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Response to "Dancing Phoenix" ...,
"Many a Slip ..." ...,
Israel Forgets ...,
Extracts--Creativity ...,
Recent Balkan Crisis ...,
Klein's 'stupid Serb' ...,
Peace in Middle East ...,
Une fete degoulinante ...,
Bellum Judaicum ...,
Dancing Phoenix ...
I am a Christian and I appreciate the flamboyant interest Sally Potter took in her Jewishness, shown in the film "Tango Lessons". I haven't had the chance to see the film yet but will try to get hold of it. Nobody is as admired as individuals and hated as group as the Jews. We know so much and so little about Jews.
Joan
joanj37@hotmail.com
A few curiosities: (1) I think it was in the 17th century when some British emigrated massively into Baltic Poland and they mixed not with the Poles but ... with the Jews. Since they were non-Catholics, maybe the Jewish Bible was closer to them than the Catholic Church. Thus so many Polish Jews have kept names like Gordon, Neil, etc. Jewish Mirla is the equivalent of the old English Myrl. (2) Jewish addiction to herring comes from the Vikings converted to Judaism. In late antiquity and early Middle Ages, the Rabbis apparently performed intense missionary activity. (3)The Nordic sagas were influenced by the Bible. Before contact with Judaism and Christianity, the Vikings didn't have this kind of folklore. (4) Hitler began discretely eliminating the use of Gothic font when it was proved that it was inspired by the Hebrew alphabet. (5) A text about Valhalla and Wotan written in the Hebrew alphabet was found in Egypt in the Middle Ages. Perhaps some Viking or German found himself in Egypt as an exile and, torn by nostalgia for his native land and culture, and holding to his Jewish faith, wrote this text. WM
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!"
(Sir Walter Scott)
MANY A SLIP
A dictionary of shaky grounds and missed connections --
Vocabulary for discussion of argument.
by Gregory James
Language Centre
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
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Mr Markiewicz:
I used to be a supporter of Israel. I believed that the country stood for truth and only wanted to be free and to defend itself. I do not believe that anymore. There is no justification for what Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights. All those years in Lebanon. Sometimes I think it was only a diversion, so that they could continue to build the settlements. All that military strength, but no real political strength. How similar to the USA. It seems that it was not only the Arabs who rejected the partition of 1948, but also the Israelis. Will they have the courage to live within their boundaries?
Thank You for your thoughtful article.
Robert Kuhl
MiraAndRobert@cs.com
what is the unseen you see?
what is the unspoken you speak about?
Your mind's eye sees
Tries to describe
An artist does not receive the fruits,
but is in service.
Anhai
"Abu Ahmed" taleb2@hotmail.com
180 articles and essays (International Affairs)by Sam Vaknin -
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Memento: International Herald Tribune 10/14/97
Troubleshooting in Bosnia: 'That was fun, wasn't it'
"He's a stupid Serb, he's really dumb," said Mr.Klein, describing Mr.
Krajisnik in a characteristically undiplomatic assessment.
Serbian readers of a newsgroup complained when I criticised Father Sava for bending to Madeleine Albright right after the bombing stopped -- he all but apologized for the Serbs protesting at the gate of the monastery, telling her that Milosevic probably sent them from Belgrade to make trouble. Some Serbs objected angrily that Father Sava and the others in Kosovo were hostages and shouldn't be criticized. And at a fundraiser last November, Crown Prince Alexander embraces Sacirbey in admiration. Is Prince Alexander a hostage? Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia have been hostages for a long time and I don't see any way out.
I don't want to ramble but I haven't seen any comments in the press -- did I miss them? -- about the fact that the Finn's investigation of the Racak massacre was so conveniently concluded years after the event. Nobody is shocked that they obviously waited to present their findings until the furore had died down. And that's just one more ...
nikole@idirect.caThe Serbs are now in a worse situation than, for instance, Jews, Gypsies, Blacks because the great majority of anti-Semites, racists, are shy and hypocritical. In order to appear correct, they refuse to admit that they are anti-Semitic and racist: "Some of my best friends are Jews" etc. With the Serbs, maybe for the first time in modern history, the whole world has a license and encouragement to hate and rapturously jump at the opportunity. Now everybody can afford to hate and be commended for it. Who has seen a horror movie (I don't remember the title) where the massed ghouls throw themselves on a tied up victim? And the worst of it is that the Serbs are absolutely not prepared to face this untenable situation. The world smeared them and there's no cave to go to, no mountain to climb to prepare for self-defence and to defy the enemy. A bad name doesn't evaporate but tends to linger forever. If the Serbs were mountain clans like Albanians and Afghanis, the situation wouldn't be as bad. Those mountain clans don't give a damn about public opinion and are physically ready to resist for a long time.
Kostunica, in the name of his blackmailed nation, could direct a question to NATO and Hague: Who should reward the man and the country who saved over one million refugees, of all ethnicities, condemned by the world to death from cold and starvation? The country where that happened is Yugoslavia and the man who accomplished it is Slobodan Milosevic. WM
To begin, I'd like to share with you a selection from a review of Diane Ravitch's popular 1990 AMERICAN READER(published by Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins), a compilation of "Words That Moved a Nation"...
..."virtually an honour roll of American dissidence. Ravitch's goals are better understood not so much by her book's vast inclusiveness but by the surprising group that she neglects to include: the people on top. Powerful and influential worthies like Dulles, A. Mitchell Palmer, and J. Edgar Hoover, great persecutors of revolutionaries all, simply don't exist... Ravitch scores an enormous ideological victory. The "people" get to be noisily affirmed, sure, but power gets something much, much better: invisibility..." (Stephen Duncombe)
I would like it to be understood that manipulating the media is the most powerful weapon of peace. More powerful than wealth. More powerful than cultural identity.
Here are two examples which uphold this theory:
1. From 1983 to 1992, the top 1% of Americans increased their net wealth by a whopping 28.3%; in the same period, median wealth declined by 8.1%, and the bottom 40% of the population lost 49.7% of its net wealth. This trend has continued into the present day... if poverty were the cause of revolt, the U.S.A. would be in full blown civil war.
2. The startling numbers of black Americans in prison should cause cultural activism from coast to coast... and yet, the U.S.A. has still not entertained more than a day or two of riots in one part of one city at one time...
So, about peace in the Middle East, lets take a lesson from the Americans, the undisputed heavy-weights of world power, shall we? In their internationally popular film, Gladiator, we can learn all about "bread and circuses."
Give the Palestinians pita and sports teams... give them Nike ads applauding their rebellious spirits... give them TV shows with proudly Palestinian role models living a desirable lifestyle of brand-named jeans and jeeps... give them movie stars and rock stars to fill the pages of their "free press" with radical celebrity highlights... consumerism is the easiest, cheapest and most effective trap to set... people all over the world have blindly fallen for working for oppressive regimes so that one day they might afford (or their children might afford) that shiny, new, John Deer lawn mower...
He who rows the boat, is too busy to rock the boat... which leads one to wonder why Israeli politicians haven't given the Palestinians any oars?
oneeyeblinking@hotmail.comPalestinians will get their oars by themselves and the Israelis, hopefully, will help once peace is established. The concrete issues have to be resolved first, one by one. You don't replace freedom with opium. People work more readily for goods under their own oppressive regimes than under foreign occupation. WM.
Dimanche 15 avril 20001, Bangkok
La mousson n'a pas encore commencé en Thailande, mais depuis trois
jours, il est difficile de sortir dans Bangkok sans revenir trempé
jusqu'aux os. Les Thais célèbrent la nouvelles année lunaire. En
soi-même, cela n'a plus beaucoup de signification, puisque les années
thaies officielles sont aujourd'hui solaires, et qu'elles commencent le
premier janvier, avec simplement 543 ans de décalage, le Bouddha étant
né voici 2544 ans. Mais le "Songkran", qui se déroule du 13 au 15 avril, reste une fête importante, qui dure trois jours, et consiste
essentiellement, pour les jeunes surtout, à sortir dans la rue avec des
seaux d'eau, ou des canons à eau créés spécialement pour cette fête par
les fabriquants de jouets du royaume, pour asperger les passants.
Certains font le tour de leur ville dans des camionnettes à l'arrière
desquelles bidons d'eau et tuyaux d'arrosage ont été installés.
Impossible d'échapper au phénomène: la fête bat son plein dans toute la
Thailande. Celui qui veut rester sec a intérêt à rester chez lui.
En plus d'être aspergé, on est "sali": Les festivaliers passent la main sur les vêtements et le visage des passants pour les enduire d'un mélange d'eau et de plâtre.
Dans certaines rues piétonnes se presse une foule de jeunes ressemblant à des statues de boue animées. Le jeu consiste à se faire salir tout en salissant ceux que l'on croise avant d'être nettoyé pour être sali à nouveau.
Cette "fête de l'eau" a une origine rituelle: traditionnellement, la coutume veut que les enfants aspergent les mains de leur parents d'eau "bénite" à la manière bouddhiste avant de leur faire un présent. Asperger autant de personnes que possible durant trois jours n'était pas l'idée initiale, mais... en plein été, avril étant le mois le plus chaud de l'année à Bangkok, cela fait du bien!
En déambulant parmi les jeunes Thais dégoulinants, j'ai réalisé que Songkran est le moment où ils se permettent ce qui est interdit le reste de l'année. Il est par exemple mal vu, selon la tradition locale, de toucher quelqu'un à la tête... Sauf durant cette fête, où l'on vous enduit le visage de boue.
On ne m'a pas touché qu'à la tête. Une jeune femme, sans craindre
d'attenter à ma pudeur, a eu le culot de vérifier, devant tout le monde,
l'état de ma virilité, me laissant pantois: les femmes thaies sont
habituellement réservées et timides (quoi qu'en disent certains
touristes ne connaissant de Bangkok que ses boîtes de nuit). Avant que
j'aie pu me remettre de ma surprise, un jeune homme l'a imitée avant de
me prendre dans les bras avec effusion, puis de m'offrir un grand verre
de whisky local en me faisant signe de repartir. Comme je ne parle pas
encore un mot de thai, lui demander des explications aurait été
impossible. Mais il n'y avait probablement pas grand-chose à comprendre:
Songkran est une fête du défoulement, durant laquelle certaines normes
n'ont plus cours.
Je me souviendrais longtemps du sourire rayonnant des enfants qui m'ont aspergé durant ces trois jours.
W.L. Fischer
carouge@forez.com
Two things I don't understand:
1) Here is a little tiny country surrounded by huge wealthy, quite literally, enemies, and the little tiny country is the one accused of warmongering. It is not as I see it. Israel is not totally blameless... but I think the bulk of the blame should go to the powerful aggressive Arab states.
2) Why are the Palestinians so poor? Why are they living in hovels? Why are not the hugely wealthy Arab states/nations/people not helping them? To whose advantage is it to keep them so poor? To whose advantage is it to reward the human sacrifice of personal bombs with glorious everlasting life in the Moslem eternity? I have heard, but haven't verified, that the families of Arabs men who are killed by personal bombs are financially rewarded.
This is not an easy situation. It is made much more difficult by the power that the extreme religious right has in Israel due to the nature of the voting system (and the huge birthrate of that sector).
I truly don't know the answer. I have visited Israel twice and each time came away with a much more sympathetic view than I had before visiting. By that I don't mean that I think that Israel is 'more right'; but I have a better understanding of why certain things happen.
I also feel more hopeless.
Recently, on a trip to California, I sat next to a young Israeli man on his way to a computer conference. He said that some way must be found to accommodate all the Arabs. He said, "We must find a way to live in peace together. That is the reality." But he said that the obstacles were the older Jewish generation that would not compromise and the Arab governments whose propaganda is virulently anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, especially in the official books used in the schools.
Shortly after that, I was horrified when I saw samples of the racism and out right anti-Jewish educational publications he was referring to.
So, with so many people, on all sides, pushing hate and intolerance... it is very discouraging indeed.
We just came back from South America where we saw some very poor countries like Peru that had large Indian populations... and rich countries like Argentina where the Indians have been killed off (or escaped to Bolivia) and where there was not a black face to be seen, a situation explained by our guide as follows: "We are not racist. Blacks are welcome here. They choose not to come. They just don't feel comfortable here."
It is sometimes hard to keep positive and hopeful. From time to time, I withdraw into my protective cocoon. Then the irritation and the stupidity and greed that fuels the world gets to me and I come out swinging again.
In my youth, when I did not realize how impotent I was, I fought all the time. Now I am much more selective.
All the best,
Elka
enola@attcanada.ca
Any rational individual or society lives according, not to their wishes but to the circumstances. So, when for instance, Egypt made peace with Israel it was not that the Israelis and the Egyptians suddenly became attractive to each other but because Egypt concluded that once peace was restored and their territory returned to them, there was no reason for war any longer. In the same way, peace with the Palestinians is easy to achieve. The Palestinian Arabs' situation is not as hopeless as, for instance, the American Indians'. Therefore, they wont let themselves be ruled by strangers in the old city of Jerusalem where they are the bulk of the population and they will not tolerate the Jewish colonies which have started to proliferate in Palestinian territory. Who else today is governed by foreigners, like, for instance the Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem and why should the Syrians accept annexation of Golan without taking it as a blow to the heart of their national pride, or why should the Palestinians accept those recently established Israeli colonists? The Syrians cannot be considered to be totally defeated, like for instance, Yugoslavia that for the moment has had to give Kosovo away to NATO-KLA. Kosovo was Serbian until the Turks, then Austro-Hungarians, then the Nazis, implanted Albanians. Still, before WWII the Serbs were 50 percent of the population. And I repeat, the Palestinian Arabs cannot be treated like American Indians. There are three easy to achieve necessities for a stable peace in the Middle East, as if there had never been a war:
1) give back Golan to the Syrians, like Sinai was returned to the Egyptians
2) give the Arab inhabitants of the Old City of Jerusalem their rights and get rid of those self-implanted colonists in the territories.
3) Israel's visible strength will remain a sufficient deterrent against any outside aggression.
This is how peace is maintained all over the globe, it isn't any different for the Middle East. Everybody stays within his own territory and respects the force of the others. If Israel cannot arrive at this kind of agreement on those issues among themselves, it is their problem and they will pay the consequences. WM
When I went to see the movie "The Tango Lesson" (*) I didn't expect to find a Jewish message and what I found was a striking expression of Jewish spirituality. The setting was modern, the topic was not Jewish, and it was a rather low budget movie, not like the ambitious "Fiddler on the Roof," turned toward the Jewish past, or like "The Mystical Orchard," the Israeli film about Cabalistic Jerusalem. Tango, with its magical beauty, was the main topic. It's a story of an encounter between a master dancer and an aspiring student who become lovers, then performing partners. This was the least realistic part of the movie since even the most talented student cannot learn fast enough to become a performer and the student was an adult and it takes years to reach perfection. But for the sake of the story it had to be so, the tango was their bridge, and their union was enhanced by their Judaism which they declared to each other with Jewish tears in their eyes... She was Ashkenaz from England, a movie scriptwriter, and he, French, probably Maghrebien, dashing, very Latin, living and performing in Argentina. A very unlikely couple, in conflict, because both had strong personalities. Their professional and personal problems linked to being a performing couple were presented very realistically. It was a beautiful movie about tango, which could survive without its Jewish ingredient, but it added a magic spice. The film symbolized Jewish presence and continuity even in the most alien settings; it showed how an unexpected circumstance may contain "its" Jewishness. Toward the end of the film he declares that he is afraid of disappearing without a trace and she replies: "Maybe that's why we met each other." The message was clear; they represented Adam and Eve of the new Judaism returning from its ashes. The grand European Ashkenaz culture disappeared in the crematoria and the descendant of Ashkenaz tradition joins a Sephardi's vibrant body and soul. They are predestined to give birth to a new Jewish line for new millenaries. No religion is particularly involved in the film, even though both make a short visit to a synagogue. No politics, therefore Israel, Zionism are not mentioned. The film is just an expression of indescribable universal Judaism.
B.W. Schreiber
Tel Aviv
bshr@n2mail.com
(*)"The Tango Lesson" 1997, directed by Sally Potter
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William Markiewicz