Mired In The Middle Ages

Ancient Persia has a magnificent and an ancient heritage. Modern Persia not so much.

With the Islamic Revolution the country under its new ruling Ayatollahs seemed to regress rather than progress socially. Iran's parochial concerns with its Shia traditions and its animosity toward the larger Sunni populations outside its borders, allied with its xenophobic attitude toward the outside world and its close embrace of Islamism earns it the reputation of a closed society.

Any country ruled by elite religious figures who consider themselves the supreme authority on politics, technology, social conditions and external relations and who bind themselves to the rigid traditions of religious fascism represents of its very nature, a totalitarian one that rejects human rights for its population.

Under the authority of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as religious head and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as political head, there is the spectacle of the hornet and the scorpion. There is a struggle for power and authority between the two figures, even while the Supreme Leader remains the titular head of state and the religious authority.

Iran's president, who exemplifies the country's rigid authoritarian stance and fervent religious devotion, while aspiring to acquire the annihilating properties of nuclear fission, believes himself to be the superior authority figure. While each supported the other's ambitions they were able to function as heads of government.

Now, it seems that the aspirations of each outdistances their usefulness to one another. It is hard to imagine which of the two is more fundamentally deluded. Both are intensely invested in fundamentalist Islam. The president is meant to take his orders from the Ayatollah, but it is clear that the President feels he should be junior to no one.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad feels his experience on the world stage and his ranking in the country gives him the authority to make decisions unauthorized by the Supreme Leader. Causing offence to those who support the Ayatollah, let alone Ali Khamenei himself. Each sponsors a different replacement as president for upcoming 'elections'.

This is a country that believes in the resurrection of a Hidden Imam, who will bring with him Armageddon; the ascension of the righteous to heaven and the destruction of the unworthy to dwell forever in the netherworld. Only those whom Shia Islam of the Iranian variety blesses will be saved; the lives of all others are forfeit for they are clearly undeserving.

This is a country where the political elite employ exorcists. Where Ahmadinejad's former spiritual mentor feels his pupil has been placed under an evil spell. "I am almost certain he has been bewitched", the ayatollah explained. Indubitably.

With Dignity and Regret

Neighbours, so near yet so far. Great Britain, historically dominating its neighbours, just as it dominated, through its imperialist colonial past, less advanced countries of the world to ransack them of their natural resources and to impose the British system of governance upon them, as chattel dependents.

Ireland, seen as backward as Africa, suffered the same indignity as India. With British landlords, and endemic poverty and neglect and violation of its peoples' needs. Above all, the need to be a free people. The resentment of the British occupation of its neighbours resulted in fear, anger and violence.

What is now left internationally of the British imperial past among the Commonwealth nations is largely a tradition of sound governance, a fair and just system of justice, and a second language of international communication. And, without doubt, residual resentment at the heritage of the dominated by the dominant.

The 'troubles' of a troubled land that suffered great privation because of its poverty and the struggles of its people to survive against brutal odds that included a disease blight that struck its major food crop were exacerbated by the disinterest of Britain to help provide Ireland's people with food to keep them from starving.

Neighbours who take unfair advantage of their less advantaged neighbours and then make no effort to assist them when they fall into dire existential straits are hardly neighbours; they are social predators. That was then, this is now. Now Britain is immensely sensitive to the past. And political correctness is the order of the day.

Now, Queen Elizabeth has undertaken a historic century-visit to Ireland in a long-awaited overture of caring friendship. She spoke of "forbearance and conciliation", of the need "to bow to the past, but not be bound by it". Ireland extended its warm hospitality to the monarch, that very institution that once violated its human rights.

Although there are and will always remain many Irish who will continue to resent Great Britain for its malfeasance toward its neighbour, who express through violent means the violence of their emotions against Britain, times have changed. The mutual brutality and expressions of anguished intolerance have been muted by time.

"It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their fair share of heartache, turbulence and loss. These events have touched us all, many of us personally, and are a painful legacy. We can never forget those who have died or been injured, and their families."

Conciliatory, heartfelt sentiments from a head of state whose obligation to the future has been made abundantly clear.

Disappearing Holocaust Survivors

Generation of Holocaust Survivors Disappearing
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Holocaust survivors, who are first-person testimony to the Nazi death machine, are disappearing. On the eve of Holocaust Memorial and Remembrance Day, statistics show that their death rate in Israel is 35 a day – 13,000 a year.

The Welfare of Holocaust Survivors Foundation reported that 208,000 Holocaust survivors remain in Israel, a decline of 26,000 from 2009. The decline of the number of living survivors coincides with increasing anti-Semitic campaigns that deny, belittle and even mock the Holocaust. The Palestinian Authority teaches the Holocaust denial doctoral dissertation of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas throughout its educational curriculum.

Only three percent of Holocaust survivors in Israel are under the age of 70, while half of them are over the age of 80. Projected figures indicate that only 145,000 survivors will still be alive in 2015.

Their most common health problems are hypertension, heart disease, chronic neck and back pain and arthritis. A study has shown that 92 percent of Holocaust survivors live in their home community, while the others are in institutional housing.

The Holocaust Welfare fund assists approximately 60,000 survivors, nearly three times the number of those who required financial help in 2005.

Chairman of the Foundation for Holocaust Victims Elazar Stern said, "Our data show that in the coming years due to aging, the needs of needy Holocaust survivors still will continue to grow…. The younger generation will not forgive us if we do not deal respectfully with the older generation."

As published online at ArutzSheva, 1 May 2011

Africa's Rainbow Nation

Nobility of spirit is a rare commodity so that when it modestly exhibits its presence it takes people aback, they sit up, they take notice, they applaud. The team of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu transformed the spirit of South Africa. Of course they had a little help from their friends, countries like Canada which undertook to exert diplomatic and trade embargo pressure on the Apartheid government.

And South Africa was also indebted to its neighbours, like Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Angolans who kindly gave shelter to black South Africans fleeing the violence of their country during the paroxysms that finally led to the surrender of the country by the ruling white Afrikaans back to the rightful owners, black South Africans. At which juncture Mr. Mandela was finally freed from prison and governed his country offering equal rights to all.

And Bishop Tutu presided at the spectacle that became a healing circle called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where victims gave witness to the unspeakable and the suffering, and violators confessed their sins and all was forgiven. And the country settled in to become other than what it had been, with an honoured place for all and promises of housing and jobs.

A noble dream to be sure. What happened next was a slow, agonized climb in the resolute determination to become a fair and free society, but it was fairer and freer for some, not all, and endemic poverty was scarcely relieved, and decent living conditions still eluded in the slums. And tribal antipathies proved as resistant to enlightened thought as the moneyed-class system.

Where wealth could be achieved, but it had to be lived behind barbed wire and stone walls, sheltered from the crass thievery of the mobs who would take advantage if they could, of the riches known to reside there, protected by armed marksmen. So it is not they who are targeted, but the easier prey, the poor, murdered, their scant belongings looted, children violated.

One of the most crime-ridden, violent societies on Earth now; most unfortunate. And what is particularly notable is the resurrection of ancient primitive tribal and clan hunts. Where South Africans armed with chains, spears, whips, axes, cudgels, shovels, metal sticks; just about anything serviceable to the purpose, set out to hunt down defenceless refugees.

People who have fled the dangers in their own countries, from Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria, Somalia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. There are said to be over three million Zimbabweans seeking haven in South Africa. Robert Mugabe's people amidst their home-grown tribal 'misunderstandings', prefer to flee to where they might stand a chance of survival.

Even though they are hunted mercilessly by South Africans for whom an evening of blood games, of looting, beating, killing, raping, provides entertainment and a purpose in life.

From the time of Apartheid's Soweto killings and Winnie Mandela's sporty bodyguards under her direction abducting Stompie Moeketsi, a 13-year-old boy to torture and "necklace" him to the present where the very nationals who had once offered protection to South African asylum seekers are now set on fire for the entertainment of the mobs.

Even the retired Desmund Tutu who entreats South Africans to "Please, please stop! These are our sisters and brothers. We can't repay them (for their past support of desperate South Africans fleeing violence before the end of apartheid) by killing their children", exercises his conscience in vain, for no one hears, and none are interested.

"They set you alight ... and laugh at you while you are burning. It's so shameful right now to be a South African, seeing all these things happening here, while claiming to be a rainbow nation, after all the struggles that our parents have gone through."

Malicious Credibility

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress have led a sanctimonious protest in public, airing their grievance that the Holdomor is not receiving equal, if not superior place of pride front-and-centre at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. They claim that the Holocaust, a historical and precisely-documented event representing the atrocity of institutionalized genocide should be treated as just one of many such events.

They take great umbrage that the museum was originally planned, and continues to be planned, to primarily showcase the Holocaust as representative of the unspeakable tragedy that can befall a specifically-focused-upon ethnic/religious group through systematically de-humanizing them with an organized agenda of slander to justify all human rights denied them, isolating them from the rest of humanity and embarking on a mission of total annihilation.

It does not assuage their grievance to be informed that the Holdomor, and indeed all events of man's inhumanity to man will be present, documented and clearly mourned in the museum. Their resentment and anger is directed at the plans to 'elevate' one nation's tragedy over that of another. Reasoning with them that the Holocaust represents a singular event in the scope and detail of its prosecution makes no inroads with them.

They have taken to inflating the dreadful and deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians (1932-33) by the Soviet Union in an effort to 'prove' that it represented a horror whose effect far transcended that of the Holocaust. Their loss was greater than that of European Jewry. Their numbers of dead far outstripped that of the Jews. The assault and trauma left them was more awful and must be acknowledged.

Academics and scholars representing studies in history, sociology, social anthropology, languages, literature, linguistics, communications, education, remembrance and research, history and classics, legal and political philosophy, holocaust studies, comparative politics, contemporary theory, humanities, sociology and social research, study of contemporary antisemitism, European studies, culture studies and academies of sciences, Slavic languages and literatures, from the United States, Britain, Spain, Canada, Israel, France, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Poland, and Russia have become involved to admonish this movement to de-legitimize the purpose of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

They correct the figures related to the Ukrainian famine to represent the true numbers, not the inflated numbers put forward by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. They point out that some of the hallowed nationalist groups that these two associations defend were Fascists, allied with the Nazis and were themselves responsible for many civilian deaths.

And they conclude their statement of support for the function, purpose and focus of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights by this summation:

"We therefore assert that since the UCCLA and UCC have not understood that confronting the historical record openly and honestly is preferable to manipulative falsehood, have engaged in a competition of suffering, and have failed to acknowledge both the vices and the virtues of the nationalist movement, they ought to stay out of a debate about the Canadian Museum of Human Rights."

Another Martyr

But this time the cause was somewhat different. A Palestinian Arab whose dedication it was, through the influence of his Israeli-Jewish mother, to teach Palestinian children to reject the societal-taught views of considering Israelis and Jews as enemies to be violently crushed. In honour of his mother who herself dedicated to her life to that very issue, Juliano Mer Khamis continued her work at the theatre co-founded by himself and his mother, Arna Mer.

At that theatre Palestinian children were exposed to theatre arts. They were also exposed to the concept of rejecting murder and terrorism. That if they had a grievance with an authority that they felt violated their rights, that they regard the alternative to violent response: non-violent activism. While Mr. Khamis worked hand-in-glove with his mother, it was as a Palestinian Arab, like his father, with no acknowledgement of his Jewish blood.

In perfect accord with his mother's decision to devote herself to the cause of the Palestinians. Although he was recognized through his professional acting in Israel as an accomplished actor, there could be little doubt that he was a Palestinian Arab through his personal decision-making that saw him accept that mantle and reject the other half of his genetic inheritance. Which did not stop Hamas from loathingly naming him a "Zionist Jew whose hands should be cut off."

For in dedicating himself to encouraging young Palestinians to think of active resistance to an occupying force by rejecting violence, he was deliberately undermining the teaching of Hamas which encourages 'martyrdom' through the odious atrocities of suicide bombings. Mr. Khamis seemed to have little interest in complicating matters by explaining to the young Palestinians he sought to influence that the one-sided view of an 'occupier' nation and a 'victim' population did not reflect reality.

He was a Palestinian of his time and his place, himself tainted by the zeitgeist of Middle East politics, as an Arab who viewed the State of Israel as an affliction upon the victimized Palestinians. The complexities of a state attempting to protect itself and its people against constant physical attacks necessitating that the state use armed methods to meet armed militias seemed of little interest to him.

He accepted the prevailing Palestinian propaganda, that Arabs suffer and Israel oppresses. But the work he was engaged in also highlighted the violence, the aggression, the anger and determination to surmount their inferior state of an occupied people by lashing out and committing mass atrocities that young Palestinians grew up with. Taught that Israelis and Jews are evil, they feared and hated them.

And high-lighted the fact that peace is constantly beyond reach because the Palestinians have learned to cherish their victimhood, preferring it to a peace settlement because viewing themselves as victims allows them to appeal to the outside world to support them against the monstrous state mechanism that grinds them into miserable poverty. An imaginary situation but one supremely satisfying to the angst-ridden Palestinians.

The myth of martyrdom for the cause, the urgent need to 'resist', a camouflage term for mayhem and murder, to avenge themselves against a tormentor that exists only in their delusional minds, mired in tribal antipathies and traditional absorption with their victim status, remains the crown jewel in the Palestinians' heritage game of blame and hatred, slander and violence.

While Hamas detested the man, he was admired and loved within Jenin where the theatre was located. The young Palestinians that he went to such great pains to imbue with a more balanced view of choices open to them, must surely have learned something of value from him. Despite which it would appear that many of the children he taught eventually assumed their destinies as armed fighters and suicide-bombing terrorists.

His arguments not to resort to violence, to think that killing your enemy is the only solution open to intelligent human beings might not have been lost on all the young people he taught, however. His interference with the carefully scripted program of Hamas and the other terror groups who invested in training future generations to take up the cudgel with their foe, was intolerable to the terrorists.

They have no intention of putting a halt to the killing, for this is what motivates and satisfies their aspirations to succeed in destroying their target. And Mr. Khamis simply became one of those targets. A martyr to his own cause.

Capricious Fate

Patrick Chareka, a quiet man, not much like his ebullient wife. They were both scholarly individuals, well educated and employed at St.Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. They were both originally from Zimbabwe. Otillia Chareka was a village girl determined to become educated. From a poverty-stricken family and village she stubbornly did receive an education.

First of her small village's clan to finish high school, first to attend university, obtaining a master's then a doctorate. When she arrived in Canada in early 1990 her teaching credentials were not recognized, so she furthered her education at the University of New Brunswick, paying her way through work as a hotel maid.

She thought of Canada as a country full of opportunities. She had a dynamic personality. "She was always laughing. In any type of situation she laughed. She entered a room with light." And she exited life with the darkness of an evil act.

For her husband, Patrick Chereka, father of the five daughters that Ottilia Chareka brought into the world, murdered his wife. He was an instructor at St.Francis Xavier's math department until his arrest on a charge of first-degree murder. No previous records of domestic violence in the home were on the books.

Professor Chereka was described by some of his students as "entertaining", "passionate", a "stylish dresser" and hard to "understand". To the entire town and the many people who knew and admired Ottilia Chareka, "understanding" Patrick Chereka and what drove him to murder his wife is a true dilemma.

Their daughters, all five of them, Praymore 23, Patience 18, Patricia 16, Primrose 14, and Prisca 3, will miss their mother dreadfully. Doubtless they will also miss their father. They are now, effectively, orphans. Their mother, who lectured as an associate professor of education, sent funding to a small village in Zimbabwe for medication and clothing for the indigent.

The girls have been left a legacy of unparalleled virtue. The town has been left to care for five young women instilled with the promise of their mother's character and the memory of their father's failure.

A Courageous Light To The World

An honour code and love of country so compelling that people are willing to surrender their lives in support of doing everything humanly possible and technically impossible to aid Japan in its time of need. It is difficult to even imagine that people would of their own accord, answer that ultimate call to duty. A call which, in the severity of its reality, is weighted with the prospect of the ultimate sacrifice.

Yet this is precisely what dedicated nuclear technicians, plant managers and others associated with the dreadful situation at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have without a murmur of negative reaction dedicated themselves to. Sacrificing their potential to live healthy, prolonged lives with their families, to achieve the greater social good; using their expertise to desperately attempt to turn around the catastrophic situation at the out-of-control power plant.

This kind of inspirational selflessness draws admiration for the strength of character this kind of action represents as dedication to country and society. There are not too many, however, who would place themselves in such danger for any reason. In Japanese society, ingrained throughout life in the need for social cohesion and service to the country, a very different mindset obtains. Sacrifice on behalf of the entire society is a given.

The traditions of the culture demand no less. Japan may be in many respects a cloistered society, one that demands much of itself and which prides itself on its monoculture, its heritage as a Buddhist society living in harmony with a huge population on a relatively small area of land continually embattled by the encroaching elements, but it stands as a beacon of what a people can accomplish through defeat.

Rising like the proverbial phoenix of antiquity from the ashes of two deliberate atomic concussions that levelled two major cities, leaving a legacy of dread and apprehension about the control and potential ruination through nuclear power. And now facing its crucible of endurance yet again with nuclear power proving its nemesis-adversarial capacity in the wake of nature's assaults; a massive quake birthing a brutal tsunami.

Japan stands as its own light to the world at large.

If Not Bread, Then Circuses

Haiti continues to suffer. Hundreds of thousands of its people remain confined in abject poverty in refugee camps. The rubble from the devastating earthquake that levelled Port au Prince and other cities remain as indelible everyday reminders of the disaster that laid waste an already barely functioning nation.

Elections that took place within an unprepared community remain unresolved. Government inaction is legendary, but this stalemate helps no one. The international community which has continued its investment in aiding the country has advanced no large initiatives that would result in rescue of the situation.

Ruin is everywhere. Homeless quake victims see no future for themselves or their dependants. Women and girls continue to be victimized by sexual assaults in the camps during the night. There is no true order, security and safety anywhere. These deplorable conditions barely succeed in inspiring anyone to light-heartedness.

Haitians - some of them - have turned instead to partying. The traditional Carnival is set to kick off, and young women in coquettishly sensual brilliant garb are prepared to entertain the Carnival-goers. Everyone will applaud their saucy efforts and dance techniques. Everyone is invited to attend and to celebrate.

Those who do not believe that Haiti has anything to celebrate will absent themselves. But the festivities will proceed nonetheless. Not all of Haiti's many musical bands have signed on to performing for the big seasonal event.

I don't even feel like singing a carnival song", Joseph Zenny of the band Kreyol-la lamented. "Morally, I don't feel inspired. The people are tired; they are tired of the tire burnings, the crisis. Look at the country. It's better they take the money, remove the people from underneath the tents."

But nothing, nothing trumps Carnival.

Tax Free, Too

Well, how about that! To their great and surprised satisfaction the private member's bill seeking First Nations reserves accountability has passed. Thanks to the fact that it was a free vote and not whipped, there were enough Liberals to vote with the Conservatives, outgunning the Bloc and NDP who refused to support the bill.

Now, all First Nations bands will be obliged to publicly state the salaries of chiefs and councillors. One might logically assume that band members are freely given this information, but one would be wrong. These are figures traditionally kept close to the vest of the advantaged First Nations elite who run band councils.

And who feel entitled to extravagant salaries, trips and additional personally-deserved emoluments. The salaries, wages and other compensation earned by most public agents and government representatives, elected and unelected, are made public as a matter of course. People have a right to know what those who are paid from the public purse earn.

Only for First Nations bands was that information held to be secret. Which enabled too many chiefs and councillors to discreetly vote themselves hugely salubrious salaries quite out of whack with reality. Let alone too many exotic all-expenses-paid trips and other goodies not shared with the common folk who had to satisfy themselves with the leftovers.

The Assembly of First Nations did their utmost to decry this move from secrecy to open revelation of salaries. It was a matter of trust. First Nations trusted their chiefs and their councillors, their leadership was above reproach. On the other hand, band members of various groups openly criticized the fact that their chiefs refused to divulge their salaries.

The AFN claimed there was no practical need for the salaries to be disclosed, for most chiefs earned modest salaries in the range of $36,000. Most probably do. And that being the case, why the hesitation, why the protests against revealing those salaries relating to the various band expenses? If for no other reason than that band members are enabled to see that to be the case.

And those band members whose leaders choose to take for themselves disproportional amounts of the monies allocated by the federal government to band and reserve upkeep, are entitled then to protest and insist that a fair and just distribution of funding that enables everyone to obtain what they need to live decently be guaranteed.

This should represent just the first of a range of advances in open information-sharing. Resulting in an evaluation of how the funding provided could be better used for medical care, education and housing for the people who so badly need all of that and more.

It's The Youth, Stupid

Those who have invested their faith in religious fundamentalism know well that they are directed to "go forth and multiply". Not necessarily through indoctrinating others in the fine points of their religious beliefs. But by having babies, lots of them. In religious communities women are invariably kept fairly confined; their job is to bear the young and raise them. The greater the number of children the prouder they can be that they have heeded the covenant obeying God's will.

Woman's value is seen in her breeding capacity. In Islam, as in any other fundamentalist form of religion, women are urged to understand their respected place within the community. As a faithful adherent to her religious belief, as a dutiful and fecund wife, as a nurturing mother. The perfect formula to ensure that the world will not run out of a youth demographic. Which goes a long way to explaining just how and why it is that in those countries of the world that are majority Muslim there's a lot of kids.

In a country like Canada, a wealthy democracy with a population of 33.8-million, women are forgetting about the fundamentals of child-bearing. The population is barely replacing itself. Population growth is highly dependent on immigration to ensure a large enough workforce exists to fill all the employment needs of that vast country. And, in Canada, the under-30 population stands at 36% of the entire population. Conversely, there is unemployment, but it is still manageable.

In contrast, in countries of the Middle East and North Africa which are majority-Muslim, that percentage of the population in each country representing the under-30s demographic ranges from a relative low of 48% to 73%. Egypt's youth, that is, those under 30 years of age stands at 61%. Egypt absorbs as many of its educated youth as it can manage into its bureaucracy. Leaving a whole whack of other, unemployed youth to fidget and worry about their future.

It was that large group of unemployed youth that formed the backbone of their still-simmering revolutionary protest against the status quo. In Tunisia, a country with a population one-eighth of Egypt's 80.5-million, there exists 51% under-30. It has a higher literacy rate, and a better-educated population. And large unemployment. Fuelling much discontent among the youth; fuelling one to protest in the only way he knew how, by becoming a human fireball.

That unemployed young man's self-sacrifice in protest against a heartless bureaucracy and utter lack of opportunity to make a decent living to support his family, caused a firestorm of protest that has lit up the Middle East and North Africa.

Humanity's Advance

Thoughtful people have without a doubt noticed this phenomenon; that educated, talented, intelligent people tend to have fewer children than people who live in ignorance and poverty. And in a world where we have learned to share, and to care and to assist others, more children born to poverty than ever are growing to adulthood. Some, if not most, destined to remain mired in poverty, where lack of exposure to educational and employment opportunities have not restrained them from having more children.

The intellectual elite plan their families. Those who will have none because they feel the world already struggles far too much to accommodate too many people. Those who relent, and have one or two, to whose physical and intellectual welfare they dedicate themselves to ensure they receive a good upbringing and education, prepared to take their responsible place in society. Theirs is a dwindling society; they barely replace themselves. So the pool of the genetically intellectually endowed is not growing apace, but stagnating.

On the other side of the equation is the immensely larger pool of the ordinary, non-cerebral drudges who perform menial duties or none at all if they live off social welfare. Amazingly, these are the people who manage to breed without a thought to the future. They are simply doing 'what comes naturally', and the outcome of what comes naturally is not necessarily a happy family with parents nourishing the bodily and mental/social needs of children. All too often the result is children growing up in a less than supportive environment, never realizing their potential.

We do have, within society, the example of a specific group of people of an ethnic, cultural, social and religious/historical background forced by a peculiar reality eliciting hostility from the greater community around them, to distinguish themselves as a matter of survival. Treated as inferiors by the commanding majority and unable to apply themselves to the usual course of employment available to others they sought alternate means by which they could support themselves.

The result was in a manner the survival of the fittest. Peoople who became by necessity more intellectually nimble, seeking out alternate means of livelihood. In the process another reality; Ashkenazi Jews who managed to distinguish themselves by their superior contribution to intellectual life, where that ethnic group representing a mere one-600th of the world's population has been enabled by their determination and DNA profile, to amass a quarter of the Nobel Prizes awarded to outstanding exemplars of human accomplishment and achievement.

Fascist Germany took the outsider status of habitually mistrusted and detested Jews to a greater more existential threat level than their predecessor anti-Semites who only slaughtered Jews in fits and starts through progroms. The Nazi regime sought to eradicate them en masse as inferior pests, portraying them as caricatures of decent human beings. The ultimate revenge upon a world that could not persuade itself to care enough, was to endure, and survive the onslaught.

And throughout human history there has always been, within any given human population those ordinary people of the masses, and among them a handful with superior mental endowments. It is not all that surprising, given the numbers then, that the majority will go on producing replicas of themselves, while the scant minority will look beyond themselves. Human advancement in the arts and sciences owes all to the few.

And they are becoming fewer.

In An Uncommonly Common Spirit

"These movements are emboldening everybody who has grievances, whether they are a minority that wants to have equal rights or a majority that wants a functioning democracy. There is a feeling of people being empowered by these movements, that we are powerful." Ebrahim Sharif, leader, Bahrain National Democratic Action Society

Hear them roar. They are empowered. They express a collective rage of denial of oppression. They insist they deserve a decent, well functioning society, with a reliable judiciary, security, freedom of assembly and association, and above all, ample employment and the opportunity to live free and secure lives. Along with the wherewithal to procure shelter, food, education, medical treatment.

In Iran the people were encouraged to go out in droves into the streets for a "day of hate". With the blessing of their infallible, divinely-led Supreme Leader and their irrepressibly jolly president, they were to register for the consumption of the international community their solidarity with the people of Egypt and Tunisia, in revolt against the secular rulers that insulted Islamic precepts of honour.

In Libya, the King of Kings, the Imam of the Muslims, the Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Libyan Revolution, suddenly understood that traditional repression was to be superseded by the will to alter tradition, that 40 years of uncompromising rule by an addled tyrant was enough for any self-respecting people aspiring to achieve personal autonomy.

The Arab and Muslim world, the Middle East and North Africa have suddenly gone berserk with anger that their countries remain socially static and politically mired in the Middle Ages. Well, in fact, they're fed up with endemic poverty. They are rebelling against rising food prices, energy prices, strictures against the kind of gracious living they have yet to experience.

So in Tehran Iranians flooded the streets to rally for their expression of "hatred" against the opposition to their leaders' dominance. "The noble people of Tehran will take to Enghelab Square after Friday prayers with their solid and informed presence", proclaimed the Islamic Propagation Coordination Council; now isn't that impossibly quaint?

Those rallying will act as one, to "scream out their hatred, wrath and disgust against the savage crimes and evil movements of sedition leaders, their Monafeghin (hypocrites) and their monarchist allies". To do otherwise would be the kind of ignoble defiance that would rightfully lead to arrest, incarceration, torture and deserved death. Isn't that impressive?

In Libya, security forces used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons. Somehow, people died. Truly unfortunate, but the legitimate regime of the people for the people, whose great leader has immense sympathy for their plight for he himself has little faith in those who govern, laments with them. The government, but not he, has blocked the Internet, shut down electrical power.

And Muammar Gaddafi sincerely hopes that the protesters understand he is not to blame; he seeks only to protect those who blame him for he knows there will be retaliation against them. The media access has been severely restricted, including al-Jazeera Arabic, but they are Zionist tools, stirring up trouble where none exists.

In Bahrain, the benevolent King who has instituted so many reforms on behalf of his people is bemused and dreadfully upset at the unfortunate turn that has taken place. A grave misunderstanding. But then, order must be maintained, and troops were somehow given the order to fire, and people were wounded and many, unfortunately and alas, were killed.

One also, come to think of it - and one must - does not like to offend the sensibilities of one's close Western ally. For when that powerful entity - the world's super-power, come to think of it - frowns with dismay and disgust it is not a good thing. But then, there's that prodding from one's neighbour, too; Saudi Arabia does not appreciate unrest, revolts must be extinguished.

Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco - all are facing the revolting situation of ungrateful citizens demanding what they claim is their due. What? Nothing in Lebanon? Nor yet Saudi Arabia? All are moving with great alacrity to lower the prices of basic foods, to raise efforts for job creation - to please the people and graciously accede to their (unreasonable) demands.

Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak, will surely feel somewhat consoled to learn that his supporters have declared a march on his behalf, as an apology for his summary dismissal, to express regret for insufficient appreciation for all that he has done on behalf of his country and his countrymen. People are such unbelievable ingrates. Brutishly so, unfortunately.

Ah, the great world religion of Islam. Brotherhood and goodwill. Is it possible that senior members of Iran's Republican Guard are seeking assurances that they will not be ordered to shoot at their Iranian brethren for-this-is-not-permitted-in-Islam. But Islam does permit raging hatred of others, particularly the detested, revolting Jews.

Who, truth be known - and one must respect the truth - all of this unrest, this unmitigated nuisance and concern and worry and irritation, takes place at the behest of Islam's enemies. It represents a truly nefarious, but entirely explicable plot that emerged from the demonic minds of the Zionists, the deranged and demented Jews and their State of Israel.

Where, in Tunisia, demonstrators in front of the main synagogue in Tunis shouted: "Jews wait, the army of Mohammed is coming back. We'll redo the battle of Khaybar", referencing the slaughter of Jews in the geography of what is now Saudi Arabia, led by Mohammed and his nascent dynasty's army of newly-born Muslims.

Where in Cairo, Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi addressed the faithful in Tahrir Square; the same Muslim Brotherhood spiritual head who has called upon Allah to "take this oppressive, tyrannical band of people ... take this oppressive Jewish Zionist band of people ... do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one."

Where in Jordan, King Abdullah's newly-appointed Justice Minister in an interview with the country's Al-Arab Al-Yom newspaper characterized Israel as a "terrorist state that will be destroyed". This was a man who had joined a protest for the release of a terrorist who had been imprisoned in Jordan for killing seven Israeli schoolchildren in 1997.

Where in London, a non-Jew, elected to the Knesset, Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara, a Druze, spoke at a conference: "I am not a Jew and my loyalty to the State of Israel derives from the faith in its right to exist as the state of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. I do not see myself under a regime or entity other than Israel, which is the sole island of sanity in the Middle East, where democracy exists for all citizens, and where citizens' rights are respected more than in any other place."

There were also protests in Israel, by trade unionists, protesting at rising food prices, and for higher wages. Just like their neighbours elsewhere in the Middle East. There was no call in Israel for the government to step aside.

Pairing for Success: Religion and Technology

Yet another surfacing of an inability to adapt to Canadian - actually, universal - values on the part of those who worship an increasingly and bizarrely extreme form of Islam. Intent on rejecting everything it feels representing values of Western civilization. A counterpart to its own reliance on the pre-civility of traditional tribal animosities.

Historically, after its original foundation, in a paroxysm of wars and assassinations, settled Islam has been known for its appreciation of the arts in all its forms. From writing exquisite poetry, to erecting intricately beautiful structures, and hauntingly lovely music on a variety of musical instruments, accompanied by singers whose plaintive voices mesmerized the listener.

But here is a convert to Islam who insists that only male voices are now to be considered acceptable to devout Muslims, and "winds and stringed instruments have been banned because of their captivating power. Their notes and chords evoke strong emotional attachments. For many, music becomes a source of solace and hope instead of God."

Music, in those circumstances becomes a soothing drug, whereas devout Muslims should be turning to the Koran, and to God for solace. Music is a distracting influence, one that takes Muslims away from God and is therefore not to be tolerated. It seems this is a growing mode of thought influencing susceptible Muslims who then refuse to have their children taught the love of music.

This man was once himself an outstanding musician, lauded for his performance abilities. Yet now, devoted to Islamic precepts of complete surrender to Allah and ultimate respect for all the devotional concepts that circumscribe every aspect of life for the faithful, he teaches that women are forbidden from singing "in order to keep the sensual atmosphere of the society at a minimum."

"Men", he contends, "are much more easily aroused than females as has been thoroughly documented by the clinical studies of Masters and Johnson." Again, the modern meeting up with and clarifying the ancient. The president of the Islamic Research Foundation located in Mumbai insists music places its listeners in a "trance" and a "frenzy".

The dean of the Al Maghrib Institute of Texas, Yasir Qadhi, states that one "can't love the Koran and music at the same time." The narcotic effects of music on the human soul contests with God to enrapture the faithful. On the other hand the Islamic Institute of Toronto's website instructs that music is permissible as long as it does not contain "sensual, pagan or unethical themes", or subliminal messages.

"These are people who have an aversion to joy", explains Sohail Raza, speaking for the Muslim Canadian Congress. Islam does permit music; to claim otherwise is without a basis in actuality and history. But the debate within the Islamic community has fostered among some of its faithful the belief that parents may not permit their children to submit to music lessons in Canadian elementary schools.

Saudi Arabia, the fount of sternly fanatic Wahhabist-style Islam has been the source of originally encouraging engagement with jihad in the prosecution of forwarding the universal interests of Islam. Bilal Philips, whose message to the Islam of today is the inherent evil of music achieved academic degrees from the Islamic University of Medina and founded the Islamic Online University.

The Internet has become a valuable tool of instruction and command to reject all Western values for fundamentalist Islamists. Turning vulnerable young Muslim men toward violence and teaching through videos and on-line chat rooms how they must confront all vestiges of Western influence and wage a holy jihad in the name of Islam.

This is a startling but very useful symbiosis of a tribal religion originally based on conquest returning to its ancient source of ongoing conflict with those outside the faith, successfully using a modern technological tool of communication to achieve its aims.

Looted Antiquities

Greece would love Britain to return to them, as the rightful heritage owners, the Elgin Marbles. Italy would very much appreciate the 'return' to them of a prized sculpture by Bernini, which Canadians have ensconced at the National Gallery. And Egypt would far prefer to be in possession of its marvellous ancient treasures than to have them in the possession of foreign countries which themselves treasure what they have.

Egypt and its treasures; the fabulous Sphinx which suffered the indignity of being shot at by Napoleon's invading forces.

And adventurers-cum-archaeologists like Giovanni Belzoni, a former circus strongman who became fascinated with adventure and thought of himself as an archaeologist, who adventured into Egypt and took it upon himself to dig and destroy and loot and sell to international buyers eager to obtain the fabulous historical treasures of ancient Egypt from him, as the then-compliant Egyptian government stood by.

Belzoni and others like him even used explosives to blast apart immense structures to obtain the pieces they wanted.

And when it came to tomb-robbing, there was no one as courageous, audacious and adventurous as ancient tomb robbers, Egyptians themselves, who, despite the belief in curses that would destroy the lives of those who disturbed the fabulous treasures buried with noblemen and noblewomen and wealthy dynastic Egyptians and their Pharaohs, did just that. Looting the ancient tombs of all they could see of value.

In some instances that looting took place soon after the burials, and for centuries after, up to the present time. Ancient architects of tombs tried their utmost to confound the thieves by clever distracting devices, hidden areas, and mysterious tunnels blocked by great stones no human enterprise could budge. Despite all the subterfuges and clever hidden entrances, most tombs were ransacked of their valuables.

The tomb of Akhenaten was destroyed by vandals who had the blessing of the ruling dynasty that followed Akhenaten. Who was despised by most of the ruling class for the unorthodoxy of his rule, adhering to his belief in one single god, rejecting the classic mythology of a panoply of gods, a belief sacred to Egypt. Reverence for the god Aten, the life-giving sun, died with the death of Akhenaten.

A rare exception was the tomb of the boy-king, Tutankhamen. Whose tomb, uncovered and entered by Howard Carter in 1922, was the best preserved and most intact pharaonic tomb ever found. Even though it was suspected to have been broken into twice previously, in antiquity.

The Egyptian Museum, which prides itself on its national heritage and the treasures it has amassed, has released information that its inventory count of treasures have been found to be missing some key and critical treasures. Priceless antiquities dating from the 13th Century BC have been looted. When, it was assumed, dedicated and knowledgeable thieves entered the museum through a skylight in the confusion surrounding the anti-regime protesters assembled on Tahrir Square, adjacent the Museum.

"An investigation has begun to search for the people who have taken these objects, and the police and the army plan to follow up with the criminals already in custody", stated Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. "I have said if the Egyptian Museum is safe, then Egypt is safe. However, I am now concerned Egypt is not safe", he stated on his official web site. The pride of the country's past has been once again looted.

Eighteen priceless antiquities, two statues of Tutankhamen included, taken, among other wonderful ancient objects of art and antiquity. Aside from those missing objects, around 70 are said to have been damaged. International art collectors whose greed and zest to take possession of rare and beautiful heritage objects will be approached by dealers in the illicit who know their potential customers.

The ancient trade of grave robbers is still alive and doing very well for itself in the very grey market of rare and outstanding works of art and antiquities for those who will pay, and not enquire as to provenance and legality.

Egypt is not safe.

Archaeology and Human Habitation

People in Ottawa are once again impassioned about the fate of a wooded area that is slated to be developed for housing. The Ottawa Valley is about as green as it gets and all those forested and wetland areas are vitally important for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the health of the environment and those living within that environment, human beings included.

The Ottawa area has seen a number of encroachments on forested areas, including the greenbelt surrounding the City of Ottawa.

Growth in population numbers, more working people determined to own their own homes, and homes that are less expensive in suburban areas than closer in to the city, let alone within the city proper, propel that growth in new housing starts, and the clearing of tracts of forested land. The City of Ottawa has given its approval, and so has the Ontario Ministry that overlooks and gives permission to new developments.

A contested area in Kanata, an already approved building site, is being held up to a kind of social ransom by nearby residents who resent that their urban forest is set to be disturbed, to be extinguished and the animals that live there and the wonderful recreational opportunities that have been available to them are to be replaced by more housing. The tedium of it all. More than that, though, it is destructive to the natural environment.

And as such, it destroys something deep and meaningful for us all, our close and appreciative proximity to nature. But as populations increase this is what happens. The people who live in the areas of Kanata and who appreciate their homes and their proximity to nature that is being disturbed once again are living on land that was once comparable what they're attempting so strenuously now to protect.

They have their homes built on formerly forested areas, but at the time their homes were built there was no one there to protest the gradual disappearance of yet another valued forested area. And now, in their desperation to prevail, they have enlisted the support of archaeologists. One who is convinced he has found an important area representing pre-European-contact artefacts at the Beaver Pond Forest site.

Artefacts in fact that are so elemental in nature as to have presumably seen use once at most, as a handy means of achieving something. Artefacts, meaning stone, quartz, with a sharp edge that might have been used to scrape something down, then discarded. Just as any casual visitor to the area, curious about something might have used a shard of stone. And of course just about anywhere one looks or digs it is likely that a primitive human once existed.

Another, more seasoned archaeologist after having carefully undertaken extensive digs in the very same area reached the conclusion that there was nothing whatever of archaeological value to be found: "We found nothing prehistoric, even though it would have been interesting, actually, and a lot less trouble for me, to have found something", he said.

The "expedient" tools may be nothing more than a figment of someone's hopeful imagination; a minuscule proportion of those "tools" may have been 'modified' for use, the others simply picked up as is, and used briefly, then discarded. One needs a great deal of fervent imagination in this case. And all for the prevention of uprooting a lovely green, live-giving swath of trees and animal habitation.

To give way to human habitation. On the other hand, in Fort Erie, Ontario, in a working gravel pit already well known to paleontologists as a prime area for fossils of extinct primitive organisms, a near-perfect 417-million-year-old fossil of a creature resembling an ancient scorpion has been found. The quarry, despite its reputation, has never been closed down.

We are forever discovering indications of our predecessors, both human and other types of organisms, but life at the present goes on, as it must. We should preserve what we can and what is needed and feasible, and use common sense to resign ourselves to the fact that what is needed at the present time and for the future to support our human populations be done and be done with it.

Democracy Solves All

Hundreds of thousands of dissatisfied Egyptians turned out to express their wish that President Hosni Mubarak depart the country of his birth and theirs. They envision an Egypt without his presence, his dominating hold on power, directing the growth and the economy and the international political alliances of their ancient country.

Those who are dissatisfied are more likely to be activist, compelled to act out their dissent.

Those among the population who are moderately satisfied with what they have been able to achieve in their country of origin are more likely to be placidly accepting of the status quo. They may nurse grievances and wish for alternatives and improvements but they are also more likely to continue to accept what they are most familiar with. They do not actively assert themselves through public demonstration.

Those represent the quiet majority in any population. It is the noisy, demanding minority that garners public attention. Demonstrating just how apt it is, that old saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. What initiated the protest in Egypt, just as it was evidenced elsewhere in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, was a populist protest against food scarcity and rising food and fuel prices.

That modest but vital protest became elevated, and began to draw in political protesters who bewail the fact of Egypt's repressive state governance. And shrill demands for the unthinkable occurred; the people stood up and demanded the overthrow of the existing governing hierarchy; President Hosni Mubarak must depart, must as did the president of Tunisia, bow to the peoples' demands and leave the country.

An immediate, an instant change in government is demanded. Freedom, security, economic change, dignity to the people, employment opportunities where few exist: democracy. How is food scarcity to be addressed, unemployment to be changed, if the government steps down and another takes its place? The resolute demonstrations stretching well over a week have taken their financial toll on the country.

A modestly healthy economy has been brought to its knees, trading on the stock exchange has been halted, foreign investment has been drawn back, and international corporations are giving second thought to their Egypt-based installations. Food and other commodities are becoming scarcer occasioning the original protests. Government supplies of flour have been interrupted to the bakeries the poor depend upon.

With the change in government that the protesters are so vociferously and confidently demanding, how will the economy manage to turn itself inside out to satisfy the demands of the aggrieved? Will the price of subsidized staples drop? Will 80 million people suddenly all become middle class, poverty vanish? Will university be available universally, medical care be provided free of cost?

"I Will Die On Its Land"

"Egypt is the country I have lived in, defended and fought for. I will die on its land - and history will judge what is for and what is against us." President Hosni Mubarak

That statement, a small portion of the speech President Mubarak addressed to his people, is a moving one. He did rule as an autocrat, and there have most certainly been countless human rights abuses carried out within the country against many of its people. Within the geography of the Middle East he has acted no worse than all the other dictators and tyrants, and in some ways he has been been more moderate, courageous and wiser.

What began in Tunisia, a wealthier country with a far more educated population - a smaller population with a historically well-integrated population - as a public protest against rising food scarcity and high prices for both food and other commodities, escalated into a popular demand for a change in governance which caused the government there to collapse. Not entirely; the president fled, and his party still functions at its helm.

But there is political flux and insecurity, and there is the lingering possibility that an Islamist faction will eventually begin to challenge the still-legitimate remaining government. Those signs are beginning to evidence themselves, as gangs have begun to flex their muscles. In 2002, al-Qaeda was responsible for the deaths of 21 Jews outside a synagogue. Now, gangs have set a synagogue on fire and created other acts of sabotage, looting and attacking schools.

An infectious fever of revolutionary zeal anxious to topple the governments that have sat upon power in the Arab and Muslim world has begun its inexorable spread. In Iran and in Lebanon, the fractious power of fanatical Shiism has triumphed, and Syria is looking fairly nervous. Jordan is facing its own problem of growing Muslim Brotherhood influence. Yemen and Algeria are similarly threatened.

And Egypt has former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradai, once a friendly colleague of President Mubarak, turning ferociously against him, offering himself up as an alternate candidate for transitional president, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Whom Mr. ElBaradai denies has any intention of moving Egypt toward its destiny as the Islamist Republic of Egypt. He is appealing to the youth of Egypt who have dominated Tahrir Square.

The young ardently adore anarchy and the freedoms they see in its unstructured state of chaotic confusion. The old assiduously seek the comfort of orderly security. Those who are young, educated, unemployed and idle, seek distraction, employ distortion, and call for change to the existing order. Those who work frantically to support a family, have no time to spare for idleness and protest.

There lie the polarizing ideologies that are now meeting face to face in the camps of the disaffected and the demanding. The demanding hang an effigy of President Mubarak in Tahrir square, howling for his quick departure. The employed and those loyal to their president may also be disaffected by his mandate, but he has redeemed himself by his pledge to leave and help transform the government and their beloved country.

They aver their love for and trust in their president. They have the patience to wait out the transformative events that they believe will now take place, with their president at the helm, fully prepared to step down and quiescently retire. Determined before that, to ensure that an orderly and responsible government does take its place with the intention to honour and implement the democratic changes the public wishes.

He would prefer not to entertain the potential of the Muslim Brotherhood taking the initiative to assert their well-organized presence and implement their ideology in the process. And nor do many of those who trust their departing president wish to have him replaced with the Muslim Brotherhood. They are fully prepared to allow their president what he well deserves, a respected place in memory after he has fulfilled his promise to die on Egypt's hallowed land.

There has always been turmoil, unrest and misery in the Middle East. It is an especial place in history, in culture, in the arts and sciences and the international imagination. There the first idea of monotheism was imagined. A great civilization existed there for aeons, before the rest of the world eventually caught up, and that great civilization declined. But its memory lives on, treasured.

While that will not change, it is interesting to note in passing that Egyptians themselves have among them those who think nothing of their heritage, tradition and priceless archaeological treasures. Tragically, looting and smashing the irreplaceable.

But this too is the way of the world.

Archeological Tragedy

Gold-Seeking Mobs Destroy Egypt's Historic Treasures
by David Lev

By now, rioting, looting and general unrest have spread to nearly every corner of Egypt, and areas that were until now relatively calm have, since the weekend, erupted. With the Egyptian government trying to maintain its hold on power, however, the military has been doing its best to keep the media from reporting too much about events in the country. And while that strategy is impractical for a metropolis like Cairo, which has hundreds of thousands of Western tourists and residents, it has been more effective in other parts of the country.

Thus, Western media on Friday learned of the terrible destruction by a mob of looters of Cairo's National Egyptian Museum, which contains artifacts going back thousands of years, including ancient mummies from the era of the pharaohs. Less reported, however, have been the mob ravages at museums, pyramids, and archaeological sites around the rest of the country – with witnesses reporting the utter destruction of many irreplaceable historic items and entire sites, as hungry mobs pick over loot, seeking something they can use or sell. Meanwhile, UNESCO, the UN's watchdog organization that is supposed to protect world heritage sites and artifacts, has been nowhere to be found.

Arabic news websites in the past few days have related tales of large groups of impoverished Egyptians who have stripped museums bare – carrying off what they could, and destroying the rest. Lost in the rubble have been many works of art and historical artifacts, and in several cases mobs have burned down museums and archaeological sites. One report said that the museum at Qantara, which held statues and works of art from the Roman and Byzantine periods, had been totally laid waste, after the government had spent millions to upgrade it in recent years.

Other reports said that a principal museum near the pyramids had been looted. A worker at the museum said that the mob had demanded that he show them where the gold was stored; finding gold fabled to have been hidden away in sarcophagi and ancient vessels seems to have been their main motivation, he said. After much effort, and risk to his life, he finally was able to convince them that there was no gold – upon which the mob took out its anger and frustration on the thousands of years old artifacts and mummies. In some cases, security guards were able to keep the mob out of museums and antiquity sites – so, instead, looters stripped bare the souvenir stores attached to them.

In an interview, Muhammad Abed al-Maksoud, curator of the Egyptian Museum, told the tale of the looting of the museum, and the destruction of mummies – possibly the grandparents of King Tutankhamun, according to experts. “There is a feeling of total chaos. The thieves were sure they could find artifacts they could sell, but each item is numbered and cataloged, and if they try to sell them they will get caught – so we have hope of catching the culprits and bring them to justice,” he said.

Speaking in an interview on CBS news this week, Tarek Saadawi, the former Egyptian Minister of Telecommunications, demanded that the UN intervene and calm the situation in the country – and that UNESCO do something to stop the looting. “These treasures must be returned back and the law must be enforced here," said Saadawi, "the U.N. and UNESCO should dedicate resources to identify and return these lost treasures.” There was no comment from UNESCO officials.

As published online at Arutz Sheva, 1 February 2011

The Banality Of Evil

Poor France, it is under attack by dint of its 20th Century history during the Second World War as a Third Reich-collaborationist government by the Petainist government whom most French citizens detested, and it is embattled by claims levelled by the grandson of one of the Petain government's chief functionaries who aided in the removal of French Jews.

France has always had an unfortunate relationship with its Jewish population. In that respect, however, little different from most other European countries, and far better than east European nations.

Still it does rankle, like prickly burrs somehow stuck under one's underclothing, never permitting one to sit comfortably and look dignified through the process of attempting, in public, to discreetly extract those burrs while carrying on a civil conversation. The conversation is anything but civil at the moment, with denials from every corner of the allegations levelled by Alexandre Jardin through his legacy accounting of his grandfather Jean Jardin, chief of staff to Pierre Laval, prime minister of Vichy France.

France has never been comfortable in contemplation of its war-time compliance thanks to Marshal Petain, with Nazi Germany's occupation of the country.

"France is a curious country. You can talk about anything here: about pedophilia, about the most shameful passions, but not about our families' dishonour during the Second World War - because that particular past just won't pass. Especially if you argue that to have taken part in the worst atrocities of the Nazi occupation one didn't necessarily have to be a monster." Author, Alexandre Jardin

Aiding in the mass extermination of a signal portion of Franc's population who just happened to be Jews is not a nice topic of conversation in polite company. Best to simply ignore it. The past, after all, is the past.

And France currently feels it has a special obligation to its Jews. It took great moral umbrage when, on a visit to France, former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and later Ehud Olmert and Benyamin Netanyahu, issued pointed invitations to French Jews to remove themselves to Israel, where they would be protected from the growing incidence of anti-Semitic attacks in France. And just incidentally help to increase the Jewish presence in the State of Israel.

Even Mr. Jardin's own family has condemned him for writing his revelatory book claiming his grandfather to have been quite involved in the arrest and deportation of Jews. "It took me a while to realize that nothing is signed by a chairman of the board that didn't pass through his chief of staff", he wrote. Historians have their doubts about Mr. Jardin's nomination of his grandfather as chief enabler of the transport of French Jews to death camps and the chimneys of the crematoria.

But Mr. Jardin is adamant. He will not be swayed. He knows of a certainty what is obvious to him. Despite the social and familial pressures he is under he remains unswayed and will not renounce what he has written. His book has given him notoriety, but he regrets nothing other than to state his regret at the "blindness of my family and our whole nation", responding to the contents of his book which "evokes the guilt of the upright, morally endowed people who collaborated with Nazism and who, definitely, allowed the extermination of the Jews."

"I have wondered how a perfectly decent man like him, belonging to a society of perfectly decent people, could aid the horror.
"To burn down a synagogue and liquidate a few Jews, all you need is a handful of violent sadists. But to perpetrate this on a large scale, a moral discourse must be used of a sort that mobilizes a great many decent people, who will be even more efficient.
"My grandfather, a man steeped in Christianity, was one of those people."

And France still does not recognize nor does it admit its portion in the history relating to the Holocaust. Only in 1962 did school curriculum address the Second World War, and the related textbooks barely make mention of the Holocaust; too depressing, distressing, embarrassing for young Frenchmen. And certainly with the preponderance of immigrants from Muslim backgrounds, far too socially inconvenient.

No French leader had given public acknowledgement of the country's role in deporting Jews to the Nazi death camps stationed around Europe. Until Jacques Chirac as president in 1995 succumbed to the issuance of a public apology. Now, can we all set this aside for good?
Not, it seems, if Alexandre Jardin has anything to say and write about it.

Public discourse anyone?