Let them swim!

If it were true that Maria Antoinette had mockingly suggested "Let them eat cake (brioche)", when told that the people were rioting because they lacked bread, the outrage that this would have caused would certainly be understandable. In fact, we find it so hard to believe that such cynicism could exist, that some historians have dismissed the comment as a fabrication to incense the masses, while others try to offer benign interpretations, such as the availability of brioche. And yet, isn't that exactly how Italy's Salvini is behaving? He and his cronies, as well as others, like Muscat, the Prime Minister of  Malta, are clearly saying: "Let them swim!", which means nothing less than: "Let them drown!"

The controversial Ai Wei Wei photo of the artist posing as the little drowned refugee toddler who washed up on the shores of Lesbos

In 2018 over 2,000 did. The ratio between those attempting the journey and those dying was 18:1 between January and July 2018, whilst in 2017 it was 42:1 (UNHCR statistics). This is therefore much higher than previous years, even though the number attempting the crossing has gone down. Why is this the case? Because the policy is just that: let them drown. Saving them only encourages others fleeing war, persecution, famine and other ills to attempt the crossing. "Let them eat cake!" is mild by comparison. We have lost all sense of humanity and to our shame the Mediterranean Sea has been turned into a watery grave. This month, over 200 have drowned. Of course, the real number is probably much higher, as who knows how many die unnoticed? Still, If you would like the latest UNHCR figures, you can access them here.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.

Shakespeare: The Tempest

The Brexit Debacle Continues

Yesterday, the debacle of Brexit reached new heights with the Commons voting on a number of amendments, the results of which only highlighted the absurdity of some of the leading positions. If you had to offer an extension to ten-year-old pupils sitting for an exam that they had no hope of finishing in time, they would of course be delighted, but no, not the bulk of parliamentarians! They would rather fail, than risk appearing slow. Or are they afraid that they will miss the ice-cream van waiting outside? They voted down the option of allowing themselves more time to sort Brexit out despite not having a clue on how to go about it. The problem is that they will drag much of the country down with them. What was even more surreal was Theresa May leading the charge against her own deal ("the only possible deal", as she herself had repeatedly called it); succeeding... and calling it a victory! A caricature of Delacroix's painting, Liberty Leading the People springs to mind, with May's face, a Brexit flag and her own deal underfoot!

Jonathan Freeland writing for The Guardian, sums up the situation beautifully:

Almost everyone involved, from both main parties, showed themselves to be immersed in delusion, trading fantasies and absurdities, each one refusing to meet reality’s eye, let alone tackle it head on.

The article is witty, insightful and well worth reading; you can access here. 

Meanwhile, 30 prominent writers and intellectuals have published a powerful manifesto on the dangers of anti-European sentiment titled: Fight for Europe - or the wreckers will destroy it. It, too, is worth reading and you can access it by following the link.

The Bench at the Edge: extract

As promised, here is an extract from my book The Bench at the Edge; more will follow:


Absolute chaos does not need a name; it does not call out for one, but consistency diminishes the chaos, thereby making it no longer absolute. What is consistent calls out for a name: an atom, a neutron, a molecule... A stone, a planet, a star...

Things then beg a description. And their context, some sort of geography; their duration and interaction, history; their numbers, maths; their patterns, geometry: on and on until the advent of language and all the sciences. Even though words are arbitrary classifiers, being born of chaos and consistency they do command a certain wisdom. Words separate thought from thinking; they separate moments from eternity; a confine from continuity... Though powerful, they are fragile and cling to convention lest they dissipate.

Words are like skeletons: they uphold us. Words are like skeletons: they are the prison within. What words will remain when the milky way is spilt into the abyss to fecund other worlds? Will we float on them like leaves in the wind?

The Mosuo: 10 Interesting Facts

The Mosuo are a people with a unique lifestyle who live by Lake Lu Gu in southern China. Here are same amazing facts regarding the Mosuo and their culture.

1. Mosuo women are the heads of their households; the matriarch assigns tasks to other family members, holds the purse strings, owns the household property rights and makes the business decisions; but women are also responsible for most of the chores and are often seen working in the fields fully garbed in their traditional costumes. 

2. Men tend to look after (and slaughter) the livestock, go fishing and build the traditional homes, generally consisting of four buildings around a central courtyard. They are also responsible for political and funerary matters. 

3. Offspring may be swapped between families in order to create a gender balance in households. This way the balance of skills and duties is maintained.

4. The institution of marriage does not exist in traditional Mosuo culture. When a girl reaches puberty, she is given a “flower chamber”, a personal boudoir, where she can “secretly” invite a partner of her choice. There is no time limit for these “walking marriages” and a woman may change partners as often as she likes. The partner discretely leaves in the morning and would need an invitation to return, though never for more than a night at a time. 

5. Traditionally, neither men, nor women leave the family home, households could therefore span a number of generations. Only sexually active women would generally have their private chambers; other family members tend live communally. 

6. Most of the Mosuo are centred around, or in the vicinity of Lu Gu Hu ('Hu' means lake) on the borders of Sichuan and Yunnan, by the foothills of the Himalayas and not far from Tibet. 

7. The original religion of the Mosuo is Dabaism, which incorporates animism and ancestor worship. Later, Tantric Buddhism was introduced and accepted, alongside the original beliefs and rituals. 

8. Despite the Buddhist element within the Mosuo faith, fish and meat form an important part of their diet. Nevertheless, dogs are highly respected, having exchanged their longer lifespan for humans’ original shorter one, as legend would have it. 

9. The Chinese government respects and supports the Mosuo culture; the most significant threat to the Mosuo is the encroaching of modern society.

10. Although the Mosuo are a distinct cultural entity, the Chine government classifies them with the Nashi , one of the 56 ethnic group recognised in China.

Benjamin Christensen's Häxan

Häxan (1922) the silent film on witchcraft by the Danish film director Benjamin Christensen is overwhelming even by today's standards of special-effect cinematography. Häxan begins as a documentary but gradually pulls the viewer into a disturbing world of demons, witches and hysteria that is so vivid in its portrayal, that it is not difficult to see why the film was banned in the US and censured in so many countries. Ironically, you may find that the scariest characters in Häxan are not the terrifying devils and witches themselves, but the forces that oppose them; namely the sinister  ministers of the Inquisition. These, unfortunately, we will not be able to dismiss as fantasy or hysteria, as their evil is well documented in our history books. If you would like to watch Häxan in its entirety, I would recommend this atmospheric Swedish Film Institute version:

https://youtu.be/CkXlXc0lA9c

However there are other interesting ones, such as the jazzy, Antony Balch production, narrated by William S. Burroughs. If you would rather start with a taster, here are some highlights: 

UN-HELPFUL: The UN's compromising on issues that matter

On the 17th December 2018, the UN adopted a resolution aimed at defeating Nazism and neo-Nazism titled ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.’ 

http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/73/157 

The document revolves around these victims of discrimination and intolerance and clarifies who they might be throughout the report. 'Anti-Semitism', 'Islamophobia', 'Christianophobia', 'Arabophobic', 'Afrophobic', 'Roma' and 'ethnic' are the terms used, often on more than a few occasions. Sometimes the terminology is less specific, but the references are clear enough.

Is the UN forgetting the thousands of homosexuals, or the hundreds of thousands of disabled people, murdered by the Nazi regime? The omission would have been bad enough if the document was speaking about prejudice in general, but denying these groups a mention in the context of Nazism is outright obscene. Was it an oversight? Perhaps with regards to disabled people, who tend to become invisible when they, or their advocates, are not present, shouting their cause, but leaving any mention of the ongoing prejudice against LGBT is a clear symptom of the feeble UN that has to pander to the scores of homophobic countries within its midst. The LGBT community is an obvious butt of Nazism and neo-Nazism, but, as well as that, even today, the legislation of many countries actually enforces this persecution. This week Angola decriminalised homosexuality, but the fact remains that it is still illegal in about 70 countries (over 1/3 of UN recognised countries), with a few actually using the death penalty as a deterrent.

A new organisation called UNaligned is about to be launched that intends to show up the hypocrisies of the UN and offer a virtual alternative that people can feel an active part of. The launch should be within a few weeks and it will be announced in this blog... so watch this space!

Okakura Kakuzō

Okakura Kakuzo was a Japanese writer and luminary (1862-1913) mostly celebrated in the west for his short, but brilliant work: The Book of Tea (1906). If I had not been a tea enthusiast, this little gem would have probably passed me by unnoticed. Whilst tea is indeed the central theme of the book, the exposition is by no means limited or technical; rather it celebrates culture, simplicity and humanity through tea, which makes "all its votaries aristocrats in taste". Here are some quotes that aim to give a taste of this delicious work, even though you will not find a hint of tea in them. 

A tea shop in Sichuan, where visitors can experience the Chinese tea ritual. The lady opposite is presiding over the ceremony

Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade: all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is there which easy to expound? The ancient sages never put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for they were afraid of uttering half-truths.

We have an old saying in Japan that a woman cannot love a man who is truly vain, for there is no crevice in his heart for love to enter and fill up. In art vanity is equally fatal to sympathetic feeling, whether on the part of the artist or the public.

People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly.

The primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden thereby transcended the brute. He became human in thus rising above the crude necessities of nature. He entered the realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless.

Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer.

The Bench at the Edge

Welcome to my blog! I would like to start off by introducing my new book, The Bench on the Edge, which is available on Amazon as an e-book. It is a philosophical story that begins after the protagonist, Karel Varma, is fatally run-over. He is propelled into a very different world, which presents its own challenges that range from having to differentiate between illusion and reality, to finding perfect love. The context becomes mythological and as the story develops it offers its own unique interpretation of the meaning of life. I will be posting extracts and comments as the blog develops, but I will start with the introductory quote from Zhuangzi:

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you have caught the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you have caught the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you have grasped the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a person who has forgotten words? I would like to talk with that person.”