A Revolution of One: Under the Covers

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 29 March 2017

You say you want a revolution, but you are not really sure where to start.

There are just so many things wrong with this world that demand change.

In this series A Revolution of One, I have written about the importance of passion and the value of keeping a journal to discover what potential lies within you.

(See: A Revolution of One: The Power of Passion and A Revolution of One: Seize the Day of this blog.)

So imagine you are now at the point where you have discovered some of the things that interest you.

What`s next?

You now need to do reconnaissance and discover what knowledge is out there.

“Most of my opinions on bookshops (and libraries) were formed by Donald Rumsfeld.

In case you’ve forgotten or never knew, Donald Henry Rumsfeld was the US Secretary of Defense in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush….

Above: Gerald Ford (1913 – 2006), 38th President of the United States (1974 – 1977)

Above: George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States (2001 – 2009)

It is his opinion on the necessity of bookshops (and libraries) that truly binds us together.”

(Mark Forsyth, The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Want)

“There are things we know that we know.

There are known unknowns.

That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know.

But there are also unknown unknowns.

There are things we do not know we don’t know.” (Donald Rumsfeld)

“For some reason that I shall never understand, there are those who find these lines perplexing.

They ridicule it.

The Plain English Campaign even awarded Rumsfeld their Foot in Mouth Award of 2003 for a ‘baffling comment by a public figure’.

But there’s nothing baffling in it really.

I know that Paris is the capital of France, but more importantly I know that I know Paris is the capital of France.

Above: The Eiffel Tower, Paris / Flag of France

I know that I don’t know the capital of Azerbaijan, although I am sure they have one.

Above: The flag of Azerbaijan

(It’s the sort of thing I really ought to check up on.)

But I do not know….

Well, here it gets complicated….

You do not know that you do not know the capital of Erewhon, because you had no idea that there was a country called Erewhon, and therefore you had no idea there was a gap in your knowledge.

Above: First edition (1872) of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (or Over the Range)

You did not know that you did not know.

The same thing applies to books.

I know that I have read Great Expectations: it is a known known.

Above: Title page of 1st edition (1861) of Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations

I know that I haven’t read War and Peace: it is a known unknown to me…

Above: Title page, 6th edition 1909, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, in original Russian

(…and, barring a long prison sentence, is likely to remain so.)

But there are books I have never heard of.

And because I have never heard of them, I have no idea that I haven’t read them….

There are, as previously mentioned, three kinds of books: the ones you’ve read, the ones you know you haven’t read and the ones you didn’t know existed.

The books you’ve read, you don’t need to buy.

Presumably you bought (or borrowed) a copy before reading.

The famous books you haven’t read are easily obtainable on the Internet.

You type in War and Peace and all sorts of booktraders mention that they have it available for X amount of dollars/pounds/franks/etc and that a nice young man will bring it to your door by teatime.

I believe that here I ought to bemoan the modern age and go on and on about how human contact is lost and we are all going to Hell in a handbasket, but I just can’t.

The Internet is much too convenient….

…The Internet is a splendid invention and it won’t go away.

If you know you want something, the Internet can get it for you.

My point…is that it is not enough to get what you already know you wanted.

The best things are the things you never knew you wanted until you got them.

The Internet takes your desires and spits them back at you, consummated.

You search, you put in the words you know, the things that were already on your mind, and it gives you back a book or a picture or a Wikipedia article.

But that is all.

The unknown unknown must be found otherwise….

….Computers are machines.

The Internet is a huge army of machines.

Machines do not allow in the element of chance.

They do exactly what you tell them to do.

So the Internet means that, though you will get what you already knew you wanted, you will never get anything more.”

(Mark Forsyth, The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Want)

Above: Shakespeare and Company bookstore, Paris

“We have all browsed – in a bookstore or library or through someone else’s bookshelves.

Above: The Bookworm (1850), Carl Spitzweg

I am going to suggest an enhanced style of browsing that you can use as a way of finding new subjects of interest.”

(If you are already interested in a subject, you may want to skip the rest of this blogpost and visit the Internet.)

Even the most advanced scholars often find that wandering through the stacks of a library (or a bookshop), dipping into a book here and there as the spirit moves them, offers a serendipitious intellectual stimulation that is unavailable any other way.

By making the process of browsing more self-conscious, you can conduct your own informal reconnaissance of the terrain of learning.

All you have to do is follow three rules:

1.  Pick the best places.
2.  Keep moving.
3. Keep a list.

By picking the best places, I simply mean the best library or bookstore or collection of other resources that you can find for your purposes.

Follow F. Scott Fitzgerald’s advice:

Above: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)

‘Don’t marry for money – go where money is, then marry for love.’

Go where the richest resources are, then you can let serendipity take its course.

In a less rich environment, the items that might best turn you on might simply not be there.

What is the best place for you?

It is the best-stocked one within convenient range.

Many cities now have specialised bookstores, study centres and activists organisations or other agencies in numerous fields, one of which may be the right place for you once you have identified a broad field that you might get deeply interested in.

Once you are in the right place, keep moving and keep a list.

You are brainstorming, not postholding.

You want to get a comprehensive glimpse and taste of a wide range of works.

And you want to keep a log of your discoveries along the way, with notes in case you want to retrace your steps and delve more deeply.

You are compiling your ‘little black book’ of intellectual attractions – books, ideas, authors, points of views, realms of fact and imagination with which you want to make a date sometime, get to know better and, perhaps, come to fall in love with.

Major intellectual journeys (and social change) often begin with browsing.

As part of your browsing, you may want to take a fresh look at some of the important realms of learning, but from your own point of view.

The exhilirating prospect here is to ‘come to ourselves’ intellectually.

After years, sometimes decades, of learning for someone or something else we are now invited to begin using our minds for ourselves.

We are freed from being told what, why and how to learn.

We discover at once the first lesson of freedom in any realm:

Freedom is far more demanding than taking orders, but also far more rewarding.

Forget about which subjects you have already been told are important or prestigious.

Just let each one roll around in your head for a while to see whether it commands your interest.

Do not worry about how formidable each one sounds.

No one is a complete master of any of these realms.

Each category could fill years of study.

The point is to realise the wealth from which you can choose and to start modestly to sample one subject or another that especially appeals to you.“

(Ronald Gross, The Independent Scholar’s Handbook)

What makes an advocate for change organize that change?

Curiosity.

He/She is driven by a compulsive curiosity that knows no limits.

Life is a search for a pattern, for a meaning to the life around him/her and its relationship to his/her own life.

The search never ends.

There are no answers, only further questions.

The organizer/the advocate for change is a carrier of the contagion of curiosity.

It is in the question “Why?” that change can begin.

It is the questioning of the status quo, the delving into the “Why?” of accepted ways and values that the seeds of reformation and revolution begin to sprout.

Change begins with an individual.

Be the change you desire.

 

How to Train a Dragon: Canadians in China

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 23 March 2017

The further away a country is, the harder it is to know and understand that country.

China is such a country.

So it is with caution that I express my opinion of the events that have so far transpired with China and its relations with the rest of the world.

Until this year I have had little exposure to Chinese people.

The only Chinese people I had known were second generation Chinese Canadians, more Canadian in character than Chinese as they have spent the entirety of their lives in Canada.

I am not certain whether they have ever visited their parents’ homeland or even if they have wished to do so.

I have nothing against the three Chinese Canadians I have known, though whether they feel the same towards me remains debateable.

I know that Dicky and I have become more closer since our high school days and that he seems happy back in his hometown of Lachute and working for Air Canada at the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport in Montréal.

I am fairly certain that Walter from my college days became the international lawyer he wanted to be, though whether he returned to Québec City I do not know.

Things had ended badly between us and the only excuse I have in my pitiful defence is that we had known one another at a most difficult and painful time of my life.

Nonetheless I wish him much happiness and success but I don’t anticipate a happy reunion betweeen us anytime soon.

I am not at all sure where Jack, whom I knew from my travelling days, is or what he is doing these days.

I remember his face and stature as if he had been seen only mere moments before, but whether he found whatever he was searching for in his travels I know not.

Here in Switzerland I teach a young lady from Beijing twice a week and I occasionally meet another Chinese woman who works for a company I teach at once every two weeks.

These two ladies have awakened within me a curiosity to know more about their homeland, but I remain uncertain about how I feel about visiting China one day.

As tourism goes, of course, there is much that attracts me about China…

I would love to walk the Great Wall, visit Beijing’s ancient Forbidden City and Summer Palace, parade amongst the army of terracotta warriors, explore the lush rainforest of Xishuangbanna, take in the sights and scents of Guangzhou’s evening spice markets, listen to the talented Chinese National Orchestra in live performance, watch a Zhang Yimou film without English subtitles, eat duck in Beijing followed by chá at a teahouse where my appearance might increase the level of gossip and intrigue within, hug a panda (if such a thing is even possible), dodge yet another of the endless array of construction sites, sigh as yet another Chinese student tries to practice his English upon me, gaze nervously at Tiananmen Square fearful that my rebellious thoughts betray me, wonder at a country which doesn’t only include an endless sea of Han Chinese but as well 55 other officially recognised ethnic groups…so much to see and experience one hardly knows where to begin.

Above: (from top to bottom) The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, The Terracotta Army, the tropical rain forest of Xishuangbanna, the skyline of Guangzhou, the logo of the Chinese National Traditional Orchestra, poster of Zhang Yimou’s 1991 film Raise the Red Lantern, Peking duck, the Yu Yuan Garden Teahouse of Shanghai, a giant panda bear in Hong Kong Zoo, Tiananmen Square

(I am curious about the rumor that generations of Chinese are still convinced that Western music is the Carpenters, Richard Clayderman, Kenny G and Lionel Richie and what the concert goers to Wham!’s Freedom Tour actually felt and understood.)

Above: (from top to bottom) US musicians Karen and Richard Carpenter at the White House in 1971, French pianist Richard Clayderman (née Philip Pagès), US saxophonist Kenny G. (née Kenny Gorelick), US musician Lionel Richie and British pop duo Wham!

The little I know of China has been limited to newspapers and magazines and the occasionally travel account from writers like Paul Theroux (Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train through China) or books telling folks how to do business in China, and though this exposure has been interesting I am uncertain, despite the advent of the Internet, how accurate are these impressions.

And though I am aware that it is unfair to confuse the Chinese people with the Chinese government, much as it would be to label all Americans in the mold of Donald Trump, I must confess the politics of China does bother me, especially in regards to Taiwan and Tibet.

Why can`t the Chinese government let Taiwan go?

Above: Flag of Taiwan

Why must the Chinese continue to occupy Tibet?

Above: Flag of Tibet

I have met a handful of Tibetan people here in Switzerland and have read numerous accounts of the oppression that Tibet endures and the never-ending exile of their Dalai Lama and I find it difficult to reconcile my desire to see China with my sadness about the acts that are done in China’s name.

I also admit to feeling remorse about the correctness of the accusation that is often levelled at the West…

We simply don`t care about what happens outside of the West until it affects us.

Shortly before I began teaching Chinese students in St. Gallen and Herisau, I read of one Canadian couple’s experience in China and it is their tale I now wish to tell…

Vancouver, Canada, 28 June 2014

Su Bin, aka Stephen Su or Stephen Subin, the owner and manager of Beijing Lode Technology Company Ltd, an aviation technology company -based in China with offices in Vancouver, Kansas City, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xi’an, Shenyang and Changchun – a cable harness equipment company that served the aviation and space market and represented and distributed related aerospace products for a number of companies – is arrested today.

Su Bin, a Chinese businessman and permanent resident of Canada allegedly hacked into the computer systems of US companies with large defence contracts, including Boeing, to steal data on military projects including some of its fighter jets.

On 27 June, the Los Angeles branch of the FBI filed a complaint outlining the alleged participation of Su Bin in a conspiracy to unlawfully access computers in the United States.

The complaint provides an in depth look at an EaaS (espionage as a service) operation.

Su’s alleged role was to help his partners identify valuable military aviation technology to steal.

His company’s logo is almost laughably ironic: “We will track the world’s aviation advanced technology.”

Lode Tech is also a representative and distributor of related aerospace products for a number of companies, including DIT-MCO of Kansas City which proudly announces that its equipment “was used on the early Hawk Missile, the first Transcontinental Atlas missile, Polaris missiles for the Navy, Titan missiles for the Air Force and the Patriot Missile used so successfully in the Desert Storm War, as well as almost all the aircraft used by the Air Force, Army and the Navy.”

Prosecutors allege that Su Bin worked with two unnamed Chinese hackers to get the data between 2009 and 2013 and that he attempted to sell some of the information to state-owned Chinese companies.

This case underscore the importance for companies in high value technologies to:

a) Conduct in depth due diligence investigations on all of their vendors.

b) Restrict network access by implementing least privilege rules.

The three hackers targeted fighter jets, such as the F-22 from Lockheed Martin and the F-35 as well as Boeing’s C-17 military cargo aircraft program.

As well, they stole 20 gigabytes of date from a US military contractor via the company’s FTP server, acquired a list of contractors and suppliers and had access to a Russian-India joint missile development program (Brahmos Aerospace?) by controlling the company’s website and “awaiting the opportunity to conduct internal penetration”.

Su Bin’s arrest marks the first time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued an arrest warrant for a foreigner charged with an act of cyber-espionage via a network attack that had until now been attributed to states.

While this is the first criminal complaint that describes “hackers for hire” or espionage-as-a-service, this type of criminal activity is neither new nor exclusive to China.

Hackers for hire operate in the following manner:

Their target selection is determined by the science and technology priorities of their potential customers.

The hackers establish “technology bases” and hop servers outside of their native nation and “machine rooms” with legal status in cities back home.

They focus on those contractors which are among the top 50 arms companies.

Cyber security companies who research cyber threats should study this criminal complaint closely.

Intelligence companies worldwide need to find ways to differentiate the activities of a nation-state with those of a for-profit hacker group, criminal organization or other alternative entities engaging in acts of cyber espionage.

US Department of Justice spokesman Marc Raimondi said that the conspirators are alleged to have accessed the computer networks of US defence contractors without authorization and stolen data related to military aircraft and weapons systems.

“We remain deeply concerned about cyber-enabled theft of sensitive information and we have repeatedly made it clear that the United States will continue using all the tools our government possesses to strengthen cyber security and confront cybercrime.”

Boeing said in a statement that the company cooperated with investigators and will continue to do so to hold accountable “individuals who perpetrate economic espionage or trade secret theft against US companies.”

“We appreciate that the government brought its concerns about a potential compromise of our protected computer systems to our attention.”

None of the claims have been proven in court.

The New York Times reported that Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of the Office of Personnel Management earlier in March with the intention of accessing the files of thousands of federal employees who had applied for top secret security clearances.

The hackers gained access to some of the agency`s databases before the threat was detected and blocked.

The Chinese community in Canada is one of the largest overseas Chinese communities, the 2nd largest overseas Chinese community in North America after the United States and the 7th largest worldwide.

Canadians of Chinese descent make up about 4% of the Canadian population, or 1.3 million people.

The Chinese Canadian community is the largest ethnic group of Asian Canadians – 40% of the Asian Canadian population.

Chinese have been a part of the Canadian mosaic as early as 1788.

The highest concentration of Chinese Canadians is in Vancouver, where 1 in 5 residents is Chinese, prompting other Canadians to nickname Vancouver “Hongcouver”.

According to the Canadian Ethnic Diversity Survey of 2002, 76% of Chinese Canadians said they had a strong sense of belonging to Canada, yet maintaining a strong sense of belonging to their ethnic culture.

Chinese Canadians are active in Canadian society.

Many of them vote in federal and provincial elections and participate in gatherings such as sports teams or community organizations.

Sadly 1 in 3 Chinese Canadians reported that they had experienced discrimination, prejudice or unfair treatment based on their ethnicity, race, religion, language or accent.

Dandong, China, 4 August 2014

An obscure port tucked away in the corner of southeastern Liaoning Province at the confluence of the Yalu River and the Yellow Sea, Dandong‘s interest to travellers lies in the city’s proximity to North Korea and its convenience as a departure point for the Changbai Shan Nature Reserve eight hours distant by bus.

The North Korean city of Sinuiju (Chinese: Xinyizhou) lies on the other side of the Yalu River, so the Chinese come to Dandong (“red east”) just to see the border of their country.

Above: Flag of North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

A strong Korean influence can be felt in Dandong, from shops to restaurants.

Yalujiang Park is an appealing riverfront park that is a favourite with tourists posing for the standard “I visited the Sino-Korean border.” shot.

After the start of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, this region was occupied by Japan who built an iron bridge leading to North Korea.

From November 1950 to February 1951, this bridge along with a younger Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge was “accidentally” bombed by the United States during the Korean War.

(Americans also “accidentally” bombed the airstrip at Dandong.)

Even though the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge was rebuilt, the remains of the Japanese-built iron bridge remain and now serve as a war monument.

The Koreans dismantled the Japanese bridge as far as the mid-river boundary line, leaving only a row of support columns.

On the Chinese side, tourists can wander along the remains of the original Broken Bridge, from dawn to dusk, and see shrapnel pockmarks along the bridge until it ends mid-river.

The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge runs parallel to the remains of the Japanese bridge.

The Korean War, from the Chinese and North Korean perspectives, is recorded in the city’s huge macabre Museum to Commemorate Aiding Korea Against US Aggression in a compound northwest of the city, close to the 53-metre high square column Resist America, Aid Korea Memorial.

This gleaming museum, built in 1993, has nine exhibition halls on the Korean War, full of maps, plans, dioramas, machine guns, hand grenades, gory photographs, “Defeat Wolf-hearted America” spelled out on marble, a trench simulation, an impressive revolving panorama showing Korean and Chinese soldiers hammering American aggressors, North Korean folk art including dolls and children’s shoes and statues of valiant Chinese and Korean soldiers.

Everything is labelled in Chinese and Korean, with the exception of the Chinese propaganda leaflets dropped behind enemy lines in which worried American wives wonder what their husbands are fighting for, and the United Nations official declaration of war – the only written record in the entire museum that mentions the small trifling detail that it was the North Koreans who kicked off the War by invading the South.

A couple of MiGs and Red Army tanks sit in a compound to the side of the Museum.

At the entrance to the compound, next to Chinese President Jiang Ze Min’s large plaque of calligraphy swearing eternal Sino-North Korean friendship, ice-cold Coca-Colas are for sale.

Behind the Museum, a gleaming structure marks a graveyard containing the remains of more than 10,000 Chinese soldiers.

The promenade along the Yalu River is packed with games, parks, modern restaurants offering freshwater fish or Korean barbeque and the Hong Kong Coffee House with strong Korean coffee and the latest North Korean news on TV.

One of Dandong’s top-rated destinations on TripAdvisor is Peter`s Coffee House, owned by Julia and Kevin Garratt of Vancouver and named after one of their sons.

Peter’s Coffee House is a hub for expats, local Chinese curious about the outside world, state security agents suspicious of the staff and customers, and the occasional North American diplomat.

“Down by the riverfront Peter`s Coffee House, at 103 Binjiang Zhong Lu, open from 0800 to 2200, Monday to Saturday, noon to 2200 on Sunday, is a friendly café run by a longterm Canadian expat family.

In addition to its excellent coffee, Peter`s serves milkshakes and sodas, authentic Western baked goods, a fine all-day breakfast, burgers and sandwiches.

This is also the place to go for local information and restaurant recommendations.” (http://www.peterscoffeehouse.com)

Canadian Christian aid workers Julia and Kevin Garratt lived in China on and off for 30 years, raised their four children there and moved their family from Vancouver to Dandong in 2007.

Julia taught international trade and management at a local university while Kevin ran the café, organizing weekly “English Corner” language exchanges.

In their spare time, the Garratts volunteered around Dandong, often taking Chinese orphans ice skating.

The Garratts wanted to address the suffering of those living across the border by providing aid to orphanages and a school for the disabled in North Korea.

The Garratts considered China their home, as do the 300,000 Canadians living in China.

(Most Canadians live in Hong Kong, Beijing or Shanghai, so it can be imagined that the gritty border town of Dandong might have regarded the Garratts as highly unusual but generally not unwelcome.

For two Canadians remain etched in Chinese consciousness: Dr. Henry Norman Bethune and Dashan.

Norman Bethune (1890 – 1939) was a Canadian physician, medical innovator and noted anti-fascist.

Above: Dr. Norman Bethune (1890 – 1930)

He first came to international prominence for his service as a frontline surgeon supporting the democratically-elected Republican government and their Loyalist troops during the Spanish Civil War, but it was his service with the Communist Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War that would earn him enduring acclaim.

Dr. Bethune effectively brought modern medicine to rural China and often treated sick villagers as much as wounded soldiers.

His selfless commitment made a profound impression on the Chinese people, especially the Communist Party of China’s leader, Chairman Mao Zedong.

Above: Chairman Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976)

The Chairman wrote a famous eulogy to Bethune, which was memorized by generations of Chinese people:

“Comrade Bethune’s spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, was shown in his great sense of responsibility in his work and his great warmheartedness towards all comrades and the people.

Every Communist must learn from him.

We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him.

With this spirit everyone can be very useful to the people.

A man’s ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people.”

Bethune is one of the few Westerners to whom China has dedicated statues, of which many have been erected in his honour throughout the country.

There are hospitals across China named after him and the Norman Bethune Medal is the highest medical honour in China.

Dashan is the Chinese stage name of Canadian Mark Henry Rowswell (born, nine days after yours truly, on 23 May 1965 in Ottawa) who works as a freelance performer in China.

Relatively unknown in the West, Dashan is the most famous Western personality in China’s media industry, where he occupies a unique position as a foreign national who has become a bona fide domestic celebrity.

Dashan is best known for his mastery of Mandarin Chinese and is considered a true cultural ambassador through his work as a TV host and stand-up comedian done in Chinese.)

This evening the Garratts were invited to a restuarant dinner by Chinese acquaintances who told them they wanted advice about how their daughter could apply to the University of Toronto.

But the dinner was a trap.

When the restaurant elevator doors opened onto a crowd of people, many holding video cameras, Julia and Kevin thought they had stumbled into a wedding party.

But this was no celebration.

In a flash, the Garratts were snatched by men and shoved into separate cars.

They did not know they were in the hands of China’s feared Ministry of State Security.

Above: Logo of the Chinese Ministry of State Security

They would not see each other for more than two years.

The men drove Julia, 55, to an office building and demanded that she sign a document stating that she agreed to be investigated.

“Investigated for what?”, Julia asked.

It was only after a translator said the words “suspect” and “spy” that Julia understood.

“I seriously thought they would realise that they had made a mistake, they would say sorry and we would go home.”

In another room, Kevin Garratt, 56, was hearing the same chilling accusations.

Scared and bewildered, the Garratts signed.

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, 12 December 2016

Why were the Garratts taken?

The Garratts suspect they were unwitting pawns in a gambit by the Chinese government to prevent Canada from extraditing Su Bin to the United States.

Those supporting the Garratts say that the couple were simply chess pieces in a larger geopolitical skirmish.

“The Chinese made it clear that the Garratt case was designed to pressure Canada to block Su Bin’s extradition to the US.”, said James Zimmerman, an American lawyer in Beijing hired by the family to lobby Canadian and Chinese government officials for their release.

In an emailed statement about the Garratts’ detention, Global Affairs Canada, the department that handles Canada’s diplomatic relations, declined to comment on the question of an exchange, but said: “Senior government officials were raising the case at every opportunity.”

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa denied that the Garratts’ detention was linked to Mr. Su.

“We don’t think it is related to any other cases.”, an Embassy spokesman said in an email.

The Garratts’ account provides a rare glimpse into the workings of China`s opaque state security system.

Their interrogations also reveal clues about the vast reach of China’s global espionage network and the lengths to which the Chinese government will go to protect it.

During the couple’s months-long detention, they said they were frequently threatened with execution or told that they would be sent to a North Korean gulag.

The Garratts’ experience highlights the risks nations face in engaging with China.

According to the Garratts’ account, after signing the investigation document Kevin was driven to the couple’s apartment, where agents ransacked their possessions, grilled him about the contents of their kitchen cabinets and then carted off schoolbooks and computers in the family’s suitcases.

After a heated exchange, the men allowed Kevin to take a pair of Bibles back to the detention centre.

Julia was already at the compund, an extralegal detention centre on the outskirts of the city, confined to a separate isolation cell that had a couch, a bed and a small window covered in opaque plastic.

During the next six months, neither one knew where the other was.

But neither was ever alone.

Rotating pairs of guards sat on the couch in each of these cells, staring intently at them and writing down their every move.

Harsh lights remained on 24 hours a day.

To stay sane, Julia prayed, read books provided by the Canadian Consulate and each day drew a cryptic picture of something she was grateful for in the back of her Bible, afraid anything written would be confiscated.

They each faced daily six-hour interrogations by a team of three men.

Armed with years of emails, Skype messages and surveillance records, the interrogators accused the Garratts of “hosting” foreign diplomats at their coffee shop, taking orders from Canada’s intelligence agency (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service – CSIS) and stealing state secrets.

The agents showed them photos of United States and Canadian diplomats who had visited their coffee shop.

The interrogators claimed Kevin’s photos of street scenes in Dandong and views of North Korea across the Yalu River were espionage, even though tourists on riverboats took the same photos every day.

Security officers used a variety of coercion tactics.

In one exchange, the interrogators described a 2009 meeting in Vancouver between the couple and a CSIS agent who had wanted to ensure their volunteer work in North Korea was not violating United Nations sanctions.

When Julia asked how the interrogators had known about the meeting, one of them said:

“We have people in the US, Canada, everywhere.”

Canadian officials declined to discuss the Garratts’ treatment, but the couple’s accounts squares with those of many people who have been in Chinese detention.

In February 2015, Julia was released on bail and returned to their apartment.

Meanwhile, Kevin was charged with espionage and transferred to a prison medical ward.

During the 19 months he spent there, a rumour circulated among the guards that he would be released as part of a prisoner exchange.

But in February 2016, Mr. Su waived his challenge to extradition and cut a deal with the United States.

Once that happened…

“Beijing was stuck with a weak case of espionage against the Garratts and little bargaining leverage to get much of anything out of Ottawa.”, said Mr. Zimmerman, the American lawyer.

At the end of August 2016, just days before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Hangzhou, China, for the 11th meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20) – an international forum for governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies, with the aim of studying, reviewing and promoting high-level discussion of policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability – Julia was allowed to leave China.

Above: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

The G20 Hangzhou summit was held on 4-5 September 2016.

Two weeks later, Kevin was taken to court, where a judge read out an eight-page guilty verdict in Chinese.

The next morning, he was put on a plane bound for Tokyo, but only after agreeing to pay more than $14,000 in fines and signing a document promising not to speak with the news media about his detention.

Much of that money had been dedicated to a North Korean orphanage.

Julia and Kevin were finally reunited in Canada in September.

Though the Garratts are now back in Canada, they say they do not feel entirely safe, describing a series of unnerving incidents suggesting that the Chinese government may be trying to keep tabs on them and their relatives.

In recent months, relatives have encountered strange interference on their phones, computers have gone haywire and strange cars parked outside their homes drive away when someone approaches.

“Even now we live under a cloud.”, Kevin Garratt said.

Most of all, the Garratts feel grief at losing the lives they built over 30 years.

“That’s the sadness that overwhelms us.

We were just trying to help people in need.

That’s all we did.”, Kevin Garratt said.

So how should businesses and governments deal with China, a country that is both a strategic partner as well as a potential adversary?

A country that is surpassing the United States as the world’s largest economy?

A country whose investment in its military continues to rapidly increase, to perhaps achieve military equality with the US in 15 to 20 years?

A one-party socialist regime with a poor human rights record?

I personally teach for three companies in Switzerland which do business in China.

China is Switzerland’s top trading partner in Asia.

There are approximately 300 Swiss firms with more than 700 branches operating in China with a total employment of over 55,000 people.

China is the second largest foreign creditor of the United States, yet US President Donald Trump continues to make comments that strain Sino-American relations and have some Americans anticipating potential trade or military conflict between China and the United States in the near future.

China is currently Canada’s second largest trading partner.

Trying to understand China feels as difficult as trying to train a dragon, but I believe if we can learn from those who have spent time there and those who have studied Chinese history and culture we might be able to find a solution that enables nations and individuals to have an economic partnership with the Chinese, while encouraging them to develop their country for all its people within their sphere of influence, improve their human rights record, govern well for the good of everyone and build a world that is safer and more secure.

If our leaders could admit that even the most capable must sometimes ask for help and that dragons need be handled carefully, then progress rather than destruction could be their legacy.

(To be continued…)

Sources: Wikipedia / Lonely Planet China / Rough Guide China / Jeffrey Carr,”Su Bin, Lode-Tech and Privatizing Cyber Espionage in the PRC”, Digital Dao (electronic blog), 14 July 2014 / CBC News, “Su Bin, Chinese man accused by FBI of hacking, in custody in BC”, 12 July 2014 / Dan Levin, “China freed Canadians, but ‘even now we live under a cloud'”, New York Times, 3 January 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the veil: Islam(ophobia) for dummies

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 1 March 2017

There are moments when the well runs dry, the fire is out, the spirit extinguished.

Moments when I look at this blank screen and ask myself:

What should I write about?

Regular readers of my blog (both of them?!) patiently wait for some blog series to continue and/or conclude – That Which Survives (Brussels/Brontes), The sick man of Europe and the sons of Karbala (Turkish/Kurdish relations), The Underestimated (Switzerland) – but I seek to find opportunities when writing upon these themes seems appropo for the current time and events of the moment.

On a regular basis, I buy daily newspapers and weekly newsmagazines in the hopes that they will generate ideas of themes to discuss, but these media must somehow move me to react strongly to provoke words and thoughts out of me.

This morning I was uninspired.

Completely.

Though President Trump (two words I never thought I’d see together / two words that just seem wrong together) and his first speech to Congress yesterday seemed to be all anyone could talk about – what did he say? what did he not say? what did it all mean? – I honestly could not decide what I could say in this blog that hadn’t already been said by professionals more cleverer than I.

I had worked hard on my last blog post Bleeding Beautiful, trying to bring to the reader a semblance of connectiveness to the shooting of an Indian IT specialist in Kansas, a sense of place and time to the incident and a sensory sensitivity to help the reader relate his/her own life to the incident.

From left: Srinivas Kuchibhotia, who died; Alok Madasani, who was injured; Ian Grillot, also injured

So my mind felt it had to take a step back and meditate for a time before finding, yet again, the passion and the patience it takes to weave words into worthwhile reading.

Then a visit to Konstanz generated three sources of inspiration: We Are The Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama, a back-ordered copy of Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions, and the latest edition of Foreign Affairs.

Then I knew what I wanted to share with you, my gentle readers…

America has become afraid.

9/11 was a wake-up call…

Americans could be attacked, not only in fields foreign or upon exotic embassies or military machines, but in US streets, in US fields, fury visited from the skies and visited from within.

Not even the Second World War, with its millions of lives destroyed, had shown Americans attacked on the soil of the continental United States, if one does not include war with neighbours or amongst brothers.

But the images of passenger jets striking the Twin Towers was so shocking, so powerful, that even Presidents on tour could only sit stunned with disbelief, trying to grasp the surrealness of such an unreal situation.

It has been established that credit has been taken by and blame leveled at al Qaeda, who killed 3,000 people on that day –  innocent men, women and children from the US and other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody.

Above: Black standard of al Qaeda

al Qaeda chose to murder, claim credit for the bloodshed and state their determination to kill on a massive scale.

Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda, or Boko Borom, or ISIS/ISIL/Daesh to lay down their arms.

Many Muslims protest against and publicly condemn the twisted fantasies of extremists who commit acts of terrorism.

Others say that these types are not true Muslims.

“Those people have nothing to do with Islam.” is the refrain.

And no one seems to see the irony that, of all the non-Western religions, Islam stands closest to the West, both geographically and ideologically.

Despite Christian, Jew and Muslim all descending from the family of Abraham religiously and Greek thought philosophically, Islam remains the most difficult religion for the West to understand.

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 2 March 2017

“No part of the world is more hopelessly and systematically and stubbornly misunderstood by us than that complex of religion, culture and geography known as Islam.”

(Meg Greenfield, Newsweek, 26 March 1979)

Proximity is no guarantee of concord, of harmony.

More homicides occur within families than anywhere else.

Common borders have given rise to border disputes.

Raids lead to counterraids and escalate into vendettas, blood feuds and war.

There have been times and places Christians, Muslims and Jews have all lived together harmoniously, but for a good part of the last fifteen hundred years, Islam and the West have been at war.

People seldom have, and often do not want, a fair picture of their enemies.

It is easier to misunderstand while remaining faithful to our deepest values, but we need to discover through dialogue, observation and thought that there doesn’t have to be conflict between Islam and the rest of the world.

“As a student of history, I know civilisation’s debt to Islam.

It was Islam that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.

It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra, our magnetic compass and tools of navigation, our mastery of pens and printing, our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.

Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires, timeless poetry and cherished music, elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.

Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated, through words and deeds, the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Islam has always been a part of America’s story.

The first nation to recognise the United States was Morocco.

Above: The flag of Morocco

In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, President John Adams wrote:

Above: John Adams (1735 – 1826)(2nd US President: 1735 – 1826)

“The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”

And since America was founded, Muslims have enriched the United States…

…partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t.”

Barack Obama (born 1961)(44th US President: 2009 – 2017)

(Barack Obama, “A New Beginning”, Cairo, Egypt, 4 June 2009)

“Although I loathe what terrorists do, I realise that, according to the minimal entry requirements for Islam, they are Muslims.

Islam demands only that a believer affirm that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger.

Violent jihadists certainly believe this.

That is why major religious institutions in the Islamic world have rightly refused to label them as non-Muslims, even while condemning their actions…

…Even if their readings of Islamic Scripture seem warped and out of date, they have gained traction…

…As the extremists’ ideas have spread, the circle of Muslims clinging to other conceptions of Islam has begun to shrink.

And as it has shrunk, it has become quieter and quieter, until only the extremists seem to speak and act in the name of Islam.”

Above: United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Russia Omar Saif Ghobash (born 1971, Ambassador since 2009)(on the left) with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (on the right)

(Omar Saif Ghobash, “Advice for Young Muslims”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017)

“The very name of Islam means “the peace that comes when one’s life is surrendered to God”.

This makes Islam – together with Buddhism, from budh (awakening) – one of the two religions that is named after the attribute it seeks to cultivate.

In Islam’s case, life’s total surrender to God.

Successfully surrendering one’s life to God requires an understanding of what it is God wants.

Until the 20th century, Islam was called Muhammadism by the West, which to Muslims is not only inaccurate but offensive.

It is inaccurate, Muslims say, because Muhammad didn’t create Islam.

God did.

Muhammad was merely God’s mouthpiece.

The title of Muhammadism is offensive, because it conveys the impression that Islam focuses on a man rather than on God.

To name Christianity after Christ is appropriate, for Christians believe that Christ was/is God.

To call Islam Muhammadism is like calling Christianity St. Paulism.

Islam begins not with Muhammad in 6th century Arabia, but with God.

In the beginning God…

Islam calls God Allah by joining the definite article al (the) with Ilah (God)- literally Allah means the God, not a god, for there is only one.

The blend of admiration, respect and affection that Muslims feel for Muhammad is impressive.

They see him as a man who experienced life in exceptional range – shepherd, merchant, hermit, exile, soldier, lawmaker, prophet, priest, king, mystic, husband, father, widower – but they never mistake Muhammad for the earthly centre of their faith.

That place is reserved for the scripture of Islam, the Koran.

The word al-qur’an in Arabic means the recitation.

As discomfitting as it is for Christians to contemplate, the Koran is perhaps the most recited, the most read, book in the world.

The Koran is the world’s most memorised book and possibly the book that exerts the most influence on those who read it.

Muslims tend to read the Koran literally.

In almost exactly the way Christians consider Jesus to have been the human incarnation of God, Muslims consider the Koran to be the human recitation of God.

If Christ is God incarnate, the Koran is God inlibriate.”

Above: Huston Smith (1919 – 2016)

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religions)

In my personal library here in Landschlacht I have a number of books on the topic of religion, including the scriptures of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

I have different versions of the Christian Bible and I also possess books that examine morality from secular and atheistic points of view.

But I am neither a practioner of, nor scholar of, religion.

Rather I seek to understand the power of religion upon so many people on this planet, in a humble quest to seek out a kernel of commonality and truth that might, in time, unite us in ways the conflict of faiths cannot.

The Koran, even in English translation, is not an easy read.

It is not the kind of book one can read in bed on a rainy day.

Nothing but a sense of duty could carry an agnostic Canadian through the Koran.

“The European will peruse with impatience its endless incoherant rhapsody of fable and precept and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust and is sometimes lost in the clouds.”

Above: Edward Gibbon (1737 – 1794)

(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

“The language in which the Koran was proclaimed, Arabic, is the key.

Muhammed asked his people:

“Do you ask for a greater miracle than this, O unbelieving people, than to have your language chosen as the language of that incomparable Book, one piece of which puts all your golden poetry to shame?” “

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religions)

“No people in the world are so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs.

Hardly any language seems capable of exercising over the minds of its users such irresistable influence as Arabic.”

(Philip Hitti, The Arabs: A Short History)

“Crowds in Cairo, Damascus or Baghdad can be stirred to the highest emotional pitch by statements that, when translated, seem lifeless and banal.

The rhythm, the melody, the rhyme of Arabic produces a powerful hypnotic effect.

The power of the Koran lies not only in the literal meaning of its words, but in the sound of the language in which it is recited.

Translation cannot convey the emotion, the fervor, the mystery that the Koran holds in its original Arabic.

This is why, in sharp contrast to Christians, who have translated their Bible into every script known to man, Muslims prefer to teach others the language in which they believe Allah spoke finally with incomparable force and directness.

The language of Islam remains a matter of sharp controversy.

Orthodox Muslims feel that the ritual use of the Koran must be in Arabic, but there are many who believe that those who do not know Arabic should read the Koran in translation.

Language is not the only barrier the Koran presents to outsiders, for its content is unlike other religious texts.

The Koran is not explicitly metaphysical like the Upanishads, not grounded in drama like the Hindu epics, nor historical narrative like Hebrew scriptures.

Unlike the Gospels of the New Testament or within the chapters of the Bhagavid-Gita, God is not revealed in human form within the Koran.

The overwhelming message of the Koran is to proclaim the unity, omnipotence, omniscience and mercy of God and the total dependence of human life upon God.

The Koran is essentially naked doctrine –  doctrine stripped of chronological order, doctrine stripped of epic character or drama, doctrine stripped of commentary and allusion.

In the Koran God speaks in the first person, describing Himself and making known His laws, directly to mankind through the words and the sounds of this holy book.”

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religions)

“The Qur’an does not document what it is other than itself.

It is not about the truth.

It is the truth.”

(Kenneth Cragg, Readings in the Qur’an)

“Islam does not apologise for itself, try to explain itself or attempt to seduce others into its fold by altering its form.

And for the non-Islamic outsider, it is this nonconformity, this inflexibility, that makes compassion and comprehension of Islam so very difficult.

Certainly it seems that the message of the Koran proclaiming the unity, omnipotence, omniscience and glory of Allah is uncompromising, but outsiders miss and misinterpret that Islam is more than the recognition of the majesty of Allah, Islam is the mercy of Allah manifested as Peace.

The Koran, 4/5 of the length of the New Testament, divided into 114 chapters (surahs), cites Allah’s compassion and mercy 192 times and Allah’s wrath and vengence only 17 times.

Is this Koranic description of Allah as “the Holy, the Peaceful, the Faithful, the Guardian over His servants, the Shelterer of the orphan, the Guide of the erring, the Deliverer from every affliction, the Friend of the bereaved, the Consoler of the afflicted” anything else but loving?

“In His hand is good, and He is the generous Lord, the Gracious, the Hearer, the Near-at-Hand, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Very-forgiving, whose love for man is more tender than that of the mother bird for her young.” “

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religions)

Is this the Allah of jihadists?

“We need to speak out, but it is not enough to declare in public that Islam is not violent or radical or angry, that Islam is a religion of peace.

We need to take responsibility for the Islam of peace.

We need to demonstrate how it is expressed in our lives and the lives of those in our community.”

(Omar Saif Ghobash, “Advice for Young Muslims”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017)

“The use of force is one aspect of Islam that is often misunderstood and maligned by non-Muslims.

The Koran does not counsel turning the other cheek or pacifism.

It teaches forgiveness and the return of good for evil when the circumstances warrant it.

Muhammad left many traditions regarding the decent conduct of war.

Agreements are to be honoured and treachery avoided.

The wounded are not to be mutilated, nor the dead disfigured.

Women, children and the old are to be spared, as are orchards, crops and sacred objects.

The important question is the definition of a righteous war.

According to the Koran, a righteous war must either be defensive or to right a wrong.

The agressive and unrelenting hostility of Islam’s enemies forced Muhammad to seize the sword in self-defence, or, together with his entire community and his faith, be wiped from the face of the Earth.

That other religious teachers succumbed under force and became martyrs was to Muhammad no reason that he should do the same.

Having seized the sword in self-defence Muhammad held onto it to the end.

This much Muslims acknowledge.

Above: The Umayyad Empire at its greatest extent

But Muslims insist that while Islam has at times spread by the sword, Islam has mostly spread by persuasion and example.

“Let there be no compulsion in religion.” (Koran, al-Baqarah 256)

“To everyone have we given a law and a way.

And if God had pleased, he would have made all mankind one people of one religion.

But He has done otherwise, that He might try you in that which He has severally given to you.

Therefore press forward in good works.

Unto God shall you return and He will tell you that concerning which you disagree.” (Koran, al-Ma’ida 48)

“Will you then force men to believe when belief can come only from God?” (Muhammed quoted by Ameer Ali, The Spirit of Islam)

How well Muslims have lived up to Muhammad’s principles of toleration is a question of history that is far too complex to admit of a simple, objective and definitive answer.

Objective historians are of one mind in their verdict that, to put the matter minimally, Islam’s record on the use of force is no darker than that of Christianity.

Every religion at some stages in its career has been used by its professed adherents to mask aggression.

Islam is no exception.

Muslims deny that Islam’s record of intolerance and agression is greater than that of the other major religions.

Muslims deny that Western histories are fair to Islam in their accounts of its use of force.

Muslims deny that the blots in their record should be charged against their religion whose presiding ideal Muslims affirm in their standard greeting:

As-salamu ‘alaykum. (Peace be upon you)”

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religions)

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 1 March 2017

“Two attacks on Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia last week have resulted in an outpouring of more than $136,000 in donations from thousands of Muslims and others, who have pledged to financially support Jewish institutions if there are further attacks.

Jewish organisations have reported a sharp increase in harassment.

The Jewish Community Center Association of North America, which represents Jewish community centres, said 21 Jewish institutions, including eight schools, had received bomb threats on Monday alone.

Two Muslim activists, Linday Sarsour and Tarek El-Messidi, asked Muslims to donate $20,000 in a crowdfunding effort to repair hundreds of Jewish headstones that were toppled nead St. Louis last week.

That goal was reached in three hours.

El-Messidi said on Monday that the money raised would most likely be enough to repair the graves near St. Louis and in Philadelphia, where about 100 headstones were toppled on Sunday.

Any extra money will be held in a fund to help after attacks on Jewish institutions in the future, which could mean removing a spray-painted swastika or repairing the widespread damage seen in the graveyards.

About 1/3 of the donations have come from non-Muslims, but El-Messidi said it was especially important for Muslims to support Jews as they deal with anti-Semitic attacks.

“I hope our Muslim community, just as we did last week with St. Louis, will continue to stand with our Jewish cousins to fight this type of hatred and bigotry.”, El-Messidi said.

Barbara Perle, 66, of Los Angeles said on Monday that several of her family members were buried in the vandalised Chesel Shel Emeth Cemetery near St. Louis.

In her eyes, an attack on one gravestone in a Jewish cemetery was an attack on them all.

Perle said she had reached out to thank El-Messidi and that she had “come to understand more about our shared humanity.” “

(Daniel Victor, “Muslims pledge aid to Jewish institutions“, New York Times, 1 March 2017)

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 3 March 2017

“I am not saying that Muslims should accept blame for what terrorists do.

I am saying that we can take responsibility by demanding a different understanding of Islam.

We can make clear to Muslims and non-Muslims, that another reading of Islam is possible and necessary.

We need to act in ways that make clear how we understand Islam and its operation in our lives.

I believe we owe that to all the innocent people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who have suffered at the hands of our coreligionists in their misguided extremism.

Taking that sort of responsibility is hard, especially when many people outside the Muslim world have become committed Islamophobes, fearing and hating Muslims, sometimes with the encouragement of political leaders.

When you feel unjustly singled out and attacked, it is not easy to look at your beliefs and think them through.”

(Omar Saif Ghobash, “Advice for Young Muslims”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017)

“For Muslims, life has basically two obligations.

The first is gratitude for the life that has been received.

The Arabic word “infidel” is closer in meaning towards “one who lacks thankfulness” than one who disbelieves.

The more gratitude one feels, the more natural it feels to let the blessings of life to flow through one’s life and on to others, for hoard these blessings to only ourselves is as unnatural as trying to dam a waterfall.

The second obligation lies within the name of the religion itself.

“Islam” means “surrender”, not in the sense of miltiary defeat, but rather in the context of a wholehearted giving of oneself – to a cause, to friendship, to love.

Islam is, in other words, commitment.

The five pillars of this commitment to the straight path are:

1. Confession of faith: The affirmation “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.” said correctly, slowly, thoughtfully, aloud, with full understanding and with heartfelt conviction.

2. Constant prayer:  To give thanks for life’s existence, to keep life in perspective, routinely done five times a day when possible, publicly when possible, kneeling and facing towards Mecca

3. Charity: Those who have much should help lift the burden of those who are less fortunate.

4.  The observance of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month:

From the first moment of dawn to the setting of the sun, neither food nor drink nor smoke passes the Muslim’s lips.

After sundown, these may be consumed in moderation.

Why?

Fasting makes one think.

Fasting teaches self-discipline.

Fasting underscores one’s dependence on God, reminding one of a person’s fraility.

Fasting sensitizes compassion: Those who have fasted for 29 days tend to be more sympathetic to those who are hungry.

5. Pilgrimage: Once during his/her lifetime every Muslim who is physically and economically in a position to do so is expected to journey to Mecca.

The basic purpose of the pilgrimage is to heighten the pilgrim’s devotion to God.

The conditions of the pilgrimage are a reminder of human equality.

Upon reaching Mecca, pilgrims remove their normal attire, which carries marks of social status, and don two simple sheet-like garments.

Distinctions of rank and hierarchy are removed.

Prince and pauper stand before God in their undivided humanity.

A pilgrimage brings together people from various countries, demonstrating that they share a loyalty that transcends nations and ethnic groupings.

Pilgrims pick up information about other lands and peoples and return to their homes with better understanding of one another.”

(Huston Smith, The World’s Religions)

“You will inevitably come across Muslims who shake their heads at the state of affairs in the Islamic world and mutter:

“If only people were proper Muslims, then none of this would be happening.”

Some Muslims will say this when criticising official corruption in Muslim countries and when pointing out the alleged spread of immorality.

Some Muslims say this when promoting various forms of Islamic rule.

“Islam is the solution.”

It’s a brilliant slogan.

Lots of people believe in it.

The slogan is a shorthand for the argument that all the most glorious achievements in Islamic history – the conquests, the empires, the knowledge production, the wealth – occurred under some system of religious rule.

Therefore, if we want to revive this past glory in the modern era, we must reimpose such a system.

This argument holds that if a little Islam is good, then more Islam must be even better.

And if more Islam is better, then complete Islam must be best.

The most influential proponent of that position today is ISIS, with its unbridled enthusiasm for an all-encompassing religious caliphate.

Above: Black standard of ISIS

It can be difficult to argue against that position without seeming to dispute the nature of Islam’s origins: the Prophet Muhammad was not only a religious leader but a political leader as well.

And this argument rests on the inexorable logic of extreme faith:

If Muslims declare that they are acting in Allah’s name, and if Muslims impose the laws of Islam, and if Muslims ensure the correct mental state of the Muslim population living in a chosen territory, then Allah will intervene to solve all our problems.

The genius of this argument is that any difficulties or failures can be attributed to the people’s lack of faith and piety.

Leaders need not fault themselves or their policies.

Citizens need not question their values or customs.

But piety will take us only so far.

Relying entirely on God to provide for us, to solve our problems, to feed and educate and clothe our children, is to take God for granted.

The only way we can improve the lot of the Muslim world is by doing what people elsewhere have done, and what Muslims in earlier eras did, in order to succeed:

Educate ourselves and work hard and engage with life’s difficult questions rather than retreat into religious obscurantism (intentional obscurity and vagueness).

Today, some Muslims demand that all Muslims accept only ideas that are Muslim in origin – namely, ideas that appear in the Koran, the early dictionaries of the Arabic language, the sayings of the Prophet, and the biographies of the Prophet and his Companions.

Meanwhile, Muslims must reject foreign ideas such as democracy, they maintain.

Confronted with more liberal views, which present discussion, debate and consensus building as ancient Islamic traditions, they contend that democracy is a sin against Allah’s power, against His will and against His sovereignty.

Some extremists are even willing to kill in defense of that position.

But do such people even know what democracy is?

Another “foreign” practice that causes a great deal of concern to Muslims is the mixing of the sexes.

Some Muslim-majority countries mandate the separation of the sexes in schools, universities and the workplace.

Authorities in these countries present such rules as being “truly Islamic” and argue that they solve the problem of illicit relationships outside marriage.

Perhaps that’s true.

But research and study of such issues – which is often forbidden – might show that no such effect exists.

And even if rigorous sex separation has some benefits, what are the costs?

Above: Aziz Osmanoglu, father of two daughters with Sehabat Kocabas, recently lost a decision in Strasbourg’s European Court of Human Rights over whether sending his daughters to a mixed gender swimming pool was a violation of Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights respecting religious practices.

(The court decided that in the interest of integration that his daughters were required to take swimming lessons in mixed gender groups, but they were permitted to wear burkinis (full body swimsuits).

Above: Islamic modest swimwear, known as a urqini or burkini

Basel Canton, the Islamic family’s residence, will fine parents CHF 1,400 should they not send their children to swimming pools for religious reasons.)

Could it be that rigorous sex separation leads to psychological confusion and turmoil for men and women alike?

Could it lead to an inability to understand members of the opposite sex when one is finally allowed to interact with thwm?

Governments in much of the Muslim world have no satisfactory answers to those questions, because they often don’t bother to ask.

Conservative readings of Islamic texts…the strict traditionalist view…presents women as fundamentally passive creatures whom men must protect from the ravages of the world.

That belief is sometimes self-fulfilling.

In many Muslim communities, men insist that women are unable to face the big, wild world, all the while depriving women of the basic rights and skills they would need in order to do so.

Other traditionalists base their position on women on a different argument:

If women were mobile and independent and working with men who were not family members, then they might develop illicit romantic or even sexual relationships.

Of course, that is a possibility.

But such relationships also develop when a woman lives in a home where she is given little love and self-respect.

The traditionalist position is based, ultimately, on a desire to control women.

But women do not need to be controlled.

They need to be trusted and respected.

Treating women as inferior is not a religious duty.

It is a practice of patriarchal societies.

Within the Islamic tradition, there are many models of how Muslim women can live and be true to their faith.

There is no hard-and-fast rule requiring women to wear the hijab (the traditional veil that covers the head and hair) or a burqa or a niqab which cover far more.

Islam calls on women to be modest in appearance, but veiling is actually a pre-Islamic tradition.

The limits placed on women in conservative Muslim societies (mandatory veiling, rules limiting their mobility, restrictions on work and education), have their roots not in Islamic doctrine but rather in men’s fear that they will not be able to control women – and their fear that women, if left uncontrolled, will overtake men by being more disciplined, more focused, more hard-working.

The Prophet spoke about the ummah – the Muslim community – but the concept of the ummah has allowed self-appointed religious authorites to speak in the name of all Muslims without ever asking the rest of Muslims what they think.

The idea of an ummah also makes it easier for extremists to depict Islam – and all of the world’s Muslims – as standing in opposition to the West, or to capitalism or to the cause de jour.

In that conception of the Muslim world, the individual’s voice comes second to the group’s voice.

(Omar Saif Ghobash, “Advice for Young Muslims”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017)

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 4 March 2017

People have been trained over the years to put community ahead of individuality.

Dialogue and public debate about what it means to be an individual in the world would allow us to think more clearly about personal responsibility, ethical choices, and the respect and dignity that attaches to people rather than to families, tribes or sects.

Dialogue and public debate might lead us to stop insisting solely on our responsibilities to the group and start considering our responsibilities to ourselves and to others, whom we might come to see not as members of groups but rather as individuals regardless of our backgrounds.

We might begin to more deeply acknowledge the outrageous amount of people killed in the Muslim world in civil wars and in terrorist attacks carried out not by outsiders but by other Muslims.

We might memorialize these people not as a group but as individuals with names and faces and life stories – not to deify the dead but rather to recognize our responsibility to preserve their honour and dignity, and the honour and dignity of those who survive them.

The idea of the individual might help us improve how we discuss politics, economics and security.

If we start looking at ourselves as individuals first and foremost, perhaps we will build better societies.

Take hold of your fate and take hold of your life in the here and now, recognizing that there is no need to return to a glorious past in order to build a glorious future.

Our personal, individual interests might not align with those of the patriarch, the family, the tribe, the community or the state, but the embrace of each person’s individuality will lead to a rebalancing in the world in favour of more compassion, more understanding and more empathy.

If you accept the individual diversity of those inside your own faith, you are more likely to do the same for those of other faiths as well.

We can and should live in harmony with the diversity of humanity that exists outside of our faith, but we will struggle to do so until we truly embrace ourselves as individuals.

(Omar Saif Ghobash, “Advice for Young Muslims”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017)

It is said that we fear what we do not understand.

To conquer fear, we must first try and understand that which we are afraid of.

Only then will peace be unto you.

The great adventure

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 21 February 2017

Sometimes words flow out of you, rushing and pouring out of your heart and soul like a waterfall that can´t be stopped.

Other times ideas and thoughts trickle down into words upon a screen like a desiccated desert drain from which only gasping drops remain.

And then there are moments when what one wants to say has to be chewed over thoughtfully, ruminating in the sauces of one´s consciousness, digested and processed like the cud of some bovine creature grazing soundlessly on some empty barren prairie.

For three weeks thoughts and feelings have remained close to me, unsaid, unwritten.

It took the dying of an innocent man to bring fingers back to keyboard and courage back to expression.

Learned recently of a man I only knew of through another person.

He was only 40, a husband and father of a newborn, killed instantly by a lorry while riding his bicycle outside the Kunsthaus in Zürich.

Above: Kunsthaus Zürich

He leaves behind a shocked and grieving widow and an orphaned child who will never know his daddy.

That morning when he rose from the warm bed of his bride he did not imagine the day ending in his death.

He had a lifetime to look forward to.

Watching his son grow into a man, holding his wife in warm embrace as they grew old with one another.

Now all that he was, all that he could have been, is no more.

Death stalks us all, yet we mortal fools deny that death would ever happen to us.

We fight against the dying of the light.

We burn bright against the gathering shadows and we either decide to live life to the fullest, determined to wrestle with mortality with our last breath, or we keep our heads down and slowly sip the waters of life, hoping that a quiet life will keep the Grim Reaper’s attention focused on others.

We are all fools.

I am reminded of my foster parents.

They pinched the Canadian penny until the beaver upon it pissed blood.

They scrimped and saved with plans to see the world and travel one day.

Cancer cheated them of these hopes.

She died first of ovarian cancer, he a heartbeat later of intestinal cancer.

I would later learn of my biological mother dying of breast cancer when I was but a toddler.

All three had made their plans.

They would travel.

They would see the world.

They would have adventures.

I was determined while I had my health, whether I had money or not, I would travel, see the world, have adventures.

I have tried in the humblest way I can to learn and understand the world beyond my own limited experience.

The older I get, the more I realise there will always remain much to learn.

I first sought to understand my home and native land of Canada.

 

Then I travelled to the US and Europe and a wee bit of Asia hoping to understand more about people and places I had only heard about.

I hope, life and health willing, to see the Middle East and Africa and more of Asia and, maybe one day, the rest of the Americas south of the US border.

Limited by love and responsibilities I am not so free as I was when I was single.

Though I have encountered the poor in my travels I have never witnessed 3rd World poverty.

 

I have always preferred peace to war, though I have never been in war conditions to fully understand the fear, horror, sorrow and hate that war produces.

 

Above: The ruins of Guernica, 1937

I have been truly blessed by accident of birth and the shelter of my limited experience not to have seen the things that children of men should never have to see.

And I suspect that having never seen these things that I am a fool to believe that I will understand these things without direct experience.

But if I could see a world where these things no longer exist…that is a world worth experiencing.

Christopher McCandless in a letter to his friend Ron:

 

“I’d like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt.

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.

The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy.

 But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.

And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road.

I guarantee you will be very glad you did.

But I fear that you will ignore my advice.

You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me.

You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life.

 

But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day.

I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover.

Don’t settle down and sit in one place.

Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.

You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships.

God has placed it all around us.

It is in everything and anything we might experience.

We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.

My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life.

It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it.

The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.”

But…

An adventure is only an adventure in the telling.

You are 27 miles from Anywhere in the middle of a black night with the cold rain drenching you.

You have no tent.

No cover can be seen.

You are sick.

You are tired.

Loneliness has struck you sharper than any dart could.

You crave people, light, warmth.

No one stops.

No one cares.

You are in the guts of an isolated landscape.

You have no idea of precisely where you are or how you will leave this vale of sorrow and suffering.

Welcome to the adventure.

Are we having fun yet?

Perhaps I have painted a picture of roses and sunsets and intense happiness that I encountered in my own travels.

But suggesting that all of travel is an endless array of joy and harmony is not at all the full story…

As I have already suggested in previous posts I have done a wee bit of travelling…walked thousands of kilometres in Canada and abroad, hitched tens of thousands of kilometres in North America and Europe…journeys sometimes lasting months.

The longest hitching trip I made was a year’s journey from Ottawa to Newfoundland to Key West to California to Vancouver back to Ottawa.

And as many great times as there were, there were also moments of fear, worry and sorrow.

It would take a lifetime to describe them all…
– being shot at in appropriately named Winchester, Ontario
– being caught out on the side of a mountain in the dark and the rain with no shelter
– violent encounters with other residents of men’s shelters in Montreal and Strasbourg
– stranded for three days and nights in Death Valley
– arrested and jailed for two weeks in Phoenix
– a boy threatens me with a rifle in my face in Collingwood
– followed for miles by a person whose intentions were unclear in the night streets of Memphis
– the same evening an old man dies in the bunk across from me in the men’s shelter
– drivers stoned, drivers drunk, uncertainty of arriving at final destination alive
– unwelcome overtures by those eager to share the night

Any one of these moments made me question the wisdom(if any) of the journey I was making.

But, take heart, would be nomad or present nomad, wondering if the darkness really means that dawn is fast approaching…

There were many more moments that more than compensated for the dark times.

Just a few…
– Sharing meals with migrant Mexican workers in the bunkhouse of a winery on Pelee Island
– Landscapes too beautiful for words
– Generosity offered by strangers more precious than gold
– Women whose beauty and character reminded me of why I am alive and stand in awestruck wonder and amazement at the luck that brought them into my life if even for a moment
– Lying on a hillside sharing a bottle of wine and looking up at a sky full of stars by a campfire round which the homeless of Kingman were gathered
– Lying under the stars by the mighty Ottawa River until the next morning’s ferry would depart
– Witnessing the Northern Lights from a snow covered field in the middle of Alaska

Above: Frederic Church, Aurora Borealis (1865)

Is travelling risky?

Yes.

Is it worth the risk?

I recently read the news of a young lady who after exploring 5 continents and more than 33 countries was found dead on an island off the coast of Panama strangled with her own sarong.

A few months ago a young woman was murdered in Nepal by a host whose mental state had been impossible to predict by the website that they had both registered with.

A few years ago a young man who wanted to experience the true wilderness of Alaska died in the attempt.

All sad stories and the fuel of cautionary warnings about the folly of travel.

And if you are looking for more reasons to never leave your country of origin just follow a newsgroup or listen to the fearmongering media or follow the advice of state departments and ministries of foreign affairs.

But before you put bars on your windows and gather the family in the basement waiting for the end times, consider the following…

Who is guaranteed a long and healthy life?

What’s the point of living if you don’t feel alive?

Making a living and ensuring your loved ones have a loving and stable life and a promising future is worthy of merit and respect.

Without this kind of love and devotion, civilisation would not be possible.

But waiting until the time is “right” is no guarantee that when the time arrives you will have the ability to travel.

Were the above mentioned victims of their travels foolish?

Perhaps.

But while they lived, their lives were filled with great moments that are unique to travelling.

Too many people live lives of quiet desperation.

Too many people sell their souls in the name of material wealth.

The young ladies lived their lives to the fullest.

Chris McCandless felt the passion of life until a fatal error of eating poisonous berries ended his life too soon.

But while they breathed they lived.

And isn’t that the point?

If you are looking for guarantees, there are none.

But all that life is, the good and the bad, will be magnified beyond all that you have known when you travel.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, there are more things (and experiences) than are dreamt of in your (present) philosophy.

 

 I have struggled these past three weeks, save for a few Facebook posts, to sit down in front of my computer and create.

And it has not been that there is nothing to write about, but rather the reverse.

I found myself wondering if anyone is interested in what I think and whether my writing is less inspirational than it is egotistical.

Granted to write is to believe that what one thinks is worthy of communicating.

But recently I have been reminded of George Orwell/Eric Blair and his classic 1984…not because these modern times are Orwellian…but because of the reasons why Winston Smith – the protagonist of the novel – began keeping his journal.

 

Smith doubted anyone would read his words, whether anyone who did read his journal would understand him or the reality he was writing about.

But I am inspired by what Smith concluded…

Smith wrote to express himself, to put into words what was real, in an age where reality was regulated to fit the wishes of power rather than what Smith knew to be true through his own experience.

To express with courage the reality of 2+2=4, rather than what someone else insists that 2+2 must be.

Why do I write?

A number of reasons…

Partially psychologically…

By putting an experience into words, I begin to better understand the experience.

Socially, I try to follow two statements:

1) Every person is my superior that I may learn from him/her. And I am superior to everyone that they may learn from me.

This keeps me both humble while it maintains a healthy feeling of self-worth.

2) Do no harm.

I do realise that I will never please everyone all the time, but I continue to try and not hurt anyone with my words or actions.

Travelling has taught me so much and I hope my words offer confidence and comfort to any who have chosen to read them.

I have seen so much and yet there is so much left to see.

I have learned so much and yet there is so much left to learn.

In Africa it is said that when an old man dies, a library is destroyed.

I am not sure, if I live to a ripe old age, whether that will be the case for me.

But in the grand symphony, the great adventure, of Life, if I can know in my own small way I have contributed a verse, then I think my life will have had some meaning after all.

It was suggested to me that when one shares one’s experiences that this is an expression of an overinflated ego with delusions of one’s value in thinking that his experience actually matters to anyone else.

And I can’t deny that this bothers me.

Speaking only for myself, it has bothered me when I have tried to share some of the feelings and thoughts that travelling has generated to find those who have not travelled only marginally interested.

So often those you love neither understand nor care about what you have felt and learned as it has little to do with their own lives.

So why write?

To express myself.

To relate reality as I perceive it to be.

To shout out loud the truth of experience and the certainty of conviction.

In an age where presidents can lie boldface and critics cower and avoid confrontation…

In an age where dignity and respect are secondary to messages transmitted loudly and repeatedly until the listener simply surrenders…

Where a lie becomes truth if spoken by power in a never ceasing cacophony of intimidating relentlessness…

An age where we are taught to be afraid of the future, dissatisfied with the present and unconvinced by the past…

Where thought is discouraged, dissent repressed, emotions controlled and hope is crushed…

We rush through reality without looking at it, eyes downward cast in submission to electronic gods we have fashioned for ourselves.

 

But those who can think, those brave enough to feel and speak…

I encourage you to travel and to speak your minds…

While you still can…

I travel and write to help myself understand…

I hope my words encourage others to do the same.

 

Out of the Shadows

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 2 February 2017

Sometimes inspiration flows like sap through a maple tree.

Sometimes it is as slow-moving as molasses in January.

Those who read this blog (both of them!) or follow me on Facebook (the rest of their families!) are aware that I work…a lot.

Between working as an English teacher during the work week and at Starbucks on weekends, I don´t seem to have an abundance of leisure time.

And what leisure time is not required by my spouse´s instructions is not always used as productively as it should be, for there is much in this modern world to distract even the most resolute of urban animals.

And though I feel most alive when writing my thoughts and feelings, peppered with facts obtained through reading and research, writing – an exercise of the mind´s creative muscles – does feel like work sometimes, so my impulses don´t always cause me to leap behind the keyboard and create words that drip like honey from the lips of the gods.

Yesterday was my first day off – not counting sick days when I truly was ill with that most fatal of ailments, the man cold – in weeks, when I had no immediate urgent obligations to spouse or employers.

A much-beloved private student of mine works at the Kunsthaus in Zürich and finally after months of discussion, I took advantage of her offer to explore the museum for free.

I thought that getting out of Casa Kerr – our humble wee apartment a short stroll away from the Lake of Constance – would aid me psychologically and inspire me creatively.

For though there are a number of ideas I am working on, words have been trickling slowly these past few weeks.

Part of the problem has been the immediacy of the moment…

It is one thing to write about problems in faraway places like Turkey or Belgium or speak of times past remembered or researched, but to capture the electricity of the moment, fresh and still sparking, this is what has been missing from both my spirit as well as my writing.

I later visited the FIFA Museum and though I see future ideas from this visit there was still lacking the sense of urgency to verbalise what I witnessed there.

Serendipitiously I stumbled across a dozen books I had neither seen nor read before in three different bookshops, but again ideas from them must be sifted before grains of inspiration can be found lying at the bottom of the goldpan of the mind.

I returned home, began watching To Walk Invisible: The Lives of the Bronte Sisters and, like many typical husbands unsupervised by their spouses, I fell asleep on the couch.

I was awakened by a phone call from Canada.

My childhood was rather…unusual.

I have four brothers (Christopher, Thomas, Kenneth and a stepbrother Stephen) and three sisters (Valerie, Cythnia and a foster sister Victoria).

Having met or learned of my brothers and my biological sisters only when I was in my mid-twenties and finding that decades apart does not a family create, the only true sibling I have any significant contact with is my foster sister Victoria.

It was she who phoned me last night / this morning.

There are many similarities between Vicki and myself.

We both come from large families yet were raised as isolated foster children by the same Irish Canadian woman and French Canadian home owner.

We were taken from our biological families because they were unable to properly take care of us themselves.

In a revolving door type scenario, Vicki, 14 years my senior, moved out to pursue her post-secondary education when I moved in.

For a time Vicki was a French teacher while I remain an English teacher.

There is a significant age difference between ourselves and our spouses.

Vicki remains quite spiritual in her beliefs and I can be occasionally philosophical in my expression.

Vicki feels too much.

I have often been accused of thinking too much.

We both worry too much.

We both desperately need to learn and practice the tenets of St. Francis of Assisi´s Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strength to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

And, sadly, though we both are driven by the creative impulse, we are both hampered by crippling bouts of self-doubt and discouragement.

She confessed to me last night that she had written two books and having been unsuccessful at getting them published, she simply tossed all of her work into the rubbish bin.

I love my sister and I know her mind and I am convinced that she, like me, need not worry whether her words are good enough to share with others but instead she should keep writing and keep learning how to market her writing.

Instead of seeing shadows of a winter endless in prospect and prophetically cold and unwelcoming, Vicki needs to believe that success will eventually spring her way and that the only handicaps preventing her from reaching that spring are those she has created herself.

Which leads me to the subject of Groundhog Day…

Last year I wrote a blog post called Omens and portents from a rodent.

I spoke of the tradition of Groundhog Day celebrated across many locations in Canada and the United States, where, according to folklore, if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, then spring weather will arrive six weeks early before the spring equinox; if it is sunny and the groundhog sees its shadow and retreats back into its den to resume its hibernation then winter weather will persist for six more weeks.

I wrote of the largest Groundhog Day celebration that is held every February 2 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where crowds as large as 40,000 have gathered to celebrate the “holiday” since 1886.

I told of other groundhogs less famed than Punxsutawney Phil, like Wiarton Willie (an albino groundhog)(Wiarton, Ontario), Balzac Billy (Alberta), Fred la Marmotte (Val d’Espoir, Quebec), Shubenacadie Sam (Nova Scotia), Manitoba Merv (Winnipeg), Oil Springs Ollie (Ontario), Winnipeg Willow (Manitoba), Dundas Donna (Ontario)…and these are just the Canadian celebrations…

In the US, besides Punxsutawney, Groundhog Days are celebrated in Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Connecticut, New York and many other places across the US…and not always with a groundhog.

Red Rock Canyon in Nevada has Mojave Max, a desert tortoise.

And Claude the Cajun Crawfish annually predicts the weather one day earlier in Shreveport, Louisiana.

And in faroff Srentenje, Serbia on 15 February (2 February according to the local religious Julian calendar), it is believed that if a bear awakens from his winter slumber and meets his shadow in his sleepy and confused state, the bear will get scared and go back to sleep for an additional 40 days, thus prolonging winter.

So, if it is sunny on Sretenje on 15 February, winter ain´t over yet in Serbia.

And it is this idea of a sleepy and confused state, this viewing of shadows of portents and omens to come, that first made me think of waxing political about how Donald Trump´s hair resembles a dead groundhog and how he casts shadows of doubt upon the future…

Then Vicki´s phone call and my encouragement of her literary efforts made me think of the 1993 film Groundhog Day.

Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant TV weatherman who, during an assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, finds himself in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over again and again.

After indulging in hedonism and committing suicide numerous times, Connors begins to re-examine his life and priorities.

Estimates regarding how long Connors remains trapped in the time loop, in real time, vary widely.

During the filming of Groundhog Day, director Harold Ramis, a Buddhist, observed that according to Buddhist doctrine, it takes 10,000 years for a soul to evolve to its next level.

Therefore, in a spiritual sense, the entire arc of Groundhog Day spans 10,000 years.

Groundhog Day is often considered to be an allegory of self-improvement, emphasizing that happiness comes from placing the needs of others above one’s own selfish desires.

For some Buddhists, the film’s themes of selflessness and rebirth are reflections of the Buddha’s own spiritual messages.

Some Jews and Christians see Connors’ time loop as a representation of Purgatory, from which Connors is released once he has shed his own selfishness and commits himself to acts of love.

Above: Gustave Doré’s image of a non-fiery Purgatory illustration for Dante Alleghieri’s Purgatorio

Theologian Michael Pholey has suggested that the film could be seen as a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress.

Above: Title page of first edition of John Bunyan´s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)

Others see Groundhog Day as an affirmation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s directive to imagine life – metaphorically and literally – as an endless repetition of events.

Above: Friedrich Nietzche (1844 – 1900)

The phrase “Groundhog Day”, as a result of the film, has entered into common usage as a reference to an unpleasant situation that continually repeats, as in today is SSDD – same stuff, different day.

Fourteen years after the movie´s release, “Groundhog Day” was noted as common US military slang for any day of a tour of duty in Iraq.

Major Roger Aeschliman in his Iraq War memoir Victory Denied describes guarding assorted visiting dignitaries as his “Groundhog Day”:

“The dignitaries change, but everything else remains the same.

The same airplanes drop them off at the same places.

The same helicopters take us to the same meetings with the same presenters covering the same topics using the same slides.

We visit the same troops at the same mess halls and send them away from the same airport pads to find our way home late at night.

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until we are redeemed and allowed to go home.”

And this is my take on Groundhog Day, both the film and the event…

Yes, there is fear that success in our endeavours is a long long way away and that it will take 10,000 years, or at least a lifetime, for us to achieve our goals, so it is almost instinctive to return back to our caves/our burrows/our warrens and ignore the unpleasant weather and let our dreams remain dormant.

But not venturing outside our comfort zones, we avoid dangerous difficulties that may lie ahead.

But just as Phil Connors had to continually relive Groundhog Day until he finally did the day right securing his release, so must we continue to strive, despite failure after failure, until we finally learn how to succeed.

So, my sister, if you are reading these words, keep on keeping on.

Fail, learn why, fail again and again, until finally you find the formula to see your thoughts and ideas spring into the hands and minds of others for their enjoyment and enlightenment.

Ignore the shadows of doubt.

Spring will come.

Sources: Wikipedia

Canada Slim and the Genius of Glarus

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 12 August 2016

In my last blog post, Yesterday’s Children, I wrote of boarding a train to parts unknown in an attempt to restore my composure after attending a memorial service in Benken, Canton St. Gallen.

The day then was much like today’s weather: chilly, dark, unpleasant…

Glarus, Canton Glarus, 21 March 2016

Glarus, the smallest Canton in Switzerland, nestles between high mountains, the Schwyzer Alps to the west and the Glarus Alps to the east.

This is Switzerlands’s least-known and supposedly hardest-to-reach region, a tract of territory with just a scattering of widely-separated settlements and very low key tourism.

Its isolation is its attraction – a place to turn your back on the crowds and breathe in the fresh air of the wilderness.

It is possible to bypass the slender, cliff-girt Walensee – (though why one would desire to do so is a mystery, for the lake is remarkably beautiful)  -by both car and train.

Ziegelbrücke, at the lake’s western tip, marks the start of routes squeezing southwards.

12 km south, Glarus, the smallest canton capital city in Switzerland, is a picture postcard place, dwarfed and intimidated by the looming Glärnisch massif, dwarfed and intimidated by the rest of Switzerland, which in turn as a landlocked fortress island surrounded by Europe, feels dwarfed and intimidated by the world.

Now all the English-language guidebooks (Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, etc.) suggest that, with the notable exception of the first Sunday in May when Glarus holds its Landsgemeinde (public Parliament), there is little reason to visit Glarus, but instead one should travel on southwards to scenic Linthal, the Klausen Pass towards Canton Uri, and the lovely and lonely enclosed valley of Urnerboden.

(See Railroads to Anywhere: Urnasch and Appenzell of this blog for a description of how a Landsgemeinde works and why seeing one is worthwhile.)

And one day I will return to Glarus to do just that, to see what lies to the south of Glarnerland.

But this day, after attending a funeral, the very anonymity, the isolation of Glarus held a greater attraction for me than places more frequented by tourists and greater praised by travel literature.

I could have reached Glarus on foot by simply following the Linth River from Benken, for Glarus lies on the river Linth.

My imagination likes to think that this is how St. Fridolin did it in the 6th century.

According to the legend, the inhabitants of the Linth River valley were converted to Christianity by the Irish monk St. Fridolin, who, after founding Säckingen Abbey in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, decided to keep travelling and keep on converting those he met during his travels.

Fridolin belonged to a noble family in Ireland and at first he was a missionary there.

Afterwards crossing to France, Fridolin came to Poitiers, where in answer to a vision, he sought out the relics of St. Hilarius and built a church for them.

St. Hilarius subsequently appeared to Fridolin in a dream and commanded him to proceed to an island in the Rhine river where Säckingen now exists.

In Switzerland, Fridolin spent considerable time where he converted the landowner Urso.

On his death Urso left his enormous landholdings to Fridolin, who founded numerous churches all dedicated to St. Hilarius (the origin of the name “Glarus”).

(Yes, Fridolin’s mentor’s name sounds hilarious!)

Urso’s brother Landolf refused to accept the legitimacy of the gift and brought Fridolin before a court in Rankweil to prove his title.

Fridolin did so by summoning Urso from the dead (!) to confirm the gift in person, so terrifying Landolf that he gave his lands to Fridolin as well.

From the 9th century, the Glarus region was owned by Säckingen Abbey until the Habsburgs claimed all the Abbey’s rights by 1288.

St. Fridolin has never been forgotten.

Glarus joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1352.

Habsburgian attempts to reconquer the valley were repelled in the Battle of Näfels in 1388, where a banner depicting St. Fridolin was used to rally the people of Glarus to victory.

The Battle of Näfels, the last battle of the Old Swiss Confederation vs the Austrian Hapsburgs, fought on 9 April 1388 was decisive despite the forces of Glarus being outnumbered 16 to 1!

2,500 Austrians died.

Only 54 men of Glaurus were killed.

From that time onwards Canton Glarus has used the image of St. Fridolin on its flags and in its coat of arms.

In 1389, a seven-year peace was signed in Vienna and that same year the first Näfelser Fahrt, a pilgrimage to the site of the battle was held.

This pilgrimage, which still occurs, happens on the first Thursday of April in memory of this Battle.

Between 1506 and 1516 the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli was priest in Glarus.

It was his first ecclesiastical post.

(To read more about Zwingli, see City of Spirits and Reformation by the River and the Railroad Tracks of this blog.)

It was in Glarus, whose soldiers were used as mercenaries in Europe, that Zwingli became involved in politics.

From 1500 to 1800 a main source of income for Glarus came from its mercenary soldiers.

Close to 1,000 Glarner became officers, acquiring fame.

A far greater number lost their lives as soldiers in foreign service.

The Swiss Confederation was embroiled in various campaigns against its neighbours: the French, the Habsburgs and the Papal States.

Zwingli placed himself solidly on the side of the Papacy.

Zwingli was a chaplin in several campaigns in Italy, including the Battle of Novara (6 June 1513).

However the decisive defeat of the Swiss in the Battle of Marignano (13-14 September 1513) caused a shift in mood in Glarus in favour of the French rather than the Pope.

Zwingli found himself in a difficult position and decided to retreat to Einsiedeln, Canton Schwyz.

By this time, Zwingli was convinced that mercenary service was immoral and that Swiss unity was indispensable for any future Swiss achievements.

While Zwingli was not a reformer at Glarus, it was there he began to develop the ideas that would lead him to break with the Catholic Church.

In 1528 the Reformation gained a foothold in Glarus, directed by Zwingli who had moved to Zürich in 1518 after two years in Einsiedeln.

Even though Zwingli had preached in Glarus for 10 years, the town remained strongly Catholic.

However, following the Second War of Kappel in 1531, both the Catholic and Protestant residents were given the right to worship in town.

This led to both religious groups using the town church simultaneously (!), an arrangement that caused numerous problems.

In 1782 a “witch” was executed for the first and only time in Glarus and the last time in Europe.

A five-man jury sentenced the accused maid, Anna Göldi, to death by sword.

(See Five schillings’ worth of wood of this blog about witches in Switzerland and abroad past and present.)

In 1798 Glarus became a battlefield for foreign armies leading the Confederation to surrender to French occupation.

This war brought with it misery and destitution.

In 1799, 1,200 children were forced to seek food and shelter in other cantons.

By the 18th century both groups still shared the same church but had separate organs (!), both financially and theologically independent parishes meeting in the same city church (!).

This neo-Romanesque church is the symbol of the city.

In the early 1840s, after several years of bad crops and scarcity of food, much of the Canton found itself deep in debt and poverty.

With more workers than available jobs, emigration to the United States was seen as a solution.

The Glarus Emigration Society was established in 1844, offering loans to help residents purchase land in the New World.

Many of the resulting emigrants went to the state of Wisconsin, where they founded the town of New Glarus.

Above: Jodellers and Alphorns are all part of the New Glarus Swiss Volkfest.

(Despite its small size, 2,2oo people, New Glarus is known for many traditional Swiss dishes (like Rösti, Kalberwurst, Spätzle, Landjäger, Brätzli, Bratwurst, fondue, Älpermagronen, Zopf, Chäschüchli, Schnitzel, chocolates, Stollen, etc), its many festivals (including a Polkafest, Heidi Festival, William Tell Festival…), the Swiss Village Historical Museum, the Swiss Center of North America, Swiss chalets with flower boxes filled with red geraniums, Swiss flags flying next to the American flag, the card game Jass, yodeling, flag tossing…)

(See The cards we’re dealt of this blog for a description of the card game Jass.)

In short, New Glarus, Wisconsin, is the best-known Swiss settlement in America.)

On the evening / early morning of 10 / 11 May 1861 the town was devastated by a Great Fire that was fanned by a violent Föhn (a south wind)(known as a Chinook in Canada), destroying 2/3 of the town (593 buildings in total) with 3,000 people losing their roofs and everything they owned.

Very few buildings built before the Great Fire remain.

(New Glarus collected money for Glarus.)

In 1864, the first European labour law to protect workers was introduced in Glarus prohibiting workers from working more than 12 hours a day.

(In 1880, when much of the nearby town of Elm was buried beneath a landslide killing 114 people, the residents of New Glarus again sent money.)

On 6 May 2007 Glarus became the first Canton to lower the voting age to 16.

Today wood, textile, printing and plastics are the dominant industries.

Most of the 13, 000 residents speak the local Swiss German dialect, most of them are over 20 and under the age of 64, and are highly educated.

And the town of Glarus, not to mention the canton of Glarus, produced some remarkable people:

Ägidius Tschudi (1505 – 1572) was a governor of Sargans and Baden, the defender of Catholicism during the chaos of the Reformation, ambassador, hospital founder, geographer and historian.

Tschudi’s maps were far superior to those up to his period in exactness and he is considered to be the Father of Swiss History.

Another Tschudi, one Johann Jakob von Tschudi (1818 – 1889), was a medical doctor, diplomat, natural scientist, South American explorer, zoologist, hunter, collector, antropologist, cultural historian, language researcher and a Swiss business executive in Vienna.

After his explorations through South America, Johann took up the cause of Swiss and other European immigrant residents of Brazil who were treated no better than slaves.

Johann’s travels through Peru, the Cordilleras, Brazil, Argentina and Chile have been compared to the accomplishments of pioneers in science.

Fritz Zwicky (1898 – 1974) was a physicist.

In fact Zwicky was one of the most esteemed astrophysicists of the 20th century, creating the “Morphological Method”, this Professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena made discoveries in rocket technology, publishing many scientific papers and his biographical Every Person a Genius.

When researchers talk about neutron stars, dark matter, and gravitational lenses, they all start the same way:

“Zwicky noticed this problem in the 1930s.

Back then, nobody listened…”

(Steven Mauer, Idea Man)

The Glarus Public Library and the Fritz Zwicky Foundation house his personal library.

As well, this town has produced Olympic calibre cyclists Peter Vogel and Colin Stüssi, Olympic gymnist Melanie Marti and racing driver Urs Sonderegger.

Clearly a remarkable place filled with remarkable people…

Yet few travel books make remarks about either the town or the canton called Glarus.

And I have mixed feelings about this, for as much as I wish others to enjoy Glarus as much as I have, there remains a part of me that wants to keep this enjoyment as a private pleasure.

For the tourist the town has much to offer: the Museum of Art with its collection of 19th / 20th century Swiss artwork and Pablo Picasso’s “Tete Bleue”, the Museum of Natural History, the Holenstein Cultural Centre, the Tschudi Art Gallery, the Pitoresk Gallery, the Suworow Museum, the Kantonschule Observatory, a park and a sports centre offering ice-skating, curling, jogging, field athletics, cycling, downhill skiing, sledding, swimming.

The Spielhof, the former State School, with its Soldenhoff Room, exhibits the major works of painter Alexander Soldenhoff (1882 – 1951), while its library and archives include the Blumer Atlas Collection, astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky’s personal library and Professor Arthur Dürst’s geographical collection.

As well, the Romanesque mountain chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael dates back a thousand years, with a Roccoco altar of dark marble showing Michael hurling Lucifer into Hell’s fire while Maria and Joseph with the Christ Child look on.

White marble statues of Glarus’ patron saints Fridolin and Hilarius share devotion with Zürich’s patron saints Felix and Regula who found refuge in a nearby cave that bear their finger impressions on the walls.

Fortress Hill offers a scenic view of the town and vineyards cling to the hillside.

And nearby, a beautiful lake in a valley ringed by magnificent mountains with hiking trails, campsites, a boat dock, windsurfing and ice skating, arched stone bridge and hydro dam, limestone caves, peaks, gorges and waterfalls have inspired poets and painters for generations.

This is the Klöntal, where a memorial stone reads “here the goats – here the border” and a rough stone block bears the inscription: “Salomon Gessner wished to create a monument to nature, thus nature allowed his name to be recorded here for all eternity.”

But perhaps I have underestimated the good folks of Glarus…

Glarners have wisely decided to keep Paradise mostly private.

Perhaps in Glarnus every person is a genius after all…

(Sources: Wikipedia; Switzerland Tourism; Josef Schwitter/Urs Heer, Glarnerland: A Short Portrait)

 

The Battle Electronic

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 23 July 2016

It´s 5 am and my wife is still asleep in her bed while I stare at an electronic screen willing it to magically put scattered thoughts into sensible prose for public digestion and edification.

I think of the number of topics and events I have yet to write about and I feel the pressure of the modern age that suggests a topic more than 24 hours old is already obsolete.

Still I persist, for I believe that between the historic record and the latest bulletin lies a fertile and fallow field where a person can consider an event and thoughtfully give his opinion and share his ideas to everyone´s mutual benefit.

Perhaps not the sexiest or trendiest notion?

We live in an impatient age, an era where electronic communication compels people to instant response, regardless of whether this immediacy allows for rational thought.

A text message is sent.

Why aren´t you instantly answering it?

An email was sent.

Shouldn´t you have replied by now?

Someone has twittered an opinion.

Let´s give it credibility, because this opinion is in instant electronic form.

This person must be a worthy individual, because people he has never or rarely met have clicked “Like”.

I must not be a worthy individual, because so few people have clicked “Like” or have even viewed my blog.

Horse hockey.

If my self worth is tied to electronic feedback then I must truly be a sad example of humanity.

We live in a world where news and communication is universal, yet so many of us have never felt more alone.

The very technology humanity creates to serve, dominates us.

For we have not only become practically dependent upon our machines which control almost everything we do, we have become psychologically dependent upon them as well.

Perhaps this worship of technology was inevitable from the first moment man invented the wheel or discovered how to control fire.

Our present psychological state probably began the day a car driver in an accident exclaimed that another driver had struck “him” rather than his car.

New York Times, 11 March 2016:

Amy Butcher complains.

Where are the emojis for modern women?

My response when reading this is not connected with the typical male indifference to a world slow to grant women equal rights and attitude to all matters that concern both genders, but rather why are emojis considered important enough to merit attention?

When did the struggle between the sexes become trivialised to electronic warfare involving smiley faces?

The Independent, 16 February 2016:

Jamie Merrill informs the world that Uber, the car-sharing app, alone is used by more than 30,000 drivers across the United Kingdom in 15 towns and cities, with more than 1.5 million regular passengers in London.

Uber has a value of more than US$50 billion, making it the world´s most valuable tech start-up.

In surveys conducted in the UK it has been found that more than 5 million people are now being paid for work through online platforms.

More than 18.5 million people have turned to apps and online services to find taxi drivers, builders, designers and accountants.

Even in my old-fashioned life I know of at least one friend whose business revolves around electronic work and payment.

Since last November even I capitulated to owning a “Smartphone” and find I must fight off obsessions in myself that I used to ridicule about others in pre-November blog posts.

Though I have never been comfortable with electronic shopping, preferring face-to-face interaction as feeling more trustworthy, even I find myself enjoying Facebook and email access wherever I travel, and apps like train networks and directional finders invaluable.

Yesterday I was in Zürich for a medical appointment and was amazed at how electronically dependent the University Clinic functioned, with electronic barcoding and scanning machines and all kinds of electronic “bells and whistles”.

My doctor has a room where my outstretched arms can reach both walls without moving from the centre of her office.

A doctor in a box, using technology from a box, serving canned dignity to naive patients…

A brave new world…

From which there seems to be no escape and no choice in the matter…

The St. Gallen library insists its patrons electronically check material out themselves rather than interact with a librarian.

My bills are paid and my salaries are received electronically.

One employer insists I “Doodle” all appointments, my wife complains if I don´t instantly respond to her “What´s App” messages, and even on my (last act of technology defiance) hikes, not only do I carry a mobile phone and charger for emergencies and no escape from electronic contact, I have seen hikers hiking with heads down reading their phones instead of viewing nature around them!

So I find myself drawn to the unusual case of one Julian Lewis, Tory Member of the British Parliament for New Forest East, who refuses to read emails from his constituents.

 

 

According to the Times of 2 March 2016, Dr. Lewis, 64, is the only MP who will not communicate with his constituents online.

Lewis describes email correspondence as insecure and unsatisfactory and  can only be contacted by posted or faxed correspondence to him at the House of Commons.

His stand was highlighted by WriteToThem, a charity website which allows members of the public to find and contact their local representatives.

Catherine Ovenden of Totton, who runs a photography business, tried to contact Lewis electronically about a mental health bill:

“I think he is being deliberately obstructive.  If all the other MPs can use email I don’t see why he can’t.  It is quite stubborn.  To make a point I’ve written him a letter on parchment paper, complete with a wax seal – as I know he is concerned about security.”

Myf Nixon of WriteToMe said:

“Constituents should be able to contact their representatives via whichever means they find most convenient, rather than those which their MPs find convenient.”

In a nutshell, WriteToMe’s complaint is my defence.

This pressure to technologically “get with the times” is not at all convenient for me.

This electronic, technological peer pressure, this e-mobbing of bullying the world to be techno-savvy and electronically prompt bothers me.

This power to not only dominate our lives in the workplace and home with all services electronically linked is bad enough, but this cry to jump into the deep end of this techno pool has prevaded our very consciousness to the point that even elections and public opinions can be mass manipulated.

Though this sometimes can be a force for good in the world informing people of injustice and sorrow in the world that might otherwise remain hidden, this ability to affect so many people collectively can also give rise to unscrupulous individuals who can influence many people who believe what their electronic media tell them and in their impatience won´t take the time to test the veracity of what they are being told.

It is no accident that someone like Donald Trump uses Twitter as part of his campaign to be elected the next US President.

And without conscientious journalists fact-checking and demanding clear answers on policy and planning, he knows he can say anything and people will believe him because they believe what their techno tools tell them.

To paraphrase Will Smith in the movie I Robot:

We are the smartest yet dumbest generation.

Certainly there is something democratic about the ability to express one’s thoughts instantly, but to express one’s self rationally and thoughtfully normally requires time and effort.

So sure you can text the person you love an emoji showing a smiley face throwing kisses, but this pales in comparison to the power and passion of a well-thought-out and laborously created love letter.

As much as I see the validity of the objections of MP Lewis’ critics, I wonder if Dr. Lewis might be wiser than he is given credit.

We have gained so much in this age of information and speed that we forget that for every gain… there are also losses.

Above: The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead depicts a scene in which a scribe’s heart is weighed against the Feather of Truth.

 

Canada Slim behind bars 2: Punishment preserved

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 2 July 2016

Brexit and the European Championship seem all anyone can talk about these days, whether in the classes where I teach or at the Starbucks stores where I work as a barista.

As I don´t have a stake in either event, my thoughts are more preoccupied with my duties at hand, plans for future walks during my days off in my suddenly-more-open calendar, and writing my blog.

Earlier I mentioned, in Canada Slim behind bars 1: Voyeurs of tragedy, how I would tell the tales of my experience as prison tourist, prison tour guide and prisoner.

So let me begin with a confession…

I am a prison tourist.

Don´t misunderstand me.

There is no fetish involving steel bars, chains, or punishment.

There is no bloodlust craving or secret desire to build a do-it-yourself dungeon based on ideas discovered in these remembrances of penal past.

But rather I feel a mixture of emotions:

There is the grim realisation of the veracity of how we mere mortals “wrestle not against flesh and blood but rather against princes and powers and principalities”.

The state wields its enormous dual powers of law and order against crime to enact punishment upon those who breaks its laws just or injust, and though there are some who truly merit being removed from the general populace, there also exist those who are incarcerated not for crimes of violence but rather for their defiance of thought and action against rules that offend either the conscience or rational behaviour.

Sadly, these latter prisoners have often been treated as severely or worse than those prisoners of violent behaviour have been.

It is a rare man who can be trapped within the penal system of law and order and walk out stronger than when he walked in.

And, of course, not every man walks out.

There is also within me a spark of optimism.

For as bad as modern prisons are, in former times many prisons were worse.

This is not to say that this trend has been global, for there still do exist in some parts of the world hellholes unspeakably vile and cruel, but in lands where these words might be read I do believe some improvement has been shown.

I do believe in separating the truly violent elements of man apart from potential victims, but I remain unconvinced that sticking a man in a cage will somehow improve him, somehow rehabilitate him.

I also believe that a state that advocates capital punishment is hypocritical in suggesting that it is immune from moral censure for doing the very acts that it itself condemns.

Murdering a murderer is murder, regardless of the justification given.

And for those families and lovers left alone and tragic by a murderer´s act more blood spilt will not bring their lost ones back nor ease the pain of that loss.

Vengence is not justice.

It is simply revenge.

Killing someone who is trying to kill you may be called “war”, but ending a human life before its time is still murder, no matter what nobility we pretend this act has.

I don´t blame the soldier as much as I blame the folks who caused the wars to occur.

I have had the great blessing of having visited a number of countries during my brief half-century of existence and when opportunity presented itself I would try and discover for myself aspects of these countries´ heritage in hopes of better understanding these places I found myself in.

But I am only one man, limited by both time and money, living on a planet where there exists more than 55,000 museums in more than 202 nations scattered across the globe.

In the world´s tiniest nation, Vatican City, there are at least 8 museums worth exploring.

In the US, a nation of museum afficiandos, there are 35,000 registered museums.

My homeland of Canada has at least 2,000 official museums.

My present country of residence Switzerland has 750 museums.

So much to see and do in only one lifetime…

In my travels throughout Canada and during my one visit to Australia I visited a few prison museums and was fascinated by all I saw and learned about how penal order was maintained and about some of the characters that once occupied the cells within these walls.

To be clear, I separate concentration camps from prisons, as the former are not confinement for criminals as they are a state´s attempt to separate from the general populace those of undesirable ethnicity or belief or sexual orientation or physical / mental capacity in an attempt to purge these elements out.

At present, I have yet to visit concentration camps, but I fear the great sorrow and anger I anticipate feeling upon seeing such vast inhumanity being visited upon innocents whose only offense was being different from the accepted norm.

If you, gentle reader, sat me down and asked me straight out direct what prison museum have I seen that I would most recommend to a visitor, I would, without hesitation, recommend Fremantle.

Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia, April 2014

My best friend Iain of Liverpool was getting hitched to a lovely lady from Perth and I was his best man for his wedding in Perth.

Being my first visit to Oz (and to date my only) I did want to explore as much as I could, but obligations to the bridal pair as well as the normal restrictions of limited time and finance meant my explorations were bound to seeing only Perth, Fremantle and New Norcia.

I was in Oz for a wedding, not for pleasure!

To be fair, I have absolutely no regrets, though I won´t deny I did embrace my moments of exploration when they became available, I also thoroughly enjoyed my moments spent with Iain and Samantha and her family and friends and feel truly honoured and blessed that they wanted me to share in their special moment.

Fremantle Prison is Western Australia´s only World Heritage building.

In 2010, Fremantle Prison, along with 10 other historic convict sites around Australia, was placed on the World Heritage Register for places of universal significance.

Collectively known as the Australian Convict Sites, these places tell the story of the colonisation of Australia and the building of a nation.

Fremantle Prison is Western Australia’s most important historical site.

As a World Heritage Site, Fremantle Prison is recognised as having the same level of cultural significance as other iconic sites, such as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, or the Historic Centre of Rome.

For 136 years, between 1855 and 1991, Fremantle Prison was continuously occupied by prisoners.

Convicts built the Prison between 1851 and 1859.

Fremantle Prison is the only surviving intact convict-built prison in the world.

Fremantle Prison is the longest and tallest convict-built structure in the Southern Hemisphere, 136 metres long and 20 metres / 15 feet high.

Its original capacity was 1,000 men.

The cells were 1.2 metres / 7 feet wide by 2.1 metres / 4 feet high, fitted with a hammock slung between raw limestone walls.

Cold, claustrophobic, uninviting.

Seven gun towers around the perimeter walls look down on the Prison and the town of Fremantle with its harbour.

A chill wind whistles in from the southwest Indian Ocean.

Initially called the Convict Establishment, Fremantle Prison held male prisoners of the British Government transported to Western Australia.

After 1886 Fremantle Prison became the colony’s main place of incarceration for men, women and juveniles.

Fremantle Prison itself was finally decommissioned in November 1991 when its male prisoners were transferred to the new maximum security prison at Casuarina.

Fremantle Prison was a brutal place of violent punishments, such as floggings and hangings.

Conditions were primitive: freezing in winter and scorching in summer, infested with cockroaches and rats.

The site was lonely and cruel.

It housed thousands of prisoners, each with a fascinating story to tell.

Fremantle was the site of numerous daring escapes and prisoner riots.

Throughout its operational history, Fremantle Prison held thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children.

Fremantle Prison exhibits an extraordinary power of place.

Above: One of six cells restored to represent the Prison´s varying living conditions at different times in its history

Because it remained operational as a prison until 1991, the site is remarkably intact and authentic.

Visiting the Prison one can see first hand what life was like for modern prisoners as well as for convicts 150 years ago.

Why convicts in Western Australia?

One must remember that Australia is not just a country, but is a continent unto itself.

Western Australia is beyond huge…

If Western Australia were its own separate country (which would suit WA just fine!), it would be the 10th biggest country in the world.

Western Australia was founded in June 1829 (I think it was a Tuesday?) by a group of 69 people, including military officers, free settlers, their families and servants, led by Captain James Sterling, the colony´s first Lieutenant Governor.

Although their philosophy was Utopian and aimed at the instant creation of a community of gentlemen farmers their experience was harsh.

There were no roads, no bridges, no labourers to build them.

The land had to be cleared and fertile soil was extremely limited.

Despite the first 20 years being filled with frustration, many labourers enjoyed being free of the restrictions of life in England.

One wrote:

“We bless the day we left England….I am at work brickmaking….I work 8 hours a day….I have no rent to pay, no wood to buy.  I just go outdoors and cut it down….It is not here as in England.  If you don´t like it, you may leave it….”

But the colony would stagnate without massive injections of capital and labour, so, despite many misgivings, the settlers petitioned England, asking for the introduction of convicts.

As British jails were full, the government agreed to transport felons.

The Scindian brought the first 75 convicts to Western Australia on 1 June 1850.

9, 601 were to follow.

All were male, which would create a great gender imbalance in the colony.

On arrival in WA, convicts had all their personal possessions, including the clothes they were wearing, removed and sold to pay for their board and maintenance.

Each convict was issued the government uniform of trousers, vest, a light white canvas jacket and a straw hat.

Convicts would assemble on the Parade Ground at 5 am and by 6 am would march off to work wherever they were needed.

Besides Fremantle Prison, convicts would construct many public buildings, including the Perth Town Hall and the WA Government House, as well as bridges and highways.

After convict transportation to the colony ceased in 1868, Fremantle Prison became WA´s major civilian prison.

From 1888 to 1970, Fremantle also served as a Women´s Prison with walls built around their section separating them from the men.

From 1940 to 1946, Fremantle was one of more than 50 military prisons across Australia holding a combined total of more than 12,000 POWs, with Fremantle accommodating 400 military prisoners by October 1945.

A prisoner´s daily routine remained the same for over a century and a half.

The prison day begins at 6. 45 am (an hour later on weekends and public holidays).

The junior night officer rings a hand bell 15 minutes prior to the unlocking of the cells.

The prisoners rise, dress and prepare for the day.

The prisoners, who have been locked in their cells for the past 14 1/2 hours, stand outside their cell door until told to “file off”.

The prisoners move away from their cell with their toilet bucket and their water bucket, a flask and meal plate tucked under their arms, a safety razor in their top pocket, toothbrush in mouth.

The air has its own unique perfume, combining body odors, the stink of urine and faeces, the smell of disinfectant and the aroma of a breakfast of bacon and eggs for the officers, porridge for the prisoners, bread with Vegemite, honey or margarine, and black tea.

Lunch and dinner are meat dishes – corned beef, sausages or mince pie – with mashed potatoes and cabbage -served with bread.

The prisoners eat their meals inside their cells.

The toilet buckets are emptied into the septic traps, to be hosed and disinfected by the yardman prisoner.

The prisoners go to a water trough to brush their teeth, shave and wash their face and hands.

Showers are only three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Prior to the installation of showers, prisoners would be entitled to a bath once a week only.

The Prison attempted to install portable chemical toilets in the 1970s, but prisoners smashed them and drank the chemicals!

Buckets were used until the day the Prison closed on 31 October 1991.

The prisoners work in the cookhouse, the divisions (sections of the Prison), the yards, the hospital, the carpenter shop, the metal workshop, the tailor shop, the boot shop, the print shop, the clothes storage area, the library, the concrete fabrication shop, the gardens and the school.

The library held around 10,000 books.

Electricity was installed in the 1920s.

The Prison also has its own Church of England chapel, the only place in the Prison that has no bars across the glass windows.

Many convicts are not nice people and putting them in a prison will not make many of them act nicely, so punishments are used to keep the convicts in line.

Misbehaving prisoners are punished with flogging, solitary confinement and working in chain gangs at gunpoint, as well as restricted diets of bread and water, time spent in irons and a lengthening of the prisoner´s sentence.

Particularly difficult prisoners are put to work hand pumping groundwater into the Prison´s reservoir – “cranking” was especially despised by the prisoners.

Prisoners sentenced to capital punishment await their fateful day in Death Row, confined separately, under constant supervision, often kept under restraint, permitted an hour of exercise each day.

Death Row inmates are permitted visits by friends, relatives, legal counsel and clergy.

Hanging is usually at 8 am on a Monday, unless Monday falls on a public holiday.

The day of execution has arrived.

The condemned is woken at 5 am, taken for a shower, given special clothing held together with tape rather than buttons.

At 6 am, the prisoner is escorted to the holding cell next to the gallows.

The last meal is toast and tea.

Brandy and a visit by the clergy are offered the condemned person.

0759: Four men arrive at the holding cell.

The prisoner is brought out into the corridor and hobbles placed upon the prisoner´s ankles.

Handcuffs keep the prisoner´s hands behind the back.

A calico cap is placed upon the prisoner´s head, to be later pulled down over the prisoner´s eyes.

Prisoners in the exercise yards are still.

The entire Prison is quiet.

The condemned is escorted to the gallows door and blindfolded and a noose placed around the neck.

The prisoner drops into eternity.

43 men and one woman were hanged in Fremantle Prison, all as punishment for murder.

The first hanging was on 2 March 1889.

The last hanging was on 26 October 1964.

The tours are excellent and quite informative and some of the guides are said to be ex-wardens.

Fremantle Prison received international as well as Australian tourists, as well as ex-cons, former prison officers and their families, over 180,000 visitors a year.

Beside the Prison itself, there is a visitors´ centre with a searchable convict database, an art gallery, a café, a gift shop and tourist accommodation.

The art gallery showcases and offers for sale the artworks of current and former prisoners of Western Australia.

Many cells and areas of the Prison depict prisoners´ artwork.

The laughter of school groups does little to dispell the gloom and foreboding of this place.

And the guides will speak little, if at all, about prison tattooing, riots or graffiti portraits of revenge, sex or brutality.

A chill wind still whistles through the corridors and clouds seem everpresent above the watchtowers.

The unconscious mind compels you to want to flee, to run, to escape.

And there were many escapes from Fremantle Prison over the years.

Ask the guides for the tale of Moondyke Joe or the tale of the Fenian O´Reilly or the great escape of Hooper and Cabalt.

Hollywood writers, have your notebooks a-ready.

A prison is a scar upon both the physical and psychological landscape of a country.

And it still remains a matter of great debate how effective a prison is.

And though one might, in all good conscience, argue that it is perhaps inherently wrong to view a place of punishment as a tourist attraction, perhaps as it would be great if swords might be converted into ploughshares maybe the future may see a day when all prisons are converted into museums or alternative accommodation.

Perhaps some day societies will find a more humane and rational method of controlling its misbehaving elements and prisons become obsolete.

But prisons should still remain standing as reminders of the evil than men do and as reminders of the evil men do to control its societies.

The sun might shine brightly on the prospect of tomorrow, but the winds of the past remain chilly.

(Sources: E. Langley Smith, Fremantle Prison: An Overview; Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

The Silence Between

Landschlacht, Switzerland: 9 May 2016

An email from an old friend, Sumit, asks: “Not writing blogs anymore?…I have not seen any new blogs in the last few weeks.”

A daily journal, bought at a local grocery chain, has a leather cover that intimidates: “You don´t write because you want to say something.  You write because you have something to say.” (Anonymous)

Facebook: Someone posts a photo of a shelf of books.  Upon the book held up to the foreground of the picture, a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

A private student, upon reading my blog for the first time, commented that she thought that she didn´t need to read about places she already knew, but she thought that underneath all the verbiage was a feeling of sadness.

“So, what´s been happening?”, you might be asking.

“Where have you gone?

Why no more blogging?”

Not an easy or a comfortable question to answer…

Perhaps one might consider what silence actually means…

Many years ago, I spent a very little time in Japan, and at first glance it is a country where everything seems to be happening all at once:

People congregating at Akachochin devouring, like greedy beggars at a banquet, skewered chicken yakitori and grilled squid washed down with beer or sake.

Children scared by their parents into cleaning the bath or the Akaname – a human frog with wild hair, an incredibly long tongue and a single clawed toe will enter the dirty bathroom in the dead of night and will lick the children giving them serious sickness.

Baseball – more popular in Japan than football is in England – is not just a sport, it is a way of life so ingrained in the character of the Land of the Rising Sun that, like bowing or breathing, it consumes them with a passion that haunts even their dreams.

Scandal has never been far away from Japanese shores…

Sada Abe (1905 – 1987), a failed geisha and former prostitute turned waitress, had an affair with the owner of the restaurant where she worked.

To prevent him from leaving her, she strangled him to death and hacked off his privates, knowing that if she killed him, no woman would ever touch him again.

On 8 January 1992, US President George Bush at a state dinner given in his honour during a visit to Japan throws up in the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister Kichi Miyazawa, creating the word “Bushusuru” (doing a Bush) meaning to vomit without warning.

Morning, 20 March 1995, 7:30 am, five men board trains at various stations along the Tokyo subway system and release the deadly nerve agent sarin.

Twelve people dead, a thousand injured.

Alcoholism is rampant in Japan as is drunk driving.

The attitude?

Dakari nani?

So what?

Over 1,000 earthquakes a year in Japan, though most are minor tremors barely noticed.

But what is minor and really noticed is Kata – the rituals attached to all activities, and what truly separates us Gaijin from being truly Japanese.

Electric talking toilets; enko ballad singing; the remote possibility of death by eating fugu (blowfish); navigating the rubbish as you wind your way up Mount Fuji; the xenophobic attitudes of the Japanese to those who can never be Japanese; gambatte do-or-die bravery of all who will sacrifice all for the challenge of a greater good; the insanity of Japanese TV game shows; the constant, not at all subtle, gawping of young and old at the obvious foreigners amongst them; the burdensome duties of giri (obligation) one has towards others; golf consuming up precious land and precious time in a country lacking both; drunken hordes of businessmen visiting hosutesu (hostess bars); the never-ending repetition of irashaimase (“welcome”) in any place that deals with the public; the unimaginable disgrace of jaywalking done only by ignorant gaijin or by yakuza gangsters; kapuseru hoteru (capsule hotels) though very cheap are too reminiscient of being buried alive in a fully functional coffin; the labyrinth complexity of keigo (honourific language) that detemines how you speak by with whom you must speak; the waving cats (maneki neko) that greet customers through shop and restaurant windows; overcrowded subways of manga-reading businessmen, the kata of one´s meishi (the ritual of giving your business card); pretending to enjoy Noh (Japanese theatre which, much like Japanese literature, seems to be about nothing happening); playing the omikuji to determine your fortune and destiny; pachinko parlors – a sort of Japanese gambling casino in a country where gambling for cash is illegal – where hordes stare at machines bombarding them with loud noise and bright light; pornography where all is suggested yet nothing is seen, including the presence of joy or pleasure; rabu hoteru (love hotels) where the itch can be scratched; the utter delight of ryokan (traditional Japanese hotels); sake – that drink of the gods – where memory and giri can be divinely drenched; those poor bastards sarariman – the common man – the 12-hour day labourers – unloved and unappreciated yet crucial to the entire structure of the Japanese economy…

So much to bewilder the mind and astonish the senses…

A timeless land that is both bounded by tradition and yet a land beyond tomorrow.

Yet, with all the sound and fury that erupts around the visitor, the faces and the attitudes of the Japanese themselves seem to the uninformed gaijin to be that of non-reactive – “nothing to see here”, “nothing is happening”.

Try reading Japanese literature and the Western mind finds itself desperately craving action.

But therein lies the secret of Japan…

5 / 6 of Japan is uninhabitable, 7,000 islands of mostly mountains suitable only for pine trees, incapable of supporting roads, homes or factories.

127 million people live on top of one another on the crammed coasts in unbelievably cramped and crowded conditions, so they must achieve harmony or the resulting anarchy will tear them apart.

Individuality and selfishness are dangerous.

Society can only work if all work together.

The aim is to remain as level, as neutral, as possible, keeping your private concerns and feelings to yourself and present a gregarious surface that gives little away.

Maintain the larger harmony, so that whatever happens, happens within.

The truth lies not in what is expressed, but rather what is unstated.

To really understand requires rigourous attention to the small print of life, what is suggested rather than said, what is under the surface and between the lines.

To inhabit this world is to live in a realm of constant inner explosions, tremors underground but barely felt by others.

Everything happens between the spaces and in the silences.

Nothing is ordinary.

Nothing is without effect.

A cherry blossom petal falls to the ground and the earth trembles.

Change is constant and emotions revolve around change, but expressing these emotions selfishly disturbs the harmony of the group.

The same can be said for relationships, even here in the expressive emotional West.

What a couple don´t say to one another is just as significant as what they do say.

My wife frequently complains that I don´t express myself enough and perhaps she feels that the unexpressed emotion means an absence of emotion, but this is where she is wrong.

For within my mind is a torrent of emotion and the inner conflict and struggle is to comprehend these emotions and somehow discern which should be communicated and how they should be communicated.

For the more that is spoken, the more that can be misunderstood.

So, in my periods of silence, it is not that nothing is happening but rather the reverse – so much is happening I need time and silence to assimilate it all.

And then I am ready to attempt to speak my mind or write something worth reading.

And though like the soto (invisibility) of the falling cherry blossom petal, events and places may seem commonplace and undramatic, the resulting impact upon myself is worth expression, for both the significance of my own unique perspective brings contribution to the world, as well as the similarity of my human reactions to others creates harmony of shared experience.

So, be patient with me, gentle readers, gentle friends and family, for never imagine that I care too little, but rather realise that I care too much that mere words and emotional expression are only the tip of the iceberg.

Much lies under the surface in the silence between.

The future: Older dog, newer tricks

Winterthur, Switzerland: 26 January 2016

Generally speaking I am not a fan of natural museums, for they often seem to me to be: well, unnatural.

“On the Mounted Animal Nature Trail, you’ll be sure to see
All Mother Nature’s favourite pets, all sitting rigidly.
They’re never hungry any more, their last meal left them stuffed.
Don’t worry, they won’t walk away if you try and pet their fluff.

And the dog goes…(silence)
And the cow goes…(silence)
And the bear goes…(silence)
And the pig goes…(silence)
And the crow goes caw! I guess it was alive.
You can see all this
On the Mounted Animal Nature Trail.

Arrogant Worms, “Mounted Animal Nature Trail”

To be fair, I will visit them along with whatever museums happen to be around a new place, but, more often than not, I find myself leaving depressed and disappointed rather than glad I stopped by.

I have visited natural museums in Ottawa, Freiburg im Briesgau, Zürich, Winterthur, etc., hoping against hope that these monoliths to nature will captivate me more than they do.

And there are brief moments when they do.

Ottawa impresses with the sheer size and age of its buildings.

Freiburg celebrates spring every year with live baby chicks and bunnies for the child in all of us to feel delight in.

The Zoological Museum of the University of Zürich has an impressive corner 3D mural inside its halls.

Winterthur?

The rats are as big as bears…

You can almost feel the motion of the sea as you travel the oceans in search of natural wonders.

And in a quiet and powerful way one is reminded of two powerful ideas:

1. In comparison to the actual age of the planet, man´s presence is barely registerable.
2. And this too shall pass.  Who knows what/who will replace man in the millennia to come?

What would some future archaeologist make of our civilisation?

“I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
You can measure anymore
The blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul.”

Leonard Cohen, “The Future”

In my typical fashion of overthinking, the fossilised Coca Cola bottle got me pondering…

How will I be remembered when I´m gone?

“I look around me,
But all I seem to see,
Is people going nowhere,
Expecting sympathy

It’s like we’re going through the motions,
Of a scripted destiny
Tell me where’s our inspiration,
If life won´t wait,
I guess it’s up to me.

Procrastination, running circles in my head
While you sit there contemplating,
You wound up left for dead (left for dead)
Life is what happens, while you’re busy making your excuses
Another day, another casualty
And that won’t happen to me.

Because every wasted day becomes a wasted chance
You’re gonna wake up feeling sorry,
Because life won’t wait,
I guess it’s up to you.

We’ll leave the past in the past,
Gonna find the future
If misery loves company well,
So long, you’ll miss me when I’m gone.

Simple Plan, “When I´m Gone”

Landschlacht, Switzerland: 29 January 2016

As the first month of this New Year draws to a close, I consider my own legacy.

Last year I wrote of some plans and ideas I had for this blog:

To those brave souls who have faithfully followed this blog since its genesis on 18 May 2015, and have loyally read all posts that came before, you will have noticed that I have tended to write in three directions:

– Opinion about world events and current affairs
– History (why things are and how they got that way)
– Personal thoughts about events and encounters in my daily life

For the Chronicles of Canada Slim, I will continue to do so, hoping that former readers as well as new followers will get the same pleasure and thoughtfulness in reading them as I put into writing them.

Look for my newest blogs soon:

– The Forest of Shadows: “Sometimes evil doesn’t die” (My novel released in serial form)(Feedback and criticism most welcome)

– The Anglo Guide to Switzerland: “Life, work and play in the Land of the Edelweiss” (Complimentary, not competitive with others’ existing blogs)

– Making It Work: “English for Employment” (mit deutsch Wortschatz)(Perhaps later “avec vocabulaire francais”)”

(See Old Dog, New Tricks of this blog.)

What has happened since?

Well, as my wife would often complain…

I lack discipline and focus, but, hey, a man can begin to change, eh?

I have decided that the Anglo Guide and Making It Work are not really what motivates me, so I have, for now, abandoned these ideas, or at least these ideas will become a part of the Chronicles of Canada Slim.

As for the Forest of Shadows…

Thanks to the wonderful couple, Natalie and Ricardo Utsumi who set up this blog for me, I now have a second blog, a blog I want to regularly contribute to as much as I have to this one.

Building Everest: The Writing of Canada Slim will be restricted to novels and short stories, including The Forest of Shadows, I am writing and one day hope to see published.

Check out https://buildingeverest.wordpress.com, starting tomorrow!

In the sheer grand scale of the future unwritten and the universe to come, my words will probably be forgotten.

But one can dream, eh?