"Something rotten in the state of..........."

The newspapers and TV broadcasts are full, at the moment, of the exposures in the Guardian of the alleged secret surveillance of the public by NSA (the US National Security Agency) and Britain’s GCHQ. This morning we have read of the “outing” of the source of the allegations – an American named Edward Snowden - who apparently worked as a technical assistant at the CIA. At the centre of the various exposures is the alleged involvement – consensual or otherwise of global internet giants such as Google or Facebook. These companies protest their innocence and both the US government and Britain proclaim that if there is surveillance then it is necessary in the war against terror, it is proportionate, it is backed by strong legal safeguards, was done with the cooperation of the companies concerned – and, to quote US Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, has only been concerned with collecting “significant information on the bad guys, but only on the bad guys”.  

Having read the good Senator’s comments I’m left wondering how does he know? – do the “bad guys” have a digital post it note on their foreheads and stored data saying “I am a bad guy”! And, in any case, until they have done the surveillance how do you know who are the “bad guys”? If the NSA & GCHQ know who these “bad guys” are, then presumably they know why they are bad guys – so why the mass surveillance of everyone on the planet’s lifestyle via AOL, SKYPE, Facebook or Google?

The whole government  response from both sides of the Atlantic reminds me of President  Theodore Roosevelt’s comment of almost a century ago “When they do the roll call in the Senate Senators don’t know whether to call “present” or “not guilty”. In the end both David Cameron and Barrack Obama sound rather like thieves pleading their innocence when caught with their fingers in the till!

But leaving aside the issue of whether the allegations are correct or whether our political leaders are quite so honest and transparent as they would have us believe there are other issues.

Firstly – should we be surprised? Spying and surveillance has been around as long as there have been wars, international disputes, high politics and the rest. In fifteenth century Florence Machiavelli earned his crust in this business and earned lasting fame with his book "The Prince" setting out how the Prince should govern and control. Our own “Good Queen Bess” – Elizabeth 1^st – had a huge network of spies and covert operators within England all ensuring her and the nation’s “safety”. The network was run and information gathered perused  – by William Cecil – later Lord Burghley. Such was Cecil’s contribution that after being made a Lord he was able to build one of the greatest homes of England, Burghley House near Stamford in Lincolnshire. After Burghley had done his bit in the service of the Queen the job was handed over to Francis Walsingham – one of the most ruthless spy masters ever known. A couple of centuries later, before George 1^st became King of England he enlisted a musician – George Frederick Handel – to do a bit of spying for him. George, as Elector of Hanover, knew he was shortly to be offered the British crown. He could speak no English and knew little of England and its politics – so he dispatched his favourite musician, Handel, to London to make music – and at the same time do a bit of meeting people and influencing them, getting to know the “lie of the land” – call it what you will. And, of course, reporting back to Hanover.  The trouble was Handel quite liked the place and concentrated more on his music and pleasing London society than on his "covert operations" - much to the disgust of his German employer! A bit later Charles Dickens gave spies and "surveillance operatives" a really bad name when he introduced them as characters in his "A Tale of Two Cities" - Barsad and Cly were given a really bad press when they spied on the delightful and innocent Charles Darnay! And, of course, coming a bit more up to date, America, the land of the free, didn't look quite so free in the times of Senator Joe McCarthy or a few years later at the time of Watergate. No, spying and surveillance has been around for a very long time and by its very definition it is secret and underhand – not to be so makes it useless. So, when politicians protest their innocence or strive to convince us that it is necessary or that it is only aimed at the “bad guys” it seems to me that the only sensible response is to raise one’s eyebrows and say “Well you would say that wouldn’t you!”

The second point that I would make about the present media frenzy relates to the involvement – alleged or otherwise - of major global internet giants. Again, should we be at all surprised? We live in a world where increasingly most of our lives are run via the power of the computer – perfectly legal and legitimate information about us is stored in computer data banks. We buy items on line, we book holidays on line, we pay our bills on line, we search for information via our computers and so it goes on. In short our whole life is there before us – each time we press a computer key we leave a digital footprint about who we are and what we do. I am told that companies and governments now, with the help of what they call “big data” can predict with almost total accuracy who each of us are and what we will do from just a few isolated items of raw information. So, it would seem to me that if governments   do want to spy in us – and undeniably they will – then the internet and our computers are ideal ways of doing it – for there we are, warts and all! As a blogger I leave a huge footprint each time I do what I am doing now – putting my interests, dreams, plans, beliefs and ideas (nutty though they might be) for all to read. For those who use Facebook or Twitter they do the same thing every time they log on. When I buy something from Amazon  or look at the John Lewis Web site, when I Google “motor insurance” to find where I can get the best quote on car insurance, when I read the electronic edition of the Guardian each day my preferences and the essential “me” is recorded and stored somewhere. In that context why on earth would governments and “spies” not use Facebook or Google or Microsoft  to peep into our lives – it is a ready made data bank! Not to do so would be perverse.

Now this might be obvious and it might be understandable. The motives of government may be malign or benign. They might indeed, as Senator Chambliss protests, only be looking at the “bad guys”! But whatever the reasoning it is frankly stupid of society to hold its communal hands up in horror and say “This is dreadful that it is going on!” - of course it is! In writing that I am reminded of the utter stupidity of many millions throughout the world who daily go onto Facebook and write something along the lines of “Looking forward to going on my holiday to Spain tomorrow” or “Having a lovely time in France – weather is glorious, don’t want to come home”. We  are  told regularly by the police that burglars love this – they can point exactly when a house is going to be empty and ripe for breaking into! If your average neighbourhood burglar finds this useful then how much more useful will governments find the highly personal items that you might knowingly or unknowingly record on your computer – your finances, your buying habits, your fetishes!

We get what we deserve! We want to live this digital life on Facebook and Twitter, tell our most intimate secrets, obsessions  and ambitions to anyone on the planet who will look at our Blogspot. We broadcast our interests and our buying plans by visiting web sites like Tesco or ASDA or Sainsbury’s and  enjoy the flexibility of internet banking and all the rest. Should we not also realise that it all comes at a cost – and the cost is that our innermost lives are stored on computer banks across the world. In a way this is democracy at work.  The majority want big supermarkets and retail parks, they want free access to the internet and all that it offers and that is what we get. They want the "right" to express their views as I am doing now. But if we don’t question and fight for the society or sort of  government that we want then these "democratic freedoms" will be and are hijacked by big business and government.  Our "freedoms" become easily "managed" by Microsoft, AOL, Google, Facebook, the NSA and GCHQ - and we can’t then complain or be surprised when, to misquote Hamlet, we find “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark”  [for Denmark read UK/USA et al].

But having said all that, there is something more that worries me more in all this – about what it is to be part of humanity and how that can be influenced by the sort of world we are allowing to happen.

Some years ago, Pat and I flew out of Gatwick on our way to Italy. It was two days after one of the terrorist attacks in London. Security at the airport was understandably intense.  That afternoon as we queued, with thousands of others, to pass through security there were two events that imprinted themselves on my mind and which I think of each time I pass through airport security today.

As we stood at the desk waiting to be checked through there was a young family in front of us. They were much younger than us and, to my prejudiced “senior citizen eyes”, looked rather dubious. Dad had a rather scruffy track suit bottoms, flip flop sandals, ear ring, a shaved head and a multitude of tattoos – in short I would not have liked to meet him on a dark night! As he emptied his pockets and checked his bag through the guard took from him a packet of aspirins and told him that he could not take these onto the flight. The man replied that these were prescription drugs and that he must have them for his medical condition. He showed the guard his prescription – but to no avail. After a brief argument they were confiscated and he was told to move on which, unwillingly, he did. I approached the counter and turned out my bags and pockets. In my pocket was an identical packet of aspirins They are not important to me and not part of a medical prescription - I simply carry them in case of  a headache. The guard flicked through my belongings and nodded me though, returning all my belongings  - including the aspirins. My aspirins were fine and yet the guy in front had his packet confiscated. Why should that be?  I asked the guard why and received no answer. I suggested to the guard he might be better employed as a doctor since he clearly knew what drugs were to be prescribed for individuals. I asked him why I paid huge amounts of tax to employ highly qualified doctors and nurses in our hospitals, their task being to use their undoubted skills and medical knowledge  to prescribe drugs like the ones refused to the guy in front of me and confiscated by the security guard. Clearly, I suggested,  a few chaps like him obviously overrode those prescriptions – it would be much cheaper to employ a few security guards to prescribe our medicines in our hospitals than highly paid doctors. Did he have medical qualifications I asked or access to this gentleman’s medical records? I was told to “f**k off” and move on – which I did, scowling.

This was clearly a matter of prejudice – no more, no less. The guy in front of me looked a bit “dodgy” and that was the basis for his treatment. Presumably I looked a fine upstanding citizen complete with tie (yes! – I always wear a tie even when I'm travelling!) and what happened that day was nothing to do with security and all but to do with prejudice and arbitrary judgement. From that day onwards when I hear politicians (as I have heard this week from the US or from our own Foreign Secretary, William Hague)  say that those who have done no wrong have nothing to fear I think of that guy in the queue and I think, too, of the dreadful but illuminating verse first voiced in Nazi Germany by Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me

But my education about security did not end there on that hot afternoon at Gatwick. Having passed through security we waited for our flight in departures. We were, as I say, going to Italy for a holiday. As we sat there waiting for our flight to be called there sat opposite us an Asian family – mother dad and two teenage children. The lady was dressed in a sari. They sat quietly waiting for their flight. And as I sat there I found myself being sucked into the atmosphere of ‘suspicion’ – were these people what they seemed? After all, she was wearing a sari, the family looked dark skinned. We had all been brainwashed to know that dark Asian skin and Muslim belief equalled "Evil Empire" (a Ronald Reagan pearl of wisdom about Russians reinforced a few years later by  George W Bush when he talked about an "Axis of Evil" emanating from middle eats states) and terror. Maybe (dreadful thought) they were Muslims!  Were they an ordinary family or were they terrorists ready to blow up our plane? As I sat there I realised I was simply using prejudice again. It was not a feeling I enjoyed to be so suspicious of my fellow human being. We have become and I had become institutionalised or programmed to be suspicious. I had lost any naivety that I might have had that people are intrinsically good. And I did not like the feeling or myself. The man might indeed have been a terrorist – but far more likely he was a guy going on holiday - maybe, I suddenly thought, he was one of those consultant doctors who had prescribed the aspirins! Maybe he was a teacher like me, or an engineer, or a dustman or an postman or a lawyer.  Maybe, I thought, if because of my heart condition I have a heart attack while on this flight he may be the one person on the plane who has the skills to keep me alive. And I felt very contrite – and indeed very worried – for this is what the “war on terror” was and is doing to us all – it is  making us suspicious and fearful and mistrusting and wary of our fellow men. It is not a feeling that I like and it detracts from my humanity.

So when politicians tell me that security initiatives of the type that has been exposed in the past few days are "necessary" or "legitimate" or when I am told that "legal safeguards are in place to protect me" I am immediately worried. I'm not convinced that any "legal safeguard" can protect or promote my basic humanity - that, is all bound up with belief, morals, maybe belief and certainly ones own perception of oneself.  At its core it is about what we are as humans - and no law or safeguard has yet been written to define that. And, I wonder, if the good Senator Chambliss (if he ever reads this blog) or if one of the spying networks like PRISM deep in the bowels of some US security site latches onto these words will I, too, be cast as “one of the bad guys” –  maybe I am already condemned! As I discovered at the airport that day, wear the wrong clothes, have a shaved head, have a darker skin and someone somewhere will judge you “one of the bad guys” – not for good reasons but on the arbitrary whim of an airport security guard or our own personal prejudices - or some "surveillance operative" deep in some secure room in GCHQ or the NSA. The security guard did it to the man in front of me in the airport queue and I thought it as I sat waiting for my flight and watching the Asian family waiting for their's - so why not that surveillance operative or Senator Chambliss?

Just before the present media frenzy blew up I had just finished reading the wonderful autobiography of the great historian Eric Hobsbawm. He died -  a very old man (almost a hundred years old) - a year or so ago. In his book (“Interesting Times”) he reflects upon the history of the 20^th century – through which he lived his long life. Towards the end of the book he makes some acute but chilling observations:

“Washington announced that Sept 11^th had changed everything, and in doing so, actually did change everything, by in effect declaring it-self the single-handed protector of a world order and definer of threats against it, Whoever failed to accept this was a potential or actual enemy....... September 11^th  proved that we all live in a world with a single global hyperpower that had finally decided that, since the end of the USSR, there are no short term limits on its strength and no limits on its willingness to use it, although the purposes of using it – except to manifest supremacy – are quite unclear........Living [as Hobsbawm had done at the time of writing] for over eighty years of the twentieth century has been a natural lesson in the mutability of political power, empires and institutions [he had lived in Austria at the fall of the Austrian Empire, lived in Britain through the demise of what he called  the greatest Empire ever created – the British Empire, witnessed the fall of the Soviet bloc and many others] .....I am unlikely to see the end of the “American century”...... . I look forward to an American world empire, whose long term chances are poor, with far more fear and less enthusiasm that I look back on the record of the old British Empire, run by a country whose modest size protected it against megalomania.......”

From where I sit that sounds a bit like the meglomanic bully on the school playground – the big guy - I think his name is Sam - who because he is the biggest puts himself about and sees every other child on the playground as a threat and fair game. There used to be another big lad – also a bully (I think his name was Ivan) and the two cancelled each other out. They were wary of each other and didn’t bother too much about the ordinary kids. But Ivan left the school so now Sam is alone – the one “superpower”  and he worries that everyone else on the playground is a potential threat to his supremacy so he terrifies, polices, tries to control, tries to influence and intimidates at will. And so keen are the ordinary kids to gain Sam's affections and good will that they comply, they fawn over him, do his bidding and listen to his "wisdom" because  as he has so often told them if they are not for him then they are against him. And he promises them his support and safety if they comply - rather like some mafia  protection racket – and the children, quite understandably, do as they are bid.  Yes, it sounds just like a parable reflecting the international relations of the past thirty years. And yes again .......it sounds just like our Foreign Secretary, William Hague, fawning and defending the dubious actions of the big guy - NSA - desperate to earn its approval, its "protection" and safety. We do as we are required and we give loyalty to a very dubious argument and institution. And meanwhile in addition to losing our privacy to the giant computers of Facebook, Google, GCHQ, NAS and the Pentagon we are all – everyone on the planet - at the same time losing a little of our humanity in this misguided, misplaced and immoral “war on terror”

‘‘When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean......" - or striking a blow for swivel eyed loons!

Their Lordships voting

A few days ago I read of a bishop who sits in the House of Lords complaining of the pressure he was under in relation to voting for or against legislation about gay marriage. He has both religious and political concerns about the proposed legislation to but more worryingly felt increasingly pressured by party managers and those with an interest in the legislation to vote for the change in the law. In particular he commented about the recent criticism by a senior Conservative politician who called local party workers who might not favour legislation such as gay marriage “swivel eyed loons”. The bishop’s response was that having had his strong convictions about the issue for many years, in the name of democracy he felt he should “strike a blow for swivel eyed loons”. He was right. That is what democracy is all about – it’s not about being railroaded to vote this way or that by those more powerful. It’s about making one’s own mind up from the evidence available. One might agree or not with the bishop’s viewpoint but he is entitled to it – it is on that fundamental principle that democracy and law since the Magna Carta are based.

Mayor Bloomberg

I was thinking about the bishop’s predicament when I read another article on the same subject – this time by no less a person than Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York (Guardian June 3rd 2013). Bloomberg essentially made two points. Firstly that not to allow same sex marriages discriminates against gay people,  and to quote Bloomberg, “would relegate same-sex couples to second-class status”. He furthered this argument by suggesting that  “it is consistent with democracy's promise of equal rights for all people”. In other words he is linking same sex marriage with some democratic beliefs or imperatives. Bloomberg’s second thesis was something which, I have to say, had not really occurred to me – that gay marriage and all that it implies is good for the economy. He said: “..... legalising same-sex marriage has sharpened New York City's competitive edge in the global economy, because it has made us an even more attractive place to live and work – not just for gay men and women, but for all people who want to live in a tolerant and free community. And as someone whose company is building a new European headquarters in London, I can say that same-sex marriage would make the UK an even more attractive place for companies to do business, because freedom attracts talent”. No wonder Michael is in favour of gay marriage!

Bloomberg’s comments, too, resonated with the pressures being put on the bishop in the House of Lords when he said “Religious tolerance is a vital part of a democratic society. But religious rules should never dictate society's laws. Some religions prohibit eating pork. Others prohibit drinking alcohol. Others prohibit divorce. That is their right. But we reject any attempt to impose those prohibitions on society, because the freedom to engage in those activities should be no less protected. The same is true of same-sex marriage......”   That comment is so facile and ill considered that I wonder how Bloomberg reached the position that he has. Religious tolerance is indeed a vital part of a democracy – but changing the law about marriage is manifestly and vastly different than whether or not people eat pork or drink alcohol. We already have specific "rules" or laws  - both religious and civil - in relation to marriage we do not have the same sort of rules in relation to the eating of pork or the drinking of alcohol. Tampering with or reinterpreting something like marriage which already has a legal and social (and religious) status has clear implications for the law and for society. It can only be done after the most careful of considerations - hence the bishop's anxieties.

Protesters against gay marriage

Now at this point I need to declare my “interest” or viewpoint. I have listened to and read the various arguments and have a huge amount of sympathy or respect, or call it what you will, for gay people and their desire to be treated “equally” – whatever that might mean. I have absolutely no doubt that despite the changes to laws and social views of the past half century direct or indirect homophobia is both rampant and insidious in its workings – even in our most enlightened communities and societies.  Indeed, perhaps my comments in this blog are evidence of that – if so it is entirely unintended. But  while writing these last few sentences I am taken back to New York – Bloomberg’s own city when we visited it a few years ago. We were fortunate that we were in the city on the day of the Gay Pride Parade – what a wonderful experience – the spectacle, the fun but most of all the good humour and freedom of it all. When recalling the time that Sunday afternoon that we spent standing in the crowds on Fifth Avenue watching the Parade pass Pat and I often tell of the American lady who stood beside us in the crowd. As we watched she obviously heard our English accents and asked us, in a southern accent where in England we were from. “From Nottingham” we replied. “And do they have this sort of thing over there?” she asked. “No, not in Nottingham” we answered “but there is a parade in London – but not so big - do you have one where you come from?”  She looked at us and gravely said “No, Sir, we surely do not  - and certainly  not on the Lord’s Day. Where I live in Texas the sheriff would take out his shot gun!”  Yes, even in this day and age and even in the enlightened USA there is not universal approval  and freedom for all.

A very hot and wonderful day on Fifth
Avenue a few years ago

I am totally convinced that there is a moral, political, economic and social imperative that governments and peoples need to ensure that all in society, whatever their viewpoint, gender, orientations, colour, creed and every other dimension of the human condition are treated equally and have the same opportunities and rights. But, despite all that, somewhere deep within me lurks an anxiety and a concern about the term “single sex marriage”. No matter how I try I cannot rid myself of the view – not especially for religious reasons – that implicit in the term “marriage” is, in the western tradition, an undeniable and long established assumption of heterosexual union. There, I’ve said it! In many respects I wish it were not thus – it would be so much easier and comfortable to simply go along with it and say – “Hey, we must stop this discrimination, this blatant unfairness -  everyone should be allowed to marry whatever their background , we all have to be equal, democracy is at risk if we do not do this......”  I'm sure that the poor bishop felt exactly the same. Indeed it would fit in with our modern pluralistic viewpoints  and we have consistently done it on many other issues for many years. But, as I say, it's implications are such that it is too important to be done lightly and for me there is a nagging doubt that this cannot be right.

And for me this is the nub of the concerns expressed by the bishop. It not the desire to impose upon others a religious belief or to limit the freedoms of others because of their sexual orientation  or religious convictions. It is a simple anxiety about the terminology. Indeed this was the essence, I think of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s concern  - that a legitimate issue and much needed piece of legislation was being badly and clumsily confused with the requirements of “marriage” in its accepted sense. It beggars my belief that the rights, freedoms and opportunities of gay people cannot protected and promoted and “equal” to everyone else’s without this confusion with traditional marriage.

In writing this I am minded of a comment by the American political philosopher Michael Sandel. He was not writing about gay marriage but made the comment that “Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump into each other in the course of everyday life.......”  Clearly, to ensure that the rights and experiences of all are protected and promoted  there is a need for more than Sandel suggests and in the final analysis – and certainly, in relation to guaranteeing the rights and democratic, social or economic statutes in gay partnerships - there will be a need for clear legislation. But, it should not be beyond the wit of politicians and governments to ensure that this is specific to the need rather than simply “bending the rules” and the accepted and established  conventions and meaning of the word “marriage”.  By simply recycling or redefining that term or condition seems to me to be a clumsy and inappropriate option.  It restates and reinforces the  nonsense world envisaged in the words from  “Alice Through the Looking Glass”. When Alice met Humpty Dumpty on his wall, and he was talking nonsense and was quite unintelligible. He used words that had entirely different meanings to Alice and when she questioned him on this he replied  "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less...........’"This is what is being done in relation to the word “marriage” when we talk of “gay marriage” – it is a usurping of the term and simply bending it to mean whatever one wants it to.

I am not suggesting that language must be fixed and unchanging. Language and words are always changing – and English more so than many other tongues.  All language must be creative – for it not to be so means is the surest way of bringing about its demise. But there is a difference, it seems to me, between developmental change (e.g. “OK” to replace “all right” or the introduction of completely new terms (e.g. “software” – to define something that was previously unknown) and the knowing redefining of a specific term to mean something else which is what is happening to the word "marriage".  

The ancient Athenian Philosopher Cratylus increasingly felt that communication was  becoming increasingly impossible without exactly defined words. He found, even in those far off days,  that language could change so quickly that it was impossible to be sure of its meaning. As a result, legend has it, he gave up speaking entirely. Cratylus would have had much in common with Professor Tony Judt  who wrote  eloquently on this. Judt reminded us of the importance of clarity of meaning in words just before he died when he commented “....it [the misuse of words] ......leads to a shortcoming of thought.  For many centuries in the western tradition, how well you expressed a position corresponded closely to the credibility of your argument....... it was never a matter of indifference...... Confused words suggested, at best, confused ideas ....... when words lose their integrity so do the ideas they express........the outcome is potential anarchy.“

When we go down the path of words losing their established or intended meaning, of fudging the edges of words, or worse, of changing the meaning of a word then we are potentially on a slippery spiral with far reaching and often unintended repercussions. The very essence - the language, the thoughts, the ideas, the  intentions, the aspirations and the beliefs - of a society and civilization is at risk. Once words and ideas become fudged or unclear then they can be used by those who would influence and over power us. Words and their meanings matter – it is upon the meaning of words that democracy and law are built. For hundreds of years legal arguments and judgements have been made based upon the meaning of the law as expressed in words - the British Parliament and the chambers of lawyers throughout the land are filled with documents and learned papers all filled with words and legal clarifications of what this law or that means.  In America the interpretation of the Constitution and the many amendments to it are all based firmly in a clear understanding of the words uttered by the Founding Fathers and upon the subsequent judgements of the Supreme Court since. Much as it appeals one cannot simply rewrite legal history or civilization's "take" on what something means - especially when the word in question is a term defining one of the fundamental social and legal building blocks of that society

Prof. Tony Judt just before he died

So, for me the issue about “gay marriage” is not a religious issue. It is not an issue about democracy. It is plainly and simply about the word that we would use to describe the institution – and for me it cannot be “marriage”. I have absolutely no doubts that gay people have a “right” to expect equality of opportunity (whatever that means) in relation to the law, their relationships and to the rest of society. That would seem to me to be a simple moral imperative which society cannot and must not avoid. It cannot, however, be called a “marriage”. It cannot, I believe, be outside the wit of society to find a term to describe a gay relationship that is in every way equal and the same to a heterosexual marriage – but it cannot for me be termed “marriage.”

There are two other points that I would make – both in relation to mayor Bloomberg’s comments.  He talks of the important implications for democracy if gay “marriage” is not sanctioned. His anxieties may be well placed – but for me the danger to democracy is far more evident and concerning in the case of the bishop who felt himself pressured and threatened by those who would influence him. Just as fundamental to democracy as equality of rights is that of the right to hold unpopular opinions. When we lose that right we really are well on the way to a totalitarian state. And secondly (and this might seem trivial – it is not) when politicians of any creed begin to use as their argument that used by Bloomberg to recommend gay “marriage” – namely that it would “sharpen the competitive edge” or it will “make it  an attractive place for companies to do business”  then alarm bells begin to ring. In my experience  when issues that are essentially moral  in character or are subject to the requirements of law are being espoused as "good for commerce" or the making of profit then there is a clear conflict of interest. The financial scandals of the past four or five years are witness to that. The actions of Wall Street and the City of London – and millions of other financiers throughout the world - were all intended to “sharpen the competitive edge” and make these places "attractive to companies to do business". I’m not, however, too sure how many today would argue that they were also moral or right or good for wider society. I have absolutely no doubt that Bloomberg is right in his observation – it may well attract wonderful creative talent to New York and London when gay marriage is legitimised – but it is not a premise upon which to sanction an essentially moral or legal question. When Bloomberg - a high flying businessman - extols gay marriage because it will improve business then my immediate reaction is "well he would say that wouldn't he!" - and I immediately think of the old saying "When money talks nobody checks the grammar" . A not wholly inappropriate reflection when business is being used as a legitimising factor to redefine language or influence opinion!

When Cultures Meet: or "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" (Abraham Lincoln)

In the great Mosque/ Cathedral in
Cordoba - it brought memories of Istanbul

We’ve been away enjoying a wonderful tour of inland Spain visiting the great historical Andalucían cities of Seville, Granada, Cordoba and Ronda. The sun shone, the company was good, the hotels superb but as well as being very enjoyable it was also thought provoking in a variety of ways.

This could be a mughal palace
in far away India

With the use of Wi-Fi and my smart phone I was able to keep up with the international news each evening – a quick touch on my Guardian App and I could read the headlines from around the world. And as I logged on and skimmed through the world’s events each evening I read of the dreadful killing of an off duty soldier in London – an event which we are told has terrorist links. What I found equally or maybe even more worrying was the apparent and predictable backlash that resulted – mosques being firebombed, tabloid and right wing newspapers whipping up a frenzy and large increase in race related crime and extremist parties like the BNP or English Defence League feeling this was too good an opportunity to miss to perhaps sign up a few more supporters. From what I could gather prime minister David Cameron very quickly identified this as a terrorist event and in doing so, in my view, increased the likelihood of racial extremism.  We have now returned to the UK to read of the Home Secretary drawing up new plans to counter terrorism and in the process, I would guess, not only further limits general freedoms but also will further stoke up the racist and religious tensions. This is not to minimise a truly dreadful event by people who clearly must be punished in the most severe manner but when tensions run high, religion is involved, extremists are on the scene and powerful voices – be they politicians, newspaper editors or street corner orators – are whipping up the throng, then things can get badly out of hand. The briefest look through history – from an Easter in Jerusalem over 2000 years ago when the mob ensured a man was put on a cross, to pre War Germany when the beginning of the holocaust was founded, to many of today’s problems that we see across the world in places like Syria – will illustrate that violence and inhumanity is often rooted in hatred and stoked up extremism.

It was both saddening and expected to find that when I returned home on Sunday the undercurrent of hatred and extremism had crept into my own home. I switched on my computer and found that eight new “jokes” had appeared in my e-mail inbox. Like many, I suppose, I regularly receive jokes, light hearted tales, interesting items that are circulating the internet from friends and acquaintances. Out of the eight such items in my in-box six were unsavoury, racist, anti-Muslim offerings which I immediately deleted. It seems that just under the surface of us all there is a bit of hatred and mistrust waiting to get out – even from the “nice” people who are my friends! Events like the killing in London and the backlash that follows means that we all become party to it in some form or another and proves to me that all of us have only the thinnest veneer of tolerance.

A Moorish philosopher in
Seville - touch his shoe and
you will gain his wisdom we
were told. I touched his shoe -
still waiting for the wisdom!

But back to Spain! As we toured these wonderful places - the lovely old town of Ronda with its great bridge, ancient bull ring and quiet charm,  the bustling city of Seville with its great Cathedral, the beautiful Maria Luisa Park, and the stunning Alcazar,  the truly wonderful mosque/cathedral and alcazar of Cordoba and, finally, the “jewel in the crown”, so to speak, the great Alhambra at Granada - I was struck by a number of things.

Taj Mahal or Spain?

Every one of these places (and others I have not mentioned) are amongst some of  the world’s great places for some reason or other – designated World Heritage sites, the birth place of bull fighting, the oldest Royal Palace still in use, the starting point of Columbus’ trip to discover the New World – and so it goes on. They can all, rightly, claim to be at the heart and cradle of our western civilisation. Every one of them in some small way, touches our lives today. As we walked though the beautiful gardens of the Alcazar in Cordoba we came across a statue of Columbus standing in front of Queen Isabella & King Ferdinand in the late 15^th century. It was Isabella who funded Columbus’s mad cap venture to sail west in order to get to the east. He set off with his four little ships and “discovered” America. Within a few years Seville and its surrounding area was one of the great and richest cities of the world as Spanish galleons made their way up the river to this inland port  -  each ship laden with the riches of the New World. I looked up at the statue and wondered if Isabella and Ferdinand ever dreamed that when they provided Columbus with his funds for his venture that this would be the result – untold wealth for their country but further into the future that they would be bringing to the world a super power whose actions and power would affect all of us everyday – Starbucks, Coke, Hollywood, Wall Street...........and so it goes on. Would it all have ended differently if, for example, that first discoverer had set out from Shanghai or St Petersburg and the New World had been populated not by Europeans but by Chinese, Indians or Russians?  Would the whole “balance” of our modern world be the same? Would we still be fighting a "war on terror" against eastern countries - or would they see us as the terrorists? 

Mathematical and artistic
perfection of pattern - we saw
the same patterns in India.

Or another recurring theme, as we travelled through this wonderful area, was the impact of invading armies and military action – and especially one man – Napoleon. Wherever we went it seemed Napoleon had left his mark – and usually in a negative way! In the early years of the nineteenth century following the French Revolution, as Napoleon fought to extend his Empire during the Peninsula War, we came across example after example of Napoleon’s impact. So often we read or heard that works of art had “gone missing” from the great cathedrals and palaces – presumably all to fill the houses and chateaux of France and the Louvre! But of course, all wars bring this – violence, destruction, pillage and in this case perhaps the greatest act of destruction occurred at Granada when Napoleon used the Alhambra in Granada as a garrison for his troops. As the war turned against him and he began to flee the country he planned to blow up the vast structure. His plans were foiled to some extent by a wounded soldier left behind in the retreat – according to legend he cut the fuses to many of the explosives and so preserved one of the wonders of our world.

The Alhambra - or a
desert oasis?

But it was not only Napoleon who left his mark – the Romans, the Moors, Catholic princes and monarchs with fine sounding names – Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand, Pedro the Cruel and many, many others all left their imprint on the landscape, the culture, the economy and the built environment.

Islamic patterns - look closely
and the writing says "Allah is good"

The history of this part of the world is a worthy reminder of the impermanence of empires – Romans, Moors, Christians, invading French, great Spanish kings and queens, the English all have come and gone in some way or another – all, at their time, were masters of the universe and all eventually crumbled and passed into history. All wrote their tales in the buildings they erected and the cultures that they pursued. And, of course, they all had their own version of history! For example Pedro the Cruel who was largely responsible for the building of the beautiful Seville Alcazar on the ruins of the old Moorish structure was known by many as Pedro the Just – it just depended on your point of view, your historical perspective - to many he was a cruel tyrant to others a just king! History is a funny old thing! As we walked round the Admirals’ Hall the Alcazar -  a series of rooms filled with paintings and art celebrating Spain’s glorious naval past - I reflected that there was not one picture or reference depicting the defeat by Drake of the Spanish Armada in 1588. I’m sure that in any English naval art gallery we would find some celebration or acknowledgement of the defeat of the Armada.  But that is the way that the history of nations works. They celebrate success and glory and quietly forget or delete defeat or less savoury aspects of their past. In modern times we criticise communist regimes for doing this re-writing of history - but in reality we all do it! And we are no different  than our Spanish cousins – our art and culture generally celebrates the good and the things of which we are proud; I haven’t seen many great works of British art celebrating the defeat of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings – we left that to the victors the skilled needlewomen of Bayeux! History, it seems only celebrates the winners and certainly it is the winners who write the history! To be fair, however, we did see a picture of and reference to the Duke of Medina Sidonia when we walked around Ronda – the Duke, much maligned by the end of his life was the ill fated commander of the Armada and its defeat was very much blamed on his alleged incompetence. He was definitely not a winner! But even his name tells its own story – and it is the story of Andalucía. ‘Medina’ is a Moorish word for ‘city’ and Sidonia the name of the city - ‘Sidou’. Medina Sidonia is a city in the Ronda region so the Duke was one of its sons and he was one of the most powerful men in Spain. He was a man whose actions in 1588 had an effect on our own country’s fortunes and history and he came from a Moorish background. How complex is the web of human life and culture!

And this was the joy of our little tour of Andalucía – wherever we went we witnessed a clashing of cultures, and histories. We heard names and saw places that directly impacted on our own world and history. Names and events that crop up in our own heritage. People and places that ultimately give meaning to our own life and history.

In the Alhambra

Indeed, the overwhelming and recurring theme of our trip was just this – the intermixing of two great cultures -  Christian and Islam. Moorish and European. Wherever we went we were reminded of the strong links between the two. Walking round the Alhambra in Granada or the Mosque/Cathedral in Cordoba or the Alacazar in the same city  one was faced with the Moorish/Muslim heritage. Wherever we went were reminded of our visit some years ago to Istanbul and as we stood in the Alhambra or in the Alcazar both Pat and I reflected that we felt the same atmosphere and saw the same forms when we stood in the misty dreamlike dawn of Agra gazing at the Taj Mahal in 2008. The shapes and patterns, the architecture, the serenity of the places, the sheer beauty reminded us of ancient mughal palaces visited in India. As I stood in these places I reflected that much of the great Muslim/Moorish art and architecture was founded upon their mathematical and artistic  skills at a time when we in Europe were still in what we call the “dark ages”. As we drove past Andalucían villages our guide pointed out the Moorish minarets that had been cleverly converted into Christian church bell towers. As we watched and listened to the music of Flamenco dancing you could almost touch the sound of the East. Great cultures mixing and morphing into something else.

The Alhambra from afar - and in the
distance the distance the snow
capped Sierra Nevada mountains

And at the end of our little trip I reflected on three things.

Firstly, in all that we had seen, whether it be Moorish or European, Muslim or Christian I was struck by the fact that they had created something to reflect their culture and beliefs. Religious beliefs, items of beauty, reflections of their community and its values. And I wonder what will we leave that speaks of us to the tourist or historian of five hundred years from now – and what will this future tourist say and think about what we have left? and secondly, these palaces, mosques, churches, castles and the rest – were constructed to a large degree to announce to the world the power, wealth and faith of their creators be they Moorish Sultans or Catholic Princes. Just as in Florence with the Medici or the Doges of Venice they wished to show the world and their peers not just that they were wealthy but that they were cultured, devout and powerful. What will we produce I wonder? I’m not, I think, looking at history through rose coloured glasses – these great man and women, families like the Medici or the Sultans who built the Islamic palaces were, in all probability, violent and rapacious individuals whose private and public persona would probably not meet our standards today – but in their quest for power and glory they left us a treasure  trove of the best of their civilisation. What will our great and good leave for posterity to show the best of our civilisation - our high culture, our traditions, our beliefs and our values?

Sadly, my answer to these two questions, despite racking my brains, is that what we will leave are too often things that purely utilitarian or reflections of a civilisation bent not on creating beautiful things but on a society bent on creating only wealth. Just as in Spain or Italy or other great towns and cities if you walk around any English city you will find ample evidence and examples of our past and where we have come from.  Walk around London and our eighteenth and nineteenth century Empire is on every street corner – places of government, statues of the great and good, offices of state, great commercial enterprises that made London the one time capital of the world.  Walk around any northern industrial town and you will still see the great cotton and woollen mills (now often turned into up-market apartments or supermarkets!), you will see the rows of terraced worker’s houses tightly packed against the mill wall and in the centre you will see the obvious civic pride and local wealth reflected in the great Town Halls. Walk around our historical towns and cities – Stratford, Canterbury, York, Durham and you will see the history and culture of our nation. But this is our past  - what will tourists in half a millennia see of our modern culture and tradition? What will 2013 leave as a mark of its culture, heritage, belief and society’s values?  Will it be the Shard or Canary Wharf, I wonder, that tourists will flock to as they do today when they visit St Paul's or Westminster Abbey or Blenheim Palace? Will our millionaires (of whom there are very many today compared with a few hundred years ago) or our local leaders leave to future generations places like the Alcazar or St Mark’s in Venice or the Taj Mahal built by Shah Jahan in memory of his beautiful wife? Sadly, I think not – instead tax havens and wealth creation and retail outlets are the Gods that our society increasingly worships – not pride or faith or tradition or heritage or that which is good or the beautiful. Maybe future tourists will gaze in wonder at some fossilised Marks and Spencer or B & Q store!  Maybe instead of a wander around the beautiful gardens of the Alhambra future historians and tourists to England will wander around open mouthed in the ancient Tesco car park!

And we think we are clever!

And the third reflection? I return to the start of this blog and the dreadful murder of a young off duty soldier on the streets of London. Whilst this was terrible act was being carried out I was walking around buildings that represented the very heart of Islamic history. As I did this, the government were drawing up plans to alienate a significant portion of the population and the right wing extremists were throwing petrol bombs at Muslim mosques and my own friends were sending me racially motivated “jokes”.  I was walking round wide eyed and open mouthed at the serenity and beauty of Islamic buildings - physical manifestations of the Muslim faith - whilst back home extremism and racial harmony was rife. Despite this, as I walked through the Moorish heritage of the Alhambra or the Alcazar I thought (as I remember doing in the Taj Mahal or as I walked in the great Mosque in Istanbul or through the ancient mughal palaces of India) that we in the west have so much to learn. We have wonderful modern technology and feel we are so very clever - we oft call many of these places the second or even third world - because today we judge all by wealth and by our clever western standards. Anything that doesn't meet these standards is judged inferior.  But these peoples – the Chinese, the Indians, the Egyptian, the Moors, the Greeks, the Romans and the rest were conducting scientific experiments, making mathematical calculations, producing wonderful art and architecture, writing great literature, establishing great religions to sustain their soul and defining philosophical arguments and political structures almost before we had learned to live in caves! Deep within me I have this feeling that they know things that we do not and can never know.

In today’s Guardian I read three things which seemed relevant. One was a letter from a correspondent who wrote: “I think we should listen to what everyone has to say, including Muslim extremists ......... Extremism is just that: an extreme version of what a group of people think. One of the results of not listening to people's fears around immigration is right wing extremism........ one of the results of not listening to people's disgust at invasions of Muslim countries is Muslim extremism. How can we end either kind of extremism if we won't acknowledge its causes?  So very true – if we don’t speak to each other and listen then what hope is there?

The second was an article written by one of the founders of UKIP. He said:“...... Ukip, the party I founded 20 years ago and left in 1997 as it became a magnet for people whose vision of the future is the 1950s – a supposed golden age before the EEC, black people, Muslims and other immigrants, gays, lesbians and other products of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, desecrated this island Eden.....”  As I read this I thought of the “jokes” I had received – a number from friends who I know who UKIP supporters. I don’t condemn UKIP – it is a perfectly legitimate organisation and they are perfectly entitled to their views, but its rise increasingly, I believe,  reflects a growth of intolerance within society. Indeed, I could forcefully argue that David Cameron’s quick condemnation of the Woolwich atrocity as an act of terrorism, was clearly calculated to appeal to large portions of the electorate - it was calculated rabble rousing. Cameron clearly didn’t want to be caught as was Gordon Brown a few years ago when Brown inadvertently called a woman a “bigot” when she brought up immigration and racist issues as he was on the election trail. The sad thing was that it probably lost Brown the election but in fact he was quite correct – she was a bigot. It is easy for people to have perfectly legitimate concerns but at the same time to knowingly or unknowingly be stirring the “intolerance pot”.  I read last week that an organisation intended for charity – “Help the Heroes” – had expressed their displeasure when the English Defence League offered donations to the organisation which caters for  supporting wounded and injured soldiers. The “English Defence League” is a right wing extremist body and “Help For Heroes” was quite right to take the stance they did. Unfortunately, from where I sit the very name “Help For Heroes” is jingoistic and now almost synonymous with the “war on terror” in Muslim countries because it supports soldiers largely injured whilst in action in Muslim areas. That is precisely why the EDL wished to be associated with them – they were quietly linking their extremism with others, who although not themselves necessarily extremist, do represent an aspect of nationalism and jingoism that can easily be translated into intolerance.

And finally, an article by Guardian columnist Seumas Milne: “Eight years on, nothing has been learned. In the week since a British soldier was horrifically stabbed to death by London jihadists on the streets of Woolwich, it's July 2005 all over again. David Cameron immediately rushed to set up a task force and vowed to ban "hate clerics". Now the home secretary wants to outlaw "nonviolent extremist" organisations, censor broadcasters and websites and revive plans to put the whole country's phone and web records under surveillance”.

"Kneejerk" barely does it justice.........As the police and a BBC reporter described the alleged killers as of  Muslim appearance (in other words, non-white), Islamophobic attacks spiked across the country. In the first five days 10 mosques were attacked, culminating in a triple petrol bombing in Grimsby.

In Seville's Maria Luisa Park

As politicians and the media congratulated themselves that Britain was "calmly carrying on as usual", it won't have felt like that to the Muslim woman who had her veil ripped off and was knocked unconscious in Bolton. Nor, presumably, to the family of 75-year-old Mohammed Saleem, stabbed to death in Birmingham in what had all the hallmarks of an Islamophobic attack – or, for that matter, the nearly two-thirds of the population who think there will be a "clash of civilisations" between white Britons and Muslims, up 9% since the Woolwich atrocity......”

Difference easily breeds distrust and distrust is the first stage of fear and then hatred and this in its turn promotes violence. It is what the bully, be he on the school playground or standing giving a political speech depends upon – the insecurity of people and the opportunity to home in on those that are different and appear to be “not one of us”. Throughout the centuries we have seen people use this as a tool to whip up emotions – think only of Hitler in Germany against the Jews or McCarthy in America against alleged communists or Robespierre as he ignited the “terror” in Paris during the French Revolution.

Christopher Columbus stands
before Ferdinand and
Isabella - before setting out for
the New World

 

If we are to break this circle then we have to understand and respect each other. Anything that induces distrust or fear is almost certain to end in violence.  I have absolutely no doubts that the present policy of waging “a war on terror” – a misplaced euphemism for a war on anyone who we happen to distrust or fear or is different from us - is the completely wrong approach. Its only consequence is a violent response. We have seen it for too long in too many places. But it seems to me that there is an even higher imperative than this – namely that we all have so much to learn from each other. We, in the west, might think ourselves very clever with our technology and life style but just maybe we have much to  learn and perhaps admire from other cultures and it behoves us as part of humanity and the sharers of this small planet to be able to do just that. So, when, on my return from Andalucía, I looked at the rather sad and depressing and racially motivated jokes on my computer I quickly deleted them and thought rather of all I had seen and enjoyed of Moorish and Islamic based art and architecture in those few past days.  

A tiny part of the great dining hall in the
Golden Temple of Amritsar. All are welcome
to sit shoulder to shoulder and eat and to
be treated with honour and respect.
Beats the "war on terror" every time!

As I deleted the offending mails and saw on the TV and internet the racist backlash following the murder of the soldier in London and I thought of another holiday - in 2008 - when we visited India and have wonderful memories of the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the spiritual home of the Sikhs. As in the mosques and cathedrals we visited in Spain the reverence was tangible and the art and architecture stunning. But I remember, too, the humility that I felt as we stood in the great “dining hall” of the Temple where many thousands each day come and are fed a simple but nutritious meal. “It is what we believe we must do” said our Sikh companion. At first I assumed this was just for “believers” but was quickly put to rights – “No, anyone may eat” we were told “just sit down shoulder to shoulder with the next person and you will be fed. You may be sitting next to a beggar or a prince – we are all equal and we see no difference” Now that’s tolerance and understanding. And I thought, too, of a story that I often used to tell when leading a school assembly - about friends and enemies. It is a story about Abraham Lincoln and has many versions. As the end of the Civil War approached Lincoln had occasion to refer to the Confederate soldiers and leaders  benevolently - as fellow Americans who had simply "erred" -  rather than as enemies to be beaten, humiliated and exterminated. He even suggested that he would be dining with a number of the Confederate leaders. An elderly lady, a fiery patriot, rebuked him for speaking kindly of his enemies when he ought to be thinking of destroying them. "Why, madam," said Lincoln, "do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" So true! Lincoln's comment seems to me to be a clear restatement of the Christian ideal of "who is my neighbour" expressed in the parable of the Good Samaritan or Christ's sermon on the mount: “I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven”. Not to heed this imperative is a denial of Christian teaching - and we are supposed to be in the west, nominally at least, Christian societies.  I have absolutely, no doubt that our misguided leaders and  the those in wider society (be they political organisations, charity groups, extremist sects, ordinary individuals or indeed those who would circulate racist "jokes")  who would be suspicious of or mock other nations and humiliate those of a different cultures encourage hatred, bloodshed and acts of the sort that occurred on London last week. They could learn much from Abraham Lincoln and a visit to Amritsar - or, indeed, a visit to these wonderful places in Andalucia. All of them speak of what it is to be human and how we must, somehow, work out how we can share this small planet together - and that must mean tolerance, understanding and respect - not wars on terror.

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