Staying Schtum



Subject: Staying schtum



In the process of ‘child care’, men generally are far too contrived to forgo their self analysis of the world around them to give more than symbolic attention to the job of looking after the toddler if they have to forgo the footie.  Women on the other hand, normally extremely self absorbed, even borderline neurosis  regarding their looks and presentation, seem, at the stroke of a pen,(in this case giving birth to a baby) to cast aside their narcissism and lend themselves 110 % to the child 24/7.
Why is this, is it genetic or is it that having carried the grommet inside, each embryonic kick reestablishing their presence, the links are formed maternally not just sociologically as in the case of a man. He only stands on the proverbial touch line whilst the game is in progress, shouting encouragement but hardly understanding the rules of the game. As a father he is already nine months behind at birth playing catch up and given his position as reserve, his role of carrying on the water bottle when asked, this inferior psychosomatic interaction instills a servant/master relationship between husband and wife not a collaborative one. For most men this isn’t a worry as they scurry off to work, much more attuned to its rigours than nappy changing and return at night to a confusing world where the little bundle’s needs have become paramount.  Turning on the tele as normal, “it’s too loud”, the room is too cold, or too hot, bugs attain a new significance and sleep is rationed. Each whimper from the bundle electrifies your wife and, as if by osmosis, you. The cough becomes life threatening, the rash the start of something unpleasant and one is forced into thinking how do children survive in the insanitary conditions of Africa. Of course the short answer is, they don’t !
Doctors in this country are fast becoming a rarity and doctors on ‘call out’ extinct so the child is brought up on the internets wide reaching prognosticationary analysis of ills and illness which covers the writer of the journal with dozens of sub-clause’s when dishing out remedy’s. Rather seek the advice of a doctor it reminds you, forgetting of course that the reason you are poking around in this frightening world of paediatric medicine is you can’t get a doctor in the first place.
Sitting in the car with a fraught wife by your side, (the match sidelined) dark streets swish by you watch out for the sign, To the hospital. You pull in as near to the entrance as you can, ignoring the ‘don’t park here sign’ you march purposefully in clutching your precious bundle to find medical attention.  At least in moments like this you really feel part of a family. “Who is the father” lays down a marker, your first in months and even if it’s only where and to who the invoice should be sent, at least it’s a start.
The brightly lit hospital corridors flash by as you trail along once more relegated to the end of the procession, but already feeling a little discounted (even with your credit card in hand), the hospital procedure takes over and the Mom becomes the de facto definitive parent one’s again. 

Not for the first time and having learnt your place to be patient, you stay schtum 

The attack on Israel by Hamas

What a mess, a mess a long time in the making.

The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.  
The senses do or don’t evolve but they only evolve as nonsense evolves and nonsense evolves because it must.

I started this blog as Hamas began its attack on the Jewish settlements in Gaza. There had been no attempt to corral young peoples at a music festival and systematically gun them down nor the almost unbelievable barbaric atrocity of beheading of young babies found in the settlers homes.  My blog was a reasoned attempt to set some sort of background to the Hamas/Israeli conflict and I hadn’t considered the almost jihadi death squad wish of Hamas knowing that the result of their actions would bring terrible retribution to Palestinians at large.

Biblical folk law states, in Genesis, that the patriarch Abraham had two sons, ‘Isaac’ from who the tribe of Israel was born and Ishmael who came to represent the Arab in the regional mix.  
The development in Israel of an attack by Hamas on the state of Israel highlights the troubling relationship between two societies, Arab and Jew and their sense of a ‘right‘ stretching back to the early period of civilisation human socialisation, a time when we in Europe were still primitive. The Arabs in the region and wider were the leaders in many spheres of learning not least science and literature and the Jews, who lived amongst them as a religious group, through their dint of self assuredness became influential in the region. The region itself had many rulers, from the Egyptians to the Assyrian’s, the Persians, the Romans (who converted to Christianity) and finally the Ottomans who ruled the area up until a United nation mandate handed power to Britain on the proviso that they would effect a two tier state consisting of Palestine and Israel.  The depth of feeling and often resentment in their religious differences underpinned much of the incoherence we see today. Judaism through the Old Testament and later Islam through the teachings of the Koran cemented a deep mistrust and much of the inability to find common ground is due to the false surety both sides have in believing they are right and that their interpretation of gods will is the only true one.
Israel’s emergence as a political state in 1947, after the mandate bequeathed to Britain on the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire ran its course and a two state solution was sought.  From a tribal entity living with and amongst Arabs, Israel became a strong powerful nation which in no small part came from her strong self-belief and the enormous support of the USA where many Jews had settled and made their fortunes exacting prominence in the seat of power and in the commerce of the nation.
Having been on the wrong end of terrible injustice in many parts of Europe, specifically in Germany under the Nazi program of extermination which culminated in the monstrous event we know as the  Holocaust, one would have thought that Jewish leadership  would be sensitive towards an underdog over who they had gained power to do much as they pleased but it seems history is no great tutor.
Power is a difficult thing to handle sensibly, many Jews are as intolerant of their Arab neighbours as are their neighbours of them. The internationally agreed rules governing the occupation of the Gaza  are often ignored by Israel with the claim that the land settled on by the Palestinians is in fact actually part of Israel and thus the UN directive, ‘not to build new Jewish settlements in Gaza’ is ignored by the Hasidic right wing ultra religious  segment of the governing coalition in Isreal who pressed for an accelerated building effort which accelerated Palestinian resentment and culminated in the attack this week.
The claim that the Hamas attack was unprovoked is offset by the daily imposition of the rules of an occupying power which ordinary  Palestinians have to circumnavigate daily   rules and regulations as they move into and out of Gaza on a daily basis which is needed, according to the Israelis to root out Hamas terrorists.
The fear that people living in Israel have to bear the brunt of a constant threat from Hamas, who openly state their wish to inflict genocide on Isreal also comes from both Hamas in Gaza and the Arab sister organisation, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the power behind them Iran. The threat is real and Israel is right to prepare what ever is needed to survive and the sound of terror in the voices of the young people enjoying a festival which suddenly turns into some sort of horror film as Hamas fighters corral them and start to execute them for no other reason than that they are Jewish is one of the most terrifying sounds I have heard. Also the sound of the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu telling the world he will destroy Hamas and by juxtaposition  the people living in Gaza, women and children along with the aged as he unleashes the firepower of his planes to bomb the inhabitants who live in this closely knit enclave of streets, many, (especially the children) have no connection with Hamas. This pushes the phrase ‘collateral damage’ (citizens who are killed whilst the army fights a battle) beyond our understanding of what is just. His zeal to root out and kill brings into mind the Nazi philosophy towards the Jews from which the Jewish people gained such sympathy but which they are in danger of loosing if an Arab genocide takes place.

 

The gruesome pictures and stories emerging seem to belong rather to a fatwa where death seems to foretell an afterlife of eternal satisfaction and the ultra religious on both sides seem confident of their place in heaven.
The brutality and deprivation have to bear witness to an unhinged society and whilst we try to grapple with it, if after the Israeli government has levelled Gaza, it might be easily assumed that other Arab states will not stand by but will bring their own army’s in to the conflict. Maybe then the jihadist will feel vindicated since no rational person can see a solution and we would be sensible if we become more aware of the depth and disparity that religious disharmony can plunge us all. Already the pro Palestinians are out protesting on the streets of London and extra police are needed to guard predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods

Life with only the scraps.

Is it the business of government to involve itself in fixing problems or should it let the market fix them according to ‘it’s’ needs. It seems to me that after years of believing market forces know best is the what people need perhaps it’s time to ask the people. Intervention with an eye to the needs of the market has produced one of the most lop sided nations in the western world where inequality is often spoken about in awe but little done to alleviate it so entrenched are the forces which run this country. Jeremy Corbyn was demonised in the press for daring to rock the boat with a dose of good old fashioned  socialism. The press screamed that he would upset the status quo with his socialism but that’s what’s needed, proper long term planning with policies to help the people and the country as a whole. Tinkering and sound bites has been our governance for years now and apart for the radical Thatcher/Reagan years when unfettered capitalism was allowed to prosper and the rich secured a lock on the Treasury threatening to pull out if they didn’t get their way, which only ensured that 1 to 2% of the population secured the wealth whilst the remaining 92 % were left with only the scraps.

Capitalism is like that, look across the world, from the favela of Brazil to the shanty towns in South Africa euphemistically named ‘informal dwellings’. They are a product of don’t care governments who don’t see the horror of living there or understand their role in perpetuating the degradation of their own flesh and blood. Many northern towns in this country were built on the principle of feeding the factories with workers but rarely for caring for the workers themselves and the gulf between the aspiration of boys and girls becomes a post code lottery.

So convinced of the radical mould breaking philosophy proposed by Jeremy Corbyn, long term planning, turning away from market led solutions, that the city were determined to break him, just as Margeret thatcher broke the unions and break him they did. The very people who stood to gain the most voted for Boris and his promise of cake today they were convinced by the leader-writers in the newspapers where traditionally they gained their political direction and the rest is history with our nations slide into obscurity. Nothing appears to have been done to mend the roof when we had a priceless period of cheap money instead when borrowing was painless we set about the most stringent reduction in public services and now those services, almost non existent are being phased out. Where ever you look from the NHS to education, house building to prisons, military spending to social services we have hit rock bottom but the government is steadfast in its determination to limit top rate taxation and the bonus system which highlighted the inequity by tabulating the remuneration the chief executive of Nat West Alison Rose is entitled to, a salary of £2 million plus a £3 million pound bonus scheme and and a £5 million pension pot.

 She is in line with the other banking executives such as Bob Diamond of Barclays (£11 million), Stuart Gulliver of HSCB (£7.2 million), Antonio Horta-Osorio of Lloyds (£11.5 million), all banks who were rescued by the tax payer (you and I) in the 2008 banking crash which was brought about by bankers greed, and an over reliance on the derivative phenomenon in the lending market. which were shown to be a falsehood.

So why do I still bang on about these statistics. Well the destitute have increased by 2.5 times over the last couple of years, millions of children go to school hungry and millions of their mums and dads fret about making ends meet. The Tory’s have recently promoted an increase of 10% on the minimum wage but it only means an increase worth about £2 per hour,  an amount, which Bob  Diamond and Alison Rose wouldn’t consider as change in their pocket. Modern slavery laws are continually flaunted, the contractual notion of employment is destroyed by the temporary nature of jobs, “why do I bang on” well it’s because I care - don’t you ?