Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Ladino and Spanish-Sephardi Judaism: the languages, customs, culture and history
THE PROVERBS AT THE END OF THIS POSTING ARE INTENDED TO INFORM AND AMUSE, NOT OFFEND AND I APOLOGISE FOR ANY THAT MAY BE CAUSED. I ALSO DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THEM
Ladino is the Sephardi equivalent of Yiddish: a Jewish dialect with local influences. Like Yiddish it had a rich culture that was largely destroyed in the Holocaust but has not been revived to such a great extent as it’s European counterpart. A simplified explanation of Ladino is 60-70% Medieval Spanish with the influences of Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Greek and some French. A good way to look at Ladino is to imagine a conversation between a Shakespearean actor and a modern Englishman. They would be able to keep up with each other but have to concentrate on what is being said to extract the meaning. That is how a Ladino speaker would appear to be when communicating with a modern Spaniard. In this article there will be a more detailed explanation of Ladino culture and history starting with the Spanish Inquisition and finishing with just after the Holocaust.
In 1391, there was a major turning point in Jewish history. The era of anusim (forced converts) had begun. In the summer of that year, anti-Semitic riots swept across the various Christian communities (by now all of Spain had been taken from the Muslims except Granada in the south-east) affecting the cities of Leon, Majorca, Toledo, Alicante and Valencia. The violence spread throughout the Iberian peninsular but was non-existent in Navarra and Portugal.
In February 1413 the disputation of Tortosa began. The disputation was a theological debate between Jewish and Spanish-Catholic scholars on matters such as Messianic philosophy, errors and blasphemies in the Talmud and Jesus. Over the next seventy years the Spanish Jews became more and more persecuted. In January 1483 the Jews of Andalusia were expelled and later that year in October, Thomas Torquemada was made Inquisitor General of the whole of Catholic Spain. Ironically, Torquemada was of Jewish descent and had hundreds of thousands of his kinsmen killed, tortured or expelled from their homes.
On January 2nd 1492 the last Muslim stronghold in Spain: Granada fell to King Ferdinand and Isobella. Now they controlled the whole of Spain. The expulsion of the Jews went like clockwork over the next eight months. On March 2nd Torquemada presented to the King a plan to expel the Jews. On April 29th the edict was formally published and in August the last Jews left, roughly at the same time as Columbus set sail on his first voyage to America. Just before the expulsion, a book was published called Alboraique. The term Alboraique referred to Marranos Jews or “New Christians”. They were illustrated in the book as Mohammed the Prophet’s beast called Borak, a monstrosity that was neither horse or donkey. The message was that the Marranos weren’t Jew or Christian and had no place in Spanish society being disloyal lazy heretics who were not fit to work, pray or fight.
The Spanish Jews went mainly eastwards to the Ottoman empire. Here, the majority settled in Istanbul and Salonika/Thessaloniki but many others went to Athens, Rhodes, Kos, Bosnia and Macedonia. There they spoke Spanish with some Hebrew that had been previously integrated into the language but gradually, the indigenous languages worked there way into the Judeo-Spanish. This would be known as Ladino.
In the event that a Macedonian and Turkish Ladino speaker got together then their respective ways of speaking the language would be slightly different as the indigenous languages of where they came from weren’t the same but they would still be able to communicate clearly. Later, some Jews of Spanish origin went further East to Arab lands such as Iraq and North Africa. There they thrived, until the declaration of the State of Israel. Whole communities emigrated there en-masse when the law of return of declared (this entitled any Jew to come and live in Israel without a visa or official documentation) in July 1950. Some Iraqi Jews (most notably the Sassoon family) went to India where minor but successful communities were established. Some Turkish Jews also to Israel after 1516 when Emperor Selim I took the Holy Land, particularly the mystical city of Safed (Tzvat). In 1555 the Shulchan Aruch (a definitive code to Jewish law) was published after being written by Rabbi Joseph Caro. Strangely, both Sephardi and Ashkenazic communities accept the Shulchan Aruch as with most laws, they disagree on something. From the late 16th Century to early 20th, the Jews of the Ottoman Empire flourished.
There has been evidence of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom (after they were expelled in 1290) since 1494. These Jews were almost certainly Marranos who fled from Spain. Clandestine Jewish communities lived mostly in London where they were largely successful although in 1594, Queen Elizabeth I’s doctor, Rodrigo Lopez was executed on charges of treason and conspiracy to murder the monarch. Although officially he wasn’t executed for being Jewish, English society at the time was highly anti-Semitic (strong evidence can be found in William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice) and xenophobic. When Lopez was executed England was at war with Phillip II of Spain and the public opinion was that any Spaniard was a traitor who should be put to death. Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained the dominant community in British Jewry until the late 19th century when Eastern Europe was being racked with violent pogroms against the Jewish communities. Many went westwards to England and America, where they from the predominant communities.
Nowadays in Britain, Spanish and Portuguese Jewry is dwindling. The main London communities, Bevis Marks; Lauderdale Road, Holland Park and Wembley are surrounded by property that first-time young buyers are unable to afford so when they were old enough, they moved to areas of the city where there were large Jewish communities and cheaper property. The remaining members of the community are often elderly and not especially religious, often driving to Synagogue on a Saturday morning as very few of them live close enough to walk there. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews who moved out from the main communities are so scattered and few that there aren’t enough to make a minyan (quorum of Jewish males over 13 required to hold a full Jewish service) where prayers can be recited to their own rites.
The culture of Ladino is as rich as Yiddish but more obscure. It has a wonderful sense of humour, mainly focusing on mothers in laws, domineering wives and women somewhat lacking in the intelligence of men.
To end this posting I have included some Ladino proverbs that I and my father enjoy and find amusing. I also think that they reflect Ladino culture particularly well.
He goes up to take a friend but down to take a wife
A silent donkey can pass as a knowledgeable person
Who listens to his wife is stupid, who doesn’t is crazy
Long hair-short brain (a generic term for women)
You will not be able to take your fortune to the grave
The mouth does, the mouth undoes
Youth happens only once-a person who doesn’t enjoy it is crazy
The woman builds, the woman destroys
The woman and the wine make a man go crazy
A good women is one who speaks little
I love you very much but stay away from my wallet
It is never too late to do good
A good son-in-law is one who sees his mother-in-laws on fire and saves her
Some are born with good luck and fortune, others with bad luck and a hernia
Crazy the mother-crazy the daughter
Ladino is the Sephardi equivalent of Yiddish: a Jewish dialect with local influences. Like Yiddish it had a rich culture that was largely destroyed in the Holocaust but has not been revived to such a great extent as it’s European counterpart. A simplified explanation of Ladino is 60-70% Medieval Spanish with the influences of Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Greek and some French. A good way to look at Ladino is to imagine a conversation between a Shakespearean actor and a modern Englishman. They would be able to keep up with each other but have to concentrate on what is being said to extract the meaning. That is how a Ladino speaker would appear to be when communicating with a modern Spaniard. In this article there will be a more detailed explanation of Ladino culture and history starting with the Spanish Inquisition and finishing with just after the Holocaust.
In 1391, there was a major turning point in Jewish history. The era of anusim (forced converts) had begun. In the summer of that year, anti-Semitic riots swept across the various Christian communities (by now all of Spain had been taken from the Muslims except Granada in the south-east) affecting the cities of Leon, Majorca, Toledo, Alicante and Valencia. The violence spread throughout the Iberian peninsular but was non-existent in Navarra and Portugal.
In February 1413 the disputation of Tortosa began. The disputation was a theological debate between Jewish and Spanish-Catholic scholars on matters such as Messianic philosophy, errors and blasphemies in the Talmud and Jesus. Over the next seventy years the Spanish Jews became more and more persecuted. In January 1483 the Jews of Andalusia were expelled and later that year in October, Thomas Torquemada was made Inquisitor General of the whole of Catholic Spain. Ironically, Torquemada was of Jewish descent and had hundreds of thousands of his kinsmen killed, tortured or expelled from their homes.
On January 2nd 1492 the last Muslim stronghold in Spain: Granada fell to King Ferdinand and Isobella. Now they controlled the whole of Spain. The expulsion of the Jews went like clockwork over the next eight months. On March 2nd Torquemada presented to the King a plan to expel the Jews. On April 29th the edict was formally published and in August the last Jews left, roughly at the same time as Columbus set sail on his first voyage to America. Just before the expulsion, a book was published called Alboraique. The term Alboraique referred to Marranos Jews or “New Christians”. They were illustrated in the book as Mohammed the Prophet’s beast called Borak, a monstrosity that was neither horse or donkey. The message was that the Marranos weren’t Jew or Christian and had no place in Spanish society being disloyal lazy heretics who were not fit to work, pray or fight.
The Spanish Jews went mainly eastwards to the Ottoman empire. Here, the majority settled in Istanbul and Salonika/Thessaloniki but many others went to Athens, Rhodes, Kos, Bosnia and Macedonia. There they spoke Spanish with some Hebrew that had been previously integrated into the language but gradually, the indigenous languages worked there way into the Judeo-Spanish. This would be known as Ladino.
In the event that a Macedonian and Turkish Ladino speaker got together then their respective ways of speaking the language would be slightly different as the indigenous languages of where they came from weren’t the same but they would still be able to communicate clearly. Later, some Jews of Spanish origin went further East to Arab lands such as Iraq and North Africa. There they thrived, until the declaration of the State of Israel. Whole communities emigrated there en-masse when the law of return of declared (this entitled any Jew to come and live in Israel without a visa or official documentation) in July 1950. Some Iraqi Jews (most notably the Sassoon family) went to India where minor but successful communities were established. Some Turkish Jews also to Israel after 1516 when Emperor Selim I took the Holy Land, particularly the mystical city of Safed (Tzvat). In 1555 the Shulchan Aruch (a definitive code to Jewish law) was published after being written by Rabbi Joseph Caro. Strangely, both Sephardi and Ashkenazic communities accept the Shulchan Aruch as with most laws, they disagree on something. From the late 16th Century to early 20th, the Jews of the Ottoman Empire flourished.
There has been evidence of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom (after they were expelled in 1290) since 1494. These Jews were almost certainly Marranos who fled from Spain. Clandestine Jewish communities lived mostly in London where they were largely successful although in 1594, Queen Elizabeth I’s doctor, Rodrigo Lopez was executed on charges of treason and conspiracy to murder the monarch. Although officially he wasn’t executed for being Jewish, English society at the time was highly anti-Semitic (strong evidence can be found in William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice) and xenophobic. When Lopez was executed England was at war with Phillip II of Spain and the public opinion was that any Spaniard was a traitor who should be put to death. Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained the dominant community in British Jewry until the late 19th century when Eastern Europe was being racked with violent pogroms against the Jewish communities. Many went westwards to England and America, where they from the predominant communities.
Nowadays in Britain, Spanish and Portuguese Jewry is dwindling. The main London communities, Bevis Marks; Lauderdale Road, Holland Park and Wembley are surrounded by property that first-time young buyers are unable to afford so when they were old enough, they moved to areas of the city where there were large Jewish communities and cheaper property. The remaining members of the community are often elderly and not especially religious, often driving to Synagogue on a Saturday morning as very few of them live close enough to walk there. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews who moved out from the main communities are so scattered and few that there aren’t enough to make a minyan (quorum of Jewish males over 13 required to hold a full Jewish service) where prayers can be recited to their own rites.
The culture of Ladino is as rich as Yiddish but more obscure. It has a wonderful sense of humour, mainly focusing on mothers in laws, domineering wives and women somewhat lacking in the intelligence of men.
To end this posting I have included some Ladino proverbs that I and my father enjoy and find amusing. I also think that they reflect Ladino culture particularly well.
He goes up to take a friend but down to take a wife
A silent donkey can pass as a knowledgeable person
Who listens to his wife is stupid, who doesn’t is crazy
Long hair-short brain (a generic term for women)
You will not be able to take your fortune to the grave
The mouth does, the mouth undoes
Youth happens only once-a person who doesn’t enjoy it is crazy
The woman builds, the woman destroys
The woman and the wine make a man go crazy
A good women is one who speaks little
I love you very much but stay away from my wallet
It is never too late to do good
A good son-in-law is one who sees his mother-in-laws on fire and saves her
Some are born with good luck and fortune, others with bad luck and a hernia
Crazy the mother-crazy the daughter
Monday, 13 April 2009
Yiddish: the language, customs, culture & history
Cultural Judaism is permanently evolving. The customs, philosophies and languages have the most. The Jews have constantly been on the move for the past 2000 years of diaspora. In 70AD when the Second Temple was destroyed the Jews went into a diaspora that would last for many millennia. The majority spread around the Mediterranean and in Babylon in modern-day Iraq (this is where they flourished for almost 500 years in what is known as the Talmudic period). Here they exhaustively annotated and studied the oral-Torah (Mishnah) until it became the Talmud which is recognised as the definitive code of Jewish law. Many Jews were enslaved and sold around the Empire however, the rest of the free Jews went to main-land Italy and Rome itself. Here, they were largely merchants and eventually spread out across the Empire. Their main language was Aramaic which had evolved before "Modern Jewish-History". The Jews were taken too Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in August 586BC. With them, they took their language of Ancient Hebrew which gradually mixed with Babylonian too form Amaraic (This is the language of the Talmud). Aramaic is probably one of the longest surviving religions in the world due to the extensive study of the Talmud. Every day, especially in Israel millions of Jews open an un-translated Talmud and study it. They need too translate it to their respective languages and require a basic knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and structural elements of the language. Although it is not spoken, many people can still understand Aramaic. In addition, numerous "Talmud dictionaries" have been published. In essence they are dictionaries containing high-frequency Aramaic words that regularly come up in the Talmud. This was used by the first group of Babylonian* Jews until what is known as "The Return to Zion" in 538 when the Persian emperor Cyrus adopted a policy allowing his peoples to practice their respective religions. This allowed the Jews to return too Jerusalem which most did over a course of time. The Jews largely succeeded in Babylon but they weren't there long enough to really achieve anything great however,this was the period when Emperor Xerxes (who most famously attempted to attempt Greece & was defeated at Salamis by the Greek navy) was saved from assassination by Mordechai and Haman attempted to have all of Babylon's Jews executed. He narrowly succeeded but was stopped by Esther, one of Xerxes' Jewish wives who was also Mordechai's niece. To celebrate ousting Haman the Jewish festival of Purim came about.
After the fall of the Second Temple the Babylonian Jews further developed Aramaic. After around 500 years they gradually left Babylon to areas around the Western Roman Empire (which had already fallen in 476AD-the Eastern or Byzantine Empire would last another 1000, its' capital being modern day Istanbul that was taken in 1453 by the Ottomans): mainly Spain, France, the Alsace region (the term for someone who originated in Alsace is Alsatian) and Italy. From there they spread out over a period of 600 years to where most Jews lived before the Holocaust.
Some of the French and Alsatian Jews moved east into Germany where they prospered for over 1000 years. Until then they had spoken Hebrew but German words were gradually added to it until a new language formed-Yiddish. Yiddish is not just part of Jewish culture-it has one of its' own. Yiddish was originally medieval German with elements of Hebrew. A Yiddish-speaker can understand and communicate with a German. In the Holocaust, many people could survive as they understand the orders barked at them in German requesting skilled workers for example as they grew up speaking Yiddish. When the German Jews began moving further east into Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine Yiddish picked up some Slavic elements as well. Yiddish was the language mainly spoken by the religious east-European Jews in the Schtetls and ghettos. When the pogroms began in the 1880s they immigrated too America and the UK. They bought Yiddish there as well. Yiddish has made little impact on English but much on American. As a result schlep, kvetch and insults such as schmuck and putz have proliferated there way into American language. The British Jews mainly went too the East End of London where culture blossomed. There were Yiddish theatres, bookshops and libraries. Even community posters were written in it. The East End was severely damaged during the Blitz and many of the Jews moved north to Edgware, Hendon, Golders Green, Mill Hill and later Borehamwood. When they moved away from the East End (where many had lived in poverty) the became richer and soon lost many of their older traditions including Yiddish however, in some extremely Orthodox schools pupils are taught Yiddish to a conversational level and give Torah speeches in it.
In Jerusalem there is a radical Chasidic group called Neturei Karta. They are
ultra-orthodox and believe that the state of Israel should not exist until the Messiah arrives. They acknowledge that our Israel is the Holy Land but their "Palestine" shouldn't be the Jewish state. Another of their beliefs that ties directly to this article is they regard Hebrew as being too holy a language to speak on an every-day basis (excluding prayer and study) so they use Yiddish instead. Yiddish can be heard spoken wherever there is a Neturei Karta community whether in Manchester, New York or Jerusalem. Incidentally, the UK head of Neturei Karta; Rabbi Ahron Cohen (who at the time that this articles was written lived in Manchester) attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran where he was photographed embracing the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a known anti-Semite. For this he was ex-communiicated from British Jewry.
*Babylon was conquered by the Persians in 539BC but Jews who lived there are still "Babylonian"
After the fall of the Second Temple the Babylonian Jews further developed Aramaic. After around 500 years they gradually left Babylon to areas around the Western Roman Empire (which had already fallen in 476AD-the Eastern or Byzantine Empire would last another 1000, its' capital being modern day Istanbul that was taken in 1453 by the Ottomans): mainly Spain, France, the Alsace region (the term for someone who originated in Alsace is Alsatian) and Italy. From there they spread out over a period of 600 years to where most Jews lived before the Holocaust.
Some of the French and Alsatian Jews moved east into Germany where they prospered for over 1000 years. Until then they had spoken Hebrew but German words were gradually added to it until a new language formed-Yiddish. Yiddish is not just part of Jewish culture-it has one of its' own. Yiddish was originally medieval German with elements of Hebrew. A Yiddish-speaker can understand and communicate with a German. In the Holocaust, many people could survive as they understand the orders barked at them in German requesting skilled workers for example as they grew up speaking Yiddish. When the German Jews began moving further east into Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine Yiddish picked up some Slavic elements as well. Yiddish was the language mainly spoken by the religious east-European Jews in the Schtetls and ghettos. When the pogroms began in the 1880s they immigrated too America and the UK. They bought Yiddish there as well. Yiddish has made little impact on English but much on American. As a result schlep, kvetch and insults such as schmuck and putz have proliferated there way into American language. The British Jews mainly went too the East End of London where culture blossomed. There were Yiddish theatres, bookshops and libraries. Even community posters were written in it. The East End was severely damaged during the Blitz and many of the Jews moved north to Edgware, Hendon, Golders Green, Mill Hill and later Borehamwood. When they moved away from the East End (where many had lived in poverty) the became richer and soon lost many of their older traditions including Yiddish however, in some extremely Orthodox schools pupils are taught Yiddish to a conversational level and give Torah speeches in it.
In Jerusalem there is a radical Chasidic group called Neturei Karta. They are
ultra-orthodox and believe that the state of Israel should not exist until the Messiah arrives. They acknowledge that our Israel is the Holy Land but their "Palestine" shouldn't be the Jewish state. Another of their beliefs that ties directly to this article is they regard Hebrew as being too holy a language to speak on an every-day basis (excluding prayer and study) so they use Yiddish instead. Yiddish can be heard spoken wherever there is a Neturei Karta community whether in Manchester, New York or Jerusalem. Incidentally, the UK head of Neturei Karta; Rabbi Ahron Cohen (who at the time that this articles was written lived in Manchester) attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran where he was photographed embracing the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a known anti-Semite. For this he was ex-communiicated from British Jewry.
*Babylon was conquered by the Persians in 539BC but Jews who lived there are still "Babylonian"
Why do we feel for others?
I recently saw a clip from Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece-Schindler’s List when the Ghetto was being cleared. The violence was realistic and graphic. It was well filmed and edited. The emotions on screen were excellently acted and conveyed too the audience. I have seen all of these qualities in other films that were in colour so therefore more “real” such as Blood Diamond and 21 Hours To Munich but none of the above disturbed me as much as Schindler’s List. I began to ask myself why this was the case. Surely a black and white film is less real than one that was made in colour?
This question led me to consider the title of this essay-why do we feel for others? I have based my essay on the ideas of two major philosophers: Hobbes and Rousseau. Many people believe that you cannot follow two different ideas but I disagree. Hobbes’ main idea was that humans are little more than animals who have slightly evolved beyond the stage of savagery. “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan). According to Hobbes, we had only evolved from animals to the extent that mankind could very easily slip back into savagery* and that “humanity” was only a thin layer that could be very easily abandoned. Humans only exist for themselves, and not others. This could be aptly proved by a story from Nazi concentration camps where guards were bribed too provide much-needed medicine for prisoners. Did they provide the medicine because of their consciences? Of course not. Because they wanted the extra money. A counter-argument could be that they accepted the money to make life easier and more pleasant for the people that they loved (?).
On the other hand, Rousseau believed that we had evolved to the point where we are completely “tamed” too the extent that we exist to help others, not ourselves. We are driven by empathy and the pain of seeing other humans in discomfort. In other words; the group before the individual.
I believe that we have evolved too the extent where on the whole, we put others before ourselves (an example being the family unit) but under extreme circumstances we revert back to self-preservation. Clear evidence for this is a horrifying story from the Holocaust that there was regrettably repeated. A trainfull of Jews arrive at a station. They have been transported there in
Cattle-trucks, crammed in like sardines. The elderly and less able are helped out buy the young and strong. They are assembled in a yard and informed that they are to be transported “to the East” but need to shower and be disinfected first. The weak are helped to undress and get into the “shower-room”. All this way they less able are assisted by those who could. They are standing in a shower waiting for the water to come down on them when the lights go off and gas comes out of the ceilings. They realise that will soon die and in an effort to save themselves all of them run too the door. That’s up to 2000 people all rushing towards a small doorway. As the gas begins to take effect they only think of themselves, all trying to get out. They fight, clawing at each other in an effort to survive. Within a few minutes all of them are dead and most are piled up by the door in bloody pyramid from having fought to the death in an effort to get out. From this, we can see how rapid the transformation from the group to individual is. We are obsessed with living. The want for life is a very basic flaw in humanity, we value life too highly. Ultimately, the end of life is nothing. Our body has shut down and we can’t feel, do or acknowledge anything. It should be nothing to us but throughout history religious ideology has “hyped-up” how valuable life is. Over the course of time it has been hard-wired into our systems that life is good.
For most people a certain sight can evoke the desire for the well-being of others. It could be the sight of a mother feeding her baby or anyone enjoying themselves over something as simple as a meal or game of cards. Personally, the sight of pleasure being envoked can make my day. Anyone can have pleasure from the simplest of things. People with troubled pasts (I have noticed this particularly in survivors of the Holocaust), seem to exist to please others. They live wth their memories and whenever they see someone enjoying themselves, the pleasure is almost theirs.
We feel for others as somewhere in our brains is an area of compassion. Everyone has this and in turn loves someone. For example, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen who roamed Eastern Europe for Jews to kill and were some of if not the most evil people in history loved someone, possibly a woman or child. They would have mourned the death of that person with all of their heart. Anyone can have pity but not always for anybody.
This question led me to consider the title of this essay-why do we feel for others? I have based my essay on the ideas of two major philosophers: Hobbes and Rousseau. Many people believe that you cannot follow two different ideas but I disagree. Hobbes’ main idea was that humans are little more than animals who have slightly evolved beyond the stage of savagery. “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan). According to Hobbes, we had only evolved from animals to the extent that mankind could very easily slip back into savagery* and that “humanity” was only a thin layer that could be very easily abandoned. Humans only exist for themselves, and not others. This could be aptly proved by a story from Nazi concentration camps where guards were bribed too provide much-needed medicine for prisoners. Did they provide the medicine because of their consciences? Of course not. Because they wanted the extra money. A counter-argument could be that they accepted the money to make life easier and more pleasant for the people that they loved (?).
On the other hand, Rousseau believed that we had evolved to the point where we are completely “tamed” too the extent that we exist to help others, not ourselves. We are driven by empathy and the pain of seeing other humans in discomfort. In other words; the group before the individual.
I believe that we have evolved too the extent where on the whole, we put others before ourselves (an example being the family unit) but under extreme circumstances we revert back to self-preservation. Clear evidence for this is a horrifying story from the Holocaust that there was regrettably repeated. A trainfull of Jews arrive at a station. They have been transported there in
Cattle-trucks, crammed in like sardines. The elderly and less able are helped out buy the young and strong. They are assembled in a yard and informed that they are to be transported “to the East” but need to shower and be disinfected first. The weak are helped to undress and get into the “shower-room”. All this way they less able are assisted by those who could. They are standing in a shower waiting for the water to come down on them when the lights go off and gas comes out of the ceilings. They realise that will soon die and in an effort to save themselves all of them run too the door. That’s up to 2000 people all rushing towards a small doorway. As the gas begins to take effect they only think of themselves, all trying to get out. They fight, clawing at each other in an effort to survive. Within a few minutes all of them are dead and most are piled up by the door in bloody pyramid from having fought to the death in an effort to get out. From this, we can see how rapid the transformation from the group to individual is. We are obsessed with living. The want for life is a very basic flaw in humanity, we value life too highly. Ultimately, the end of life is nothing. Our body has shut down and we can’t feel, do or acknowledge anything. It should be nothing to us but throughout history religious ideology has “hyped-up” how valuable life is. Over the course of time it has been hard-wired into our systems that life is good.
For most people a certain sight can evoke the desire for the well-being of others. It could be the sight of a mother feeding her baby or anyone enjoying themselves over something as simple as a meal or game of cards. Personally, the sight of pleasure being envoked can make my day. Anyone can have pleasure from the simplest of things. People with troubled pasts (I have noticed this particularly in survivors of the Holocaust), seem to exist to please others. They live wth their memories and whenever they see someone enjoying themselves, the pleasure is almost theirs.
We feel for others as somewhere in our brains is an area of compassion. Everyone has this and in turn loves someone. For example, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen who roamed Eastern Europe for Jews to kill and were some of if not the most evil people in history loved someone, possibly a woman or child. They would have mourned the death of that person with all of their heart. Anyone can have pity but not always for anybody.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Did Bloody Mary deserve her reputation?
Did Bloody Mary deserve her reputation? It is a question that has been repeatedly by historians. My personal verdict is no. She gained her reputation because she burned so many Protestants but I think that it was no fault of her own. Her father, Henry VIII became rabidly anti-Catholic after the Reformation of the English Churches. Mary was also the daughter of a women that he had divorced and hated. Henry, as the head of the Church that said that his marriage with Catherine of Aragon wasn't legally binding making Mary illegitimate. As a result he mistreated her which heightened her dislike of Protestants.During her reign she was under high mental pressure and stress. Her husband, Phillip II of Spain, the one man that she really loved abandoned her causing to sink into periods of sever depression. She also suffered from numerous phantom pregnancies and became for a child that she could never have. As a result she was highly unstable and couldn't be held responsible for her actions.
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Villains-humans as well
Villains-they come in the form of drug dealers, murderers, rapists, sadists, Mafia bosses and money-hungry businessman. The stereotype of a villain is a greedy male, usually with some sort of madness for money and women. They are also typically sadists, gaining pleasure from making others suffer but when there own life is threatened, they are terrified, begging for forgiveness. Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the James Bond books and films falls neatly into this category. He is an international criminal who runs a network of terrorism, counter-intelligence and extortion, very willing to order the murders of fellow human beings but in the film For Your Eyes Only, he squeals for mercy as 007 tips him down a giant chimney-stack. The reality is different. The film Scarface portrays gangsters as being romantic figures and the various Mafia syndicates in America and Italy have encouraged this. In Mario Puzo's epic book The Godfather, a Mafia don: Corleone has been shown as a compassionate, kindly man with a ruthless streak who will order the beating or killing of anyone who has offended him or his friends.
Villains love and are loved. No matter how much they have degraded themselves by committing horrendous crimes such as killing a fellow man, they are still one themselves. They have a mother and father. Possibly siblings. In the book Class A by Robert Muchamore, the villain is a cocaine dealer on a massive scale. He has children and takes them and one of their friends on expensive holidays to Miami. He treats the friend as one of his own, paying for his purchases in a shopping centre, having a burping contest in the corridor of a upper-class hotel. Generally being "Dad".
Every villain has someone who loves them and that they love. The film Downfall shows Hitler's last few days leading up to his suicide and the relationships between him, his girlfriend, his secretaries, generals and subordinates. Towards the end at the climax he discusses suicide with a few of the people he kept close to him and eventually gives them cyanide capsules when requested for. As he places one in his closest secretary's hand he says "I wish that I could've given you a better gift". This shows that even one of History's most manic, evil, tyrannical and twisted individuals had at least some shreds of humanity.
Villains love and are loved. No matter how much they have degraded themselves by committing horrendous crimes such as killing a fellow man, they are still one themselves. They have a mother and father. Possibly siblings. In the book Class A by Robert Muchamore, the villain is a cocaine dealer on a massive scale. He has children and takes them and one of their friends on expensive holidays to Miami. He treats the friend as one of his own, paying for his purchases in a shopping centre, having a burping contest in the corridor of a upper-class hotel. Generally being "Dad".
Every villain has someone who loves them and that they love. The film Downfall shows Hitler's last few days leading up to his suicide and the relationships between him, his girlfriend, his secretaries, generals and subordinates. Towards the end at the climax he discusses suicide with a few of the people he kept close to him and eventually gives them cyanide capsules when requested for. As he places one in his closest secretary's hand he says "I wish that I could've given you a better gift". This shows that even one of History's most manic, evil, tyrannical and twisted individuals had at least some shreds of humanity.
Freedom or liberty?
Two major political and philosophical principles are freedom and liberty. To the casual observer, the are identical but in reality they are extremely different ideas. Freedom is where an individual is able to do whatever they like whenever they like. This would lead to total anarchy. For example: a man who is poorly paid but particularly wants a certain laptop-computer and cannot afford it either robs a bank to get the money or steals it off the shop’s shelf. If the whole of society had total freedom then chaos would ensue. Grudges would be solved by a murder. Racists would go into areas of towns where minorities lived and assault them or destroy property. To put it concisely society would break down and order dissolve. The politicians would have no power and violent crime would be rife.
Liberty is the idea of being bound by certain rules but having the flexibility to do more or less whatever you want within legal reason. A lack of freedom doesn’t mean a complete restriction on the activities of the individual. Instead they have to follow laws for the greater good. The law of having to drive on the right or left side of the road is so that transportation is safe. Murder and violent crime is illegal so that civil stability is theoretically insured. Drugs are banned so that the side-effects put less people in danger. A cannabis user has the potential to become so paranoid that if they get stoned and start to do stupid things in public, they could assault someone that looks at them in the wrong way.
Freedom has been taken away from society so that they can get the most benefits out of liberty. Another excellent example is the principle of free marketing. The idea of the Free Market is the unrestricted trade of any legal product such as bananas, steel, paper, and plastic. The freedom has been taken away from the individual by banning the trade of certain products such as drugs, weaponry and certain chemicals but the liberty is the opportunity to buy or sell as much of the legal products as you can.
Most people would say freedom if you asked them what they would prefer but they don’t realise how dangerous it could be. Politicians frequently talk about freedom but rarely liberty. In the English language we say that you free prisoners but liberate the unjustly prosecuted. My opinion on this is that a prisoner has been restricted in what they can do, so when they are freed and for example choose to get a random bus too an unknown destination they feel that their activities are unrestricted. A school pupil who has been isolated for bad behaviour will feel that everything is open to them when they leave the room that they have been confined to for a few hours.
With liberation, you feel that you can do much but aren’t entirely unrestricted. When American and British tanks rolled across Iraqi cities to liberate the locals from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein, many felt as if under the dictator, they had been carrying a pack-load of bricks (the suppression of political beliefs and persecution of anyone who dared to speak out against the regime) but when the Americans and British arrived a large weight had been lifted but they were still not completely able to live normal and free lives. For example, they have to carry ID cards and are subjected to curfews yet they generally live better lives under the Americans and British than Saddam Hussein.
Another interesting thought I picked up on after this was first posted was that freedom has been taken away by incarcerating them without trial but they still have the liberty of life.
(Thanks to Alexander Brodkin for this idea)
Liberty is the idea of being bound by certain rules but having the flexibility to do more or less whatever you want within legal reason. A lack of freedom doesn’t mean a complete restriction on the activities of the individual. Instead they have to follow laws for the greater good. The law of having to drive on the right or left side of the road is so that transportation is safe. Murder and violent crime is illegal so that civil stability is theoretically insured. Drugs are banned so that the side-effects put less people in danger. A cannabis user has the potential to become so paranoid that if they get stoned and start to do stupid things in public, they could assault someone that looks at them in the wrong way.
Freedom has been taken away from society so that they can get the most benefits out of liberty. Another excellent example is the principle of free marketing. The idea of the Free Market is the unrestricted trade of any legal product such as bananas, steel, paper, and plastic. The freedom has been taken away from the individual by banning the trade of certain products such as drugs, weaponry and certain chemicals but the liberty is the opportunity to buy or sell as much of the legal products as you can.
Most people would say freedom if you asked them what they would prefer but they don’t realise how dangerous it could be. Politicians frequently talk about freedom but rarely liberty. In the English language we say that you free prisoners but liberate the unjustly prosecuted. My opinion on this is that a prisoner has been restricted in what they can do, so when they are freed and for example choose to get a random bus too an unknown destination they feel that their activities are unrestricted. A school pupil who has been isolated for bad behaviour will feel that everything is open to them when they leave the room that they have been confined to for a few hours.
With liberation, you feel that you can do much but aren’t entirely unrestricted. When American and British tanks rolled across Iraqi cities to liberate the locals from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein, many felt as if under the dictator, they had been carrying a pack-load of bricks (the suppression of political beliefs and persecution of anyone who dared to speak out against the regime) but when the Americans and British arrived a large weight had been lifted but they were still not completely able to live normal and free lives. For example, they have to carry ID cards and are subjected to curfews yet they generally live better lives under the Americans and British than Saddam Hussein.
Another interesting thought I picked up on after this was first posted was that freedom has been taken away by incarcerating them without trial but they still have the liberty of life.
(Thanks to Alexander Brodkin for this idea)
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