RosieBell

ANZAC day

Yesterday being 100 years since the landing on Gallipoli, I'll repost this:-

Today, 25th April is ANZAC day, which in Australia and New Zealand is the equivalent of Armistice Day.  It commemorates the landing of the ANZAC forces in Gallipoli during the First World War, where they were ultimately defeated by the Turks.  In Britain this is called the Dardanelles campaign, but in Australia and New Zealand it’s called “Gallipoli.“  This song by Eric Bogle tells the story of a crippled veteran:-  

Eric Bogle emigrated to Australia from Peebles in Scotland .  He does the odd tour in the UK and I have seen him received rapturously by a Scottish folkie audience.  He’s short and a bit tubby, and a young bloke sitting next to me said, “He’s a god, isn’t he?” in a voice of pure worship.  I’ve met him a few times and he’s a very nice, unassuming guy.

I find the song heart-breaking but the last verse is wrong:-

And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question.

The war, the Gallipoli part of it, isn’t forgotten by a long stretch.  The young people know about it and on their almost compulsory overseas travels go there to be greatly moved and greatly accusing of the British, especially Winston Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty and chief instigator of the campaign) for leading their ancestors into such a mess.  In my primary school I was taught it as one of the great cock-ups of history.  The film Gallipoli presents the British as tea drinking incompetents and ignores the great numbers of British troops who were also killed in the campaign.  Gallipoli, both in historical fact and legend, influences the movement for an Australian republic. 

There is no ill feeling towards the Turks because they are seen as defending their own territory.   Turks are also friendly and welcoming to travelling strangers, and are generally liked.

I have done the tour of Gallipoli myself, gazing at the beach landing where the invading troops had to scramble up a cliff, and the little hill tops they had captured briefly and then lost.  The place smelt of pine, the grass was brown and brittle, the cicadas were chirping,  the air was hot, the sea blue and the terrain steep and hilly.  It reminded me of Auckland, where some of my family live.  The tanned Australians and New Zealanders in shorts and t-shirts were very respectful around the graves and treated the English guide like Jeremy Paxman interviewing a politician.  “So who was responsible then?”  They told each other stories about dysentery and thirst that had been handed down by grandfathers and great great uncles.  “They stood in shit (pronounced “sheet”) all the time and the smells were awful.”

They acknowledge the bravery and endurance of the soldiers, and become terribly emotional about their suffering, without feeling they need to defend the cause for which they fought, just blaming the old imperialist state.  Colonial lions led by donkeys sitting around a table in London.

For the Turks their victory was an inspiration for Turkish nationalism.  Mestafa Kemal was a divisional commander and his success at repelling the invaders gave him huge prestige, helping him in his later political career which finally culminated in his becoming Ataturk, the Father of Turkey, whose statues and portraits are found all over the country. The tourists look at the many British and Commonwealth graves and memorials to find their family names but they also stop at the slab on which are carved Ataturk’s words of reconciliation:-

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours.. You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now living in our bosom and are in peace. Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Australians and New Zealand English wouldn’t produce such rhetoric but they are touched by it. 

The Turks call the campaign after the port Çanakkale where the Turks repulsed the Royal Navy and they have their own beautiful song,  Çanakkale içinde, which is very popular.

 

 

The war is declared.
It came down on us like fire.
The whole country shed tears.
The Anyali Carsi,
the market place, in Çanakkale
I'm leaving for the enemy Mother
And there goes my boyhood.
The cypress tree grows tall in Çanakkale
Some of us were engaged,
Some married,
And there goes my boyhood.
They've shot me in Çanakkale
Put me in a grave, I wasn't dead!
And there goes my boyhood.

It is not a victory song but like Bogle's song a lament for lost youth.

While I was looking for a translation of the lyrics of that song, I found an Islamist take on Dardanelles/Gallipoli/Çanakkale.

We have celebrated the annual commemoration of the martyrs of Çanakkale (pronounced Chanakkalé) with a mawlid on Thursday night. The actual day was Wednesday, March 18th.

Sheykh Abdul Kerim Efendi reminded us of the significance of this battle as the last real jihad authorized by the Caliph, the Sultan in Istanbul. This 19th Crusade to destroy Islam failed as a consequence of about 250,000 martyrs, mostly young men aged 18-25. It marked the triumph of spiritual and religious power over state of the art materialistic power.

And on the back of that triumph the atheist Ataturk set up a secular state.

(I wrote this later):-

Generations

(for my brother-in-law, John Lyall)

From Australia, my mother made a call.
“What are you doing? “Nothing much at all.”

“I remembered young Dave Lyall today,
Your great uncle, killed at Suvla Bay.

At seventeen,” And that was young to me,.
David Lyall, left in Gallipoli.

And my grandfather, who was crippled from,
A bullet in the neck got at the Somme.

We cleared my mother’s house and found his pack,
The unit number stencilled on the back.

The empires spilled and caused a mighty stain.

This cafe is encased by Auckland’s rain.

I think of that old war, and it’s so sad,
And long ago. I tap my phone. “Hi, Dad!”

“Whatcha doing?” Nothing much. Work and fun”
No khakied man taught us to fire a gun.

I talk to David Lyall, Davo, my son.

 

The harrowing of hell

This is the day of the Harrowing of Hell, when Jesus Christ descends and releases the poor souls trapped in Satan's realm of torture. The idea of throwing the doors open to let out the imprisoned is always an inspiring one, be it a jail or a zoo. Also, Christ changes from a victim to a warrior.
Scotland's great poet William Dunbar celebrated this:-

Done is a Battle

BY WILLIAM DUNBAR

Done is a battle on the dragon black,
Our champion Christ confoundit has his force;
The yetis of hell are broken with a crack,
The sign triumphal raisit is of the cross,
The devillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis are borrowit and to the bliss can go,
Christ with his bloud our ransonis dois indoce:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

Dungan is the deidly dragon Lucifer,
The cruewall serpent with the mortal stang;
The auld kene tiger, with his teith on char,
Whilk in a wait has lyen for us so lang,
Thinking to grip us in his clawis strang;
The merciful Lord wald nocht that it were so,
He made him for to failye of that fang.
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

He for our saik that sufferit to be slane,
And lyk a lamb in sacrifice was dicht,
Is lyk a lion risen up agane,
And as a gyane raxit him on hicht;
Sprungen is Aurora radious and bricht,
On loft is gone the glorious Apollo,
The blissful day departit fro the nicht:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

The grit victour again is rissen on hicht,
That for our querrell to the deth was woundit;
The sun that wox all pale now shynis bricht,
And, derkness clearit, our faith is now refoundit;
The knell of mercy fra the heaven is soundit,
The Christin are deliverit of their wo,
The Jowis and their errour are confoundit:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

The fo is chasit, the battle is done ceis,
The presone broken, the jevellouris fleit and flemit;
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis,
The fetteris lowsit and the dungeon temit,
The ransoun made, the prisoneris redeemit;
The field is won, owrecomen is the fo,
Dispuilit of the treasure that he yemit:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

Unseating the Segregationists

Well, can you believe it?. An illiberal piece of policy is advanced by a powerful body, against it comes a petition, a demonstration, media shouting and then the policy is withdrawn. Amazing.

To recap,  Universities UK, (UUK) (formerly The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom)  put out guidelines that allowed speakers at meetings in universities to insist women and men be segregated for "genuinely religious" reasons. Student Rights picked this up.  The bloggers you'd expect - Maryam Nazie,  Ophelia Benson,  James Bloodworth produced angry posts. The mainstream media moved in - Nick Cohen in the Spectator, and Yasmin Alibai-Brown, finely furious, in The Independent.  

Imagine the scenario:-

Sheikh Shifty is invited by some ISOC group to speak about Freedom and Justice at the University of Excellence.  Sheikh Shifty will only speak if the women sit separate from the men.  
 
Obvious answer - tell the misogynist theocrat to take a hike, in these words,

"I am sorry to inform you that it is against the principles of the University to allow meetings to occur with gender segregation."

But not in the UUK's horrible management speak:- .

if imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely-held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event, or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully

There was a petition and a small demonstration which Channel 4 covered at length.

Then the BBC began to thunder. The Today programme (1:35) on 11th December had a long piece which started with the reporter regretting his old LSE, the one in the 1980s where students were raucous but not so ready to be offended, or offended on the behalf of putative others.  
 
The next day the BBC got Nicola Dandridge, the Chief Executive of UUK, into the Today (2:10) studio. Regular Today listeners recognised the tones with which Justin Webb interrogated her. It's the one which they use on a duplicitous politician who has no moral leg to stand on -  who has, say, been fiddling her expenses.  It's the voice of outraged decency against a moral moron and it was music to my ears, an angry liberal telling off a squirming piece of inconsistency and illogic. (For a biting take down of Dandridge's muddled defence, I would strongly recommend this.)

"If this is all that Dandridge means – that people have the right to sit where the hell they want and some will sit cliquishly by gender or other groupings, there is no role for Universities and no reason why the situation should ever be addressed in policy.

Worse, “If women want to sit where the hell the want”? IF? What is this world in which you live where women routinely have no desires and sit where they are told without a single thought disrupting the gentle currents of air between their ears?

All women always sit where they want unless coerced or forced. The fact that you can’t acknowledge this openly, that women naturally have desires and preferences, that we make conscious choices here-there-and-everywhere, speaks to a profound sexism whose paucity of respect for a woman’s mind truly challenges the ability of words to express. I can only repeat your own phrase:

    If women want to sit where the hell they want

and goggle at your idea that you will only impose segregation in times and places where women have no preferences.

The politicians  -  Chuka Umunna , Jack Straw, Michael Gove, David Cameron spoke out.  Under the threads of their statements in the Guardian commenters were saying, Bugger me, the horrible Tory creeps are right this time. I'd normally be spitting that politicians were interfering in University affairs - they really shouldn't, you know - but I'm cheering them. If the representative body of the Vice Chancellors and Principals are so bloody clueless, and the NUS are so supine, they need to be kicked.

I think a lot of the response has been visceral. The suffragettes weren't force fed for this, the women who fought a grinding battle to get entry into English universities shouldn't be pissed  on   

So now the UUK has withdrawn gender segreation from its guidelines. It looks like the forces of light have won for once. 

Congratulations to those who attended protests and wrote copiously.  If only every campaign could be so successful.  But what a ridiculous waste of everyone's time and anger-fuelled action.

Flesh is Grass has a sane, thoughtful piece:-

Women always miss out when public spaces are segregated by leaders and organisers – even if voluntary, it’s a small change in culture, in the general view of what is acceptable. Authoritarians always use the values of open, pluralist societies against those societies themselves, and weaken them incrementally. Let’s stop this.

She also pointed out that feminists like Caroline Lucas, MP, Green Party and Natalie Bennett, Leader, Green Party did not speak out. I read that Caroline Lucas had said it wasn't a priority. Also there hasn't been a peep out of that clutch of feminist writers in The Staggers.   Polly Toynbee,  one of the old-guard Guardian, undid the miserable expectations we now have of her paper, by sticking to her old feminism and atheism.  At least they didn't publish any of their usual apologetics on these matters. The Observer has an editorial  and a good piece by Catherine Bennett.

On the other side:-

Well, one is an article which looks like parody in the Huff Po by Camilla Khan, the Head of Communications,(!) Federation of Student Islamic Societies, who tries to wrap this up in a mixture of post-modernism and spirituality.  She has managed to use every con-trick word - those words that irritate like berry bugs in a bra cup - "discourse", "empower", "nuanced"  and "diversity, "

Firstly, the term segregation itself is highly problematic and acts to conflate the reality further. As Saussure theorised on syntagmatic relations, ‘within speech, words are subject to a kind of relation that is independent of the first and based on their linkage,’ and segregation connotes various forms of separation and oppression.

The problem is calling segregation, segregation.  If you called it something else it would be fine. Telling Molly when she walks into a room that she can't sit here because she's a woman, isn't segregation, just nuanced diverse empowerment.

Tendance Coatesey has a bit of fun with Khan's linguistic studies - Saussure is old hat, I understand - but she really should read a bit of Orwell, and note that calling mass murder "liqudation of anti-social elements" doesn't stop it being mass murder.  But whoever has influenced her writing style, it wasn't Orwell.

Her other con-trick is that very old anti-feminist ploy, that women taking a different (and different will mean inferior) place is a path to spirituality.  So the anti-suffragists said that women agitating to take part in public life spoiled their purifying influence and their moral specialness.  They were meant for a higher destiny.

As with life, Islam acknowledges that we form different groups who occupy various intellectual and social spaces. Diversity is celebrated with spirituality at the forefront, forming a broad frame of reference which is not always easily comprehensible to those outside of it.

No, I can't comprehend how her spirituality is so much compromised when she takes a bus, goes to the cinema or sits in her cultural studies class. What about the diversity of those women who don't want to be herded with other women, and men also.  Is that celebrated? (Add "celebrate" with abstract nouns to my list of berry bug words).  I think the "diversity" is a pretty damned narrow one. 

Second is Shohana Khan. Khan is a member of Hitz ut-Tahrir, the fighters for a Caliphate where apostates will be killed.   

Her argument boils down to:- Men and women must be separated because otherwise they will get sex on the brain and not be able to do something.

Rather the concept of separating men and women in public spaces in Islam, is part of a wider objective. Islam has a societal view that the intimate relationship between a man and a woman is for the committed private sphere of marriage, and should not be allowed to spill outside of this sphere. This is because in society, men and women need to cooperate to achieve things in society whether in the work place, in education, in interactions across the public space. Islam firmly believes if the sexual instinct is let loose in this public sphere, it can taint and complicate these relationships. Therefore Islam promotes ideas such as honouring women which are upheld in society, but alongside such ideas specific rules and laws are implemented to help maintain the atmosphere of healthy interaction between the sexes.

And if the woman breaks these rules, eg by not covering her head she's fair game is she?  

I think it has been observed that public school boys for instance, especially in times past, had a highly unhealthy attitude towards women because they weren't used to them as normal human beings.  So you're talking garbage - and rather prurient garbage at that.  Islamists are as sex obsessed as Hugh Hefner.

Now I won't say I haven't been at a public meeting and thought a chap in the audience was rather a dish. In fact, political meetings at universities is where many of us met our soulmates - that person who was highly vocal about the need to oppose nuclear proliferation and had lovely grey eyes.  The partnerships of couples who fell in love with the shared ideals and the person can be highly productive. The Pankhursts were one such couple.  Jennie Lee and Nye Bevan were another.  So I can't deny there is a sexual element at public meetings, as there is in the offices where we work.

But that it should dominate someone's mind so much that it screws up their ability to act! What's wrong with them?  Knowing how to behave in public is part of growing up, as is concentrating on the matter at hand. The only people offering distractions who should be segregated are those twerps with buzzing mobile phones.

So a victory this time round.  End with Any Questions  (:38).  Shami Chakrabati took what has been a common attitude - why on earth are we even talking about this?

Johnathan Dimbleby: Is there justification for segregation in an educational setting?

Amjad Bashir  (small business spokesman for UKIP, Pakistani immigrant, from Bradford): No.  The answer is no. Absolutely not. . .  All through my life, and my children, my grand children are all mixing, all sexes, whether it's primary schools, whether it's secondary schools. whether it's universities. There is no room. This is England This is the twenty first century.  It's not Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive, It's not Saudi Arabia, where they are not allowed to have bank accounts. This is England. We should allow our youngsters to mix and decide their own future. This is the twenty first century. I am against this segregation.

Lies, damned lies and religious lies

It's not hard to find a skunk ready to lie and cause mayhem in order to advance the power of their religion:-

At a Council of churchmen and magnates called to Clermont in France and in a flurry of papal letters accompanying it around 1095, Urban [Pope Urban II] described renewed but completely imaginary atrocities against Christian pilgrims by Muslims in Jerusalem, so that he could arouse appropriate horror and action would follow. The effect was sensational: noblemen present hastened to raise their tenants to set out on a mission to avenge Christian wrongs in the East.

(From A History of Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch)

And thus began the First Crusade. 

When I read this I was reminded of latter day lying skunks in the Rushdie affair and the Danish cartoons.

Both these events seemed simple enough.  A novelist, cartoonists, produced works that devout believers found blasphemous.  Outraged, these believers rioted, burned buildings and killed people. Liberal commentators deplored the violence but had a sweet sense of empathy for the rage boys, and were inclined to scold Rushdie/the Danish cartoonists for their lack of sensitivity.

However between the blasphemous work and the spontaneous-seeming riots there were the clerics with the lack of scruple of Mafia bosses ramping up the outrage.  With Rushdie it was the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, trying to gain political advantage over the Saudis.

The Danish cartoons were a chance for clerics lower down the scale to make their careers. The Motoons did not at first cause much of a stir, but journalists began to move events towards a story:-

Only when journalists, disappointed by the lack of controversy, contacted a number of imams for their response, did Islamists begin to recognise the opportunity provided not just by the caricatures themselves but also by the sensitivity of Danish society to their publication.

Among the first contacted was the controversial cleric Ahmed Abu Laban, infamous for his support for Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. He seized upon the cartoons to transform himself into a spokesman for Denmark’s Muslims. Yet however hard he pushed, he initially found it difficult to provoke major outrage. in Denmark or abroad. It took more than four months of often hysterical campaigning and considerable arm-twisting by Saudi diplomats, to create a major controversy.

So Laban travelled around the Middle East and with him went an imam, Akhmad Akkari. To big up the blasphemy they included three extra drawings that were far more grossly offensive than the originals.

The first of the three additional pictures, which are of dismal quality, shows Muhammad as a pedophile deamon , the second shows the prophet with a pig snout and the third depicts a praying Muslim being raped by a dog. Apparently, the 12 original pictures were not deemed bad enough to convince other Muslims that Muslims in Denmark are the victims of a campaign of religious hatred.

Akhmad Akkari, spokesman of the 21 Danish Muslim organizations which organized the tour, explained that the three drawings had been added to “give an insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims.” Akkari claimed he does not know the origin of the three pictures. He said they had been sent anonymously to Danish Muslims. However, when Ekstra Bladet asked if it could talk to these Muslims, Akkari refused to reveal their identity.

Akhmad Akkari given the pig treatment

This story now has a further unlikely twist. After spending some time in Greenland reading Montesquieu and Rousseau. Akhmad Akkari has recanted:-

“The world doesn’t need a lid on human expression. That also goes for people you might disagree with. There was something deep-seated in the mentality of the group I belonged to, which I just didn’t notice. There was this fundamental idea that people were not allowed to express themselves freely, and that is just wrong,” said Akkari.

It sounds as though John Stuart Mill was on his reading list as well.

Akkari’s days as an imam are now behind him and he says that he is “no longer a part of the Islamic mission". He further claims that many of his former colleagues are hypocrites with a mindset that is “horribly wrong”.

When asked whether the cartoons were misused.

“The way I see it today, yes. Behind all the talk of protecting religious imagery, there is always power and abuse," he said. "It is simply revolting.”

That's a succinct summing up of this and similar affairs. You can hear Akkari on the World Service 5:04 in.  He has apologised to one of the cartoonists.

Akkari repentant

So credit to the man for recanting, unlike Urban II and Khomeini, who should both be rotting in the hell they were so ready to hand out to those outwith their own religious kingdom. 

(H/t Thomask)

Two Types of Militancy

"I defined religions as advertising campaigns for a produce that does not exist - a crack that is still widely quoted, although not always by people I approve of.  Just because I don't like militant believes doesn't meant that I find militant unbelievers palatable."

From The Blaze of Obscurity by Clive James

By "militant believers" James means someone like Osama Bin Laden.  James has plenty of hatred for beardie Koran spouting bombers, and plenty of cracks about them finding virgins in paradise.

By "militant unbelievers" James means people like Richard Dawkins. 

As is often said, a militant believer kills people, throws acid in their faces, destroys cultures. A militant unbeliever is outspoken, to the point of rudeness and insensitivity about other people's beliefs.

James loves the English language, and he is a virtuoso in its use, being both precise and poetic. But his love of the well turned phrase means in this case the sound outran the sense.

Wadjda

I could not miss a film about a girl longing for a bicycle so as to pedal against the patriarchy.  Wadjda is a charming film.

Wajdja, played superbly by Waad Mohammed, is a spunky tomboy and rebel, the Saudi descendant of Jo March in Little Women, whom Simone de Beauvoir and other feminists have always loved.  Like Jo she is best friends with the boy next door and like Jo she lives in a highly religious society but Islamic Saudi Arabia is far more restrictive than nineteenth century Protestant America. Her mother does go out to work - but wearing an abbaya, and with a long commute to an all female workplace driven by an illegal immigrant, Saudi women not being allowed to drive. Wadjda's father is sweet to her, however work keeps him away from home and he is also considering a second wife, his first wife being unable to bear more children.

The school that Wajdja attends is reminiscent of a convent circa 1880.  The girls wear long, heavy dresses and there is much emphasis about keeping out of the sight of men.  They are a prurient, giggly lot, kept under control by their strict, heavy-eyed headmistress (Ahd Kamel) .  Everyone is sex obsessed. The girl who has a clandestine rendezvous with her "brother" is married off, one of the girls in Wajdja's religious class, who's about 14, has also been married, the headmistress is anxious about romantic friendships between the girls, and when Wadjda falls off her friend's cycle and cuts her knee, her mother is afraid that it's blood from a broken hymen.

Wajdja longs for a bicycle, and in order to pay for one she joins the religious school so she can enter a Koran knowledge and reciting competition with a big money prize.  We have some rather Hollywood conventions of following your dreams and  the suspense of whether she will win or not but because of the film's gentle pace and the exotic location it feels fresh and the stakes seem real.  You do root for the delightful Wadjda and her longing for a bicycle is the longing for freedom and action. 

At the end of the nineteenth century the bicycle was a symbol of liberty for women.  They became independently mobile and they also had to stop wearing whalebone and other constricting clothing. They could go out to work, attend Suffragette meetings and, of course, socialise with young men.  When women first straddled the machine they were seen as bold and unwomanly.  So Wadjda's mother, who is lovely and talented, was married from high school, and is much hampered by her female role, but thinks that bicycles can prevent you having babies. 

In Saudi Arabia the religious police have only just allowed women to ride bicycles, and then only with a male guardian in parks. The religious police are mentioned, but it is more social than legal sanctions that make everyone tell Wadjda that bicycles aren't for girls.

Although the women are highly constrained, the view of Saudi is not overly dark. These are ordinary middle class people with strong family and tribal ties, habitually religious and also showing a fair amount of affection towards each other. When Wadjda does her Koran recitation, the liquid chanting is hypnotic.  Again, as in a convent, the clothes may be drab and the behaviour repressed while the religious performance offers drama and poetry.

There are some final twists to the story with two scenes of heartbreaking disappointment but in the last scene Wadjda has broken free with her mother's approval and is pedalling with her friend around the wide, sandy streets of the neighbourhood until she comes to a busy highway, where no sane being would cycle. She is smiling and the film ends on a hopeful note.

Sing Along

I saw Robert Ellis last night supporting Richard Thompson at Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Sing Along - guitar-picking song about being brought up as a Southern Baptist in the bible belt. 

 

Nobody talks too loud in my home town
Nobody stands too tall for fear of getting knocked down. .

And the flames of hell, they seemed so high
I could barely see over the view
I was just a boy when they told me that lie,
But lord it seemed so true.

And that's a hell of a thing to do to a kid
Just to teach him right from wrong
You can burn in hell  the rest of your days,
Or you can choose to sing along.

Richard Thompson started off with songs from his new album Electric, including Salford Sunday

 

(He pointed out that Salford was the dirty old town of Ewan McColl's famous song.) 

He still can write the songs though he did spend a lot of the evening doing guitar pyrotechnics - too much for my taste.  I prefer him doing straight ballads.  And he didn't do Beeswing or Vincent Black Lightening.  But he did do this great version of Hey Joe:-

 

Into Christianity

Overheard on a walk yesterday from a crowd of young people:- "If you're into Christianity, you should visit Roslin Chapel."  Into Christianity, as if the religion which used to be half the consciousness of Scots and other Europeans was a diversion, like model trains or the history of the English Civil War. John Knox howled in rage. St Andrew fell off his cross.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water

What a horrible night Thursday was.  I had vaguely expected to hear of another humiliation for George Galloway on the electoral trail, and with that, and Press TV being shut down I thought he would disappear from sight and hearing.  But he comes screaming back.  I have  to give him a grudging salute for his strength and indefatigability.  He certainly wrecked my sleep.

Socialist Unity were crowing over his triumph.   I made a couple of comments on the victory evening:-

"How utterly wretched.  Shameless pandering to religious prejudices wins an election in mainland Britain. I suppose if there had been an appropriate seat up for grabs in Belfast he could have pushed the Catholic buttons - gone on about being anti-abortion, say. 

And even more wretchedly, a bunch of activists and politicos who regard themselves as progressive cheer him on."

"That little hint that his opponent wasn’t a good Muslim because he had had a drink in the past – how would he have managed a similar ploy if he had been chasing a Catholic vote? Once, in stricter times, he could have suggested:-

My opponent has eaten meat on Friday;
My opponent has used a condom; or
My opponent has considered divorce

but Catholics are far more liberal these days.

What would be a clever hint to make about your opponent’s impurity of religion in order to chase Catholic votes rather than Muslim ones?

After all, if politics are going to be conducted through communalism, we should start thinking of the tactical advantage of comparative religious observance. That Ed Miliband guy’s an atheist, isn’t he?"

Those comments were deleted of course.

I was disgusted at the religious communalism that ran through this election.  I thought that was what the Yanks did, out-godding each other as they chase the Presidency.

But Galloway -  all praise to Allah at his victory and that he's on a mission from God, and those that don't vote for him will go to hell.   Saying of his rival,

"When I hear Imran Hussein say, you should vote for him because he's a Pakistani, because he is a quote, unquote "Muslim" I don't know whether to laugh or cry. On the question of Islam, God knows who is a Muslim or who is not. . . Everybody knows he's never out of the pub. 

Rather missing the chance of saying, "Let's drop religion from this election.  It shouldn't matter."

Politics as expression of religious tribalism is poison whether in Glasgow or Cairo. I added Bradford to the list of B's that Christopher Hitchens spoke of when asked about the peace-making aspect of religion:-

“I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching. Now-would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? […] Just to stay within the letter ‘B,’ I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance.”

Galloway is coy about whether he has converted or will convert to Islam.  A couple of theories:-

1.    If he converts and then after losing Bradford West he needs a seat where he can play communalist Catholic politics e.g. Belfast or the west of Scotland, he would have to be received into Catholicism again.  That might just make him look opportunistic and inconsistent.

2.  If he converts and then unconverts, it could make it inconvenient for him in some countries he will no doubt be visiting eg Iran where apostasy is illegal. 

Since my initial outrage I have read some analysis - that West Bradford is a peculiar seat; that the politics there were corrupt and clan-driven; that Labour has played communalist politics there for years themselves and this was now biting them in the bum ; that the voters are kicking all the main parties, as they often do in by-elections; that only a rock-star politician like Galloway could have pulled it off.  So it is unlikely to be the trend towards communalist politics that I feared.  You can only be communalist in constituencies which will accept it.

 I am though pissed off with the Bradfordian for electing him.  Galloway's over-blown rhetoric turns my stomach but a lot of them, especially the young ones, lapped it up.  Bradford spring! for Chrissake.  Who does he think he is?  Answers own question - a kind of cross between Saladin on a white horse with a train of Saracens fighting the Crusaders and Lenin leading the masses.   He really does see himself as a man of destiny, with God on his side. 

When he says things like " From the Punjab to Palestine, from Bagdhad to Bradford, everyone will sit up and take notice  for by the Grace of God . . .I have a strong voice." he believes in his own fantasies and gets his followers to believe in it as well.   

 

By the way, note in this video that when addressing people in Bradford he doesn't adopt a cod Yorkshire accent, though when addressing Arabs for some reason he puts on a weird Arab accent eg in this one where he extols Assad and Syria's democracy and human rights record. 

Well, he's got MP written after his name now, which will make him a more acceptable courtier to whatever particularly bloody, repressive despot whose hand he wants to kiss.  Saddam is gone, Assad, the man who upholds the dignity of  Arabs and Muslims*, will no doubt be gone soon.  There's Ahmadinejad and sadly there will  be some ugly Islamist regime established in at least one of the countries that have gone through the Arab Spring.  He'll be at its leader's court, discussing "Zionism" and saluting this new lion with many Your Excellencies and that serious, respectful look and understanding nods. 

Update:-

The newspapers are gleeful that Galloway tweeted "Shattered but happy after the Blackburn triumph.

Well, he is a rock star after all.  There are times when the lead singer greets the crowd "Hullo Liverpool," when  in Manchester, and "Hullo Madrid," when in Lisbon.   (I know this has happened but "rock star" "wrong city" "hullo" isn't turning me up actual instances of this).

Being Galloway, he couldn't just say, sorry, stupid mistake.  No, someone has to have hacked into his twitter account.  I can't do the technology but it seems that is unlikely.   But being Galloway he has to lie about it.  No doubt it was an American and Zionist propaganda plot against him.

(*If you can bear it, read Amnesty's report on what  Assad's security forces visit do to the regime's opponents)

Palm Sunday

I'm listening to Radio 4's religious round up programme, Sunday.  They have just had a piece about the shortage of donkeys for the Palm Sunday procession.   Everyone wants one,  the price has gone up, and owners of donkeys who have refused cash offers for them from shifty characters, find the next morning that their donkey has been stolen.

Some scholars have gone back to the scriptures and found that, though tradition holds that Christ was taken in  to Jerusalem on a donkey, in the verses that describe this it can be translated as "pack animal".  So now happy-clappy vicars go and borrow llamas for the procession.  

A vicar of the old school was fairly unamused about the use of a South American animal in ancient Judaea, saying that you have to draw a line somewhere. 

Of course if Jesus Christ lived today it's clear what means of transport he would have used.

(It occurs to me that this could be an April Fool.)