VE-Day: For Whom the Bell Tolls

One final tribute to V-E Day: a bell (dia.: 115 mm.), created as a fundraiser for the RAF Benevolent Society, and manufactured of aluminum taken from downed German aircraft. The handle bears the Churchillian "V for Victory." On the sides of the bell, the faces of the wartime Allied leaders: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin (though Truman of course succeeded Roosevelt in the final days of the War, and Atlee replaced Churchill between V-E Day and V-J Day).

• Minor excurses:

1) Given the material and production technique, the bell has a clear ring but limited resonance (among small recent antique bells, the one that to my mind has the most sonorous ring and intriguing story is the famous Saignelegier bell of 1878 and its imitators [1, 2, 3] ; but I digress).

2) It would be intriguing to study the fate of memorabilia and other items made of recycled World War II aircraft. My parents had suitcases made from the metal of destroyed Luftwaffe planes.

3) Given the lack of historical knowledge today, I am always both amused and exasperated when I come across news reports that describe Palestinian protesters or "fighters" making the "V" sign with their fingers but explain the gesture as a "peace sign." Sorry, folks, no 1960s hippies here. It is of course the "V" of victory (as these pieces [1, 2 ] correctly state). Wishful thinking or just plain ignorance?


• Historical-philosophical reflections:

To see and hear this bell is to mourn a necessary war but one made unavoidable by past miscalculations and cowardice. When England and France betrayed their ally Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938, they arguably deprived the world of the last best chance to stop fascist aggression in its tracks. The Czechoslovaks were ready and able to fight, but England told them that if they did not give in to Hitler's demands, it would hold them responsible for the outbreak of a war and offer no assistance.

František Halas expressed the national tragedy in a once-famous poem:

The bell of treason is tolling
Whose hand made it swing?
Sweet France
Proud Albion
And we loved them

Not only is it false that war is sometimes not the answer. Sometimes, there are worse things than war.

Bad Days for BDS

BDS—the movement for Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment from Israel—has been having something of a bad run.

Even late-breaking news that Elvis Costello regretfully canceled a concert in Israel—though NB in a tortured attempt to maintain neutrality rather than as a statement of support for BDS—does not change the picture. What is noteworthy is that it takes so much pressure to attain such modest results. Gil Scott Heron finally succumbed, but the Argentine musician Charly García just performed there to great audiences and great acclaim. The list goes on.

Two major writers honored with the Israel Dan David Prize recently resisted the pressure of cultural boycotters in the name of cultural freedom and exchange. Although they demonstrably made sure to separate themselves from “the state,” their points were powerful. Amitav Ghosh said that if one boycotts Israeli academics, one would have to right to do the same to colleagues in the US, Britain, and his native India, all of whose governments are engaged in controversial combat. But he also sharply addressed the question of standards and consistency:

I do not see how it is possible to make the case that Israel is so different, so exceptional, that it requires the severing of connections with even the more liberal, more critically-minded members of that society. Is it really possible to argue that there is in that country such a unique and excessive malevolence that it contaminates every aspect of civil society, including private foundations and universities?

Margaret Atwood bemoaned the fact that “I got yelled at for saying there were two sides,” and denounced all overgeneralization and essentialism:

To boycott an individual simply because of the country he or she lives in would set a very dangerous precedent. And to boycott a discussion of literature such as the one proposed would be to take the view that literature is always and only some kind of tool of the nation that produces it — a view I strongly reject, just as I reject the view that any book written by a woman is produced by some homogeneous substance called “women.”

Most notable of all were the defeats that BDS suffered in bastions of American higher education and leftism: the University of California-Berkeley, where it lost twice, and UC-San Diego.

The shrewd, urbane, and witty Hussein Ibish (also an alumnus of UMass-Amherst, I am pleased to note), not one to go easy on Israel, got things exactly right after the first Berkeley vote. He made two key observations when he confirmed points that critics have consistently made (above and beyond arguments over the factual or ethical merits of the approach): first, the movement has been a failure, and second, that its advocates are not really interested in success as measured by their own stated goals.

The bottom line is this: if you can't get divestment through UC Berkeley, you're done. UC Berkeley is the epicenter of not only liberalism, but even radicalism, in American academia and indeed American social life in general. Frankly, I'm surprised it's proving so difficult.
. . . .
Spin is a wondrous thing, and I've rarely seen more spin in my life than has been engaged in by BDS proponents who have been trying to create the impression that there is a major movement in this direction in the United States and that is "succeeding" and, even more preposterously, "having results." . . . . BDS activists are spinning the thus far unsuccessful UC Berkeley effort (at issuing a recommendation, mind you) as a "great achievement," but I really don't think any serious person can buy that line.

The problem, ultimately, with the BDS approach as on display at UC Berkeley, and in contrast to other boycott efforts that wisely target elements of the occupation such as the settlements, as opposed to Israel itself, is that it doesn't advance any articulable or achievable political goal. No doubt that behind such efforts for the most part lurk one-state sentiments that, however noble they might be, don't actually correspond to anything plausibly achievable. Since working towards ending the occupation is the only sensible course of action under the present circumstances, and the only seriously achievable goal that would advance both the Palestinian national interest and the cause of peace, activism should be measured by the degree to which it helps to promote that goal. If another goal is intended, I think people need to be very clear about what it is, and how they hope to get there, and I really don't think anyone can really imagine that boycotts are going to be the primary tool in resolving this national conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Anyone who does think that is hopelessly, touchingly naïve. The very most generous thing one might say is that this is a movement waiting for a leadership to emerge deus ex machina that could translate its momentum, if any, into actual political results vis-à-vis Israel. If the goal is ending the occupation, then the problem with BDS is that instead of distinguishing between the occupation and Israel itself, and separating the interests of the majority of Israelis from the settlers and other proponents of maintaining the occupation at all costs, it conflates them and creates an atmosphere which encourages Israelis in general to circle the wagons against outside pressure rather than understand that ending the occupation is in their own interests.
. . .
Of course, there are plenty of people who support the broad kind of BDS that tends to unite rather than divide Israelis and which has no clear strategic aim, and who in fact are opposed to ending the occupation and prefer instead the one-state agenda aimed at the elimination of Israel and the creation of a single, democratic state in its place. For them, the fact that measures like the proposed Berkeley resolution target Israel generally is a positive thing. They've no interest in dividing Israeli society, only in confronting it. They've no interest in ending the occupation, since they don't recognize the occupation, or at least have adopted logic that doesn't allow for one to meaningfully speak in terms of an occupation, only discrimination in a single, at present undemocratic, state. Many of them also continue to talk about settlements, although that also doesn't make any sense either given their logic, although they could talk about discriminatory Jewish-only towns or something like that. It never ceases to fascinate me that one-state rhetoric continues to be so deeply mired in two-state logic (occupation, settlements, etc.), categories that make no sense once a single state agenda has been adopted. (read the rest)

So, if you won't believe me, listen to this Senior Fellow of the American Task Force on Palestine, former Communications Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and author of What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal.

BDS is bad news, and bad for peace.


[updated link]

17 and 18 May: Civil Rights Anniversaries

Two key dates in the history of the US Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Movement:

18 May 1890: Plessy v. Ferguson
A bleak day: The Supreme Court rules that the doctrine of "separate but equal" allows for racial segregation.

17 May 1954: Brown v. Board of Education (Brown v. Topeka)
A glorious day: The Supreme Court overturns the "separate but equal" principle, judges it unconstitutional.

• A nice footnote: in 2009, the descendants of both Plessy and Ferguson formed a foundation dedicated to education and reconciliation.

• A not-so-nice footnote: one of the key pieces of evidence used to overturn segregation in Brown v. Board of Education was a study showing that both black and white children internalized notion of black inferiority, as seen in their attitudes toward dolls of different colors. After decades of educational reform and social change, one would have thought all that a relic of the past, but a new study shockingly confirms the persistence of the phenomenon:

(CNN) -- A white child looks at a picture of a black child and says she's bad because she's black. A black child says a white child is ugly because he's white. A white child says a black child is dumb because she has dark skin.

This isn't a schoolyard fight that takes a racial turn, not a vestige of the "Jim Crow" South; these are American schoolchildren in 2010.

Nearly 60 years after American schools were desegregated by the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and more than a year after the election of the country's first black president, white children have an overwhelming white bias, and black children also have a bias toward white, according to a new study commissioned by CNN. (read the rest)

16 May 1664: Battle of Scharnowitz

A date of no overwhelming importance, but one of many lesser events now forgotten in a chain of greater ones.

Austro-Turkish War: On 16 May 1664, the northern wing of the Austrian Imperial army under the Huguenot refugee Jean-Louis Raduit, Count de Souches, defeated a combined Turkish-Tartar army at Scharnowitz (Žarnovica, Slovakia; not sure which side my ancestors were on in that one). It was the prelude to his even greater success at Levice (Leva) in northern Hungary (Slovakia) on July 19.

Map, from Galazzo Gualdo Priorato, Historia di Leopoldo Cesare (Vienna, 1670)

That victory, plus the one at Mögersdorf (Szentgotthárd) blocked the Turks' advance on Vienna and forced them to sue for peace.

That peace lasted for some two decades, until the Turks attacked Vienna in 1683 and in the subsequent fighting were once and for all driven out of Austria and Hungary.

One of the charms of these old maps (aside from the window onto decisive moments in history) is being able to examine the engraver's technique in detail. This is not an especially sophisticated rendering, but like its more accomplished relatives, it in many places relies on suggestion rather than micro-realism to achieve its ends. Here we can see how a few characteristic lines suffice to depict the Ottoman army: a man and a horse, a sword or a bow. In particular, I've always found charming the use of the circular or ovoid shape, which instantly connotes the turban or helmet, and thus, "the Turk."

Note: Trying to untangle some of the geography in both the image and the accounts proved to be an amusing challenge. The dealer sold it as a map portraying a battle at Czernowitz (at the time, Turkish; acquired by Austria in 1775). However, I was aware of no major battle at Czernowitz, and neither the topography nor the names of the rivers matched the location of that city. To be sure, the Italian rendering as Scernowitz sounds like the Ottoman Çernovi and German Czernowitz, but the site turned out to be the aforementioned Slovakian town of Scharnowitz rather than the similarly named leading city of the Bukovina. For those interested in that fabled place, the "Vienna of the East" "where people and books lived," my worthy colleagues and betters at the portal for everything devoted to Czernowitz provide a wealth of information. 

Power Outage, Blogging Hiatus

The end of my personal V-E-Day celebrations was interrupted by a late-night explosion, as the room went black. The high winds had broken the top of one of our maples, which dropped onto the power lines. Those directly in front of the house sagged under the weight of the tree limbs but did break, yet the shock caused a segment down the line to snap, whereupon the loose ends fell into the street, sending off sparks, smoke, and flame.



Police arrived promptly, and the repair crews from Western Mass Electric were not far behind. Soon, a man in a bucket lift took a chainsaw to the branches.


As for me, I still had several hours of computer battery power but decided to go with the flow: beer, book, and candle. Every once in a while, especially when prompted by circumstances, it's worth trying to explore the realities of early modern life. As Thomas Jefferson said, "from candle light to early bedtime, I read."


Many people have "romantic" notions about candlelight, but there's nothing very charming if you actually have to work by it. We forget the extent to which the lives of our ancestors were tied to the rhythms of the day and the seasons, and we sometimes exaggerate the presumed benefits of early artificial lighting. The popular image of ordinary gatherings illuminated by the glow of dozens of candles is a fiction. In Colonial Williamsburg, it was considered extravagant to burn as many as three candles in an evening. Stanley Kubrick was famously able to shoot "Barry Lyndon" (1975) in even relatively extravagant candlelight only because he specially adapted a NASA lens originally designed to photograph the dark side of the moon: We are told that only because it was "100% faster than the fastest movie lens" was it "possible to shoot in light conditions so dim that it was difficult to read." Indeed. When researching the lives of writers in the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, I've come across regular complaints about the difficulties of working at night, and in the winter, when the days were shorter and the light poor.

Here, I was using a Sheffield Plate study lamp from the early 1800s, which reflects and focuses the light of a single candle on the page or other work surface. It helps a great deal, but even with other candles nearby for ambient light, reading a small volume with small Fraktur font takes some effort, and the eyes tire easily. The book I happened to be reading before the power outage was The Plague of German Literature (Die Pest der deutschen Literatur; privately published, Zurich, 1795), in which the reactionary Swiss author Johann Georg Heinzmann railed against reviewers, moneygrubbing writers, and revolutionaries.

The outage was minimal (a couple of hours), but it interrupted the flow of writing and posting, and then exam week was upon us, so I'm only now catching up. As luck would have it, there was another explosion and outage yesterday afternoon, though of undetermined cause and location. The electricity was off for two hours again. It's starting to become routine, but one I could do without.

Still, life is far easier than in the "good old days." Now as then, however, the task of writing awaits.

V-E Day: Sometimes War IS the Answer

I am invariably both amused and infuriated by those idiotic bumper stickers reading, "War is Not the Answer."

Well, sometimes it is: the great revolutions (including our own), the Civil War, and above all, World War II. Without war, no end of slavery, no victory over fascism. Q.E.D.

Here, the classic Soviet patriotic song, "Sacred War":



Here, Winston Churchill congratulates the British people on the victory of freedom:

Investigative Journalists: As South African Judge, Goldstone Condemned more than Two Dozen Blacks to Death

New information on the career history of Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the controversial report on the Gaza conflict of 2009:

Judge Goldstone's dark past

Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals man preaching human rights, who authored scathing report against Israel's operation in Gaza, sent at least 28 black defendants to gallows as South African judge under Apartheid regime

Tehiya Barak, Tzadok Yehezkeli
Latest Update: 05.06.10, 23:55 / Israel News
. . .
A special Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals Richard Goldstone's dark side as a judge during the Apartheid era in South Africa. It turns out, the man who authored the Goldstone Report criticizing the IDF's actions during Operation Cast Lead took an active part in the racist policies of one of the cruelest regimes of the 20th century.

During his tenure as sitting as judge in the appellant court during the 1980s and 1990s sentenced dozens of blacks mercilessly to their death. . . .

Yedioth Ahronoth's findings show that Goldstone sentenced at least 28 black defendants to death. Most of them were found guilty of murder and sought to appeal the verdict. In those days, he actually made sure he showed his support for the execution policy, writing in one verdict that it reflects society's demands that a price be paid for crimes it rightfully views as frightening. (read the rest)

The report goes on to detail other instances in which he upheld racist or oppressive laws, on one occasion handing down jail sentences to youths for mere possession of tapes by ANC leaders, while on another, exonerating white police officers "who had broken into a white woman's house on suspicions that she was conducting sexual relations with a black man."

Goldstone's defense was a not unexpected but nonetheless problematic one: though he had personally opposed the system and its laws, he was duty-bound to work within it and apply them as fairly as he could. In another interview, he added that Nelson Mandela had no problem appointing him as a judge. Naturally, this proved to be a rather unsatisfying answer for many, in light of both historical precedent and Goldstone's own moralizing stance since that time.

Critics, from US lawyer Alan Dershowitz to Israel's conservative Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, were quick to note, with Schadenfreude, the similarity to the excuses of Nazi officials and war criminals:

"Goldstone took a job as an apartheid judge. He allowed dozens of black people who were unfairly tried to be executed," Dershowitz told Channel 2 TV.

"You know, a lot of people say we just followed the law, German judges… That's what (German SS officer and physician Josef) Mengele said too. That was Mengele's defense and that was what everybody said in Nazi Germany. 'We just followed the law.' When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don't follow the law," Dershowitz added.

In one sense, Goldstone's record does not bear on the significance of his Report, which will stand or fall on its merits. But given that the document prompted widespread charges of bias, the investigation may yet prove to be pertinent to a new reading. Already we are hearing suggestions that Goldstone's opinions there (but presumably in other recent endeavors, as well), far from representing a set of neutral analyses, in fact reflected a sort of perverse overcompensation for a blemished moral past about which he preferred to keep silent. In the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon, "This so-called respected judge is using this [Gaza] report in order to atone for his sins and gain international legitimacy.”

I am very curious to see how this all plays out. In the meantime, it is interesting to see the Nazi analogy used somewhat more judiciously than is often the case. It remains provocative here, too, but generally within bounds (admittedly, I could have done without the gratuitous and inaccurate reference to Mengele). No one is accusing Goldstone of committing crimes like the Nazis. Rather, the charge is that he is rationalizing his complicity in the policies of a racist regime on the same grounds that they did. This reminds us of a moral dilemma that all of us should contemplate, and not only in this context.

Postscript: thus far, the story does not seem to have had any play in the mainstream western media.

Preservation Hall of Shame: 1870s Historic House Demolished

breaking news in brief:

The Pacific Lodge Masons yesterday destroyed the historic 1870s Chauncey Lessey House (26 Spring Street). Demolition work was continuing yesterday when I visited the scene.

A more detailed report will follow on this site. Reporter Scott Merzbach, who alerted me to the action and asked for commentary, will be running a story soon, perhaps by the end of this week.

Amherst Historical Commission Moves Ahead on Preservation Projects

Spring Town Meeting begins tomorrow night. It should be (famous last words) one of the less complex and contentious ones, because the recent tax override greatly simplifies the financial picture and obviates the need for agonizing choices. Controversy will probably center on only a few articles, one (# 16) involving a major economic-development initiative that could result in the creation of 500,000-square foot professional research park in North Amherst.

There are few historic preservation items, as such, on this year's warrant (# 17, CPA), and they should be uncontroversial (more on those in a later posting). The only one generating the slightest bit of heat so far is a proposal to purchase a piece of former farmland for multipurpose uses: mainly recreational grounds adjoining a school, but also conservation and, we hope a combined affordable housing and historic preservation use of the old residence. (There are also wetlands/conservation areas.) Although some people have questioned the wisdom of the measure, it should be a no-brainer. As the Conservation Director has explained, a chance to acquire a prime large piece of property close to the center of town is a rare, and perhaps today unique opportunity. It's not the sort of situation in which one wants to leave the development to the vagaries of the private market.

In the meantime, the real news for us on the Historical Commission is that we are moving steadily ahead on the record number of projects for which we secured funding last year, on the occasion of the Town's 250th anniversary. Updates will follow shortly.

In the meantime: let the games begin.

1 May: International Holiday of the Working-Class and Socialist Movement

Many of my acquaintances here spent the day attending the gay Pride Parade or the Amherst Ultimate Invitational, or just generally enjoying the warm spring day (86 degrees F, last I checked) and pagan holiday (yes, even Morris Dancing takes place in our fair town, though my opinion of the sport tends to echo that of Edmund Black Adder.) However, this is also, in most other parts of the world, the annual holiday of the working-class and socialist movement.

The anthem of that movement is of course the "Internationale," which Pierre Degeyter composed in 1871, immediately following the collapse of the Paris Commune. Only in 1888 did it acquire the rediscovered verses of Eugène Pottier. Soon, versions in other vernaculars appeared. There were multiple German ones, but that of Emil Luckhardt proved to be the most enduring. (Fun facts to know and tell: in late Imperial Germany, one could be sent to jail for public singing of the song.) The message was simple: as the title suggests, bonds of class are stronger than those of nationhood. The reality was more complex: the First World War proved the durability of national identities and loyalties, a fact that the left is still struggling to come to terms with.

In the US, the "Internationale" is probably regarded as a "communist" song if it is known at all, but it in fact remains popular among the mainstream labor movements and social democratic parties throughout the rest of the world. When I was a student, I attended a huge outdoor French-German trade union rally in Stuttgart, at which the musicians asked audience members to sing the song in their respective native tongues.

Herewith a few renditions of the "Internationale"


Here's a classic version in the original French. (The advantage of this video is that it scrolls the text as the music plays. The disadvantage is the association with silly factions of the marginal left.)




This version, featuring Hannes Wader singing at a German Communist Party (DKP) rally in 1977, is among the folksiest and most engaging.



Some Anglo-Americans don't like it and say that it sounds like "beer hall" music. But they also don't necessarily like this classic, fully orchestrated one, which they find pompous or "militaristic." There's no pleasing some people. At any rate, this one has the practical advantage of providing the text scrolling across what appears to be an East German banner.



This one, in Hebrew, features some classic images of the socialist movement along with some more incongruous recent pictures.



This rather more relaxed, almost wistful version entails an adaptation of the text, performed by the Union of Working and Studying Youth back in the 1970s. The musical tone has strong echoes of that era and place, but generally in the positive sense.



And in the meantime, there are metal, reggae,and electronic versions (the largest collection here).

Now, I ask you: can Morris Dancing compare with any of this?

[Last year's post ]

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