Nationalism

Nationalism

I was born, grew up and, for most of my life, lived happily in England. I regard it as a moderately well run country most of the time, often beautiful, there are many things within it that I love and its people are generally kind; in fact, it's like many other European countries. I can say that it has served me well, and for my part I always tried to act positively while there, but I have never felt any need or desire to claim allegiance to it in any nationalist sense.

If I view Europe, or indeed the world, in terms of human subdivisions, in terms of peoples' language, work habits, aspirations, culture, cherished traditions and so forth rather than in terms of historical wars and fiefdoms, then regions make far more sense to me as subdivisions than do current countries. Countries are just what we're stuck with. Indeed, most European countries as currently constituted have been so only for the last 150 years or so. In that relatively short space of time millions of people have had their nationality changed, sometimes more than once, without any say in the matter. And various sets of genetic testing sessions reported suggest that during that period or very slightly longer we have nearly all become national mongrels.

I therefore regard nationality as essentially arbitrary and of little fundamental importance, a question of having the right piece of paper.

As an aside I find hilarious the millions of ardent American nationalists who are the most mongrel of all.

All this leaves out the question of education. Prior to 1945 and the advent and threat of nuclear weapons, wars were quite frequent events, even if it was just a question of beating up the natives, of whom there were many, often rebellious, in colonial dependencies. There was therefore a need for troops who would be willing to die for country, God, king/queen, whatever, my country right or wrong. Education inculcated that need and fuelled nationalism. Those educated in the 15 or so years after 1945 were fed that propaganda and many still feel that nationalism and have passed it on to their offspring. Leave aside the rights and wrongs of that but how relevant is that to today's world? I venture to suggest that the current nationalist movements in Europe demonstrate how successful that early propagandist education was and how family loyalty, probably, has passed it on. But it is essentially of the past and not of today.

We need to think differently

Spring Is Sprung

Spring Is Sprung

Signs of spring are all around now, in the weather, gardens and shops. When out, as it mostly is, the sun has real warmth in it. Unfortunately the Mistral wind has been unusually frequent since the turn of the year which lowers temperatures significantly unless you are in a sheltered spot. Out of the wind the temperature reaches the low 20s and the evenings continue to get lighter; and we' have an extra hour in the evenings to look forward to at the end of the month. We have had virtually no rain now for over a month, though, so I have already started watering sporadically.

Two weeks ago friends Steve, Jo and I want down to the coast to Carry La Plage, as we had done 10 years previously. It was a very pleasant day and we had a good lunch on the sea front in Carry Le Rouet. Carry La Plage though was a disappointment. Ten years previously the sea front was untouched apart from a a simple promenade skirting the beach and a couple of cafés. Now the very large car park well behind the beach has been extended forward in a concrete and metal maze which entirely spoils the feel of the place. No doubt that has been done to accommodate increasing numbers of summer visitors but it made me think I wouldn't want to go back there.

In the shops we now have the first asparagus, melons and strawberries, a sure sign of good things to follow. These are not yet local and so not yet to be found in the markets; they are from Morocco and Spain. The strawberries look good but don't have nearly as much flavour as the local ones but the asparagus are fine. I've not yet tried the melons but may get tempted if I start thinking about melon and ham as a starter for some meal.

In the front of the house the bulbs I planted last autumn are mostly in flower, giving the view (below) from my front window and of the bench on the opposite side of the road. 

When Steve and Jo call round for a coffee, that is where we sit to drink it if the sun is out. Most of the plants in pots, apart from the few annuals, have survived the winter so there has is little to do there for another month; I've already cleared the winter debris. At the back I've decided to add another climbing rose, Guinée, which has an exquisite perfume, and a couple of patio roses. There isn't much room for anything else other than some ground cover, some of which I've already obtained from friend June in Beaumont. Since my lemon tree, despite being now a large bush and looking rudely healthy, still refuses to produce any lemons I've bought a small one to replace it which already has some lemons (and flowers) on it. Then it is just a question of letting time do its work.

There is a booklet on the history of the village that I translated some years ago so that the text was in both French and English. It sold quite quickly but there was little incentive to reprint it as the print costs were more or less the same as the price at which it was felt it could be sold. Since I had a copy in electronic form I've put it on DVD (DVDs cost about 1 euro and nothing to reproduce) and proposed to the Mairie that, since there is plenty of space on the DVD, the content be supplemented with more photos of the village and surroundings, the content of my website on the village and anything else that the village council thinks appropriate. We'd then have a DVD that could sell for probably around 10 euros for a cost of just 1 and a souvenir that summer visitors could take back with them. There seems to be some interest in the idea so I will just have to wait and see if it catches on.

The EU Has To Be Destroyed

The EU Has To Be Destroyed

This, I conclude, is most probably the goal of the main force behind Brexit: the money; the money from the UK, Russia and America that paid (fraudulently) for the campaigns in favour of Brexit. That is not speculation, we know that those countries were the source of the expenditure and that the expenditure was a so-far unprosecuted fraud.. That is established fact. So who was behind the money?

What do we know about the sources of the money? Not a lot; some of the individuals (e.g. Arron Banks) and some of the companies (e.g. Wetherspoons, Dyson) and where some of the money went (e.g. Cambridge Analytica) but it's an incomplete picture. However, what we do know leads me to hazard a conspiracy theory. The base premise is that the mega-rich, people or organisations worth a billion or more (i.e. that excludes all simply rich people), have formed some kind of collective alliance Previously they haven't been very active politically, certainly not visibly as a collective. They haven't needed to be because there has been sufficient mobility of assets, residency, etc, to suit their purposes. But that situation is changing. The EU, the richest single market in the world, very attractive for investments from the mega-rich, is imposing obstacles to even greater riches for them.

What they all want is to make more money (quite reasonably) and to keep more of the money they make (not so reasonably, to avoid taxation). Hence their ideal scenario is one in which labour is cheap and unprotected (low wages, little or no redundancy, pension and holiday entitlement) and taxation is low. That is all very reasonable from their point of view but the diametric opposite of what the workforce wants. The EU has protected the rights of the workforce and promises even more legislation to do so; it has also introduced legislation to prevent tax avoidance and will quite possible tighten that, depending on how effective the initial legislation is. So the EU, as a block, is an impediment to the mega-rich. Less tightly coupled, many of the individual countries will still be rich markets to invest in but won't have the binding worker protection and tax avoidance rules. So the EU as a block has to be destroyed.

Purely as an aside, this of course did not appear in the Leave campaign manifesto nor was it the reason that many poor people voted for it.

Home Jobs And Politics

Jobs

There is not a lot to say right now but I feel that a new posting is due. Weather-wise, spring is struggling to get the better of winter and has been succeeding during the day with temperatures in the low 20s from midday through to late afternoon, although the evenings are still very cold. I've tried once again to capture on photo the blue of the sky in mid-afternoon, a deep violet without a cloud n the sky. It's a blue I have never seen in the sky anywhere else. The result is below.

Because of the weather I'm once again playing boules regularly but also beginning a mental list of the jobs around the house that need doing. In the garden I've cut down the clematises (is that the plural of clematis?) but not done much else. I think I may have won my battle with the Mairie to get the lime trees in front of my house pruned, if only because on my last visit to the MairieI said that some of the lower branches of one of the trees could hit a truck if a large one happened to come by (they rarely do). Anyway, hiring some contractor to do the work is apparently on the agenda. There's a lot of preparatory work to be done for the spring but it is still slightly early to do most of it other than clearing winter debris. In the autumn I planted another 50-60 bulbs in various places out front and they are coming through but have yet to bloom. If the trees get pruned I'll pobably add another hanging basket in the front.

In the house there is essentially little that has to be done, other than a little clearing up and freshening things up, but both my son and my daughter and family have sad they want to come, as have some friends. I'm not house-proud (far from it some might say), but there are several small jobs that would no doubt add to the pleasure of any visitors. I'll get at least some of them done.

Nothing much else is on the agenda until May, when I shall go with the village team to the regional boules championships on the coast in the Var. Then follows the merry-go-round of village festivities in June and July, the pizza and moules-frites evenings in front of the Bar du Pont, etc. It's a lot to look forward to.

Brexit And Politics

As ever, I'm still puzzling over Brexit and politics in the UK. If and when I get French nationality this will all be academic to me but I think that I will never entirely lose my UK roots. It seems to me that when the Leave campaign made an appeal to nationalism half of the UK population mislaid its brains. I had never realised how powerful that appeal could still be. I've always cheered on the England football team, if only half-heartedly at times, and wanted it to whop the foreigners, but that is as far as it went. I had thought that with so many Brits taking holidays abroad they must have appreciated some things in other cultures. As one commenter put it years ago, the Brits had been Romans but had become Italians. In fact, it seems, they simply took Rome (Britain) with them and transferred it temporarily to sunnier climes. I can understand why those seriously deprived, a large number in Britain today, might find the idea of radical change appealing, and why the message of hope would be powerful. What I still fail to comprehend is the lack of forethought and intelligence and the apparent complacency and fatalism when the dream sold to Leavers has become so obviously a lie. If I had been one of them I think I would not still be clinging to the impossible dream but howling for the blood of those liars, cheats and fraudsters who had sold me it

The crux of the political problem in the UK seems to me that around half of the population is essentially unrepresented. For the moment, the Conservative party is irrevocably split and I can't see anything that would genuinely unite it. A similar split is becoming ever more apparent in the Labour party. The Conservative party seems determined to deliver Brexit, no matter how. The Labour party seems determined to force a general election which it's leader thinks he will win, although current polls and events throw considerable doubt on this. If there is to be an early general election, I would hope for a hung Parliament, which would marginalise extremes in both parties. Anything Parliament could then do would probably be not much but would rely on consensus, which is nowhere around at the moment when dogmas hold sway. In short, Britain’s future is at stake but neither of the main political parties seems interested in that, only in their own internal squabbles.

The breakaway of Labour MPs was perhaps inevitable at some point. They can have no hope of power and have put their country before their party, among the first politicians to do so. If they form a party it will have a short life, as all breakaway parties do, just waiting for the main parties to come to their senses. While there is little prospect of that happening the breakaway MPs may yet serve a useful purpose for the country.

What I find most dispiriting is that blatant lies, fraud and dubious ,at best, arrangements (agreements, honours, contracts) based openly on bribes and financial self-interests go virtually unchallenged and seem to be accepted as the norm. I cannot accept that and, were I still in the UK, would be tearing my hair out and howling, if no one would listen than at the moon. A great deal has inevitably changed during my lifetime but I have never known a time before when lies so consistently were not exposed, when fraud was not penalised and when cheating was assumed to be the norm. Why does an apparently large proportion of the British population now apparently accept this and not fight against it? That is what I cannot understand.

Food For Thought

Food For Thought

I'm becoming more and more conscious of how weather affects diet. In the past that must necessarily have been the case since you could only eat what was available at the time. Now, with ubiquitous supermarkets, fridges and freezers, you can eat most things within your budget at any time of the year. But…….what do you feel like eating?

I find, much more so here than when i was in the UK, that what I want to eat/drink depends a lot on the weather. Most of the year I'm happy with a typical French breakfast: next to nothing plus coffee. But the weather has been cold for the past 2-3 weeks, sunny but cold, and so I have been indulging in plates of porridge and bacon sandwiches for breakfast. They set me up to face the cold outside. Also, when I'm entertaining friends to eat in the evening, I cook stews, casseroles, pies, curries and the like; and the wine to go with the meal has to be red.

In the warm weather, despite the fact that my body probably needs similar sustenance, I'd never dream of cooking a stew. I might cook meat, even a curry possibly, but the meat would probably be chicken and fish and salads would be on my mind. Rosé and white wine also; I almost never drink rosé wine in the winter, despite this region having some of the best rosé wine in the world. That's unremarkable except in that the preference is dictated by the weather. The food in supermarkets here is more seasonal than in the UK but I can still have more or less anything that I want; but I find my choices are very much influenced by the weather, which was rarely the case when I was in the UK.

The Wrinklies' Lunch

Still on food, «crumblies» might be a better translation for the French slang «croulants» to describe those of us of mature years. This year, as every year, the village offers everyone over 60 years of age a free lunch, served by members of the village council and the mayor. The reason given for this generosity is to thank the wrinklies for past services to the village. For the record, the menu this year was as follows.

Apéritif

Feuiilleté forestier sur lit de salade verte

Cassolette de la mer

Sauté de canard aux agrumes

Petite épautre des Baronnies et légumes de saison

Fromages

Tiramisu au café

Café, thé

Vins: Côtes du Rgone rouge et blanc, clairette de Die

The meal was great and so was the company. Having got through that lot I managed (just) to get home without going down on all fours and crawling. I think this is just one more brilliant thing about this village ;

A Thought On Brexit

If you are old enough to remember the early years of TV you may remember a frequent message on a screen showing extreme interference («snow»): Do not switch off your set, there is a temporary fault in transmission. I remember seeing somewhere a variation on that: Do not switch off your mind, there s a temporary fault in reality. Apt or what?

Brexit Summary

Brexit Summary

Given what I have been saying on Brexit I can't let the latest development, the defeat of May's Brexit deal, go uncommented. The defeat of Corbyn's no confidence in May vote was not a development, simply a miscalculation by a dogmatically inclined politician and, unfortunately, leader of the Opposition, who seems not to, or refuses to, accept anything outside his dogma.

According to the latest You Gov survey around 12% more people in the UK want Brexit to be cancelled than for it to go ahead. I'm shocked. Well, at least that disposes of the «will of the people» argument. If the will of the people is to be done now Brexit will be cancelled. What I can't get my head round is the 44% who apparently still want it to go ahead. Why?

I've disposed of the «will of the people» argument so let's address the democratic issue. If anyone claims the referendum result was a democratic vote they are right. However, if they claim that therefore it must be enacted they are wrong. Constitutionally a referendum in Britain can only ever be advisory, whatever any politician says (and who on earth believes that politicians should always be taken at their word?). Both the Act of parliament that allowed a referendum (necessary, as a referendum is no part of the UK's democratic process, please note) and the Act that defined it both clearly stated that the result could only ever be advisory. So why do some people still insist that the result has to enacted? Quite simply, that is not true.

So much for those theoretical arguments. What of the practicalities? I can see only four possibilities going forward. The first is that May's deal second time around is accepted but, given the huge majority against it first time around, that has little credence.

Another is that a «no deal» Brexit happens. I think it could do, but only by accident. A significant majority of MPs have said that they will not let it happen because of the disastrous financial consequences (an economic recession of up to two decades estimated by one of its supporters, Rees-Mogg). Put it this way, if the Leave campaign had proposed an economic recession of up to two decades, higher food prices, fewer jobs and less money for the NHS, who would have voted for it? More pertinently for the Government, who would at a subsequent general election? The will of the people? An undeliverable impossible dream was needed.

A third is a second referendum but, realistically, that would in May's probably more or less accurate estimation (two more Acts of Parliament and considerable discussion and organisation needed) take a year to organise. It looks impractical.

The fourth possibility is to delay or cancel Brexit. The EU is probably thoroughly fed up with the UK by now and its reaction to a proposed extension is unlikely to be positive and, if granted, would probably include onerous conditions. Cancelling Brexit would have no negative implications, apart from the considerable costs already incurred for no reason.

So the obvious conclusion as I see it is that Brexit should be cancelled. But………….44% of the population apparently still does not see it that way. So which of the alternatives above do they want? There is an understandable reaction, I think, which ignores my first two points above and says: we are now fed up with the whole mess, just get on with it. However, that just gets back to my second set of points; which of the possibilities do you want?

There is another counter argument. If we are not going to deliver the result of the referendum, why did we have one? The answer to that is clear and generally accepted. We had one because the Conservative Party was split before the general election before last and David Cameron, not confident of winning the election and afraid of the UKIP influence, chose it as a way of trying to avoid a split in the conservative party. That failed; the Conservative party is still split. There was discontent with the EU in the UK, as in all EU countries, but no public clamour for a Brexit. The referendum came about not through any debate on the UK's future but because of a spat in the Conservative party. It' really should be only as important as that but has got out of hand. Again, impossible undeliverable dreams needed.

For myself I can explain the 44% in only one of three ways. Some part of that percentage must be the neo- fascist racist boneheads who support such organisations as the EDL and BNP. Another part I can only explain as people who have bought the impossible dream sold to them: return to the days of Empire (reconquer India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, etc). Do these people ever reason, think of practicalities? A final part, I suspect, are fed up with the whole process and just want done with the mess. These, in my view, are the most dangerous because, in throwing up their hand in despair they despair of their own important part in the democratic process; indeed of democracy itself.

So, if Brexit is cancelled, which is still just a possibility; what do we have? Certainly not Nirvana. We return to a situation, at significant cost, in which a large and important minority of people are discontented with the EU of which we are still a part. The good point there, I think, is that we share that situation with many other EU countries and that is the best indicator that the EU will be subject to the necessary reforms, for the benefit of all concerned. Somewhat paradoxically, a Conservative Thatcher handbagging will be needed.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Let's face it, this is the time of the year to do that, if ever there is one. Looking back is easy and not painful for me personally. Looking forward is quite another matter and I do not claim to be or seek to be any kind of Nostradamus but I do have some thoughts. So let's start with the easy bit.

Holiday Festivities And The Past Year

I had a good festive period; Carl (in photo) was here with me and I was able to eat, drink and make soberly merry with good friends; The presents I gave to family and friends seem to have been well chosen and well received. I couldn't ask for more. 

The pre-season activities, in particular my participation in the “bonnets rouges” singing of carols in the Bar du Pont also went very well (see photo, I'm on the right)) with a positive write-up in the local Le Dauphiné newspaper. That was very largely due to the patience, talent and perseverance of friend Jo.

The earlier part of the year passed with little of note. A couple of good friends died. It wasn't unexpected but was nonetheless saddening andt is something I am now resigned to; like it or not, as friends get older it is something that is going to happen rather regularly in the future until I am one of those who departs. So be it.

There is one outstanding item on my agenda from last year, an apparently trivial one but one that is important to me, and that is to get the Mairie to prune the lime trees across the road in front of my house to allow more sunlight in and a better floral display in the summer. As is the practice here, I shall enlist the support of friends in the village to put pressure on the Mairie to get that done. That is trivial in the general scheme of things but important to me and my neighbours.

The only other matter of importance to me is that I have had trouble for years in walking very far. Diagnosed in the UK as a problem with my hips it was identified here as a blockage in the Aorta where it splits to go down the legs and removal of that has given me back my legs. It feels great.

So much for the past. What does Dicken's ghost of the future foretell?

Looking Forward

For me personally, the demon on the near horizon is Brexit. I am in the process of trying to obtain French citizenship and have no reason to doubt that that will eventually succeed. It will take a while as French administrative processes move slowly but I foresee no absolute problem there. For the UK, to which I still have a strong personal attachment not only for myself but also for family and friends, the problem is much greater.

I totally fail to comprehend the apparent fatalism with which many UK friends apparently regard Brexit as inevitable. It need not be inevitable and the populace can stop it if it decides to. Rightly or wrongly I see Brexit as part of a more general phenomenon in Europe: the rise of the extreme right and nationalism backed by external funds to a significant extent. In France the “gilets jaunes” started as a protest against tax on fuel and looked initially to be a standard, short-lived French show of popular defiance. However the protest has become prolonged and extended its remit to include many more social grievances, all linked to the wealth gap. Throughout most of Europe the wealth gap, already large, is growing. Continuation of this trend can lead only to revolution of some sort, certainly in countries more amenable to revolution than the UK. If allied with nationalism, as Mitterand once said; that means war. That may sound over dramatic but I can see no other conclusion unless the trend to an increasing wealth gap is reversed. War in Europe nowadays may seem unthinkable but I can't see it in the interest of the extreme right and their wealthy backers to reverse that trend. War, on the other hand, would do them no harm.

I therefore think that the struggle to combat right-wing extremism and the further accumulation of wealth by the already extremely wealthy is paramount for the year ahead and must be won. The unlikely alliance between the very rich and the ill-informed and poor must be broken or Orwell will become a reluctant prophet. If it is, Europe can settle down to its usual messy compromises, but peaceably. If not, very dark days indeed lie ahead.