Teaching history: let’s hear it for Western Civ

The New Neo Posted on by

The UK’s David Cameron has followed in Angela Merkel’s footstops and condemned the policy of multiculturalism which has led to the failure of many immigrants in Britain to adopt the culture and values of their new homeland. His words were clear and concise—and, of course, controversial among many Islamic groups and the left.

Cameron said:

A passively tolerant society says to its citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It stands neutral between different values.

A genuinely liberal country does much more. It believes in certain values and actively promotes them.

This glaringly obvious truth hardly bears mentioning, but our Western societies have become so timid about their own heritage and strengths, and the philosophical foundations on which they rest, that even such simple truths have become occasion for heated debate and even outrage.

The entire episode got me to thinking about an educational transition that was occurring around the time I went to college. Until then, it long had been standard to require a college course in what was then called “Western Civ.” But beginning in the 60s and 70s there was a fairly successful movement to make that curriculum elective.

I went to a supposedly excellent college. There I not only managed to successfully avoid taking a Western Civ course, but there were no required history courses whatsoever. This made me happy, because at the time I was under the impression that I hated the study of history.

Fortunately, I had been educated in the New York City school system at a time when the history foundation there was quite stringent. The following courses were required in order to receive an academic diploma: one semester each of Civics and Economics, and a year each of American History and World History (the latter included a fair amount of ancient history as well). So by the time I got to college, the gaps in my education were not too glaring.

I love history now; can’t get enough of it. But it’s no puzzle to me as to why I hated it back then, and why I cheered when I discovered I wouldn’t ever have to enroll in the dread Western Civ. Almost all the courses I had taken in high school had involved dry facts disconnected by any overarching vision of history or any context in which I could figure out how most of it mattered to me any more.

I don’t think that correcting this omission would have been an insurmountable difficulty for the school system. After all, history is rife with such connections, and patterns of great significance; I see them all the time now. But for some reason (and I don’t think it was PC thought, which hadn’t taken hold much back then, especially among my teachers most of whom were quite old) that was not done in my school, or at least very rarely done. Perhaps it was considered too difficult. Perhaps the NY schools were so focused on cramming all the information into us that they thought we would need to do well in the Regents exams that the broad picture went by the wayside.

Whatever the reason, it was a monumental failing, and not just because it failed to interest me in the study of history. My guess is that it failed the majority of my fellow students as well.

And the problem has only gotten worse over time. Now those omissions have all too often been replaced by a certain political agenda, which is to downplay the achievements of Western Civ and emphasize the multicultural oneness of humankind, with special emphasis on the third world.

I’m all for studying other cultures, but not to the neglect of our own. And I’m all for respecting others, but not when we fail to respect ourselves, and to be justly proud of the gifts Western Civilization (let’s use its full name) has given the world.

The patrician American voice: poets and others

The New Neo Posted on by

I recently read Savage Beauty, a biography of American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. There are several passages in the book that describe the power of Millay’s voice and its remarkable ability to transfix and even seduce (in Millay’s case, the word was not an exaggeration) by the force of her public readings. That made me wonder whether YouTube (ah, magical YouTube!) has samples of her reciting her poetry—and sure enough, it does.

But I was surprised when I listened. Millay became famous during the early part of the 20th century, and fashions in voices seem to have changed since then. And if you don’t think there are fashions in voices, just listen for yourself:

One surprise was that it does not sound at all like the voice of a petite person, although Millay was very small and slender. There was also something vaguely British in her voice, something I’ve heard in other Americans of the time such as, for example, FDR and Eleanor, something that modern listeners hear as an affectation but that might have been more common then, especially among the upper classes and those who hobnobbed with them (Millay was well-educated at uppity Vassar, but she had a hardscrabble family past in Camden, Maine).

Here’s Eleanor Roosevelt, with that slight touch of Britain similar to Millay’s, but a higher pitch:

And finally there’s my guy Frost. A bit older than Millay, he sounds more modern to my ear, although there’s still an infinitesimal smidgen of that British quality, especially at the end when he gets to reciting a fragment of a poem. Like Millay, Frost was a New Englander (from the age of eleven, anyway). In Frost’s speech—and the quality of his humor—you can hear something close to a voice that still exists in rural New England today:

It’s not difficult to see why Frost was exceptionally popular on the lecture circuit.

As for Millay, her voice seemed merely odd when I first listened to it. But in preparing for this post I listened to the clip a few times, and after a while I found a change coming over me. On about the fifth go-round Millay’s voice seemed to take on an archaic power and I shivered listening to it, as though it were a declamation from some ancient sybil speaking to us across a divide of thousands of years.

[NOTE: This Levi’s commercial uses what is apparently the only recording of the poet Walt Whitman, reading a few lines from his poem “America.” He sounds remarkably contemporary, does he not?]

Muslim Brotherhood? No problem

The New Neo Posted on by

Nicholas Kristof says that the Muslim Brotherhood won’t be able to do much that’s bad in Egypt because even if they get elected, if the people don’t like what they’re doing they can just vote them out.

A brilliant notion, showing the depth of historical knowledge and the penetrating analysis that we’ve come to expect from a renowned columnist writing for the NY Times.

In other words: has Kristof never heard of what actually happened, and is happening, in Iran? Can the dissatisfied people just vote the mullahs out?

Or how about Venezuela and Chavez? Or any number of “democracies” that were hijacked by tyranny? And does he know of the “constitutional” manner in which it was usually accomplished? Has he never heard the expression “one person, one vote, one time?”

Does he understand that, unless there are numerous safeguards built into a political system, the will of the people can be overrun quite easily? Or that they can vote themselves into giving it up? Is he aware of how our own Founding Fathers studied and thought and argued and wrote until they came up with a brilliant system that is probably the best one devised so far to prevent this, but still not foolproof?

Does he—or President Obama, for that matter, who breezily assures us that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t have majority support—understand that in a parliamentary system, even 30% support can easily make a party the largest and most powerful voting bloc, and a huge force to be reckoned with?

Does he understand—anything?

Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Islamic Jihad heart the democracy movement

The New Neo Posted on by

Does this sound like the statement of a group with little clout and few followers? [emphasis mine]:

Egypt’s largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said it would begin talks Sunday with the government to try to end the country’s political crisis but made clear it would insist on the immediate ouster of longtime authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak…

The Brotherhood said in a statement that its representatives would meet with Vice President Omar Suleiman to press its “legitimate and just demands.” Suleiman has accused the Brotherhood, businessmen and foreigners he did not identify as being behind a wave of looting and arson that swept much of the country last weekend after security forces inexplicably pulled out from the streets…

Mubarak, Egypt’s iron-fisted ruler of nearly 30 years, is known to have little or no tolerance for Islamist groups and the decision to open talks with the Brotherhood is a tacit recognition by his regime of their key role in the ongoing protests as well as their wide popular base…

And do you trust these promises of the MB?:

The Brotherhood aims to create an Islamic state in Egypt, but insists that it would not force women to cover up in public in line with Islam’s teachings and would not rescind Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Ah, but:

A political leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Thursday called on any government that replaces Hosni Mubarak’s regime to withdraw from the 32-year-old peace treaty with Israel.

Here’s background about the MB and its activities in Europe.

And here’s some MB and Egyptian history:

In November 1948 police seized an automobile containing the documents and plans of what is thought to be the Brotherhood’s `secret apparatus` with names of its members. The seizure was preceded by an assortment of bombings and assassination attempts by the apparatus. Subsequently 32 of its leaders were arrested and its offices raided. The next month the Egyptian Prime Minister of Egypt, Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, ordered the dissolution of the Brotherhood.

On December 28, 1948 Egypt’s prime minister was assassinated by Brotherhood member and veterinary student Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, in what is thought to have been retaliation for the government crackdown…

In 1952 members of the Muslim Brotherhood are accused of taking part in arson that destroyed some “750 buildings” in downtown Cairo ”” mainly night clubs, theatres, hotels, and restaurants frequented by British and other foreigners ”” “that marked the end of the liberal, progressive, cosmopolitan” Egypt…

After the attempted assassination of Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser, in 1954, a member of the secret apparatus was accused by the authorities of being the perpetrator of the attempt. Nasser then abolished the Brotherhood and imprisoned and punished thousands of its members…

Despite mass arrests, police harassment and an essentially closed political system, Brotherhood candidates have made strong showings in several parliamentary elections. In the past decade, the Brotherhood has made repeated calls for a more democratic political system, and in 2005 it participated in pro-democracy demonstrations with the Kifaya movement.

The MB is now the largest opposition bloc in Egypt. It is sometimes stated that they assassinated Sadat, but as best I can tell, he was killed by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an offshoot descendant group that is more upfront about advocating violence and is now joined as part of worldwide al Qaeda. EIJ is headed by a familiar name, al Sawahiri, Osama’s Egyptian buddy and co-mastermind of 9/11.

What does EIJ think of today’s democracy movement in Egypt? Loves it:

Ayman al Zawahiri’s top deputy, Thirwat Salah Shehata, has released a statement praising the Egyptian people and calling for President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.

Shehata is a longtime member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), a core part of al Qaeda, and has served Zawahiri since the 1980s. In the statement, which was released on jihadist message boards known to carry al Qaeda propaganda, Shehata calls on the Egyptian people to “remain steadfast” and refuse to settle for economic concessions from Mubarak’s regime.

“Indeed, the Pharaoh and his rotten party must depart,” Shehata says.

There is no evidence that the EIJ has played any role in Egypt’s turmoil. In fact, Shehata laments his organization’s inability to be “on the front lines sharing this honor.” The EIJ was “forced to leave the country after the regime’s war against us,” Shehata says, “and we ended up participating with the mujahedin on other fronts.”

According to Asharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi publication, an anonymous source close to the EIJ said that Shehata’s “statement was issued from Tehran where Shehata is currently residing.” Shehata and other top EIJ operatives received shelter in Iran after the Sept. 11 attacks.

There’s more, much more, in the article. But the part I’m quoting makes it clear how closely related all the world jihadist movements are, and what a golden opportunity they see in the Egyptian pro-democracy movement.

It is almost a certainty that, were the Islamicists to gain control of the Muslim world as they wish, they would jockey for position and fight among themselves. Some would adhere to Sunni and some Shi’ite Islam. Some would be more violent and some less.

But anyone who thinks they’re not all violent, and not all bent on Islamicist control of each country in the region, is misunderstanding their philosophy, motivations, and goals. These are not democrats, neither with a small “d” nor a large one. The mullahs of Iran are well aware of that, and have not been offering them shelter just out of the goodness of their hearts.

It’s not that the Egyptian demonstrators are supporters, either, although some of them undoubtedly are. It’s that pro-democracy movements are easy to co-opt in a country with no real tradition of liberal democracy, no cultural characteristics that would allow it to flourish, and where secular opposition parties have been thwarted and persecuted for decades. As in Iran before it, the Islamicists might just be the strongest game in town right now.

I wonder why…

The New Neo Posted on by

…the MSM scoured every Tea Party vigilantly for posters that exhibited any trace of racism and were disappointed to find almost none, and yet they seem to be mostly ignoring these seemingly commonplace anti-Semitic posters among the anti-Mubarak Egyptian demonstrators.

I think that was a rhetorical question.

[NOTE: See also this.]

Grynszpan and the rest of the story

The New Neo Posted on by

While doing research on political assassins of the past for this PJ piece of mine, I looked up the case of Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish-German Jew who had shot and killed the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on November 7, 1938 in Paris. This was the event the Nazis seized on as an excuse for Kristallnacht.

I had had only a vague recollection of the facts. But when I read Grynszpan’s Wiki entry, I found a fascinating story—far sadder, and far more complex, than I had expected. You might want to take a look and read about the strange twistings and turnings of the case.

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

My first troll-bot ever:

The next time I read a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I imply, I do know it was my choice to read, however I actually thought youd have one thing interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you possibly can fix for those who werent too busy searching for attention.

How do I know this was a bot and not a real commenter, you ask? Well, it advertised a Swedish website, and it came in on a short humorous post about literal videos, with nary a word of whining in sight.

Witnessing history: Iran and Egypt

The New Neo Posted on by

It strikes me that I have a very different attitude towards what is going on in Egypt right now than I would have if I were younger and hadn’t witnessed the media coverage of the 1979 revolution in Iran.

I’m no expert on either situation, nor do I claim to be. I am merely writing from the perspective of a relatively aware and well-informed citizen of the United States, watching and reading news of events as they unfold. Granted, this is a highly incomplete and flawed picture; maybe that’s part of my point.

Iran got my attention back in 1979, even though, as a rule, I spent a lot less time then than now monitoring such things. It was a huge story, filled with drama: the Shah (who, along with his family, had been a telegenic media personality); the demonstrating youths; the creepy Khomeini, who looked like the Sorcerer in “Fantasia” (see photos here); and most of all the then-puzzling support of the left and the militant, modern-seeming women marching in the street and embracing the chador.

It was that last contradiction that floored me, although it would not make me blink an eye today. I have long grown used to the merging of those once-seemingly contradictory strains of human thought: leftists and feminists (somewhat redundant, I know) supporting an Islamic religious fundamentalism that would war against both movements the moment it got the chance.

To most of us, it didn’t seem possible that a modern country such as Iran would embrace the restrictive and despotic religious fanaticism of Khomeini and company. But it did, if only for a moment, just as Iranian women embraced the chador—at first. That was a fateful moment for Iran and the world, because the ayatollahs’ power, rapidly solidified and entrenched, has allowed no turning back (or you might say forward) for the over thirty years since. It turns out that those women and leftists were the ayatollahs’ useful idiots.

About the role of the chador in 1979:

During the 1979 Islamic Revolution many women deliberately chose to observe the Hejab, either in the form of wearing the veil or a scarf, as a sign of solidarity with Ayatollah Khomeini and a symbol of opposition to the Shah’s regime…For many women making the decision to wear the chador was not based on religious grounds, but it was a conscious effort to make a statement against the Pahlavi regime. It was against this backdrop that the Islamic Revolution of 1979 took place; a revolution, which one could argue, could not have taken place without the active involvement of women.

Ironically, Khomeini’s decree, requiring women to wear the chador, came on March 7th, 1979, a month after his return to Iran and one day before International Women’s Day. Energized and excited that they had achieved what they had fought so hard for, various women’s organizations in Tehran and all across Iran, had planned celebrations for marking International Women’s Day.

As Parvin Paidar notes, those celebrations quickly morphed into massive protests and demonstrations; “the protesters included young and old, rich and poor, veiled and unveiled”, just as women from all walks of life had marched in support of the revolution and Khomeini, they now were protesting against his policies on women’s rights. Thousands of women participated in spontaneous and massive protests against the Hejab.

Once again women were demanding their rights, only this time they were demanding it from the very government that they had hoped (and had promised) would ensure the protection of their rights. Despite the numerous meetings and protests that were held on Tehran University campus, the streets, and even at the Ministry of Justice, the women were unsuccessful in reversing the compulsory veiling decree.

To make matters worse, most of the political action groups, which many of the women were members of, failed to fully support the women in their opposition to the compulsory veil. Although some of these political parties condemned compulsory veiling in writing, they failed to support their words with action…

Something about the process of watching the Iranian Revolution unfold in real time, even from afar, made a deeper impression than any newspaper or history book ever could. Those of us who are old enough to remember the trajectory of events—the promises, the sanguine predictions, and the betrayals—that led to current-day Iran, are less likely to look on current events in Egypt with equanimity.

It is possible, of course, that the endgame in Egypt will not resemble that in Iran in any way. It is a different country and a different time. But those who watched the unfolding of Iran in the late 70s and early 80s cannot possibly shrug off the idea that there are ominous parallels.