews are survivors and [many of] the eldest generation of Germans are perpetrators!  Why?  Because Germans life then is just so similar to our life now.  They listened to Beethoven as we do, attend university as we do, drive cars as we do, read a lot of the same novels and philosophy as we do and had many of our concerns.  How could they, who are so similar to us, have supported a NAZI state?  How could this 90 year old man, who is almost exactly like other 90 year old men, be guilty of war crimes?

It is just too hard to put into words those differences that are at once so slight and yet so massive.  It happened in my lifetime and yet is so other-worldly.   It is not yet something I can understand as history but not something that I can understand through my experience. I can only be silent in front of a Holocaust survivor or someone who was at the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

Each person who gives an account may have divergent interpretations of experiences then and radically different political views now.  Yet one cannot argue with any person who was there about their interpretation (of course one can correct facts) of their experiences.  I can only be witness to what they have to say- people who in their very hearts and their very bones felt change.  They are the primary sources in the making.  Whilst I can only [and not yet] analyse history, they lived through history.

David Cameron, Charles I and the Demon Barber of Downing Street

The knives are out. “Off with their heads” screams the Queen of Hearts. “Slash their necks” cantors Sweeney Todd. “You won’t even have a constituency home if you are not careful” says David Cameron with a wry smile.

That’s right. Julie Kirkbride M.P. has to answer to his “scrutiny panel”. It sounds as if I could make this into a sexual innuendo, but I have no idea what it would be. As it is, it conjures up a picture of the Spanish Inquisition. A confession will be scrutinised out of her - “if only you would admit your sin of embarrassing your Lord and Saviour”- and once she admits humiliating Davey, she’ll have to pay the King’s Ransom. Or death; political death. It will be- as my Pythonesque imagination envisions- a foregone conclusion and a show trial. No real consideration for the case on its individual merits, but a chance for a public hanging of a former favourite.

Now I don’t know the law but it seems she, like most M.P.’s didn’t break any- unlike the few that committed outright fraud. Nor do I know what the “spirit” of expenses are meant to be. For my job, I have a small amount of personal expenses, but I can’t possibly think what I need to use them for. And on what basis do I judge if I have used them in the right spirit? From a glance her excuses don’t seem so bad. She is ‘accused’ of letting her brother stay rent-free in her second home. Julie’s response: he looks after my son so I can do my constituency work. Fair enough.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not “fair enough”. Maybe this was an abuse of this ineffable spirit. However, the point is that all the town cryer (read: Daily Telegraph) has to do is to spread a rumour of witchcraft and the poor witch is automatically condemned. Not only that, but the Grand Inquisitor is the very Bishop that gave her ordination. Yes, David Cameron has to be seen to be doing the Lord’s work or otherwise it will be he that is condemned as witch-man. Not only that but the whole Church would tumble down besides him.

David Cameron has learned from the mistakes of Charles I. Unlike his father (James VI) who would make any concession to save his popularity and to oil the wheels of parliament, Charles was too principled. He was too well intentioned and we all now where that ended! He was literally beheaded for his sins against the G-dly.

Charles would not do, for example, what kings of England had done since the days of Edward III and the ‘Good Parliament’ of 1376 and jettisoned a royal favourite for the sake of an improved working relationship between Crown and parliament. Cynicism and disloyalty shocked him deeply. Instead, Charles insisted on looking at the individual merits of the case. This was a terrible mistake. You will not find any chapters in constitutional histories devoted to the rituals of therapeutic disgrace, but creative scapegoating had, none the less, long been an integral element of English politics. Concentrating odium for unpopular policies on the head of a politician… preserved the fiction that the ‘king could do no wrong’.

Charles refused to scapegoat one of his advisors and so consequently, the blame had nowhere to go but to him. If the King stood by the minister, then he was saying that he was personally responsible for unpopular policy. His honesty led to his unpopularity!

So David Cameron has learnt well. Find some scapegoats for the unpopular policy and…. Slash Slash Slash. Maybe this is a necessary move. Charles’ refusal to act led to civil war and revolution; and maybe Cameron’s policies will help prevent too much of a revolution in our democracy. However, despite its political pragmatism, it doesn’t feel right!

Say what, Mr. Shakespeare?

Shakespeare is the plague of every child's English lessons.  His language makes it so hard for anyone to understand what he is trying to say.  He might be the stuff of night-time fantasies for the English teacher but more likely to infest the nightmares of everyone else. The sentiment is heartily expressed in 'Back and Forth' where Blacadder (having gone back in time) punched Shakespeare and said:

This is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next four hundred years.  Have you any idea how much suffering you are going to cause.  Hours spent at school desks trying to find one joke in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?  Years wearing stupid tights in school plays and saying things like ‘What ho, my lord’ and ‘Oh, look, here comes Othello, talking total crap as usual’. 

However, it is funny that he should raise 'lack of jokes' as the cause of suffering.  There are, for some, too many jokes in Shakespeare.  I know an English teacher in a Beis Yaakov school who has to teach Shakespeare as he is on the National Curriculum.  She has said how she has been instructed to skip over all the sexual innuendos and hope they don't ask any questions!  Here though, is where the terse language is an advantage for the Bais Yaakovs, if not the Edmund Blackadders, of this world.

As for the 'talking total crap as usual' , one might presume this is a result of the language being very old and no longer understandable.  Rather like with Bible translations, we are subjected to pathos at the expense of  understanding what is being said.  However, I very much doubt that there is a direct correlation between a decline in understanding and time passing.  I wonder: Did those who paid their penny to stand at the Globe have any idea what was going on or did they just go to leer at men in womens' clothing?  Was the theatre a place of high culture or a mere alternative to the bear baiting ring?

It is quite possible that those in Shakespeare's day wouldn't have understood his language.  The problem for them wouldn't be the antiquarian nature of his language.  In fact, the opposite would be true.  They would have been justified had the exclaimed "That guy is just making up words".   Words found for the first time in Shakespeare include:

abstemious, antipathy, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, excellent, eventful, barefaced, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, distinguishable, well-read, zany, countless

This is not to mention all the words he made up by being the first person to add un- in front of words, such like unlock, untie and unveil (unsufflicate?). Given that many of these are common words, I could (and will) exaggerate and say the only words they would have understood are the one we don't understand today!

As David Crystal (Shakespeare scholar in Bill Bryson book) says, "Most modern authors, I imagine, would be delighted if they contributed even one lexeme to the future of the language".  Shakespeare, however, was prolific.  One thing we can take comfort in, however, is that we can actually spell our name, whilst Shakespeare was a little more unsure.  In six extant signatures of his that we have, no two are spelt the same and none how we spell it!

And which 'Diary of Anne Frank' is that?

I never knew that the Anne Frank diary we have today is not exactly what Anne Frank herself wrote.  Those she shared with were not the Van Daans and there wasn't a Mr. Dussel either!  Or, to be more specific, they were made up names.

There is, in fact, an A, B and C edition of the diary and numerous versions in between.  A is what she originally wrote as she went along.  However, late in the war she heard over the radio that the Dutch government wanted to collect memoirs of war-time experiences.  Having heard this she started to edit her diary ready for publishing!  She took out items that were too personal, added the now-famous "Dear Kitty" to all the passages, changed everyone's names and revised some of the more harsh entries about her mother.  This is version B.

When the war was over, Otto Frank decided to fulfill his daughter's requests to publish her diaries.  However, he edited the diary further.  He took out anything that wouldn't be "becoming" of a young girl in early 20th Century Britain, as well as the more unflattering remarks about other members of the annexe. He reinstated his families names but left everyone else's pseudonyms.  This version- the one to become "A Diary of a Young Girl" - was made up of a mix of A and B and thus, became C.

The interesting question is which one is the most definitive edition or the one we should read today?  Is it A because this is Anne's unadulterated thoughts?  Alternatively, is it B because this is how Anne wanted it to be read? Or is it C because this is the diary that many generations have come to know, love and draw inspiration from?

"Welcome back to Hyde Park" and other short stories

Well... not stories as such. Or really at all. It's all about carrots and sticks. Get sucked in by the (in inverted commas) 'intriguing' title and then whipped by my harsh words.
---------------------------

A few weeks ago I moved into my new house in Hyde Park (Leeds) having lived in Woodhouse for a year. I was immediately struck by a sense of a familiarity. Nay... sentimentality. This wasn't just the overpriced vegtables at Sainsburys/ Jacksons nor the tourist attraction that is the boarded up Royal Park Primary School. No... I (and my housemate on a seperate occassion) heard a (again in inverted commas) 'sneeze'. But not any old sneeze. Not the 'I've just dusted after a whole year of not doing so, and it has got up my nose' sneeze. Not the 'damn the pollen count, even though its raining' sneeze. Not even the commoner-garden 'morning sneezing fit' sneeze. The 'I have a cold' sneeze? NO

It was a 'directed at me' sneeze' It was the 'A-Jew' sneeze. Sounds a bit like 'A-Choo' but 'Jew' instead. Which is quite funny. Because I am one. A Jew that is. Or so my skullcap would suggest to the modern Hyde Park youth. They don't know me and I doubt it was to exercise my world-renowned sense of humour. Even if it was, it wouldn't be very funny... I've heard it before. Many times. It gets less amusing each time. They always look like they want to confront me but I don't oblige with anything more than an evil stare.

It seems to be quite a uniform Hyde Park thing. I wonder where they teach it. At home? At the mosque? At the Young Marrieds group? At the 'bring your child to work' day? I don't know and probably never will.

Never mind... it could always be worse.
--------------------------------

On reading Simon Schama's 'A History of Britain: Volume one' I discovered something I didn't know before. Well... many things. Otherwise why read the book? But just one which sticks out this particular moment and not the one about when and why the 'Prince of Wales' title first came about. Instead... it is the one about the 'yellow stars' that Edward ('Longshanks') I of England (and feudal overlord of Wales and for a short time Scotland) forced the Jews to wear to identify themselves. I'd never heard of yellow-star-wearing apart from in connection to the NAZIs and the Nurembeurg Laws.

I mean- I shouldn't have been surprised. The NAZIs were the first to release the 'Greatest Hits' album of anti-semitic symbols. Most of the NAZI leaders were educated and cultured men. They knew their history and they knew their style (those black unifroms will never go out of style). They didn't make much up themselves but they arranged past ideas in the most effective manner possible (one might argue that arranging other people's ideas is the very mark of 'orginality')

But.. I'd never thought about it. But it originated in Britain! Edward didn't learn his trade at the mosque. No... his 'pious' mother Eleanor was a keen believer on the 'blood libels' The Jews killed Christian children to use their blood in their Passover matzot (unleavened bread). I've never done it myself. And on Passover... all the Rakusen matzo box says under ingredients is 'flour and water' (hence bread). I'm sure the trading standards agency would have something to say about this mislabelling of products.

In this very same era, England has the dubious honour of being the first to expel its Jews 'as if they were some contagious disease' (as said by Schama)
-------------------------

But then again... Schama is Jewish and part of the world Jewish conspiracy. Last week I watched 'The War on Britain's Jews?' on Channel 4 by Richard Littlejohn. The most interesting point to come out of it for me (apart from the desecration of garves, Jewish schools having to have high fences and rabbis being attacked) was the perception that if you believe in anti-semitism 'you must be a Jew'. If you aren't a hysterical Jew, you wouldn't believe the malicious rumours we spread. The presenter has been called a Jew and sent anti-semitic emails, as has Nick Cohen (who is not a Jew but has criticised by the current state of the 'left'), as has the author of the all-parliamentary report into anti-semitism.

So the moral is.. don't listen to me! I think this is sound advice at the best of times. But I am complaining about anti-semitism... so even more reason
------------------------

As much as Christian Europe were the progenitors of such virulent anti-semitims the arab world has done a valiant job at taking it up. Just looking that latest blood libels coming from the Middle East, I was 'amused' to learn that we are now using the blood of Palestinian (oh how fickle us Jews are not to be using Christian babies anymore) children for our Purim cakes. We've branched out!

There was a very nice interview with Muhammad Al-Buheiri (a researcher given a scholarship by Egyptian government) on 'Nile TV' saying we still do the blood libels today:

Interviewer: "I have another question. Who are the people who prepare these matzos? Are they Jewish extremists or moderates? As a researcher specializing in inter-faith dialogue, do you believe this still occurs in Israel? I'm rephrasing the question."

Muhammad Al-Buheiri: "I believe it does, because these are religious rituals."

Inter-faith worker? Inter-faith work takes tact. Whilst I don't tact this guy surely does:

Muhammad Al-Buheiri: "First of all, we should be aware that the Jews always implement a rule they consider basic: A loud voice is capable of erasing the truth."

Of Course the interviewer helpfully interevenes so as not to upset a sensitive, politically-correct viewing public: Interviewer: "The media are controlled by the Jews."
--------------

Sweet dreams Children