The Queen's Speech

The Queen’s visit to Ireland was certainly not a celebration. Her arrival at Baldonell Airport was as close to furtive as a State arrival can be and her motorcade down Dublin’s O’Connell Street was, like so much in Ireland’s sad history, desolate.

Desolée -- to be saddened, dismayed, sorry; the French phrases came to mind as, with equal perplexity I pondered the raison d’etre for this visit. It was certainly evident that Anglo-Irish relations were yet a work in progress and, being in progress, still harbored an outcome that was dubious.

Why would the Queen go to a place where a cordon sanitaire had to be drawn between her and its people? It was hardly the image or even the role of a modern monarch, which is to commemorate deeds done and seal done deals. The Queen’s speech, given at Dublin Castle, provided the answer: the visit was an exercise in remembrance for the sake of the future.

At once lean and rich, the speech began by hearkening to the “many layers and traditions” of a shared past while acknowledging that the “weight of history” was marked by the “sad and regrettable reality” produced by a relationship that had not always been “straightforward” or “benign.” In so saying, the Queen bowed to the fact that, on balance and despite the many complexities of the narrative, Britain had been the oppressor.

She then spoke what many commentators have already said was as close to an apology as a monarch could proffer:

“These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy. We can never forget those who have died or been injured and their families. To all who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.”

But the words went beyond "apology." They embodied a transformational call for compassionate atonement and forgiveness which was all the stronger because it came from within the circle of all those who had suffered. Those listening could not but themselves acknowledge that Elizabeth’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, had been blown up by an IRA bomb.

In speaking thus, the Queen’s remarks called to mind that most ancient and stunning scene in which Priam comes to Achilles' tent to beg for the body of the son who had killed the other’s lover. “But come now, sit” says the warrior, “though we each feel our pain, let our grief lie quiet on hearts....” And when they had had their fill of lament, Achilles slew a sheep, skillfully spitted it and when it was ready “they set it in fine baskets, took bread, poured wine and filled their need for food and drink.” (Iliad, Bk. 24.)

“But it is also true,” the Queen continued, “that no-one who looked to the future over the past centuries could have imagined the strength of the bonds that are now in place between the governments and the people of our two nations....”

Throughout the speech, the words “us,” “us all,” and “our people” recurred. The Queen repeatedly returned to the remembrance of the “families” which “share the two islands” and to the “ties of family, friendship and affection” which bound “the people of our two nations.”

What the Queen would have her audience recall was that in the end, the Irish and the English, as the Welsh and the Scots and as, indeed, the Saxons, Danes and Normans, were all one people sharing, as every family must, a difficult but ultimately enduring bond.

Far more than just platitudes, the speech was an exercise in remembrance. Most people think of “memory” as the replaying or retrieving of a recorded hard fact. There is, they think, a “factual truth” which can be laid hold of and put back on the table before our eyes. But that is not the way memory works.

The word re-member means precisely that: to re-assemble, to re-collect, to put something back together again. There are, to be sure, pieces of the past which are worked with but the memory is the result of a present act of recreation. We put the past back together as we see it, and as we wish to see it, today.

Lawyers and psychologists have long understood the mechanics of memory which are now being confirmed by neuroscience. Eye-witnesses are the worst evidence because they see what they want to see and convince themselves that they did see it -- like the alleged murder in the “clear light of the silvery moon” which Lincoln famously proved didn’t shine that night. Likewise, people stuck in psychological ruts from which they can’t break loose simply “replay” today a record of their own fashioning that represents not the past but their reaction to it.

The two poles under the tent of remembrance are exaction and forgiveness. Do we demand our own satisfaction or do we forego and move on?

If we were to aggregate the sum total of all the injuries perpetuated by the “English” on the “Irish” satisfaction would be well nigh impossible. English oppression was all at once ethnic, economic, religious, linguistic and cultural. Such a heap of sins requires a diabolical first cause. But if we break down the past into more manageable bites, we are left simply with fallible and failing humans.

It is true that the English oppressed the Irish but who were the “English”? The celtic Britains conquered by the Angles, Danes and Saxons? The Saxons conquered by the Normans? The flexible majesty of the English language itself reflects the waves of invasion and oppression that swept over the isle.

It is true that Ireland was economically despoiled, its inhabitants left to poverty and famine. But the most classic study of economic oppression by one class against another was Frederick Engles’ The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844) -- a true horror tale if ever there was one. What the English did to the English under capitalism and by means of the “enclosure laws” which deprived the peasantry of its common lands was just as bad.

It is true that Irish Catholics were barred from office and civil advancement by the Act of Settlement of 1701, but so too were English Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. Moreover, had James II, with his Irish-Catholic and Continental backers succeeded in their endeavors the shoe would simply have been on the other foot. The sorry fact is that for three centuries all of Europe fell into the pit of sectarian animosity and exclusion.

Such an analysis allows us to see that both Ireland and England were rife with divisions of various sorts operating at different levels. We can then choose to remember only the fact of divisions, which is to remain dismembered; or, we can choose to gather in all the divisions, which is to be made whole.

Are we to say that George Bernard Shaw was not Irish but James Joyce was? That Daniel O’Connell was an Irish statesman but Edmund Burke was not? Such exclusionary resentments are pointless. It is a far, far better thing to recall more generally that throughout the English speaking world, the rose, thistle and shamrock are entwined.

Some people choose “never to forget” a past wrong. In so saying, they resolve to gnash their teeth over an ever more deepened and elaborately remembered injury. The Queen pointed to another path: Better to remember with “forbearance and conciliation” that the “ties of family, friendship and affection" are the “golden thread that runs through all our joint successes so far, and all we will go on to achieve.”


©Barfo, 2011

.

Straus-Kahn Arrested for Doing what the IMF does Best

Dominique Straus Kahn, head of the IMF, was arrested for rape-assault on a Chambermaid! -- But for a chambermaid, Dominique, a chambermaid? Couldn't it at least have been Argentina?

.

Now We Know

So... Now we know the real reason Obamasama was not invited to the Royal Wedding. He had a Murder to attend to!!!!!

.

A True National Security Moment

"If there is a normal order in societies, it must be the fruit of an anterior crisis." -- Rene Girard.

On Sunday evening, regular programming and routine weekend affairs were interrupted so that the Commander in Chief could announce the successful murder of Osama Bin Laden, the alleged evil mastermind of the despicable terrorist attacks of 9/11.

It was a classic “National Security Moment” that bespoke the Orwellian demi-monde into which we have sunk. In modern times, lazy Sunday mornings or uneventful weekday nights are typically interrupted to announce some kind of actual national emergency such as the attack on Pearl Harbor or the events of September 11th. Other happenings of less immediate impact and consequence have been allowed to wait until morning. Thus, the immediate reaction to the White House announcement that President Obama would address the Nation within moments was necessarily one of intense apprehension. Like Winston, arrested by the blare of loudspeakers, we were left to wonder worriedly what dread and dire result loomed over us now.

With relief we soon learned that the announcement would deal with the locating and killing of Osama Bin Laden. We could return to our fourth beer, to making the kids’ sandwiches or to twittering with our myriad faceless friends as our glow boxes were filled with all the chirping chatter one ever needed to hear about Osama.

The moment shortly dragged on into minutes and to near an hour. Apparently the president was ensuring that he was the last person on the planet to actually give the news. Perhaps he was waiting for a “consensus” to emerge.

When he finally did take to the podium he had nothing to add except a lot of political hay. But the hay is worth weighing because it reveals the Administration’s utterly deceitful cynicism. Obama began,

"It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory ... The worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts."

Surely tears must have rolled down the eyes of those assembled outside the White House bearing lighted candles and yellow ribbons. But any rendition of Amazing Grace would have to wait a little longer as the President continued,

"On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family."

What Obama served up was paradigmatic scapegoating; pure and simple, no more and no less.

As everyone knows, “scapegoating” consists in arbitrarily blaming someone or something else for a problem that afflicts a society or group. However, as theorized by René Girard [1], the French professor of literature turned anthropological philosopher, the process begins in what he calls 'mimetic desire.'

According to Girard [2], human desire is learned through imitation. We see another person desiring an object, we imitate him by desiring the same object. Advertisers make great and profitable use of this principle.

However, this imitation soon snowballs into personal antagonism. In a kind of integral psychological calculus, the more we imitate another person’s desires for various things, the more we come to imitate him himself. In this way, envy for things turns into personal jealousy so that the person we imitate becomes our competitor and, ultimately, our enemy.

The only way to break the cycle of 'mimetic violence' into which we have become trapped, is to transpose our hostile urges onto a sacrificial victim -- to desire to have, and thus to share, the same enemy. The inversion is key. As we once competed for the same desireable object, we can now join in hating, fighting and destroying the same loathsome object. The brutal elimination of the victim assuages the appetite for violence and leaves the group suddenly and miraculously appeased and calm. Peace and Unity have been restored.

And so, the Fifteen Minutes of Hate end with the soothing voice of Big Brother telling us,

“Justice has been done... Tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.

"Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

"Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.”

Girard’s theories open up a fascinating origami of anthropological, historical and theological implications. But, at a purely material level, mimetic desire is simply another way of describing class conflict. What happens between individuals happens in the aggregate when two classes desire the same objects like food, shelter and... well... gasoline. In one way or another, the class conflict must be resolved.

Today, the United States stands at the precipice of a Great Depression. Its credit rating has been down graded by Standards and Poor’s, the International Monetary Fund has sounded the tocsin for “belt tightening,” Bernanke’s quantitative easing has all but trashed the ever-sinking dollar, the housing slump deepens and unemployment continues substantially unabated. As ex Senator Simpson put it with inimitable vulgarity, “there are too many pigs at the sow's teats.” Move over People, there is not enough milk for General Electric and Bank of America.

There are solutions to the economic crisis, but they will not be found in Obama’s neo-liberal incantations and ministrations. Prosperity for all is not, never has been, and cannot be achieved by shovelling wealth at the wealthy. Security for all is not achieved by endless war.

But war and poverty are all Obama actually proffers, now and for the foreseeable future.

In the Futurological Congress, sci-fi writer Stanslaw Lem describes a destitute world where “atmospheric hallucinogens” have deluded people into thinking that a dim bulb is a chandelier and that a tin of mush is roast goose. Big Pharma may get us there yet, but for the moment, we will have to rejoice in the killing of Bin Laden.

----------------

[1] Rene Girard:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard

[2] La Violence et le sacré (1972); English translation: Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
[3] Futurological Congress :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress

© Barfo, 2011

.

Elsewhere in the News...

Global Capitalism's Looming Fascist Threat (Al Jaz / Wm. Robinson)

.

A Republic You Say?

As avid droves descended on London and as billions around the world tune-in to the broadcast of the latest “Royal Wedding” (British/Commonwealth version), Americans might gnash their teeth and wonder why we couldn’t have such a colourful revenue-generating institution.   [continue reading]

.

Moral Hypocricy & The Wrong Kind of Magnification

The report of the cold-blooded massacre of Palestinian prisoners by Jewish guards raises two principle questions, the first of which is the black out of the story in the U.S. and Western press. Of course, the story will be reported in small print somewhere so that there can be a tenuous claim of deniability. But what cannot be denied on any substantial and good faith basis is that the murder has been censored from the news.

The reason is clear. Had Chinese or Arab or Balkan guards committed the atrocious murder, the story would be all the headline. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be out front declaiming and hectoring. Even President Obama would muster the courage to denounce (in slightly hedged terms) the "inappropriate" conduct. Had Arabs or -- god forbid -- Iranians murdered 200 Jews, the wailing board of the American press would resonate for weeks with indignation and demands for nuclear wasting of the culprits -- all of them, let Jehova sort 'em out!

The patent moral hypocricy is simply a manifestation of the underlying fact that our policies and public awareness are formed and informed by interested parties who seek only their own advantage and whose every word drips with dishonour.

But worse than hypocricy is the moral decay which the event reflects. This second question is of broader scope because it cannot be said that Israeli guards are the only thugs who get a "morale boost" from murdering other human beings. Just last month the press was obliged to report on the leak of American soldiers ghoulishly grinning, posing with and mutilating the cadavers of young men they had "wasted" in a lethal carnival game-shoot.

Depraved cruelty is nothing alien to Man. The walls of the Louvre and the Uffizi hang with the resplendant spectacles of sadism. The museums ought to remind us what a thin tissue keeps us from falling into the pit. But they have failed to do so. A kind of reverse Magnificat has been gestating in society's womb, as if we have been nursing a little, repugnant, oozing monster that has now blasted out with blackened gore to see the light of day.

What was the poisoned seed that gave this malformed creature birth? It began as a culture of bravado and hardness that despired gentility and softness as weak and faggy. It progressed to a culture of grit, grunge and grunting hardness that proved itself both in taking it and dishing it out. Bruteness was made a sport until we made a sport of brutality.

In 2005, American soldiers strung up a 22 year old Afghani cab driver and beat him to death over a period of four days, amusing themselves by thwacking his legs with sticks to make him jerk in pain and cry out "Alla Akbar". After days of this sporting treatment, the "interrogee" went into coronary arrest. The coroner reported that his legs had been "pulpified" into the consistency of juice. Not a peep of indignation was heard from any quarter in the United States: not in the press, not from the pulpit, not from the stinking pit that calls itself "Congress" and certainly not from the likes of President "SockJock" Bush.

Brutality has been building up for quite some time accompanied, in tandem, by an official culture that displays its "fairness" with displays of cold, indifference. Us, hate? Oh no! Far be it from us. We just don't care! For us, a suspect, a prisoner, an enemy is just an object! Can't get more impartial than that.

The kernel of cruelty subsist in every human heart as a kind of original sin. Instead of restraining this impulse we have done everything we could to cultivate and unleash it. But alongside cruelty, in every heart there is also a "conscience" --- an equally primal awareness of basic moral axioms. In a curious dynamic the impulse for cruelty against others gets restrained by an awareness in self that juxtaposes self with other. It is this tense balance between opposites that makes us exclaim "What am I doing?" and stop, provided we at least retain our alertness to what we are about.

But the Evil One knows this and fights conscience with all tools at his disposal.

"Future soldiers may operate in encapsulated, climate-controlled, powered fighting suits, laced with sensors, and boasting chameleonlike “active” camouflage. “Skin patch” pharmaceuticals help regulate fears, focus concentration and enhance endurance and strength." (Rebuilding America's Defences, P.N.A.C. Report, Sept. 2000.)

Yes! Performance enhancers and murderous morale boosters to create moral monsters. And the Good News is that one day -- oh happy day! -- we won't even have to be hypocritical about it anymore!


©Barfo, 2011
.