When History Delivers Tragedies: Wilfred Owen and WW1

Tragedies occur on all levels in history. Some are catastrophic, involving thousands upon thousands of victims and move the needle measuring the Arc of Progress backwards. Some, though, are those individual ones where an individual’s passing seems so unfair, and that what he or she could have offered us, magnificent examples of man’s potential, are never to be. That comment suffers the absence of describing the absence felt by those closest to the departed individual. Their lives were altered beyond recompense. For us travelers in the future, having learned of those earlier exploits and the nuggets produced from the minds and thoughts of artists, depending on our fullest understanding of “the story” around the individual, our own pain is commensurate to the immediate pain felt by close associates of him who departed this world. The more one learns of the time, perhaps the closer we can share empathic feelings with those who suffered in the moment.

Artists are special in relaying empathic messages. They communicate through metaphor and reimagining the world in a way that offers a singular understanding that allows the rest of us to comprehend beyond the surface, or through the offering of an altered vision that clashes with pablum, propaganda or political biases. Such was the gift of Wilfred Owen.

If you have spent any time studying the Great War, you learn that it was a mistake on so many levels. Not least of which was the ineptitude of the leaders who misunderstood the nature of war as the 20th century began and wished to prosecute a war that was now no longer possible. These leaders asked their soldiers to march towards weapons that could kill at a greater distance, with more force and explosive power and with a rapidity that was truly destructive for all that the hale of bullets met in their paths. Add to that the use of gas and other chemicals, aerial engagement between planes and between the planes and those on the ground. To be a simple soldier required more than perhaps it has ever expected of a human mind and perhaps has not been matched since.

In the midst of this carnage, art took note. Great minds assessed and judged the mistakes, caught the Zeitgeist and measured how fruitless battles had become. Among the greatest was a fledgling poet who had gained his voice through the tragedy of the war, plus a chance meeting while on a rehabilitation stay in Scotland near the end of the war. After suffering injuries and mental trauma from munitions attacks, Owen was sent for the “Talking Cure” at the Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland. There the new psychological treatment developed by Sigmund Freud was utilized. It was also here that Owen met Siegfried Sassoon.

Sassoon was already a giant and Owen felt and exhibited this sentiment upon meeting him. At that point Owen was editing the hospital magazine, called the Hydra. In it poems, thoughts and observations about life and the war were offered by the patients. Owen was attempting the art of poetry to incapsulate his nightmares in words. Sassoon would discuss possibilities with Owen and shape his craft through the process. During the day, the doctors would address the pain, at night the war’s impact would reimagine the pain and visions of the dead for yet another time.

When the war broke out, Owen had been in Bordeaux teaching at a school. He was comfortably away from it all and reading about its initial movements from the safety of a summer garden. At that point the British had no draft, only a volunteer army. The longer the war dragged on—it was thought it would only last six weeks or so, and surely be over by Christmas—Owen felt the need to enlist, to prove himself. To quote him and his sentiments about his reasons for seeking honor on the battlefield, it was not “to save my honor before inquisitive grandchildren fifty years hence. But I now do most intensely want to fight.” At the beginning of the war, there was some concept in the public mind that one had to stand up for his country and put his life in danger to accomplish and serve the country’s goals. How he would learn to question these thoughts. He would return to fight in the end, knowing its futility. But, his love of his fellow soldiers was his complete commitment.

To quote Philip Burton Morris, in his article about the poet, ‘Owen was stunned by the vast, pitiless volume of the shells, which he reported back to his family with the visceral precision of an experienced soldier. “It was not a succession of explosions or a continuous roar,” he wrote. “It was not a noise; it was a symphony. And it did not move. It hung over us. It seemed as though the air were full of a vast and agonized passion, bursting now with groans and sighs, now into shrill screaming and pitiful whimpering, shuddering beneath terrible blows, torn by unearthly whips, vibrating with the solemn pulses of enormous wings.” Again from the Morris article, ‘On January 12, 1917, Owen led his battalion up to the Bertrancourt line near Amiens. German forces began to shell them heavily, driving Owen and a section of his soldiers into a damaged hut for cover. The German fire persisted without letup—“The Germans knew we were staying there and decided we shouldn’t,” Owen reported mordantly—and the poet shared space with the ruined body of a dead soldier, petrified, shivering, and unable to escape. “Those fifty hours,” he confessed in a letter to his family, “were the agony of my happy life.” On April 14, 1917, the regiment took part in an offensive at St. Quentin. Moving to support the French left, Owen’s troops had to cross the exposed crest of a hill under heavy shell fire. Owen described the attack. “The sensations of going over the top are about as exhilarating as those dreams of falling over a precipice, when you see the rocks at the bottom surging up at you,” he wrote. “I woke up without being squashed. Some didn’t. Then we were caught in a tornado of shells. The various waves were all broken up and we carried on like a crowd moving off a cricket field. When I looked back and saw the ground all crawling and wormy with wounded bodies, I felt no horror at all but only an immense exultation at having got through the barrage.” In late 1918, after returning briefly to England to recover from a wound and soon to be back in France he recounted to his mother about the earlier battle: “I lost all my earthly faculties, and fought like an angel. I came out in order to help these boys—directly by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can.” The poet had already proven he could plead their sufferings. The officer now needed to lead his men as well. He did. He was awarded the Military Cross, with the citation reading “On the Company Commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counterattack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun in an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly.” Owen had proven himself finally, unmistakably to be a soldier.’

Critical to Owen’s writing of poetry is his meeting with Sassoon, and this relationship also flavored Owen’s objections to the war. Even so, both men go back to France, one after openly writing against the war as a famous and respected soldier/poet and the other accepting his treatments and then returning to the Front with a fatalistic attitude towards his own survival. It is with this fatalism that Owen approaches his last year in the war and when he was awarded the Military Cross. Both men’s poems about war are famous; Owens are available here. Dulce Et Decorum Est is read by Michael Stuhlbarg.

My most recent tugging on my anger and anguish at our loss of Owen to the war arrived this week upon a visit to Ripon Cathedral. It is a stunning example as it elicited the thoughts of Owen being virtually in the same spot and location I was then occupying. He spent hours in the calm atmosphere of the Cathedral, which was only a ten minute walk from the flat he had rented while convalescing here in 1918. There is a chapel dedicated to him in the corner to your left as you enter the church. We had just heard an Evensong delivery by a choir from the Netherlands and were much in the mood of contemplation. Earlier visits to the church allowed connections to Lewis Carroll, who gained inspiration from the Cathedral and Ripon, as well as Turner, who painted it. My need to write a tribute to this calm, kind man who only made it to his 25th birthday, which was celebrated in Ripon. Five years’ ago the cathedral commemorated his birthday with poetry readings. Such a tragic loss.

Sassoon, who survived the war and died in 1967, would later write, “W’s death was an unhealed wound, & the ache of it has been with me ever since. I wanted him back—not his poems.” In admittedly the tiniest of ways, I wish to feel that pain for the world’s loss.

Secrets of The Hydra: how Tolkien research uncovered lost Wilfred Owen magazines

Interesting piece about finding two of the three missing copies of Hydra published during the war

England’s Rotten Boroughs and the Misrepresentation of the Use of Power: What Can America Learn from This Mistake?

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From the time of the Greeks, a strange collection of tribes whose language gives us the roots and the concept of the term democracy, giving greater and expanded power to citizens of a country through the franchise- the vote- has been the goal of liberal humanists. The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries returned the discussion to the democratic option for some nations rather than a continuance of allowing the aristocracy ruling alone. The revolutions in America and France were violent departures from royal rule. As the 19th century progresses, there were attempts to give the franchise first to a portion of the white male citizenry, and eventually the entire, adult citizenry. Unfortunately, for women and people of color or some specific nationalities, the United States remained reticent to widen the franchise well into the 20th century. Throughout the 20th century and now into the 21st, liberal forces are using the Constitution, and even more explicitly the Declaration of Independence, to broaden the franchise and to make, in their minds, the country a more fair and inclusive place to live.

Yet, there are forces in opposition, or at least offering a different view that hopes to maintain remnants of that earlier time. In America in the beginning we cobbled together a strange assortment of colonies, each with its own history and approach towards governance. Because of this we have myriad approaches to governance. First, a central, federal, approach to many issues as outlined in the Constitution, and amended or “enhanced” by the ten simultaneously ratified amendments called the Bill of Rights. An additional 17 Amendments have been made, with an additional number proposed by not ratified. Of the 17, one was ratified and then another amendment made to repeal it. Between the Constitution and its Amendments, the governance is divided between the states and federal governments, with sharing on a local level thrown in. Also, we have the Electoral College to ameliorate dominance of a larger body over a smaller population, as is the sharing of power in the Senate among the many states. In the past three or four decades, and especially since the liberal shift in governance after the Civil Rights legislation of the 60s and into the 70s, the conservative elements in the country, seeking to look backward to a time they imagine as better than the present arrangement. Too, the changes in demographics has not favored the previous arrangements of primarily white, entitled males running the show. This would seem to not have changed too much, though, when exploring the make up of members of the Senate.

Our present structure of divisions between the Red and Blue states exposes how highly difficult it would be for any additional amendments to pass through the process of ratification, even though some factions within the electorate are frustrated by recent developments. Many proposals have been made through the Congress to amend the Constitution, but have failed to make it to the people. Some were sent out to the states for ratification, with the most recent two from the 1980s failing because of the seven year clause.

The French Revolution centralized power in Paris, though French mayors are very powerful. In America, our Constitution codified a restriction on many federal powers, with slavery a major obstacle to giving power to the central government. Lincoln came to prominence for many in the electorate due to the rise of an Abolitionist Movement and his career can be measured in the incremental shift he is victorious in moving the country away from an elite, white, slave-owning class. It obviously cost him the highest price, but he is perhaps our best president in history because of his achievements. A recent book on the 2nd Amendment, conveniently called The Second, outlines how our history of slavery has been deliberately mythologized and hidden until the 21st century. Again, the divisions between those in the current Republican Party and those in the Democrat Party observe our history differently. With the recent debacle in the House, first with the Extreme Right firing McCarthy and then the difficulty of replacing him, finally settling on a little known, but still Extreme candidate to lead the House, the difficulties the country is experiencing from allowing a minority of the country to influence the very functioning of government has become a problem.

One could argue that our racists tendencies are a fatal flaw. The term WASP is a part of our history, with many accepting that it is paramount in adjudicating and distributing rights to citizens. For the vast majority of our history being a WASP, and specifically a male WASP, was the only acceptable choice for leadership. One could assert that is still the case in many areas of the country, or at least the assertion of white and male. Being Protestant is not as much a requirement in recent decades. Demographics are not working in favor of this continuing.

This blog attempts to connect the English Rotten Boroughs with our own dysfunctional politics. That brands me as a progressive when it comes to the Electoral College. The Electoral College sought to amend the representation of the voter by giving specific electors authority to choose the president based on proportional representation. How that is determined today could be argued as an affront to democratic rule. As the president is a national ruler, should the majority of the people have the right to choose the individual who decides federal issues? That is a simple question. Wars, certain taxes, national security issues, protection of the rights of the citizen within any state regardless of any distinction, all are decided and maintained through the Legislative and Judicial Branches of our government. Yet, it is still possible for a Senator to be elected to Congress not knowing the correct three branches of government in this country. And, some journalists still believe the Electoral College is sacrosanct. And, our present system allows one man to seriously slow, even jeopardize, maintaining our nation’s security in the world.

A Rotten Borough in England returned power to regions that did not deserve it for centuries. It took until 1832 for the English to amend this wrong, and additional indicator of the power, and worry, of what could happen in a country not addressing electoral wrongs in a very revolutionary era. The Electoral College has sometimes presented the American electorate with historic problems went it gave power to presidents in 2000 and 2016 who did not win the popular vote to join three other not so effective presidents who won the presidency while losing the popular vote. One could argue that the 2000 election was the most consequential “error” in American history when judging the mess in the Middle East, the decline of environmentalism for Bush’s term, and the failure to expand voting and individual rights during his tenure. Then there is the 2016 debacle, which might be the final straw for democracy if the 2024 election does not finally vanquish the QAnon/Newsmax branch of the Republican Party. Listen to a recent discussion between Judy Woodruff and Heather Cox Richardson that expands on the historical nature of divisions within the country and how our present ones may be assessed and addressed. There is no certainty, though, that they will.

Yet, the Gerrymandering of power in the United States within these polarized constituencies is also a major problem. E Pluribus Unum, or as John Adams hoped to have a decision from voting that reflected an “exact portrait, in miniature” of the people as a whole, is not going so well. We now have a former president who lost the vote by seven million votes nationwide who has convinced somewhere around a quarter of the electorate that he won and the 2022 election was stolen. Gore gracefully accepted the Supreme Court decision in the 2000 election, though he felt it did not allow for the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to be fairly completed. The nation got on with its business. We are no longer getting on with the nation’s business. The times are presently troubled. Let us hope for more sunny days in the future.

Sir Bobby: Lessons in Chemistry, or Lessons in History?

Sir Bobby. That is truly a sentence in two words and speaks volumes without an operative verb. Adjectives to describe him; elegant, humble, kind. A true gentleman in the purest sense of what that phrase means. It has spurred this morning’s musings, coming today from the center of Yorkshire outside the town of Ripon and following the ravaging of the north of England and Scotland by Storm Babet (named in the new protocols for the British Meteorologic services for a woman born during a storm)

As Mary and I wander through historic houses, museums and churches in the countries of Ireland and England, armed with our lifelong attempts to understand culture and history,  and how each has been affected by the interchange of ideas through the movement of peoples and its impact on history because of migration, war and colonization, we find that the lessons we’ve learned are never truly learned, only added to and improved. It strikes me, after cogitating in an attempt to make sense of a strange dream I had last night and which I still clearly and unusually still had within my grasp in my first hours of drinking that first cup of coffee, that the past few weeks have shaken us to our cores in a very good way. Within that time, our impressions have been “enhanced?” by the experience/challenges of driving on the “other” side of the road for the past weeks— the last few days’ worth in the midst of the conditions of Storm Babet with ponds developing across many roads and even along the edges of the M1 motorway(freeway). The myriad opportunities afforded Mary and me by visiting those dozens upon dozens of homes, castles, galleries and museums along the way, only reinforce the realization that lessons previously learned are really only an introduction to the bigger picture. That bigger picture continues to come into greater focus in our own little lives. How exciting it is when the history of the lives lived in those areas that interest us demonstrate a connection to another lesson, another person, and incident or place. These past few weeks have allowed us to see places where historical figures we felt we had some command of in representing their influences on history and to stand where they stood, see paintings of them done at a particular time that, when placed in context, gives us an even greater understanding.

What had settled into my craw at 7:27 AM GMT this morning while watch BBC’s Breakfast News program, is the amalgam of all of these thoughts. Since then we had added Rievaulx Abbey to the mix, to complement the visit to Fountains Abbey the yesterday.

The Dream; strangely came to me as though there actually is an organization that has been formed to celebrate the diversity of the world’s cultures, with those most “advanced” in technology now acknowledging and establishing a group to put forward the idea that the West should leave the Remainder of what is left of the Indigenous Peoples alone. No matter what the hubris and feeling of superiority we may believe and that these indigenous cultures would be better served by our technologies and understandings, the truth is that they have their own approach and have done far less harm to Mother Nature than us Enlightened Thinkers and Rapacious Consumers. The theme; that the culmination of the humanism and Enlightenment ideas, with the resultant changes to the world brought on through the Scientific Revolution has now left the world in a precarious condition. I woke up with the sun barely breaching the horizon and the remnants of Storm Babet leaving the area, after devastating eastern Scotland, but that feeling of despair at seeing the state of destruction in those two abbeys because of the whim of Henry VIII and his grab for power and wealth at the expense of someone else. The dream lingered as I walked through the beautiful remnants of a stunningly beautiful community that was built by the Cistercians more than a millennia ago and completed by the time of the Great Plague of the 14th century only to be destroyed on the order of one man.

Sir Bobby. Bobby Charlton was a great football player. Great and Football, two terms that bear examining to be fair. Bobby Charlton died yesterday at the age of 86. I had no exposure to him over my own life other than the times I may have seen his name mentioned associated with the game of soccer, as we, in America, would have called it. By the time I left college he was famous and had earned titles for the city of Manchester and England in the World competitions. In Manchester the game is football, as it is in much of the rest of the world when you say football. It refers to the game played with a round ball. Historically, the modern game began in England and Scotland, though the idea of kicking a ball around was evident in PreColumbian America. The rules of separating Rugby from Football developed only in the late 19th century, with heading the ball being an acceptable skill at that time and one of the last maneuvers adopted to solidify the modern rule book. Perhaps, because of the affects now known from heading contributing to CTE, that should be considered a mistake. Sir Bobby was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and it contributed to his death. How much did his profession contribute to his last years’ quality of life? Another time and musing should be offered for these thoughts, but though they are relevant, we’ll leave that for later. Who was this wonderful man?  I think, for me, the best description was that he was “A Diamond cut from Coal”.

Born in a coal community is fitting, in that the history of football has much of its roots in the north of England and on the workers’ fields in the late 19th century where a paying crowd of spectators would assemble to root on their favorite team. From these humble beginnings great players grew. In the midst of all the hubbub, furor,fame and fortune, Bobby Charlton took his place in the football pantheon. His team, Man United, was great because of him and the the Busby Babes. Only a horrific plane crash that nearly took Charlton’s live and did consume the souls of eight of his teammates on that cold night in Munich in 1958. Charlton said he thought of those eight every day of his life and his composure and reticence to offer an exuberant response to success can be tied to both his personal demeanor and the memories of the crash that were always with him.

It is only now becoming apparent to me how immense his influence was, as my attention rarely nodded towards the game of football, or more likely fútball, for me because of my Southern California exposure to the game and the Latin influence in that area of the world. I did not follow the European game and only watched those teams when I ventured towards the World Cup results. In my own attempts at nearly every sport known in my youth, soccer was not one that I had an aptitude for; my tendency to want to jump was wasted in that sport and my skills with hand eye manipulation would also garner scant reward there. Plus, having two left feet, both weak, additionally hampered me. Yet, I could appreciate the game and its democratization of skills and team communication over the commoditization in sports that afforded stars fame and fortune because of individual superior attributes that could allow a single individual to dominate, control and game or match.. The latter condition, commoditization, has caused the Olympic Committee and the NCAA ruling body nightmares over the decades and they have both lost that war.

Bobby Charlton is the one we should admire and not give as much credence to the likes of the megastars who sell themselves for the purpose of fame and fortune. He was an indeed rare example of a humble and kind player whose elegance on the field is how he is remembered and his humility after the game a legend. When a young player at Manchester, just joining the fray of professional football, got a bit to proud of himself, or took issue with an opponent and paraded and touted an advantage or score, he would be chided by the elders and told to tamp it down…”we don’t do that here. Respect your opponent.” I like and admire that. It is a life’s lesson. One that the present world needs greatly.

So, Lessons in Chemistry or Lessons in History? We use our evenings to unwind, discuss the day, plan the next and then settle into Netflix or Amazon Prime at our digs in Chesterfield and Ripon before retiring. Presently we are in a wonderful home on the outskirts of Ripon owned by a wonderful family who have a connection to South Africa and a nice livelihood here i n the UK. It is an old farm with a brick-walled perimeter and a revamped home that has incorporated several old rooms and outdoor spaces into the interior of what is now a two story home with two large spaces each covered by an atrium with one an eighteen foot square space with a seven foot television to watch the news and films. The family’s handyman, Manos, is a Greek transplant who met his English wife in the 90s on his Greek island of Kos. He has spent three years transforming the old farm into what it is now. Now it is a place with a huge, modern and efficient kitchen the Jetsons would love and the Millers find daunting. The four ovens, one of which can double as a microwave, have touch panels for knobs, as does the induction stove top. One of the several refrigerators in the kitchen area, the one assigned for us to use while here, has a lit panel on one door that displays the actual images of the contents inside the fridge to allow one to see what is on hand. I have managed to boil water for coffee and reheat it later in the day at this point in our stay and to manage the oven instructions. Starvation is off the table. We would like to take advantage of the new film, Lessons in Chemistry, and also the documentary on Le Carré, which are playing on Apple TV, but the family does not subscribe. These films will have to wait.

So much of our research takes place online that modern technology, when one can master it, allows us to pull together all the information we are researching both before we venture forth each day and after we return armed with new Venn Diagrams of overlapping facts on individuals, incidents and the edifices in which the people experienced their lives. This has been such a fabulous history lesson.

So Lessons in History so far has brought us closer to our understanding of Medieval England, Tudor England, the English Civil War and the Charleses’ and Jameses’ lives, with a greater fondness for Bess of Hardwick and her wonderful life added to that. The interconnectedness of the Cavendishes has been a real bonus. Then, there are all the lessons which enhanced our knowledge and understandings regarding the Twentieth Century in Dublin and Ireland. What a great trip so far. We marvel at how much we’ve learned this trip, triggering thoughts that we have far to go in managing the world of history in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. We span the time of the Vikings, to the Venerable Bede, to the rapacious character of Henry VIII, to the Brontë Sisters in our quests. This morning Mary offered her own take on recent visits to sites in the area. Take a look for the overlap in our own thoughts.

As we tune into BBC 1 and its Breakfast Show, the situation in Gaza is dominating the world at present. I hope, when we read back over this time period in months, and years from now, that it was handled in a proper way. At present I am so very worried. I wrote about this as it opened up two weeks’ ago and compared it to the 1916 Uprising in Dublin that was so brutally put down by the British, and our own American foibles in the Middle East after 9/11 when our choices were so badly considered and executed that we are reeling from it still. That America has been involved in nation-building in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Israel and is so involved in other Middle East oil-rich countries that we cannot extract ourselves from this practice was evident in Biden’s attempt at a history lesson speech to the world. But, his main audience was especially Bibi and his control over the IDF and what is going to happen in Gaza in the next bit of time. What has happened in the past couple of days on the Israeli front has only added to my concerns. The distractions of the Cavendishes and Henry VIII, and our forays out into the Yorkshire dales and moors seem otherworldly in the realist sense when placed against the drop back of today’s news.

Yom Kippur, 9/11 or The Easter Uprising: What is the Real Question?

As we—Americans and the rest of the world to define my pronoun properly—get up in the morning these past few days and are trying to make sense of the world, events have moved the historical needle in a major, perceptible direction. How do you read it? I have had friends post online or send emails that give a hint, but I am only privy to a scant exposure to the overall feeling in the world. It is safe to say that few individuals would justify the kidnapping of a grandmother, mother and two children (not even yet of school age) from their home, taken to Gaza and paraded through the streets to the cheers of the many onlookers there. Meanwhile the husband of the mother tries to make sense of the last conversation with his wife, who had been visiting her parents in the south of Israel as the attack unfolded. They, the first four described above and the father of the wife, had been secure in their locked safe room when the wife had called her husband in a whispered voice to tell him the terrorists were in the house. Their account was told here. We don’t know what happened to the grandfather, who had left the safe room to negotiate with the Hamas fighters. It’s in an article about the abducted prisoners taken by Hamas and her name is Doron Asher Katz. How will their story be remembered in a week, a month, a year, fifty years?

At present, Mary and I are arising in Dublin after a five day entry into Europe for a long stay. We flew in from Boston on Aer Lingus, which I recommend on so many levels. The Irish have much to recommend them for a small island the size of Indiana and less than the population of that Red State in America. Eire’s population is a little over half of the population of Israel, but I must ask how the population of Israel is ascertained to be specific (see below, at the very end of this musing, it is the most relevant question). I personally choose Ireland over Indiana as they have chosen liberal democracy, abortion rights, acceptance of very liberal gender rights, few signs of racism, and is the present home of one of my favorites- Rhiannon Giddens, and, the kicker, an unbelievable acceptance of fantastic literature and support of writers and artists of all kinds, not to mention their apparent genetic benefit in storytelling to being fine mates in a drink up and joke telling. There will be no banning of books in this country. They have a special place in the pantheon of nations, to be sure.

So, the historian in me is at work this morning. First, let me give a nod to the historian Heather Cox Richardson and her new book, Democracy Awakening. (Another link around the paywall.) Each morning upon arising, both Mary and I click on her Email Notice in our inbox to read what Heather has to say about America’s previous day’s news.. As a professor of history, she compiles each day’s events into its historical context, sometimes going back before the founding of the nation to give a fuller context. As another liberal democracy in trouble, American historians look backward to point the way forward. As we are in Dublin, looking backwards also brings us to today and the end of a fabulous history trip to Dublin. Ms. Richardson will always place each day in context to keep you right where you need to be to ask the right question. My questions in this blog will be many, without any clear answers, though. I apologize.

In my introduction there are three countries, Israel (or is that Palestine?), America (or is that the United States?) and Ireland (or is that Eire?). Ireland and the Irish language (should you ask an Irishman if he speaks Gaelic? No) have been enthralling us for the past few days and our love of both has been cemented with ever more divine presence as a result. 

Ireland and the Irish offer a great history lesson for the world and for Palestine at present, by looking at their past. For a millennia the Irish had been subjects of the English. (We are staying in a wonderful hotel on Pembroke Road!) It was rarely a welcomed arrangement and the English will be paying for that arrangement for a very long time. History is revising the notion of imperialism, of plunder, of slavery, and of so many “acceptable” notions in earlier histories. How will that all change in the present generation? We are already noticing the change in the arts, with diversity written into many Dickensian and earlier literary version brought to the screen. The rapprochement has been slow among the countries bordering the Irish Sea thus far with the recent rugby result an example of its complicated nature. The Irish opponent, Scotland, has its own issues with England, and Great Britain, not to mention the issue of Ulster. Brexit may die of the latter one issue.

Our time with the Easter Rising at the GPO was one of the highlights in a very positive trip to Dublin. This uprising, which occurred in 1916, when viewed against the long century of ‘troubles’ between the Irish and English was fruitful when gleaning the chaff from the kernel of historiography, even though it was a resounding failure at the moment of its attempt. All historians are interested in chaff and Isiah 33, but they don’t always pick the correct winners. For that moment in 1916, it is safe to say, that even though the uprising was crushed, it was central in determining who the eventual winner would be. If you take the trip to Glasnevin Cemetery, where every plot has a story—as they say— the Irish have completed their historical appreciation by incorporating those deaths in 1916 of the most important Irish participants into a museum/cemetery. Those of the 1916 Uprising, and the years following up until independence, not to mention the rest of those finding prominence in the cemetery since independence, are all held in the highest esteem. One 1916 eighteen-year-old participant who was killed and buried elsewhere was only recently reinterred at Glasnevin.

Most prominent at Glasnevin is Daniel O’Connell. His grave is the most important in Glasnevin, which was opened by him in 1828 for the dignified burial of those from all religions or none. He was central in allowing Catholics to be buried with their own religious ceremonies and not the prescribed, Anglican one. His is a complicated life when viewed from today’s perspective, but he espoused non-violence and was a “devoted and conforming catholic, while supporting the separation of church and state, the ending of privileges and discrimination based on religious affiliation, and the extension of individual liberties, including those in the sphere of politics, which made him a hero and inspiration to catholic liberals in many European countries.” His non-violence commitment was quoted by Gandhi and King, but it could be argued the violence of Easter 1916 and the violence of the English retributions afterwards were more important than rhetoric. History asks this question all the time. Does it?

When Al Qaeda attacked America on 9/11, it was, like the recent Gaza attack, a surprise and embarrassment for the country’s intelligence arm. Both countries knew of their adversary’s thoughts, deeds and aspirations, and each had extensive protocols in place to prevent such an event from happening…yet they did. After 9/11, President Bush at first cautioned against widespread condemnation of Islam and focused on pursuing the main culprits. He did not ask the American public to consider why these culprits had done such a horrific crime. And, in pursuing the culprits, soon found them to be hiding in Afghanistan. How horribly that campaign was mishandled, how the end game was not adequately considered, why we didn’t ask the question of motive and if there was any justification for such a deed is arguable, and the diversion to Iraq is one of the most calamitous decisions in world history. We are still paying and history is only now revising its position on the last two or more decades on handling the “Middle East” question. If you have looked at the links above, the “Middle East” is a conceited term and the Sykes-Pequot Decision, as well as the Palestinian Mandate are very British in their association with current problems in the region. I seems some believe Netanyahu is following Bush, as in Iraq. Did today’s problems begin a century ago?

Note that when Palestine was established as a state, it was to be administered by Great Britain with the caveat it would do so “while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced“. That was trampled because of NAZIsm and the Holocaust, with a dappling of Zionism thrown in. The formation of the state of Israel was also delineated by the United Nations, or those countries most in control of the situation after the Second World War. Those conditions were quickly overrun by the true circumstances on the ground of those who actually occupied the region, either calling it Palestine or Israel. We have been struggling to ease out a solution ever since, and it is so very important to define this version of the pronoun “We” as we work on the world’s stage today.

For context, the demographics of Israel in Wikipedia are defined as thus. It could be argued that this number is too small by at least half. Palestinians would argue that these numbers should also be included. Amnesty International has this opinion about the disparate counts. Al Jazeera wants to engage in the discussion of the Nakba if you bring up any discussion of a resolution. I would assume the inhabitants in Gaza would also, certainly those HAMAS militants who have perpetrated all this recent carnage. Netanyahu wants retribution of the most heinous type. He may actually be on his last legs, though, as an Israeli leader. He is not a popular person in Israel. What do you think? About it all?

For another good context for understanding the past and moments lost regarding Israel and Palestine, take a look at this David Brooks opinion.

In this update, written more than a week after the words above, on October 17, the horrific and inexcusable nature of the massacre carried out in the name of Hamas has been laid out for the world to judge. It has been met with various positions, some of which have cost individuals their jobs, and even the life of a six year old in Illinois who surely was one of the innocents mentioned in Biblical or Koranic lore. How tragic. Yet, in all of these emotional confrontations, there are still voices of calm reason that seek humility. Both sides can be right, and wrong, at the same time.

Tomorrow President Biden heads to Israel to offer support for Israel, but also to insert the American diplomatic options into the discussion. That Israel is in need of some kind of a response for this atrocity is clear. But, the comments made by some in positions of power, who have little to lose when measured against the IDF soldiers who will be on the ground in Gaza or the civilians who are standing in front of the approaching and overwhelming force of the IDF, are not of the humble type.

I just watched a YouTube clip of Scott Galloway having a conversation with Fareed Zaharia about the state of the world at present. The two men are so reasonable and measured in their approach to very difficult topics. I highly recommend it. At one point Galloway offers that the worst decision the U.S. made in foreign policy blundering since Vietnam, and even more consequential, was the incursion into Iraq after 9/11. What the two offer for insight is wholly worthwhile.