tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49224098781506494672023-11-15T20:50:34.083+02:00Robert Luongo's Blog-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-74043635056247906262012-07-09T19:03:00.002+02:002012-07-13T07:56:00.197+02:00Escaping The Debt Trap<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">We are witnessing ever-increasing alarm at the increasingly
imminent collapse of world financial markets. The more euphemistic language of
unsustainable sovereign debt and erosion of political autonomy does little to
mitigate the harrowing scenario of national economic foreclosure at the behest
of apparently omnipotent financial institutions. In much the same way that the
courts declare a private individual, a business or a corporation insolvent and
order the appointment of receivers; the likes of the ECB (European Central
Bank), IMF and World Bank can routinely foreclose on entire nation states and
deliver their governments into the hands of unelected ‘technocrats’ (i.e.
bankers) who can be relied upon to manage the safe liquidation of any saleable
assets, while directing the flow of quantitative easing and bailouts to flush
the Augean sewers of the banking system onto the heads of the hapless public.
We are urged with the utmost exigency to identify a sane and healthy way to
proceed. We must move out and away from the deep psychosis that has gripped the
world. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Chaos is certainly not a preferred option and because of the
damaging effect it would have, the world’s leading democracies are loath to
entertain the prospect of the EU (which in effect would be Germany) sending in
a military police force to restore order in Greece, or any other belligerent
failed State while the ‘reality’ of the situation finally sinks in: that
austerity measures are the only apposite and, therefore, acceptable remedy on
offer. Nevertheless, whatever the results of the end-game failure of democratic
governments to stand their ground, Greece, as well as Italy, Portugal, Spain,
Ireland, France and not to exclude the US or UK, will pay. The banks will be
paid. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">A convoluted and seemingly bizarre mechanism has been put in
place by the ECB to facilitate Greek interest payments on their national debt.
Put simply, new money is lent to Greece (through an account that the government
cannot access as it might be tempted to use it to pay the salaries of civil
servants, or fund health-care, social services, education or pensions), which
is then immediately paid back to the lender by way of interest payment on the
pre-existing outstanding debt. So, what
is the point? The point is that it is in the best interests of the global
financial institutions that these countries not default. Therefore, the fact
that the books show that payments are being made to service the debt allows the
indebting procedure to continue unimpeded, whilst seizure and foreclosure
remain on the table as a final, though far from ideal, option for the lenders. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">If world wars were fought to “make the world safe for
democracy”, then the objective in today’s world is to ensure that democracy, as
the sole legitimate legislative structure, is maintained in order to ensure the
repayment of national debts incurred by a perpetually rotating body of
political non-entities, sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative – each
blaming the previous administration for whatever maladies may be afflicting the
general public. Anything remotely resembling personal rule – in which
accountability is inherent – has gradually disappeared from the stage and the
world is now completely governed by ‘system’. In the meantime, unnoticed by the
vast majority of people, there has been a coup… a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: italic;">coup de
banque</span></i>! But though it has transpired through a system, it cannot be
forgotten that it has been perpetrated not by machines, but by men. An
obsequious political class functions as salaried employees (albeit elected by
plebiscite) that have paved the way by means of passing the requisite
legislation to provide the juridical framework for the coup to take place. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">We are witness to a systemic malady that has become a
highly contagious pandemic which has circulated unabated amongst the elected
tribunes of the people who are today sitting in senates around the world. It is
a most democratic phenomenon, as it makes no distinctions of race, region and
religion: from Paris to Pretoria, Buenos Aires to Berlin and now, from Cairo to
Mumbai. ‘Located’ within computer networks with major nodes in Wall Street and
the City of London and linking listed stock exchanges, a numbers based
financial system has spread a virtual spider’s web over the world. It is both
real and unreal, hence its psychotic effect.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The ‘leaders of the free world’, who one after the other have
stepped centre stage to announce a series of multi-billion dollar, pound, euro
bailouts that the general public will ultimately have to pay for, have in the
inevitable aftermath, made no small amount of noise. Things may get tough, but
the “Yes We Can” man has given his word that our financial system, protecting
the freedoms of democracy, will prevail. It is quite extraordinary how ‘good’
it always sounds. The frantic behind-the-curtain play that intensified in 2008
as the previous US presidential administration started winding down was, of
course, the Lone Ranger Show with Hank Paulson in the title role and Bush as
Tonto. The ignominious British Prime Minister, not wanting to be upstaged (yet
again) by the American, proved that he too was <i><span style="font-style: italic;">tonto</span></i>.
British politicians, who have to resort to cheating on their expense allowances
to get a few hundred extra quid, are nowhere near the premier league of financial
oligarchs who can create money, i.e. currency and credit from less than nil (a
deficit) to the tune of trillions. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Nevertheless, after so much artificial over stimulation by
the massive printing of new money, the current global hangover is horrendous,
with many experiencing excruciating headaches. In the world’s largest consumer
economy, and the one that carries the largest debt, the hangover isn’t their
only headache. Anxiety levels over not having enough are keeping pharmacy
counters packed, with Prozac flying off the shelves. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The situation in terms of credibility and continued viability
of the global economy, whether looked at from the vantage point of individual
countries or as one unified whole, is ostensibly one of perception. For a
variety of reasons: from egregiously bloated state bureaucracies; to ill
advised and imprudent borrowing (public and private); to unconscionable
over-lending of unsecured home loans by banks (who in turn sold on their debt
to keep it off their books), propelled by hugely inflated real estate ‘values’
that lenders imagined would keep rising; and, most significantly, driven by a
stupefying degree of greed by men who simply were making too much money. As a
result, certain countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and more recently
Italy, have lost credibility in the eyes of bond investors, consequently
driving up their cost of borrowing while ever deepening the sink-hole of their
fiscal woes. As early as 2010 the Bank for International Settlements came up
with a statement regarding these and other unstable economies. It stated that
the financial crisis came on top of an already serious pre-existing structural
problem of debt accumulation. Of course, the exact same thing can be said of
the UK and US. It is simply a matter of perception!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-West-Rest-Niall-Ferguson/dp/1846142733">Niall Ferguson in his recent book, Civilization</a>,
states: “most cases of civilizational collapse are associated with fiscal
crisis as well as wars. All the examples of collapse discussed above were
preceded by sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditure, as well as by
difficulty with financing public debt.” Ferguson goes on to cite the rise in
the cost of servicing the Ottoman debt in the nineteenth century from just
under 17% to over 50% by 1877. Not mentioned by Ferguson, but showing how
serious an already exacerbated situation had become, is that by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: italic;">fin de siècle</span></i> the cost of servicing the Ottoman debt (just
the interest alone) went off the chart and swallowed the entire GDP. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The immitigable failure of Ottoman suzerainty resulted in the
disintegration of its territories from the Mediterranean to the Balkans, to
Central Asia and on to a chronically unstable Middle East with its longstanding
propensity towards rebellion and sedition. All of these fell easy prey to
rapacious European powers, eagerly awaiting their moment to step in with
generous lines of credit (secured by the enormous oil wealth of their new
clients) to facilitate their development as independent nation states, and to
supply the technical expertise required to build modern infrastructure. I draw the readers attention to the following
extracts from a website article by <a href="http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/content/articles/Islam_the_Recovery.php">Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi: ‘Islam – TheRecovery’</a>, which reveals elucidating parallels with the infected condition of
the current fiscal environment in which the earlier predators are now the ‘sick
men of Europe’:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">“It can now be said that the fall of the Osmanli Dawlet was
never the result of a military defeat. The so called modernisation of Turkey,
the Tanzimat, historically stood for the transfer from gold-based currency to
paper notes for the masses and the banking system to be used by the State in
all its fiduciary arrangements. The bankers in the last phase of Osmanli rule
were highly honoured. The head of the Comondo bank was given a State funeral.
When, precisely by their manipulation of capital, the Empire collapsed, they
simply walked away to set up shop in Egypt and Europe. Not one banker proposed
even a capitalist road to recovery for the State – a lesson European States are
now learning. The Osmanli Dawlet, it can now be clearly stated, was destroyed
by capitalism.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Moving to the East Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir continues: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Mughal Empire which flourished under the brilliant
system of Haraj and Zakat taxation, the Zimindar pattern, was brought down by
the fiduciary contracts of the East India Company and its final transformation
into Empire status. The gold and silver Mughal currency was replaced by the
paper Rupee, turning its formerly wealthy people into helpless poverty.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">“Thus, we can now confirm two important facts. Neither the
Osmanli Dawlet nor the Mughal Empire was ever defeated militarily. Kemalism was
a coup d’état achieved in the bankruptcy following the forced exile of Sultan
Abdalhamid Khan II. Britain, under the flag of Empire seized India by simple
coup d’état.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">“The suffering of the Muslim world after World War II stems
from our failure to see that the conquest of Muslim lands was not based on
political dominance but by the imposition of the capitalist/usury system of
debt based, that is loaned, paper receipts for money called bank notes. Paper
money was capitalism’s true weapon of mass destruction.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">This perspicacious insight into the past clearly sheds light
on the present, and stands out as sound counsel. Alas, it is the poor Arabs who
are once again deluded, as their Facebook Revolution 2.0, known as the Arab
Spring, has so quickly turned into the winter of their discontent. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;">Postscript</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">It is now confirmed that Muhammad Mursi of the Muslim
Brotherhood has become the democratically elected President of Egypt, and I
should like to extend my condolences to the courageous young men and women who
braved the extreme dangers of <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/06/224795.html">Tahrir Square</a> only to see their country handed
over to the defeatist Brotherhood that (not so) secretly has preached
revolution for decades as they occupied comfortable positions in both the
governmental and financial institutions of the country they denounced. With
ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s former prime minister as the other
presidential candidate there was simply no choice. Reuters announced that a 51%
turnout marginally brought Mursi the electoral victory the international
community decreed was free and fare, and has been applauded as an unprecedented
event in Egypt’s long history. A more accurate estimation is that possibly less
than 30% of eligible voters turned out to cast their vote. The overwhelming
majority of people, ostensibly the largest party in the country, wanted
neither! With Egypt being second only to Israel as the recipient of the largest
amount of US foreign aid, Mursi is quickly coming into line so as to ensure
that his new government will continue to receive the same generous allowance
that Mubarak received. The cabinet will surely be egalitarian, as a Copt and a
woman have already been appointed. We should also expect the visually impaired
to be well represented - always useful to have in high government positions!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">For the benefit of those that may not necessarily be familiar
with the ideological path of the Muslim Brotherhood, also known as the Ikhwan
al-Muslimeen (abbr. the Ikhwan), I should again like to quote from the
distinguished Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi’s article: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Ikhwan in Egypt after Nasser had their eyes fixed firmly
on political power. Their key text was no longer the uneducated ramblings of
Sayyid Qutb but rather al-Kattani’s ‘Tartib al-Idariyya’ which with strong
erudition had gathered recensions from the Prophetic period and then claimed
that therein lay the blueprint of Islamic politics. However, in placing the
model over Western State practices he seemed to offer as true model the
teetotal capitalism of Herbert Hoover.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">“So the Egyptians turned the Deen of Islam into a political
philosophy which the West renamed as such – Islamism, along with communism and
capitalism. In the new Islamist language <u>they took a word from its
historical context and set it over their programme of power aspiration</u>.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">You end up with Prohibition era politics, usury capitalism
and deeply boring political recreants in the service of foreign paymasters. At
least the Americans had Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Most tragically, the very
life-breath that their religion gifts to them is choked out.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-15031114122754424902012-05-19T16:48:00.000+02:002012-06-02T11:45:01.771+02:00The Highway Song<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I never could stand to drink that blood and call it wine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I never did accept their wars and call them mine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">So I took to the highway never to look back.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">From the Back Bay of Boston to San Francisco Bay</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">It was Highway 1 going south down to LA</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Outside of Bakersfield I hitched a ride to Santa Fe.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I made it to Baton Rouge and met a Cajun lady with a Persian
cat</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">We spent the night in Circe’s ingle, in a houseboat on a
raft.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I hopped a freight train outside of Mobile go’n north to
Cincinnati.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Rode a boxcar with some hobos who’d been shift’n since Korea</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">They knew to jump off our wagon-lit from the doors in back</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I jump out the front on the wrong side of the track.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">That railroad inspector grabbed me and landed such a whack</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">He dumped out all the contents of my pack:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Norman Mailer in Chicago, James Joyce and Ulysses on the run.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Said his daughter had run away with someone called a bum.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">He showed me her photo; nowhere to be found</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I said I didn’t know her, that I was new in town.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">He stood there look’n hard at me as I hit the ground.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The big man started shak’n, said boy you best be gone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">So I grabbed my belongins, which didn’t take me long.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The only thing I knew how to do was too keep on keep’n on.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-30754411725468990812012-04-26T09:30:00.000+02:002012-04-26T20:02:52.383+02:00I Have What I Would Have<div class="MsoNormal">
In William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part I, the first play of
his first tetralogy of English History Plays, we are not only brought into some
of the playwright’s early works that immediately caught the attention of the
theatre going public of Elizabethan London, but to works that exhibit a
profound level of insight and political acumen, as well as daring. The
theme of this cycle of plays is England’s Wars of The Roses that culminates
with the iconographic Richard III. It also provides the link to Queen
Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII, and the opening of the Tudor Dynasty.</div>
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Based on the enormous success of this cycle of plays,
Shakespeare went on to write another tetralogy, moving back further in time,
that would end at the point where Henry VI begins. There is no doubt that the
second series exhibits a more highly developed manner of both writing and
performing, as Shakespeare pioneered what he referred to as ‘personation’,
whereby the player on stage took on the role of the character, employing a more
natural characterisation by means of what today we would simply understand as
‘acting’. The first plays emphasised versification and oratory skill
accompanied by established gestures for various emotions that were all well
known to the audience. As Shakespeare’s skill progressed so did the talent of
his leading actors. Nevertheless, going back to this early play, Henry VI Part
I, admittedly more difficult to stage and dramaturgically less accommodating to
the overall enjoyment of the play as a theatrical event, we have the
opportunity to witness the early stages of a great genius that was directly
involved in the pressing issues of his time.</div>
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It is part of the foundational premise I construct in my
book <i><a href="http://www.thepowertemplate.com/">The PowerTemplate</a> –
Shakespeare’s Political Plays</i>, that the two tetralogies of History Plays
were for Shakespeare a profound meditation on his current political milieu by
carefully reflecting upon an earlier period of England’s history and
recognising existing corollaries that were of the utmost exigency for the time
he was living in. He certainly did not construct a simplistic model
whereby a stage character depicting an historical figure from the past
represented a present-day figure on the Elizabethan political stage.
Elizabeth had seen Shakespeare’s Richard II precisely because of it having a
relation to her, and was well aware of its second round of performances at a
time when people were eager for new works, and the play was already considered
a survivor from the previous season.</div>
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The timing of this second run presaged the famous, albeit
failed, Essex Rebellion. Preserved in the archives containing her letters and
various other correspondences, Elizabeth is recorded as having said: “I am
Richard II, know ye not that”. Of course, <i>Richard II</i> was
based on actual historical material Shakespeare obtained by his reading of
Holinshed’s <i>Chronicles,</i> whose work was enjoying a high degree
of notoriety in Tudor England. Shakespeare was most liberal in his use of
poetic licence when dealing with certain facts. He was a creative playwright,
not an historian making dramatised documentaries.</div>
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But Richard II tells the tale of an erudite and
scholarly king who suffered from being seen as effeminate, as well as being
considered imprudent in the choice of his ‘favourites’ who were meant to serve
as his advisors. Elizabeth, obviously feminine, was thought by some to have
been wrapped in a gilded cocoon by her cunning advisors, most notably Lord
Burghley and his conniving son, Robert Cecil. There was a connection to be
made. From the material mentioned above, Elizabeth herself apparently saw it.
And who was at the fore of this elite coterie of noblemen who saw that
governance and rule was already on a slope made slippery by what is easily
recognised today as the muck of a political class? It was Lord Essex, together
with the Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated two of his most
famous narrative poems, and other such men for whom the code of honour
attributed to their role as knights was inextricably bound to loyalty, service
and protection: <i>noblesse oblige</i>. </div>
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In order to arrive at the precise point at which I am
aiming, and for what is my hope in this short essay, it will be sufficient to
state a few key events. The play begins with the funeral of the heroic Henry V,
and then ‘fast-forwards’ to Henry VI, who was nine months old when his father
died, as a young man. From the time that the infant king was crowned up till
the present, the Duke of Gloucester, uncle to the King, has been the Lord
Protector and therefore, the de facto king of England. He stands as the only
bulwark of defence between a politically inert and mentally ill equipped king
and a swarming pack of vicious political animals all of whom have their eye on
either seizing the crown, or at least, controlling Henry and the realm by
proxy. While the whole lot are opposed to one another, despite various shifting
alliances that are made, broken and rearranged, what they all concur on is that
for any of their designs to unfold Gloucester must go!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Opposite Gloucester is the Bishop of Winchester, great uncle
to the king. He is Prelate to the Pope; known for his licentiousness, covetous
of the role of Lord Protector, lustful for power and exhibits a naked ambition
to seize control of the realm. All of these things are exactly what he accuses
Gloucester of. Early on in the play he deliberately blocks men sent by
Gloucester to the armoury in the Tower to procure additional weapons and
supplies urgently needed by the English troops fighting in France. This for no
other reason than to spite his nemesis with a military failure in France that will
reflect poorly on his stewardship of the kingdom, apparently little fazed by
the fact that it is the troops who will be most adversely effected. A sordid
old man is playing politics while other men are exposed to mortal danger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next key axis of opposition is that between Richard
Plantagenet, soon to be reinstated as the Duke of York and the Duke of
Somerset, self-proclaimed advocate of the House of Lancaster, in spite of the
king himself who is presumably inconsequential. The Temple Garden in London
provides the historic scene whereby York and his party plucked the white rose
to show support for his claim traced back to the illegal usurpation of Richard
II by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), while Somerset and his
allies, including the Earl of Suffolk, picked the red one. Hence, we have the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses">Wars of The Roses</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The last piece to be put in place is that the English army
is in France led by the greatest of England’s noble knights, Lord Talbot.
Lionised by his countrymen, feared and held in awe by the French, Talbot
epitomises the great art of chivalry and honour that stood as the hallmark of
England’s greatness. York has been made Regent of France, and therefore, the
highest authority in the land. He sends an urgent dispatch to Somerset who has
a substantial army at his command, to proceed at once to assist Talbot who is
trapped between the well garrisoned city of Bordeaux and an army of 10,000
strong led by Charles, the King of France. To his great ignominy Somerset
prevaricates and remains immobile. Just as York will blame Somerset, so
Somerset will blame York. The outcome presages a future in which a recreant
political class will routinely spill the blood of the flower of their country’s
courage with impunity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here we must also remember Lord Essex, who 150 years after
these events took place was executed upon the relentless persistence of Robert
Cecil, who could not bear the accusation implicit in the presence of a man of
such exemplary stature. When Shakespeare penned this play Essex was alive and
well, but the writing was on the wall and Shakespeare was, I believe, able to
read it. He would continue to refine this theme in others of his plays that
dealt with legitimacy, the rule of law and the protection it was to provide,
sustained by the requisite loyalty of a body of men who would stand to ensure
that it was upheld.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is something that can never be obtained from salaried
politicians. Therefore, we are inevitably reminded of the craven behaviour of <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2043888,00.html">Tony Blair</a> and
his corruption riddled government; their willingness to be led into a war
predicated on false premises by a country openly promoting its own
self-interests; their perfidious behaviour being matched by that of Sarkozy and
the other complicit heads of state, including one who may yet prove to be the
longest running lame duck in Washington and his British hanger-on, the present
leader of the Conservative controlled coalition in Britain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One by one the despotic regimes in the Arab lands, none of
which possessed a shred of honour, propped up as they were, by the same outside
support structure that has worked to topple each and every one of them, is
seeing what is toted as an Arab Spring of revolutions named after different
flowers. One can hardly bear the bitter irony as this disgraceful sham
continues to be played out on the world stage today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry VI, Part I, Act IV scene vii (Another part of the
battlefield where Talbot is fatally wounded),</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Talbot: Where is my other life? – mine own is gone;<br />
O!
Where is young Talbot? Where is my valiant John?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When he perceiv’d me shrink upon my knee,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His bloody sword he brandish’d over me,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And like a hungry lion did commence</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But when my angry guardant stood alone,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dizzy-ey’d fury and great rage of heart</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suddenly made him from my side to start</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Into the clustering battle of the French;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His overmounting spirit; and there died</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My Icarus, my blossom, my pride.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[Soldiers enter bearing the body of young Talbot]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Come, come, and lay him in his father’s arms:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My spirit can no longer bear these harms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave. [Talbot dies]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-20508226306856488962012-04-10T16:51:00.000+02:002012-04-10T17:29:17.755+02:00The Time Is Out Of Joint<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Let us go together.</span></b> Yes,
for this matter is one that cannot and has never been the undertaking of one
man. Every battle or campaign has its hero, in earlier times quite possibly a
king or military commander. While some undertook great campaigns on the
battlefield, others fought for social justice and establishing societies based
on parity, care of the weak and fairness - an inextricable imperative in the
(financial) market place. Invariably, these were strong men surrounded by
strong men. This is one part of a prophetic ur-model extrapolated into various
places and times throughout the ages, though conspicuously missing within
today’s shadowy political landscape with its increasingly shady political
class.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> You will always hear people speaking of helping the
lowly and disadvantaged, but rarely does one hear of anyone who wants to help
the strong become truly strong and change the course of action that governs the
world. And what is it that governs the world? Of course, it is money! Money (as
intrinsic value in real time and place) we have all come to realize does not
actually exist. Money as credit, created ex nihilo, trading in debts,
derivatives and uncertain futures that now are not even written on paper notes
but move as trillions of electronic digital impulses in milliseconds around the
world from computer terminal to computer terminal. Some have understood this
long before the rest, the majority of whom have been very busy (trader) drones
making six figure salaries, employed by impervious bosses, incubuses that move
silently in and out of buildings, from the back seats of chauffeur driven cars,
who easily pull seven plus. Alongside this stupendous phenomenon we can
recognize its corollary; the world’s most populous cities sprouting tumorous
growths of slum populations often as large as the host they cling to.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe%27s_Faust">Goethe’sFaust</a> Mephistopheles
instructs a bankrupt Emperor in the art of creating notes of credit based on
‘futures’ from un-mined gold and treasures that can, in turn, be used as bills
of exchange. When the Emperor is informed of the now rampant use of countless
notes whirling about as if they were actual wealth he is incredulous and
enraged that such an odious crime is being perpetrated within his realm, until
his treasurer reminds him it was just last night he had himself signed such a
‘note’. The Emperor’s steward chimes in that once begun everyone under the sun
was writing out chits on paper. Spending was spinning; the Exchequer’s books
balanced; consumer confidence was at an all time high and the Emperor’s name
praised on every tongue. The Emperor was duly convinced and most
delighted, but no more so than Mephistopheles himself, for once again he had
proved a great magician!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> You’ll find the above-mentioned scene in <i>Faust, Part Two: The Pleasure Garden</i>, in
any pre-World War II un-expurgated translation. It is interesting how after
1945, many US and UK publishers thought it apposite to omit the particular
scene, apparently for the sake of clarity and expediency, and so as not to
confuse people. It could be assumed that it was omitted from the syllabus of
schools in Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Iceland and the rest. Must
be a bit awkward for the Germans, which may help to explain why their
Department of Education is removing the now “boring” and anachronistic works of
Schiller and Goethe from the standard school curriculum. Judging by current
events, the original text is much more likely to be found in desk drawers on
Wall Street or in the City of London banking district.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part I of <i>Faust</i>,
primarily concerned with Faust’s soul and his selling it to the devil was
completed in 1808, while Part II was not completed until 1831, a year before
Goethe’s death, and focuses instead on human psychology, history, economics and
politics. Obviously this is a complete waste of time in today’s modern world
with a virtual economy spiralling at an incalculable speed, based upon a model
of limitless growth. Meanwhile, the Earth and everything on it (and under
it), the seas and every living thing within them, are being pushed beyond the
limits of what is sustainable.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">And still your fingers on your lips, I pray</span></b>.
This is a matter that must not be too much spoken of, for it is action that is
required. A king has been murdered whilst resting in his garden, a crime
perpetrated by his brother who has taken both his brother’s life and his wife,
and presently sits upon his throne. The most famous son of the murdered king is
brooding, obsessed and frustrated by his inability to act, yet act he
must! And also feigning madness or maybe he has gone mad?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> An inward journey seeks a light that shows the way
forward. But what is that way if not to action, and an action that puts right
what has gone wrong. Surely, this is the cause of Hamlet’s conflicted self, an
apparent paucity that seems paralyzing. Yet, is not Justice the fruit of <i>virtu. </i>This is not Christian virtue.
This is the noble character of the warrior savant. In the early times they were
said to wear a garment of coarse wool (suf), and were subsequently called sufi,
while today they may conceal their poverty before the boundless Lord of Majesty
in elegantly tailored <i>rags </i>by
Armani and Boss.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/time-out-joint">The time is out
of joint</a>. O cursed spite,</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That ever I was born to set it right.</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And to strive to put things right is the business at hand.
All other forms of trade will be done along the way, as the permitted (<i>halal</i>) is extricated from the quagmire of
the prohibited (<i>haram</i>). More than
forty years ago I was told by my Teacher that working was like washing. You do
it. It is a natural activity of man, part of what is called <i>fitra</i>, and there are lots of things that
need doing. The secret is not to associate what one does with the gifts
and bounties one constantly receives. What is your due will come to you. Well
then, we should try to do everything. For what is regret but:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here error is all in the not done,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">all in the diffidence that faltered... (Ezra Pound Canto
LXXXI)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nay, come, let’s go together.</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So we return to the point from which we started.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">................Let us go together.</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That ever I was born to put it right.</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nay, come, let’s go together</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(<i>Hamlet</i>, Act I,
scene V)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The role of leadership is to re-establish justice. The form
of the man that is able to do so is what I attempt to reveal in my book <i><a href="http://www.thepowertemplate.com/">ThePower
Template</a>: Shakespeare’s Political Plays</i>. The final scene of
Hamlet heralds the arrival of Fortinbras, who will restore order and justice,
thereby completing what Prince Hamlet attempted, but was unable to achieve in
his lifetime. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be given a valiant soldier’s
burial.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For he was likely, had he been put on,</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To have proved most royal; and for his
passage,</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The soldier’s music and rite of war</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Speak loudly for him.</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Hamlet, Act V, scene II)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-91531390578759204662012-03-21T18:52:00.000+02:002012-03-21T18:52:02.904+02:00Books and Building<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It has been just over a month since I returned from my visit
to the States, a trip made during summer holidays in South Africa that landed
me smack in the middle of an American winter. My first stop was Boston, where I
spent a few days; for it is there that I visit my father, who just turned 95 on
March 2nd. Much to my delight, as it had been so far a cold but rather snowless
winter, 6 inches of fine white powder fell during my first night, which
remained there to greet me in the morning when I awoke to peer out of the
bedroom window. It was the sound of a motor running at 7am that woke me. The
machine was none other than a small tractor with a snowplough attached to it
being driven by my father, who had apparently been up for some time. So much
for being old!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My next stop was northern California, which was not only a
complete departure from winter in New England, but most of all it was the time
and place I would visit with my own children and grandchildren. Nevertheless, I
never venture to those American shores without a list of books I hope to buy
while there. Books in general are expensive in South Africa, and many titles
are hard to find unless shipped in from Amazon. So, list in hand, I set out on
my search. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first book on my list, already rapaciously devoured with
exhilarating delight, was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Artist-Philosopher-Warrior-Intersecting-Machiavelli/dp/0553807528">The Artist, ThePhilosopher and the Warrior (Da Vinci, Machiavelli and Borgia) </a>by
Paul Strathern. The lives of all three men crossed paths, with both Da Vinci
and Machiavelli being Florentines, one actually employed by Cesare Borgia as a
military engineer, while the other was assigned diplomatic missions by the
government of Florence to liaise with (and spy on where possible) the young yet
unrelentingly ruthless, famously handsome and intrepid Borgia. Borgia’s father
was Pope Alexander VI (so much for vows of celibacy - something I personally
find <i><span style="font-style: italic;">contra naturam</span></i>) and together
they were calculatingly and assiduously working towards unifying the feudal
kingdoms of Italy under Borgia leadership, with a view to expelling both the
French and the Spanish (the Borgia family were, in fact, Catalans), while
simultaneously making secret strategic agreements with both sides. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Leonardo Da Vinci spent most of his life designing
extraordinary machines, many of which were not built in his lifetime. His
famous notebooks, some containing several hundred sketches that included
ingenious war machines, seem to reveal that he observed in man a darkness that
was equal to the use of such things. Nevertheless, he was himself unable to
resist an ineluctable fascination with inventing them. A most egregious anomaly
– but then again, he did paint the Mona Lisa in his spare time. Machiavelli, on
the other hand, based his most famous work, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The
Prince</span></i>, on Cesare Borgia and to a certain extent on Pope Julius II,
who was elected to the papacy upon the death of Alexander. Strathern’s book is
riveting, fascinating beyond words!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next book was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Revolution-Ronald-Syme/dp/0192803204"><i><span style="font-style: italic;">TheRoman Revolution</span></i></a> by Sir Ronald Syme, enticingly placed upon a
bookshelf, waiting to be started. Also on my list was <i><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Muqaddimah-Introduction-History-Ibn-Khaldun/dp/0691017549">The Muqaddimah</a> (An Introduction to History)</span></i>
by Ibn Khaldun. This I am currently reading with great relish for in it I
foresee the possibility of a new book, although I am a congenitally lazy
writer, and no small effort will be required to move this idea into action. The
premise of the book would proceed from my previous one, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Power-Template-Shakespeares-Political-Plays/dp/1463659520"><i><span style="font-style: italic;">The Power</span></i> <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Template</span></i></a>,
and undertake to examine Shakespeare’s handling of The Wars of the Roses from
Ibn Khaldun’s understanding of leadership, royal authority and the
prerequisites necessary to establish and maintain dynastic power: the prior
social conditions; the essential character traits (most notably nobility of
character, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">futuwwa</span></i> in Arabic,
often resorting in translation to the anachronistic term <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chivalry</span></i>);
and an innate quality of ‘group feeling’ (translated from <i><span style="font-style: italic;">asabiyya</span></i> in the Arabic, while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">esprit de corps</span></i> is also used in other translations). The
purpose of such an ambitious undertaking would be in order to hold up this
model before that of the modern political class, found in every country around
the world:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>insipid, corrupt and
obsequious before their paymasters who have put them in office, but, of course,
elected ‘by the people’. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have a very long way to go in fully grasping Ibn Khaldun’s
masterwork before attempting to embark on an endeavour that is as compelling to
me as it is daunting. At any rate, let me plant the seed of my intention in the
hope that it may germinate. My only thoughts so far are that Ibn Khaldun, who
is clearly recognised as the most important Arab Historian (although he
certainly had European blood from his Spanish side), is also recognised for his
role as a philosopher, his astute understanding of political rule and his
ability to extrapolate from the eye-witness accounts that he gained as he
travelled the world, as well as building upon the great scholars (<i><span style="font-style: italic;">ulama</span></i>) he was privileged to sit with and
learn from. According to his English translator and biographer Franz Rosenthal,
Ibn Khaldun is as important for his ‘sociological insights’ as he is for his
fascinating accounts of world altering events, such as those he experienced
while being held as a highly honoured captive guest of the fierce
Timur-the-Lame (Tamerlane).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shakespeare, on the
other hand, was certainly not a historian and took generous advantage of
Hollinshed’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Chronicles</span></i> and
Hall’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Union of Two Noble and Illustrious
Families of Lancaster and York</span></i>, that provided the historical basis
for his first tetralogy that focuses on the Wars of the Roses, and moreover,
were among some of his earliest plays. What Shakespeare does do that is similar
to Ibn Khaldun, although the English bard took much more poetic licence in
doing it, was to extrapolate dramaturgically an understanding of power,
leadership and the conditions that precipitate the founding or floundering of a
royal dynasty, from the historical material available to him. That is as far as
I’ve gotten.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What other book on my list did I find? I came across a
perfect second-hand copy of <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The Terracotta
Dog</span></i> by Andrea Camilleri. Camilleri is heralded as the Italian
Simenon. I know at least one person who may disagree with that, while there is
no doubt that he is a marvellously entertaining and profoundly insightful
writer, whose main character, Inspector Montalbano, is to be found somewhere
between the indefatigably persistent Inspector Morse of Oxford and the
seemingly absent minded and sartorially sloppy American Detective Colombo - who
never misses a stitch. The novels are all immensely enjoyable. I was told by an
Italian friend that there is a popular TV series in Italy based upon them.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now the last book on my shopping list: Michael Pollan’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Place-My-Own-Architecture-Daydreams/dp/0143114743"><i><span style="font-style: italic;">A Place of My Own</span></i></a>. This book is referred
to by its author in his preface as “a biography of a building”. Preceding the
preface is a line from Henry David Thoreau’s <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Walden</span></i>
that makes reference to the hut Thoreau built on a tiny island situated in
Walden Pond. It was recommended by a young fellow, now married to my niece, who
I first met two years ago just after they were formally engaged. He came across
then as a very dapper 20-something Sinatra, although he insists he doesn’t sing
but rather reads. This year, having undergone a makeover, he resembled a poet
from the post-Beat Generation, with long hair and full beard.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pollan’s book is the
story of a writer who needs a place to work. With his and his wife’s first
child on the way working from the house will be next to impossible. What he
does, with absolutely no previous skill or even the slightest aptitude, is to
venture to build himself a small writer’s hut some few hundred feet behind
their New England home. It is a curiously interesting biographical account of a
writer’s quest not just to find but actually make that special place to write,
and, according to Pollan, “daydream”, and create something of substance - made
out of words. The further along I read the more I became drawn into Pollan’s
skill and craftsmanship as a writer. I think that what my niece’s husband had
in mind when he recommended the book was that while he knew I had written a
couple books and a bunch of essays, he had been told that I had built a
considerable number of houses. There is an intriguing connection somewhere
between the author of <i><span style="font-style: italic;">A Place of My Own</span></i>
and myself in the inverse correlation between our opposing trajectories. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That being said, it was some four years after I had sat on
the stoop of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop on Plymton Street off Harvard Square,
trying to understand <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The</span></i> <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Cantos</span></i> of Ezra Pound, that I crossed the
big pond and managed to be taken on as an apprentice by a furniture maker in
the north London borough of Islington. My employer, a master craftsman of the
pre-world war era, said I was at 21 or 22 actually too old to start. After some
persuasion he agreed to take me on, as I impressed upon him that I was
interested in learning and not in how little he would be able to pay me. He
first taught me how to sharpen a chisel (which I have not forgotten) and then
something of how to properly use it. After some time I gradually moved from
furniture to building houses. The pay was, quite frankly, a lot better and most
of all it was suited to my peripatetic way of life. </span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-3906207195436508042012-02-06T22:07:00.003+02:002012-02-06T22:19:22.879+02:00Shakespeare Within The Spheres of Politics and Law<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The title is enough to enable the general reader to identify the subject as one firmly ensconced within an academic field of critical enquiry. The impetus for embarking upon this particular consideration of Shakespeare’s dramatic oeuvre has arisen from my having recently completed Anselm Haverkamp’s <i>S<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shakespearean-Genealogies-Power-Whispering-Discourses/dp/041559345X">hakespearean Genealogies of Power</a>. </i> Haverkamp’s work is inextricably grounded in just such a specialist technical language. The title of my own latest book, <i><a href="http://www.thepowertemplate.com/">The Power Template – Shakespeare’s Political Plays</a>,</i> a recognisable parallelism appears in the subject matter that is indicated in both works. One significant difference (apart from my not writing in the technical and complex specificity of language that is employed by Haverkamp) is his stronger emphasis on the legal implications that are latent within Shakespeare’s plays. Nevertheless, within <i>The Power Template</i> the legal dimensions of both royal prerogative, as explored in the History Plays, and constitutional law, as explored in the Roman Plays, are by no means absent. Haverkamp, on the other hand, develops this aspect even further by his indicating that verdicts in nearly all cases within the context of the plays remain “unresolved”, and subsequently requires the litigants to return to the stage. Clearly, this goes some way towards explaining the longevity of the plays and how they continue to contemporise both Shakespeare and his dramatic works.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Richard II, the very first play that is explored in </span><i style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.thepowertemplate.com/">The Power Template</a>,</i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> the sequestration of John of Gaunt’s wealth by the King is presented as just much as a matter of law as it is as a manifestation of naked power. Gaunt’s famous deathbed rebuke to his nephew and sovereign, begins with a reference to, “this royal throne of kings, this sceptr’d isle” and how Richard has failed to uphold the law, a duty which belongs indivisibly to the role of kingship. As a dying man Sir John freely speaks his mind, and moreover, that which he is duty bound by code of honour as a royal knight in service to his sovereign liege, to extend as sound council, regardless of Richard wanting to hear it or not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In Henry V, the law once again takes an important role, this time in Henry’s surprising transformation (especially so to the two incredulous prelates in his service who were previously only aware of the “wastrel prince” as depicted in Henry IV, parts I and II) into a king with an astute political acumen and a keen interest in the legality of a move he was intending to make in regards to recovering lost English territories within the borders of France that had been conquered by his great-grandfather, Edward III, whose wife was of French royalty. France’s Salic law forbade succession through the female line, and would, therefore, pose a legal impediment to Harry’s claim. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 1.3pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The two learned bishops were quick to confirm that the law Salique pertained only to a very specific region of Germany that had previously been annexed by France. The purpose of the law was to ensure that in subsequent generations the French crown would not, or could not, devolve into German hands through the maternal line. The bishops, far more concerned with their purses than their prayers, were eager to divert Harry from a previous intention to impose more stringent taxes on an excessively rich Roman Church. They were most convincing in their legal argument, closing with a summation that if the law was applicable across the board then the reigning French Monarch’s own claim would likewise be invalid. The English King, whose father had illegally usurped the throne from Richard II, is as concerned about acting within the law as he is about England’s military capacity to execute his plan to invade France. Interestingly, Haverkamp’s immensely scholarly work skips over this particular instance and its far-reaching legal implications, which point towards the manoeuvrings we have come to expect from modern democratically elected heads of state, whose ready recourse to ‘the rule of exception’ has enabled them to step adroitly around the law without liability by declaring a state of emergency, as the historical evidence shows.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nevertheless, there are numerous other examples cited by Haverkamp, all in extremely precise detail, that are found in <i>Macbeth</i>, <i>The Merchant of Venice</i> and <i>The Winter’s Tale</i>, all of which fall outside of scope of <i>The Power Template</i>, that limits itself to the History Plays, Roman Plays and the political dimensions of Hamlet. Furthermore, whereas I have opted for an accessible, narrative style of writing, Haverkamp (as already indicated) has set his exposition within a highly technical register of specialist academic discourse. Nonetheless, both works present a similar aspect of Shakespeare’s plays in which clear corollaries persist. Haverkamp’s exploration of “Shakespeare’s involvement with the legal sphere: as a visible space between the spheres of politics and law” is exemplary and moreover goes more deeply into the law <i>per se</i>, as a fundament of power that is expressed within the zone of politics, than does my work, which emphasises the legal imperatives that presage political action.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What is inherent within my study is the identification of the legal expedient required to precipitate an executive action that would otherwise be deemed <i>ultra vires</i>. This is most clearly recognised in the importance given to Cicero’s adjudicating in the matter of the necessity to remove (assassinate) Caesar. If Brutus, the high minded defender of the principles of the Roman Republic, provides an ideological justification (exemplified in his famous: “it’s not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more”) it is Cicero’s in-back juridical ruling that allows the plan to make the transition from the sphere of law into the arena of politics as a pre-emptive strike. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Haverkamp’s book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shakespearean-Genealogies-Power-Whispering-Discourses/dp/041559345X">Shakespearean Genealogies of Power</a></i>, is an accomplished dissertation that may not necessarily be easy reading, but unequivocally stands as a serious contribution to Shakespearean studies.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-27801626353190555762012-01-15T19:13:00.000+02:002012-01-15T19:13:07.133+02:00To The Place Where I Come From<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How strange it is that here in mid
January I find myself in the southern tip of Africa on a warm summer afternoon
that would almost be too hot except for a gentle breeze that moves in from
where two oceans meet, yet never cross. I had been asked by a magazine editor
in Germany about a poem I may possibly know of, something by Robert Frost. Off
hand the theme that the poem was meant to express was not something I
recognised as being within Frost’s domain, but it did cause me to pull from my
book case a volume of his complete works, <i>The
Poetry of Robert Frost</i>, and scan through the long list of titles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In less than a week’s time I will
be taking a flight from Cape Town to Boston, via Paris. When I land in Boston
Logan it will be winter, proper winter, cold with snow defied by heated homes
with fireplaces burning. Like Robert Frost, I was born and raised in New
England. I recall he lived in New Hampshire, the state that borders
Massachusetts to the north. The cluster of states known as New England, shares
not only a common climate but also a similar history, as they were the early
English colonies. Apart from the city of Boston, there are the well-known towns
of Arlington, Lexington, Concord and Braintree. There is Walden Pond, which is
surprisingly small, that provided Henry David Thoreau’s setting for his famous <i>On</i> <i>Walden Pond</i>
and also where he worked on his treatise <i>Civil
Disobedience</i>. Back then Thoreau was a young man and devoted to his
intellectual hero and self chosen teacher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It seems only
natural that in my youth the generation I was part of identified with Thoreau,
while like him, I too looked up to the universal intellect of Emerson, whose
library included works from the great poet Goethe, that Emerson read in their
original German, to the Persian poet Hafiz. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">While I have not been able to
locate the poem purported to be by Robert Frost that the magazine editor asked
about, I did start to read through several of Frost’s poems that I remember
reading when still at school. Frost became a cultural icon after the Second
World War, and every English class across America studied his poems.
Furthermore, he was specifically connected to rural New England, its woodlands
and small farms that so acutely expressed an intimate understanding of a stoic
yet unpretentious ethic. If Emerson was the foremost poet and thinker of the
early American Transcendentalists, who were born into the Unitarianism of New
England in the early decades of the nineteenth century, then Frost was a voice
of an outwardly more simple folk who possessed a depth of homely wisdom that
barely managed to survive the tumult of two world wars only to then dissipate
before the rise of an unmitigated hubris that took hold of the American psyche
and would land it in the Bay of Pigs, then Vietnam; both of which went terribly
wrong. There was the proto model of Indonesia, a massive victory for
unrestrained capitalism while plunging America into a moral quagmire as it
sequestered a whole region’s vast wealth of natural resources in the name of
halting the spread of Communism. Then on to Chile and El Salvador, for which
the writing of Joan Didion is essential to see the true face of a two faced
foreign policy, and so many other places around the world where the claim was
always the same: America was going to put things right. They would halt
Communism and the spreading of its evil empire. Later, with the Cold War over
it became the miasma of global terrorism that provided yet another carte
blanche to secure needed energy resources for a rapacious society with a most
heterodox anomaly: being somehow so incredibly naive and outrageously arrogant
at the same time.<u style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:UIM" datetime="2012-01-15T00:51"><o:p></o:p></ins></span></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Today, the claim of putting things right around the world seems less and
less palatable as its home situation has been exposed as far from exemplary.
The unmitigated avariciousness of its financial institutions has shocked a
people who had been lulled into consumerist complacency. The impotency of their political leaders in
the face of supra-banking fuelled by a debt-based economy has left a country
wondering who is actually running the show. But, as they say on Broadway: ‘The
show must go on’, so its proving hard for a country that has been so enamoured
by its own myth to face the bare facts of what is happening. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">At least there is the build up to
the American presidential elections, which is always its own form of Roman
circus, so if nothing else it should provide some degree of distraction from an
otherwise tenuous at best, or otherwise immitigably perilous fiscal landscape.
Again you can see that efflorescent innocence of hope coupled with the largest
fucking military machine in the world. It has worked before, so it may work yet
again – or maybe not. For too long not only the general public but also
Congress and its sacred House of (elected) Representatives have been far too
willing not to ask how the country was kept safe and prosperous. Maybe better
not to know. But now it seems far less safe, and also nowhere<u style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:UIM" datetime="2012-01-15T00:30"> </ins></span></u><s style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="msoDel"><del cite="mailto:UIM" datetime="2012-01-15T00:30"> </del></span></s>near as prosperous.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Well, I am soon to be travelling to
America. It is there more than any place else in the world that I feel most a
stranger, upon the familiar soil from which I grew. It is late now, just past
midnight on a warm summer night in January, and I have arrived at a poem by
Robert Frost that most seems to take me back to the place where I come from: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Stopping By Woods On A Snowy
Evening<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Whose woods these are I think I
know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">His house is in the village,
though;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He will not see me stopping here<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To watch his woods fill up with
snow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">My little horse must think it queer<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To stop without a farmhouse near<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Between the woods and frozen lake<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The darkest evening of the year.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He gives his harness bells a shake<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To ask if there is some mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The only other sound’s the sweep<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Of easy wind and downy flake.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The woods are lovely, dark, and
deep,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But I have promises to keep,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And miles to go before I sleep,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And miles to go before I
sleep. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-75933261093993954542011-12-16T20:31:00.003+02:002011-12-27T13:50:29.348+02:00Coriolanus - Shakespeare's Most Political Play<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kk4SK2dtJJ4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-83715441918624002212011-12-10T11:54:00.001+02:002011-12-10T11:56:40.654+02:00The Defence Rests<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In re Ezra Pound<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A Nation<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That Will Not<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Get itself Into Debt<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Drives The Usurers<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To Fury<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The above quote is from Ezra
Pound’s prose work <i>The Enemy Is Ignorance</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I do not want to take up any
serious student’s valuable time with the countering of acrimonious slander, but
there are two predominant lies that are propagated about Ezra Pound, both of
which attempt to tarnish the splendour of his work and his extraordinary
genius, but most of all obfuscate the seminal theme of his lifelong effort to
expose what he identified as the most pernicious injustice that had infected
the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The first accusation is that he was
a Fascist. He was not. He did support Mussolini and in particular certain of
his ‘land reform initiatives’ such as the reclamation of previously
unproductive land, the breaking-up of certain capitalist monopolies that were
crippling the economy, and also his attempt to rein in the Church’s enormous
wealth that they extracted from people who were suffering under the weight of
extreme hardship. It can be argued that
Mussolini was something of a mountebank, as he frequently plagiarized Gabriele
D’Annunzio, who at the end of the First World War was not only a literary
legend but by then a military and political one as well. When D’Annunzio
rallied the Italian nation to help rescue ‘their sister France’ during the
First World War, Mussolini used the same words when France had been occupied by
Germany under the Nazis. It was, nevertheless, the bellicose British Prime
Minister who not only pushed Mussolini away, but into the arms of Hitler whom
Il Duce is on record as saying he could not stand. On numerous occasions Pound
very clearly expressed that Italian style Fascism was in no way suitable to the
American psyche, and therefore, to the American people, while he did see it as
beneficial to Italy at that time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The second thing said about him was
that he was rabidly anti-Semitic. He was not. An important note: Semitic is a
linguistic classification not a racial one, and therefore, includes all the
Arabic-speaking people of the world. It also includes any Aramaic-speaking
people, the old form of which was spoken during the time of Jesus, peace be
upon him, and is now the exclusive preserve of philologists, historians and
archaeologists.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In Pound’s literary masterpiece,
The Cantos, the name of Rothschild is used as an allegorical personification of
usurers, those that practice <i>riba</i>,
as it is referred to in Qur’anic Arabic, or <i>neschek</i>
in Hebrew scripture, which appears in The Cantos explicitly as being
non-racially directed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">T</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">he Evil is
Usury, neschek<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the serpent <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">neschek
whose name is known, the defiler,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">beyond
race and against race<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the
defiler<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tόxos hic mali medium est<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In one place he refers to them as
Stinkschuld. This is a potent metaphor as <i>schuld</i>
in German means debt, and also, interestingly, guilt. It could, of course, as
well be described as a pungent metaphor. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There is a direct reference to
William Paterson, who founded the Bank of England in 1694. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Said
Paterson:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Hath benefit of interest on all<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><u><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the moneys which it, the bank, creates out of
nothing</span></span></u><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">(Canto XLVI)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This line was taken from a letter
found by Pound in the British Library and refers to the fractional reserve
system whereby a bank can legally multiply what money it has and so lend out at
interest money it does not actually have. The ratio of tangible assets (real wealth) to
credit currency is today astronomical and virtually incalculable. Paterson was
a Scot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There is an inspirational prose
text by Pound called <i>Guide to Kulchur</i>.
The dedication at the front of the book reads:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">LOUIS ZUKOFSKY<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">and<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">BASIL BUNTING<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">strugglers<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In the<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">desert<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Zukofsky was a second generation protégé
of Pound and dedicated nearly all his life work as a poet to Ezra Pound.
Zukofsky was born in 1904 and died in 1978. His parents were Lithuanian Jews
who raised their family in New York’s Lower East Side. Pound helped him publish
his first poems in a literary magazine called <i>Exile</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">During WWII while Pound was living
in the fishing village of Rapallo the mayor announced that due to severe
shortages caused by the war, the town’s orchestra would have to be disbanded.
It was now 1940-41 and word of the terrible atrocities that were taking place
in Germany and Poland had made their way to outside countries. Let us remember
that even most Germans were not aware as to what was taking place. Pound literally
went door to door to find sponsors for these people, realising that nearly a
third of the orchestra were German and Polish Jews and subsequently what fate
awaited them if they were repatriated in accordance with a bi-lateral agreement
between Italy and Germany for anyone without a valid work permit. He did this
despite the fact that people, himself included, were having a very hard time
feeding their own families. Subsequently, the mayor was able to rescind his
previous edict. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Ezra Pound took as the warp and
woof of his masterwork, The Cantos, the theme of usury or <i>usura</i> as he wrote it. He made war on <i>riba</i>! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Oh you who believe, fear God<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">and give up what remains of<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">your demand for usury, if you<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">are indeed are believers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">If you do not, take notice of War<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> from God and His
Messenger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Qur’an: 2.275/279<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">They severely punished Pound, not
only for his condemnation of usury itself, but more significantly, for his
condemnation of those who practised it, and who have never forgotten or
forgiven him for what he wrote and spoke. He was put in a wire cage at an
American detention centre in Pisa, and then extradited to the United States on
charges of treason. He was denied the right of habeas corpus, and spent over
eleven and a half years in a mental hospital in Washington, D.C. for the
criminally insane. That is what was done to the most important poet of the
twentieth century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Remembering what Ezra Pound wrote -
You defeat the bankers (drive them to fury) by not needing them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">As far as Ezra Pound’s political
affiliations, he was notably a Jeffersonian. There are two salient quotes from
Jefferson found in Pound’s writing. The first is: “I believe that the banking
institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already
they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set government at defiance.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to
whom it properly belongs.” The second quote that Pound used was: “If the
American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency,
first by inflation, then deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow
up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children
wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Philosophically Pound was a
Confucian, and his brilliant translations of the master Kung, as Pound called
him, are a testament to that. What follows is a segment from <i>The Great Digest</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">TA S’EU<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“The men of old wanting to clarify
and diffuse throughout the empire that light that comes from looking straight
into the heart and then acting, first set up good government in their own
states; wanting good government in their states, they first established order
in their own families; wanting order in the home, they first disciplined
themselves; desiring self-discipline, they rectified their own hearts; and
wanting to rectify their hearts, they sought precise verbal definitions of
their inarticulate thoughts [the tones given off by the heart]; wishing to
attain precise verbal definitions, they set to extend their knowledge to the
utmost. This completion of knowledge is rooted in sorting things into organic
categories.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">As far as religion, he was adamant
about “no Popery”, while he often expressed his enormous admiration for the
architectural magnificence and beauty that expressed Christian transcendence
made manifest by the superb craftsmanship of the artisans who built
breathtaking structures, and the sublime artistry of those that painted the
frescos that adorned them. One need only walk along the pathways of Venice or
Rimini to witness what Pound so loved. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In The Cantos Pound singled out the
theologian Johannes Scotus Erigena, condemned by Pope Honorius as a heretic, a
follower of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) who he identified as a hero, as indeed Dante
had done some centuries earlier although, according to Dante, was unable to
enter Paradise as he was not a Christian. As a defender of the Canon Law of the
Church against usury they should have canonised him and made him a saint, but
the Vatican was enmeshed in banking and remained silent while Pound remained
vilified and locked up in a madhouse. It was only Hemingway, in <i>A Movable Feast</i>, recalling his youth in
Paris in the 1920s, who called him Saint Ezra on account of his indefatigable
efforts on behalf of the literary and artist friends he so assiduously tried to
help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We are today experiencing the
aftershocks of what has been called the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Lehman
Brothers, Goldman Sachs and even poor Bernie Madoff who stole 47 billion
dollars that never actually existed, have entered the public discourse in a way
that Rothschild, Sassoon and Sir Basil Zaharoff did in Pound’s era. A corrupt
and flaccid political class has been inexorably exposed, and has left people
unable to comprehend the ineluctable truth that their vaunted democratically
elected leaders are simply not in charge. Pound had believed in the vision of
men like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, just as he celebrated the Monte dei
Paschi (Mount of Grazing Lands) established by the Arch Duke Ferdinando in 1600
as being sufficient collateral for those who needed seed money at the start of
the new growing season. The God-given abundance was in nature itself, and there
was no un-natural increase by means of interest. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Pound also saw the time of the
American Civil War (fought between 1861-1864) and the passing of the Banking
Act that immediately followed and with it the handing over of political power
to a mercantile class of profiteers, as the end of the great American
experiment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">M</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">’amour, m’amour<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">what
do I love and<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">where
are you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That
I lost my center<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">fighting
the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
dreams clash<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and
are shattered –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">and
that I tried to make a paradiso<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> terrestre.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Do
not move<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Let
the wind speak<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">that
is paradise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Let
the Gods forgive what I have made<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Let
those I love try to forgive<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">what
I have made. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">(From: Notes for CXVIII et seq.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The defence rests its case.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Robert Luongo <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-14414014713797440882011-11-30T18:50:00.002+02:002011-11-30T23:03:11.693+02:00Dear Prime Minister<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">An Open Letter to Recep Tayyip Erdogan<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Dear Prime Minister Erdogan, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">It is with the greatest respect for you that I acknowledge what I perceive of the complex and dangerous minefield you must traverse on a daily basis in order to continue in your efforts to lead Turkey at this most critical moment and to steer the ship of State across threatening geopolitical currents. It is, therefore, in apprehension of the treacherous reefs that your rivals and opponents long to see you founder upon, that I venture firstly to convey my sincere hope for your continued safety, and also, if you will excuse my forwardness, volunteer myself to you as a marker buoy for certain dangers that lie in wait for you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Before going further, I must mention that I first visited Turkey in 1996 as part of a delegation that came to attend a conference in Istanbul, and was, in fact, your guest at a dinner given by you as Mayor of that most noble and beautiful city. Unfortunately, I did not get the opportunity on that memorable occasion to thank you personally for your generous hospitality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">It was during this visit that Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi presented the Islamic Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham to the recently deceased Dr. Necmettin Erbakan, the newly elected Prime Minister of Turkey. I had the opportunity to visit again the following year and recall doing a live radio interview on a student-run station. In 1996 Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir had numerous invitations to speak and of all the places offered, he chose Bosphorus University, acknowledged at the time as the most prestigious secular university in the country. Shaykh Abdalqadir presented a major paper, subsequently published under the title of <i>The Return of The Khalifate</i>. The result of his discourse was thunderous applause and excitement as young men and women rushed forward to meet and greet the Shaykh. A series of smaller gatherings took place and, as mentioned, a second visit was made the following year. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">I hope you will permit me, respectfully, to make one or two observations regarding the late Dr. Erbakan, whose dignified, gentlemanly and urbane demeanour exemplified the innate courtesy of the Turkish people. The difficulties he experienced in forming a majority government are, I am sure, better known to you than to me. A coalition had to be formed and it was to Tansu Çiller that he turned. She had, as you know, two options open to her. The first was to face criminal charges of fraud, which according to Turkish law she could not be prosecuted for if in office, or to team up with a declared political enemy. History has recorded that she chose the latter. It was a sensible move by her and a politically strategic one by Dr. Erbakan. Nevertheless, she wasted not one minute in sowing the seeds of discord within the Turkish Administration. Whilst reiterating that you will know far more of the Machiavellian intrigues and machinations that ensued, I find the first two official State visits that the new Prime Minister made worthy of some attention.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">The Prime Minister went to Iran, a country that was already fixed within the crosshairs of the Pentagon. It is common knowledge that Iran is run by a cadre of Shias, and it is not disputed that the Shias split off as a faction from the body politic (Ummah) of the Muslims many centuries ago. The etymological root of the Arabic word <i>shi’ah</i>, which they adopted as a name for themselves, indicates <i>that which splits away</i>. Their religion openly slanders the noble Companions of the Prophet, as well as his wife Aisha and declares as non-believers numerous people that were promised the Garden in the Hereafter, either in Qur’an or on the tongue of the blessed Messenger. It also sanctions the practice of <i>taqi’a</i>, permitting them to resort to dissemblance and concealment of their true beliefs and motives whenever it suits them to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Then there are the Ismailis, an even more radical sect within the Shia religion, who established suicide assassination as a tactic to be seen not only valid, but laudable. Any form of suicide is against the teaching of Islam, not to mention the killing of innocent victims who are written off as collateral damage. It is of the utmost importance that the most knowledgeable specialists upon whom you rely to inform your position on these matters provide you with the means to take up a clear and unequivocal stance on this. Of course, Iran is your neighbour, possibly a valuable trading partner, and therefore, a détente must be maintained to secure a safe border with them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">It is now fifteen years on since the late Dr. Erbakan made that visit. What was he thinking? What did he imagine the response of the Turkish military and his other enemies within the country would be? Lacking the advantage of your proximity to the circumstances, certainly the wisdom of hindsight persuades me that it was a fatal lack of political acumen that allowed Dr. Erbakan to choose that destination as one of his first official tours. Iran is still under the aim of the Pentagon for a possible military strike, but given that the US is presently embroiled in two unwinnable wars, and that Iran has gained ascendancy as the major power broker in nearly all Mid-Eastern affairs, it is my view that the US is prepared, despite Israel’s protestations, to jump into bed with Iran as a temporary strategic convenience. Please sir, do not get caught between them, because that is precisely what is now being asked of you! <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">The second country he visited was Libya, a profitable ‘petrol station’ that was of considerable value to BP and certain American oil companies, run by a man I am convinced was clinically mad (although I am not a qualified psychiatrist). There was all the vitriolic rhetoric between Libya and the US during the Reagan years, but, as I was informed by reliable sources, business between the two countries was at its all time best. As you know, recent events have resulted in the disgraceful murder of Colonel Gaddafi, backed by a pro democracy contingent that was funded by the very same people who had allowed him to remain in power for over forty years. Once more, sir, please do not be drawn into the maelstrom of a hostile corporate takeover of a country’s oil wealth masked as part of a fantasy that was first launched on Facebook as ‘The Arab Spring’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">From my relatively distant perspective, the choice of these two countries by Dr. Erbakan suggests a lack of understanding of the political arena into which he had entered. When the military threatened to roll tanks through the streets he, being a man of honour and one with true concern for the welfare of the Turkish people, stepped aside. If only Osama Bin Laden had followed this example of how a true Muslim leader behaves - instead of choosing to remain in Afghanistan when it was clear that his presence there would rain down death and destruction upon the brave people of that country. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Leaving the past and what mistakes were made, it is of the utmost exigency that you have a clear view of the political terrain that is open before you. Syria is a quagmire, with its citizens being slaughtered by the Assad regime, as they, like lemmings, are going to their deaths. What do they want? Do they want to be Greece? Similar to the situation with Iran Turkey is being asked to serve as a broker on behalf of those countries that have a geopolitical interest in the region. Egypt has gone from bad to worse, as now it is reported that the military, called in to maintain calm while the new democratic government has time to organise, is proving more brutal than under Mubarak. You must know that after Israel, Egypt receives more US aid than any other country. So who kept a rabid dog in power and made him rich? The same ones that funded the ‘spontaneous revolution’ to usher in a new era of democracy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">From Nasser to Sadat to Mubarak; each one worse than the one they succeeded. And all the while who has been lurking in the background, pretending to be this secret organisation - that everyone knows about, including who its leaders are? Of course, I refer to the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen. In all the years of their recreant existence what have they ever accomplished but shameful defeat and the sending of misguided young men to their graves? Meanwhile, their leadership have occupied lucrative government positions in the countries they secretly denounce as kafir. Where are they? Egypt, Jordan, the oil-rich Gulf States and Turkey! When you trace their antecedents you arrive at the door of Muhammad Abduh, the late nineteenth century founder of Islamic Modernism in Egypt, who, despite his vituperative railing against British imperialism was, according to Lord Cromer, referred to as ‘our friend Abduh’ and ‘most likely an agnostic’ who would help put in place all of the pro British initiatives, including a fatwa to allow the Post Office Bank, with its ‘moderate’ interest rates, to operate in Egypt. After him came Rashid Rida and the disasters of the 20<sup>th</sup> century that opened the way for the Ikhwan. Weed them out of Turkey! Be sure to get to the roots and not just the stems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Before proceeding further, I must reiterate my high regard for you and the assiduousness you have applied to the task before you. Being at the forefront of your country’s undoubted political progress, and importantly her commercial vigour, you have genuinely helped your people and consequently expanded your support base. Whether Turkey is admitted into the EU or not (you are more aware of that than I), what has been most telling is your indefatigable resolve to bring Turkish goods to the world marketplace. A leader that actually helps his own people: what an anomaly in today’s political environment! <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Equally commendable has been your consummate handling of the hard-core nationalists who have persisted in maintaining an acrimonious attitude towards the Kurdish people within Turkey. You have opened a direct dialogue with them. You have permitted the use of Kurdish in local political affairs, allowed it to be taught in schools and used on regional radio stations. They are a minority with a distinct culture and language that are part of Turkey. Most significantly they are Muslim people, brothers and sisters in Islam. A weapon against you and your government has been taken away from your enemies in Europe and at home.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Please permit me to speak of friendship. One must chose one’s friends carefully. The last Shah of Iran sat at the family dining room table in the White House of five consecutive American presidents. I do not refer to State dinners but family meals. The Shah and his wife were on intimate terms with those presidents and their families. When the writing was on the wall, and it was clear that the Shah would fall, not one of them would take his calls. He flew around and around in his private luxury jet running out of fuel with no one allowing him to land. The decision was that it would be imprudent to be seen backing a loser, and better to come to some form of amenable terms with the ‘fellow in the turban’ who was being flown in from Paris. Now, that’s how they treat their friends! Let me also turn to the case of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, a staunch anti-communist and recipient of lavish amounts of US aid that he and his wife lavishly spent on themselves. When it was obvious that he would not last the latest uprising and that a newly elected democratic leader, Corazon Aquino, would be president, his friends deserted him. Basta! As they say in Italian.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">The last matter I want to raise with you is that of finance. At the moment Turkey is running on a high. Ten years ago Ireland had the fastest growing economy in Europe and Dublin was a boomtown with a bonanza of new money pouring in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">A Nation<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">That Will Not<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">Get itself Into Debt<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">Drives The Usurers<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">To Fury<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">The above quote is by Ezra Pound from his prose work <i>The Enemy Is Ignorance</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Ezra Pound took as the warp and woof of his masterwork, The Cantos, the theme of usury or <i>usura</i> as he wrote it. He made war on <i>riba</i>! They severely punished him for it and have never forgotten or forgiven him for what he wrote and spoke. He was put in a wire cage at an American detention centre in Pisa, and then extradited to the United States on charges of treason. He was denied the right of habeas corpus, and spent over eleven and a half years in a mental hospital in Washington, D.C. for the criminally insane. That is what was done to the most important English speaking poet of the twentieth century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Returning to the twenty-first century you must be fully aware of the generous line of credit being offered to Turkey. Your economy we are told is one of the few that is growing and doing well. Think of this line of credit as a rope. There is an anecdote taken directly from a chronicler during the time of Louis XV of France: “And we saw the King walking in the garden with his Jew...” “The bank supports the State like the rope supports a hanging man”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">The banks are not defeated by attacking them. Berlusconi refused to sign the austerity measures bill demanded by the banks to ‘restore confidence in Italy’s finances’. Overnight he was gone. He has been replaced by Mario Monti, the previous Minister of Economy and Finance. He is openly a member of the Bilderberg Group as well as chairman of the Trilateral Commission, the influential think-tank founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller. He has also been a key advisor to Goldman Sachs. Italians were seen dancing in the streets after Berlusconi was forced to step down, as people shouted “clown, clown, clown”. We will hear a different chant when Monti signs the austerity bill, which he will; he is a banker.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">In 1965 a recalcitrant Achmed Sukarno had the temerity to throw the IMF and World Bank out of Indonesia. In 1966 a CIA backed initiative was put into motion to overthrow him and place General Suharto in power. All of Indonesia’s vast natural resources were handed to US, UK and Australian multi-nationals, the IMF were welcomed back, and Suharto undertook the task, under the cover of being anti-communist, of carrying out the worst cases of torture and genocide against his own people. The US and others simply looked the other way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">I remind you again of what Ezra Pound wrote. You defeat them (drive them to fury) by not needing them. Your customary politeness and cordiality is a shield. Courtesy was the hallmark of the best of mankind. And he, God bless him and cover him with peace, also said, “Strategy is part of warfare”. The astonishing advances you have made so far for your people were not accomplished in a day, and lately we have seen how much can be destroyed overnight. However, a great opportunity awaits you and the Turkish people, and as Pound also said, quoting Confucius: Make It New!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">I thank you very much for your valuable time, and pray for your continued success and safety - for you and all of the people of Turkey. Certainly, we must want this for all people around the world in need of the good news - as well as the warning. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%">Yours truly, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:72.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt"><span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%"> Robert Luongo</span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-4688784651736538662011-11-08T17:26:00.001+02:002011-11-08T17:28:38.659+02:00Pre-Graduation Day<p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">There is the need to record an event, to put down in words, so as not to forget something, something of importance. From it may very well come an understanding, even if much later, within which one can find benefit. Homer had such a need and we are grateful to him for it. We have The Iliad and The Odyssey.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">There was firstly Homer’s narrative poem; to which my approach was then deepened through The Cantos of Ezra Pound; and more recently Odysseus (or Ulysses as he was known to the Romans) makes a guest appearance in Shakespeare, whose political plays are the theme of the subject I teach at a college in South Africa. Presently I am reading a fascinating study by Barbara Reynolds of the Italian poet, political thinker and the man, Dante, who lived from 1469-1527; and who should show up in her book but the celebrated Greek general, who served under King Agamemnon, and not without trepidation and intense daring managed to survive a terrible war, and after a long and arduous journey finally makes his way home to his wife, Penelope, their son and an ageing father. When he arrived he found his homestead in Ithaca infested by property developers, speculators and bankers, all wanting to convert his land into a housing estate. As the potential for profit was enormous they had been besieging his wife day and night, all the while feasting on her husband’s food and drinking his wine, in hopes of their imminent gain if she would simply sign the papers and seal the deal. By all accounts Odysseus was presumed to have perished, dead, either in battle or upon his return journey. It would simply be better all around if she sold. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">There is not a general consensus as to the inherent character of the 13<sup>th</sup> century BC mythical figure, for some have portrayed him as a cunning Machiavellian who drove his men not only in war, but also into dangerous detours, exploiting their desire for both fame and riches, while others have depicted him far more favourably and heroically. It is worthy of note that he and his son Telemachus unsheathed their swords against those that were intent on obtaining his property, killing them all, except for those that managed to escape with their tails curled between their legs: a fair warning to modern day bankers and speculators. It seems certain that I’ll never be a ‘proper’ academic, maintaining that detached and distinguished objectivity. Not, of course, that they ever forget who signs their pay cheques. Academia operates by corporate sponsorship, which along with major banks and financial institutions are the largest contributors to the arts and sciences within both private and state universities. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">This past Thursday was the last day of formal classes at Dallas College, and we were all honoured that the founder, Dr. Dallas, whose name the college bears (also known to all of us as Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi) came and delivered an address to the students and faculty. A third year student, who is <i>hafiz</i> of Qur’an, recited the first part of Al-Baqara to begin the morning programme.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%"> Dallas College, established in 2005, was created to produce future leaders - as well as those capable of recognising such men, pledging their allegiance and serving them by whatever means and expertise they have obtained. It was said to me a short time ago by our Chancellor, who is not only a prominent attorney from Johannesburg but most importantly an indefatigable supporter of the college: “Not all of our graduates will become leaders, but none of them will ever be led astray”. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">The central theme of Dr. Dallas’s address was the study of history as a means of making sense of the time in which one is living. He made mention of Sir Roland Syme’s magisterial work: <i>The Roman Revolution</i>, and also Thucydides’s classic: <i>The Peloponnesian War.</i> Speaking directly to the students, all of whom are in their late teens and early twenties, he spoke about what lies ahead in a world that is rapidly changing and with it new challenges that await them.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%"> Dr. Dallas made mention of a recently aired television docudrama on the Second World War. It was mostly comprised of black and white footage from the 1930s, ‘40s and early ‘50s, all of which had been converted into technicolour and had added a dramatic and “rather vulgar” sound track. The effect was that history had been repackaged like a Hollywood movie and presented in a manner in which an ideological overview was superimposed upon what were the “undeniably terrible events” of a war and the unconscionable things that occurred during it. From this I understood that the message being impressed upon the viewers was that one and only one choice remains for peace and prosperity in the world. It is marketed as the freedom of democracy.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">He then spoke of human anxieties, like that of the safety of one’s family, the quality of education for our children, or the crime rate in the places we live, but also included the unavoidable anxiety of, for example, the impending financial crisis in Greece, with a referendum passed into law by politicians that the people adamantly reject, and similar such cases in Spain, Portugal and Britain, all of which have seen thousands of angry protesters in the streets of their major cities. Breaking news from around the world crashes in, even in this most southern tip of Africa, and you are made to feel helpless. Although not directly stated by Dr. Dallas, what I understood is that we are repeatedly told on a daily basis that more credit is the only solution to stimulate a flagging world economy, which the banks are willing to provide, obviously tied to strict austerity measures to assure the minimal expenditure on unprofitable social welfare programmes, while concentrating instead on programmes aimed at sustainable debt repayment. Democratically elected governments will assure that their debtor citizenry will pay. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">Another example was provided to the gathering that on face value was rather humorous, but upon closer examination, if reflected upon, something serious. He spoke of a man who suffered from a delusion that he was a grain of wheat. After a period of intensive psychotherapy the patient was cured, as he now knew he was not a grain of wheat but a man, and was released from hospital. It was only a day later that the very same man came banging on the hospital doors demanding to be let in. When the doctors opened the doors for him they could only exclaim that he had been cured, that he knew he was not a grain of wheat but a man! He replied, “Yes, but do the chickens know?” There is a shared perception of what ‘reality’ is, and it is broadcast to all of us via Internet, TV, film, cinema and printed media. I could grasp that not only must one understand and decode the nature of events, that more often than not function as smokescreens that obfuscate rather than clarify what is taking place, but also the need to recognise the contextualised world view in which others are led to believe in them.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">Dr. Dallas brought his most inspiring talk to a close, as he submitted the entire matter to what is the Truth, and in so doing specifically referred to <i>Tawhid</i> (the Oneness of Existence) and that all power belongs to Allah. Then admitting that his Latin was no longer what it once was, he deferred to our Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Azzali, a scholar in Medieval History who graduated from the University of Parma, and also our lecturer in Roman History, for confirmation of a word in that ancient language. Dr. Dallas had, in fact, got it right. We ended with everyone reciting Al-Fatiha.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">The morning’s event finished with coffee and cakes, with the Vice-Chancellor and the third year graduates having the special privilege of sitting with the Shaykh.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">The final examinations will be starting shortly. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">Everything moves on. The academic year has been a success and, moreover, as well as being included in this most auspicious college for the past seven years, I have been most fortunate that what I embarked upon in the summer of 1970 when I first met this unique man of his time, has been a most remarkable journey: truly an odyssey! What is of the utmost of importance is to see that the Shaykh is a guide, he indicates the way, which he also embodies. Nevertheless, he has never allowed anyone to make this affair about him. About this he is most adamant. And what has he personally said to me? “Follow him [the Messenger] / so that hopefully you will be guided,” (Al-A’raf). Dr. Dallas turned 81 this past autumn while I am nineteen years younger. I do think it a fair assessment that I am no longer young, although in no way do I concede to being old. After ten years in Cape Town, it is quite probable that he will return to Europe. For myself, I have been here going on eleven years, far longer than I had ever thought I would be. Nevertheless, the college remains based in Cape Town, and while I could, of course, be replaced, for now my work is here. Therefore, this year is also a kind of graduation for me. It has taken me a terribly long time, but having been shown a way must now embark on another kind of journey.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%">Odysseus lived to a ripe old age. He planted his oar on a hillside overlooking the sea. Such extraordinary times!</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span ><span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%"><o:p>----------------- </o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; ">Robert Luongo’s new book: </span><i style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; ">The Power Template: Shakespeare’s Political Plays</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; "> is available in paperback through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and also from Kindle Direct as an ebook. You can also visit: </span><a href="http://www.thepowertemplate.com" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; ">www.thepowertemplate.com</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-71990994944053623172011-10-28T09:57:00.000+02:002011-10-28T09:59:54.389+02:00A Precise Terminology<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>He taught Adam the names of all things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Then He arrayed them before the angels and said,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>‘Tell Me the names of these if you are telling the truth.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>They said, ‘Glory be to You! We have no knowledge <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Except what You have taught us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>You are the All-Knowing All-Wise.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The above quoted lines are from uncreated Word of Allah, from His Book, of which there are copies, at first written down by scribes and in latter times, till the present, in printed editions. From these copies, which are referred to as mus’hafs, literally ‘copies’, there have been numerous renderings of its meanings into a great many languages, with the majority of scholars being exceedingly careful not to refer to them as translations, per se. Already we are acutely aware of the essential importance of having a precise understanding of the meaning of words, thereby to say exactly what it is we mean to say. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It must be clear that I am in no manner a qualified authority on that Book, or its meanings. I have neither access to it in the original language, nor am I learned in its meanings and interpretations, except from what little I have understood through those scholars who have acquired that well defined science, passed down from generation to generation. Again, I read the line: “He taught Adam the names of all things.” It is upon the men of knowledge, both past and present<span style='color:red'>,</span> that I rely to gain a correct understanding, and in so doing, not make a mistake, or say something of which I have no knowledge. <span lang=EN-US>Therefore, as someone for whom the use of language and obtaining a precise terminology is of the utmost importance; finding <i>le mot juste</i>, whether in attempting to convey an understanding of an idea, a deep inner emotion, a command or prohibition, or an insight required to plumb the depth of a particular meaning; great care is required.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>He taught Adam the names of all things. To know the name of something is to connect it to its meaning. Getting it right or getting it wrong makes all the difference. We are living in a time in which men have, to a great extent, lost that <i>Adamic</i> knowledge, the meanings of the names of things. We could, for example, identify the word <i>money</i>. What is it and what do people understand it to be: a value, a medium of exchange by which goods and services are exchanged? Yet<span style='color:red'>,</span> the whole world has had a terrible shock as it became abundantly clear that what people understood to be a value<span style='color:red'>,</span> was in fact a credit, created <i>ex nihilo</i>, a debt, that was traded and exchanged across the world through a mysterious medium, an Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), via computer terminals by an elite but seemingly innocuous group of people, as well as the more quotidian use of <i>money</i> as a medium of exchange, that has been revealed to be devoid of value. Subsequently, all those things to which we<span style='color:red'> </span>refer by their names, property quite possibly being one of the most important, and one could say most valuable, lost its value. Just like that! Truly, this is most astounding! <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As a small stream, like the many I can recall from the woodlands of my native New England, that through a myriad of twists and turns finds its way to a mighty river (the Merrimack comes to mind), that is itself being pulled into the great Atlantic Ocean, I find myself drawn again to what I have understood from the study of the writings of Ezra Pound. In addition to his magnum opus, the Cantos, there are his prose essays and expositions and also his immensely important translations of the major works of Confucius: <i>The Great Digest</i> or Ta Hio, <i>The Unwobbling Pivot</i> or Chung-Yung and lastly <i>The Analects</i>, comparatively less orderly in their sequence, yet believed by his students to be indispensable. I have tenaciously tried to hold to the proper name of the ancient sage as Kung-futz-æ. Pound settled upon the more intimate<span style='color:red'>,</span> yet respectful<span style='color:red'>,</span> name of Kung <span style='color:red'>- </span>acknowledging that both Master and Kung are synonyms. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>What follows is Pound’s translation from ancient Chinese into a down to earth colloquial vernacular that you might still hear in more rural parts of the American Midwest. It should be noted that trained sinologists have often taken exception to Pound’s translations that he made using a basic Chinese-English dictionary, along with a sheaf of notes bequeathed to him by a scholar by the name of Ernest Fenollosa<span style='color:red'>,</span> who had spent a lifetime in Japan studying the ideograms, and whom Pound had never met. Pound was ecstatic when the scholar’s widow approached him and handed over the notes with no more explanation than that her husband wanted the poet to have them. The basic complaint is that Ezra ‘made numerous mistakes’. This is, of course, entirely possible; though having read each of the books I am convinced he never got a meaning wrong, as each one is sound and rings true. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Tze Lu: The lord Wei is waiting for you to form a government, what are you going to do first?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Kung: Settle the names (determine a precise terminology).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Tze Lu: How’s this, your divagating, why fix’em?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Kung: You bumpkin! Sprout! When a proper man don’t know a thing, he shows some reserve.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>If words, (terminology) are not (is not) precise, they cannot be followed out,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>or completed in action according to specifications.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The very next Confucian principle is: ‘The creation of a just state must be established on a just means of exchange’. The Qur’anic model is much more refined and clearly defined, as it transcends to a yet higher knowledge to which mankind can aspire<span style='color:red'>;</span> although it is agreed upon by the people of knowledge that it only arrives as a gift.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> Properly speaking, there is no such thing as an Islamic politics, but rather there is an Islamic economic model. That model is called dawlat, and is directly related to the movement of wealth from the highest segment of society to reach and nourish the lowest. The primary means by which this occurs is the taking of Zakat by the authority of a leader, paid on substances or merchandise of intrinsic value<span style='color:red'>,</span> in substances of equally intrinsic value, and immediately distributed to those who qualify to receive it by the clear rulings relating to it. None of which, I might add, pertain to the maintenance of a bureaucratic system whose main objective is to pay itself. It is to the body politic what the circulatory system is to the human body. Governance and, therefore, leadership devolves on the one who undertakes to ensure that that takes place. The modern fiscal state, which by its very structure is static and consolidates and holds wealth, although as was pointed out earlier does in no way have control over it, is diametrically opposed to dawlat. Consequently, an Islamic State is inimical to Islam. The name, in its most profound <i>Adamic</i> sense has been separated from its meaning. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In Dante’s Paradiso he presents in a most spectacular manner a line from the Book of Wisdom spoken by Solomon, where the souls of Heaven spell it out in a pattern of lights: <i>Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatis terram. </i>While the <i>Commedia</i> as a whole was written by Dante in a new vernacular prose, he would revert to the use of Latin for such an important line. Literally it would read: “You who govern the earth, cherish justice”, while most translations into English reverse the order: <span style='color:red'>“</span>Cherish Justice, oh you who govern (or make judgements) upon the earth.<span style='color:red'>”</span> The verb cherish is in the <i>imperative</i>, a form of the verb that corresponds to the <i>simple present subjunctive<span style='color:red'>,</span></i> that expresses a command. The thing named, which is the object of the sentence, and is of the utmost significance, is clearly <i>Justice</i>. Dante sided with Imperial power as the upholders of justice and therefore more closely aligned with what he understood to be the Divine command, as opposed to the Papacy, to<span style='color:red'> </span>which he took exception. Needless to say, this did not make him popular with the Pope. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The role of leadership is to establish and maintain justice alongside the imperatives of worship, without which man’s raison d’être cannot be fulfilled. Together they form a single whole. Therefore, a proper man calls things by their proper names - paraphrased from Pound but connecting back to the Original Source: He taught Adam the names of all things.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>This circumnavigation from the opening <i>ayat</i> pertaining to ‘the names’ and then returning to it, could benefit from another source that guided Pound in his Odyssey. It was the far lesser known monetary historian, Alexander Del Mar, who wrote several books, one of which was <i>The History of Money</i>. In it he directed Pound to Imams Shafi’i and Ibn Hanbal who explained the means of weights and measures by which gold and silver were used as a medium of exchange. The key point is that of weight, as<span style='color:red'> </span>opposed to bits of paper with larger or smaller numbers written on them, or of electronic impulses on computer screens, that determine their value. This brings us to the opening lines of Canto XCVII:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Malik & Edward struck coins with a sword,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>“Emir el Moumenin” (Systems p.134)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>six and a half to one, or the sword of the Prophet,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Silver being in the hands of the people.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Referring to Carroll F. Terrell’s monumental <i>A Companion to The Cantos</i> we are informed that in A.D. 692 the Emir Abd-el-Malik <i>[sic]</i> sought to assert his independence from Rome. He struck gold dinars and silver dirhams according to the practice established by the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, which adjusted the (unjust) disparity determined by Rome between the inflated value of gold that was only in the hands of the super rich, and that of silver, commonly held by ordinary folks. This meant that immediately, by the use of Muslim currency, the money in your pocket was worth more. This not only brought Islamic coins into Eastern Europe, but also Islam itself<span style='color:red'> </span>as a religion preferred by many people of the region.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>The two ‘names’, in the manner in which Adam was first taught all the names, would then be <i>money </i>and <i>justice</i>. He taught Adam the names of all things. Now look at the time in which we live, where money has no real value, justice is left in the hands of a corrupt political class, and Islam, once a balm to not only the East but also the West, has become </span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%'>characterised</span><span lang=EN-US> as the bane. But that is about to change, as the disgraced jihadists and islamists are receding into the holes they crawled out of, and a new era is opening.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>There is a link to <b>The Power Template – Shakespeare’s Political Plays</b> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Dallas College Press, 2011, by Robert Luongo<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Or visit www.thepowertemplate.com<i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-9380666813742423292011-10-03T15:59:00.000+02:002011-10-03T16:00:09.099+02:00Your Best Shot<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>If what you perceive is that you have but one remaining shot you had better make it count, I mean, aim well and hope like hell you hit your target. Therefore, you would do better to hope to heaven that you succeed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>It seems that starting locally, in my case, from the place where I am living, is most apropos, and then one can widen the field to a more global range.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The South African Police Commissioner Bheki Cele, ubiquitously referred to as the country’s ‘top cop’ has been served notification that he is suspended of all duties due to his role in a corruption scheme that involved the construction of new police stations for more than treble the other tendered quotes, and furthermore, were awarded to a close friend and financial supporter of both the police commissioner and the head of the ANC and South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma. Nevertheless, the suspension has been approved by the nation’s president, who has made a statement that Cele remaining at his post undermines the credibility of the South African police force, and subsequently he has to go. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>This was obviously a difficult decision for President Zuma, as he and Cele, long-time ANC cohorts, go way back. A bit more interesting, as corruption in government isn’t a particularly novel occurrence, is that the previous police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, was convicted in 2008 of corruption for his taking monies from his associate and personal friend, the Mafioso Glenn Agliotti, who was accused and later acquitted of the murder of South African mining magnate Brett Kebble, multi-millionaire and recognised ‘Don’ of the country’s underworld where lucrative contracts were traded like poker chips at a casino, while the more serious charge against Commissioner Selebi of perverting the course of justice was, <i>upon advisement</i>, dropped by the high-court judge. Agliotti got a walk and Selebi is still out on bail, while the country’s legal experts confirm that the conviction will stand and his appeal will fail, it remains doubtful if he will ever serve any time in jail. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>All this could be attributed to what the industrialised North say is endemic within the African continent, except that Selebi was also the Interpol President from 2004-2008, and therefore, an astute and quick footed player within the global field where corruption in Africa is still in the minor league compared to, for example, the American major league where the corruption of a city’s chief of police on up to the State Governor and Attorney General has been riddled with cronyism, kick-backs and payoffs that are an intrinsic part of that nation’s colourful history. As was pointed out to me by one of South Africa’s more notorious defence attorneys, that at least when you pass money to a South African government official you do get value for your dollar, or rand as it happens to be. In the so-called advanced countries such as those in Europe or in the US you pay and get nothing in return: “now that’s corruption”. Of course, there is another level of corruption that makes nonsense of the low level venal malfeasance found within South Africa’s police force and criminal justice system. It is one that operates openly and with total impunity, which is that of the entire political class: all those elected and appointed officials from councilmen to senators, legislators, ministers and parliamentarians and up (or down) to Heads of State, who in no manner whatsoever answer to their electorate, who are, ironically, for the most part, irrelevant to the entire democratic process. The worldwide political class answer instead to an in-back, un-elected elite that can bankrupt a country on Monday and receive an enormous bailout package on Tuesday, paid for by that very same passive electorate that can be found from Paris to Pretoria. We have reached endgame, but the all-important question does remain. How can there be any manner of equity and justice within a system where the very survival of elected officials is dependant upon the funds they receive from those special interest groups that have stipulated the deregulation of banking and fiscal practices, removing, in the process, any form of ethics that could otherwise encumber the free movement of market forces. There has been a fair amount of clamouring about banking reforms and new regulatory bodies to oversee the workings of the financial sector, but with all important elections coming up in both Europe and the US, and the staggering sums needed to mount a successful campaign, it would not be at all surprising if things fell rather silent on those reform issues, at least until after the elections. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>What is clear is that it is not a new system or (even worse) the correcting or reforming of the current system that can restrain the unscrupulous monetary elite. Tacitus wrote in his <i>Annals</i>: “...and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt”. Plato made this abundantly clear centuries ago when he described the inevitability of democracy lending itself as a means to instating a financial oligarchy, ultimately leading to tyranny. The new power template is therefore neither a system nor structure, as by their very nature they breed corruption, but rather a new man who accepts leadership as an unsought after responsibility that is inexorably bound to accountability, honour and service. To the modern i-pod debtor citizen of the industrially developed world it will sound preposterous as he has long since been anesthetised by media rap and the baby food pap of liberal idealism. To the masses of the world’s poor it is an incomprehensible dream. One could call it chivalry, although that certainly sounds a romantic anachronism, and would, in these opening years of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, hardly be taken seriously. So better yet, call it <i>futuwwah</i>, and make your way towards it. “I have not come but to perfect good character in men”, said the Prophet from the Arabian Desert, who, we are informed, <i>was sent as a mercy to the whole world.</i> “Leadership is an obligation binding on good men”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>If I am to use just one time this thing called my vote, my best shot is an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the entire system, and then to proceed with vigour towards a new <i>nomos</i>, with men and women that educate their best and brightest youths and help them rise up to be the leaders of our future. From amongst them there will, as has throughout history been the case, emerge one who will take the lead. To him we will pledge our allegiance, loyalty and fealty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The Power Template: Shakespeare’s Political Plays</span></i><i><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%'> </span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>by Robert Luongo</span> <span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>is available from</span> <span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble on-line as an ebook and in paperback.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-89172754766752237362011-08-23T10:20:00.000+02:002011-08-23T10:21:04.505+02:00Ezra Pound and the Political Class<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%'>Ezra Pound and the Political Class<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>Within the vast tapestry of <i>The Cantos</i>, following the schemata of Dante’s <i>La Divina Commedia</i>, <i>Canto XIV</i> and <i>Canto XV</i> are both referred to as the “Hell Cantos”, and according to Pound were a portrait of England during the years 1919 – 1920. To his close friend and intellectual sparring partner, Wyndham Lewis, he wrote: “You will readily see that the ‘hell’ is a portrait of contemporary England, or at least Eng. as she wuz when I left her.” In a letter to John Drummond: “the hell cantos are specifically LONDON, the state of English mind in 1919 and 1920.” Lastly, in a letter written to his father in 1925, Pound wrote: “I intended Cantos XIV and XV to give an accurate picture of the spiritual state of England in the years 1919 and following.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In taking a brief look at <i>Canto XIV</i> I hope to shed some light on the deepening malaise of not only the British political class, but rather of the entire gang of whom we are told are today’s world leaders. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The stench of wet coal, politicians<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>.........e and .....n, their wrists bound to<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> their ankles,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>standing bare bum,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Faces smeared on their rumps,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Wide eye on flat buttock,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Bush hanging for beard,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Addressing crowds through their arse-holes.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In the above passage there is a consensus amongst both Pound scholars and historians that the <i>e</i> is the last letter of Lloyd George, British prime minister from 1916-1922, and the <i>n</i> for Wilson, the American president, both of whom were not only complicit but directly responsible for the brutality of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. There is extant documentation that Lloyd felt dreadfully bad about the conditions of surrender imposed on Germany, but apparently lacked the strength of conviction to do anything other than go along with the others. Wilson was as happy as a pig in shit, as J.P. Morgan and other Wall Street bankers who had financed putting him in the White House assured Woodrow that, “We made money out of destroying Europe and we’ll do it again rebuilding it.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>And the betrayers of language<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>......n and the press gang<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>And those who had lied for hire;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the perverts, the perverters of language,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the perverts, who have set money-lust<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Before the pleasures of the senses;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>howling, as of a hen-yard in a printing-house’<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the clatter of presses,”.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As then, so today the media magnates have the politicians dancing to the tune of the banking elite. At the time Pound wrote this canto England was divided into an upper class, middleclass (not to be confused with the term as used by Americans) and the lowly working class. Today we are being told of yet another class, and they are found from England to Egypt: the underclass. They are those who see no hope. They are rioting, not for bread, but for i-phones, plasma screen TVs and expensive trainers made by poorly paid Chinese workers. The dialectic of Terrorism is giving way to a new media craze – Pro Democracy, spurred on in an unstable Middle East and North Africa by Twitter, Facebook and CNN. And what do they hope for? Maybe to become the next Greece or Portugal or Ireland, as all their natural resources (real wealth) are safely in the hands of multi-nationals with the banks eagerly standing by to offer the indebted governments, backed with no choice in the matter by the servile taxpaying masses, a series of loans wedded to IMF austerity measures. And has it not occurred to any of them that the same people who supported – both financially and militarily - the harsh dictatorships in their countries, are the same ones urging them on to “assert their rights as free people governed by leaders of their own choice?” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>What are you going to do about it? Most people have a noose around their neck and are balanced precariously on a tottering stool. With one slip-up, amounting to two missed pay cheques or a missed welfare cheque, and the stool topples over. People used to avoid the homeless and indigent, ostensibly it was purported, because of the smell, but today, no more so than in major US cities, they hate them. They hate them out of fear that that could be them. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So where are the men of fealty and brotherhood who do not fear for their provision? Where are those that are not duped by a spineless political class chosen by corporate campaign contributors and sold in the media as being “the choice of the people?” And would it not be true that if such men rose up then women of equal courage, or even greater, would stand with them? Just listen to Beethoven’s opera <i>Fidelio</i>.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The age of chivalry seems long passed where a man’s honour precedes his desire for profit. There is a word in Qur’anic Arabic, <i>futuwwah,</i> that is the embodiment of these unique qualities of courage, loyalty and the protection of women’s honour. For those most qualified there is the duty of <i>noblesse oblige</i>, and, according to the most trustworthy and blessed of men, the Prophet Muhammad, what disqualified a person from such office was their seeking it! From where will such people emerge? Certainly, do not look to the Arabs as they do not know what this is, nor do they know the very meanings of the words they use everyday. There is the word <i>dawla</i>, which is to the body politic what the circulatory system is to the human body, but with the flow of blood being replaced by the movement of wealth. Yet they call it State – that sustains the hoarding of static wealth by a few, passed into law by a disgraced political class, typically in the name of the many. They even have a word they call religion whose meaning they have taken from their enemies. The word in Arabic is <i>deen</i>, whose root comes from the word for debt: what you owe. What you owe to your Creator, for He alone has given you life, knowing, seeing and hearing and much more, and also what you owe to other human beings, which are essentially concerned with one’s fiduciary obligations. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I started with Pound and will, therefore, return to him in order to end. Of all the Chinese ideograms, his most treasured was the one of ‘a man standing by his words’: verbal integrity. I too, love that one. Its antonym would describe the stance of today’s political class. <o:p></o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-74206570966121635082011-07-30T23:33:00.001+02:002011-07-30T23:33:53.361+02:00Georgia On My Mind<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:18.0pt;line-height:115%'>Georgia On My Mind<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:18.0pt;line-height:115%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>It was my first journey into those great southern states, and while I may have thought of myself as a native New Englander departing from Cambridge, heading to the Faulknerian environs south of the Mason-Dickson Line, imagining I was a reverse (optimistic) image of Quentin Compson (Absalom,<span style='color:blue'> </span>Absalom!)<span style='color:blue'>.</span> A more truthful description would be a seventeen year old Italian-American kid from Boston, hitchhiking, with no money, into a part of the country that was as foreign as any I would later find myself in once I’d crossed the pond and landed in Europe. But we will not get bogged down in mere details, as I’m a writer of ‘political fiction’ not an historian, and therefore, licensed to reinvent – especially myself – something I have been doing for as long as I can remember. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It was the summer of ‘68 and everywhere in America was hot. In the spring of that year Martin Luther King was shot dead on the balcony of a motel he’d been staying at and two months later Bobby Kennedy would be shot at a political rally in California. Tension was high and a lot of people were jumpy. Young black men, with some having done a stint at university, as opposed to the county jail house or a more prestigious maximum security facility, were meeting in Oakland and forming a radical political movement known as the Panthers, while middle class white kids were openly opposing a war in South-East Asia and some,<span style='color:blue'> </span>moreover, walking out albeit in the middle of the night, from a secure suburban America to arrive on the streets of Boston, New York and San Francisco. It was a hot summer and people were restless. <span style='color:blue'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>One needs to back-up just a few years to better place the summer of 1968 into perspective. In ‘63 when President Kennedy was shot in a motorcade while driving down a street in Dallas Texas, I was in ancient history class, and the name of Nebuchadnezzar is forever etched in my mind. Lyndon Johnson stepped in as president and Robert Kennedy served as his Attorney General for nine months until they broke over their opposing positions on Viet Nam. The Kennedys were Irish Catholics and Boston Democrats, with what some people considered uppity Yankee airs, what with sending their sons to Harvard; while LBJ was a Texan Democrat that grew out of the old-boy system of the hill country with its payoffs, backhanders and political cronyism. Of course, Joe Kennedy got rich with inside tip-offs from the numerous politicians he owned over the timing of the lifting of prohibition and being first in line with cargo ships stocked with Irish whiskey, and was as much of an affront to the old Boston Brahmins (all but extinct before the outbreak of the Second World War) as his oil-rich Texan counterparts. The fact was that Vice-President Johnson, soon to be President Johnson, and his Texan political posse couldn’t stand the Kennedys, while they were obliged to get into bed together to beat the Republicans in the race for the White House.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There is one more bit of background that needs filling in before I can stick my thumb out and start hitching south. In 1968 George Wallace ran, unsuccessfully, for US president. In fact, he made a few runs at the presidency, three times as a Democratic Party candidate and once as an Independent. But it is as Governor Wallace that he is most remembered, four times elected by those people of the State of Alabama, and bulwark of the pro-segregationist position that dominated the entire southern part of the United States. It was 1963 when then Governor Wallace stood on the steps of first, a university, and a few weeks later on the steps of a high school, where a cordon of the National Guard (that’s the army), accompanied by the US Federal Marshal himself, who personally came down from Washington to tell the Governor to step aside, as four black youngsters passed into that school. Later in life, confined as he was to a wheelchair, after being shot and left paralysed, Governor Wallace reversed his position on segregation. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now it’s too easy to project from hindsight a clear view of something one did not have the slightest clarity on at the time the particular event took place. Since I was at school and could read a book, I declared myself a firm supporter of Thomas Jefferson, who supported State’s right and fervidly opposed private banks taking control of issuing both currency and credit (which was in direct contravention to their Constitution) while on the other hand, I saw little more in Alexander Hamilton, with his fancy signature, than a pawn in the bankers’ pockets, doing their bidding, as the Federal Government would enjoy the noose of private banking interest around their necks. The banks always said that they “supported” a strong Federal Government. Like a rope supports a hanging man? Now it was one hundred years since the American Civil War ended, and with it, to a great extent, the defeat of State’s right over and against an omnipotent Federal Government. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I was adamantly opposed to the war in Viet Nam and would not be drafted, nor would I run. On top of that I had not gotten over the fact that Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics, who in 1959 I saw with my father, with both of us standing on our feet cheering in Boston Garden (now torn down), bring yet another world championship to that city, and was one of my very first real heroes (something I have always taken very seriously) who on three occasions when trying to buy a house with his wife was told by an estate agent that she was so terribly sorry but that the family had decided after all not to sell.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> It was the constitutionality of State’s right that vehemently opposed the forced desegregation of southern schools by the Federal Government. I was a very young fellow who, nevertheless, thought he knew everything, without realising how damn little I did know. But the idea that black kids couldn’t attend proper schools with adequate facilities (regardless of my admiration for Thomas Jefferson and his supporting State’s right) was not ever going to be acceptable. It would only be many years later after reading a comment made by William Faulkner that I obtained, partially at least, some long awaited clarity. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Faulkner was the first major author to do what had never been done. He certainly did not romanticise the American Negro, but what he did do was humanise them in a way that was unprecedented. The abolitionists in England were a hundred years ahead in terms of romanticising the ending of the African slave trade. Faulkner, particularly in the novels set in the mythological land of Yoknapatawpha County, superimposed over Lafayette County, Mississippi, created fully developed characters, both men or women, who were coloured people. Some certainly had egregious faults, others had rich and noble qualities and some had tragic flaws comparable to those of characters found in the stories of the ancient Greeks. But they were human beings with all the complexities and contradictions that have made up some of the most memorable characters ever conceived within that vast opus of world literature that has come down through the ages. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> There is a collection of short stories called <i>Go Down Moses</i> and one story in particular of the same name. There is a lawyer, Gavin Stevens, who is asked to help bring the grandson of an old Negro woman, a woman whom Gavin had know all his life, back to Mississippi, as he was scheduled to be executed that very evening at midnight in Chicago for the murder of a policeman. There is a sense of such pathos, dignity and courage in this woman. Gavin got a pledge from a Roth Edmonds and another from the local newspaper editor, whom he’d also roped-in, to help pay the cost of the box and the train from Chicago, and “my word flowers!” as well, and, if that weren’t enough, a promise he’d not print the story in the local paper, so that what kin Beauchamp had would not have to read about the execution, and would only be told later that Butch Beauchamp was dead and coming home to Jefferson to be buried. And old Miss Worsham was stronger and more stoic than Hecuba when she mourned her son Hector and her husband, King Priam. “He dead,” she said. “Pharaoh got him.” “Oh yes, Lord,” Worsham said. “Pharaoh got him.” “Done sold my Benjamin,” the old Negress said. “Sold him in Egypt.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The 1960s Civil Rights Movement latched onto Faulkner and attempted to use his literary notoriety to advance the cause of Northern liberals, with some going so far as to join the March on Selma, while Faulkner was clearly difficult to handle. At one such gathering where he was being honoured as America’s great literary genius he had, as was not too unusual, gotten pretty drunk and said that if there was to be a show-down between the North, who had little or no empathy, nor understanding, of the coloured people, while advocating their ‘rights’ to rise up as long as they kept their distance and didn’t try to move next door (which surely would bring down property values), and the Southern States, who Faulkner believed were directly accountable for the most unconscionable injustice before both God and those Negro people with whom they had so long lived, he would raise the Confederate flag and arm himself against the North. The Yankee do-gooders were beside themselves and Faulkner was out as their literary icon. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The journey that would begin in the North would take me down through Washington D.C. and on to Savannah George where, on a humid late afternoon, I found myself in front of a small local diner. Having done a bit of restaurant work myself, I thought I’d walk around back and just maybe, there would be a young fellow like myself who could possibly get me something to eat from the kitchen without it causing too much of a fuss. I saw a black boy; he looked about my age, some seventeen or eighteen years old, who was scrubbing pots. I can still see him clearly, his face coal black and something gentle in his nature. I approached him, greeted him and then proceeded to tell him that I was hungry. He nodded as if to acknowledge he understood and put down his work and went in through the back screen door of the kitchen. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It was not too long before I saw a matronly white woman walking towards me with the boy I’d spoken to following behind. Damn it, I thought, he sold me out. He went and told the owner there was some long-haired beggar ‘round back aksin’ for food. I never thought, I mean I just didn’t see that in his face and was more shocked by having so misread him than whatever lay ahead from this woman coming straight at me. She motioned to the boy, not at all unkind but with directness, to go back to his work. She took me by the hand and walked me around to the front of the diner and straight in through the front door that made a bell ring every time it opened. She sat me down at a long counter, sitting on one of those round swivel stools and placed a menu in my hands. “Now darl’n, ya’all have whatever you like. You be skinny as a tooth-pick.” Well, I ordered meatloaf with mash potatoes, sweet peas and extra gravy. After that I had a big slice of that famous Georgia pecan pie and a cup of coffee. You could say I’d struck it rich and that there was no more I could want after a meal like that. Now that was real southern hospitality, and me being a Yankee clear as day. And far from selling me out it was the boy from out back that I had as much to thank as the proprietor of that local diner (well before MacDonald’s would put them all out of business). But everything wasn’t fine. My stomach was full but I’d be the worst hypocrite that ever lived if I said I did not enjoy that meal. For there was that sign, the sign in large bold letters that I could not ignore let alone pretend I’d not seen: FOR WHITES ONLY.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>The Power Template</b> by Robert Luongo (Dallas College Press 2011) is now available from Amazon Kindle and will be available as a physical printed book in early August from Amazon.com and Create Space. It is a study of Shakespeare’s political plays that discovers corollaries between politically contentious issues within Elizabethan England with themes that were explored through the early English history plays as well as Shakespeare’s Roman plays. The author then views more modern political events, some leading up to today’s<span style='color:blue'> </span>current affairs, through the perspective of Shakespeare’s timeless insight into the human motives behind the machinations of what we understand as politics. Nevertheless, the work is far from being a polemical study that marginalises the wit, dexterity and delight of Shakespeare’s language.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-24391070284926228852011-02-18T18:14:00.001+02:002011-02-18T18:14:34.455+02:00THE NIGHT THE SNOW BLEW<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><b>THE NIGHT THE SNOW BLEW<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><b>1967, Bridgton Academy, N. Bridgton, Maine<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><b>Dedicated to Mr. Freeman Whitney<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><b>Dean of Students, Lecturer of Advanced English<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'> A gust of wind, a cloud of snow<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I walked to where I do not know<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I looked around, I could not see<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I wondered now where I might be.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Again I felt the screaming cold<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The snow blew higher down the road<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>And then I felt lost as in a dream<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The snow whirls higher, I wished to<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>scream<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I’d been captured in a different <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>world<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Of wind and snow that whirled and <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>whirled<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>And then a gust beyond compare<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I felt my body in the air<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I called, “Oh snow, where am I?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>“You are whirling in the sky.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I thought that if the snow did not mind<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Nor would I, and something beautiful I <br> might find.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>And as I went far and higher,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>My body froze, my mind on fire,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I looked around to find the store<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>But it was not near there anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I looked around to see the school,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Keeping my eyes closed (I’m no fool).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Suddenly the wind came still<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>A bell, a bell till I reached a hill<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>That rose up high above the ground,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>And there before me I had found<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The Academy was all around.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>I thought for sure I’d lost my head<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>So to my room and into bed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=right style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:99.1pt;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:92.15pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:right'>Robert Luongo<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-88423997488863475182011-02-09T16:13:00.000+02:002011-02-09T16:14:04.829+02:00The Road Less Travelled By<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;line-height:normal'><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- <br>I took the one less traveled by, <br>And that has made all the difference<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;line-height:normal'><span style='mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Robert Frost<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:normal'>There is something that happens when I make these rare trips (although in recent years less so) back to the States. It was two years ago when I last came, and my itinerary was pretty much the same then as this visit. I remember my final day when departing from JFK in New York to head home to Cape Town, that the inauguration of Barak Obama was visible on every TV screen at the hotel I had stayed at, it appeared on electronic billboards along the route taken by the hotel limousine to my terminal drop-off, and then on all the countless airport video monitors. I distinctly recall the frenetic circus atmosphere, and how impatient I was to board my flight and depart. The Queen of Soul flubbed the lines to one of her most famous songs, Senator Ted Kennedy collapsed and the live televised swearing-in ceremony was incorrectly spoken, and would, for legal reasons, be redone off camera. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:normal'>‘Change Had Come’ and ‘Yes We Can’ were the hottest tunes moving across the airwaves, while the change that was coming from before day one of the new president’s taking office was a global crash with a magnitude that would rock not only the US but the rest of the world as well, far greater than the famous 9/11 shock. The perpetrators this time were Wall Street bankers, traders in debt credits, sub-prime mortgages, derivatives, futures and a plethora of toxic assets. Unsecured home loans had been handed out like candy, highly inflated real estate ‘values’ were borrowed against, conveniently packaged as home equity loans, with the only rationale being that the balloon would just keep getting bigger and bigger, going up and up. The passenger jet that is the US economy was already into a nosedive when Obama was handed the controls. His immediate response was to put in place a rescue plan for the financial institutions, which came down to passing the controls on to a consortium of the very same individuals who had been directly responsible for the crisis in the first place. So much for change! <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:normal'>Part of the brilliant campaign strategy of Barak Obama was that he would build on establishing the broadest base of voter support since JFK, when in the early 1960’s folks from all over the country mailed off $5 and $10 contributions to the headquarters for the handsome young Democratic candidate. In Obama’s campaign this grass-roots support constituted about 2.5 % of the total amount raised, that total being the largest amount for any presidential candidate in US history, with the shortfall coming from Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros. and Goldman Sacs, etc. Well, there you are, and ‘No You Can’t!’<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This time, my trip will carry with it a different reminder. The day before I landed at Boston Logan, my mother had been laid to rest in the cemetery in Winchester, Massachusetts. She was 87 and had been ill for a very long time. My son, on his own initiative, had flown out from San Francisco to attend his grandmother’s funeral. He departed from Logan on the morning of the same day that I would later land in Boston. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>However cold this may sound, I had (emotionally) laid my folks to rest many years ago. This being said, I have instinctively believed that one must know one’s grandparents, and I have done my best to encourage my son and daughter to do just that. <span lang=EN-US>Have they laid me to rest in the same way? That I can not say for sure, but I have held to an implacable resolve that my children be left unfettered to be able to establish their identities for themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>I left home at 17, which was forty-four years ago, and have, during those long years, made short visits, sometimes for only a day or two, often separated by intervals of four or five years or more. Once I left I never went home again. I do not consider it remotely possible that I would return to New England to live; it was strikingly clear to me that, in a way, I had all but forgotten that this was the soil (presently buried under a foot and a half of snow) from which I had grown, and these unreserved, often loud, garrulous and not ungenerous people, were my family. While unlike them in many ways they are observably part of who I am. There are ways, despite a carefully cultivated differentness, in which I am a Luongo, and also a Bonaccorso. Recognisable traits appear in both them and me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The days I spent in the small New England town outside of Boston were expressly to be with my father, who at 94 and having been married to the same woman for 64 years, was visibly shaken. While he appears in the most excellent health, he is not too sturdy on his legs, shuffles a bit, while adamantly refusing to even consider a cane. During the time spent there I also saw my two brothers (one younger by several years and the other two years older), a sister, a bunch of nieces and nephews who, much to my delight, call me Uncle Abdullah, as well as an aunt who is my father’s kid sister by 19 years, and who I haven’t seen in well over forty years. She called me Robert. My father suggested I come over again in early June to turn over the ground in his garden. A bit of hard work! During my first night in New England there was a heavy snow fall and I was awoken by the sound of my father, aged 94 remember, ploughing the drive way. I had no choice but to get up, bundle-up in warm clothes and head outside. With his wry sense of humour he said, “See if one of those snow shovels fits you and do the front steps.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>There are now other men who are in many ways far closer to me than my blood relations, some of whom I have known for forty years, as well as other much younger ones that I have obviously known a relatively shorter time. Nevertheless, this Italian American clan are family and maybe for the first time since I left home all those years ago I was, at long last, at ease with all of them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The second leg of my trip was out to California to visit children and grand kids. That is something I’ll reserve for my personal diary, uniquely for my pleasure as a parent and a grandparent: unequivocally one of life’s great joys. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Having been in Sonoma County in California for a week, I will stay on another few days before departing, first for Amsterdam where I have a full day and night before continuing on to Cape Town. I will visit the Rijks Museum (I had discovered online that I could catch a world class exhibit of some of the famous Dutch Masters); I also plan on taking myself out to a very good lunch. Maybe I’ll have a swim in the hotel pool and then a good night’s sleep on a proper bed before embarking on the final long leg of my journey back to South Africa.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Postscript</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I made it to the Rijks and there was a special exhibition of works by the Dutch master, Gabriël Metsu, as well as numerous pieces by Vermeer and Rembrandt. Apart from the cold, Amsterdam was wonderful!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-68436792262614489462011-01-26T11:37:00.000+02:002011-01-26T11:38:01.139+02:00Nicholas Hytner's Hamlet<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'>As the director of London’s National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner has produced a politically charged Hamlet, apropos for the 21<sup>st</sup> century, with Rory Kinnear delivering a most sympathetic portrayal of the troubled prince. Kinnear’s Hamlet is far from heroic, but rather someone with whom audiences share a sense of empathy as a man very much of our modern age. While wanting to act he feels unsure, frustrated by his inability to do what he believes must be done, he is disempowered within a world in which he believed he was to have had a leading role. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'> With a play about which so much has been written, and with such memorable performances that accolades for their leading actors comprise a substantive canon of work in their own right, one may wonder what new and meaningful insight any director can bring to the production. We have seen it done by both Olivier and Gielgud, with an on-going debate as to which was the better. There is Kenneth Branagh’s epic four hour (un-cut) film version that is excellent in every way – except, I believe, that Branagh was by then too old to have played the lead in his otherwise brilliant production. An abridged version directed by Michael Almereyda starring Ethan Hawke, where Denmark is a major corporation in the ruthlessly competitive metropolis of New York, and Hamlet’s murdered father is ubiquitously referred to in both the boardroom and within the former CEO’s penthouse as King Hamlet, is likewise, a compelling production. Each of them are of the highest quality and, not withstanding that some have been judiciously cut to fit within a two hour limit, otherwise maintain a scrupulously faithful adherence to Shakespeare’s text. It is, of course, Shakespeare’s language that carries the depth of meanings and extraordinary insights into the human psyche. My personal favourite has long been Sir Richard Burton’s portrayal, which I saw when still at school, where it ended up that the final rehearsal filmed before opening night, with all of the actors in street clothes, that is today considered a classic and has been preserved on film and is available on DVD.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'>What is of particular interest to me is the manner in which Hytner reveals the deeply political nature of this play and the way in which he is able to portray, in a most efficacious manner, a frighteningly chilling study of realpolitik. Distrust, suspicion and surveillance pervade the entire drama, with the only exception being the relationship between Hamlet and his close friend Horatio. Curiously, despite the excellent performances of the two actors, it is the one significant shortcoming of the production. As is evident from countless films and a plethora of stage dramatisations, neither Hollywood nor the South Bank knows how to portray genuine love between men based on a deep sense of affection, honour and integrity. Either the camaraderie comes off as awkward, too aloof, or that they are simply pals, as in this case; or else, as having to have a homoerotic undercurrent. It is only in Hamlet’s death scene, where Horatio delivers his “Goodnight sweet prince”, that Shakespeare’s perfect choice of phrase enables him to communicate what ought to have been present all along. Likewise, Hamlet asks his friend to remember to tell his story so that future generations should know all of what has happened. This dimension of human existence that embodies <i>noblesse oblige,</i> as well as the tenderness of fraternal love (not necessarily based on a bloodline), appears to exist like a rare species within the great animal kingdom that lies on the verge of extinction. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'>An undercurrent of political intrigue runs through the play, depicting an atmosphere where government is suspicious of its citizens and citizens highly sceptical of their government, e.g. in “the law’s delay”. It is modern day Britain or France or the USA. It could, for that matter, be Egypt or Tunisia, which recently erupted into chaos and violence. The background of the stage in nearly every scene is canvassed with tall shadowy figures, mostly they are athletically built black men in impeccably tailored dark suits, flawless mannequins, with that conspicuously inconspicuous ear-piece with the wire that runs down the back of the neck and is attached to a tiny microphone clipped to the lapel. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'>King Claudius’ perfidy could hardly be more despicable as his pusillanimity seems to know no bounds. He keeps enquiring of the prince as to why he persists in his gloomy and difficult temper. His mother too, asks her son to try harder to be more congenial, while Claudius, who is now her husband, says it is unmanly of Hamlet to act in this way. Repeatedly they ask what the matter with him is. They cannot fathom why he persists in carrying-on in the manner in which he does and with his obviously feigned madness, except possibly that his father has been murdered, and in all probability by his uncle who has usurped his brother’s crown (Hamlet’s birthright according to Carl Schmitt in his essay <i>Hamlet oder Hekuba</i>) and, on top of all this, is screwing his mother. Of course, Claudius’ real question is not <i>why, </i>but rather, how much does the prince actually know, and moreover, what might he be planning to do about it? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'>The air of disingenuousness and distrust is nowhere more pronounced then in the character of Polonius, the personification of the political man, tediously opinionated and obsequious at the same time. He is the true politician. That Polonius is a windbag, despite his so often quoted fatherly advice, “to thine own self be true”, is well established. What this particular portrayal accentuates is the full extent to which he distrusts his own son, itself a terrible betrayal by any father, as well as his equally condescending and disparaging manner of addressing his adult daughter. Nicholas Hytner has lifted the curtain on the unsavoury characters upon the world stage of political events: the modern political class. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm;text-align:center'>Robert Luongo<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:11.85pt;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:2.0cm'>Latest<b> News</b>: The final draft of <i>The Power Template – Shakespeare’s Political Plays</i>, was completed at the end of September 2010. The arduous task of obtaining a literary agent to advance this work towards publication is carrying on with vigour. I remain optimistic.<o:p></o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-387408908433549612010-09-22T10:09:00.001+02:002010-09-22T10:09:53.739+02:00Sir Basil and Ezra Pound<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:20.0pt;line-height:115%'>Sir Basil and Ezra Pound <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>There was a certain Sir Basil Zaharoff, born Zenos Metevsky (1850-1928), who was a munitions magnate with interests in oil, international banking and several newspapers. Zaharoff started off by selling arms for Nordenfeldt and eventually took control of the company and merged with Maxim, who had invented the machine gun. Then in 1913 he took over Vickers-Amstrong, the largest munitions company in Europe, and also held controlling shares in the German company Krupp, which specialised in barbed wire, which would prove extremely useful, as it was needed for in the construction of prison camps. Shortly after the First World War he expanded into South America; this short stanza from Ezra Pound’s Canto XXXVIII bears witness to Zaharoff’s activities there:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>Don’t buy until you get ours.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>And he went over the boarder<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>And he said to the other side:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>The other side has more munitions. Don’t buy<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>Until you get ours.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>And Akers made a large profit and imported gold into England.</span><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Metevsky, now well known as Basil Zaharhoff, was finally arrested on fraud charges, as he had embezzled huge sums of money from companies in which he held the controlling shares; not unlike our modern day Bernie Madoff. Zaharhoff, being more imaginative, managed to escape, and is reputed to have been sitting in a Wiener Café watching his own funeral after his body had been removed from the back door of the Garbola Prison in Athens that had meant to be holding him. At the time he owned the controlling shares in Humbers, a pseudonym for Vickers, the German based arms company.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'> With another clip from Pound, this time from Canto XVIII, we will hear from one Mr. Giddings, salesman for Humbers:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:36.0pt'><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“Peace! Pieyce!!” said Mr. Giddings,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“Universal? Not while yew got tew billions ov money,”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>Said Mr. Giddings, “invested in the man-u-facture<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“Of war machinery…”</span><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>The charismatic Sir Basil well preceded the time of the post World War II arms build-up, and the courageous, yet ultimately ineffectual warning of American president Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he made his famous State of the Union address proclaiming the inherent dangers of an unrestrained “military industrial complex” that would view war as far too profitable to be left in the hands of politicians let alone the voting public. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>On the eve of the Great War, Zaharhoff was an Englishman in England, and was awarded the Knight Grand Cross, while when in France he was a Frenchman and was raised to be Grand Officier of the Legion d’Honneur. He changed his name and even ended up with an aristocratic title. He changed his religion and was awarded the Order of Jesus Christ of Portugal. The Allied Forces were deeply indebted to the man who had used his immense banking network, together with his vast arms manufacturing empire that stretched across Europe, to facilitate the war effort.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>While his newspapers beat the war-drums across all of Europe and the Americas, “</span><b><span style='font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>EVIL HUN ON THE RISE</span></b><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>”, his armaments manufacturing companies were working around the clock to get the world ready for a war that he would personally, together with J. P. Morgan and a handful of others, help finance. It was of no significance that Kaiser Wilhelm II neared desperation in his numerous attempts (including a personal visit to England wearing his British officer’s uniform as a sign of respect) to persuade his grandmother, Queen Victoria, not to go to war with Germany. But the die had been cast as the PM and his cabinet ministers had convinced the Her Majesty that the Empire needed the war to sustain its economic hegemony in Europe, as well as around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>After the war Zaharoff moved into the lucrative oil business, and partnering up with British Shell and US Standard Oil, formed joint ventures with the American investment houses Kuhn-Lohb and J.P. Morgan. At the end of his life he bought the Casino of Monte Carlo and married a Bourbon princess. Rising from a modest start as a simple money-changer in his hometown of Salonika, to become one of the most influential men of his time, Sir Basil remains a monument to the unbounded success of a man who could deftly work ‘credit based’ capital creation, together with the fractional reserve system, and tie them into the most lucrative business opportunities of the age. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>The international bankers and investment brokers of today seem all too grey and painfully dull compared to Sir Basil and the men of his generation. The Rothschilds, collectively more powerful than Sir Basil, may have bankrupted European aristocracy, and impoverished a continent, but then they did give back numerous art museums and opera houses. I suppose with all that wealth one needs some culture and entertainment. Who knows, maybe Bernie will make a daring escape. The one thing I admire about him is that with the huge sum of fifty-something billion USDs he did not put it back into derivative products and stocks. He knew better. Bernie Madoff bought real estate, gold reserves, luxury yachts and priceless works of art.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>All these years later we can still hear the strong cadence of Ezra Pound as his poem echoes across that immense divide between the oligarchs of today and the rest of the world’s population. From the powerful Usury Canto, XLV:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“With usura hath no man a house of good stone<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>each block cut smooth and well fitting,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>that design may cover their face”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“...with usura, sin against nature,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>is thy bread ever more of stale rags<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>is thy bread dry as paper,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>with no mountain wheat, no strong flour<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>with usura the line grows thick<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>with usura is no clear demarcation<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>and no man can find site for his dwelling”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“Usura rusteth the chisel<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>It rusteth the craft and the craftman<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>It gnaweth the thread in the loom”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>“Usura slayeth the child in the womb<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>It stayeth the young man’s courting<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'>between young bride and her bridegroom<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Garamond","serif"'> CONTRA NATURAM”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Robert Luongo teaches Shakespeare and Rhetoric at Dallas College in Cape Town, established in 2005 as a college of leadership under the aegis of Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-27108999925167152572010-08-11T17:58:00.001+02:002010-08-11T17:58:38.339+02:00The Tip of the Iceberg By Robert Luongo<div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Events took place in Iceland earlier this year that directly put the country</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>'s citizenry in direct opposition to their elected officials in regards to the liability incurred for the failure of the Icelandic Bank. </span><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>In the aftermath,</span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> it is most exigent that the story, conspicuously dropped from the designated headlines of what is newsworthy, and therefore presented to the general public, be re-opened.</span><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'> The citizens of that country created a referendum by acquiring the requisite number of signatures, which was then voted upon by them. By an overwhelming majority vote they have prohibited <u>their government</u> to bailout the Icelandic Bank in order to repay the people or associations (many of which were local councils in the UK, such as the Norwich City Council) who had invested large sums in high yield 'financial products' on offer at various Icelandic financial institutions. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>One of these products involved investment in derivatives on the futures markets for fish, something in abundance in the waters around Iceland, which were first monetised then securitised, while not yet caught but, arguably, an available asset - swimming about in the North Atlantic. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Why should the Icelandic citizens have to pay? They do not own the bank, as it is like most banks, a privately owned company; nor did they tell the investors to put their savings in them. This places the government in a terrible bind as they cannot possibly obey both 'the will of the people´ and the demands of the international financial establishment. While the people have clearly spoken, government is unable to hear. Will little Iceland be added to the Axis of Evil? Jeremy Paxton has made statements on British television indicating that the people of Iceland are violating the peace and security of British citizens. So much for a free and independent media!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>What took place at the Icelandic Bank was certainly not an anomaly and as we are all aware has been replicated in nearly every major bank around the world. In addition to the wildly lucrative derivatives market, were the practices that precipitated the collapse of the sub-prime housing market in the US, as well as the failure of the home equity market based upon inflated 'values' against which endless new loans were made, pumping more and more new money into the market at the expense of the existing currency already in circulation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>That the system of usury-capitalism has collapsed upon itself cannot be viewed as a shock, as it has visibly been spiralling out of control for decades. What can be seen as shocking is that a perfidious world media is so obdurate in its attempt to persuade us not only that it can be, but that it is being patched-up as we speak. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>There is, clear across the world, a total failure of the political class who are no more than mannequins dressed up as people in power. Ideological differences fade away with communist China as the number one supplier of the capitalist world's supermarkets, and the Arab leaders of what is referred to as the 'Oil Rich Gulf States' rush like lemmings head-long over the cliff of disaster as they continue to follow those they so obsequiously strive to imitate. Dubai World, much to the delight of the banking fraternity, needed to be rescued from the very brink of bankruptcy. The political class, in actuality, have no power, as has been made abundantly clear by their servile adherence to the dictates of financial institutions. This is the world we live in today.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>But what about little Iceland, now overshadowed and all but forgotten as Greece takes centre stage, to be followed, we are told, by Portugal and most likely Spain? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Let's back-up a little before seeing if we can pick up the thread of Iceland's current malaise. According to Gudn Adalsteinsson, managing director of Kaupthing Treasury Department in Reykjavik, Shares in HBOS and Barclays plummeted in value following the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank in New York. This prompted many investors, many of which were other banks, to move their funds to the banks of Iceland, believing that they could, for the moment, avert disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>As of January 2010 there are literally hundreds of cases lodged in Iceland's high court on the legality of forced liability for the collapse of the 'old Icelandic banks'. Meanwhile, droves of British taxpayers are up in arms insisting that the money lost in the Icelandic banks be reimbursed to the British Government that had to step in to cover the losses of British banks that were left exposed by the failure of the banks in Iceland that now will have to be covered by the UK taxpayers. Meanwhile the 'new' Icelandic banks, nearly entirely owned by European banks such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and several of Germany's largest banks are, according to a July report, faced with yet another looming crisis. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Financial authorities in Reykjavik have been scrambling for the past two weeks to work out the implications of a landmark Supreme Court judgment outlawing car loans indexed to foreign exchange rates.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Gunnar Andersen, director of the Financial Supervisory Authority, told the Financial Times that Icelandic banks faced "deep trouble" if the verdict was applied to all forms of consumer and corporate credit linked to foreign currencies. The court decision has been described as one of the most important events in Iceland since the 2008 bank crash, potentially reducing the repayment burden on thousands of households holding foreign-indexed debt while threatening the financial system with renewed turmoil.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>The court ruled that car loans paid out and collected in Icelandic krónur but indexed to foreign currencies violated laws designed to protect borrowers from exchange rate risks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Recalling that we began with a massively supported referendum vote by the Icelandic electorate, its first national referendum since 1944, in the attempt to block their government from subjecting the people of Iceland to the burden of debt incurred by private banks, only to discover that the voice of the people fell onto deaf ears, now their judiciary is attempting to make a stand against the oligarchs of world banking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>What is now abundantly clear is that the system of modern liberal democracy was put in place to serve the requirements of the financial sector. Both have failed, both are disgraced.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Since the current disaster emanated from the epicentre of the failed New York investment houses, it is appropriate to go back to that nation's founding 'framers' of what is referred to as the world's greatest democracy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." (Thomas Jefferson)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Needless to say, Jefferson's warnings could not be heeded, as the very premise upon which US constitutional law was founded opened the door, whether wittingly or unwittingly, to what became the inevitable outcome: that the banks would take over. This is a case for the prosecution that can never go to trial, and while the turmoil we are witnessing is exceedingly alarming, it may very well be only the tip of the iceberg. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'>Robert Luongo is a lecturer of Shakespeare & Rhetoric at Dallas College in Cape Town. He is the author of <i>The Gold Thread – Ezra Pound's Principles of Good Government & Sound Money </i>(1995) and <i>The Power Template – Shakespeare's Political Plays</i>, scheduled for release in January 2011.</span><span style='font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-30045982204048233362010-06-14T14:15:00.002+02:002010-06-22T16:40:57.651+02:00Radical Muslim Leader has Bohemian Past<p><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The 20 February 2010 edition of the Telegraph, and their on-line version, telegraph.co.uk, both ran an article entitled: Radical Muslim leader has past in swinging London. According to the Telegraph, the author and playwright Ian Dallas, who in the 1960s was purported to have been part of the hip London scene, had since become a “Radical Muslim” going by the name of Abdalqadir as-Sufi, and was now “The leader of an extreme Muslim group”. As someone with firsthand knowledge, who has known Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi for forty years, I would like to take some of the most salient points raised in the Telegraph article as a springboard to offer the public a more balanced and informative introduction to a most fascinating and politically significant contemporary figure. <span style="color:blue;"><span style="COLOR: blue"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Ian Dallas is more accurately of the 1950s generation, as he was born in Ayr Scotland in 1930. He had already achieved both recognition and success as a playwright and author prior to the 1960s. He did once tell me that he had, as a young man, driven through the streets of Paris in a Rolls Royce, with Edith Piaf. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">As the Telegraph mentions, Ian Dallas did, indeed, know Edith Piaf as well as Eric Clapton, to whom he did, in fact, give a copy of the beautiful love story, <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Layla and Majnun</span></i>. However, this was nothing to do with Eric’s love affair with Pattie Boyd (the wife of Eric’s best friend, George Harrison) but rather, the terrible tragedy connected to the death of Eric’s son. The metaphorical tale tells of the all-consuming longing of a youth named Majnun (a word whose literal Arabic meaning is <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">one possessed</span></i>) for the love of his life, Layla (<i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">night</span></i> in Arabic) who, in the coded language of the Sufis, stands for Allah as the Beloved.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">As I only met Ian Dallas (or Shaykh Abdalqadir, as I have long been accustomed to refer to him) in 1970, I did not meet all of these people, although <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>George Harrison would send over his driver with a large hamper of ‘goodies’ from Fortnum & Mason at the start of the New Year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I sat with Shaykh Abdalqadir when his friend from university, the celebrated psychiatrist R.D. Laing came by to meet him. Laing had just returned from India where he had gone with his wife to meet a guru. His wife had stayed on and moved in with the ‘spiritual master’. Needless to say, Ronald was very upset, and as I recall, not too impressed with Eastern Mysticism. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I was also present when Shaykh Abdalqadir had invited Fritjof Capra, the rising star in the world of nuclear physics, over for tea. The Shaykh’s wife, Zulaikha, had baked a plate of millefeuille.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Capra had possibly just published <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Tao of Physics</span></i>. Over tea he explained his latest idea, which he called the ‘boot-strap theory’. Science was not my strong point, so all I can recall is that the image of the loops commonly used to pull on a certain kind of boot, were somehow being offered as a metaphor to convey his basic idea of how ‘matter came into existence’. Shaykh Abdalqadir listened very carefully, and here I remind you that he was, and still is, the most brilliant mind in Europe. He then said, “I think I’ve got it, except for the exact point at which the entire plate of French pastries disappeared and matter came into being.” Naturally, Capra was mortified, as he had not till that moment, realised he had eaten the entire plate of millefeuille. I too was most disappointed! Nevertheless, I do remember, as if it were only yesterday, the realisation from this episode that self-knowledge is over and above all other sciences. Dr. Capra is undoubtedly a brilliant physicist and this incident is in no sense intended to infer otherwise.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There are countless anecdotes, from Ian Dallas giving Bob Dylan his first copy of Rimbaud’s poems, to the wonderful story that appears in his Collected Works of how he had an acute attack of appendicitis while visiting friends on Martha’s Vineyard, and had to be rushed to hospital. He tells of a large warm-hearted nurse with a shining black face, who said one day, while he was sitting-up reading, “My grandfather caught Moby-Dick!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The nurse then told him that a very kind lady had come every day and sat in the room while he rested, and then left the books for him to read. The woman was Lillian Hellman, the American dramatist whose works include the hugely popular Little Foxes (1939), and was married to the famous writer, Dashiell Hammett, whose stories were at the centre of the Film Noir movement in Hollywood. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">As is recounted in <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Ian Dallas - Collected Works</span></i>, Hellman and Hammett were both ruthlessly persecuted by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Witch Hunts. Mr Dallas quotes the entire speech made by Lillian to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I will never forget the impact it made on me after reading this speech to realise that this same great woman had sat everyday at the bedside of a young intellectual called Ian Dallas who, in the fullness of time, I would also meet and come to know and admire as Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Returning to the Telegraph article, it goes out of its way to reveal that Shaykh Abdalqadir’s teachings are said to include the claim that, “movies and football degrade the proletariat.” I am pleased to confirm, for the record, that Shaykh Abdalqadir is an aficionado of cinema and possesses a vast DVD film collection. He recently sent over to my house a copy of the French film ‘A Prophet’ directed by Jacque Audiard. He considers it one of the best films recently made. I can also confirm, as the Telegraph states, that he did, as Ian Dallas, act in Fellini’s <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">8 ½</span></i>, but far more interesting is the fact that he re-wrote the ending of the film, the wondrous ‘dance of life’, which ends the film. The version we all know today is, of course, Fellini’s ending; he took it and made it his. The ending opens the way - after the total failure of a film director to fulfil the expectations imposed upon him - to give up and surrender, even his greatness. That is where the film ends, but it is also, in truth, where the real story begins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">As for football, it is true that he dislikes it, together with the increasingly unsavoury tendencies from which it has become inseparable. He is rather an avid rugby fan and is almost a fanatic when it comes to cricket, especially five-day test matches. He sees in the game of cricket a means by which young men can develop good character. He does attend, from time to time, at Newlands cricket ground in Cape Town, a match in order to enjoy the game in the company of his choosing.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The Telegraph also makes mention of one of his plays acted in by Albert Finney, and another starring the late Sir Alan Bates. All this is true, but what about comments in the paper that he is a, “radical Muslim leader” and also, “the leader of an extremist Muslim group”? Putting aside his “bohemian past”, as it was referred to, what about his radical change and his espousal of an extreme interpretation of Islam? The quantity of evidence to the contrary contained in Shaykh Abdalqadir’s writings, both published and non-published, is so vast that, like the Telegraph, I too shall have to be extremely selective in my choice of observations. However, contrary to the Telegraph, whose sparse and tenuous claims seem to be dictated by negative bias and cheap sensationalism, my own primary concern will be to avoid over-burdening the reader with the sheer weight of bona fide material available to me. Before I continue, I should also, for the sake of clarity, remind the reader that Shaykh Abdalqadir continues, on occasion, to write under his Scottish family name of Ian Dallas.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There is <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Book Of Strangers</span></i>, published in 1972, a novel that is about the search for knowledge and the awakening to Islam told in the form of a semi-autobiographical parable (Pantheon Books). There is <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Letter To An African Muslim</span></i> (1981), which helped inspire a whole generation of South Africans to enter Islam at a time when apartheid still restricted the options available to most blacks. Shaykh Abdalqadir was the only white European who could freely walk the streets of Soweto, although the Apartheid regime banned both him and his book. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There is <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Root Islamic Education</span></i>, first published in Norwich in 1982 and re-released in 1993, in London. This text is based firmly on the soundest and irrefutable classical Islamic texts that have come down to the Muslims throughout the centuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is the <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Technique of the Coup de Banque</span></i>, published in Spain in 2000, which takes as its thematic corollaries Machiavelli’s Renaissance classic <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Il Principe </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">(The Prince)</span> and Curzio Malpararte’s 1931 masterwork <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Technique Du Coup D’État</span></i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this article to give an adequate appraisal of the invaluable contributions these books have made in furthering the understanding of their respective subject matters. However, <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Technique of the Coup de Banque</span></i> is one with which I have had a special connection. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Travelling from his base in the Scottish Highlands, Shaykh Abdalqadir made an extended visit to Cape Town in early 2001. I had already moved from Scotland to Cape Town a few months prior to this in anticipation of what we all hoped would lead to his permanent move to the city. Whilst there, he had the opportunity to overhear a conversation in a local bookstore between two young men, both of whom were University of Cape Town students. One was relating that he had heard that there was a Shaykh visiting from Europe who sounded very interesting, and that he hoped somehow to meet him. Hence, with the refined courtesy and habitual discretion which have long distinguished him, Shaykh<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Abdalqadir approached the student and prudently ventured, “I believe you wanted to meet me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The next day the young man, extremely gregarious and outgoing by nature, came to have morning coffee at the house the Shaykh was renting. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Shaykh Abdalqadir did, in fact, return to the Highlands but it had become clear that a move was imminent. Therefore, in preparation for this I was asked by our local Muslim Community leader, Orhan Wadvalla, to start an evening class based on <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Technique of the Coup de Bank</span></i>. The UCT student he had met in the bookshop, and several of his friends, some Muslims and some not, were invited to come along to a weekly reading, which was held at my small cottage in Newlands. These sessions were dynamic and exciting and soon increased to twice a week. As I did not yet have any bookcases we were surrounded by stacks of books; reading, discussing and drinking espressos, while I rummaged around for Plato’s <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Republic</span></i> or whatever other text the Shaykh may have indicated, that I knew to be somewhere in my ‘library’, and on we went! </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">A few months later Shaykh Abdalqadir moved to Cape Town and I had by then assembled a good group of young guys, the one non-Muslim had become Muslim, and some basic ground work had been done to prepare these dynamic men to sit with and benefit from the Shaykh’s generosity. They were all healthy young men, interested in what most young people their age are interested in, but they had also acquired an appetite for real knowledge, and whatever you really want out of life, you’ll get! </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">From that first group new ones have come. Most of those men are now married and have started families of their own. All of them, without exception, are more advanced on the path to knowledge than myself, but I was privileged to have, by the Generosity of Allah, the opportunity to play a part in this phase of their education. The one last thing I want to mention about this particular text is that everything that Shaykh Abdalqadir spoke of has come to pass. The financial crisis of 2008-2009, which continues to worsen into 2010 as I write, was laid bare in his brilliant exposition. With rare exceptions, only a few have listened, certainly not the so-called leaders of the Muslim World. Nevertheless, the number of those taking notice of Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi continues to grow day by day. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There is the Ian Dallas book, <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Time of the Bedouin</span></i> (2006) - on the politics of power, and also his latest publication <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Political Renewal</span></i> (2009) which by juxtaposition in one volume of two exceptionally penetrating essays, produces a devastating historical survey of the relentless degeneration that has characterised the British political class and its social and constitutional apparatus over the last century and more: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The End of the Political Class </span></i>by Ian Dallas and Hilaire Belloc’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The House of Commons and Monarchy</span></i> (1920).</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There is the series of four books by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, that were all composed from lectures given in a Cape Town mosque: <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Book of Tawhid</span></i> [Unity of Allah] 2004, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Book of Hubb</span></i> [Love of the Divine] 2007, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Book of ‘Amal</span></i> [Behaviour] 2008 and finally <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Book of Safar </span></i>[Travel] 2008. Imagine one of those Hollywood post-apocalyptic fantasies; the world has been all but totally destroyed, and you, say a young black man, happens to rescue a copy of the Qur’an from a heap of burning rubble, and then after many a close call, you produce an act of heroism that saves the life of a pretty blond headed girl on the point of despair, whose only worldly possessions happen to be these four slim texts. It turns out that this incredible encounter contains all that is needed as the basis for recovery of civilised human society; an interesting gene pool and ready access to Divine guidance and useful knowledge. They are simple yet utterly profound texts that, based upon the love and knowledge of our Prophet Muhammad, Allah grant him blessings and peace, can, with the Qur’an, be all you would need to start anew. </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There are more books and countless anecdotes and taped discourses. When I am fortunate to be invited to his house for lunch, he often, while waiting eagerly for the meal to be announced, recites whole passages from Shakespeare, or the opening of Elliot’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Waste Land</span></i> or W. H. Auden or W. B. Yeats, replete with an Irish accent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He has a library of some several thousand books, some in English, French and Arabic, an extensive collection of classical music CDs, and I have already mentioned his film collection. He is mostly surrounded by men who are all the very brightest young people you could ever wish to meet. The Shaykh is the master. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most of all, he has guided a whole generation to knowledge of Allah and a deep understanding of the practice of Islam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To sit in his company is an honour and you learn things even without realising it.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Robert Luongo, Lecturer in Shakespeare & Rhetoric at Dallas College in Cape Town </span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:85%;"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>-http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-66653282293048129062010-06-04T09:21:00.001+02:002010-06-04T09:21:55.111+02:00An Improper Bostonian<div class=Section1> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>It has been pointed out to me by several people that <i><u>A Boston Brahmin in New Mexico</u></i>, an article I wrote for my blog in May, left them wanting to hear more, what happened next. The story does indeed continue, although this is not the moment for me to tell it. Suffice it to say that I continued on to California and that while travelling west I met a young fellow about my age heading east. He gave me the address of a person who he described as his teacher, the playwright and poet, Daniel Moore, who is today better known as Daniel Abdalhayy Moore. I did reach California and went to the address in Berkeley. Daniel, who some years earlier had formed a radical ‘street theatre’ called the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, invited me to stay as his guest... It must have been early June 1970 and still a few months prior to my 21<sup>st</sup> birthday. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>In the meantime, while sitting in a café in Tangiers, the highly accomplished playwright (he had already several BBC productions to his credit) and author, Ian Dallas, had read in the Rolling Stone about this unusual theatre troupe whose plays were a bizarre mixture of Anti-Viet Nam protest and Tibetan Buddhism. He made the firm intention that should his new screenplay be accepted by one of the Hollywood studios, he would visit these people. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Within a month of my arrival in Berkeley a telegram arrived from Mr Dallas, who was then in Los Angeles, saying that he would very much like to pay Daniel and his theatre group a visit. Using the phone number that had been included with the message, Daniel keenly welcomed him to come. You could say that I was only there by chance, as I had no connection to the other people living in the house. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>I do recall Daniel being asked if his theatre was still performing, to which he answered that it wasn’t. He told Mr Dallas that he was presently reading the works of Rumi. I was sitting by the phone while this conversation was taking place, so I saw Daniel put his hand over the phone and say: “He says that he knows everything about Rumi.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>I had begun to feel that I had stayed with these strange people, actors and musicians, long enough, so was about to leave. I had just seen Fellini’s <i>Satyricon</i> at the cinema and was ready to distance myself from the macabre company of the Eastern mystics who inhabited this large Victorian house. Nevertheless, I decided to hold on another week to meet this stranger. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>It was a memorable first encounter and the source of many an amusing anecdote, as I was the driver on the day Daniel and I went to the San Francisco Bus Terminal to collect his guest. Our vehicle was the infamous ‘animal car’ (a mobile art project by an Berkeley art student) that was a 1955 Chevy covered in animal fur and without any seats, but instead contained large cushions covered in Indian fabric for the passengers to sit upon. As the driver, I sat on a raised mushroom so that I could at least see the road ahead of me. Even so, there was no way I was going to spot what was coming around the next corner.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Firstly, considering that I was the one person who wasn’t actually meant to be there, I soon embraced Islam by this stranger’s hand. Secondly, I remain indebted to him for everything I have learnt, one way or another, over the intervening forty years as a student of a man I consider the greatest intellect of this age. Of course, some of you will know that our stranger, the celebrated writer, Ian Dallas, is better known today as Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Well, there‘s the story I started off by saying I wasn’t going to tell. I must conclude that the Islam we were taught was that of the sound teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. I did not join a Sufi group. My culture is that of Western Civilization and my love of literature and classical music is part of my cultural heritage. My religion is Islam.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Robert Luongo<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> </div> -http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-29438667625814821112010-06-01T15:52:00.001+02:002010-06-01T15:52:19.158+02:00Pablo's Portrait by Luqman Nieto<div class=Section1> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Luqman Nieto is a second year student at Dallas College in Cape Town. He was born in Seville Spain and acquired his early education at the Medrassa Mawlana Muhammad Wasany in Majorca. When he completed his studies in Majorca he had achieved the qualification of </span><i><span lang=EN-GB>Hafiz</span></i><span lang=EN-GB>, having recorded the entire Qur’an to memory by heart. Interspersed with his studies he and all the boys attending the medrassa practiced archery, horseback riding and swimming and sailing in the summer months. At the age of nineteen Luqman moved to Cape Town, quickly improved his English and in 2009 entered Dallas College. I am very proud to present this short story by an outstanding student.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><i><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>The following short story is a dramatization based upon an anecdote that Ernst Jünger, the celebrated German soldier and poet, who served as an officer in both World Wars, told to Julien Hervier and was recorded in Hervier’s book </span><i><span lang=EN-GB>The Details of Time, Conversations with Ernst Jünger</span></i><span lang=EN-GB>. Jünger was the only high ranking German officer known to have been complicit in the failed attempt on Hitler’s life who was not executed by the Führer. He remains the most highly decorated soldier in all of German history. Jünger refused to be subjugated to the de-nazification process imposed by the Americans after the war, as he insisted that while he fought to defend his country, he never joined nor was he part of the Nazi Party. Jünger died at the age of 103 and is the author of numerous books, essays and articles that were published during his lifetime. His highly acclaimed </span><i><span lang=EN-GB>Storm of Steel </span></i><span lang=EN-GB>is considered: ‘One of the most striking accounts of the First World War’ (Richard Holms, Evening Standard). <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><i><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:70.8pt;text-indent:35.4pt'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt'>Robert Luongo, Dallas College lecturer of Shakespeare & Rhetoric<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <div style='mso-element:dropcap-dropped;mso-element-wrap:around;mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph;mso-element-anchor-horizontal:column;mso-height-rule:exactly; mso-element-linespan:3'> <table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 hspace=0 vspace=0 align=left> <tr> <td valign=top align=left style='padding-top:0cm;padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0cm;padding-left:0cm'> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:41.35pt;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;page-break-after:avoid;vertical-align:baseline;mso-element:dropcap-dropped; mso-element-wrap:around;mso-element-anchor-vertical:paragraph;mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column;mso-height-rule:exactly;mso-element-linespan:3'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:56.0pt;mso-text-raise:-5.5pt'>I<o:p></o:p></span></p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>t was a clear and fresh morning of winter. The sun had finally come to pay us a visit after a long absence. The streets of Paris smelled like a shirt that had just been washed and hung in the sun. Nadia was walking with her light and gentle pace, almost trotting like a young colt that has been locked up for too long and finally re-discovers the pleasures of running in freedom. I could hardly keep up without looking too ridiculous behind her.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>I met Nadia a morning like this one in <i>Saint Germain des Prés. </i>While I was having a shot of espresso in the <i>Café Fleurs,</i> she was drawing in an artist’s sketchbook, a small detail of a beautiful corner. With precise and short movements, acquired by her impeccable Russian classical technique, Nadia was capturing the essence of that corner in that precise moment. But I did not know her name yet. All I knew was that while she was observing the corner and capturing the moment I was observing her and becoming her captive.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>After the first espresso I asked for a second one, and after the second for a third. I did not want to disturb the girl who was drawing but I could not leave without saying anything to her. By the time of the fourth espresso it had become a matter of proving to myself that I could do it. Not that I had bad luck with women, actually I would say that it was rather good, they found me awkwardly handsome and rather charming - even though I never thought I was any of those things - but there was something in that girl, which was terribly challenging. Later on I would come to know her name was Nadia. She looked like a Russian princess, with long brown hair, big green eyes and marble-like sculpted features. She was not particularly pretty, as her mouth was a little big and so were her eyes, and her nose a little small, but everything put together had a special enchantment. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>She was wrapped in a distant air, perhaps a bit cold, like the fresh breeze that was blowing through the terrace of the <i>Café de Fleurs </i>that sunny morning of winter. But what attracted me more than anything were her hands; the long thin fingers with a darkish colour at their tips, which revealed to me that what she was doing was not merely a casual moment of inspiration but a profession. The bones which revealed themselves through the skin and the light blue veins were all in perfect balance. Her hands were like the violins in a complex piece of classical music, the accents of the melody that was her face, and all accompanied by a perfect atonal harmony that was her body. If Prokofiev were to see her he would have composed the most beautiful yet dissonant piano concerto.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Suddenly she closed her notebook, organized her pencils in a small leather case and stood up. She took a long breath and I contained mine. She turned, looked around and her glance favoured me before she walked straight to the table where I was.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Before I could even realise what was happening, she was sitting in front of me and had ordered a coffee. All of that distant look had completely disappeared and gave place to a warm friendly smile. I was shocked. The kind of shock that happens when something you imagine doing suddenly dislodges from the realm of imaginations to the realm of reality, and you have to face it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Nadia arrived a couple of years ago in Paris. She came from a bourgeois family of Moscow where she had learnt the art of painting miniatures. Her mother was part of the old aristocracy and her father a successful business man. By 1920, following the Russian Revolution, her mother foresaw the worsening of things in Russia, and so decided to send her daughter to Paris where Nadia could continue developing her talent as a painter under the careful supervision of a very good friend of her mother. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Nadia talked and I listened. She seemed like someone who had been alone for a long time and suddenly found someone with whom she could talk. From time to time she would stop and ask me a few things - which I answered as quickly and as short as possible - before carrying on as if what I had said did not really matter. I was delighted.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>When I started to know her better after that first encounter, I learnt that she was like that; she would remain in silence immersed in her thoughts and would hardly speak for what seemed an eternity, and then she would emerge out of that world of hers and talk as if there was not enough time to say everything she wanted to say. Every period of silence resulted in some master piece of painting and after every period of talking I would have the most beautiful and profound lines to put in the mouth of the heroine of my latest piece of writing. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Once I asked her why she choose my table and why she sat with me that day at the café. She answered: “When I finished my painting that day and I stood up I felt like someone who had been travelling alone for a long time and when he gets back to the place from where he left he needs someone who will listen to all his stories of the journey. I looked around and the only face I saw that I could trust was yours. So I went to your table and I talked to you”.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>When I finished my fifth espresso and she her first one we left the <i>Café de Fleurs</i> and I walked her home. Her pace that day was the same light and gentle trot that moved her through the streets of Paris that warm winter morning. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>We were going to see a well known painter who was spending some time in Paris. Nadia knew him from, as she said, a random casual meeting arranged by destiny. She was painting a view of a popular café<i> </i>in the city, where the ordinary people usually sit, with a vivid detailed surrealism, and he passed by. He stood behind her for a long time while she did not notice it, for when she painted she was habitually unaware of what was going on around her except for that which she was painting. He admired her work, especially her amazing technique and her eye for detail. When he knew that she was from Russia he invited her to help him with a work he was doing for Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet. His name was Picasso.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>When we arrived at Picasso’s house in the street of the <i>Grands-Augustines </i>she knocked at the door. Olga, Picasso’s wife, opened for us and Nadia, after introducing me, began a lively conversation with Olga in Russian. Olga was a ballet dancer that Picasso met while working for Diaghilev and she and Picasso got married in 1918. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>A little child of about six years old came running and passed by my side without noticing me. When he saw Nadia he ran to her and she received him with open arms speaking to him in Russian with a mellow voice. He laughed and begun to talk mixing words from French, Russian and Spanish with such ease that I would have assumed it to be only one language. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Pablo, the son of Picasso and Olga, pulled Nadia without leaving her hand to the studio where his father was working. Nadia looked at me and told me with her eyes to follow them. From what I could understand, Pablo was saying his father had just finished a portrait of him and Pablo wanted Nadia to see it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>The four of us went into Picasso’s studio. The studio was a large square room with two big windows facing the street at one end of the room. The windows had no curtains and the light of the sun entered through them illuminating the whole room. Picasso was facing the wall opposite the windows with the easel in front of him and all his paints, brushes and pencils on the side. There were paintings leaning against the four walls of the room, some were finished and others were unfinished, revealing the intentions of the painter and how they developed and changed through the process of painting.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Picasso was a man in his forties of normal height and constitution with small piercing eyes. Under his apron, which had so many spots of paint that the original colour was un-recognizable, he was wearing an elegant shirt and a tie. He greeted Nadia kindly and Nadia introduced me to him. Picasso looked at me with the eyes of someone who is used to seeing the true essence of the world around him and who is then able to capture that essence in paint. And then he smiled at me and his eyes seemed to change colour, from a dark brown to a light sand one, like the earth when it is dry and has a light brown colour and then it rains and the brown becomes dark, but in reverse.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Nadia and Picasso talked about the portrait of his son while the living subject of it was running around trying to capture everyone’s attention. He probably felt that he was more important than his fake copy. Nadia and Picasso commented on the details of the painting talking about the strokes of the painter and the chromatic scale of colours he had used. For anyone who, like me, did not paint, it was almost as if they were speaking another language, Chinese for example. Soon my attention was captured by the rest of the paintings leaning against the walls, and then by Pablo himself, who was happy to finally have seized someone’s attention and was doing his best not to lose it. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Olga had gone out of the studio and her voice came to us calling Pablo. Pablo left the studio and Nadia, who suddenly felt a rush to ask Olga for the meaning of some Russian word in French, followed the child. Without really wanting to, because his presence overwhelmed me a little, I found my self alone with Picasso.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Picasso came closer to me. I was looking at the portrait trying to find something to say that would not reveal my almost complete ignorance of the subject when he looked at me and smiled. Sensing my predicament he said: “Don’t worry, I actually don’t like it”.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Picasso went to the painting and lifted it off the easel. With the painting in his hands he turned to me and said: “This painting would have a certain effect, but that effect would be exactly the same one, in the metaphysical meaning of it, if I would wrap it in paper and abandon it in a corner. It would be exactly the same as if ten thousand people would have admired it”. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>Picasso put the painting on the easel again and went to join his wife, son and Nadia in the kitchen where Olga had prepared some coffee. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-GB>I stayed there, looking at the portrait of little Pablo, thinking about the casual tone of the words that Picasso had just uttered, rendering them even more shocking to me, until Nadia’s voice dragged me out of my state and rushed me to the kitchen before the coffee could get cold.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> -http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-66520921985795619882010-05-26T14:45:00.001+02:002010-05-26T14:45:57.502+02:00The Power Template<div class=Section1> <p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><u><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:22.0pt;line-height:115%'>Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></u></p> <p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:18.0pt;line-height:115%'>The Power Template<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:18.0pt;line-height:115%'>Shakespeare’s Political Plays<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>In 2004 a small private college was established in Cape Town South Africa. It was to be a college of leadership, a place where young people of all races who had a sufficient capacity and desire to want to excel, to take on responsibility to make a new kind of world, could come to be educated. It was not for those vast masses that only see education as a means for getting a job. The syllabus was based upon contemporary as well as classical geo-political studies, history – from Roman history through to the end of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, bio-politics – the study of key people whose lives had an impact on their time and place in the world, then languages, and lastly fencing to cultivate noble character. It was a <i>paideia</i> for the 21<sup>st</sup> century designed to produce new men. The founder of the college was Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, whose Scottish family name of Dallas became the name of this place of learning, unique in this time, yet seeking continuity in the historical model of the great Mogul and Ottoman centres of higher education. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>At the inception of Dallas College I was invited to teach Shakespeare & Rhetoric, an area of world literature in which I was excited about furthering my knowledge. I was informed that the focus was to be Shakespeare’s History and Roman Plays. These plays, more so than all the others, but not exclusively so, are his political plays. I was introduced to a handful of books that I promptly ordered and which soon arrived in South Africa. There was the <i>Essential Shakespeare Handbook</i>, which became our basic text-book. The others were Frank Kermode’s <i>The Age of Shakespeare</i> and his <i>Language of Shakespeare</i>. There was an excellent biography by René Weis and W.H. Auden’s <i>Lectures on Shakespeare</i> that was derived from a lecture series he gave in Greenwich Village in 1946-47, that I was thrilled with. Then there was Jonathan Bate’s <i>The Genius of Shakespeare</i> and more recently his newest book, <i>Soul of the Age</i>, simply the best book I have ever read on Shakespeare. It is a masterpiece and I am convinced that Bate is today the preeminent Shakespearian scholar. As I continued with my lectures new books were added, many of which I will mention in the course of this study. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>There are two unequivocal characteristics to this or any study of Shakespeare’s plays. The first is that you are exposed to the highest expression of the English language. It delights and excites the mind in a way that once you have tasted it your hunger only grows as you discover more of this living, pulsating language that is the very means through which meanings are communicated and shared by human beings. With extraordinary wit and a generosity of humour and humanity, Shakespeare has written characters that are as much alive today as they were four hundred years ago when he wrote them. The second characteristic, more specific to the actual plays that are covered within this book, is that they transmit an understanding of the dynamics of human politics: the play for power, position and influence that has been an unfolding drama as far back as history has been recorded. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>What occurs in my lectures, and is replicated in the text that is presented here, is my attempt to awaken a curiosity and concern not only about the age of Shakespeare, which holds a very important place in our world view, but also the age we live in now. There are, therefore, numerous excursions as we move from 14<sup>th</sup> or 15<sup>th</sup> century England to the exigency of the early 20<sup>th</sup> century negotiations that preceded the outbreak of the First World War. We move quite freely from Prince Hal in <i>Henry IV Part I and II</i> (who, portrayed as a profligate prince who neglected his duties at Court, emerged through a series of life experiences that were the means by which his character was forged into the heroic Henry V) – and then on over to King Hasan II of Morocco who in his youth was dubbed by the French press as ‘The Playboy Prince’. King Hasan was under a constant barrage of attack, from both within his own inner circle as much as from outside forces, to sell off his country’s vast mineral wealth. Not unlike Hal, the king matured and was steeled into a sober and astute ruler who held fast the reins of leadership and preserved his country from the rapacious greed of disloyal subjects and foreign invaders.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>There are digressions and forays into a multitude of current political affairs that find scope within Shakespeare’s vast landscape which serves as a setting for the machinations of human politics that drive the action of world events. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>From English history to ancient Rome, we have the backdrop that allowed Shakespeare to portray the whole world within that <i>Wooden ‘O’</i>, the original Globe Theatre. It is, therefore, my intention through this exploration of Shakespeare’s political plays to make sense of the world I find myself in, and in doing so to make sense of myself within it. That that should also be awakened in others is my aim in this work. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Robert Luongo <span style='color: #1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> </div> -http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4922409878150649467.post-59415296834263143312010-05-15T09:31:00.001+02:002010-05-15T09:31:44.767+02:00A Boston Brahmin In New Mexico<div class=Section1> <p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%'>A Boston Brahmin In New Mexico<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>It was in the early spring of the summer of 1970 that I made my third trans-continental crossing of the United States, originating in Boston and, as they would say in bygone days, “go west young man”. My first trip was in 67’ as I hitch-hiked 3000 miles from the East Coast to the Pacific Ocean. By 1970 I had become a rather seasoned traveller along life’s highways, and this particular journey had an even more specific intention attached to it. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The preceding year, while I was living in Cambridge Massachusetts, where I kept a small studio apartment in the garret of a large Victorian at the bottom of Plympton Street near Harvard Square, I had become aware of a woman living in New Mexico who, as both an artist and story-teller, had established a puppet theatre in collaboration with the Pueblo Indians who lived in her area. That area was that stretch of territory between Albuquerque, Santa Fe and up to Taos. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>As best as I can recall it was in an issue of the Tulane Drama Review or TDR as it was generally known, that I read the story of Elsie Thetford who lived in Abiquiu New Mexico and who had founded this unique theatre. The article spoke of her unusual work as well her life among the Pueblo Indians, both of which fascinated me. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Before proceeding, it is necessary to back up yet another year to 1968 when I was living in New Haven Connecticut and had become friends with a Yale Drama School student, Jim Metzner, where I had the opportunity to develop a growing interest in various forms of theatre. Besides participating in an original play written by Jim that was performed in a local coffee house over some few weekends, I also got a small part in a Yale University production that was put on by the Yale Repertory Theatre, a professional theatre company, and included a number of drama students and at least one non-student. The play was Euripides’ Bacchae, and the wild chorus was nearly all students, with my friend Jim making a memorable impression as one of the devotees of Dionysus. My bit part was that of a Roman soldier who represented law and order, and the antithesis to rights of the god. I must admit, although it was never my intention, that I rather stole the show on opening night and had to be forcibly removed from the stage. Prior to the curtain going up I did ingest a certain substance that had the overwhelming effect of awakening that Dionysian spirit in me. Somewhere in the middle of a fierce stand-off between the followers of Dionysus and the Roman Guard I removed my clothing, except of course, my excellent Roman helmet and upright stanchion that I had adorned with a flower given to me by a most lovely girl who was a member of the bacchanal. Needless to say that was my last performance at Yale and the end of my acting career. A couple of members of the New Haven Police, who for some mysterious reason were in attendance, did not, fortunately, press formal charges, although the actor who played the lead, endlessly stating how he had appeared so many times On as well as Off Broadway, was driven to fury! <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>But now it is one year later and I am back living in Cambridge, which would have been in late 1969, and having made contact with Ms. Thetford by writing her a letter, was to my delight invited to come and visit her if I should ever be passing by that way. And so it was that in the early spring of 1970, with a cold New England winter behind me that I set out on my odyssey. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>At some point I moved off the Interstate highway and began my way along smaller back roads, having more than once stopped to ask anyone who I saw if they could direct me to the Thetford Place. It was late afternoon but the sun was still high up in the huge New Mexico sky. I stood in front of a ‘rammed earth’ house, known as <i>tapia</i> in Spanish, but most commonly as <i>pisé de terre</i>. The front door of this modest home was wide open and only a weather beaten screen door was in place to keep the various crawling or slithering creatures that were everywhere to be found, from coming right on in. I called out: “Hello there”, and was in very short order standing in front of an elderly woman (she was in fact 87) who said; “You must be Robert.”<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Elsie Thetford was born in 1883 into an old Boston Brahmin family and in 1901, at the age of 18 was presented into society at a Newport Rhode Island summer ball. Her family were friends of the famous Newport artist John La Farge, who married Margaret Mason Perry, from the even more famous family of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, born in Kingston Rhode Island, and his most renowned younger brother, Commodore Mathew Calbraith Perry of Newport, who, in 1853, sailed into Tokyo Bay and negotiated the first US - Japanese trade agreement. In Boston Elsie’s parents were occasional guest at the home of Isabella Stewart Gardner in the Fenway, that is when Isabella was not in her lovely house in Venice - that I did visit many years later and was actually let in by saying Robert Luongo <u>from Boston</u>. <i>[That visit I made to Venice is another story altogether and concerns Henry James, who in his youth lived in Newport , and later in life was a frequent guest at the Stewart Gardner’s Palazzo Barbaro just off the Grand Canal.</i>] Ms. Gardner, 1840-1924, is most remembered as one of the most prodigious American art collectors and, of course, by John Singer Sargent’s famous portrait of her. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>And there I was, being welcomed into this charming home in the middle of the New Mexico scrub land of cacti and rattlesnakes, and the biggest sky you have ever seen. “Well how do you do Robert?” is what she said as she showed me into her modest parlour. There was an original Georgia O’Keeffe on the wall, which had been, she said, a gift, in exchange for a particular puppet Georgia loved, and seeing as they were friends and nearly neighbours, neighbours, that is, according to the American south-west where distances are thought of in a far different way. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Mid way between Abiquiu and Taos was a very small town called San Cristobal Taos where in the early 1920’s D. H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda spent, on two separate occasions separated by a return trip to England, a couple of years at a small homestead now known as the D.H. Lawrence Ranch. As an exchange for a Lawrence manuscript the house was deeded to Frieda and was the only property either of them ever owned. Elsie and her husband - I’ve not mentioned him yet - were once invited to meet the English couple and Elsie told me how Lawrence was then not very well and was ostensibly in New Mexico to rest and, as always, write. As he was tubercular the dry heat of summer was hoped to be beneficial.<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Elsie was married in Boston in 1905 to a civil engineer and land surveyor from a prominent New England family. The territory of New Mexico, Arizona and most of Texas was pretty much unchartered Indian land and the US Government was offering a job to someone who would go there and map the area as well as build storm water drains and aqueducts to combat the raging waters from flash-flooding that could come on so quickly that a dry gulch one minute was a terrifying torrent capable of carrying away anything, from a large vehicle to cattle, in it’s rapids. And so a year or two after the couple married they set off for New Mexico where Elsie and her husband, with the help of local Pueblo Indians, built their home. In 1914 Europe was at war and in 1917 Lieutenant Thetford sailed for England as part of the US war effort to combat the ‘Evil Hun’ as Germany was referred to in the American press, quite possibly originating in any one of the many William Randolph Hearst newspapers. That I don’t really know for sure.<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>Elsie had been a widow now for quite some years and while she could have gone ‘back east’ decided to stay on in Abiquiu after her husband passed away. I stayed only two days, sleeping on a day bed in a small guest room. Elsie cooked for us and had no regular help, except if there were serious storms and then she said men from the Pueblo would check on her and make sure she was alright. We talked and also walked. Our walks are the most memorable things for me. Elsie carried a walking stick which, due to her age, I assumed was a needed support. As we moved along across the scrub land with cacti and sagebrush scattered out as far as you could see, with the San Cristobal Mountains rising up in the distance in the most vivid purple colour, I heard a sound I had only ever heard about. There was before us a rattler, about four foot long, and Elsie and I just stopped. She proceeded to put the walking stick out in front of her as far as her arm could reach. Faster than you can imagine, that deadly rattlesnake wrapped itself around the stick. With a strong movement of her arm Elsie flung the snake some several feet off to the side. She carried on walking and continued what she had been saying prior to our visitor coming up upon us. She smiled her wry smile, for she knew that this city boy had never seen that before. <span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'>The next morning after breakfast I thanked my host so much for her kindness and how easily she trusted me and welcomed me into her home, never once taking exception to this twenty year old fellow wearing his hair long, carrying only a knap-sack from the Army & Navy Store in which there was nothing but a copy of Norman Mailer’s <i>The Naked and the Dead</i>, James Joyce’s <i>Ulysses</i> and a comb I’d bought at the Five and Dime.<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%'> Robert Luongo<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p> </div> -http://www.blogger.com/profile/08726174239761004913noreply@blogger.com0