Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Author: pelshvalen (Page 25 of 42)

Benekting

15.09.2017 /

Valget gikk som ventet, ikke sant? Man har det tross alt komfortabelt med den blå-brune regjeringen, ledet av den evinnelig avslappede, rolig smilende fruen.

Velgerne var engstelige: Hva er det som skjer med verden? Det er så mye som er skummelt, som Trump, IS, Russland… for ikke å snakke om den fremtidige flodbølgen av desperate klimaflyktninger…

Alle partier over sperregrensen forsikret at det går så bra så, men ingen var så overbevisende rolig og beroligende som den blå-brune fruen.

I dette valget stemte velgerne som Østens tre vise aper: Jeg ikke høre, jeg ikke forstå, og jeg ikke snakke. Dette er skolebokens oppskrift på benekting.

Jeg har en hund, og den er klok. Noen ganger lurer jeg på om hunder er klokere enn vi mennesker. Så vidt jeg kan se mangler de nemlig denne “evnen” til benekting som vi har.

Benekting er altså en av de såkalte forsvarsmekanismene, noe som ikke bare nevrotikere tyr til. Alle bruker vi forsvarsmekanismer (f.eks. rasjonalisering, fortrengning, sublimering…). Det er rett og slett ikke lett for et menneske å klare seg uten, om det overhode er mulig.

Man kan si at benekting er en overlevelsesstrategi for menneskeheten. Takket være den har befolkninger nektet å flykte, overgi eller underkaste seg, men har stått på mot alle odds, og mens flertallet kanskje ble drept, overlevde noen få, som fikk bære genene videre.

Benekting har flere forkledninger som f.eks.:

  • “Det går til helvete uansett! Jeg kjører dieselbil som før.”
  • “Hele klimakampanjen er drevet av folk som ønsker å kuppe markeder.”
  • “Jeg kildesorterer og bruker Zalo, da synes jeg at jeg har gjort mitt.”
  • “Jeg, derimot, kjører elbil og synes at jeg har gjort mitt.”
  • “Det er bra at vi produserer olje og gass slik at det globale kullforbruket går ned.”
  • “Jeg spiser nesten ikke sjokolade.” (Se forklaring nedenfor.)

Saken er jo at vi styrter av gårde i noenlunde samme tempo, og ikke vil se, ikke vil høre, ikke vil gjøre det vi må gjøre. For øyeblikket er det Spania som har overtatt trykket fra et stadig mer ulevelig Afrika – over 11 000 mennesker plukket opp av sjøen av spanske myndigheter i år – og så lenge Listhaug vokter våre grenser, er vi like trygge som Nord-Korea, og nesten like lite i overensstemmelse med våre internasjonale forpliktelser. Samtidig roter vi stadig i glørne i Afghanistan hvor situasjonen for vanlige folk bare blir mer og mer håpløs (nå mest på grunn av IS, som trekker inn i landet etterhvert som de fordrives fra Syria og Irak). Men afghanske flyktninger vil vi helst ikke ha, takk.

(Det er like før jeg søker om svensk statsborgerskap. Svenskene klarer seg utmerket uten olje og uten å være medlemmer i NATO.)

Men vi kan trøste oss med at vi ikke er verst i klassen (følgende opplysninger er hentet fra El País 14.09.2017, “El cacao que se come a África”):

Elfenbens urskoger har krympet med 80% siden 70-tallet. Grunnen til det er at landet står for 40 % av verdens kakaoproduksjon, og etterspørselen etter kakao øker med 2–5 % hvert år. Kun 4% av landet dekkes nå av skog som for det meste er beskyttet ved lov. Landet har 23 nasjonalparker, men det drives likevel ulovlig kakaodyrking i dem. I 13 av de 23 nasjonalparkene er primatene helt utryddet og elefanten, landets nasjonalsymbol, er utrydningstruet. Elfenbenkysten har altså virkelig svin på skogen, og svinene heter Olam, Cargill og Barry Callebaut, som i sin tur selger til blant annet MARS og HERSHEY, som i sin tur selger til oss.

Men vi, nordmenn, ligger forhåpentlig ikke i verdenstoppen blant sjokoladespisere, så vi behøver slett ikke bekymre oss.

Football from the sidelines

10.09.2017 /

Almost blinded by the sun and my own perspiration as I drag myself up the steep hill, I find that the cobbled roads are near empty while the normally empty bars are packed. Packed with men, shouting men. Football, I assume, and snarl.

Mind you, I don’t at all mind football. What bothers me is all that seems to be so evident if we objectively look at a football stadium or study the comportment of men around TV screens when certain games are being played. “We’re in this together,” they seem to be saying, “our team!” “fight till death”, “kill the infidel”, or as General Halil of Janjaweed says, “eliminate anything in my way!”

General Halil is fighting for no cause other than himself. And he has earnest supporters, including loyal and good men who think they are fighting for a worthy cause, men who believe in Halil by virtue of his “strength”. A strong general is a good general, they think. Alas, ruthlessness and callousness is often mistaken for strength, as the US is kind enough to remind us at regular intervals.

The US is a deeply religious country, as are Israel and Saudi Arabia, its close allies. The crimes against humanity committed by those three countries are such that more and more people in my country are saying that religion is the root of all evil.

No, I say, religion is not the root cause of war. The root cause is what we see when we watch those who watch professional football. After a match, people sometimes get bashed to death. The spectators’ arousal, almost sexual in nature – indeed, fired by male hormones surging as the battle is played out before their eyes – makes them dangerous. They are one with the players, identifying with them (“our” team, “us”) , admiring them, enjoying a moment in the sun of borrowed fame and glory, and ready to defend them with their lives, if need be.

Now, some people will retort that war is not necessarily bad. Some wars, they will say, are just, wars for freedom, for instance, wars for liberation from oppression. Of course this argument is neither here nor there, since we will never all agree as to what wars are just, will we? Forget WWII, there have been infinitely many wars since, and in all of them there will have been at least one big bad bully against whom resistance is at least justifiable. Sadly, even the oppressed are usually also lead by big bad bullies, since – again – what is mistaken for strength tends to inspire confidence.

Football makes it all so clear: What spectators by the billions see and admire is: brute force, naked muscle, precision and cunning. They will rise to their feet as one, almost levitating, and they will all feel, for a few magic moments, omnipotent. In short, they will loose, not only their voices from screaming, but also their heads. Who needs drugs or religion to go to war prepared to die? Give me a general who can generate the electric current of a football match, and he will be in business, regardless of the cause.

I, too, long to – more than that – I need to admire. I particularly enjoy feeling kinship with those that I admire. I, too, feel elevated when any of my heroes “wins” a battle.  But my heroes are neither callous nor ruthless, and their strength is not muscular.Today, I finished a novel in which one of my favourite protagonists, George Smiley, definitely sealed his long-time opponent’s casket. Characteristically, Smiley did not enjoy his moment of glory, due to ruminations that I shared with him.

I wonder what Smiley would have made of the global mess we’re in now. For one thing, this little Spanish town on the top of its cliff is becoming near uninhabitable due to summer heat and winter cold. What would Smiley have suggested? I imagine him turning off the light to go to sleep. Outside his wide open window, the neighbours have finally come out of their houses, seeking relief in the evening breeze. Fathers, children, grandmothers, gossiping women… the street is full of their laughter, their pleasant chatting. Yet for all their easy pleasure, he cannot help hearing, still, the continued low wailing of a woman he knows is 97. She wails day and night, but as he knows, she has been out of this world for years. She cannot talk, cannot tell her surroundings why she is so unhappy. Her children take turns looking after her, and they all visit her almost daily. Every day she is dressed and cherished.

Smiley plays with ideas of what may be occupying her mind. After all, she is nearly a century old; think of what she has seen and endured!

Finally, Smiley falls asleep, covered only by a sheet. When he wakes up, he knows he was woken by a sound, and he soon hears it again, a thrill sound that ends in a tremulous sigh. He sits up in bed, because there is no mistaking an owl. An owl? This is definitely not owl country! But hark, there is another one. And another. Standing by now, stark naked in the middle of the room, he hears them all – four owls on different roof tops, one of them just above him on his own roof.

After a few moments, he sadly goes back to bed. Even the owls have lost their marbles, he muses.

And that was the best my hero could do, alas. Can you do better?

Den første sten

08.08.2017 /

Du må lese Den første sten av Carsten Jensen. Du bare MÅ lese den boka!

Det er en roman om krigen i Afghanistan. Det kan hende at du, som jeg, tenker, “orker ikke flere romaner om stakkars Afghanistan, avskyr krigsberetninger,” det kan sogar hende du tar avstand fra genre som “aksjon” eller thriller”. Det får ikke hjelpe, denne boka bør være obligatorisk pensum for alle.

Det dreier seg nemlig ikke bare om et land – og tro du meg, forfatteren kan sitt Afghanistan. Jeg må ty til et hjelpeløst sitat fra en bergtatt filmanmelder som på radio nølte et øyeblikk før han fortsatte,”den handler egentlig om… ja, om alt.” Den forteller deg det du ikke ante du ikke visste. Hva verre er, den får deg til å føle deg som et barn som smuglytter når foreldrene snakker om fæle ting som skilsmisse eller har sex, fordi du vet at det angår deg. Du blir truffet, om ikke på side 10 eller 50, så kanskje på side 61. Før eller siden er det deg det gjelder.

Det er en slags dokumentarisk roman. Noe av det jeg synes er mest besnærende, er at forfatteren ikke beskriver psykopater. Hans personer er ikke samvittighetsløse eller kalde, men gjør så godt de kan ut fra sine forutsetninger. Det er et kunststykke å fremstille de fleste avgjørelser slik at leseren tenker, “hm, slik kunne også jeg ha reagert”. Dermed blir krigen ikke absurd — om den er aldri så grufull — ikke noe man bare kan avvise som rene galskapen eller som inkompetanse. Samtidig blir den så komplisert at en enkel menneskehjerne ikke kan favne den, og man famler hjelpeløst etter datamaskinen.

Ja, i dag tyr opplyste folk til datamaskiner når de er usikre, og også det får sin omtale i dette mektige eposet. Og tenk, også i Afghanistan har “alle” mobiltelefoner, unge og gamle. Det hadde jeg aldri trodd.

Selv lenge før starten på Del II, som begynner rundt side 340, og som plutselig får en jeg-forteller, har romanen – for det er jo tross alt en roman, ikke bare dokumentasjon – løftet seg fra bakken i en spiral av hendelser som med nødvendighet fører til en situasjon man ikke aner noen utgang fra. Aktørene har tatt grep de mente var lure, men så viste det seg at det var for mye de har oversett, rett og slett fordi de ikke hadde forutsetning til å vite alt. Og slik er det vel alltid i en krig, uansett hvor gode intensjonene i utgangpunktet er. Det meste er til syvende og sist galt.

Underveis i et stadig mer apokalyptisk landskap på veg inn i en thriller, lurer leseren på om ikke selve plottet bare er en røverhistorie. Kunne noe av dette teoretisk vært mulig? Kan det faktisk ha skjedd? Tja, si det. Et av premissene i denne boka er at om virkeligheten rundt vår deltakelse i fjerne kriger blir for stygg for de folkevalgte hjemme, så kan pressen pålegges munnbind med henvisning til rikets sikkerhet. Jeg regner med at det premisset stemmer med virkeligheten. Så hvem vet hva som skjer egentlig?

Det største spørsmålet er – tenker jeg, når jeg bestemmer meg for å skrive denne hyllesten – vil vi vite hva som skjer egentlig?

Det som ganske sikkert stemmer med virkeligheten er nettopp det apokalyptiske landskapet som er Afghanistan, et sønderskutt land. Skudd for skudd hamrer forfatteren inn informasjonsbrokker om landet. Skudd for skudd, drap for drap skjer mot baktepper – snart det ene snart det andre – som danner en forvirrende men antakelig korrekt gjengitt mosaikk.

I del II tyr forfatteren til et par forfattertekniske knep for at handlingen ikke skal trekke like mye i langdrag som selve krigen: Han gjør blant annet bruk av en sannsigerske og av en usannsynlig begavet guttehvalp. Disse grepene betraktes av noen kritikere som billige og urealistiske triks. Jeg deler ikke deres syn. Mitt syn er at boka er en pedagogisk fremragende lærebok om det meste.

Mitt syn er videre at boka bør oversettes til alle verdens språk og gjøres tilgjengelig for alle som kan lese. Kanskje det da kan bli håp om litt fred i en tid som i stadig flere land må sies å være apokalyptisk.

Til slutt vil jeg nevne at det er første gang på sikkert 30 år at jeg har lest en bok på mer enn 600 sider fra perm til perm på en dag – fra jeg våknet og grep etter den på sengen, til jeg la meg mer enn 16 timer senere. Det gjorde jeg ikke bare fordi jeg ville vite hvordan det gikk, men fordi jeg ville vite om forfatteren kunne gi oss noen “løsning” til slutt på krigen i Afghanistan og lignende kriger.

Beware of GDP and GNI

01.07.2017 /

I’d like to tell you about an article I read in El País this morning, about Luanda. I hadn’t really intended to read it – I mean, who cares about Luanda? But there was an intriguing dislocation in the heading that I could not resist: The most expensive city in the world is in an underdeveloped country. Now why would that be? I wondered, so I read on.

Yes, rich countries are the ones with expensive capitals, so how come Luanda has surpassed them all with regard not only to the price of water? In 2017, I read, the most expensive cities are, in descending order: Luanda, Hong Kong, Tokio, Zurich, Singapore, Seoul, Geneva, Shanghai, New York and Bern. Madrid follows way down the line as no. 111, and Barcelona is only no. 121. Now how about that!

Well you see, the article tells me, Angola is actually a super-rich country, for the rich that is, who enjoy its oil and diamonds. (Just think of it, diamonds!) The country is so rich that its government has been kind enough to pass a minimum salary law, giving employees the right to the equivalent of EUR 88/month (assuming the employment in question is declared, of course). This amount is just enough to pay for 30 litres of water, 10 kg of rice and 10 litres of milk. Now that might not sound all that bad to you, but try surviving on this amount of water, milk and rice for a whole month.

And what about this figure: about 50% of all families living in Luanda have no running water.

I leave El País and look up the CIA “World Factbook” – to make quite sure that I have not misunderstood Angola’s situation: No, Angola is not considered a communist state or even a dictatorship. In 2012, I read in the CIA World Factbook, “the UN assessed that conditions in Angola had been stable for several years and invoked a cessation of refugee status for Angolans.”

To conclude – and I am no longer leaning on either the CIA World Factbook or El País – I note that the famous GDP (whether nominal or forecasted (PPP)) (see Wikipedia as at 1/7/2017) tells us very little about whether or not a country stinks – excuse my French. Personally, I have learned today that Angola, for instance, is a particularly bad country to live in for almost everybody.

I would like to add on a more positive note, however, as there there are other ways of measuring countries. There is something called the HDI – Human Development Index, which is better able to describe a country than the GDP and GDI. You are of course welcome to disagree with me, but since I do not allow comments, I shall never know.

Pressefrihet i Norge

01.07.2017 /

I disse dager har en rekke land, anført av Saudi-Arabia, iverksatt økonomiske, militære og diplomatiske tiltak (les blokade, boikott) mot Qatar. Utgangspunktet er et ultimatum bestående av 13 krav. Ett av kravene er at Al Jazeera må stenges ned.

Det kan tenkes at du ikke leser nettsiden til Al Jazeera og ikke ser på Al Jazeeras nyhetssendinger eller dokumentarer på TV. I så fall tenker du kanskje at tapet av Al Jazeera ikke er stort, men tro du meg: uansett om du leser eller ikke leser og/eller ser eller ikke ser Al Jazeera, så er nettopp den nyhetsformidleren uerstattelig.

Jeg sjekker hver dag, morgen og kveld, nyhetsoversikten fra NRK. Jeg kan ikke se at 13-punkters-ultimatumet overhodet er blitt nevnt. Derimot nevnes Liu Xiaobo hver dag.

Kjære leser, jeg ber deg innstendig lese det jeg har skrevet i mine to siste Pelshval-innlegg, selv om de er skrevet på engelsk. Det er virkelig ganske påfallende at NRK har vært så taus om Saudi-Arabias kampanje mot Qatar. Jeg antyder ikke at det sitter en innful sensor oppe på NRK og stryker alt som ikke behager de rådende maktene. Men det er helt klart rart, veldig rart, at en av våre viktigste kilder om situasjonen i Midtøsten risikerer å bli nedlagt uten at det fra NRK-siden ytres et eneste pip!

Det er så desto meget mer “rart” når Saudi Arabia er det landet som mer enn noe annet mistenkes for å “skolere” terroristene som har herjet i Europa de siste par årene.

Saudi Arabia antas også å stå bak radikalisering av våre egne borgere.

The rat is out of the hole

28.06.2017 /

You may have heard – and then again, you may not have – that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have issued an ultimatum against Qatar, the 13 so-called “demands” the country must meet within ten days, “or else”.

If Qatar meets the demands, it will have ceased to be a state: It will merely be a vassal of Saudi Arabia, since what is demanded is in reality that the country surrenders its sovereignty.

It all started with an economic and diplomatic blockade launched in the wake of the US emperor’s visit to Saudi Arabia, and since the Saudis evidently feel confident about US support, goodness knows where it will end. For that very same reason – i.e. US support – nobody even mentions this issue around here. In Europe you don’t talk back to the US! Not in this country, not in any European country, least of all in the UK.

Now I was brought up with the BBC. I feel warmth and gratitude to the BBC. I know the names of many of their foreign correspondents. I download BBC podcasts and listen to them. But let us not delude ourselves: BBC is a British broadcasting company, and Britain is very cosy with the USA. As for the USA, well, need I remind you …? No, I won’t remind you, because that would require not a website but many tomes of modern history. However, take a look at Reporters without borders. If you click the map you will see that the USA ranks no higher than 43 out of 180 states as far as freedom of the press is concerned.

My country is also uncomfortably cosy with the USA, if not quite as cosy as the UK, but certainly cosy enough for its national broadcasting company to refrain from ever quoting Al Jazeera. Yet, I suspect that all good foreign correspondents – be they from my country or from the BBC – consult Al Jazeera more than almost any other outlet, at least about Middle East issues. Why? Because Al Jazeera is good, very good! And they are not bound by the US Patriot Act.

One of the 13 “demands” is that Qatar close down Al Jazeera. Now I don’t know whether you watch Al Jazeera, but what I do know is that whether you do or don’t, the news outlet will have considerable impact on what is revealed to you about world affairs. If it were not for Al Jazeera, the US and the UK could tell their side of the story, and nobody would know the difference.

I wish to quote another Guardian article of today (also quoted, by the way, by Al Jazeera):  Asked whether the closure of al-Jazeera was a reasonable demand, the UAE envoy said:

We do not claim to have press freedom. We do not promote the idea of press freedom. What we talk about is responsibility in speech.

I ask you, could any quote be clearer?

Whose dirty socks, mine or yours?

17.06.2017 /

My mission is not to tell you that you-know-who is fabulously ignorant, since I’m sure that whoever reads these pages will be more than aware of that. Nor is it a matter of honour for me to convince you that his ignorance is his most endearing quality.

My mission is, rather, to point out that due to his ignorance, he repeatedly puts his foot in the mouth and exposes the rest of us, for which I am grateful, since we all have an awful lot dirty linen lying around.

Yes, ignorance can create the most embarrassing situations. When the US president went to visit Saudi Arabia, a country notoriously known for human rights abuses (e.g. the war on Yemen, the torturing of political dissidents and the suppression of women and alien workers) he virtually genuflected to his Saudi counterpart, according to Washington Post, without apparently realising that Wahhabi Saudi Arabia is suspected of being the principle financier of Islamic extremism in Europe. I quote Washington Post:

Almost every terrorist attack in the West has had some connection to Saudi Arabia. Virtually none has been linked to Iran.

Wahhabism is named after the eighteenth century activist Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, whose teachings inspire the official, state-sponsored form of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia, and also – please note – the ideology of ISIL/ISIS.

With the help of funding from Saudi petroleum exports, the movement underwent explosive growth beginning in the 1970s and now has worldwide influence. The US State Department has estimated that over the past four decades the capital Riyadh has invested more than $10bn (£6bn) into charitable foundations in an attempt to replace mainstream Sunni Islam with the harsh intolerance of its Wahhabism. (Source: Wikipedia as at 17/6/17).

What puzzles me is why we all need to be such buddies with Saudi Arabia. For instance, according to the Guardian, the UK recently found, when the laundry was taken out of the washing machine, that every piece was grey. There the press is getting restless about UK-Saudi relations in the wake of the recent massacres of civilians on the streets and in concert halls, the genocidal war on Yemen, and by a strange and apparently irrational boycott of Qatar, a tiny country with an important, global news outlet, Al Jazeera.

Now, Qatar is also a Wahhabi state, just like its neighbour Saudi Arabia. But unlike the Saudis, Qatar is on civilised terms with Iran and the country’s stance on the Moslem Brotherhood and Hamas is nuanced. What’s worse, from a Saudi perspective, is that Qatar is doing extremely well, whereas Saudi Arabia is amassing colossal debts and will soon run out of funds. Is there reason to suspect that Saudi Arabia hopes to annex Qatar?

The US president suffers from a visceral loathing of Iran and played right into the hands of the Saudis. Qatar, they told him, is supporting Iranian terrorism. The president was more than willing to believe them. He signed the largest arms deal in American history on 20/5/2017, claiming that this would create “jobs” for Americans. Amazingly, attempts to block the deal in the Senate failed on 13/6/2017. Just imagine what the Saudis can do, not only with tanks and weaponry but also with the radar, communications and cybersecurity technology they have been promised! Truly, the thought should make your hair stand on end.

While many analysts tend to focus exclusively on Saudi oil and the country’s leading position in OPEC when explaining the West’s shameful relationship with Saudi Arabia, I believe we need to take a closer look at Saudi Arabia’s fascinating consumption of arms. Why is the country so obsessed with weaponry? I find that Newsweek has an interesting take on the matter. Here are a few tidbits:

Additionally, … religious restrictions within Saudi Arabia make it nearly impossible for the kingdom to diversify or grow its non-oil economy. … Thus, as discussed in “Why the Saudis May Be Preparing for a Real War”, due to … a steady decline in the relative importance of oil in the world economy, …. hawks within Saudi Arabia’s political establishment may have decided to grow their economy not internally but externally, through conquest and violent expansion. Accordingly, Saudi Arabia has dedicated 13 percent of its gross domestic product to its military for six years and has become the largest per capita purchaser of weapons in the world.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Teresa May is embarrassed in more ways than one. Not only is Saudi Arabia probably grooming potential terrorists among marginalised British citizens (e.g. the victims of the recent ghastly fire and their friends and relatives), but the UK economy depends on that distant medieval country. I quote the Economist:

The war in Yemen has certainly been lucrative. Since the bombardment began in March 2015, Saudi Arabia has spent £2.8 billion on British arms, making it Britain’s largest arms market, according to government figures analysed by Campaign Against Arms Trade. America supplies even more.

Let’s face it, however, the US and the UK are not the only countries who depend on arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Failed attempt to delimit humanity

02.06.2017 /

You know about the rabbits and the foxes, don’t you, about how there were lots and lots of rabbits in Rabbitland, until along came a couple of foxes, one of each sex, as it happens, and they thought the local rabbits were delicious. They ate and they ate, and they mated too, and their offspring ate and ate and mated too until there were hardly any rabbits left, only a few streetwise, canny ones that nobody wanted to eat, because they were skinny from running and/or lying low. So guess what happened to the foxes. Those that didn’t run away eventually died, undernourished as they were for lack of rabbits.

Imagine the yelps of joy that rang out right across Rabbitland, when the last fox vanished. The surviving skinny rabbits came out of their warrens, gobbled down great big tufts of grass, ran great big circles of delight, and gobbled some more.

So there’s hope for humanity too. By the time we have basically consumed, burnt or poisoned most of the planet’s species, its waters, soil and air, Mr Trump and his imperial court will be ready. He will have collected a pair (hopefully one of each sex) of all the animals he knows of, and Ivanka will expeditiously drive them all into the imperial space Arc – that shouldn’t take too much time. When all the animals are in the Arc, when the emaciated imperial guard has played the imperial march for the last time, and when Mr Trump and his court have duly waved their last goodbyes to the haggard press from the threshold of the spacecraft, the doors to the Arc will shut close. A few moments later, the Arc will zip off into space, bound for Mars.

On a rather more malevolent note, I would just love to be a fly on the wall in the imperial living quarters on Mars, as the family members discover one after the other that the omnipotence of money will only get you so far on a cold, inhospitable and above all uninhabited planet.

Meanwhile, back on Tellus, those of us who are still around will come out from under the ground, bringing the school textbooks, microscopes, gardening tools and encyclopedias we have treasured in secret for years. We will try to locate, nurture or bring back to life, dying species – be they plants, snakes, fishes, birds or mammals – and, not least, one another.

Wouldn’t that be nice? I see you are shaking your head. No? It would be nice, you say, but…

Yes, BUT! It is true that the best of us will act as outlined even against all odds, and it is true that many of us, maybe even a majority, would gladly do so if given half a chance. However, alas, there will always be, not only another Mr Trump, but any number of mini-Trumps who insist on having more, being more than everybody else. I put it to you that ours is a very strange and ethically complex species.

Picking a fight

14.05.2017 /

Some of you are simply itching to get into a red-hot quarrel because you need somebody on whom to take out your matrimonial or economic malaise. So who will it be? The Jews? The Arabs? The blacks? No of course not. That would be politically incorrect.

The nice thing about Trump is that you can blame him for all sorts of things. However, you can’t blame him for US poverty, because it’s been around for ever. The US suffers the second greatest relative income poverty in the OECD, surpassed only by apartheid Israel. And the statistics for child poverty are no better, according to Washington Post.

Now you can’t really blame that on Trump, can you? So if you really are itching to break somebody’s bones, you only have two options: You can root for invasion of some Middle Eastern country or you can blame the Russians. At any rate, you need a new Cold War to keep your blood boiling on rainy days.

Mind you, Russians are poor too, very poor. In fact, poverty is considerably greater there than in the US, even if Russians are much better off than when Putin came to power. No wonder they love him! But the poor are very poor, and the middle class is relatively small and shrinking.

The richest 10% of Russians own 87% of all the country’s wealth, according to a Swiss report (compared with 76% in the US and 66% in China). The rest of the country’s 138 million population have to make do with the remaining 13%. I would say that’s a pretty disgusting figure. Indeed, filthy-rich Russian tourists meet raised eyebrows wherever they go: Surely, people can only grow that rich by crooked means; certainly not by honest work.

Nevertheless, there is absolutely no need to blame the Russians for all the hanky panky going on in the world. Please note, for instance, that the code for the ransomware that recently crippled UK hospitals, Spanish Telecom and for that matter much of Russia had initially been developed by NSA.

What do you think NSA was going to do with the thing, huh?

The little prince

13.05.2017 /

Walking my dog along a track in the woods, I came upon an unexpected couple. Or should I say, they unexpectedly found themselves there, having evidently come down a path from a residential area, without realising they would be engulfed by forest and surrounded by great big, dark and dismal fir trees.

So when I came upon them, they were just standing uncertainly where the paths meet, a little boy and someone who might have been his much older brother. My dog, who believes she owns the area, strode over to inspect them.

Inconsiderate of me, of course, to let her do so, seeing as the two were foreigners, and foreigners tend to be afraid of dogs, even of my cheerful little fox terrier. My thoughts were elsewhere, and by the time I noticed that the elder boy had tensed in a protective position almost surrounding his ward, it was really too late to call back the dog: She was already sniffing at the little one. He, on the other hand, stood his ground, neither stretching out his hand to touch her, as little boys usually do, nor squirming.

By the time I had reached the group, the dog had lost interest and trotted on, but the little boy’s gaze followed her. I stopped in my tracks, struck by what I was seeing: a small boy, maybe five years old, with a yellow knitted cap, a green quilted jacket and a small violin case dangling from a strap around his neck, who had braved, straight and tall (small though he might be), an unknown animal that was as tall as he. “Is that a violin?” I demanded, and the elder boy started to mutter a reply, but the little one needed no-one to speak for him and countered with a question of his own:

– Why did that dog approach me?

– Because it likes children, I replied, adding respectfully, – do you not like dogs?

– I do, but, – followed by a moment’s hesitation, – not bad dogs.

I hastened to assure him that my dog was anything but “bad”, and he breathed a sigh of relief, revealing in spite of himself that he had been afraid.

– Is he very strong? he wanted to know. – He’s much stronger than I, is he not?

I found myself so much in awe of this majestic little child that I actually stuttered when trying to explain that in some ways, perhaps, yes, in others probably not. “And in any case, it’s a she, not a he, a girl dog.”

– Ah, a girl dog. In that case, Mahmoud and I shall have no trouble dealing with her. Mahmoud and I are strong.

I looked questioningly at the elder boy, “Mahmoud?” “No, that’s his best friend,” said the other with a proud and tender smile.

I felt I should not let the little prince’s male chauvinism go ungainsaid: “Maybe strength isn’t what you need most. Maybe wisdom …” but the little prince was pursuing his own mournful train of thought:

– In our house we have neither dogs nor kitties.

– Well, I started to comfort him, – to have a dog, you need lots of time, and you who go to school don’t have that.

I think this was the first time he looked at me. At any rate this was the first time I noticed how brown and dreadfully serious his eyes were.

– I don’t go to school. I attend nursery school.

The whole tone of this conversation struck me as somewhat otherworldly and I tried to make eye contact with the elder boy. He could have been 15. Lanky and pale, with a soft, long, wavy lock falling over his forehead, he had dark-rimmed glasses over a smiling, slightly shy face, and was now speaking on the phone in a foreign language. His voice was unexpectedly deep and soft for such a young man.

The little prince also glanced at him, understanding the foreign language, and informed me proudly: – I have a father, though. And with him I can speak Kurdish.

I respectfully took my leave, almost tempted to wonder whether I had been speaking to a reincarnation of Cyrus the Great.

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