Be careful what you wish for
This episode is going to consider the dangers of putting political leaders on trial. Clearly, I’m responding to Trumps arraignment this week in New York. Now I’m not for a minute siding with Trump – let justice prevail in huge doses. But there are dangers attached and we’ve all been listening to very clever political commentators telling us about the dangers in Trump’s case.
But I’m reminded of a political trial in 1924 involving one Adolf Hitler. Hitler had attempted to overthrow the Bavarian state government in Munich before marching on Berlin to overthrow the German government. The putsch involved seizing the three key figures in the Bavarian administration whilst they were speaking at a public meeting in a Munich beer hall (it was normal to use beer halls for political rallies). Some 600 Nazi stormtroopers surrounded the beer hall, mounting a machine gun at its entrance, and Hitler stormed the podium, ensuring the attention of the already stormy crowd by firing his revolver into the air, before announcing the overthrow of the Bavarian government. Meanwhile, Rohm had seized control of the War Ministry. But the putsch was hastily planned and the Nazis quickly lost control of it.
In an attempt to regain the initiative. Hitler and General Ludendorff (who along with Hindenburg had led the German war effort for much of WW1) marched from the beer hall (where they had been holed up for the night) at the head of their supporters to the centre of Munich with the aim of taking over the city. Ludendorff was convinced that no soldier, nor the police (who were mostly ex-soldiers), would fire on him. And this is what they did, marching out of the gardens of the beer hall at the head of 3,000 storm troopers. Hitler waved his revolver, the storm troopers were armed with rifles, some with bayonets fixed, and there was a truck with machine guns at the ready. And they had hostages, including two Bavarian cabinet ministers. This got them through the cordon of police guarding the Ludwig Bridge which they needed to cross.
But when they met a second cordon of police near the War Ministry which the Nazis had occupied but which was surrounded by troops in a stand-off, the police stood firm. As is often the case in such events, it is unclear which side fired the first shot, but shots were fired on both sides and sixteen Nazis and three policemen were killed, many more wounded. The marchers had been linked to each other. The man linked to Hitler’s left was killed (oh how history could have been different), Goring was badly wounded. Hitler dislocated his shoulder as he fell to the floor. The marchers fled, all except for Ludendorff who stood his ground. Hitler was sped away to the country home of a close friend of Hitler where he threatened suicide but was talked out of it by his friend’s wife – again how history could have been different). It was from there that he was arrested two days later. Ludendorff was arrested on the spot. Goring was smuggled across the border into Austria. Rohm surrendered at the War Ministry.
So, that was the famous Munich Beer Hall putsch. Remind you of anything? But what of the trial and the dangers of political trials. Well, the putsch took place in early November, 1923. The Germans moved a lot quicker than America has since the storming of the Capitol and Hitler and another nine leaders of the attempted coup, for that’s what the putsch was, including Rohm and Ludendorff, were duly put on trial. Hitler had been tried and convicted before, for violently disrupting a rival Party’s meeting back in 1921. He served a month in prison and was warned by the police that any future incident would lead to him being deported back to Austria. So, he might have felt threatened by the trial. But Hitler knew that he could implicate numerous Bavarian politicians in the putsch, and that at the very least, he could embarrass the Bavarian administration’s leadership. Besides, he had the legendary Ludendorff beside him in the dock.
What is more, he could be fairly confident that he would be treated leniently by the court. The Bavarian authorities had seen to it that the trial would take place in Munich and the Bavarian Minister of Justice had appointed the judge, a nationalist, sympathetic to the Nazi cause, and who had presided over Hitler’s previous trial. Reminders of why the politicization of the judiciary in America is so thwart with danger – District Attorney’s elected, judges appointed to state Supreme Courts and the Supreme Court by politicians – so much for the separation of powers.
And Hitler knew it was an opportunity to present himself as the national hero, and not only on a national stage, but an international one. At the time of the putsch, the Nazis were not functioning as a national party and Hitler was only really known in Bavaria. But the trial – and it was to last twenty-four days – attracted press from across Germany and far beyond. Hitler had the platform he had wanted for so long, a platform to present his own views, and his leadership; and to show the weakness of those in power.
And boy did Hitler seize his opportunity. His opening statement lasted four hours! He was given cart blanche to interrupt as often as he pleased, cross-examine witnesses and speak in his own defence at any time and for any length. In his opening statement he readily admitted his intent to overthrow the state but declared, ‘There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918.’ And he ended saying, ‘I consider myself not a traitor, but a German who wanted the best for the German people.’ He could have dished out free baseball caps with “Make Germany Great Again” on them. Today we would label him a ‘populist’. His opening speech earned loud applause from the packed courtroom. Though after four hours, maybe they were just glad it had ended!
In his closing speech, he was still trying to build an alliance with the Army: ‘When I learned that it was the police who fired, I was happy that it was not the Reichswehr: the Reichswehr stands as untarnished as before. One day the hour will come when the Reichswehr will stand at our side, officers and men.’[1] And his final words, though spoken directly to the judges, were for Germany to hear:
‘For it is not you, gentlemen, who pass judgment on us. That judgment is spoken by the eternal court of history. What judgment you will hand down I know. But the court will not ask us, “Did you commit high treason or did you not?” That court will judge us, the Quarter master General of the old Army [Ludendorff], his officers and soldiers, as Germans who wanted only the good of their own people and Fatherland, who wanted to fight and die. You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times over, but the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to tatters the brief of the state prosecutor and the sentence of this court. For she acquits us.’[2]
Now consider what Trump had to say after his arraignment: ‘The only crime that I’ve committed is to fiercely defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.’ Scarily similar don’t you think?
Nine of the ten accused were found guilty but only sentenced to a maximum of five years’ imprisonment, and eligible for parole after serving just six months. This, when the charge for which they were tried, and found guilty – ‘… attempts to alter by force the constitution of the German Reich or of any German state …’ – carried a life sentence. The court’s rationale was that they ‘were led in their action by a pure patriotic spirit and the most noble will.’[3] Ludendorff, by the way, was acquitted. The sentences were carried out on April 1st, 1924. Hitler was released from prison on December 20th. He left Landsberg not only with his leadership of the Nazi Party but of the wider nationalist Right, cemented by his performance at the trial.
What is more, Hitler put his brief time in prison to good use. He had been allowed visitors to his room, dropping by almost as they wanted, and he dictated his book, Mein Kampf, or most of it, to Rudolf Hess. He also made the fateful decision to take the electoral route to power. While in prison, he had told a party loyalist. ‘Instead of working to achieve power by armed coup, we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the Catholic and Marxist deputies. If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the result will be guaranteed by their own constitution…. Sooner or later we shall have a majority – and after that, Germany.’[4] It would, indeed take time, and the Great Depression, but in the Depression years many Germans looked back to the events of 1923 and looked at a man who had stood up for them, risked his life for them, as indeed, he had in the war (not quite the same as somebody else then). Now Mein Kampf, which by all accounts is an absolutely awful book, badly written, means “My Struggle”. Hitler astutely made “his” struggle, Germany’s struggle, And an abject failure, an embarrassing failure, the putsch, was turned into a triumph.
Nazi propaganda turned the putsch into a triumph of legendary status and each year, even during WW2, on November 8th, Hitler returned to Munich and to the beer hall, to deliver a speech and to again, march through the streets of Munich, taking the route he had taken in 1923. In 1935, Hitler had the bodies of the sixteen Nazis killed in the putsch exhumed and replaced in vaults in the Feldhernhalle (the Field Marshall’s Hall)) in Munich which became a national shrine. In dedicating the memorial Hitler said, ‘They now pass into German immortality. Here they stand for Germany and keep guard over our people. Here they lie as true witnesses of our people.’[5] Hitler may have become Chancellor, but he was still the arch propagandist. Trump has made a recording of himself reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with prisoners held for their part in the storming of the Capitol singing the Star-Spangled Banner. Am I wrong to see something similar here?
I call this episode, “Be careful what you wish for” with an eye on Trump and, not this current arraignment and pending trial, but those treasonable charges that might still be laid on him. That they should be, seems not to be in doubt, though goodness it’s taking long enough for decisions to be made. But the consequences of such a trial (or trials) is fraught with danger.
[1] Quoted in Alan Bullock, p. 148
[2] Quoted in William L. Shirer, p. 78
[3] Quoted in Richard J. Evans, p. 196
[4] Quoted in Robert Gellately, p. 118 + William L. Shirer, p. 119
[5] Quoted in William L. Shirer, p. 78
By-passing the 20th Century
I have long felt that Britain is still stuck in the early nineteenth century, if not further back, and that the twentieth century just passed it by, and the twenty-first century is doing the same. Why? Because we still have an unelected House of Lords for goodness’ sake, because we think we don’t need the European Union, because we think the Commonwealth matters and we think we have a “special relationship” with America, because we are being left behind by what we still call the developing world. And because our economy, our political system and much else besides is still based on a class system that the rest of the world has long shaken off. And what props up that class system: the monarchy, is seen as one of our greatest assets. It is ‘his majesty’s government’, ‘his majesty’s loyal opposition’, ‘his majesty’s army’ and the Royal Navy and Royal Airforce.
The monarchy gives Britain a good deal of pomp. But does it make us pompous? It gives us a sense of grandeur. A bit of glamour. But does it mask the reality? Does it make our lives somehow seem better, more important? It certainly gives us plenty to gossip about. But does that deflect our attention away from the important issues?
As I said, the monarchy stands at the peak of a class system, a hierarchy that has certainly had to adapt as feudalism eventually gave way to capitalism and an industrialised nation saw the birth of a working class and the development of a middle class. But the monarchy and the aristocracy, and the hierarchy in general, the upper class and the top end of the middle class, still dominate the economic, political and social systems in Britain. You will see it in government, in the civil service, in the judicial system, in the armed forces, in finance and in business. It leaves too many people deferential to their supposed “betters”. Thankful rather than resentful.
As community is attacked in Britain, as care for mentally ill, care for the elderly, help for the unemployed is repeatedly cut. When ambulance workers, nurses and doctors feel they have to strike to be heard (and it wasn’t just about more money). When teachers feel undervalued, when anyone working in the public services feels undervalued, a funeral or a coronation (and no disrespect intended) is a mighty distraction. People queued for hours and hours to pay their respect to the Queen, and whilst we have to respect their decision to do so and to understand it, is it crazy to think that Queen Elizabeth I was a part of it as well as Queen Elizabeth II? That sense of our heritage as a people. A monarchy that has “given” us Agincourt, Shakespeare, an empire, and that stood belong side us in the Blitz. A monarchy that makes us feel special as a people. Let’s say it: better than others.
You would think that, whatever the political system that has been put in place – democracy, authoritarianism, communism, theocracy – a meritocracy in which the best gets the key positions in the state, the best jobs in the economy and in society, would be something that is seen as good. Put simply, if the best person gets the job, then surely that’s good for all of us. Of course, that would require equality of opportunity as well as equality of outcome so that a country’s whole population is seen as a critically important resource. And that means resources are put into education but also things like health care and housing.
Now not that it’s not really important, but I don’t want to discuss things like race or gender, things that do get in the way of creating a true meritocracy, and shouldn’t. But, in looking at Britain, I want to talk about class.
In 2019 the Sutton Trust, an educational charity in the UK which aims to improve social mobility and address educational disadvantage, published a Summary Report titled: ‘Elitist Britain 2019 The educational backgrounds of Britain’s leading people’ – I’m going to make use of it to outline the state that Britain is in.
The report shows a country whose elite – in the economy, in politics, the civil service, the judiciary and the army – are, and I quote ‘dominated by a narrow section of the population: the 7% who attend independent schools, and the roughly 1% who graduate from just two universities, Oxford and Cambridge.’ Put it another way, whereas more than 90% of children in the UK go to state schools, 40% of those currently in elite positions attended private schools and 25% went to Oxbridge. Those who attended private schools and went to Oxbridge account for 17% of the elite. And Russell Group graduates (the 24 leading universities) as a whole make up almost half of the elite group. State school to Oxbridge to elite only accounts for 6% of the group. So, straight away we need to note that going to a private fee-paying school (confusingly in the UK we call them public schools) helps tremendously, and going to either Oxford or Cambridge (we refer to them together as “Oxbridge”) helps even more.
In politics, in public service and in the media, there is a high proportion of privately educated amongst their number. That means the people who make the decisions that affect our lives, the people who advise them and the people who shape our opinion come in a large proportion from a very small social group with a very, shall we say, comfortable, social experience. Look at the figures: In the 2017 election, 29% of MPs attended a private school, encouraging maybe (the House of Commons library tells us that between 1979 and 2019 44% of Conservative MPs and 38% of Labour MPs went to fee-paying schools) but still four times higher than the electorate they represent; 39% of the current Cabinet (Theresa May’s cabinet had been at 57%), 57% of the House of Lords. And before we leave the British political system, we should take a look at British prime ministers of whom 20 out of 57 went to Eaton alone and, if we only consider the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 6 went to Eaton, 2 went to Harrow, and another 6 went to other fee-paying schools, whilst 11 went to state schools: 1 Liberal, 5 Labour and 5 Conservative. But of those 11 from state schools, 6 went to Oxford. Though we should also note that 4 never went to university at all – James Callaghan and John Major being the most recent. So, signs of a meritocracy creeping into British political life but still a long way to go.
Moving on to those in public service: 59% of the most senior civil servants and 52% of diplomats attended private school. As for the people at the top of the judicial system, 65% of senior judges did. In the military, 49% of high-ranking commissioned officers in the armed forces attended private school. And 44% of regular newspaper columnists did too. But before you get too worried, less than 4% of footballers did!
But let’s go back to the world of politics and consider the legislature, after all it makes the laws of the land. In the 21st century Britain still has an unelected upper chamber: the House of Lords. Not only that, there are still seats in that chamber occupied by hereditary lords, just as was the case in medieval times. True, the House of Lords Act of 1999 has limited the number of hereditary peers to 92 but the Tony Blair government had wanted to get rid of them altogether only to step back after threats by the Lords to disrupt the government’s legislative programme unless he did so.
Currently there are about 800 lords qualified to sit in the upper House. There are three types of lords: hereditary lords that I have briefly talked about, life peers, appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister but with all the parties’ making recommendations (it helps if you give them a lot of money) and, indeed, non-political nominees (did you know that you could apply to be a lord?), and there are Lords Spiritual – all but one from the Church of England. So, no Catholics, though there are five million in Britain, no Muslims, though there are some three million in Britain, no Hindus either, though there are a million in Britain, not even protestants. Out of interest, who is the only non-Church of England Lord Spiritual? The Chief Rabbi.
The official website for parliament says that, and I quote, ‘Members of the House of Lords bring experience and knowledge from a wide range of occupations…. They bring this knowledge to their role of examining matters of public interest that affect all UK citizens.’ So, how about ensuring some experience of being unemployed, homeless or reliant on welfare? It would provide a little bit of balance.
It’s not just Britain let me add, it’s the same everywhere. In America, elite universities – including the likes of Brown, Princeton, and Yale, take more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom 60%. And in so-called egalitarian societies, like the Soviet Union and today’s People’s Republic of China, party members have made sure their children get the best education possible. And let me also say it is absolutely understandable that parents want the best for their children. And if they can afford it, why not spend their money on their children’s education. Better than a second home or whatever. But the children of all families deserve their chance and deserve a dose of respect too.
So, how do we make a meritocracy in education? Easy. Make state schools every bit as good as private fee-paying schools: pay teachers more and put in the necessary classroom and other resources. Improve housing, improve health care too. Covid and the money that was quite rightly thrown at dealing with the huge problems Covid caused, has shown that the money has always been there to provide for better education, better health, better housing and welfare.
And, of course, we must ensure that entry to university is on a level playing field, and is made affordable to all social groups. It still leaves a role for the family to play: instilling discipline, respect and hard work, for example.
But then there is one more thing to add for a true meritocracy to not just exist but to flourish: mutual respect for each other, no matter our abilities. Say “thank you” to the road sweeper as you would to a doctor.
Let’s now take a more in-depth look at the armed forces. In medieval times primogeniture meant that the first-born son of Britain’s aristocracy took the title and the estate, the second went into the military and the third joined the church, or that was roughly the case. And it was the Duke of Wellington who remarked that the battle of Waterloo in 1815 was won on the playing fields of Eton, meaning that the true grit of the victor was instilled in the harsh world of public school (and remember, confusingly, in Britain public school means private, fee-paying schools). And in truth, not a lot has changed. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is where the British army’s officer class is trained and in 2019 49% of its entrants still came from private schools. And both William and Harry are Sandhurst graduates. And though in the spirit of balance, it is also true that, today, 30% of officers have risen through the ranks and we should acknowledge that this is moving in the right direction, we still have to conclude that 49% of entrants to Sandhurst come from private schools that only educate 7% of the population. And incidentally, at Royal Naval College at Dartmouth the figure is 36% (the RAF doesn’t publish such data).
Why have I focused on the armed services? Let’s get back to what keeps this all going: the monarchy itself. Now, education isn’t the only criterion to making a good officer, but surely it is a very important one. King Charles left Gordonstoun with five O Levels (GCSEs) and two A-Levels: B in history and C in French. This, incredibly, was enough to get him into Cambridge University where he studied archaeology and anthropology at Trinity College before changing to History for the second part of his degree. Now entry requirements were a little lower back in the day but typical requirements for Cambridge are three grade A A-Levels with one or two starred depending on the course. He was awarded with a decidedly ordinary 2:2 degree, Yet, this was still good enough for him to train as a jet pilot (he had received flying lessons from the RAF during his second year at Cambridge). He then embarked on a naval career, qualifying as a helicopter pilot before taking command of a minehunter. Not bad for a lad with just five O levels, two ordinary A levels and an ordinary degree. But I’m sure his postcode said something about him.
And what of his sons? Both William and Harry went to Eaton. Now William’s the intellectual in the family. He got 12 GCSEs and three A-Levels: A in Geography, B in Art and C in Biology before studying Art History at St Andrews, changing his course to Geography and gaining a 2:1 degree. To study Geography at St Andrews it would normally require three straight As though it could perhaps be as low as an A and two Bs. William then joined the elite Household Cavalry (the Blues and Royals, the second most senior regiment in the British army and Charles’ sister, Anne, is the regiments honoury Colonel). William joined as a second lieutenant and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant a year later. He then took attachments in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy and learnt to fly helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. He trained as a search and rescue pilot and flew out of RAF Valley in Anglesey as well as being deployed to the Falkland Islands for a time. After leaving the RAF he retrained to become an air ambulance pilot and worked with the East Anglian Air Ambulance for more than two years.
Harry got 11 GCSEs but then wobbled and only got two A Levels: B in Art and D in Geography. He did represent the school at rugby, cricket and polo though (I don’t know about yours, but my school didn’t offer polo, nor rugby for that matter). Harry didn’t go to university, choosing instead to take the entrance exam at Sandhurst which he was able to pass (when only 60% do) and served, like his brother, first in the Blues and Royals regiment. Harry served in the Army for 10 years, undertaking two tours of Afghanistan and rising to the rank of captain as an Apache Aircraft Commander. Famously, he’s told the world how he took the lives of 25 Afghans: ‘Baddies eliminated before they could kill Goodies,’ he wrote.
Now let me say that both men must have been capable of taking on their roles and both must have experienced some really hairy moments, facing down danger. And that deserves respect. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. In a democracy that should be delivering a meritocracy with equal opportunity, how do you get into Cambridge with two very ordinary A levels? King Charles did. And if William and Harry can get through Sandhurst, learn to fly and take command of men; what talent are we wasting in our schools and from amongst our graduates? Because there are many thousands with much better A-Levels that wouldn’t have got anywhere near to being accepted for Cambridge or St Andrews for that matter, and nor Sandhurst.
And I’ll bet not many of that 7% who attended private fee-paying schools are struggling to climb their different career ladders. To climb those ladders, to achieve wealth, power and privilege, it helps enormously to start life in families of those who have already done so. But it also means an awful lot of a country’s talent is being wasted, not even recognised.
How History is taught in schools
History is important to countries because it shapes the collective memory of the next generation, the way they see their own country and its place in the world. Pride, patriotism, knowing your friends and your enemies, knowing who you think you can trust and who you can’t trust, are all influenced by how history is taught. And who we identify as trustworthy or not is both an outward looking thing: America is or isn’t our friend, for example; but also, an inward-looking thing: how we perceive class, for example. We have touched on this. I’ve already done an episode on the way the British royal family are at the head of a class system that seems to be an acceptable part of British life. How far do British history books help sustain that acceptance of, if not love for, monarchy?
But I’ll come back to this inward-looking focus another time. Today, I’ll focus on the controversial way in which History is taught in Japan, and the bitter debate that surrounds the manner in which Japan teaches its children about its occupation of China and Korea and the war crimes committed during WW2. The Ministry of Education’s guidelines for junior high schools (that’s for ages 12-15) states that all children must be taught about Japan’s ‘historical relations with its Asian neighbours and the catastrophic damage caused by World War II to humanity at large.’ And the aim of the curriculum has been described by the government as helping Japanese children to understand the importance of international co-operation and peace. So, all seems good.
And that textbooks in Japan are published privately seems to be a good thing too. However, Japan’s School Education Law requires schools to use textbooks that are first checked, and only then authorised, by the Ministry of Education, and though each local education authority has the final say in which textbooks their schools use, they have to be from the approved list. And the Ministry has sought to enforce changes to textbooks when it has not liked what was written. And there lies the root of the controversy. A controversy that rumbles on in Japan as well as China and Korea.
The debate in Japan really got going in 1965 when Ienaga Saburo, a respected Japanese historian, filed the first of three lawsuits against the Ministry of Education after his textbook was rejected because it contained ‘too many illustrations of the ‘dark side’ of the war (WW2), such as … a city left in ruins by the atomic bomb, and disabled veterans.’ But in fact, control of the ‘dark side’ of Japanese history began in the 1950s. For the Ministry of Education wanted history textbooks to accentuate the positive in Japanese history, to praise the goals and accomplishments of the empire, for example, and to avoid any mention of the Japanese invasion of China and, too, its involvement in WW2. So that one textbook which pointed out that ‘Our country inflicted immeasurable suffering and damage on various Asian nations, especially during the Pacific War’ was instructed to remove the offending text as ‘a view exists that [Japan] provided various Asian nations the chance for independence [from their Western colonizers].’ And that ‘the international situation of the time’ was an important factor not considered.
Whilst, we could add that whilst Japan did commit horrendous atrocities in South-East Asia, Japanese cities were subjected to fire bombing and two nuclear bombs. And to be fair, we should also note that the main critics of Japan’s history textbooks – China and both North and South Korea – carefully control the publication of their own school textbooks. China and North Korea do not allow private publishers to write history textbooks for their schools, the governments instead write a single history textbook for all of their schools, whilst in South Korea, the government controls the production of textbooks more so than in Japan. What is more, during Japan’s post-war occupation by America, a system of “certification” of school textbooks was imposed by the Americans in order to prevent emperor-worship and militarism.
Nevertheless, protests became international in 1982, after the Japanese government ordered Ienaga to change the language in his latest textbook. The Ministry hadn’t liked the way he had dealt with the rape of Nanjing, ordering him to focus on extenuating circumstances rather than the massacre itself. Ienaga was also required to change such critical language as the Japanese army’s ‘aggression’ in China – the Japanese government wanted it changed to ‘advance into’ China. Both the Chinese and the South Korean governments lodged official protests with the Japanese government.
And the debate continued to rage in Japan too. The authors of another textbook were ordered to remove references to the compulsory mass suicides of citizens ordered by the Japanese military in the Battle of Okinawa (they may have been following the bushido warrior code, which says that one must die rather than surrender, though civilians were also warned that they would be raped and tortured by the Americans). In Japan, opposition was strongest in Okinawa and newspapers as well as Okinawan citizen movements demanded that the textbook be published in its original form. And the Okinawan Assembly sent a formal letter of protest to the Ministry of Education.
China and Korea succeeded in forcing the Japanese to back down which resulted in the Education Ministry adding a new authorization criterion, the so-called ‘Neighbouring Countries Clause’: that textbooks must show understanding and international harmony in their treatment of modern and contemporary historical events involving neighboring Asian countries. Yet the government continued to carefully check school textbooks, and in 1997, as a result of Ienaga’s litigation, the Japanese Supreme Court upheld its right to do so even though it did also request ‘that the Government refrain from intervening in educational content as much as possible.’ And by the late-1990s, the most widely used Japanese textbooks at least contained references to anti-Japanese resistance movements in Korea, the Nanjing Massacre, the use of comfort women, forced suicide in Okinawa, and Unit 731 which conducted medical experiments on prisoners of war – all things that had been raised in Ienaga’s lawsuits.
In the 1990s, it was the issue of ‘comfort women’ that dominated public debate – both in Japan and in China and South Korea. ‘Comfort women’ were seized in occupied territories and used as sex slaves for soldiers but the government had maintained that there was no official sanctioning of the practice. However, women in Korea, China, the Philippines and other occupied territories came out and told their stories. It created an international furore. In Japan, research by Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki proved that the Japanese military had been closely involved in organising the system. After hearing testimony from former ‘comfort women’ the Japanese accepted the responsibility of the Japanese military in the system and vowed that Japan would ‘through historical research and education’ properly record their history, including references to the issue in school textbooks.
Yet, to refer to one textbook used in the late 1990s, scant attention was given to Japan’s empire building, nor its WW2 record: only 19 of the book’s 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945. Both the Rape of Nanjing and the plight of ‘comfort women’ only justified footnotes.
Nevertheless, a conservative reaction was already underway, led first by Right-wing Nationalist politicians. They had two closely related goals: a revision of existing textbooks, and a new nationalist textbook that would be authorised by the state and adopted by local school authorities. In their first goal they were very successful. For example, whereas in the 1997 editions, all seven history textbooks at least mentioned the issue of ‘comfort women’, in the 2002 editions, three of these books dropped all references and three others made only a very brief reference without using the controversial term ‘comfort women.’ This left only one textbook that still used the term and discussed what happened. The 2002 editions also altered or eliminated descriptions of other Japanese wartime atrocities. What is more, the changes remained in the 2006 editions.
Fujioka Nobukatsu, a professor of education at Tokyo University, was a strong reactionary voice. He criticised the teaching of history in Japan for lacking ‘pride in the history of our nation.’ He was determined to ‘correct history’ by emphasizing a ‘positive view’ of Japan’s past and by taking out references to matters associated with what he called ‘dark history’. This is the man who maintained that ‘The Chinese government hired actors and actresses, pretending to be the victims when they invited some Japanese journalists to write about them.’ And that, ‘All of the photographs that China uses as evidence of the massacre are fabricated …’ As for ‘comfort women’, Fujioka believes they were paid prostitutes. In early 2000, Fujioka joined with others to form the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, and it is the Society’s textbook, The New History Textbook, authorized by the Ministry of Education in April 2001), that intensified the debate in both Japan, China and both North and South Korea.
Indeed, there was an outcry of condemnation from the Chinese and South Korean governments, and there were anti-Japanese protests in Beijing and Seoul. In Beijing, Japanese flags were burned outside the Japanese embassy. For Japanese critics of the textbook, there was concern about the way the book depicted Japanese myths as fact, and for international and Japanese critics alike, the way the book significantly downplayed Japanese atrocities and depicted Japanese imperialism as an attempt to free South-East Asia. An international group of academics called for textbooks to be ‘consistent with values of peace, justice and truth’ and declared that The New History Textbook was ‘unfit as a teaching tool because it negates the truth about Japan’s record in colonialism and war and the values that will contribute to a just and peaceful Pacific and World community.’ To be fair, the criticism of the book was as strong in Japan and nearly all of Japan’s education authorities rejected it.
Also, in the spirit of fairness, in Chinese school textbooks, the suffering of the Chinese under the imperialists is highlighted and the Chinese Communist Party is portrayed as the country’s saviour. Chinese culture is shown as superior to all others and foreign culture is portrayed as a threat. How to deal with Mao, of course is something of a problem for the Chinese. The Great Leap Forward, an embarrassing failure, is blamed on the people’s naive enthusiasm rather than on the man who drove the initiative: Mao. The Great Famine is quite simply a taboo. And though the books do accept that the Cultural Revolution was disastrous for China, they talk of ‘complex social and historical’ reasons for it, rather than Mao.
Yet, for all the debate over more than half a century, Japanese children still leave school knowing very little about more recent Japanese history, and so, very little about its neighbours’ feelings towards Japan. The Japanese still know little about the Rape of Nanjing, nor about ‘comfort women’. But they will know a lot about the samurai era. And unless this situation changes, the Japanese will not understand their neighbours’ feelings towards them and it will not make it easy for Japan to build bridges with its neighbours.
And it doesn’t have to be that way. Tamaki Matsuoka, known by her supporters as the ‘conscience of Japan’, is a former teacher frustrated by the way Japanese history was taught. She is dedicated to getting across the truth about Nanjing to the Japanese people, and in 1988 started interviewing Japanese soldiers involved in the massacre as well as going to Nanjing and interviewing Chinese survivors. She has published books and films of those interviews. Her most famous works are her book, The Battle of Najking – Searching for Forbidden Memories, published in 2002 her documentary, made in 2009, and titled, Torn Memories of Nanjing.
This is what she said in an interview in 2017: ‘Teachers still have to teach our students history according to the textbooks, even though we know the truth. The government has put pressure on us. It has denied facts … Some Japanese Right-wingers denounced me for investigating the Nanjing massacre. But I think that Japan, as the instigator of the war needs to make profound introspections.’ But she has faced a lot of hostility in Japan, and she has been careful not to publicise her address, for her own safety and that of her family. She has also felt it necessary to hide her testimonies to protect them from being stolen or destroyed.
Let’s be clear, the debate in Japan has been about the way its children should see their history because that will bear an influence on the way they see their country, and let’s be frank, the way they vote. So, we can see it as a battle for the soul of Japan but we can also see it as a battle for power. Japanese nationalists need Japanese voters to see Japan the way they do. But it will also go some way to shaping Japan’s international relations, particularly with China and South Korea who are once more, though this time on equal terms, important to Japan’s economic well-being. And they want the truth to come out.
Walls
Ray Lamontagne, a great song writer and a great musician, wrote a song called Be Here Now that includes a such a profound line: ‘Don’t put your trust in walls cos walls will only crush you when they fall’. The first time I heard it I thought wow, that’s a great lyric, and it’s the same every time I listen to the song. If you don’t know him, you really should check him out. More recently, I came across Anais Mitchell and her song, Why We Build the Wall:
We build the wall to keep us free
The wall keeps out the enemy
Because we have and they have not
Because they want what we have got
The enemy is poverty and the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
Again, do check her out, you won’t be disappointed.
Where am I going with all this? Well, we’ve been looking at China for a good few episodes. China has a wall and so I thought an episode on walls in history was in order.
Now as both Ray Lamontagne and Anais Mitchell seem to suggest, history has shown us that, on the whole, walls have not proven to be good ideas.
The Great Wall of China, however, has a few things going for it today: it’s both big, and long, once stretching something like 20,000 kilometres from the Yellow Sea near to Beijing, to the Gobi Desert. The height and width of the Wall varies, but on average it is around 9-10 metres high, between 5-10 metres wide at the base, and 3-4 metres wide across the top. It’s a World Heritage Site and it’s a great tourist attraction. Presidents Nixon, Reagan George W Bush and Obama visited the Wall, so too did Queen Elizabeth. And I did too.
It wasn’t always on this scale though. There had been a number of walls, made of earth, wood, brick or stone, in different regions since around 600BC before Qin Shi Huang linked them together in 221BC. It was intended to protect civilised China from the barbarians (in this case the Mongols), it didn’t prevent raids but it made them harder. And it helped prevent smuggling meaning more customs revenue was accrued from trade, notably the Silk Road trade as it traversed the Gobi Desert. And it made everyone aware that Qin Shi Huang, and his many successors, were in charge. However, it wasn’t until the Ming dynasty, which ran from 1368 to 1644, that the wall we recognise today, with barracks and its watch towers, was built. The wall that came to symbolise Chinese unity and Chinese power, the wall that can be seen from space (something of a myth – it can be seen, though not easily as it tends to get lost in the surrounding terrain, and lots of man-made things can be seen, for example the Egyptian pyramids are far easier to distinguish). Nevertheless, the Wall is the biggest man-made structure in the world. and contributes immensely to the Chinese sense of self-worth, China’s strength and endurance. It gets a mention in its national anthem and appears on its bank notes. And so, no matter how successful the original wall was in protecting China and its revenues from trade, we must see the Great Wall of China as a great success story. And you can’t say that about many walls.
It certainly has a more successful history than another ancient wall, the wall that surrounded Jericho. The wall was said to be some four metres high and protected by a watch tower twice that hight The Book of Joshua in the Bible tells us that somewhere in the 13th century BC, God commanded Joshua to march his men around the walls of Jericho for six days, once every day blowing their trumpets as they went, On the seventh day, they marched around the wall seven times after which they blew their trumpets and that, and their cheers, caused the walls to fall. The Israelites then slaughtered every man, woman and child except for a prostitute and her family who had sheltered Joshua’s spies. Only Rahab, her parents, brothers and all “those who belonged to her” were spared. Joshua then cursed anybody who rebuilt the walls with the deaths of their youngest child or else their firstborn. Of course, the story is nonsense, an early example of nationalist propaganda, in this case by the Kingdom of Judah around 700BC which laid claim to the Kingdom of Israel. But Jericho did exist and did have walls, and those walls were destroyed, though much earlier, most likely during an Egyptian campaign.
Britain, of course, has its claim to old stones too. In 122 AD, Emperor Hadrian ordered a wall to be built and so, it became known as Hadrian’s Wall. It was built between the Solway and the Tyne to guard the Roman Empire from barbarians (we call them Scots). It was around 120km long with forts (milecastles) at intervals along the wall so that Roman soldiers could protect their border. Not quite the size of China’s Great Wall, then, but we Brits are proud of it, and like the Great Wall, it’s a tourist attraction.
So much for ancient walls, let’s move to modern times and to America, but I’m not going to “Trump’s Wall”, not yet anyway. I thought you might be interested to know the origins of New York’s Wall Street, home of America’s stock exchange. In the middle of the 17th century a 4-metre-high wall was built either to protect the Dutch settlers from Manhattan’s Native Americans or, if you prefer, to protect the Dutch from the British (New York was originally called New Amsterdam, changing to New York when the Dutch sold it to Britain, with the wall still intact, in 1664). As is one of the main themes of my podcast – there are different versions of the “truth”! Interestingly, the area was also used in the eighteenth century as a slave market before 24 traders signed an agreement in 1792 to trade stocks with each other.
And now I’ll swing back to Europe and to the most famous wall of my lifetime: the Berlin Wall. This was unique as it was built to keep people in rather than out.
Disillusioned and disaffected with communism, with its oppression and low standard of living, Berliners and others from elsewhere in the GDR, were fleeing communism for a new life in the West.
Of course, East Berliners had a ready comparison to make with life in West Berlin where people were free and shops were full of a wide variety of goods. Its cafes, bars, restaurants and nightclubs, and its cinemas, also made it a fun place to be. Whereas in the GDR, under a command economy and with a quarter of industrial output still going to the Soviet Union, consumer goods were in short supply (wages were kept low in any case), there were still food shortages and housing was poor.
And it was relatively easy to migrate to the West. There was free access to West Berlin and from there, though Berlin was deep into the GDR, or East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was within reach. Indeed, well over two million people had done so by 1961. Not only where the numbers staggering and unsustainable but the numbers were particularly high amongst the young, and amongst highly skilled workers and well-qualified engineers and technocrats, as well as professionals, the likes of teachers, lawyers and doctors too; the very people who were needed to build a bright future for the GDR. It was what we call a ‘brain drain’.
So, in the early hours of August 13th, 1961, a Sunday, police sealed off most of the crossing points in Berlin with barbed wire barriers and soldiers of the GDR hastily erected a barbed-wire fence encircling West Berlin, in so doing ending all free movement between East and West Berlin, though not closing the West’s access to the city. There would be no movement under the city either: the underground railway system was closed and sewers were blocked.
The fence soon began to be replaced by a brick wall (with an additional barbed-wire fence on top), and eventually the four metres high wall stretched 110-140 kilometres around Berlin, guarded with 300 watch towers and a wide barren strip on its eastern side as buildings near the wall were demolished. In places, this strip was mined. All exit points were closed to East Berliners but for one, the infamous Checkpoint Charlie. The Berlin Wall was in place. It quickly came to symbolise a divided Europe, divided not by an ‘iron curtain’ but a brick one.
There were still attempts to escape to the West and at least 140 deaths resulted from these attempts and there were some ingenious escapes: two families escaped in a hot air balloon; an East German soldier stole a tank, and even though it didn’t break through the wall and the man was shot, he still managed to get across; a tightrope was used by one escapee, a zip line by two others; there were also tunnel escapes, one of them leading to fifty-seven people escaping.
For the Soviet Union, it was a humiliation but a necessary one. They referred to it as the ‘Anti-Fascist Defence Wall’. They claimed that they had only acted to prevent spies from operating in East Berlin, but nobody accepted that. Everybody knew that they had built a wall, not to keep an enemy out, but to keep their own people from fleeing. But they had had to. They had to stop the haemorrhaging of their best people.
The Western response took the form of a war of words, of accusations. They were never going to go to war over the wall. President Kennedy viewed it as less than ideal, but concluded that ‘a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.’ And he visited West Berlin in June, 1963 and in a speech that became famous invited anyone who didn’t understand the issue between the free world and communism to come to Berlin and see for themselves. He declared himself a Berliner: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’, saying that everyone in the West was now a Berliner. Unfortunately, or not (because it’s fun, and it created a mini-industry in Berlin), he got the German phrase wrong and instead of saying ‘I am a Berliner’ said, ‘I am a doughnut. But it didn’t matter, Berliners loved him both for what he said and for what he meant to say.
The wall became the symbol of the Cold War. It also became a symbol of communist tyranny.
But we have to come to Trump’s Wall. Walls had long been abandoned for hundreds of years. The watchtower had been superseded by satellites and drones, even binoculars, which the emperors of China never had. But Trump saw political capital in building a concrete wall. Or setting out to do so, along the 1,500 kilometres of America’s borders with Mexico.
Trumps concern was similar to ancient China: invading barbarians. But Trumps barbarians were illegal Mexicans: ‘They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists’, he said. The reality, however, is that since 2009, Mexican immigrants have consistently left America at higher rates than have come into it. And while drug smuggling is a concern, more than 80% of hard-drug seizures between 2012 and 2016 occurred at legal points of entry. Plus, Mexicans legal and illegal, contribute a lot to the American economy.
In fact, Israel beat Trump to the modern wall business, building a barrier to separate Israel from the Palestinian population. It is part-wall and part-fence, and is 712km long. They started to build it in 2002 after a wave of violence. It is built, however, deep into Palestinian territory and has enabled the Israelis to seize large swathes of fertile Palestinian land, making Palestinian towns and villages ghettoes, cutting off thousands of Palestinians from social services and their children from schools. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the wall was ‘contrary to international law’.
Also, in modern Britain, walls seemed to be a partial answer to “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Peace Walls (or Peace Lines) were first constructed in Belfast in 1969 in order to separate Catholic neighbourhoods from those of Protestants.
At the time, Northern Ireland was in the midst of a violent conflict between unionists (mainly Protestants), who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists (Catholics), who sought to join Ireland. Approximately 100 walls and other barriers were eventually erected. However, rather than creating good neighbours, the fences were accused of fostering an ‘atmosphere of abnormality’. In 2013 the Northern Ireland government vowed to remove all of the walls by 2023, and the first Peace Wall was torn down in 2016.
So, a little potted history of walls for you. Being the son of a bricklayer, and with my brother-in-law, Frank, a brickie too, it seems appropriate to include an episode on walls, never mind the links to China!
The Hijab
On September 16th, one year ago, Mahsa Amini died in a Tehran hospital three days after being arrested by the Iranian moral police for not wearing her headscarf properly. Mahsa was her Persian name and the name the world knows her by, though she was known by her family as Jina Amini, her Kurdish name. To save confusion, I will stick with Mahsa.
Mahsa was an ordinary young woman, and I say that meaning no disrespect. Mahsa was from a small Kurdish town in the north west of Iran called Saqqez. Mahsa had only just gained entry to university; her ambition was to become a lawyer. Mahsa was not politically active; she was just on a family visit in the big city.
Mahsa had travelled with her family to Tehran in order to visit her uncle. She was with her brother when she was arrested by the Iranian moral police. Her real crime was naiveite, she was not making a political statement. She and her brother pleaded with the moral police that they were simply unaware of what was expected of her in Tehran. But she was bundled into their van and other detainees already in the van say she was beaten. Two hours later, Mahsa was taken to hospital where she lay in a coma for two days before dying. The hospital had posted that Mahsa had been brain dead on arrival though a few days following her death, the post was taken down. The police said she had been arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly and for wearing tight pants, that she hadn’t been beaten but had suffered a heart attack. Unfortunately, the police body cameras had ran out of battery. Nobody believed any of it. All medical evidence related to Mahsa’s death was controlled by the authorities. Again, nobody believed any of it. They later claimed that Mahsa’s death was linked to an operation she had had when she was eight, removing a benign brain tumor. There is no evidence of this. And they showed a video of Mahsa collapsing in custody – it was doctored.
But who exactly are the Iranian moral police? The moral police, or ‘guidance patrols’, are tasked with upholding Sharia law. A typical unit consists of a van with both male and female crew, policing busy public spaces on the look-out for non-appropriate dress or behaviour. Offenders would normally be taken to a police station or a so-called advice centre where they would be required to attend a lecture on Islamic values. They would then be detained until family members arrived with “appropriate clothes”. There is no clear definition of what constitutes “appropriate clothes” but a close-fitting hijab, so that most, if not all, the hair is hidden from view, and loose-fitting clothes is what is generally required. But it is open to interpretation and, with a distinct majority of women not strictly follow the rules, to arbitrary arrests.
Of course, this all started with the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the theocracy it introduced, government by divine guidance or at least by officials regarded as divinely guided. At first women were called on to wear the hijab but it became compulsory to do so in 1983, enforced by fines and up to two months in prison. And by the way, men were also banned from wearing short sleeves, jeans, and bright colours. There were protests at the time and Iranian women took to the streets to protest only to be violently attacked by pro-Revolution forces. Many well-educated women, including doctors, nurses, and teachers, lost their jobs as a result of their protests.
In practice, the authorities have imposed compulsory veiling on girls from the age of seven at the start of elementary school. Indeed, since 1979, the state-imposed dress code has been tied to basic socioeconomic rights such as employment, education, and access to public spaces. In July, there is a Hijab and Chastity Day and billboards call on women to dress properly. Tensions had been raised prior to Mahsa’s tragic death when Iran’s hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, ordered a crackdown on women’s rights and called for stricter enforcement of the country’s mandatory dress code.
For devotees of Islam, covering a woman’s head is a sign of piety before God and modesty in front of men outside their families. But it became an anti-Western political symbol too. But it is only in Iran and Afghanistan that wearing the hijab has been made mandatory. However, now, in Iran, it is seen as a symbol of oppression and not wearing it has become a symbol of protest against the government.
The protests following Mahsa’s death quickly took on a scale not seen for a long time in Iran. Not only have protests taken place in towns and cities, large and small, across Iran. But they have involved all classes as well as celebrities, such as artists and sports people. Sadly, they have led to more arrests and more deaths. As for Mahsa Amini, she has become a global symbol for freedom – just like George Floyd.
They also took on a wider dimension too: the morality police, the lack of women’s rights in general, a better future for women and, with Iran facing economic problems, protest against the government per se. The government have responded by enforcing the police. Protestors have been fired on and killed, arrests made with human rights defenders, students, women’s rights activists, lawyers, journalists targeted as well as the protestors themselves. Surveillance cameras are used, internet access has been restricted and over 2,000 businesses across the country closed down for admitting women not wearing the hijab, including shops, restaurants and even pharmacies. Government offices no longer provide services to women not covering their hair. Girls are not be permitted entry to schools or universities. So, women’s life chances are being restricted. Some clerics have called for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to be used to enforce compliance. And, as in all authoritarian regimes, state control of all media has done everything it can to paint the protestors in a bad light.
But straight away, we are face with a really tricky issue. Who are we to say a theocracy is wrong? In Britain, twenty-six Lords Spiritual sit in the House of Lords, a law-making body, plus those retired bishops who have taken up seats. Look at the work of the Supreme Court in America these past few years, with judges that include Amy Coney Barrett, a staunch Catholic, anti-contraception, anti-abortionist, anti-Gay; and a member of the People of Praise Christian cult that exerts incredible control over its members lives. She firmly believes that judges should be bound by their religious beliefs before legal precedent. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that Roe vs Wade was overturned.
And if we look at abortion rights across the world, Central and South American countries, where the influence of the Catholic Church and in Brazil, at least, the evangelical churches, is strong, abortion is almost entirely restricted to cases where it is needed to save a woman’s life, as it also is in Iran. In Nicaragua and El Salvador it is not allowed at all. In Europe, Poland and Monaco only allow abortions to preserve health (almost the same reason), and the same in African countries like Botswana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda: abortion is only allowed to save a woman’s life or else to preserve health. So, religion has a profound effect on women in countries all over the world that are not Islamic theocracies. Whilst to add to any reflection on the state of women in non-Islamic countries we could also throw into the mix the “Me Too” movement. And in doing that, I’m reminded of sex scandals involving past American presidents, and not just Trump. Working backwards in time, what about George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt, by-passing others to end with George Washington. A sorry list and I assure you a British version would be just as long.
And with this in mind, I stay with the hijab but turn to France, home to almost 6 million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in Europe. But a state with a very strong notion of secularism which is intended to keep the state neutral in religious matters, while also guaranteeing citizens the right to freely practice their religion.
Now let’s be clear, France hasn’t banned the hijab in public spaces, things like shops, cinemas, restaurants, and so on. But, because it is regarded as a religious symbol, in 2004 the hijab was banned in state schools (though not universities) and it is also now banned in government buildings in order to keep them neutral spaces, as it is for public workers, including teachers, doctors and nurses, and police women which does, inevitably, impact on job opportunities for Muslim women who believe they should wear a hijab. In 2021, the European Court of Justice ruled that employers could restrict the display of ’religious symbols’ including the Islamic headscarf.
And in 2010 France did ban full-face coverings: the burka and the niqab in any public space, meaning anywhere outside your own home. So, French policy is the reverse of the policy in Iran which requires the hijab to be worn in schools and government buildings, indeed everywhere. We should note, too, though that the French ban was applied to to all overt religious symbols like Christian crosses and the yarmulkes (the skullcaps), worn by Jews. But ironically, we should also note that during the Covid Pandemic, whilst Muslim women were not allowed to cover their faces, all women were required to wear face masks. OK, the requirement was introduced for good reasons and the mask was clearly not a religious symbol, but still …
In 2013 the French government announced a “secularism charter” for schools which bans pupils from boycotting classes for religious or political reasons and promotes ‘total respect for the freedom of conscience.’ Article 9 of the charter states: ‘Secularism implies the rejection of all violence and all discrimination, guarantees equality between girls and boys, and is based on a culture of respect and understanding of the other.’ The charter guarantees the ‘freedom of expression of ones’ convictions’ but expects ‘strict neutrality’ from teachers who ‘must not show their political or religious convictions in the exercise of their duties.’ Article 12 states: ‘Lessons are secular … No student can invoke their political or religious convictions, in order to dispute a teacher’s right to address a question on the syllabus.’ And the charter reaffirmed France’s 2004 law banning students in state schools from wearing any ‘ostentatious religious symbols’.
In 2016, a number of local authorities banned the burkini, a swimsuit favoured by many Muslim women as it covers the whole body except for the face. Then, in 2021, in an ‘anti-separatism’ bill, the French Senate voted to ban all girls under eighteen from wearing the hijab in public as well as an amendment to the 2004 legislation that would ban mothers wearing the hijab if they accompanied their children on school trips. It also included a nation-wide ban on the burkini. And in 2022 it voted to ban the hijab as a “conspicuous religious symbol” on the sports field. And let’s not forget, France will host the next Olympics. But none of these moves have passed the National Assembly so they have not become French law. But the French Football Federation had already introduced its own ban, in 2020, and France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, this year upheld the ban, with Macron’s government unclear on how it will respond. The court found that the French Football Federation rule against ‘any sign or clothing clearly showing political, philosophical, religious or union affiliation’ during play to be ‘appropriate and proportionate’. Yet players can continue to make the sign of the cross or else offer a prayer as they run onto the pitch.
Of course, all this comes across to the Muslim population in France, and across the world, as anti-Islamic. The French, however, see it as the result of secularism, the French refer to laïcité and France stands proudly as a secular country. Secularism is embedded in their laws, their political institutions and their culture. And it is overwhelmingly supported by the French people, and across the political spectrum. This means that the state claims to be neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor the absence of it, but guaranteeing their peaceful co-existence between religions. The French see this as a guarantee of freedom of thought, and as a demonstration of respect for all religions, and they have a point. As a result, France does not have a state religion. But the French law of 1905 that separates church and state, and was designed to end the overbearing influence Catholicism had had on state affairs over the centuries, even after the French Revolution in the eighteenth century, doesn’t specifically mention secularism.
However, critics, and not just Muslims, argue that secularism applies to the state, and not to individuals, and so an individual’s religious symbols, be it the hijab, the yarmulke or crosses, are a matter of personal freedom of choice. Whilst for the Muslim community, no matter how laws and charters might be dressed up in neutral language, they feel specifically targeted. And we need to ask whether it is a coincidence that these laws, and similar laws passed in other countries, are linked to the rise in attacks on Muslims. Polls certainly make clear that Muslims feel less safe.
With regard to the ban on full-face coverings, the United Nations Human Rights Committee responded in 2018 saying France’s ban was a ‘violation of religion’ and could impact Muslim women by ‘confining them to their homes, impeding their access to public services and marginalizing them.’ And as I’ve pointed out, it does impact on Muslim women in the job market. Putting the secular state debate aside, it is also a clash of rights, or the way rights are interpreted. Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights stipulates, ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion’ and this right includes the freedom to manifest their ‘religion or beliefs in worship, teaching, practice, or observance’. So, denying women the right to wear the hijab is denying them an important part of their culture. And there are other basic human rights, such as the right to equality, the right to work, the right to education, and the right to be full member of society. But it can also be argued that the hijab actually denies women’s rights and women’s equality; it represents women’s subservience to men; it violates the humanity and dignity of women. A ban on the hijab therefore protects women from being oppressed.
But actually, perhaps Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first American athlete to wear the hijab at the Olmpics (she’s a fencer) best summed up what French Muslim women must be feeling when she posted on Instagram: ‘Islamophobia is deepening in France’. This is what happens when you normalize anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim hate speech, bias, discrimination, and hate crimes – Islamophobia written into law.’
As for looking at the issue of the hijab in both Iran and France, I would leave the last word to Amani al-Khatahtbeh, founder of Muslim Women’s Day and the website “Muslim Girl”. For she says, ‘No government should regulate how a woman can dress, whether to keep it on or take it off.’
Clearly, a controversial issue with no easy answers.
Vienna
I have talked about Hitler having lived in Vienna, the capital of Austria (Austria-Hungary as it was pre-WW1) where both his anti-democratic views and his anti-Semitism took root. Well, by a freak of history, it so happens, for a short period in 1913, Hitler had some interesting neighbours when he was in Vienna. No less than Sigmund Freud, Joseph Tito, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin would you believe! Of course, so too, did Emperor Franz Joseph and his nephew, Archduke Ferdinand.
I’ll begin with Sigmund Freud who is considered to be the father of psychiatry. And gave us the Freudian theory of personality. I’m not going to get into his psychosexual development but it is interesting that he suggested that our adult personality is largely shaped by experiences in our early developmental stages. Interesting because both Stalin and Hitler both had very difficult relationships with their fathers. Stalin’s father was a heavy drinker and was violent. He beat his wife and he beat his son. Hitler’s father was not violent but he was a cold authoritarian and distant from both his wife and his children. Both Stalin and Hitler were also both something of outsiders in the countries they came to dominate: Stalin was a Georgian, not a Russian; and Hitler was an Austrian, not a German.
Now, Freud’s major work ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ also broke new ground. He felt that dreams, far from being random, are meaningful narratives that reveal our deepest desires and fears. What if he could have got to work with Stalin and Hitler whilst they were all in Vienna? Imagine the conversations he might have had with both of them.
And for Freud, the human mind is structured into two main parts: the conscious and unconscious mind. The conscious mind includes all the things we are aware of or can easily bring into awareness. Whilst the unconscious mind includes all of the wishes, desires, hopes, urges, and memories, too, that we aren’t aware of, yet continue to influence our behaviour. Freudian psychology compares the mind to an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg that is actually visible above the water represents just a tiny portion of the mind, while the huge expanse of ice hidden underneath the water represents the much larger unconscious. According to Freud, the human psyche consists of the id, ego, and superego. The id represents our basic, instinctual drives, for example our desire for food and pleasure. The ego represents our rational, conscious self that mediates between the id and what’s going on in our world. Whilst the superego represents our moral and ethical sense, our sense of right and wrong. Again, if Freud had only been able to get to work with Hitler and Stalin in Vienna, could history have been radically altered? But as it was, Freud’s family were Jewish though he was himself non-practising. In 1933, the Nazis publicly burnt Freud’s books. And in 1938, shortly after the Nazis annexed Austria, Freud left Vienna for London with his wife and daughter Anna.
Joseph Tito, better known as Marshal Tito, was in Vienna too. And his personal story, and that of his country, would entwine itself with both Hitler and Stalin.
The Germans would find it impossible to defeat Tito’s partisans though Soviet forces were needed to help rid Yugoslavia of the German, the Red Army and the NLA fighting side by side for a time.
However, with the German invasion leaving a deep scar on Stalin’s psyche, Stalin was determined to create as big a buffer zone between the Soviet Union and Germany, and the West, as possible. And communists across eastern Europe were expected to toe the line, or else face sanctions. But though Tito brutally and totally enforced communism on Yugoslavia he was also determined to assert Yugoslavia’s independence and Stalin and Tito fell out big time over Tito’s plans to assert Yugoslavian dominance in the Balkans. Ties were severed and Tito would be a permanent thorn in Stalin’s side and would go on to be an important player in the non-aligned movement, something I’ll be looking at soon.
Now, when Stalin arrived in Vienna, Trotsky was already there. Like many Bolsheviks, the two were exiled from Tsarist Russia. Lenin, for example, had lived in a number of places, including Munich, London, Geneva, Paris and Zurich. Trotsky edited an edition of Pravda in Vienna, one of the Bolsheviks papers before it became the Soviet Union’s leading paper (ironically, Pravda means Truth in Russian). Trotsky also got paid work as a journalist, reporting on the Balkan Wars that preceded WW1. Stalin was sent to Vienna by Lenin to research a paper, ‘Marxism and the National Question, but essentially to investigate how Marxism could be applied in the Austrian multi-national empire.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, for which Trotsky had made the military plans, both Trotsky and Stalin played leading roles in Lenin’s government: Trotsky as Commissar for Foreign Affairs and then Commissar for War; Stalin as Commissar for Nationalities. Both were members of Lenin’s first Politburo. Trotsky formed the Red Army and when civil war broke out in Russia it was Trotsky who inspired and led the Red Army to victory. But with the Bolsheviks safe in power, Lenin made Stalin Chairman of the Secretariat and General Secretary of the Party, positions from which an ambitious man could build a power base, and this is what Stalin did, making sure that appointments, whether at the heart of power or in the states and cities across the Soviet Union, were Stalin’s men. So that, when Lenin died in 1924, it was Stalin who was able to maneuvre himself into power (something I really should revisit in the future as it’s the supreme example of Machiavellianism). In 1926, Trotsky attempted to wrestle power away from Stalin but failed and he was eventually internally exiled at the beginning of 1928 before being exiled from the Soviet Union altogether in 1929. He lived in Turkey, France and Norway before ending up in Mexico in 1937. He wrote prolifically in exile and Stalin was hell-bent on being rid of him once and for all. His last home in Mexico, ironically for this episode, was in Aveninda Viena (I have actually visited the house – a lovely place with a beautiful little garden), and it was there that he was finally hunted down. He survived the first two attempts on his life in March 1939 and May 1940 but not the third in August 1940. Gruesomely it was a mountaineer’s ice pick that did for him: “He got an ice pick. That made his ears burn.”, as the Stranglers put it in “No More Heroes”. He actually fought his assassin off but died later in hospital.
Back in Vienna and playing host to the others (well, sort of), were the Emperor Franz Joseph and Archduke Ferdinand. It was Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo, of course, that, as heir to the throne, was the spark that lit the horrendous fire that was WW1. And it was his uncle, the emperor, who made the fateful decision to go to war with Serbia over the murder. And it was this that dragged in Russia and Germany, and France and Britain too.
Hitler volunteered to fight in the war, indeed he was desperate to fight. But for Germany, not Austria. He petitioned the Bavarian king, Ludwig III, in order to do so (Germany was a federal state which meaant its states had different princes and such). There is a famous photograph of Hitler in the middle of the crowd in the centre of Munich on August 2nd 1914, celebrating the German declaration of war on Russia the day before. He looked genuinely excited by the prospect. He was in the thick of the fighting too: the first Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, the third Battle of Ypres, the Ludendorff Offensive, the last desperate German attempt to break the Entente forces, now bolstered by their American allies, and the last Battle of Ypres too. And he served with great personal courage. He was hit in the leg at the Battle of the Somme in October, 1916 and was temporarily blinded by gas in the last Battle of Ypres in October, 1918. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class in December, 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class (rarely given to men of his lowly rank) in August, 1918. And there can be no doubt that, though there might have been emotional hyperbole in his account in Mein Kampf, his sense of devastation on hearing the news of the Kaiser’s abdication and the armistice, in other words that the war had been lost, was real.
And so, we turn full circle. Hitler the nationalist, determined to make Germany a great power again, determined to tear up the hated Treaty of Versailles. Hitler the fascist. And let be clear, my depiction of him as a brave soldier is in no way an apology for what he went on to do. But history must speak the truth and Hitler was a very brave soldier.
So, there you are. Get your tickets for a little break in Vienna and visit the houses where these historical figures lived, their favourite cafes and reflect on the fact that history was not inevitable. It could have taken different courses. History is so much a matter of choices that were made.
‘Blowin in the Wind’ – 60 years on
You may remember that in a past episode I referred to two wonderful pieces of music, the first by Ray Lamontagne and the second by Anais Mitchell. And if you do, you’ll also remember that I said I would take the opportunity to include other music in the future, and who better to do that with than the greatest songwriter of all time (and that’s not up for debate): Bob Dylan. And with what’s going on in the world right now it seems absolutely appropriate to begin my series of how we got to this tragic point in the history of the Middle East with ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’.
Let me read the lyrics to the song (Id sing it but why ruin your day!).
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
And how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
The iconic song, and it immediately became such, appeared on Bob Dylan’s, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album in 1963 – 60 years ago this year.
Dylan repeatedly asks the question “How many”? How many times, how many roads, How many seas….. “How many”? How many times must we make the same mistake, go through repeated tragedies, how many years before we learn? Clearly, he was hoping that things would change – but this was sixty years ago.
There are three different questions in each verse. In the first verse, the first question, “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” addresses equal rights. How long people must people work for equality before we are all considered equal in society. And Dylan will be aware that African Americans were referred to as “boy” as a deliberate way of perpetually taking away their status. And let me just highlight three things since 1963: the assassination of Malcolm X who was shot in 1965, the assassination of Martin Luther King who was shot in 1968 and the current Black Lives Matter movement that started in July 2013, with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of African American teenager, Trayvon Martin almost 18 months earlier.
The second question, “How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?” is clearly a reference to peace, the need for it and the search for it: campaigns for peace. The question is really how long people must work for peace before it becomes a reality. Ant to put Dylan’s question into perspective, there were 54 wars in 1960s post 1963; 63 in the 1970s; 48 in the 1980s; 69 in the 1990s; 57 in the first decade of this century; 57 in the second decade; and currently 25 including the current Hamas-Israeli War. I think that’s 393 in total.
The third question is linked: “How many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?” Can we fight wars and cause destruction to life and homes without the weapons of war? Well, let’s take a look at the proliferation of nuclear weapons since 1963 – China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all joined the club since 1963. And the size of today’s bombs, their sophistication and the number of them is just frightening.
Moving onto the second verse, his first question here is, “How many years must a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?” The mountain is the system and those in power. And Dylan is suggesting that things can change, the mountain can be brought down to size. That we can do something about this.
Then he moves onto ask, “How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free? Links to equal rights issues again, but I’m also thinking of people like the Palestinians, like the Kurds, like Australian Aboriginals (thinking of the recent referendum in Australia that voted against giving the Aboriginals a voice and better rights in their country).
And then maybe the big question for you and me: “And how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?” Which is then hammered away in the last verse: are we blind to what is happening, deaf to what is happening, are we uncaring?
As for the answer, well, “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” The answer, at one level, is easy. Dylan is suggesting that the answer is with us. Like the wind, it’s all around us, we just have to grab it. But he’s also suggesting that the solution is not something that can come from those in power, and that’s why the song is still so relevant sixty years on: we have to take that power for ourselves. Or give power to those more deserving of it.
Dylan’s own comments on the song, given back in the day, explain his thought process behind the song, and also why the song is still relevant:
“I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and know its wrong. I’m only 21 years old and I know that there’s been too many wars … You people over 21, you’re older and smarter.”
He was spot on until that last word!