In with a bullet

Posted on March 3, 2015 by leslie
American army sniper team

American army sniper team

In with a bullet

Robert Henderson reviews an American blockbuster

American Sniper

Main cast:

Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle

Sienna Miller as Taya Renae Kyle

Max Charles as Colton Kyle

Luke Grimes as Marc Lee

Kyle Gallner as Goat-Winston

Sam Jaeger as Captain Martens

Jake McDorman as Ryan “Biggles” Job

Sammy Sheik as Mustafa

Mido Hamada as “The Butcher”

Director Clint Eastwood

This is a frustrating film. Eastwood as the director guarantees that it is technically well made. It moves at a good pace, taken individually the action scenes in Iraq are dramatic and the subject (the role of the sniper) is interesting in itself. And yet, and yet…. American Sniper has an emptiness, the sum of its parts being decidedly less than the parts. The film teeters on the edge of being boring.

The bulk of the film is devoted to Kyle’s four tours of Iraq, with much of that screen time devoted to sniping and house-to-house searches. Therein lies the first problem with the film as drama. The action scenes become repetitive because there is not that much difference from watching Kyle shoot one person from the top of a building and seeing him doing the same thing to several people. Similarly, the house to house searching has a sameness about it when the streets look the same and the outcome is always either dead bodies after an exchange of gunfire or the taking of prisoners.

There are attempts to vary the emotional content of the sniping, for example the first people Kyle shoots are a young boy and his mother who are attempting to use a grenade against US soldiers. There are also subplots involving an Iraqi sniper known as Mustapha who is portrayed as having a duel with Kyle (which Kyle wins) and a search to find the al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which involves tracking al-Zarqawi’s second in command known as the Butcher for his delightful habit of torturing people with an electric drill.

But all this activity generates a curious lack of tension because the events rarely develop into more than snapshots. Nor is there any sense that Kyle or his comrades have any real purpose beyond the immediate end of preventing American troops from being harmed. Ironically, what the film unintentionally does is to provide a depressing essay on exactly how futile not only the Iraq war but any war fought by Western Armies in Third or Second world countries is fated to be.

The sniping scenes are somewhat strange. Often Kyle is shown shooting from the same position on more than one occasion. This is a “no no” for a sniper unless he really cannot avoid it. Understandably snipers are both hated and feared by the other side for the constant threat they offer not only in reality but in their enemy’s mind. Consequently, the enemy will make great efforts to locate and kill snipers and the most likely way of doing that is if a sniper stays in the same position and shoots more than once. Modern sniper rifles come with equipment to dull and distort the direction of sound and suppress the flash of a round being fired but this is not a complete solution to the problem of giving away your position. To remain in the same position and fire other shots after the first round has been fired is just asking to be located and killed. There is also a bizarre episode towards the end of the film when Kyle shoots the sniper Mustapha at well over 1,000 yards range and in doing so alerts Iraqi insurgents to Kyle and his fellow soldiers’ whereabouts who immediately attack the building in which Kyle and his comrades are hiding.

Because the film is trying to cram in so much there is little opportunity for character development even of Kyle who is rushed from one scene to another with breaks every now and then for a return to the States for leave with his wife. Apart from Cooper the only other character with an extensive part is Sienna Miller as Kyle’s wife Taya. She is adequate in the role but it really does not demand much of her beyond agonising over how Kyle “isn’t here” even when he is. The rest of the cast does what it has to do well enough in the very limited and unvaried scenes in which they appear.

There is also a frustrating lack of historical context. Kyle’s motivation is ostensibly a simple unquestioning, God-fearing patriotism built upon the Bush administration’s line that the USA was in Iraq to protect Americans in America. That is reasonable enough for Kyle’s character but there is nothing to balance that mentality, no character to challenge his simple faith.

Finally, there is the problem of Bradley Cooper as Kyle. Cooper strikes me as one of those actors who can only play him self. That is not necessarily a problem as many film stars have shown, but the person must have qualities which make him appealing such as charm, menace, sexual attraction. For me Cooper lacks any exciting or engaging quality. In American Sniper he is seriously miscast for this film requires not only a convincing tough guy but also a character with some emotional hinterland. Cooper is both unconvincing as a hard man and displays as much psychological subtlety as a brick wall. His limitations are particularly exposed in those episodes of the film where Kyle is home on leave. These are designed to variously show Kyle’s detachment from ordinary life and addiction to living in a warzone, but these are cursory and unconvincing. Ryan Gosling in the role would have made the film much more interesting because he has both psychological depth and is a convincing hard man.

The ending of the film is deeply unsatisfactory from a dramatic point of view. Originally the ending was going to be centred on Kyle’s shooting to death by a disturbed ex-marine Eddie Ray Routh who has just been found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But Kyle’s wife asked them to drop the scene and the director substituted a tepid ending showing Kyle leaving with Routh to travel to the shooting range where the killing took place with a very anxious Sienna Miller looking on as if she had a premonition of what was to happen, something which must surely have been a post hoc addition to the real-life story.

Judged by the box office takings American Sniper has been immensely successful in the USA although criticism of the film’s subject matter has generated violent responses in the mainstream and social media. In particular, there has been ill judged criticism from Michael Moore that snipers are cowards because they kill without putting themselves in danger. This is double-dyed nonsense. To begin with snipers have to be on constant guard against being spotted and shot themselves. In a war such as that in Iraq the risk and fear of being seen and killed is enhanced because it was a war fought in towns and cities where there is no readily recognised enemy who may be anywhere and come in any human form from a young child to trained soldier.

To that rebuttal of the charge of cowardice can be placed a more general exculpation of snipers – that war has never been anything but ugly and unchivalrous. When the crossbow was introduced in mediaeval times it was considered illegitimate by the nobility because the armoured knight was vulnerable to its bolts. The weapon also had a range much greater than that of a conventional bow and thereby meted out death from a serious distance. Later the same sorts of complaint were levelled at firearms. Long before modern breech loading artillery was devised muzzle-loading guns could send their shot miles. By the late 19th century the machine gun had arrived with the capacity to mow down dozens of men quickly. By the middle of the twentieth century bombers were delivering huge payloads from a great height onto civilian populations. Sniping is no more or less cowardly, no more or less brutal than war is generally.

More pertinent perhaps are the criticisms that the Kyle of the film is a sanitised version and that he was far from being the simple God-fearing patriot of the film. Indeed there are strong reasons to infer that he was both a braggart and a fantasist who made up stories such as claiming to have gone down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and killed many of the “bad guys” who were looting. Yet in the film he is shown as being intensely embarrassed when a veteran of Iraq stops him in a store and praises him effusively for what has done.

Overall the film has a nasty whiff of propaganda, if not intentionally then in effect. If you go to see it bear that in mind and treat it a primer for an understanding of the ordinary American’s mind.

ROBERT HENDERSON is QR’s film critic 

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Stealing Valour

Posted on February 28, 2015 by leslie
The Last Judgement, John Martin

The Last Judgement, John Martin

Stealing Valour

Ilana Mercer condemns premature forgiveness

Of New York Times columnist David Brooks it has been said that he is “the sort of conservative pundit that liberals like.” Not being a conservative or a liberal, I find him consistently wishy–washy and inane, without a controversial or interesting thought in his head.

Although it comes close, Brooks’ “Act of Rigorous Forgiving”, dealing with the antics of NBC’s Brian Williams, is not a complete dog’s breakfast of a column. The aspect of the Brooks column that piqued this scribe’s curiosity is that of forgiveness.

“Williams’ troubles”, you’ll recall – as chronicled by The Daily Beast – “began with his false account of a March 2003 helicopter ride during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which he told, with dramatic variations, on David Letterman’s late-night talk show and Alec Baldwin’s radio show in March 2013, and repeated on his own Jan. 30 newscast—only to recant it and apologize five days later after Stars and Stripes blew it out of the sky. Now he’s also facing scrutiny for stories of possibly untrue exploits during his 2005 coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and even whether, as a volunteer teenage firefighter in Middletown, New Jersey, he saved one (or maybe it was two) puppies from a burning house.”

Brooks’ trouble is the breakneck speed in which he shifted into a discussion of forgiveness. Is this not premature? Brooks, moreover, is also plain wrong in claiming that transgressors are treated “barbarically” when they “violate a public trust.” In a culture steeped in moral relativism, this is simply untrue. Paris Hilton began her public life with a self-adoring pornographic video. It only increased her profile. Likewise Kim Kardashian has been bottoms-up ever since her maiden performance. Her sibling, as vulgar, has visited the White House. Barack Obama was economical with the truth when he vowed, “You can keep your healthcare if you want to,” but all was forgiven and forgotten. The president’s latest falsehood is that ISIS is un-Islamic and that “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.” These fables are cut out of whole cloth. The same goes for the web of lies woven on the matter of WMD in Iraq.

Still, boilerplate Brooks is tempered by some solid points about the need to perform penitence before being granted clemency:

“… the offender has to get out in front of the process, being more self-critical than anyone else around him. He has to probe down to the root of his error, offer a confession more complete than expected. He has to put public reputation and career on the back burner and come up with a course that will move him toward his own emotional and spiritual recovery, to become strongest in the weakest places …”

“It’s also an occasion to investigate each unique circumstance, the nature of each sin that was committed and the implied remedy to that sin. Some sins, like anger and lust, are like wild beasts. They have to be fought through habits of restraint. Some sins like bigotry are like stains. They can only be expunged by apology and cleansing. Some like stealing are like a debt. They can only be rectified by repaying. Some, like adultery, are more like treason than like crime; they can only be rectified by slowly reweaving relationships.”

Indeed, penitence, especially in the case of a sustained, prolonged pattern of abuse, can “only be [achieved] by slowly reweaving relationships.”

To simply demand forgiveness because one has said sorry without convincingly and consistently acting sorry, and to proceed further to conduct one’s self like a victim because the victim has failed to extend an instant pardon: this is unpardonable. To shift the guilt onto the injured party for not granting that minute-made clemency: this too is beneath contempt.

Alas, flash forgiveness is not the province of Christians alone.

Jews, too, it would appear, have moved into the realm of pop religion. “According to the Talmud,” I was recently lectured, “a person who repents is forgiven his past and stands in a place of righteousness.” No mention was made of the hard, lengthy work of “slowly reweaving relationships.” The demand was for forgiveness in a New York minute. Also conspicuous by its absence was chapter-and-verse proof for the alleged Talmudic injunction to decouple easily expressed feelings from difficult-to-do deeds. (And even if the edict exists, unless just in natural law—it would amount to an argument from authority.)

My guess is that instant expiation flows more from the values of the 1960s than from any doctrinal Christian or Jewish values. Whichever is the case, the corollary of the current practice of no-effort forgiveness is that “it not only abolishes the necessity of repentance; it abolishes sin itself.”

ILANA MERCER is a paleolibertarian writer based in the United States. She pens WND’s longest-standing column, “Return to Reason” and is a Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. She is a Quarterly Review Contributing Editor. Ilana’s latest book is Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa. Her website is www.IlanaMercer.com. She blogs at www.barelyablog.com

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

ENDNOTES, March 2015

Posted on February 27, 2015 by leslie
Devorina Gamalova

Devorina Gamalova

ENDNOTES March 2015

In this edition: Treasured Classics from violinist, Devorina Gamalova * Wim Henderickx and his avant-garde collective * Tasmin Little plays French violin sonatas * Elgar from Norway

A former principal violinist of the Neue Elbland Philharmonic Orchestra of Saxony, a teacher at Dresden’s music academy, and a passionate soloist and advocate for music, Devorina Gamalova appears on the Discovery label (accompanied by Bulgarian composer and pianist, Krassimir Taskov – catalogue number, DMV114) in a collection of “treasured classics”. Devorina enchants with her playing, which is never showy or over-forceful, but instead lovingly performs – and re-interprets – dances by Falla and Brahms. She also embroiders and shapes meditations and romances by Saint-Saens and Shostakovich; a Melody by Tchaikovsky, Fritz Kreisler’s Prelude and Allegro, and offers us a lyrical fusion of Bach and Gounod – all in one piece. Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20 ends the disc, a heady brew of country life, gypsy romance and good tunes from Eastern Europe. When playing this disc, I experienced something which so many listeners – and not necessarily classical listeners – are searching for: the sensation of pure pleasure, ease of listening (which is not quite the same as Classic FM’s trademark of easy listening) and contented enjoyment. Mr. Taskov’s sensitive accompaniments add to the delight of this popular array of music, which as the CD notes suggests, concentrates more on “expression and feeling than on showmanship”.

Krassimir Taskov

Krassimir Taskov

In complete contrast is a recording of the music of Antwerp-based avant-garde radical, Wim Henderickx, whose work is performed by the HERMESensemble “an artist collective for contemporary music and art”. With the music of John Cage, Morton Feldman and England’s Joby Talbot under their belts – (Joby Talbot achieved acclaim at the Proms in recent years for his dark, Gothic arrangement for full symphony orchestra of Purcell’s Chaconne) – the ensemble’s stated aim is to “open up new artistic horizons”. Recorded at the appropriately named Crescendo Studio, the disc presents: Disappearing in Light (written in 2008), the sub-sections of which are Darkness, Mantra l, Meditation, Mantra ll and Light; Raga lll (from 2010); and the 25-minute-long The Four Elements. It seems that Henderickx began his all-culture-encompassing, frontier-pushing journey at the beginning of this century, when he symbolically sounded a gigantic gong in Bouthanath, in the misty Shangri-la of Nepal’s Himalayas. And elements of Eastern music pervade his atmospheric score, alongside the jagged elements of the soundscapes of Ligeti, the strange and disembodied shouts and chants of the human voice, and all the percussive language of extreme modernism. And yet the violin, flute and viola figure in this work: as if the chamber music of Debussy has been refracted into Henderickx’s particular time and space. An extraordinary experience on what appears to be the HERMESensemble’s own disc, distributed by Launch Music International (code: 8-714835-085669).

Time now for a return to the world of tonality, this time with French violin sonatas, played with effortless, romantic and classical finesse by Tasmin Little, undoubtedly one of the greatest violinists this country has ever produced, and a performer with enormous stage-presence who leads performances, even when some of the best of our conductors are at the helm. Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894) was, I must admit, a name entirely new to me, so full marks to Tasmin (and her fine accompanist, Martin Roscoe) for bringing this romantic Belgian-born composer – solid, yet capable of producing light and shade – to our attention. Ravel’s Sonata Movement, and the Sonata No. 1, Op. 13 (in four movements) are also here, faithfully recorded at a venue which appears to be increasingly popular for chamber recitals, Potton Hall in East Suffolk. Lekeu, it seems, was a follower of Cesar Franck, and although there is a sense of Teutonic influence in the young composer’s work, it nevertheless seems leavened to some extent by a sense of Frenchness, which Tasmin Little’s loving performance brings to the fore. The first movement, which is expansive, and has a memorable, restated theme, also brought to mind the broad, emphatic style of Tchaikovsky’s violin sonata. A sad twist to the tale of Lekeu: he died at just 24 years of age, from drinking contaminated water. I am certain that the craftsmanship of this composer might, if fate had played out differently, have given rise to greatness.

Guillaume Lekeu

Guillaume Lekeu

To England now, or rather, to Norway, with Sir Edward Elgar – under the baton of one of our best Elgarians, Sir Andrew Davis, for so many years synonymous with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Proms. Chandos Records (cat. no. CHSA 5149(2)) has brought Sir Andrew to the rostrum of Norway’s Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and – ranged behind it – the Bergen Philharmonic Choir, the Edvard Grieg Kor, and the Choir of Collegium Musicum, Bergen; with soloists, Emily Birsnan (soprano), Barry Banks (tenor) and Alan Opie (baritone). The work: Elgar’s Op. 30, his Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, which dates from 1896.

The historian, David Cannadine in his essay, The Pleasures of the Past, noted that if Elgar had died at the age of 40, his name would, today, live on only in specialist books about English music – his few, mainly choral works given the occasional outing at provincial or esoteric festivals. Elgar was 39 when King Olaf was written (for a festival in North Staffordshire): his masterpiece, the Enigma Variations (championed by the great Wagnerian, Hans Richter) would come three years later. Fortunately, and unlike the Belgian composer Lekeu, Elgar lived quite a long and full life, drawing inspiration from the lanes and hills of Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and (in 1918), Sussex; from a sense of British imperial destiny and history; and from numerous legends, poems, stories from Shakespeare, and sagas from the pen of Longfellow – and it is from the latter that King Olaf derives.

A “blue-eyed Norseman” and a Viking in reverse (Olaf converted to Christianity, was baptised in the Scilly Isles, and later set forth on his expeditions to fight for the new religion with great zeal), the spirit and action of Elgar’s drama almost lends itself to opera. Noble and dramatic ideas pulse through the score, and the choral contributions are exciting and point very definitely to the true majesty that would come in The Dream of Gerontius and The Kingdom. It is always good to hear European orchestras playing English music – and it is worth remembering that when Elgar’s First Symphony was first performed in 1908, the work had a Europe-wide and international following. The international currency of our music seems to have been stronger in the late-19th and early-20th centuries than it is today. But we can only hope that this Chandos production will lead the way in bringing the less well-known music of the British Isles to a wider audience.

As to the performance, it is difficult to find fault with any aspect of what Sir Andrew Davis gives us. The orchestral style of playing in Norway is a little different from the British orchestras; and I – at first – missed the richer “bloom” of sound; that “darker-brown” sound which the London Philharmonic of Sir Adrian Boult and Vernon Handley produced in the 1970s and ‘80s on EMI and at the Royal Festival Hall. The Bergen strings are sharp, astringent, precise, but their brass and percussion soon achieve that Elgarian richness, as the Nordic seas surge, and King Olaf engages in his great battles and causes. The new disc, I am pleased to say, also includes Elgar’s 1897, The Banner of St. George, with words by a fine-sounding Victorian fellow, Shapcott Wensley: the flag of the Saint coming from England’s “misty ages”, with “deathless heroes” and “glorious deeds of old” abounding. These sentiments, say some critics, are completely old-fashioned and outdated – and yet we seem to have no difficulties with Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky – the words of which are so blood curdling (those that invade Russia’s towns and fields will be “put to death”) as to make St. George and King Olaf seem quite moderate.

STUART MILLSON is the Classical Music Editor of The Quarterly Review

Next time: More Elgar – a review of The Dream of Gerontius, and interview with conductor, Ronald Corp, whose London Chorus will be centre-stage for this great choral masterpiece. And we also cover an important new recording by the Tallis Scholars of sacred works by Arvo Part.

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Posturing, positioning and electioneering

Posted on February 25, 2015 by leslie
R H Manning - Minster Isle of Thanet

R H Manning – Minster Isle of Thanet

Posturing, positioning and electioneering

Derek Turner anticipates a possible transformation of the political landscape

As the general election campaign limps into its last months, politicians have been working hard to sway what is expected to be an unusually unpredictable race. There is a widespread if unfocused public dislike of mainstream politicians, who are increasingly seen as being out-of-touch and corrupt, and this has thrown old calculations and understandings into disarray.

Polls have long shown the Tories and Labour within small percentages of each other, the Liberal Democrats doing poorly, and the SNP, UKIP and maybe the Greens showing strongly, perhaps even deciding power in a hung parliament. Almost every vote is being fought for, and few seats now are really considered completely “safe” by Conservative or Labour tacticians. Scottish seats long reliably Labour may be lost to the Scots Nats, strangely made stronger by losing the independence referendum, because along the way they attracted almost half of Scottish voters, including many younger ones. Labour may also lose votes to the Greens in one or two English constituencies (which is why David Cameron demanded they be included in TV debates). On the other side, some Conservative seats in England are endangered by UKIP, who even where they do not win may divert enough votes to ensure a Conservative loses. A night of democratic drama is promised for 7th May, probably followed by a period of jostling, during which lines drawn will be erased, inalienable principles will be alienated, and enemies will become ‘frenemies’.

Despite this campaign’s complexity, in some ways it is traditional in tone, with Conservatives as always emphasizing their real or supposed competence and Labourites their real or supposed compassion. Conservative arguments are strengthened by the apparent ineptitude of Eds Milliband and Balls, who combine physical strangeness and gaucherie with unfortunate memory lapses. Oddly, they have so far desisted from attacking Labour on one of the fronts where it is most vulnerable – that party’s atrocious record in its one-party state Northern towns, where it has for decades presided over inefficiency, sleaze and ethnic pork-barrel politics, to the extent of abandoning thousands of children to sexual exploitation. Meanwhile, Labourites assert that Tories are heartless plutocrats, only concerned for the wealthy – and this meshes with a cultural meme that unites Anglican archbishops with the furthest fringes of the Left. Neither Cameron nor Milliband arouse much loyalty or liking even within their own parties, and unimpressive election showings will lead to leadership challenges.

The rise of smaller parties has been accompanied by much closer scrutiny of their policies, because these may now actually matter. SNP economic policies for independence were predicated on the former high price of oil and being able to repudiate the Scottish share of the UK national debt – and they have not yet readjusted to the British status quo, or the fall in oil prices. They find it difficult to explain how they can combine cutting the deficit with increasing spending by £180 million by 2020. Luckily for them, as they are still British there are still London bankers to blame and English taxpayers to bilk, and the SNP’s new leader Nicola Sturgeon is making a determined power play by threatening to reverse the gentlemanly convention that Scottish MPs do not vote on English-only matters. The Greens have also been ridiculed for some of their more outré ideas, such as dispensing with the royal family and army, while party leader Natalie Bennett has come very publicly unstuck in two major interviews.

But the chief target of ideological artillery has been UKIP, which is still making the transition from single-issue pressure group to fully-manifestoed party, and some of whose personnel have said indelicate or sometimes idiotic things, chiefly about immigration. In some ways, this campaign is more about UKIP than whichever combination of what Nigel Farage calls “legacy parties” governs after May 7th. UKIP is arguably the only truly insurgent party contesting these elections, because the others all offer ‘middle ground’ variations on similar themes – supranationalism + ‘progress’ + political correctness. UKIP therefore constitutes an existential threat to cosiness, and is eliciting great fear and hatred.

Other parties may have their candidates ridiculed and their policies questioned, but only UKIP candidates are automatically suspected of being morally reprehensible. Whole websites are devoted to attacking UKIP, and zealots have disrupted some of their meetings. Channel 4 has gone to the trouble of broadcasting a highly tendentious docudrama, UKIP: The First Hundred Days about what might happen if Nigel Farage were to be elected Prime Minister. The SNP has ruled out any kind of cooperation with UKIP, even though they resemble UKIP in their civic nationalism and suspicion of geographically and (supposedly) culturally distant elites. The recent spike in Green membership seems more a circling of generic Leftist wagons against the whooping Apaches of UKIP than with mass eco-epiphanies. Labour politicians have often denounced UKIP as unspeakable  – although not so often lately, as they feel UKIP coming close behind them in some constituencies, and strive to convey the impression that they have developed responsible policies on immigration. David Cameron’s throwaway remarks of a few years ago about UKIP being the haunt of “fruitcakes and closet racists” are now a major embarrassment to him, as two of his MPs and many activists have already gone over to UKIP and others may follow in the near future, especially if UKIP does better than expected.

UKIP is both boosted and hampered by its unvarnished quality, on the one hand being able to claim authenticity, on the other being frequently embarrassed by policy inconsistencies or candidates’ gaffes. Whatever happens in May, the party is destined to become more streamlined and professional, and this will lead to different problems – fickle protest voters will start to see UKIP as becoming too much like other parties, while old guard activists will start to perceive that they or their ideas are being squeezed or sold out. But these problems still lie mostly in the future, and for now UKIP seems likely to deliver a salutary shock to the moribund mainstream, which may effect actual change. For this, all who claim to believe in democracy really should be grateful.

Rousseau, meditating in a park

Rousseau, meditating in a park

Derek Turner is a novelist and writer and the former editor of Quarterly Review. His personal website is – www.derek-turner.com

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Ambrette, Canterbury

Posted on February 24, 2015 by leslie

EpiQR

Epicurean Expeditions with

Em Marshall-Luck

The Ambrette, Canterbury

Canterbury is a city that has long held a position of not just importance but also affection in the nation’s consciousness. From its early days as a Roman town through to its seminal position as a place of pilgrimage even today, it has remained one of the most influential and significant of English destinations. To the visitor it offers a wealth of historical insights and revelations, as well as a host of decent places to eat for keeping body and soul together between visits to attractions.

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

A visit to Canterbury Cathedral – famously, where Thomas Becket was murdered by four knights aiming to curry favour with King Henry II, is a must – both for the historical magnitude of the building, and also for its architectural joys. Not having been in the Cathedral since my early childhood, I was struck by its hugely impressive sense of space – both loftier and also more austere than I had recalled or envisaged. Whilst the numerous side chapels are dark and oppressive, with a rather uneasy and gloomy ambience, the crypt is wonderfully atmospheric – with a far more peaceful and joyful air – and of course the candle, kept burning always in memory of Thomas Becket in the chancel, is most moving.

I must also highly recommend two further, striking places to visit: the English Heritage-owned Abbey of Saint Augustine on the East side of the city – an extensive site of ecclesiastical ruins to wander and explore; and the Roman Museum. Although its entrance down a cobbled side street is tiny and unassuming, the museum is actually deceptively large, spread out as it is in the basement. It offers a range of fascinating artefacts to view – such as an amazingly complete and rare helmet and carpenters’ and builders’ tools, including a trowel, shovel and set square as recognisable as those you’d see in Axminster Tools – and concludes with a set of corridors complete with mosaics; unmoved (except by the warping of the ground) and thus exactly as they were laid out in someone’s house in the first century AD, complete with hypocaust, visible in the previous room.

Other attractions include the absorbing and rather charming Eastbridge Hospital, the ancient (and multi-functional) Castle which guards the city walls, the walls themselves (around which one may walk), and The Canterbury Tales – the latter more aimed at children and tourists, rather than the cultural visitor. A mixture of wax figures, historical re-enactors, mechanical figures and film, sound and light effects, it presents several of the more famous of the tales in an amusing and light-weight manner. I don’t know if I was the more offended, or the guide (clearly expecting a blank look from me) was the more nonplussed when, having been asked if I’d heard of Thomas Becket and what it was, then, that I knew about him, I proceeded to launch into a lecture on the life of the former Archbishop of Canterbury and his treatment in literature since….

With a variety of other museums, galleries and attractions on offer as well, it’s worth viewing the Visit Kent website (www.visitkent.co.uk) to enable one to fully plan one’s trip – but if you’re at the south end of town, after visiting the castle, Eastbridge Hospital or The Canterbury Tales, do treat yourself to lunch at The Ambrette, a highly impressive and polished Indian restaurant with the most superb food, and an extremely pleasant place to while away a lunchtime.

The Ambrette
The Ambrette

One enters into a spacious room, which immediately gives the impression of feeling clean and uncluttered; a large area by the front door has been kept clear to help maintain this sense. The floor throughout is wooden, and here it is decorated with rather beautiful tiles set into the wood. The walls have tongue and groove panelling painted in duck egg blue, with bold and vibrant floral and seed wallpaper in dark green, reds and golds on a few sections of the wall. There is some booth seating; the rest of the seating – including on a mezzanine floor by the window – is at handsome wooden tables with old fashioned, nicely carved wooden chairs. A long dark wood bar runs along one wall, with numerous old tobacconists drawers inset behind (a lovely, traditional touch); this bar area also exceptionally clean and uncluttered. The service is more smart and professional than warm and friendly – from the English chaps at least, as the Indians are more friendly whilst being at the same time no less smart and professional; baby Tristan was welcomed and immediately befriended by one of the Indian waitresses. Tables are left bare but with water glasses, wine glasses, and a selection of cutlery tucked into a pristine linen napkin. With gentle saxophone jazzy music (not particularly inspiring, but an awful lot better than the dreadful noise in most restaurants), the general atmosphere is relaxed, making for unpretentious, yet nevertheless smart dining with traditional values.

The lunch menu is short – just five starters and main courses and four desserts, but all of these are interesting and unusual – a combination of local Kentish ingredients, traditional dishes and an intriguing Indian twist. The wine list is also good, but doesn’t indicate countries, which I found rather disorientating. There is a smallish but good range of reds, whites, roses and sparkling – I went for a glass of the Auction House Shiraz, which was served at the perfect temperature. It started out tasting a little bland but grew in flavour with the meal, seeming to react and intensify with the slight spiciness of the dishes. The nose was of black berry fruits and leather and tar – quite black; the colour was dark also and the taste of blackberries but with hints of red fruits too – raspberries and cherries. A creamy wine and very dry (the dryness imparting tones of ash even); it worked extremely well with this type of cuisine and had clearly been carefully auditioned for its place on the list.

Amuse bouches of lentil dumplings soon appeared. These were gently spicy, with an absolutely perfect amount of heat, giving the dish a little kick but not burning the mouth. With a lovely crunchy exterior and crumbly interior, these were really delicious; and an excellent start to the meal.

I began the meal itself with the poussin, served coated in spices on a bed of mango chutney, which worked well to temper said spices. Alongside the slices of poussin breast were a chicken ballotine and a type of chicken mousse with crunchy nuts adding an extra textural dimension and saffron colouring it yellow and adding its subtle but distinctive flavour. All three morsels were interesting, flavoursome and worked well together, making an excellent dish all round.

A lentil, ginger and lemon soup served in a porcelain teacup followed as a palate-cleanser (who could ever wish for sorbet after trying this?) – a gorgeously hot, creamy, spicy soup that I had to fight over with Tristan, who, when I offered him a tiny taste, attempted to gulp the whole cup down with relish!

I opted for the lamb pie for my main course (a good choice). This was based on the traditional shepherd’s pie, yet with the mince meat flavoured with singing spices, a thin layer of mashed potato on top, and mango chutney above that. The meat was quite dark tasting and salty – the chanteney carrots provided a burst of intense sweetness which was the perfect foil for the saltiness of the mince – as were also the other two accompaniments provided – sweet, fresh white bread and steamed rice – the latter quite bland with, again, a touch of sweetness. I was extremely impressed by what was clearly a well-thought-through dish, with all elements very closely considered in terms of flavour, texture and how well they complement each other. On its own, the lamb would have been too salty, or the carrots, rice or bread far too sweet, but the combinations offered insights into the chemistry of cuisine that were nothing short of revelatory.

The desserts presented me with choice dilemmas as all sounded rather wonderful but in the end I was unable to resist the lure of the intriguing chocolate samosas, which I accompanied with a glass of montbazzilac. This was more lemon than golden in colour, with a nose of grapefruit and light honey; it rather tasted of the nectar of flowers – floral, sweet and light, yet with a tart citrus bite at the finish. The samosas presented crunchy pastry filled with a hot chocolate sauce. Personally, I would have preferred a lighter pastry (as this was fairly heavy and dense) and an even darker chocolate to intensify the richness – yet it was nevertheless very good. The samosas were accompanied by tea and cardamom jelly which was wonderful – rich, creamy and intensely cardamom-y, and chocolate ice-cream. Normally chocolate ice cream wouldn’t tempt me, but this was full of the flavours of orange and ginger – absolutely delicious. Needless to say, it went down well all too well with Tristan!

By the end of the meal I felt relaxed, happy and extremely well- (but, importantly, not over-) fed, and with the excitement of having experienced a culinary adventure. There was very little indeed that I could fault in what was overall a superb dining experience; and one that I recommend to anyone with the treat of a visit to Canterbury lined up.

Em Marshall-Luck is QR’s restaurant and wine critic

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Barack Obama misunderstands Islam

Posted on February 22, 2015 by leslie
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Barack Obama misunderstands Islam

Ilana Mercer makes the case

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is not Islamic, announced Barack Obama, during a White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (with an emphasis on violence inspired by the Judeo-Christian tradition). “They [ISIS] are not religious leaders, they are terrorists,” he asserted—an assertion that begs the question, as it assumes that a terrorist cannot be a religious leader as well.

President Obama further ventured that when we call them “Islamic,” we grant ISIS the “legitimacy” for which they thirst, for they are “desperate to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam.” Yet another non sequitur: Christening the group Islamic or not is unlikely to change that its members and a good many Muslims across the Ummah regard ISIS as thoroughbred Islamic.

What else did Obama—who espouses Christianity—proclaim in the name of the ISIS Islamic eschatology? Obama claimed that ISIS has “perverted the religion [of Islam]” and that it is peddling a “twisted ideology used to incite others to violence.”

“Weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate,” warns Graeme Wood, editor at The Atlantic, is something Western officials would probably do best to avoid. “When he claim[s] that the Islamic State [is] ‘not Islamic,’” Obama, in fact, has “drifted into takfir waters,” explains Wood, for “non-Muslims cannot tell Muslims how to practice their religion properly.”

“In Islam, the practice of takfir, or excommunication, is theologically perilous,” cautions Wood, in a seminal exposé on the Islamic State entitled “What ISIS Really Wants.” “If a man says to his brother, ‘You are an infidel,’ the Prophet said, ‘then one of them is right.’ If the accuser is wrong, he himself has committed apostasy by making a false accusation. The punishment for apostasy is death.”

The theologically and existentially perilous practice of takfir, notwithstanding, Obama is incorrect about ISIS being antagonistic to Islam. Wood portrays “the group [that] seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom,” as Islamic as the Prophet Muhammad of the later, Medina period. He decries as “dishonest” the “campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature” and that it is indeed following “specific traditions and texts of early Islam.” “The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. … the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.”

“Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, ‘the Prophetic methodology,’ which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail.”

“We can gather that [the caliphate state] rejects peace as a matter of principle; … that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.”

And he has it on good authority. While Obama was offering up nostrums to the nation, Graeme Wood was speaking to leading authorities, among them “Bernard Haykel, the foremost secular authority on the Islamic State’s ideology.” This Princeton scholar “regards the claim that the Islamic State has distorted the texts of Islam as preposterous, sustainable only through willful ignorance.”

“People want to absolve Islam,” he told Wood. “It’s this ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ mantra. As if there is such a thing as ‘Islam’! It’s what Muslims do, and how they interpret their texts.’ Those texts are shared by all Sunni Muslims, not just the Islamic State. ‘And these guys have just as much legitimacy as anyone else.’”

Wood explains:

“In Haykel’s estimation, the fighters of the Islamic State are authentic throwbacks to early Islam and are faithfully reproducing its norms of war. This behavior includes a number of practices that modern Muslims tend to prefer not to acknowledge as integral to their sacred texts. ‘Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition,’ Haykel said. Islamic State fighters ‘are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.’ … Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically … ‘embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion’ that neglects ‘what their religion has historically and legally required.’ Many denials of the Islamic State’s religious nature, [says Haykel], are rooted in an ‘interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition’.”

Widely quoted in Wood’s ISIS exposé, Haykel takes a position not dissimilar to that of “the greatest theologian alive,” my appellation for Pope Benedict XVI. It is this: “The only principled ground that the Islamic State’s opponents could take” to justify their belief that ISIS is un-Islamic “is to say that certain core texts and traditional teachings of Islam are no longer valid. [And] That really would be an act of apostasy.”

Which is precisely what Obama persists in doing.

Until the Islamic reformation is codified, those in the know—know-nothing Obama is not among them—will look upon the Islamic State as a religious, literalist, millenarian, apocalyptic group that is as Islamic as the Prophet and his band of belligerents during the Medina years.

ILANA MERCER is a paleolibertarian writer based in the United States. She pens WND’s longest-standing column, “Return to Reason” and is a Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. She is a Quarterly Review Contributing Editor. Ilana’s latest book is Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa. Her website is www.IlanaMercer.com. She blogs at www.barelyablog.com

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Inside Putin’s Russia

Posted on February 21, 2015 by leslie
Arkona - Russian pagan metal band

Arkona – Russian pagan metal band 

Inside Putin’s Russia

Frank Ellis reviews a timely but one-sided account

Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia, Faber & Faber, London, 2015, ISBN 978-0-571-30801-9

Unlike Anne Applebaum, who is cited on the rear cover and describes this book as ‘electrifying’ and ‘terrifying’ and Tina Brown, the glossy-mag queen, telling the world that Pomerantsev’s book was ‘a riveting portrait of the new Russia’ and that she ‘couldn’t put it down’, I was not entirely overwhelmed. Bits of interest and humour there are but much of what Pomerantsev has to say could have been condensed into a short article. For reasons which are not clear to this reviewer the title of what I shall assume is the same book in terms of content but published in the US is given as Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia. In view of the fact that language and media manipulation is one of the main charges of which Pomerantsev accuses the Putin establishment, two different titles for the same content strikes me as an example – albeit minor – of the very same thing. The first part of the book title is also irritating. It may be intended as some deliberate marketing contradiction to grab attention but if nothing is true why should I believe anything Pomerantsev or his interviewees have to say, and is the statement that “nothing is true” itself true or is it a lie?

A central theme in Nothing is True is the grotesque behaviour of exceptionally wealthy Russians and gangsters. Now the grotesque is also a major theme in Russian literature, found, for example, in the works of Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls, 1842 & The Overcoat,1842), Fedor Dostoevsky (The Double, 1846, Notes from Underground, 1864, The Devils, 1871-1872) and in the twentieth century, in the works of Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita, 1966-1967), the magnificent Vladimir Voinovich (The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin, 1975 & Monumental Propaganda, 2001), Andrei Platonov (The Foundation Pit, 1987) and Viktor Pelevin (Life of Insects, 1993 & Chapaev and the Void, 1996). References to some of these works would have provided the freakery of modern Russia with a definite historical-cultural context, since the appearance of quacks, extremist politicians, pseudo-Russian Orthodox fruitcakes, false pretenders, born-again holy fools, political fixers, pious Hell’s Angels with a mission to save Russia from Satanic, Western influences, Stalin worshippers and drop-dead gorgeous girls determined to get their hands on – or more accurately to get their legs and lips around – some super rich sugar daddy (known either as a Forbes or a sponsor) are what to expect in Russia. Mother Russia, God bless her, has no shortage of head cases. There is never a dull moment, unlike Sweden where the trees are known to perish from boredom.

Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky

The lack of detailed literary references in Nothing is True is important for another reason and one peculiar to Russia. In Tsarist Russia the writer was the voice of a largely silent majority; in Soviet Russia he was co-opted to be a socialist-realist engineer of human souls, extolling the Soviet state. In First Circle (1968), one of Solzhenitsyn’s characters, the soon-to-be arrested Volodin, tells a Soviet hack that a great writer is like having a second government. So any author that deals with the Russian media as it has developed for better or for worse since the mid-1980s must consider whether television and its anti-culture of toxic celebrity have now finally supplanted the writer as the cultural oracle. If this has happened in Russia or shows all the signs of accelerated transition, this represents a major cultural shift. These days would Russians read a Solzhenitsyn or Grossman or do they permit themselves to be hypnotised by talking heads?

Russians would certainly be entertained by How to Marry a Millionaire: A Gold-Digger’s Guide. The title of this Russian series speaks for itself. Girls are taught how to get their man or parts of him at any rate, and one of the hot tips given to them is that they should squeeze their vaginas tight, so as, apparently, to dilate their pupils and make themselves look more attractive.[i] When the girls want something from a Forbes they must follow the advice: look, nod and stroke.

There is something unsettling about the fate of these girls, especially the models. Two days before her twenty-first birthday, Ruslana Korshunova, committed suicide. Her name matches her beauty: Ruslana is a nod in the direction of Pushkin and Korshunova suggests the Russian word korshun, the kite, the bird of prey, a hint of freedom that was never hers, and unfortunately she was the prey. The most likely thing that prompted her to kill herself was that she fell into the clutches of an organisation, a cult, called Rose of the World. This organisation, messed with her head, to put it mildly, and it got too much for her, poor girl. Pomerantsev quite rightly calls these girls ‘the lost girls’. Despite all the international travel, the glamour and money, they lead a wretched existence: lonely, vulnerable and exploited by unscrupulous men and women. No wonder that so many commit suicide or suffer from extreme depression.

As far as Pomerantsev is concerned, post-Soviet Russia is a giant propaganda state in which the mass media in all their forms are controlled by the Kremlin. Thus, according to Pomerantsev, Ostankino is ‘the battering ram of Kremlin propaganda’.[ii] If, as Pomerantsev asserts, the task of Ostankino is to blend ‘Soviet control with Western entertainment’[iii] then perhaps Pomerantsev should explain the essential difference between Russian television and the degenerate prolefeed catering for semi-literate Western audiences in, say, the US and Britain.

Pomerantsev is also highly critical of Russia Today (RT), since, according to him, RT uses Westerners as a front for the Kremlin: ‘It took’, he says, ‘a while for those working at RT to sense something was not quite right, that “the Russian point of view” could easily mean the “Kremlin point of view”, and that “there is no such thing as objective reporting” meant the Kremlin had complete control over the truth’.[iv] Pomerantsev has obviously not been following the way the BBC has mutated into an aggressive, Goebbels-style propaganda organisation on behalf of the EU, multiculturalism, feminism and uncontrolled immigration, using its reach to attack and to vilify any person or organisation that opposes the sacred causes of the Neo-Marxist left. It seems to me that the growth and reach of Russia Today is a very good thing and some of its coverage of the Islamification of the West and the dire threat posed by mass immigration is what makes it so popular. Russia Today broadcasts topics that the BBC censors, distorts or passes over in silence because the overpaid BBC programmers are themselves terrified of, and hate, ‘objective reality’. The success of RT in challenging the US government’s propaganda machine also arouses visceral and real fear and loathing among US media controllers. This is evident from the fact that Andrew Lack, the head of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, classifies Russia Today as ‘a major challenge’ along with IS and Boko Haram. Citing RT in the same breath as terrorist groups – the BBC refers to the delightful creatures of IS and Boko Haram as ‘militants’ – is no accident but a calculated attempt to smear a legitimate and highly effective media outlet (hence the smear) and to imply that the Russian Federation itself is a terrorist state or that it sponsors terrorism.

Russia, claims Pomerantsev, is not ‘a country in transition but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends’.[v] Really? Is this unique to Russia? Pomerantsev bemoans the influence of Vladislav Surkov, a so-called political technologist, essentially a propagandist, whose modus operandi is described as exploiting ‘democratic rhetoric’ but having ‘undemocratic intent’.[vi] This is all well and good but what is the difference between the media lying and manipulation encouraged and pursued by the Blair regime and actively continued and pursued by Cameron, never mind the agitprop spewed out by US TV channels and US government agencies?

The dictatorship of laws, decrees and statutes in Russia is not the same thing as the Rule of Law and Russia has a long way to go before it can be considered to be a state under the Rule of Law. However, it must be made quite clear that what was identified as the Rule of Law by Dicey in the nineteenth century and which emerged from a small island population may not be at all suitable for a state the size of Russia and especially one which has no long tradition of private property rights. Western ideas of the Rule of Law and liberal democracy, essentially English, can grow and develop over time, but they cannot be imposed. Disastrous wars and their aftermath in Iraq and Afghanistan confirm this point.

There are some interesting errors and omissions in Nothing is True. At the start of his book Pomerantsev claims that Russia has 9 time zones. 2 of the 11 zones were indeed eliminated in March 2010. However, this regime was abolished in October 2014, another 2 zones being created so taking the total back to 11. Another error concerns the transliteration and translation of the title of a major Soviet propaganda exhibition. Pomerantsev refers to the All-Russian Exhibition Centre (VDNH). It is in fact VDNKh – Vystavka dostizhenii narodnogo khoziastva – Exhibition of the Achievements of the National/People’s Economy. A more serious error or rather omission is that Pomerantsev bypasses completely the murders of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent, and

Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist. Both were murdered in 2006. It is one thing for the Kremlin to create its own version of the world according to Putin, the BBC and the US media provide much the same sort of service for their government masters, but it is another matter entirely when journalists are murdered in Moscow. Pomerantsev goes into great detail about the presence of wealthy Russians in London, relating the account of the court confrontation between Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, yet omits to raise the altogether far more serious matter of Litvinenko’s murder in London. Judging from his account Pomerantsev was in Moscow when Politkovskaya was murdered. Having been part of the Russian media establishment – and which, now back in London and getting chummy with the BBC, he attacks – he would have picked up all kinds of interesting rumours. Yet there is nothing from Pomerantsev. Why the silence? This is a general flaw since Pomerantsev’s coverage of the endemic gangsterism in Russia is also far too superficial, even flattering, whereas David Satter’s, Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (2003), is a brutally objective assessment and remains essential reading.

Pomerantsev’s presentation of the mass media in the Russian Federation does convey an impression of the surreal and absurd but one should not be fooled. Media control pursued by the Putin government is part of a two-fold riposte to what Russia’s leaders see, correctly in my view, as an aggressive US/EU-sponsored information war against Russia. The origins of this policy go back to the Doktrina Informatsionnoi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii (The Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation) that was signed in to law by President Putin in 2000. The first element in this response is defensive. Hostile foreign influences in Russia cannot be totally excluded but the primacy of the Russian government’s interests can be asserted. The second element is aggressive and involves the promotion and projection of Russian interests and power. A major forum for this policy is Russia Today. The reason that Russia Today makes so much of the failure of Western politicians to counter the extreme dangers of Islam and the anti-white ideology of multiculturalism is because RT executives know full well that US and British media outlets actively and ruthlessly suppress (censor) the truth and thus provide RT with an opportunity to champion the truth and to expose Western mendacity and hypocrisy. During the Cold War Russians listened to Western radio – Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the BBC and Deutsche Welle – to find out what was happening. These days, Westerners who see through the organised Orwellian lying of their national governments, their corrupt state media agencies and the quasi-fascist European Union are far more likely to get an accurate account from the former Cold-War enemy. History is indeed a cunning old bastard.

© Frank Ellis, 2015

Frank Ellis is an historian and the author of The Stalingrad Cauldron (2013). His new book, entitled Barbarossa: Sunday 22nd June 1941, will be published later this year

ENDNOTES

[i] Nothing is True, p.15

[ii] Nothing is True, p.6

[iii] Nothing is True, p.7

[iv] Nothing is True, p.56

[v] Nothing is True, p.50

[vi] Nothing is True, p.77

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Weber’s Epigone

Posted on February 20, 2015 by leslie
Max Weber 1894

Max Weber 1894

Weber’s Epigone 

Bill Hartley considers a curious contention

Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism, Benedikt Koehler, Lexington Books, London 2014, 212pps

 The Prophet Muhammad was a businessman and entrepreneur. This is one of the many interesting facts revealed in Benedikt Koehler’s book. Indeed, Koehler has the Prophet fully immersed in the business world of his era before spiritual matters took precedence. In addition to this he tells us that early Islam created a single market, encouraged entrepreneurship, promoted the property rights of women, religious minorities and foreigners. According to the author, the Islamic world was the creator of financial instruments that we take for granted today, such as charitable trusts and tax exemptions. To the 21st century reader it begs the question; when did it all start to go wrong?

Apropos capitalism, Koehler emphasises the comparative economic under development of Europe. He also suggests that because there was no literature of consequence on economics bequeathed by Rome nothing much was happening there either. However one can infer a great deal about economic activity in the Roman Empire from a study of its legal system. Roman contract law was very sophisticated suggesting that it had evolved to underpin and regulate business activity.

These caveats aside, Early Islam does cast light on the commercial life of Arabia during this period and reveals a sophisticated civilisation which had been trading with the wider world long before Muhammad’s birth in 570.

The book is at its best when Koehler considers how the geographical position of Arabia allowed it to trade with China and across the Peninsula to Byzantium and the Levant. Particularly interesting are the short sketches covering trade with Italian city states such as Venice and other maritime republics plus the use of the commenda or convoy system for speculators to fund and equip ships in profit sharing enterprises. These were essentially a maritime version of the camel trains which moved in and out of Mecca.

Yet ultimately I was unconvinced that early Islam was the originator of many of the commercial devices familiar to us today and I suspect that those with a knowledge of Ancient Rome and Egypt could make similar claims. Human ingenuity being what it is there was an obvious incentive to find ways of making commerce easier. The presence of a legal system to help regulate trade is as powerful an indicator as writings on economics.

The characterisation of Muhammad as a businessman begins to unravel when the book moves seamlessly into a description of his ability to run successful raiding parties. The author may seek to add a veneer of commercial respectability to this sort of activity with terms such as ‘managing logistics’ and ‘setting incentives’ but I believe the correct term is somewhat different. On the same subject, ‘performance related payments’ equates to dividing up the loot.

Two final criticisms – an aspect of the book which definitely did jar was the author’s use of modern business language. Terminology changes rapidly in the corporate world and what seems fresh and immediate now may soon become hopelessly dated. Most economic historians accordingly avoid using the latest business terms. Finally there was scarcely any mention of the slave trade, which I believe was an Arabian “niche activity”, as we would say today.

William Hartley is a freelance writer from Yorkshire

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Truth – that’s so yesterday

Posted on February 14, 2015 by leslie

fallen angel

Truth – that’s so yesterday

Ilana Mercer considers celebrity journalism

Facts are a journalist’s stock-in-trade. He cannot be cavalier about the truth. Nevertheless, Brian Williams, the suspended iconic managing editor and anchor of NBC Nightly News, embellished liberally about events he covered in the course of a limelight-seeking career.

As it transpires, Williams’ helicopter did not come under enemy fire in Iraq, in the early days of the war. Nor did his Ritz-Carlton hotel take on water during Hurricane Katrina, in 2005. The body he “witnessed” floating by that establishment would have had to be floating in a few inches of rain, the precipitation in the French Quarter. Neither did gangs “overrun” the Ritz-Carlton, nor dysentery afflict its guest, despite the story the intrepid Williams disgorged to the contrary.

The public has yet to receive a full accounting of Brian Williams’ journalistic transgressions, but the press is already riffing on the merits of Christian forgiveness. Who said Christianity isn’t invoked, occasionally, in the service of the progressive project?

A USA Today journalist minimized the gravity of Williams’ fibs. “Journalists have been known to occasionally exaggerate their exploits. … Williams’ seemingly genial personality and likability could work in his favor,” he noodled. Another USA Today reporter, exposed by Newsbusters, attempted to coat Williams’ self-serving fables with a scientific patina, by invoking Elizabeth Loftus’ research into the amalgam of influences that make-up “false memories.” Democrat Clintonite Lanny Davis echoed the “false memories” meme.

Others in the “trade” proclaimed to be “rooting for Williams.” “There is no glee in watching a titan of journalism fall.” “A good person who made a big mistake,” vaporized Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. “I come not to praise Brian Williams, nor to bury him,” equivocated another. And it was boilerplate David Brooks to write as though with himself in mind (along the lines of, “What if the Williams fate befalls me?”). Prematurely, the New York Times’ neoconservative-cum-liberal columnist demanded forgiveness on behalf of Williams.

In mitigation—there’s been a great deal of that—Williams told tall tales not about the news, but about his imagined role in the dramas he covered. From the ethical perspective, Brian Williams’ reportage is not really tarnished by this petty self-aggrandizement; his character is.

Not for nothing have his colleagues, left and right, formed a protective barricade around Williams. With few exceptions, the media-complex within which Gilded Ones like Williams slither so effortlessly is mired in corruption—the kind this scribe did not encounter in the structurally more conservative Canadian industry. It is anathema in Europe too, I am told.

Conflict of interest is at every turn. Major anchors—the gifted and gorgeous Megyn Kelly too, sadly—beaver at sculpting a celebrity persona. They hangout on late-night shows. They hobnob with the hosts to curry favor with them, “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central being their professional Shangri-La.

Over and over again do the celebrity journos, then, relive their moments of glory with their own fans, holding out hope for the next invitation. Lovingly—self-love being the operative word—do they track their media appearances from their respective network seats. The better-looking flaunt their assets over fashion spreads in high-gloss magazines.

Almost all—your favorite opinionators, too—attend the annual Sycophant’s Supper, where they cozy up to Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé Knowles. (Kudos to the few, such as former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, who’ve excoriated the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or who’ve refused to attend, irrespective of the political affiliation of the man ensconced in the White House.)

The annual White House Sycophants’ Dinner is where the most pretentious people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—convene to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us in Rome’s provinces.

Those gathered at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or its Christmas party, are not the country’s natural aristocracy, but its authentic Idiocracy. The events and the invited say a great deal about the press, its ethics and code of conduct.

Like nothing else, the Sycophant’s Supper is a mark of a corrupt politics and press, as the un-watchful dogs of the media have no business frolicking with the president and his minions. This co-optation, however, is the hallmark of the celebrity press, in general. The days following these glitzy events, the Gilded Ones spend genuflecting to … themselves.

What else? Celebrity journalists marry their sources and hop right back into their roles as reporters. Their colleagues in this circle jerk are none the wiser. Examples: CNN and ABC’s Claire Shipman who wed Obama press secretary Jay Carney. Campbell Brown, formerly of CNN, is hitched to Romney adviser Dan Senor. “Meet the Press’” Chuck Todd is married to and gives an occasional shout-out to Democratic strategist Kristian Denny Todd.

The presstitutes straddle the fleshpots of D.C. with the skill of a Department of Justice that bestrides the roles of defender in court of the Infernal Revenue Service, as well as the agency charged with investigating the tax collector. All of them ride us like the asses we are.

No better than the lobbyists and the politicians they petition, the presstitutes move seamlessly between their roles as activists, experts and anchors; publishers and authors; talkers and product peddlers; pinups and pontificators.

To wit, former White House press secretary Dana Perino is also editorial director of Crown Forum, the country’s foremost “conservative” print, where she supervises the further “Closing of the American Mind,” to use Allan Bloom’s famous title.

Oblivious to a conflict of interest, Megyn Kelly promotes husband Douglas Brunt’s books from her perch at Fox News. In the same vein, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin entertained Cousin Sgt. Charlie Mink as her self-styled expert on prisoner interrogation in Iraq. On the same network, Suzette Malveaux (law professor) is legal expert of choice to Suzanne Malveaux (anchor). The two are twin sisters.

The list of professional incest is long.

Vanity, not veracity; narcissism, not integrity: these are the tools of the trade among America’s celebrity journalists.

Now please lead me to the Vomitorium.

ILANA MERCER is a paleolibertarian writer based in the United States. She pens WND’s longest-standing column, “Return to Reason” and is a Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. She is a Quarterly Review Contributing Editor. Ilana’s latest book is Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa. Her website is www.IlanaMercer.com. She blogs at www.barelyablog.com

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A very British hero

Posted on February 9, 2015 by leslie
Alan Turing aged 16

Alan Turing aged 16

A very British hero

Robert Henderson’s take on the Turing biopic

The Imitation Game

 Main Cast:

Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing

Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke

Matthew Goode as Hugh Alexander

Mark Strong as Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies

Charles Dance as Cdr. Alastair Denniston

Allen Leech as John Cairncross

Matthew Beard as Peter Hilton

Rory Kinnear as Detective Nock

Alex Lawther as Young Turing

Jack Bannon as Christopher Morcom

Director: Morten Tyldum

Like the recent Mr Turner, this is a flawed film, which is worth seeing only because of the performance of the central character, in this case Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of the English mathematician, pioneering computer theorist and code breaker Alan Turing. Moreover, it is worth seeing not because it represented Turing’s personality and life faithfully, but because the character on the screen was an eminently watchable antisocial monster, who generated both humour and pathos because he was unaware of his psychological deformity.

The main action takes place during Turing’s time at the World War 2 Bletchley Park code breaking unit, topped and tailed by flashbacks to his schooldays at Sherborne where he forms an infatuation for a boy called Christopher Morcom who dies in his teens and flash-forwards to his arrest and prosecution for indecency. The schooldays and police scenes add little to the film, indeed could be said to get in the way of Cumberbatch’s portrayal of a man breaking all the social rules not on purpose but simply because he does not understand how the game is played.

There is a good deal of humour in the film, most of it resulting from Turing’s supposed extreme antisocial personality traits. This begins early on, when he meets the head of Bletchley Park Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance). Turing is his usual socially dysfunctional self. After a few minutes Denniston looks at Turing’s CV and says sardonically, “Ah, you’re a mathematician. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” Turing replies without a shred of awareness at his literal mindedness,  “Because you just read it on that paper?” he ventures pointing at the CV in Dance’s hand. The look on Dance’s face is priceless.

One of the most telling and saddest scenes in the film is where Turing tells a joke. He tells it awkwardly which is doubly poignant, because of his extraordinarily clumsy reaching out for normal human interaction and because the nature of the joke is such that it is easy to see why it would have been accessible to a mind like his, which would generally have great difficulty in understanding jokes because of his lack of psychological awareness. The joke is this. Two men are out in the wild and a bear spots them. One of the two starts putting on his shoes while the other says in amazement what on earth on are you doing that for, you will never outrun the bear? I don’t have to, replies the other; I only have to outrun you. The joke suits the onscreen Turing because it presents him with a binary choice: two men, one bear equals only one person caught and eaten and requires absolutely no psychological insight.

But entertaining as these aspects of the film are there is the problem of veracity. The primary difficulty is the character of Turing. A certain emphasising of character traits is legitimate as a dramatic device, but there is always the danger that the emphasis will become so exaggerated that the essence of a person is lost. I suspect that is what happened here. The film represents him as having a startling directness, which could be hideously rude, literal mindedness, childlike egotism and manic single-mindedness. Whether Turing’s antisocial tendencies were so pronounced is dubious. He was certainly not the easiest person to get along with, for example, his habit of wanting to be hands-on with machinery – he was never happier than when he had a soldering iron or a pair of wire-cutters in his hands  – regularly drove engineers mad as he fiddled with what they made or set up. He was also undeniably single-minded when he was working on an intellectual task. Nor did he have a deeply rooted social life, which suggests introspection. There was also his excruciatingly annoying high-pitched laugh, a behavioural trick the film surprisingly fails to utilise. However, none of that adds up to someone with whom it was utterly impossible to work. The Turing of the film would have been desperately difficult to tolerate at the personal level and very disruptive of work such the code-breaking because it requires intense concentration and the exclusion of distractions.  The Turing of the film is a past master at creating emotional chaos.

The misrepresentation of reality does not stop there. The film is essentially a biopic and as so often with such films the director and screenplay writer take very large liberties with the truth. A few important examples:  there is no evidence that Turing ever had much if anything to do with Stewart Menzies, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (Mark Strong), but there’s was a relationship of some importance to the film. Turing is also shown working with closely the traitor John Cairncross, discovering Cairncross’ treason and Cairncross gaining Turing’s silence about his treason for some time by blackmailing Turing over his sexuality. There is also no evidence for this. The mathematician Joan Clarke is shown as meeting Turing for the first time when she answers a newspaper advert Turing has placed asking for people who were good at crosswords to attend an assessment interview where they are asked to do the Times crossword in eight minutes. In the film Clarke does it quickest in six minutes. The reality is that Clarke was recruited to Bletchley by her old Cambridge academic supervisor, Gordon Welchman. The casting of the very attractive Keira Knightly as Clarke, who was something of a plain Jane, is also problematic, because it alters the relationship between Clarke and Turing in the viewer’s mind.  One of the code-breakers in the film Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard) is shown distraught when a German message is decoded and shows a convoy on which Hilton’s brother is travelling to be the target of coming U-Boat action. Turing argues that the message must not be used to warn the convoy for fear of alerting the Germans to the fact that the code had been broken. In reality, Hilton had no such brother. There is also the general point that perhaps Turing was given too much prominence with contributions by others at Bletchley underplayed or ignored completely, for example, the Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers who designed  ‘Colossus’  – the world’s first programmable computer.

Does all of this matter? It depends whether the viewer treats the film as a biopic/historical drama, a fictional thriller or merely as a vehicle to display, whether accurate or not, the character of Turing. As a biopic or historical drama it is difficult to treat it seriously because of the liberties taken with facts. As a thriller it never really takes off, not least because we know the ending and little is made of Cairncross’ treason.  As a vehicle for an arresting realisation of a complex, highly unusual and fascinating character it succeeds. It might even be described as a good if bizarre comedy of manners.

The actual work at Bletchley was by its nature difficult for the film to make much of as drama both because the work is esoteric and because a main thrust of the film was to show Turing’s intelligence. Portraying an educated intelligence is one of the most difficult things in acting because simply having a character spout a few academic facts or theories seems trivial to those who understand the subject at which the intelligence is directed and meaningless mumbo-jumbo to the majority who come to the subject cold. (Because of this the Eureka! moments in the film when breakthroughs were made clanked in a decidedly forced manner). The quality of intelligence needs to be shown in the quickness and certainty of a character. Amongst modern British actors Ralph Fiennes and Cumberbatch are probably the best exponents because both have a donnish look and manner about them. Here Cumberbatch’s natural reserve also played to the isolated and distracted nature of the character. The rest of the cast are, as one would expect from an ensemble of British actors, all good insofar as their roles allow. But they are all, even Keira Knightly as Joan Clarke, utterly dwarfed by Cumberbatch. They simply do not have much chance than to be rather one-dimensional, although Charles Dance splenetic Commander Denniston is an amusing turn and Mark Strong is his usual satisfyingly sinister self.

Importantly the film does not spend an inordinate amount of time focused on Turing’s homosexuality. It would have been very easy to make a film which was a piece of politically correct propaganda, full of angst about the treatment Turing received after being charged with gross indecency with a total disregard for the context of the time when this occurred. But to make such a film would have been to greatly diminish Turing as a person, because what was really important about him was not his sexuality but his great intellect and the use he made of it. However, the film did mistakenly try to show Turing as suffering from a loss of intellectual power when Clarke visited him after his conviction for indecency. (Again, there is no evidence for this event). The film implied that the diminished intellect was due to the hormonal treatment Turing had agreed to rather than go to prison. In fact, Turing retained his mental powers right up to his death, publishing an important paper on biological mathematics The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis in 1952.

To read of Turing’s immense and broad ranging intellectual achievement, which covered mathematics, computing, code-breaking and biological-related mathematics is to inevitably think of the loss resulting from his death, but the fact that he was prosecuted despite having like Othello  “done the state some service” is reassuring because it shows no one was above the law.

ROBERT HENDERSON is QR’s Film Critic

Posted in QR Home | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment