A beautifully written and incisive article.
The trouble is that neither the Egyptians nor the Saudis seem interested in making Barack Obama’s life any easier these days. Both countries bitterly resented his support for the Morsi government, and the ineffectiveness of his support deepened their contempt without dulling their anger. They do not trust him over Iran, Syria or Iraq, and they increasingly feel that they must organize the defense of the region without deferring to him. They may take a certain grim satisfaction in his discomfort if a Washington failure to broker a Gaza cease fire makes the Obama administration look weak.
Unhappily for the Obama administration, the best way for the U.S. to hasten the arrival of a durable cease fire in Gaza is to promise a more robust and hawkish policy in the rest of the region. The Israelis will be more willing to make concessions on a Gaza cease fire if they believe that the U.S. will back them more effectively against Iran, and the Saudis and Egyptians are more likely to give ground in Gaza if the U.S. offers real support in the rest of the region.
This is the opposite of the way much of the left and the press understands how the Middle East works, but the new Middle East is a more complicated place than it used to be. The battle between Sunni Arabs and Israelis is no longer the most important issue on the table for key Arab governments as well as for Israel. While that old conflict has not disappeared, it has been eclipsed by the new conflict between a resurgent Iran and the leading Sunni Arab states.
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The Gaza War - When Strategies Collide
July 25, 2014
Many wars are fought over accidents and misunderstandings. This is not one of those times. With key interests at stake, the conflict in Gaza is likely to continue.
As the politicians, pundits, and foreign policy panjandrums of the world Western world wring their hands over the chaos and carnage in Gaza, it’s worth noting that there are solid reasons why peace is proving so elusive. Both sides have reason to think they can pull off a significant victory in the current round of fighting, and neither side thinks it can live with the consequences of a defeat. Until something happens to change the thinking on one or both sides, a cease fire will be hard to achieve.
HOPES FOR A WIN
Israel continues to fight because it believes that with more time, it can destroy enough tunnels and inflict enough damage on Hamas to significantly degrade the organization’s military strength and weaken it politically. Furthermore, both Saudi Arabia and Egypt are, perhaps for the first time, quietly rooting for Israel to crush the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas. Given this, Israeli officials presumably think they have a golden opportunity for the extended and crushing war that they really need to inflict serious damage. Any war with the Palestinians involves political costs and setbacks for Israel, but at this particular moment, war in Gaza is less politically expensive than at other times. Given that Hamas is a significant and growing danger, Israeli leaders are likely to think, why not use the opportunity for all it is worth?
Hamas on the other hand is elated by its success in temporarily but significantly hampering operations at Ben Gurion Airport (arguably the most significant single Palestininan tactical accomplishment since the 1948 War). In addition its fighters have had unexpected success killing Israeli soldiers on the ground, and the Arab street is electrified by the conflict. The resulting publicity offers Hamas an opportunity to emerge from the isolation it faced after the overthrow of the Morsi government in Egypt. Since more Israeli progress on the ground will inevitably and tragically mean more civilian deaths, Hamas can also hope for big propaganda victories to offset any military setbacks that prolonged hostilities will bring. Hamas and its Turkish and Qatari allies can also hope that the longer the war lasts, the worse Egypt and Saudi Arabia will look. The Gaza war isn’t just a war between Israel and Hamas; it is a stage in the struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and its Arab opponents. The longer Hamas can bear up under Israel’s military pressure, the more success it has in the intra-Arab struggle.
The hope of victory is one reason the two sides keep fighting; both Israel and Hamas also believe that defeat would impose unacceptable costs.
ISRAELI FEARS
For Israel, there are three big reasons why losing is unacceptable. First, as a small country surrounded by enemies and facing hostile public opinion in the world at large, Israel’s security depends in large part on its reputation for military supremacy. That reputation, Israelis feel, deters many more attacks and keeps opposition passive and political rather than encouraging it to be active and military. This is an advantage that Israel will not lightly give up; hostilities are unlikely to end until and unless the Israelis feel they have made their point.
That motive is always present, but it became much more important after a rocket from Gaza caused a significant interruption in service from Ben Gurion Airport. People don’t travel much across Israel’s land frontiers; the airport is Israel’s vital link with the rest of the world. Hamas and anti-Israel forces everywhere were wildly elated by this success, and Israel’s enemies now think they can imagine a new strategy to drive the Jewish state to its knees by cutting it off from the outside world. Israeli defense officials likely feel that they must now do two things: eliminate the capacity of Hamas to repeat this attack, and make the consequences so wounding and expensive to Hamas as to reduce the attractiveness of repeat efforts. This new factor is a military game-changer, and it greatly raised the stakes of the conflict. (The biggest political mistake of the war so far? The American officials who banned U.S. flights from using the airport made a cease fire much harder to obtain.)
Second, there are specific political reasons why Israel is intent on hitting Hamas as hard as it can. Some of this is about Palestinian politics. Fatah may be corrupt, incompetent and in the eyes of many Palestinians fatally compromised by its willingness to compromise with Israel, but the more the ‘resistance’ path championed by Hamas looks like a historical dead end, the less Fatah’s flaws matter in the competition for Palestinian leadership.
But Israel is after much bigger game than Hamas in this war. Weakening Hamas isn’t just an Israeli project: Riyadh and Cairo are rooting for the Gazan terrorists to lose as well. This strange new band of brothers is Israel’s Plan B alliance in case the U.S. folds on Iran. The Saudis and their Egyptian allies also hate and fear Hezbollah; from an Israeli point of view a successful war against Hamas could be the first step in cooperative action against Hezbollah and, beyond it, Iran. Israel wants this war to go well because it could pave the way to more effective cooperation with the most populous and wealthiest of the Arab states.
It’s also worth noting, from the standpoint of very-long-term Israeli interests, that the willingness of the Saudis and Egyptians and their friends, even silently and tactically, to align with Israel is a promising sign that Israel may someday be accepted in the region. Israel has been given a chance to audition for the role of a tacit ally of the Sunni Arab world against both Sunni and Shia radicals; it doesn’t want to blow this chance and its desire to build its relations with neighboring Arab states may outweigh its concerns about annoying Europe or even the U.S.
The third big reason why Israel needs a win is the one that most of the press commentary focuses on: security. Hamas has developed a network of tunnels and a capacity to launch missiles against much of Israel. Israeli officials will want to see that capacity significantly degraded. From the Israeli point of view, the price of a war in Gaza is high, but the incremental political cost of a few more days of combat, could now be less than the benefits from substantial progress in dismantling tunnels, breaking up Hamas’ leadership and destroying its weapon and missile stockpiles.
Thus from an Israeli point of view, the costs of this particular war are lower than usual, thanks to the tacit Arab support from Hamas’ many Arab enemies, and the need for decisive military results is greater than usual. That would suggest that Israel is likely to want to continue fighting until either its goals are reached or it is clear that they cannot be within a manageable time frame or at an acceptable cost. That point doesn’t appear to have been reached yet.
THE STRATEGY OF HAMAS
Like Israel, Hamas’ war strategy seems to be guided by solid calculations about the organization’s vital interests, and the leadership appears to believe that this is a war that the movement can’t afford to lose.
The chief problem and the real enemy for Hamas is not, however, Israel. Israeli hostility is something Hamas understands and can deal with. The real problem for Hamas is the Saudi-backed Sisi government in Egypt. The current Egyptian government sees Hamas as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, and crushing the Muslim Brotherhood as thoroughly as possible is Egypt’s top priority these days. Egypt’s Saudi patrons feel the same way; the Muslim Brotherhood looks to the Saudis like a challenge to their claim to lead the forces of orthodox Sunnism—and Hamas in the past has been willing to ally itself with Saudi’s arch enemies in Syria and Iran.
The change in the status quo that led to war with Israel had nothing to do with Israel itself; what has happened is that Egypt has systematically intensified the blockade of Gaza, hoping to throttle Hamas, disrupt its support, and put enough economic pressure on Gaza to force Hamas from power.
For Hamas, the pre-war status quo was a death sentence, allowing Egypt to quietly strangle Gaza. The business networks dependent on smuggling were hurting, civil servants weren’t getting paid, and residents were increasingly unhappy with a lousy economy and no progress in sight. Hamas is a cornered animal striking out in desperation. A return to the status quo ante is not acceptable to Hamas, which feels it absolutely must gain some relief or it will go under.
There are reports of splits between the political and military leaders of Hamas in the run up to war, but it seems clear that whoever is now calling the shots in Gaza, so to speak, believes that Hamas is in a war for survival, and short of crushing defeat, Hamas is unlikely to accept a cease fire that restores the status quo ante.
Hamas wants a cease fire that will allow it to import enough goods into Gaza to keep the economy going and to allow it to rebuild its military stockpiles. If Israel and Hamas were the only two entities involved, this might not be so hard to arrange. They have had cease fires before, and while each hates the other and wants it destroyed, on a pragmatic, day by day basis, Israel and Hamas have managed to work things out for long periods of time.
The trouble is that it is hard for Hamas to force Egypt and Saudi Arabia to accept this deal. The Saudis and their allies are happy for Israel to pay the political price for a war against Hamas that they want the Jewish state to win. Meanwhile, it is Egypt that ultimately can decide on peace or war: when Egypt feels that Hamas has been weakened and punished enough that it’s OK to show it some mercy, then the balance of forces will shift and some kind of truce will become much easier to achieve.
Under the circumstances, Hamas’ strategy is a convoluted one: Hamas is trying to create such a hot crisis by staging a war with Israel that the U.S., Europe and an enraged Arab street will force Egypt and Saudi Arabia to give up their drive to starve Hamas out. That may yet work, but it is unlikely to work all that quickly. Neither Egypt nor the Saudis are particularly unhappy if Israel is getting bad press around the world; as far as they are concerned, if rampaging mobs burn every Israeli embassy in Europe, it is no skin off President Sisi’s nose.
This suggests that for Hamas as well as for Israel, the high price of a long (by Israeli-Palestinian standards) war may make sense. It will take time for the kind of political pressure to build that would lead Egypt to soften its blockade of Gaza; it’s hard to see a good reason (except for the obvious humanitarian one) why Hamas would give up before giving its strategy time to work.
WILL PEACE GET A CHANCE?
Many wars come about by accident or by misunderstanding. This particular war, however it was originally triggered, seems to be driven by the real interests of the chief parties involved. In such cases, peace is hard to make until the parties have seen how things go on the battlefield.
This doesn’t necessarily mean a long, drawn-out war. Gaza is a very small place and Hamas’ reserves are not very deep. It is not in Israel’s interests for the war to drag on and some more-horrendous-than-usual event could so shock public opinion around the world and in Israel itself that the calculus could change.
Nevertheless, the peacemaking wannabes have a tricky task ahead of them and the U.S. administration in particular will not enjoy some of the choices it must make. Barring a Hamas collapse, a political solution to the war involves getting not only Israel but also Egypt (and its Saudi backers) to accept some kind of arrangement that loosens the blockade enough to let Hamas survive.
The trouble is that neither the Egyptians nor the Saudis seem interested in making Barack Obama’s life any easier these days. Both countries bitterly resented his support for the Morsi government, and the ineffectiveness of his support deepened their contempt without dulling their anger. They do not trust him over Iran, Syria or Iraq, and they increasingly feel that they must organize the defense of the region without deferring to him. They may take a certain grim satisfaction in his discomfort if a Washington failure to broker a Gaza cease fire makes the Obama administration look weak.
Unhappily for the Obama administration, the best way for the U.S. to hasten the arrival of a durable cease fire in Gaza is to promise a more robust and hawkish policy in the rest of the region. The Israelis will be more willing to make concessions on a Gaza cease fire if they believe that the U.S. will back them more effectively against Iran, and the Saudis and Egyptians are more likely to give ground in Gaza if the U.S. offers real support in the rest of the region.
This is the opposite of the way much of the left and the press understands how the Middle East works, but the new Middle East is a more complicated place than it used to be. The battle between Sunni Arabs and Israelis is no longer the most important issue on the table for key Arab governments as well as for Israel. While that old conflict has not disappeared, it has been eclipsed by the new conflict between a resurgent Iran and the leading Sunni Arab states.
We must hope that American diplomats and other hopeful peacemakers grasp the new and sometimes counterintuitive dynamics of the region. Otherwise the Gaza war could drag on as the peacemakers chase red herrings and run up blind alleys. Fundamentally this war is one of the many dangerous consequences of the regional perception that the United States is in retreat; only by changing that perception can the Obama administration hope to stabilize the region and bring the killing, in Gaza and elsewhere, to an end.
Clausewitz wrote that in war, “the side that feels the lesser urge for peace will necessarily get the better bargain.” Both of the combatants are used to pain, loaded for bear, and feel their essential interests are in play. The most likely outcome is probably an uglier and longer war than usual, followed by another unhappy truce.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
The most important battle you've probably never heard of
Great history article. I didn't know about Bouvines, or these other ones:
Five other obscure but decisive battles, chosen by historian Tom Holland
Five other decisive Anglo-French battles, chosen by historian Tom Holland
26 July 2014
By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris
Exactly 800 years ago on Sunday, in a field next to what is now the airport of Lille, a battle was fought which determined the history of England.
Today few people in the UK have heard of Bouvines. It has none of the ring of an Agincourt or a Crecy. Probably that is because England lost it. But the battle of 27 July, 1214, was just as significant as England's later victories over the French. Maybe more so.
"Bouvines is the most important battle in English history that no-one has ever heard of," says John France, professor emeritus in medieval history at Swansea University.
"Without Bouvines there is no Magna Carta, and all the British and American law that stems from that. It's a muddy field, the armies are small, but everything depends on the struggle. It's one of the climactic moments of European history."
The story of Bouvines begins with hapless King John, and his determination to retake the French lands he had lost in Normandy and Anjou. His opponent was the King of France, Philippe-Auguste, equally determined to establish French power and prestige.
King John had alienated most of the English nobility. The barons were angry at the way he extorted money, and excluded them from court. They refused to fight his wars. So for his campaign of reconquest in France, John forged a European alliance. He recruited other enemies of the French crown - the German Holy Roman Emperor Otto and the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne - and devised a two-pronged attack.
While King John landed in La Rochelle and advanced from the south-west, his allies - with an English contingent under John's half-brother William of Salisbury - were to attack the French from the north. In the event King John's advance in the south made little headway, though it did divert a good chunk of Philippe-Auguste's army. The key confrontation was in the north, in that perennial European battle-zone - the fields of Flanders.
Today the village of Bouvines is a small community just outside the reach of the Lille conurbation and a few miles from the Belgian border. There is a bridge there over a small river called the Marque, today canalised but which 800 years ago sprawled over a large stretch of marsh.
King Philippe-Auguste's army had advanced east from Lille, planning to lay waste to the lands of Hainault which belonged to the Count of Flanders. Learning of the larger coalition army arrayed against him, the king turned back to Lille. But as his forces were crossing the bridge at Bouvines, the enemy caught up. They had come through a forest from the south.
The battle was fought on a hot Sunday afternoon and lasted four or five hours. "It would have been a real scene of butchery. In these early medieval battles, archery had not been fully developed so the killing was up-close. And the leaders were in the thick of it," says local historian Alain Streck.
One of the main weapons used by foot-soldiers was a pike with a hook, which was used to pull knights off their horses. The French king was himself unhorsed by this method, and only saved by his bodyguard.
It was a close-run thing, but in the end the French prevailed. The Count of Flanders was captured. The German emperor fled. Afterwards 700 captured mercenaries from Brabant were put to the sword.
"What told in the French favour was their unified command," says John France. "The allies were a coalition army that had only got together for the first time four days before the battle. In those days coalition armies like that were inherently unstable."
King John was not at the battle. He was still in the south. But his dreams of reconquest were dashed. He returned to England, humiliated and impoverished. Less than a year later - his barons increasingly belligerent and the French now revealing their own designs on the English crown - he was forced to sign the Magna Carta, which limited his power and formed the basis of English democracy.
"The road from Bouvines to Magna Carta was direct and short," says Sean McGlynn, an expert in the period at the Open University. "Bouvines was the last straw. If John had won the battle, Magna Carta could have been avoided. But it was the decisiveness of the defeat. All his taxation had gone to waste. He was weakened, and the barons saw their opportunity."
John France adds: "If the English and their allies had won at Bouvines, John would have had the plunder and the prestige. The baronial opposition would have melted away. This was that rare thing: a battle that was genuinely decisive."
And not just for the English. In France the battle is remembered today for exactly the same reason that it is forgotten in England - because France won. What followed Bouvines was a golden era for the French monarchy - the Capetian dynasty, to which Philippe-Auguste belonged, was the dominant force in Europe for the next 100 years.
"If Philippe-Auguste had lost, the west of France would have been English, the north would have been Flemish, and the east would have been German," says Alain Streck. "But he won. The contours of the French kingdom were set, and the Capetians were able to start organising a state. It was really the beginning of French national consciousness."
In 1216 Philippe-Auguste's son Louis was welcomed in London, receiving the homage of a third of the English barons and of King Alexander of Scotland. In the title of Sean McGlynn's book, it was "The forgotten invasion of England," and an English King Louis I was a distinct possibility. But King John died, and the barons deserted Louis for the boy-king, Henry III.
Eight hundred years on, the village of Bouvines has been marking the anniversary with re-enactments and other events. On Sunday there is a church service, attended by a government minister and representatives from France's two rival royal houses.
The battle of Bouvines looms particularly large in nationalist interpretations of French history.
After the defeat by the Prussians in 1870, there was a surge of French patriotism. The church at Bouvines was rebuilt with stained glass windows (now a national monument) recounting the story of the victory and in 1914 the 700th anniversary of the battle was celebrated with almost venomous anti-German sentiment.
"It is quite extraordinary that in the two world wars Bouvines church was in the hands of the Germans - but they never pulled down the stained glass windows showing the German emperor in headlong flight," says Alain Streck. "Maybe they did not look hard enough!"
This year's commemorations are built around the inoffensive themes of "Europe, peace and youth".
The trouble with Bouvines is that "it does not fit into the modern European narrative", says John France. "Nowadays the EU has a huge budget for academic studies, but they have to comply with the theme of Europe as a big happy family. That is why Bouvines tends to get neglected."
But Bouvines was a turning point for Europe, and above all for France and England. England withdrew to its insular priorities and began adapting its institutions to the new internal balance of power. The French monarchy emerged enormously enhanced and Paris became the centre of a national life.
In the words of the French 19th Century historian Ernest Lavisse: "The two nations set off in different directions. England headed towards liberty; France towards absolutism."
Five other obscure but decisive battles, chosen by historian Tom Holland
- Cap Bon (468): A Roman fleet sent to recapture North Africa from the Vandals was incinerated by fire-ships off the coast of Tunisia. This was the moment when the fall of the Roman Empire in the West became inevitable
- Qadisiyya (636): When an Arab invasion force wiped out the cream of the Persian army on the plains of Iraq, it not only doomed the venerable Sasanian empire, but played a key role in the emergence of Islam, ensuring its long-term future as the major religion of the Middle East
- Diu (1509): A key waymark on the rise of Europe to global power, the battle was fought in the Arabian Sea between an assortment of Islamic powers and a Portuguese fleet. Victory for the Portuguese enabled them to establish their Asian empire
- Cajamarca (1532): The ambush and capture of the ruling Inca emperor by Pizarro and his band of conquistadors was a key moment in ensuring that South America would end up Christian and Hispanic
- Koniggratz (1866): Featuring 250,000 men on either side, this decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War established Prussia as Europe's greatest military power and cleared the path to German unification
Five other decisive Anglo-French battles, chosen by historian Tom Holland
- Hastings (1066): 1066 and all that. Enough said…
- Trafalgar (1805): Had Nelson's fleet been destroyed, it is hard to see how Britain could have avoided invasion by Napoleon
- Relief of Orleans (1429): When Joan of Arc saved France, she ensured that Agincourt would not, in the long run, be decisive
- Quiberon Bay (1759): A battle won by the British in the teeth of gales and treacherous waters, it heralded the global supremacy of the Royal Navy
- Quebec (1759): The second decisive battle won by the British in the annus mirabilis of 1759, it ensured a largely English-speaking future for North America
26 July 2014
By Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris
Exactly 800 years ago on Sunday, in a field next to what is now the airport of Lille, a battle was fought which determined the history of England.
Today few people in the UK have heard of Bouvines. It has none of the ring of an Agincourt or a Crecy. Probably that is because England lost it. But the battle of 27 July, 1214, was just as significant as England's later victories over the French. Maybe more so.
"Bouvines is the most important battle in English history that no-one has ever heard of," says John France, professor emeritus in medieval history at Swansea University.
"Without Bouvines there is no Magna Carta, and all the British and American law that stems from that. It's a muddy field, the armies are small, but everything depends on the struggle. It's one of the climactic moments of European history."
The story of Bouvines begins with hapless King John, and his determination to retake the French lands he had lost in Normandy and Anjou. His opponent was the King of France, Philippe-Auguste, equally determined to establish French power and prestige.
King John had alienated most of the English nobility. The barons were angry at the way he extorted money, and excluded them from court. They refused to fight his wars. So for his campaign of reconquest in France, John forged a European alliance. He recruited other enemies of the French crown - the German Holy Roman Emperor Otto and the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne - and devised a two-pronged attack.
While King John landed in La Rochelle and advanced from the south-west, his allies - with an English contingent under John's half-brother William of Salisbury - were to attack the French from the north. In the event King John's advance in the south made little headway, though it did divert a good chunk of Philippe-Auguste's army. The key confrontation was in the north, in that perennial European battle-zone - the fields of Flanders.
Today the village of Bouvines is a small community just outside the reach of the Lille conurbation and a few miles from the Belgian border. There is a bridge there over a small river called the Marque, today canalised but which 800 years ago sprawled over a large stretch of marsh.
King Philippe-Auguste's army had advanced east from Lille, planning to lay waste to the lands of Hainault which belonged to the Count of Flanders. Learning of the larger coalition army arrayed against him, the king turned back to Lille. But as his forces were crossing the bridge at Bouvines, the enemy caught up. They had come through a forest from the south.
The battle was fought on a hot Sunday afternoon and lasted four or five hours. "It would have been a real scene of butchery. In these early medieval battles, archery had not been fully developed so the killing was up-close. And the leaders were in the thick of it," says local historian Alain Streck.
One of the main weapons used by foot-soldiers was a pike with a hook, which was used to pull knights off their horses. The French king was himself unhorsed by this method, and only saved by his bodyguard.
It was a close-run thing, but in the end the French prevailed. The Count of Flanders was captured. The German emperor fled. Afterwards 700 captured mercenaries from Brabant were put to the sword.
"What told in the French favour was their unified command," says John France. "The allies were a coalition army that had only got together for the first time four days before the battle. In those days coalition armies like that were inherently unstable."
King John was not at the battle. He was still in the south. But his dreams of reconquest were dashed. He returned to England, humiliated and impoverished. Less than a year later - his barons increasingly belligerent and the French now revealing their own designs on the English crown - he was forced to sign the Magna Carta, which limited his power and formed the basis of English democracy.
"The road from Bouvines to Magna Carta was direct and short," says Sean McGlynn, an expert in the period at the Open University. "Bouvines was the last straw. If John had won the battle, Magna Carta could have been avoided. But it was the decisiveness of the defeat. All his taxation had gone to waste. He was weakened, and the barons saw their opportunity."
John France adds: "If the English and their allies had won at Bouvines, John would have had the plunder and the prestige. The baronial opposition would have melted away. This was that rare thing: a battle that was genuinely decisive."
And not just for the English. In France the battle is remembered today for exactly the same reason that it is forgotten in England - because France won. What followed Bouvines was a golden era for the French monarchy - the Capetian dynasty, to which Philippe-Auguste belonged, was the dominant force in Europe for the next 100 years.
"If Philippe-Auguste had lost, the west of France would have been English, the north would have been Flemish, and the east would have been German," says Alain Streck. "But he won. The contours of the French kingdom were set, and the Capetians were able to start organising a state. It was really the beginning of French national consciousness."
In 1216 Philippe-Auguste's son Louis was welcomed in London, receiving the homage of a third of the English barons and of King Alexander of Scotland. In the title of Sean McGlynn's book, it was "The forgotten invasion of England," and an English King Louis I was a distinct possibility. But King John died, and the barons deserted Louis for the boy-king, Henry III.
Eight hundred years on, the village of Bouvines has been marking the anniversary with re-enactments and other events. On Sunday there is a church service, attended by a government minister and representatives from France's two rival royal houses.
The battle of Bouvines looms particularly large in nationalist interpretations of French history.
After the defeat by the Prussians in 1870, there was a surge of French patriotism. The church at Bouvines was rebuilt with stained glass windows (now a national monument) recounting the story of the victory and in 1914 the 700th anniversary of the battle was celebrated with almost venomous anti-German sentiment.
"It is quite extraordinary that in the two world wars Bouvines church was in the hands of the Germans - but they never pulled down the stained glass windows showing the German emperor in headlong flight," says Alain Streck. "Maybe they did not look hard enough!"
This year's commemorations are built around the inoffensive themes of "Europe, peace and youth".
The trouble with Bouvines is that "it does not fit into the modern European narrative", says John France. "Nowadays the EU has a huge budget for academic studies, but they have to comply with the theme of Europe as a big happy family. That is why Bouvines tends to get neglected."
But Bouvines was a turning point for Europe, and above all for France and England. England withdrew to its insular priorities and began adapting its institutions to the new internal balance of power. The French monarchy emerged enormously enhanced and Paris became the centre of a national life.
In the words of the French 19th Century historian Ernest Lavisse: "The two nations set off in different directions. England headed towards liberty; France towards absolutism."
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Nick Cohen on the Left's hyprocrisy on Crimea
Three cheers for Nick Cohen, arch-exposer of hypocrisy.
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Noam Chomsky in the Crimea
The Spectator
Nick Cohen
3 March 2014
Go to London or of any other Western capital and here is what you will not see. You will not see mass demonstrations against the Russian invasion of the Ukraine swaying down the same streets in which the liberal-left marched against the invasion of Iraq. You will not hear prominent left-wing voices emphasizing that Putin is attempting more than an invasion; that the Russian Federation – and what a benign word ‘federation’ is for a revived Tsarist autocracy – is the last of the European empires, and is seeking to expand its borders, as empires always do.
In short, the activist left will not tell its followers that we are witnessing imperialism: not ‘cultural imperialism’ or ‘neo-colonialism’ or any of those other catchall, thought-forbidding phrases, but the real thing.
Ukraine has not committed crimes against humanity, so there is no duty on foreign states to intervene to protect its citizens. It does not menace its neighbours or threaten the international order by seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Moreover anyone with a sense of history knows that Putin is invading a region where the Russian empire in its Stalinist stage persecuted and deported native and Muslim Tartars.
Yet the same people who are the first to shout ‘Islamophobia’ and pledge their allegiance to endangered minorities stay silent. Just as they stay silent about the Syrian atrocities, although they would have been the first to march if the West had intervened after the Assad regime used chemical weapons.
Justifications for these hypocrisies are hard to find. more
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Noam Chomsky in the Crimea
The Spectator
Nick Cohen
3 March 2014
Go to London or of any other Western capital and here is what you will not see. You will not see mass demonstrations against the Russian invasion of the Ukraine swaying down the same streets in which the liberal-left marched against the invasion of Iraq. You will not hear prominent left-wing voices emphasizing that Putin is attempting more than an invasion; that the Russian Federation – and what a benign word ‘federation’ is for a revived Tsarist autocracy – is the last of the European empires, and is seeking to expand its borders, as empires always do.
In short, the activist left will not tell its followers that we are witnessing imperialism: not ‘cultural imperialism’ or ‘neo-colonialism’ or any of those other catchall, thought-forbidding phrases, but the real thing.
Ukraine has not committed crimes against humanity, so there is no duty on foreign states to intervene to protect its citizens. It does not menace its neighbours or threaten the international order by seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Moreover anyone with a sense of history knows that Putin is invading a region where the Russian empire in its Stalinist stage persecuted and deported native and Muslim Tartars.
Yet the same people who are the first to shout ‘Islamophobia’ and pledge their allegiance to endangered minorities stay silent. Just as they stay silent about the Syrian atrocities, although they would have been the first to march if the West had intervened after the Assad regime used chemical weapons.
Justifications for these hypocrisies are hard to find. more
The Jews Who Fought for Hitler
The Finno-Soviet Winter War of 1939/40 is a fascinating bit of history, with Britain supporting Finland againt the Communist aggressors, and the Finns later fighting on the Eastern Front with the Germans against Britain's then-ally. The Germans rated the Finns as the only foreign contigent fighting with them whose soldiers were the equal of their own.
I hadn't thought about the possibility that Jewish Finns were fighting alongside the Germans on that front, but it did happen, as revealed by this fascinating article. I have excerpted the final paragraph.
I hadn't thought about the possibility that Jewish Finns were fighting alongside the Germans on that front, but it did happen, as revealed by this fascinating article. I have excerpted the final paragraph.
The Jews Who Fought for Hitler: ‘We Did Not Help the Germans. We Had a Common Enemy’
03.10.14
By Paul Kendall
They fought alongside them, healed them, and often befriended them. But how do Finland’s Jews feel today about their uneasy—and little mentioned—alliance with the Nazis?
...
[T]he Finnish Jews were on an impossible mission. Whatever they did there would always be one inescapable difference between them and their Finnish compatriots: the latter were fighting for their future, but, if Hitler had won, the Jewish soldiers would have had no future. What were they supposed to do? That is the question nobody can answer.
BBC accused of censorship in row over Free Speech show from mosque
You couldn't parody this - a program called 'Free Speech', held in a mosque, bails out of discussing Islam's attitude to homosexuality.
BBC accused of censorship in row over Free Speech show from mosque
Thursday 13 March 2014
The Guardian
Host of programme interrupted question about when will it be right to be Muslim and gay due to 'deep concerns' of mosque
BBC accused of censorship in row over Free Speech show from mosque
Thursday 13 March 2014
The Guardian
Host of programme interrupted question about when will it be right to be Muslim and gay due to 'deep concerns' of mosque
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Israeli apartheid?
In some reading I was doing around the Mandela death, I came across a leading ANC communist figure, Arthur Goldreich, who was Jewish and a stern critic of Israel, one of those arguing that Israeli policy amounts to 'bantustanism'. Such a critique of Israel is obviously all the more stinging coming from a Jew, an anti-apartheid campaigner, a fighter in the Haganah, and a resident of Israel.
On a personal note, I visited South Africa several times in the 70s and 80s, and even as a kid, apartheid was brutally obvious, everywhere. I visited Israel in the 80s and saw nothing analogous whatsoever.
Anyway, I've just come across the article below, which suggests that integration of Arab Israelis has come a long way in the last generation.
A Real Arab Spring
By Normal Lebrecht
Standpoint Mag December 2013
Coming out of a movie last month in one of those edge-of-town malls that disfigure Israeli conurbations, I ran into a conga line of men, women and children shuffling their way into a McDonald's. The men wore T-shirts and jeans, the women flowery headscarves and varied outfits. Several danced along in silly conical hats. It was someone's birthday, by the look of it.
It took a second look to realise that the celebrants were a family of Israeli Arabs, descendants of the stubborn minority — some 150,000 Christians and Muslims — who refused to join the 750,000-strong Palestinian exodus in 1948. Today, by census, there are 1.6 million Israeli Arabs, some 20 per cent of the population. They enjoy full civic rights and a high level of prosperity. Beside the refugees, their lifestyle appears lavish.
As I drove through the Arab heartlands in Galilee, a hilly straggle of houses that I remember being blacked out at night for want of connection to the national grid has boomed into a noisy town with three-storey houses and an exclusive dealership in a European make of car much favoured by ultra-orthodox Jews.
Bars and restaurants on the Tel Aviv seafront are dotted with Arabs from Jaffa. On Friday night, the common day of rest, there are as many Israeli Arabs strolling along the promenade as there are Israeli Jews. When I remark on the phenomenon, young Israelis shrug as if my observation is too obvious to be worth mentioning. Integration has become a fact of life. Yet 25 years ago, Israeli Arabs were inconspicuous in Jewish towns and 45 years ago, as far as my memory extends, they were invisible.
In the first two decades of the state of Israel, until the Six Day War, Arab citizens were penned into pales of settlement, nervously watched by the security services. In the next two decades, they formed a no-man's-land between the Israeli state and the occupied Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, their resentful cousins. Torn between kinship and comfort, Israeli Arabs opted on the whole to put head over heart.
Over the past 25 years, normalisation has set in. Learning Hebrew at school as an obligatory second language, Israeli Arabs have made careers in most parts of the economy and in academic life. One of the most popular comedy series on commercial Israeli television is entitled Arab Labour. It makes merry with the tensions raised by a middle-class Arab family who move into an urban Israeli apartment block. In the episodes I have seen, Israeli Jews come off worst in the clash of cultures. One of the Arab actors, Mira Awad, has represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest. What could be more normal?
That is not to pretend that all is rosy. Israeli Arabs are subject to stringent airport and roadside security checks. Some complain of being treated as second-class citizens. A Jaffa driver told me his town had become overpriced and young men could not afford to buy a home. Economic progress and social participation, however, are positive indicators of how the country and the region might function if and when a peace agreement is reached. The Israeli Arabs serve, in this respect, as role models for a postwar utopia.
They also refute hostile clichés. The novelist Linda Grant drew attention in the Independent in March to a book by a French academic, Diana Pinto, arguing that Israel is functionally autistic-high-tech and tunnel-visioned, unable to see "the Other". The vastly increased visibility of Israeli Arabs gives the lie to that theory.
It also confounds the perpetual accusation that Israel is somehow an "apartheid state". If Israel were indeed a society founded on racial supremacy and separation, there would be no Arabs celebrating birthdays in shopping malls, no strollers on the Tel Aviv prom, no automobile millionaires in Galilee and no property boom in Jaffa. The apartheid libel, a propaganda ploy of the pro-Palestine lobby and the anti-Zionist Left, denies the blatant reality that Israel is a fast-evolving, multicultural society with more tolerance for minorities than any of its neighbours (and most European states). The casual confidence of its Arab citizens is testimony to a healthy society.
On a personal note, I visited South Africa several times in the 70s and 80s, and even as a kid, apartheid was brutally obvious, everywhere. I visited Israel in the 80s and saw nothing analogous whatsoever.
Anyway, I've just come across the article below, which suggests that integration of Arab Israelis has come a long way in the last generation.
A Real Arab Spring
By Normal Lebrecht
Standpoint Mag December 2013
Coming out of a movie last month in one of those edge-of-town malls that disfigure Israeli conurbations, I ran into a conga line of men, women and children shuffling their way into a McDonald's. The men wore T-shirts and jeans, the women flowery headscarves and varied outfits. Several danced along in silly conical hats. It was someone's birthday, by the look of it.
It took a second look to realise that the celebrants were a family of Israeli Arabs, descendants of the stubborn minority — some 150,000 Christians and Muslims — who refused to join the 750,000-strong Palestinian exodus in 1948. Today, by census, there are 1.6 million Israeli Arabs, some 20 per cent of the population. They enjoy full civic rights and a high level of prosperity. Beside the refugees, their lifestyle appears lavish.
As I drove through the Arab heartlands in Galilee, a hilly straggle of houses that I remember being blacked out at night for want of connection to the national grid has boomed into a noisy town with three-storey houses and an exclusive dealership in a European make of car much favoured by ultra-orthodox Jews.
Bars and restaurants on the Tel Aviv seafront are dotted with Arabs from Jaffa. On Friday night, the common day of rest, there are as many Israeli Arabs strolling along the promenade as there are Israeli Jews. When I remark on the phenomenon, young Israelis shrug as if my observation is too obvious to be worth mentioning. Integration has become a fact of life. Yet 25 years ago, Israeli Arabs were inconspicuous in Jewish towns and 45 years ago, as far as my memory extends, they were invisible.
In the first two decades of the state of Israel, until the Six Day War, Arab citizens were penned into pales of settlement, nervously watched by the security services. In the next two decades, they formed a no-man's-land between the Israeli state and the occupied Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, their resentful cousins. Torn between kinship and comfort, Israeli Arabs opted on the whole to put head over heart.
Over the past 25 years, normalisation has set in. Learning Hebrew at school as an obligatory second language, Israeli Arabs have made careers in most parts of the economy and in academic life. One of the most popular comedy series on commercial Israeli television is entitled Arab Labour. It makes merry with the tensions raised by a middle-class Arab family who move into an urban Israeli apartment block. In the episodes I have seen, Israeli Jews come off worst in the clash of cultures. One of the Arab actors, Mira Awad, has represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest. What could be more normal?
That is not to pretend that all is rosy. Israeli Arabs are subject to stringent airport and roadside security checks. Some complain of being treated as second-class citizens. A Jaffa driver told me his town had become overpriced and young men could not afford to buy a home. Economic progress and social participation, however, are positive indicators of how the country and the region might function if and when a peace agreement is reached. The Israeli Arabs serve, in this respect, as role models for a postwar utopia.
They also refute hostile clichés. The novelist Linda Grant drew attention in the Independent in March to a book by a French academic, Diana Pinto, arguing that Israel is functionally autistic-high-tech and tunnel-visioned, unable to see "the Other". The vastly increased visibility of Israeli Arabs gives the lie to that theory.
It also confounds the perpetual accusation that Israel is somehow an "apartheid state". If Israel were indeed a society founded on racial supremacy and separation, there would be no Arabs celebrating birthdays in shopping malls, no strollers on the Tel Aviv prom, no automobile millionaires in Galilee and no property boom in Jaffa. The apartheid libel, a propaganda ploy of the pro-Palestine lobby and the anti-Zionist Left, denies the blatant reality that Israel is a fast-evolving, multicultural society with more tolerance for minorities than any of its neighbours (and most European states). The casual confidence of its Arab citizens is testimony to a healthy society.
Israel's overlooked humanitarian role in the Syria conflict
Interesting.
-------
Good By Stealth
By Tom Gross
Standpoint Mag December 2013
The media is full of stereotypes and mistakes about many issues. Yet years of experience as a foreign correspondent has led me to the conclusion that the prejudices and biases against the state of Israel are in a league of their own. There are notable exceptions, of course, but for some news outlets Israel can do no right.
Which is one reason why one of the more remarkable stories coming out of the Middle East over the last two and a half years has been largely overlooked: the bravery of Israeli doctors and civilians who have gone into war-ravaged neighbouring Syria to treat the injured, and feed and clothe refugees from all ethnic backgrounds.
Thousands of Syrian doctors have fled the country and hundreds have been killed as the Assad regime continues to bomb medical clinics as a means of terrorising population groups who oppose his government. Where they can, Israeli medics have gone in to help those few Syrian doctors still working. Other Israelis have defied the Jordanian authorities by helping Syrian refugees in that country.
Although they work independently of the Israeli government, the Israeli army has quietly supported their humanitarian actions, sometimes helping ferry them across the border. In addition to setting up field hospitals, they have brought food. The Economist pointed out in September that in Dera alone, the southern city where the anti-Assad uprising began, Israelis have distributed 300,000 meals to Syrians, as well as medication, mobile phones and chemical protection suits.
The more severely injured Syrians — particularly children — have been brought to Israel for specialised treatment, all at the expense of the Israeli government and Jewish charities. Syrians are taking a risk even entering Israel: the Syrian government makes it a crime for its citizens to go there.
One or two American news outlets have reported on the medical treatment in Israel (though not on the help being given in Syria and Jordan). In July, Jim Clancy of CNN went to the Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Safed (named after a member of the founding family of Marks & Spencer), where he noted that half of all intensive care beds were occupied by Syrian civilians wounded during the previous week alone.
In May, the New York Times reported from Nahariya Hospital in northern Israel on a three-year-old girl being given skin grafts for horrific facial injuries she sustained during a government missile attack in Syria. In the next bed, the newspaper noted, a girl, aged 12, lay in a deep sleep, having been operated on for a severe stomach wound and a hole in her back. Next to her lay another Syrian girl, 13, recovering from over a month of operations for injuries to her face, arm and leg. In Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv, the life of a four-year-old Syrian girl was saved by open-heart surgery. In another hospital, a Syrian mother gave birth last month, the first Syrian born in Israel.
Although there has been hardly any coverage in British media, one Palestinian website noted: "While the Arab countries make empty promises, the Israelis have crossed the border to provide assistance to the refugees, risking their lives without a word of thank you
-------
Good By Stealth
By Tom Gross
Standpoint Mag December 2013
The media is full of stereotypes and mistakes about many issues. Yet years of experience as a foreign correspondent has led me to the conclusion that the prejudices and biases against the state of Israel are in a league of their own. There are notable exceptions, of course, but for some news outlets Israel can do no right.
Which is one reason why one of the more remarkable stories coming out of the Middle East over the last two and a half years has been largely overlooked: the bravery of Israeli doctors and civilians who have gone into war-ravaged neighbouring Syria to treat the injured, and feed and clothe refugees from all ethnic backgrounds.
Thousands of Syrian doctors have fled the country and hundreds have been killed as the Assad regime continues to bomb medical clinics as a means of terrorising population groups who oppose his government. Where they can, Israeli medics have gone in to help those few Syrian doctors still working. Other Israelis have defied the Jordanian authorities by helping Syrian refugees in that country.
Although they work independently of the Israeli government, the Israeli army has quietly supported their humanitarian actions, sometimes helping ferry them across the border. In addition to setting up field hospitals, they have brought food. The Economist pointed out in September that in Dera alone, the southern city where the anti-Assad uprising began, Israelis have distributed 300,000 meals to Syrians, as well as medication, mobile phones and chemical protection suits.
The more severely injured Syrians — particularly children — have been brought to Israel for specialised treatment, all at the expense of the Israeli government and Jewish charities. Syrians are taking a risk even entering Israel: the Syrian government makes it a crime for its citizens to go there.
One or two American news outlets have reported on the medical treatment in Israel (though not on the help being given in Syria and Jordan). In July, Jim Clancy of CNN went to the Rebecca Sieff Hospital in Safed (named after a member of the founding family of Marks & Spencer), where he noted that half of all intensive care beds were occupied by Syrian civilians wounded during the previous week alone.
In May, the New York Times reported from Nahariya Hospital in northern Israel on a three-year-old girl being given skin grafts for horrific facial injuries she sustained during a government missile attack in Syria. In the next bed, the newspaper noted, a girl, aged 12, lay in a deep sleep, having been operated on for a severe stomach wound and a hole in her back. Next to her lay another Syrian girl, 13, recovering from over a month of operations for injuries to her face, arm and leg. In Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv, the life of a four-year-old Syrian girl was saved by open-heart surgery. In another hospital, a Syrian mother gave birth last month, the first Syrian born in Israel.
Although there has been hardly any coverage in British media, one Palestinian website noted: "While the Arab countries make empty promises, the Israelis have crossed the border to provide assistance to the refugees, risking their lives without a word of thank you
Thursday, January 23, 2014
David Baddiel on Anelka's quenelle, and anti-semitism in British football
There's an excellent 5 minute Newsnight interview with David Baddiel at this BBC url, where he discusses Anelka's 'quenelle' gesture with his typical mix of astute commentary and gentle humour. As he says, Anelka's defence amounts to "oh no, it's not an anti-semitic gesture, it's a demonstration of support for my great friend (who is a tremendous anti-semite)", and as such is not a particularly coherent position.
Baddiel goes on to describe a Frenchman's response to his own Tweet on the subject, where Baddiel is told "you don't understand, [the quenelle is not anti-semitic, it is] just anti-French government. And anti the Zionist cabal".
He makes a number of other excellent points, definitely worth the time.
-----
Nicolas Anelka: West Brom striker defends "quenelle" gesture
BBC Sport
21 January 2014
Baddiel goes on to describe a Frenchman's response to his own Tweet on the subject, where Baddiel is told "you don't understand, [the quenelle is not anti-semitic, it is] just anti-French government. And anti the Zionist cabal".
He makes a number of other excellent points, definitely worth the time.
-----
Nicolas Anelka: West Brom striker defends "quenelle" gesture
BBC Sport
21 January 2014
Canadian PM Stephen Harper in Israel
Canadian PM Stephen Harper is visiting Israel, and I have never heard a Western leader make these kinds of statements of support. His three main points in a speech to the Knesset were:
1. Israel has a right to exist
2. Israel has a right to full participation in UN councils
3. He is not going to single out Israel for criticism
...and he fleshed out that last one as follows:
Some more detailed analysis:
1. Israel has a right to exist
2. Israel has a right to full participation in UN councils
3. He is not going to single out Israel for criticism
...and he fleshed out that last one as follows:
Harper to reporters: Ask some different questions about the Middle East
David Akin
Toronto Sun
21/1/14
[Harper explained to reporters] that there was no way he was going to single out Israel for criticism in any public forum [... H]e turned the tables: "Yesterday in the Palestinian Authority, no one asked me there to single out the Palestinian Authority for any criticism in terms of governance or human rights or anything else," Harper said, speaking about the press conference he'd held Monday in Ramallah side-by-side with P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas. "When I'm in Israel, I'm asked to single out Israel. When I'm in Palestinian Authority I'm asked to single out Israel and in half the other places around the world you ask me to single out Israel."
Some more detailed analysis:
Canada supports Israel 'because it is right'
20/01/14
Toronto Sun
Simon Kent reacts to Stephen Harper's historic speech in Israel, noting that Harper supports Israel 'because it is right'
Friday, January 03, 2014
Yahya Hassan - teen poet, Danish citizen, Muslim apostate
Interesting & brave guy. I first read about him here.
------
Teen Poet Sparks New Debate on Islam in Denmark
November 6, 2013
Clemens Bomsdorf & Ellen Emmerentze Jervell
The Wall Street Journal
COPENHAGEN – Yahya Hassan was about 10 years old when cartoonist Kurt Westergaard attracted passionate criticism from Muslims world-wide with his cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban. It ran in a Danish newspaper.
Hassan – the 18-year-old son of Palestinian immigrants who are Muslims – is now creating his own brand of controversy in Islamic circles and elsewhere with a new book of poetry that was published in Denmark last month. The writing student’s self-titled book contains around 150 poems, many of which are severely critical of the religious environment he grew up in.
His book has been a surprise strong seller since it hit the relatively small Danish market Oct. 17, with 32,000 copies being sold in about two weeks. The publisher, Gyldendal, says books of poetry in Denmark are lucky to hit 500 copies. In televised interviews, Hassan has been anything but tempered in his comments about what he views as a culture of hypocrisy underpinning Denmark’s Muslim population. His words have prompted arguably the largest debate on religion in the small Scandinavian nation since the Westergaard cartoon.
Like Westergaard, Hassan’s safety is on the line.
After reciting one of his poems, titled “LANGDIGT,” or “LONG POEM,” (he writes in capital letters only) on a Danish television station a few weeks ago, he received 27 death threats and police are investigating what they perceive as the most serious ones.
Speakeasy caught up with Hassan about a week after his book was published. His black hair tied back in a ponytail, the young poet discussed his work as he worked through a pack of cigarettes.
At first glance, Hassan looks like a typical Danish teenager of Middle East origin. His white T-shirt is covered by an elegant dark coat; his stylish blue pants are paired with brown leather shoes.
“There’s something wrong with Islam,” Hassan, a self-proclaimed atheist, says. “The religion refuses to renew itself.” It needs a “reformation.”
His poems carry titles like “CHILDHOOD” and “DISGUSTED,” dealing with issues like the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, child abuse, and the interplay between violence and religion. Profanity and vivid analogies help carry his work.
A translated excerpt from “LONG POEM:”
“You don’t want pork meat,
may Allah praise you for your eating habits,
you want Friday prayer till the next Friday prayer,
you want Ramadan till the next Ramadan,
and between the Friday prayers and the Ramadans,
you want to carry a knife in your pocket,
you want to go and ask people if they have a problem,
although the only problem is you.”
Hassan’s biggest complaint seems to be with his own peer group. “There is a massive group of Arabs – Muslims — – that commit crime on a big scale. They steal things, they sell stolen things, or they deal hash. But how can you call yourself a Muslim if all this is forbidden?”
He is careful to clarify the target of his criticism. “I speak about the lower class, the ghetto areas.”
Hassan is a product of this culture, born in what he refers to a “lower class place, a ghetto” in Western Denmark. He says his parents, who came to Denmark from a refugee camp in Lebanon but consider themselves Palestinian, would talk about the horrors they left behind in the Middle East.
He dropped out of school at 13 and soon ended up “living out of a duffel bag” travelling from institution to institution because of behavior problems, including theft. During long periods of isolation – imposed by authorities and his father – he took time to read and grew to love literature, he said.
Danish media have already lauded him as a role model for his generation. Critics such as Tue Nexo Andersen, a literature professor at the University of Copenhagen, said Hassan’s longer works are “almost Walt Whitman-like.”
Hassan, however, knew that publishing his unfiltered thoughts on the Muslims would create problems. “I knew when I would tell my story would break many taboos and many people would get offended and my parents would get angry. But my premise was that I would have to tell it as it is.”
Hassan’s book was published in mid-October, but his name became popular earlier in the month after one of his first big interviews became an online sensation in Denmark. Politiken published a piece titled “I F***ing Hate My Parents’ Generation,” which became the most shared story to ever run on the Danish daily newspaper’s website.
The writer is quick to blame his parents and their contemporaries as the reason he got involved in robberies and quit school. He says his father was physically abusive in his ways of “reprimanding” the family, and the experience shows up in his writing.
Hassan’s parents could not be reached for comment, and have stayed out of the media spotlight.
But Hassan says his poetry is only a generalization, and he wants to move past debates about whether he is a racist or role model. “People can say what they want to about my poems,” he says. “They can call them Islam-criticism, they can call them poetry, but that has nothing to do with the author; it has nothing to do with me.”
In addition to targeting hypocrisy, his poetry, he says, speaks to the problem of Muslims “exploiting the society they live in.” On free speech, Hassan says “Muslims love to take advantage of (it), and as soon as there is someone else saying something critical against them, they want to restrict it.”
Kassem Rachid, an Imam from the Danish city of Aabenraa, said he respects the poet’s right to air his views, but prefers Hassan take a different route.
“I can understand that he grew up in a problematic surrounding, but that does not have to do with religion…of course I know families like the one he describes in his book, but those you find among immigrants as well as native Danes.”
Hassan welcomes dialogue, saying he didn’t become a poet to “build a career” and has “no political agenda.”
As for his harsher critics who have threatened to hurt him, Hassan says “I know these people.” After stubbing out another cigarette, he leans forward putting his elbows on his knees, shivering slightly in response to the cold Scandinavian evening setting in. “They can’t handle criticism…they’re not interested in dialogue.”
------
Teen Poet Sparks New Debate on Islam in Denmark
November 6, 2013
Clemens Bomsdorf & Ellen Emmerentze Jervell
The Wall Street Journal
COPENHAGEN – Yahya Hassan was about 10 years old when cartoonist Kurt Westergaard attracted passionate criticism from Muslims world-wide with his cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban. It ran in a Danish newspaper.
Hassan – the 18-year-old son of Palestinian immigrants who are Muslims – is now creating his own brand of controversy in Islamic circles and elsewhere with a new book of poetry that was published in Denmark last month. The writing student’s self-titled book contains around 150 poems, many of which are severely critical of the religious environment he grew up in.
His book has been a surprise strong seller since it hit the relatively small Danish market Oct. 17, with 32,000 copies being sold in about two weeks. The publisher, Gyldendal, says books of poetry in Denmark are lucky to hit 500 copies. In televised interviews, Hassan has been anything but tempered in his comments about what he views as a culture of hypocrisy underpinning Denmark’s Muslim population. His words have prompted arguably the largest debate on religion in the small Scandinavian nation since the Westergaard cartoon.
Like Westergaard, Hassan’s safety is on the line.
After reciting one of his poems, titled “LANGDIGT,” or “LONG POEM,” (he writes in capital letters only) on a Danish television station a few weeks ago, he received 27 death threats and police are investigating what they perceive as the most serious ones.
Speakeasy caught up with Hassan about a week after his book was published. His black hair tied back in a ponytail, the young poet discussed his work as he worked through a pack of cigarettes.
At first glance, Hassan looks like a typical Danish teenager of Middle East origin. His white T-shirt is covered by an elegant dark coat; his stylish blue pants are paired with brown leather shoes.
“There’s something wrong with Islam,” Hassan, a self-proclaimed atheist, says. “The religion refuses to renew itself.” It needs a “reformation.”
His poems carry titles like “CHILDHOOD” and “DISGUSTED,” dealing with issues like the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, child abuse, and the interplay between violence and religion. Profanity and vivid analogies help carry his work.
A translated excerpt from “LONG POEM:”
“You don’t want pork meat,
may Allah praise you for your eating habits,
you want Friday prayer till the next Friday prayer,
you want Ramadan till the next Ramadan,
and between the Friday prayers and the Ramadans,
you want to carry a knife in your pocket,
you want to go and ask people if they have a problem,
although the only problem is you.”
Hassan’s biggest complaint seems to be with his own peer group. “There is a massive group of Arabs – Muslims — – that commit crime on a big scale. They steal things, they sell stolen things, or they deal hash. But how can you call yourself a Muslim if all this is forbidden?”
He is careful to clarify the target of his criticism. “I speak about the lower class, the ghetto areas.”
Hassan is a product of this culture, born in what he refers to a “lower class place, a ghetto” in Western Denmark. He says his parents, who came to Denmark from a refugee camp in Lebanon but consider themselves Palestinian, would talk about the horrors they left behind in the Middle East.
He dropped out of school at 13 and soon ended up “living out of a duffel bag” travelling from institution to institution because of behavior problems, including theft. During long periods of isolation – imposed by authorities and his father – he took time to read and grew to love literature, he said.
Danish media have already lauded him as a role model for his generation. Critics such as Tue Nexo Andersen, a literature professor at the University of Copenhagen, said Hassan’s longer works are “almost Walt Whitman-like.”
Hassan, however, knew that publishing his unfiltered thoughts on the Muslims would create problems. “I knew when I would tell my story would break many taboos and many people would get offended and my parents would get angry. But my premise was that I would have to tell it as it is.”
Hassan’s book was published in mid-October, but his name became popular earlier in the month after one of his first big interviews became an online sensation in Denmark. Politiken published a piece titled “I F***ing Hate My Parents’ Generation,” which became the most shared story to ever run on the Danish daily newspaper’s website.
The writer is quick to blame his parents and their contemporaries as the reason he got involved in robberies and quit school. He says his father was physically abusive in his ways of “reprimanding” the family, and the experience shows up in his writing.
Hassan’s parents could not be reached for comment, and have stayed out of the media spotlight.
But Hassan says his poetry is only a generalization, and he wants to move past debates about whether he is a racist or role model. “People can say what they want to about my poems,” he says. “They can call them Islam-criticism, they can call them poetry, but that has nothing to do with the author; it has nothing to do with me.”
In addition to targeting hypocrisy, his poetry, he says, speaks to the problem of Muslims “exploiting the society they live in.” On free speech, Hassan says “Muslims love to take advantage of (it), and as soon as there is someone else saying something critical against them, they want to restrict it.”
Kassem Rachid, an Imam from the Danish city of Aabenraa, said he respects the poet’s right to air his views, but prefers Hassan take a different route.
“I can understand that he grew up in a problematic surrounding, but that does not have to do with religion…of course I know families like the one he describes in his book, but those you find among immigrants as well as native Danes.”
Hassan welcomes dialogue, saying he didn’t become a poet to “build a career” and has “no political agenda.”
As for his harsher critics who have threatened to hurt him, Hassan says “I know these people.” After stubbing out another cigarette, he leans forward putting his elbows on his knees, shivering slightly in response to the cold Scandinavian evening setting in. “They can’t handle criticism…they’re not interested in dialogue.”
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