Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Author: pelshvalen (Page 3 of 43)

Con los ojos vendados en el valle de los muertos

30.11.2024 /

Europe appears to be a basket case. I shall limit myself to quoting the conclusion of an article in the US-based Responsible Statecraft, an article I urge you to read in its entirety.

If you ask most members of European think tanks to define the specifically British, or French, or Danish interests in the Ukraine War, they are not merely incapable of answering, they clearly regard the very question as somehow illegitimate and disloyal to the U.S.-mandated “rules-based order.”

But the America to which these Europeans are loyal is the old U.S. foreign and security establishment — not the America of Trump, which they do not understand and deeply hate and fear (just as they do their own populist oppositions). Indeed, until a very few months ago the great majority of European politicians and experts simply refused to believe that Trump could possibly win the elections.

Many have now lost their heads entirely, and are just running around in circles. Others, like the Poles and Balts, have their heads firmly screwed on, but back to front.

As to the British government and security establishment, since the U.S. elections they have resembled their predecessor King Charles I, who according to legend went on talking for half an hour after his head had been cut off. Perhaps given time they can grow a new head of their very own. But in the meantime, for people in this embarrassing position, a period of silent inaction would seem to be the wise course to adopt.

I must admit I never imagined that heads could be screwed on backwards, but that certainly seems to be the case.

As for Norway – definitely a Democracy – its population has almost unanimously decided to trust in God, i.e. the USA, rather than in reason. With a constitution that explicitly rules out foreign bases on our territory, the government has surreptitiously allowed the USA to establish no less than 12 bases on Norwegian soil. There was no prior discussion in the press, and all the political parties in our National Assembly sleepwalked into enthusiastic acceptance.

So now, if NATO’s European members persist in escalating what has technically ceased to be a merely proxy war, Norway will be on the front line, together with the last Ukrainians, Poland, Finland and Sweden.

How could this happen? A Democratic country!

Unlike people in many if not most other countries, Norwegians still tend to trust the politicians they vote for. They don’t suspect they are being cheated every time they pay a bill. Even during Covid, there were few protests. And, not least, they absolutely adore Jens Soltenberg. (Yes, I blush as as I write this!) They are proud of him. Dictators of the world, look to Norway and learn.

So in 2022, when Russia launched its “special military operation” with (if my memory serves me) no more than 120,000 men, this was instantly labelled by all political parties and in all news outlets in Norway as an “unprovoked”, rabid attack. And the entire Norwegian population swallowed the bait, hook and all.

The rest you know. But what I consider interesting in this respect was that the press was so well prepared from the very first day to announce to its trusting readers/listeners that Putin was an unhinged, evil “Hitler” intent on conquering all of Europe. The press refrained from all examination of fact, all probing analysis, all discussion. Dissenting voices were stridently ridiculed and thus bullied into silence.

So why did all political parties and all news outlets, react in the same despotic manner? Were they paid to do so (i.e. bribed)? Were they coerced? Were they merely stupid? There is no doubt that there has been a lot of stupidity (and ignorance) involved, but stupidity is probably not the main explanation for European nations’ self-destructive and frankly repressive activities. (Not only with regard to Ukraine, but also with regard to Gaza). Why did all of Europe do the exact opposite of what they should have done in almost every respect?

To be continued.

But in the mean time, as i grieve for my country that has become a vassal of the USA, I turn to another mountainous country, Georgia. My recommendation for tonight is a beautiful Georgian song. (Note 1: The soloist died in 1985.) (Note 2: The EU and NATO are trying to turn Georgia into a second Ukraine, not that the singers knew it, back then. They already had known enough troubles.)

There are various approaches to boycott

22.11.2024 /

About two months ago one of my closest friends, a Norwegian medical doctor, sent me an SMS: “Avoid medication produced by the company TEVA. It is Israeli.” I sighed, knowing perfectly well that what little I may or may not buy from or recomend of a genocidal country’s company, makes absolutely no difference. I am retired.

Retired or not, I am distressed by the situation in Palestine and by my – our – impotence here in Europe. Maybe that is why I have recently developed tension pains in my neck and shoulders, to the point that several times a day, I get so dizzy that I almost faint.

I went to my local pharmacy and bought ibuprofen. Only after I had gratefully swallowed the first tablet (expecting an improvement to my condition within 24 hrs.) did I scrutinize the packaging: TEVA.

With the remaining 19 tablets and the packaging in my pocket, I returned to the pharmacy. There were some people in the shop being looked after by the nice lady who runs the place. I turned to a young woman at the counter, showed her the packaging of my TEVA ibuprofen and said:

“I realise you cannot refund me since I have already taken one of the tablets. But do you know this company, TEVA?”
The girl shook her head. I continued:
“It is an Israeli company that pays taxes to the Israeli government that is committing genocide in Palestine. You should not buy products from this company!”
She looked shell-shocked, so I added more gently: “Do you have a waste paper basket?”
She nodded, whispered “just leave it here”, and pointed to the counter.
I said: “No, I want a proper waste paper basket!”
She dug out a basket and I poured the 19 tablets into it.

Then I prepared to leave, but she was urgently prodding her boss, so I waited.

The boss interrupted her conversation with whoever it was and turned to her distressed employee, who was so terrified that no words were heard from her moving lips. She nodded towards me.

The boss looked at me sternly (frankly, I give her kudos for that!) I repeated what I had told the poor employee: “This is an Israeli company that is paying taxes to a country that is committing genocide.” With an apologetic smile, she raised her left shoulder, as though suggesting “well, you know, business…”. I saw that she now recognised me as I recognised her. For years I have been a courteous customer, not least during Covid, and for years she has been equally courteous with me.

So I added, by way of explanation: “One thing is medication for Huntington’s disease, another is ibuprofen which is one of the most common of common drugs. You should not be buying it from TEVA! There are many, many other suppliers.” For some reason, she suddenly almost looked sheepish, and she said she would “take note of my words”.

Whatever that means.

What I do believe, though, is that the poor employee and the others listening to our conversation (including the chemist himself) will not forget that an indignant elderly foreigner actually threw a product produced by an Israeli company into the waste paper basket.

***

Look up TEVA pharmaceuticals. It is very big, and has grown even bigger since Norway’s Pension fund invested heavily in it quite recently. See: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/3vtoupesw

Of course I love my country, but I draw the line at profiteering from genocide.

***

All that was yesterday. Today, I am shaky from the scene I made yesterday. And my neck and shoulders… I need ibuprofen.

I went to another pharmacy in my little town. And with nervous fingers I examined the box of 20 tablets handed to me. No sign of the hated word TEVA. Mumbling almost incoherently that I was relieved it wasn’t TEVA, I heard the chemist say: “TEVA has a lot to answer for” and his beautiful colleague who was handling another customer, threw me a beaming smile, “NOT Teva,” she called to me.

I felt I had come home.

Entertainment – past and present – a combative take

21.11.2024 /

The Romans offered ghoulish entertainment to the populace in gigantic amphitheatres – Colosseum alone (from 80 AD) held, on the average, 65,000 people. Yes, that was on average, I repeat, the number of those who went out of their way to see people and/or animals being torn to pieces. These were not mere “games” as we understand them; combatants did not get up and shake hands at the end of a fight.

Why such a morbid interest in violent deaths? I ask myself.

Later, and over the course of hundreds of years, we see the same fascination during the public hangings, burnings at the stake, decapitations and what-not that were conducted for the greater glory of God and/or his royal servants and later, during the French revolution, to liberate the populace from religious and royal oppression. Suffice it to read Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, to get an idea of how the thrilled populace rejoiced at every bloodied head that rolled to the ground.

Are we to understand, then, that humans are, when all is said and done, basically vicious; creatures who just barely conceal fangs under a veneer of “civilisation”? That was certainly not the view Dickens’s wished to impart. He took great pains to explain how the greater part of the population of Paris, indeed that of all of France, had been so mistreated and for so long that they essentially had lost their moral compass. Indeed, we know, too, that Roman slaves were mostly treated like insects. I guess that’s what is meant by the word “dehumanising”.

However, I doubt that slaves made up the majority of spectators at the gory events held all over the mighty empire to celebrate victories (or to gloss over defeats) in the spectacularly beautiful structures they themselves – the slaves – had built. (Slaves are believed to have made up no more than 25-40 % of the population of Rome.)

Could it be that treating people as insects is as dehumanising as being treated as an insect? After Spartakus’s revolt in 73 BC, 6000 slaves were reportedly crucified. Six thousand! One single crucifiction has been haunting us for over 2000 years. How many people must you crucify before your stomach stops churning? And what sort of creature are you then?

If you are a Roman official, say a quaestor, or a senator, you have people above you and below you, not to mention beside you and of course, there is always the top dog. People are being assassinated left, right and centre, by slaves, by wives and above all by competitors. Even the top dog gets assassinated from time to time, so your primary concern is not with morality.

To this day, structures built by Roman slaves are among the most beautiful of all structures built by humans in Europe. We have learnt, I am told by historians, a great deal from the Romans. Hence we have tended to adulate them, something I strongly regret because they celebrated, above all, conquest and expansion at all cost (including genocide). I put to you that what followed the Romans when their fundamentally unsound society imploded, was several hundred years of “dark ages”, not because Rome was gone, but because Rome had left a tabula rasa: Everything before them had been eradicated; culture, traditions, religions, languages… and peoples. (Historians will disagree with me. Let them! Look at the mess we’re in and tell me if learning from the Romans has benefited us in the long run.)

Like the Romans, the Nazis celebrated conquest and expansion at all cost. I am not the first person to ask: How much did most Germans know of what was being done to Jews and other non-Arians by their compatriots? I suspect that most people living in towns or cities will at least have heard rumours, many will have seen the sacking of shops, arrests, beatings and worse. But they will have refused to “know”. Intoxicated with patriotism and full of hope that their government would at last offer them better a better life, they will have wanted to believe that what they heard or saw were exceptions. (True, the propaganda apparatus was running at full throttle: Those wonderful new radios…)

But the perpetrators, the soldiers, SS people, etc: What were they made of? They left normal homes, beloved girlfriends, parents and younger siblings and set about burying people alive, setting fire to churches where whole villages had run for sanctuary. The viciousness of NAZI hatred of Slavs, Jews and others perceived to be of a “foreign race” was unfathomable. How was it possible?

I have no answer.

How is it still possible? IDF is following in the footsteps of the Nazis, even trying to outdo them. How much of the IDF atrocities is the Israeli public aware of? How much is the US public aware of? As for the rest of us: Are we doing anything – anything at all – to stop the US from supplying weapons to Israel. Are we boycotting the US? Are we even boycotting Israel? (True, the propaganda apparatus is once again running at full throttle, those wonderful social media…)

Are our countries in the West any better than Nazi Germany and Israel?

Looking back – far back

16.11.2024 /

In 1911, the composer Gustav Mahler died from a combination of poor heart valves and a streptococcus infection. He was only 50 years old. Never mind whether or not you like or have even heard of Gustav Mahler – for those of us who like music from previous centuries, he is one of the greats, though far from all lovers of classical music are Mahler enthusiasts.

The reason I was reminded of Gustav Mahler (I warn you: This is going to be a magna grada digression), in fact the reason why I am currently listening to his Symphony no. 3, is that I have just finished reading a gigantic novel by Thomas Mann, The Buddenbrooks, published in 1901.

Thomas Mann was heartbroken when Gustav Mahler died, and wrote the novella Death in Venice, upon which the eponymous 1971 film was based. Although Mann’s protagonist was a writer like himself, Visconti who directed the film made the dying Mahler the hero. I believe the film contributed greatly to Mahler’s increased popularity among even young people in the last quarter of the previous century.

Thomas Mann, on the other hand, (1875–1955), lived to stand up to Hitler in a big way and survived to a relatively ripe old age.

The Buddenbrooks for which he won a Nobel prize analyses as only an epic novel can, how a wealthy, respected and God-faring clan can disintegrate. An interesting aspect of the story is that the Buddenbrooks are both truly “good” people and astute businessmen. He is not – I repeat – not ascribing their demise to vice.

“Demise” is the key word here. What causes demise? Thomas Mann needed hundreds of pages to explain the matter, so how could I do so in few words? However, I don’t doubt that most analysts of past empires will agree that the causes of demise include internal cracks and external pressures.

In his novels The Buddenbrooks and Death in Venice, Mann is also obsessed with Death. Listening to Mahler’s music (now the Symphony no. 5) I imagine Mahler was too. After all, people died back then, in a big way, even from common colds! In The Buddenbrooks, the main protagonist dies in unbelievable pain from an infected tooth.

As I hear it, Mahler’s music is all about death, senseless, outrageous death, such as the deaths of the 225 people who were torn out of completely ordinary lives on 9 November 2024 (14 still missing) due to, YES, vice. No, not their own vice, that of the powers that be: Greed.

Greed that for decades has dismissed warnings about climate change.

See the pictures of the flood and its consequences from Elpais.com ( Double-click picture no. 2 to navigate with left/right arrows.)

Information warfare

14.11.2024 /

Too many of my friends are telling me “I can’t bear to listen to the news. It’s all so horrible!” Indeed it is. But the only force that can stop any of this horror is popular opposition. Which is why, I regret, we must try to share information.

I’m not going to tell you what’s going on in Ukraine. I’m not going to explain to you why Russia’s “invasion” wasn’t an invasion, far less an “unprovoked” one. Nor will I explain to you that most US “sanctions” are (a) illegal, (b) more often than not, crimes against humanity and (c) counter-productive. I certainly will not explain to you how the perfidious corporate media has prevented us from hearing the truth about the Middle East. Finally, neither I nor my faithful computer will live long enough to be able to compile a list of all US crimes against humanity.

There are others who can do all that and much more with far greater expertise and insight than I.

I merely propose a list of some – I must emphasise the word – outlets that dedicate their efforts to debunking the prevalent lies about US foreign policy which European statesmen are lapping up as Biblical truths.

There are many outlets I am not listing; more and more of them, fortunately, and they tend to refer to one another, thereby promoting each other in a joint effort to challenge the official narrative.

The ones I include in my list are the ones I personally use the most. Some I enjoy simply because I like their style. Others impress me with the breadth and width of the information they impart. Others again are specialists in some or other field.

***

Consortium News: This a hub, as it were, a haven for many outstanding journalists who after years of service with prestigious news outlets, have opted to preserve their journalistic integrity in these difficult times of Newspeak and Doublethink (cf. the novel 1984). They are joined from time to time by professionals from various fields. For a long time I knew of no other outlet that squarely contested what I knew to be lies and fabrications about US “defence of Democracy and freedom”. CN has a relatively long and noble history as a lone wolf among hyenas. It is the first outlet I turn to every morning over my coffee.

Craig Murray is having a spot of trouble right now in Beirut, but he writtes wonderfully poignant but often also humorous commentaries.

Chris Hedges knows more about the Middle East than most.

Declassified: Is the UK turning into a police state?

The Duran: mainly about Ukraine

Glenn Greenwald: 1st amendment issues, defence of freedom of information, press iniquities

Glenn Diesen, professor of geopolitical economy, analyses the causes of the current debacle in the West.

Greyzone: investigative journalism mostly about the Middle East now, but also for instance about Honduras, Bangladesh, …

Geopolitical Economy explains for instance the nefarious effect of sanctions, but also about information warfare

Larry Johnson: (one of the VIPS – Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) offers insight into military aspects of US militarism. He also hosts and joins interesting conversations with people from other fields of expertise, e.g. Pepe Escobar.

Nima Alkhorshid / “Dialogue Works” hosts some impressive guests on his videos. I don’t follow him because I try to avoid Youtube to the extent possible

Colonel Wilkerson doesn’t have his own outlet, but he appears on some of the above. His knowledge is impressive, updated and precise, for instance on military aspects of the potential war on Iran

Finally, the list of US crimes against humanity is longer than you want to know, whoever you are. Most Norwegians love the USA. Most Europeans likewise, not to mention US Americans. All over the world US “Soft power” is not just an expression, it’s dynamite. We’ve been adoring whatever idols dominated the sound waves and screens for generations.

What we’ve been (and still are) reluctant to bear in mind was that while Elvis and Debbie Reynolds were doing their stuff, the USA was killing, killing and killing. And they have been doing so ever since. Killing. The USA is a killing machine.

I don’t write books. If I did, you wouldn’t want to read them. But you might be willing to see a documentary, and I would start with Oliver Stone’s “Untold history”? You will find “chapter 1″ here.

And I would go on to the late John Pilger‘s documentaries.

Media silence about a genocide

08.11.2024 /

The show must go on. The circus cannot afford any break in its schedule. Acrobats and clowns are painting their faces for another show tonight.

Meanwhile, nine days after the climate disaster in Valencia, some are able to sleep, some are not. The stench in the many towns struck off the map of Valencia is unbelievable. Corpses are being found every day.

But Reuters is full of joyful news from the markets. A climate disaster here, a genocide there … who cares. Reuters certainly doesn’t. Nor do the other main news outlets. After all, they are not the victims of climate change.

Meanwhile, again – need I say it? – the massacres in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen continue. Business as usual. KILL, KILL, KILL in the name of “Democracy”.

The US and Israel, on a par with the Nazis, are continuing their business of committing a sadistic genocide. History will revile the memory of both nations, just as history reviles the memory of the Nazis, but who cares: their leaders won’t be around to feel the shame.

Yes, Trump will surely be bad, but he can be no worse because there is no possible worse,

With the support of the European nations (mainly the European Commission and UK government), massacres beyond what anybody thought was imaginable are being perpetrated every day! History will revile the memory of the EU and the UK, but who cares: their leaders won’t be around to feel the shame.

However the worst collaborator has been the corporate media, whose silence actively aided and abetted genocide; whose continued silence to this day helps suppress outrage while Palestinian children are being bombed, starved to death, deprived of medical care, crushed under bombed buildings, killed on their way to hospitals or burnt to death while in hospitals; whose callous indifference has disregarded the deliberate targeting of reporters and photographers and health workers.

Instead the corporate media, that degenerate slut, has echoed Netanyahu’s outrageous lies and sold candy floss at the electoral circus, despite the deadly floods ravaging Africa, the terrible hurricanes and fires even in the US, the apocalypse in Valencia… People are dying in the hundreds and thousands due to US and European callousness and Israeli sadism, while the corporate media has been singing Ode to Joy with Vice President Harris.

The corporate media, whose silence aided and abetted genocide, has now lost a US presidential election and for that, at least, there is reason to smile for a moment, since Trump is not their darling. Not that anything good can be expected from him or any other US president.

The millions and millions AND millions of victims of US domestic and foreign policy are not limited to USA, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine, or even Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia. Serbia and now Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Far from it.

No, the victims of US/Israeli iniquities and media silence are not alone. Many decades ago the record Ballad of the Fallen was dedicated to US victims in Central America. Here is the track “Silence”.

Evil

28.10.2024 /

A tortoise named Timothy was found by Captain John Guy Courtenay-Everard on HMS Queen in 1854. Serving as a mascot throughout the Crimean war, Timothy was the oldest veteran of that war when she died in 2004. {In spite of the name, Timothy was a female]
Roughly quoted from Wikipedia as at 28/10/24

Timothy was obviously treated very well by her English owners. Let us at least be grateful for that.

As Jeffrey Sachs points out in a long but extremely interesting interview, European nations (and their American offshoots) have been at war with each other ever since the early middle ages. We have an attitude problem, it would seem. Look, instead, to Confucius, he suggests: The Chinese were basically peaceful until the odious British opium pushers turned up on their doorstep.

We could be peaceful too. After all, most of us who cast our ballots every few years don’t want wars. Jeffrey Sachs maintains that humans are not inherently evil, just misguided. We have been ill-advised by our own philosophers, he explains. We need to change tack, change priorities. And we need to do so in a jiffy. The heading of the interview I am referring to – and I shall repeat the link for good measure – is “Tell Your Government – Stop These Wars”.

See not least what he tells us about how the USA, with monumental hubris, has left the various nuclear arms control agreements. It is truly terrifying.

Now the Crimean war (1853-1856) was just one of innumerable futile wars waged under the pretext of “maintaining the balance of power”. In practice this meant that gentlemen of a certain class scuffling for ascendency at the national level and beyond, forced their defenceless subjects to sacrifice their lives on battlefields for principles that had nothing to do with domestic prosperity and well-being, principles that were in effect bunkum.

And this is still going on, except that now women of a certain class are also … I am tempted to use a vulgar expression, but I think my point will be understood without it.

Back then, most leading minds of the day did not even think to question the justification of triggering a bloodbath to prove that my daddy is bigger and stronger than yours. Just think how misguided we were! Do you think we are any less misguided now? What will people say of us a hundred years hence, assuming that the human species is still around then.

All this writhing in serpents’ nests to get to the top ultimately runs in tandem with a corresponding race to the bottom, morally. Who is willing to commit the most abject of crimes. Which nation has the least regard for international law and humanity?

We have witnessed, on the cusp of WWI, the Armenian Genocide, on the cusp of WWII, the Holocaust, and on the cusp of WWIII, the Palestinian Genocide.

One of the dangers of this race to the bottom is that when our governments are complicit in such ghastly acts, when our governments disallow public outrage at these ghastly acts, when our governments ensure impunity for these ghastly acts, our governments are destroying the moral fibre of the societies they govern. I shudder to think of the consequences.

We are not born evil, no, but we can easily become very evil, indeed, as we see in the film “Investigating war crimes”.

Tortoises do not become evil.

To Joe Biden and Keir Starmer and their ilk

28.10.2024 / 
I am sick to the soul from seeing this
which the West condones, and I cannot bear ...
I live in the West
I cannot bear
Being part of the West that is condoning this.

What can we say to the dying? 
When they ask, why are you killing us?
I live in the West
Was this done 
in my name? In our name? murder to satisfy you?

Do I want to live in the world of the West?
Or will I accept with relief its self-immolation 
for "Democracy"
(for hypocrisy)
while you and your ilk lord it over the world 

***
Take your lying silver tongues and  
Your venomous Rule of Law 
Plant them into your fragrant backsides
May they do there their lethal work

This you must see

25.10.2024 /


And everybody you know must see it.

Much is surely known to most of us. But the second half of the film contained information that was new to me.

Dealing with controversy

22.10.2024 /

How you and I handle disagreements depends on how much the issue at hand means to us and on our surroundings. Most of us are reluctant to offend, to stand alone in a school yard at the start of life, to be excluded from the graveyard at the end of it. Cowardice, perhaps, but on the other hand, is it not wise to avoid being too confrontational? I have just these past few days found myself in a situation where I have had to have a good, long think.

Some issues mean so much to us that we are willing to lose friends, maybe even break with family. We might be willing to risk being ostracised, fired from work or kicked out of college. If I found myself living in the equivalent of a KKK community, for instance, would I not have to try to induce change?

My political education started when, as a small child, I was traumatised by the film “How to Kill a Mockingbird”. I took consolation in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” which I read and reread a great many times, before I went on to Les damnés de la terre by Franz Fanon and Venas abiertas by Eduardo Galeano. That did it! Racism became, and is still, truly anathema to me.

Before I continue I should remind you that there is no such as thing as race within the human species. Look it up if you doubt my words. There are, however, differences in skin colour, religion, customs, etc. And since time immemorial, I suppose, powerful tribes – and later, powerful nations – have oppressed less powerful tribes/nations using pretexts such as the skin colour, religion, customs, etc. of the oppressed. The word “racism” should be understood, then, roughly as “ethnic exclusivity”.

We’re still at it!

So, back to my situation of these past two days: Is Zionism racist? Interestingly, I find no brief definition of Zionism online. Britannica, for instance, cleverly evades the ticklish matter of ethnic exclusivity. The clearest and most poignant answer comes from Israel itself, from the human rights organisation Btselem. If anybody deserves donations, Btselem does, donations and medals for bravery. Take a look at the short video https://conquer-and-divide.btselem.org/, while you’re at it.

So yes, Zionism is racist in its very essence. Far from all Israelis are Zionists, however, and far from all Zionists are Jews.

I once spent three years in a wonderful school in New York. My former classmates still stay in touch, send each other hurricane condolences, comments and greetings of all kinds. We have, naturally, all been taught to deeply revere the memory of Holocaust. So deeply have we revered it that we never mention Palestine or, for that matter, Israel. It has been a non-topic.

Until now. The bubble broke three days ago.

Somebody wrote: “I can’t bear this! People are being burnt to death in their hospital beds.”

For 24 hours, this dramatic message was followed by silence.

Then came the first response: “I have seen how cheaply and without value the lives of people who look like me and my children and grandchildren are held by my adopted country. Our government is funding, arming and providing diplomatic cover for Israel while it breaks every Humanitarian Law and every International Law of War.”

Then came a trail of responses, amongst them my own. Some thanked the bubble breaker for her “moral courage”.

But one person declared he no longer wanted anything to do with any of us any more. After his message, there were others who urged us to leave the matter in the name of friendship.

Frankly, I don’t much care for that particular approach. Why? Well, just as we condemn the Nazis’ Holocaust, there is simply no way for me to not condemn the ongoing Holocaust. But how?!

I offer this analogy: What if my former classmates and I had graduated in, say 1933, in Germany, yes, Germany. I had gone back to Norway, but had stayed in touch with one very dear friend by mail. Then the war broke out and Norway was invaded. In 1943, in spite of the war, I might have sent an unhappy letter to my former classmate and dear friend in Germany: “I have heard that Germany is exterminating Jews…”

How would I have proceeded? How to raise such an issue with a German friend in Germany at a time (1943) when my country is occupied by Germans whom I suspect are treating people with a certain religion as vermin?

I have never given much thought to the concept “reality” and I never understood why so many philosophers even doubt its existence. From my perspective, the thing I see gliding across the blue sky is surely a seagull, unless it is too far away to discern properly, in which case it might be a plane. It has never occurred to me that somebody else might be equally certain that it is a winged reptile or perhaps a drone, and that the sky is anything but blue. (No kidding: about eight per cent of all men are colour blind, as I learnt quite recently after having babbled at length about the beauty of a maple tree in autumn.)

And how do we rate seagulls: I think they are beautiful. There are others who loathe them because they “scream” and litter beaches. I doubt there are many people who would want to exterminate them, though.

So “reality” is truly a strange thing. Some people find it magical, particularly if they are in love. For my part, at 90 seconds to midnight according to the “doomsday clock”, I almost wish I, too, could doubt its existence.

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