CORONAVIRUS DIARIES IV

“A nation loses the place which it once held in the world’s history when money becomes more precious to the souls of its people than honesty and labour. A universal, widespread greed of gain is the forewarning of some upheaval and disaster. Civilisations have been born and completed, and then forgotten again and again.” – Colonel James Churchward 

Millions of Americans expect to receive $1,200 cheques as part of a $2 trillion stimulus deal that was signed off by President Trump on Friday. This was cited to be a measure to combat a sluggish economy by getting the beneficiaries of this handout to spend it, and thus stimulate the nation’s industries by the direct injection of funds. Other governments of first world countries are commencing similar such releases of funds into their economies, hoping thus to stave off a worldwide depression.

An interesting site to view in light of the President’s announcement is the US National Debt clock. I looked at it mesmerised for a few minutes as the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt increased with each fleeting second. You may have heard of the immense economic strife that Greece found itself in through reckless borrowing of funds and unchecked spending. Currently, every Greek citizen owns about $40,000 USD of their country’s national debt. Terrible, isn’t it? Well, you may think, the US is a more powerful country, with a stronger economy, much more resilient finances and home of the richest people of the world. Think again, each US citizen owns about $73,000 USD of the national debt. Furthermore, each taxpayer in the US owns about $191,000 USD of the national debt.

Play around with the US National Debt site. There is an interesting feature called “Time Machine”. Go back to 1980 and see the National Debt per citizen: About $4,000! A lot of money has been printed and injected into the economy since then to “stimulate” it! By stimulation I understand that means the stock market does well, the few filthy rich get richer, the middle classes do less and less well, while the poor get poorer and poorer, each citizen paying a higher and higher price for a “flourishing economy”.

Coronavirus had infected at least 92,932 people in the U.S. as of Friday 27th March and killed at least 1,380 people, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. Of course, simply tracking confirmed cases underestimates the actual scale of the problem. Many more cases of infection will lurk in the community undetected. This is particularly the case for a virus like COVID-19 where symptoms can be mistaken for a cold or flu. Without massive investment in testing, cases will always be missed.

New cases of infection and casualties continue multiplying in the USA. New York and Louisiana hospitals are grappling with a flood of patients that threatens to overwhelm their health-care systems, and their resources are dwindling. Meanwhile, the president and political conservatives are increasingly agitating to end drastic restrictions meant to buy time and save lives. The rhetoric is: “Give people a stimulus handout, get them to spend it, and thus end this nonsense over a stupid ‘flu’ which is keeping them from being happy workers and model consumers.”

Politics has always been a dirty game, but especially so in the Trump era. In recent days, a sizeable and growing number of Trump supporters have claimed that health experts are part of a deep-state plot to hurt Trump’s re-election efforts by damaging the economy and keeping the United States shut down as long as possible. Trump himself pushed this idea in the early days of the outbreak, calling warnings on Coronavirus a kind of “hoax” meant to undermine him. The distrust of Science and Scientists runs deep in the psyche of the uneducated, the simple, the ‘average’ person, but also in the twisted mind of the sly opportunists who wish to further their own fortunes no matter what the cost, human lives included. 

Epidemiologists are medical specialists who have been educated for decades in order to be able to give advice on how diseases appear, how they occur in communities and in the case of infectious diseases, how the diseases spread and how we can limit that spread. They act based on their knowledge, their experience and the scientific modelling that they carry out in order to protect communities and increase the health of a population. Their role in these days of COVID-19 is to avert massive numbers of deaths and devise strategies in order to stem spread of disease and make the disease disappear. One of the frustrations of  epidemiologists trying to prevent disease (rather than curing it, as doctors do and with appreciation of the cured patients), is that it’s often difficult for the public to understand the disasters epidemiologists help them avoid.

A noted epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson published a paper on March 16th, outlining the model of Coronavirus infection and its toll on populations. If nothing were done to prevent  COVID-19 infection in the USA, the number of deaths was predicted to reach 2.2 million people. If all patients were able to be treated, there would still be in the order of 1.1-1.2 million fatalities in the US.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call. We are all aware of it, we are all affected by its consequences on our daily existence, we are suffering its effects on our jobs, our leisure, our interaction with family, friends, even strangers. We are all experiencing varying degrees of fear, ranging from foolhardy insouciance, to mild apprehension, to informed alarm, to justified dread, to mindless panic.

We react to the pandemic in direct proportion to our subjective feelings of fear. Foolhardy politicians inject funds into struggling economies and hope that the deaths amongst their political opponents will be higher than the deaths in the camp of their supporters. The rich and famous are mildly apprehensive and plan courses of actions that decrease their probability of contracting the virus (as advised by their exclusive medical care personnel). The thinking, rational, educated person is alarmed and does what epidemiologists and microbiologists advise, lessening their personal risk of infection, but also doing what is best for the community. People who have come in contact with the virus and its effects first-hand are filled with dread and can act irrationally – perhaps justifiably so. The mindless, panic and act unpredictably with often dire consequences.

Open your eyes, unstop your ears, think! Read critically and follow the advice of experts whose job is to protect the lives of everyone in the community – yes, your life too! If you cannot understand something, ask for clarification. If you have been affected personally by illness or death of a loved one, support is available. If you have financial troubles and you cannot cope, there are many places that provide real support and material help – help that goes beyond one-off handouts of money that you spend on consumer goods to support economies and raise stock prices.

You have been asleep in your comfortable, unthinking existence; blithely unaware in your cushy, mindless routine; you have flooded your existence with cheap thrills, huge numbers of consumer goods you don't really need, you have been in pursuit of trite goals. Wake-up! Re-examine your existence. Find again all that is important, really important, in life. Reach out to your family, your friends, your community. If you’re dead, it doesn’t really matter if your stocks do well in the NYSE or if Trump is re-elected (growing National Debt notwithstanding)…

POETS UNITED - SHOES

“Just walk a mile in his moccasins
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse.
If just for one hour, you could find a way 
To see through his eyes, instead of your own muse.”

 – poem excerpt from “Judge Softly” by Mary T. Lathrap, 1895 

This week in Poets United the Midweek motif is “Shoes”. The origin of the English idiom “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” is given above. My poem below: 

Walk in His Shoes

It’s easy to dismiss the homeless man as lazy,
A good-for-nothing shirker of responsibility.
He is the foolish grasshopper who now freezes in Winter,
Because he sang all Summer long, isn’t he?
While we, industrious ants, were working hard…

He sits in a large carton, wrapped in an old, dirty blanket
While his breath condenses into tiny snowflakes.
He trembles and his eyes stare vacantly into the night,
While passers-by (few that they are) ignore him
Wrapped as they are in furs, woolen coats, warm boots.

He knows their thoughts and he’s given up hoping
For a few coins, that would buy him something hot to eat.
Way out beyond hope is the expectation of a kind word,
Someone who’s willing to stop and acknowledge him,
And his wretched existence as a fellow human.

The wind howls and the people rush to catch the train home,
Tonight is no night for laggards, there is no promenading.
The homeless man feels his teeth chattering as the sharp razor
Of the midwinter cold slices through him, freezing his heart
(Does he still have one? – He wonders).

A man and his son stop in front of him and the father drops some money
Into the empty tin the homeless one has forgotten beside his carton.
As the vagrant warmly smiles, the son frowns and admonishes his father:
“Our teacher said to not give money to bums; that sort of thing encourages them,
And they only spend it on booze, and the problem multiplies…”

The father looks at the son, surprised, and says calmly:
“Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes, Son...”
The son look askance at the homeless man, who shifts in his carton
Revealing his bare, dirty, bluish, freezing feet;
“Ha! Look he has no shoes; no doubt he spent the money on liquor.”

The father looks at his son’s warm boots and says:
“Take off your boots and give them to this barefoot man.
Then judge him when you’ve walked home on your naked feet,
Trudging that long mile through icy puddles, mud and dirty water…”

ART SUNDAY

"Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics." - Victor Pinchuk

ART SUNDAY - SERGEY IVANOV

“To live without hope is to cease to live.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Sergey Vasilyevich Ivanov (Russian: Сергей Васильевич Иванов; 1864-1910) was a Russian genre and history painter, known for his Social Realism. His father was a tax collector for the Customs Service. Sergey displayed an early talent for art, but his father was opposed on the grounds that it would not be a secure way to make a living so, at the age of eleven, he was enrolled at the Konstantinov Land Surveying Institute.

Surveying was not to his liking and he was an indifferent student, so a family friend who was an amateur artist encouraged his father to send him to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (MSPSA). With a recommendation from Vasily Perov, he began attending classes there in 1878; studying with Illarion Pryanishnikov and Evgraf Sorokin. He left there in 1882 to attend the Imperial Academy of Arts.

Dissatisfaction with the Academy’s administration, as well as financial difficulties forced him to return to Moscow in 1884. He went back to the MSPSA and graduated in 1885. At that time he started work on a series of paintings devoted to “Pereselenchestvo”, the process of resettling peasants to outlying, vacant areas (mostly in Siberia) in an attempt to ease overcrowding in the villages after the Emancipation reform of 1861. The move was often very arduous and many died on the way. From 1885 to 1889, he toured the provinces of Samara, Saratov, Astrakhan and Orenburg, documenting the migrants’ lives. This was followed by a series on convicts.

In the mid 1890s, he began to focus on historical works. In 1899, he became a member of the Peredvizhniki, but was soon dissatisfied with their emphasis on “lovely scenes”. In 1903, he was one of the founders of the “Union of Russian Artists”, temporarily replacing the better-known “Mir Isskutsva”. In 1905, the Imperial Academy conferred on him the title of “Academician”. Later that year, during the Moscow Uprising, he made numerous sketches while also helping the wounded. From 1903 to 1910, he taught at the MSPSA. He was also known as an illustrator, creating drawings for classics by Gogol, Lermontov and Pushkin, among others. He died of a heart attack at his dacha near the Yakhroma River.

The painting above is “Death of a Migrant” from 1889. The stark realism of this work draws attention to the plight of the countless peasants who were resettled willy-nilly to the under-populated Siberian plains. Many did not make it and Ivanov records in this painting the fate of the hapless family who have lost father and husband on the migration route.

ART SUNDAY - MINAS AVETISYAN

“I think that the memory of Armenia’s genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism.” - Serj Tankian 

Minas Avetisyan (July 20, 1928 — February 24, 1975) was an Armenian painter, graphic artist and theatrical artist. Avetisyan was born in the village of Jajur, Soviet Armenia. His mother, Sofo, was a daughter of the priest from Kars. His father, Karapet, was a smith from Mush. His wife was Gayane Mamajanyan.

Avetisyan studied at Terlemezyan College of Fine Arts in Yerevan (1947–1952), Yerevan Fine Arts and Theatre Institute (1952–1954), and the Painting, Sculpture and Architecture Institution ‘Ilya Repin’ in Leningrad (1955–1959), where his main teacher was Boris Ioganson. From 1960 on Avetisyan lived in Yerevan.

The main theme of his works was Armenian nature, the nature of Jajur, religious subjects, the life of the poor people, mountains, fields and the changes of landscape in the various seasons. Avetisyan emerged as an artist at the “Exhibition of Five” in Yerevan (1962). Numerous specialists and visitors to the exhibition appreciated his work greatly.

Avetisian’s technique differed from the method of plein-air painting which was once widespread in Armenian art. For him working from nature was no more than a preliminary stage, and the main portion of the work on the canvas being done in his studio. In 1967, he first appeared on film in the censored and suppressed documentary “The Colour of Armenian Land” by his friend Mikhail Vartanov.

In 1975, Avetisyan died under the wheels of the car, which stopped off at the sidewalk. Although the official versionof his death was quoted as an unfortunate accident, some sources maintain that he was murdered by the KGB.

Avetisyan’s work is characterised by seemingly wild brush work and strident colours, inspired by the work of the fauves. Some South Caucasian Medieval traditional art can also be seen to influence his work. In his canvases, one sees intense colour saturation juxtaposed with dramatic and bold shapes.  Even when painting landscapes, Avetisyan broke through to q freedom of aesthetical self-expression, approaching the contemporary Russian “rough style”, even though in general he was more sympathetic to to the French modern and early avant-garde style of the early 20th century. Minas was also a success as a theatrical artist (theatre set design of Khachaturian’s “Gayane” ballet at the Opera and Ballet Theatre, 1974) and as a monumental painter (factory interior wall-paintings in Leninakan- Gyumri, 1970-1974).

The painting above from 1961 is titled “Toujours vie” (Still Life) and shows the fauve/expressionistic style of Avetisyan’s work. Unfortunately, many of the artist’s paintings were destroyed in a fire in 1972. On January 1 during the night, while Avetisyan was in Jajur with his family, his studio in Yerevan burned down, along with many of his best canvases. Three years later, in 1975 part of his wall-paintings were destroyed during the earthquake in Leninakan (Gyumri) and also destroyed the Minas Avetisian museum in his native Jajur village.

POETS UNITED - THE DOOR

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“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.” - Helen Keller

We live in a harsh age where people have become hardened and twisted, apathetic and callous. We live in times where values have been degraded so that the thing most valued is what can be sold for most money to the highest bidder. People close up like clams and their hearts shrivel up like mummified corpses. And we wonder why things keep going from bad to worse…

For those of us who still manage to feel, and empathise and remain open-hearted (at great personal risk), this world can seem to be nightmarish at the best of times, hellish at the worst. And yet we hope and we try to keep our openness at any cost. Poets United this week has the theme of “The Door”. My contribution below: 

Closed Doors 

Our doors are closed –
Just like our hearts –
For these are hard times,
Harder than corundum
Ready to grind down
Any trace of mercy.

Our doors are closed –
Just like our minds –
Free thought causes dissent,
Dissent is disunity
And disunity is weakness:
Far easier for prejudice and fear to rule.

Our doors are closed –
Just like our fists –
Clenched tight, ready to strike:
The best defence is swift attack,
Hit now, question later,
Collateral damage easy enough to justify.

Our doors are closed –
Just like our borders –
For we are pure and superior,
And we do not want to be tainted
By foreign blood,
Content in our incestuous decadence.

Our doors are closed –
But some of us leave the keys under the mat:
We of the generous open heart;
We of the free, open mind;
We of the outstretched open hand;
We of the open borders.

We wait for our door to open
And lay another plate on our table
For our food’s enough for one more.
We welcome change and progress
And we embrace the stranger
For our gods have taught us hospitality’s sacredness.

MOVIE MONDAY - RED

“I love conspiracy theories. I used to just live on it. You know it’s all hype and garbage, but you’re still really paranoid afterwards. It’s fun entertainment.” - Doug Stanhope

We watched an amusing film at the weekend. Pure escapist nonsense, but we weren’t in the mood for anything else and this one seemed to be just the thing. On reflection, it wasn’t quite politically correct and it gave conflicting messages, but it was enough of a spoof to give it the ultimate thumbs up. However, one has to worry about subliminal messages delivered and how these are perceived by younger audiences…

It was the 2010 Robert Schwentke comedy/action movie “RED”, starring Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, Rebecca Pidgeon, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine. Yes, the old familiar faces kept popping up throughout the movie. The screenplay was based on a graphic novel and one could detect the excesses of violence and action that these are replete with.

RED refers to “Retired, Extremely Dangerous” and this describes perfectly Francis, or Frank to his friends (Bruce Willis). He is a retired, bored, and lonely ex-CIA agent living off his government pension in an ordinary house in an ordinary suburb of an ordinary town. The only highlight in Frank’s life is his calls to the government pension processing centre when he gets to talk to his case worker, Sarah (Mary-Louis Parker). Sarah is as bored and lonely as Frank and marks her conversations with the unknown Frank and her spy novels as the only things fun in her life.

Suddenly out of the blue, Frank is attacked in his home by some armed CIA agents who obviously want him utterly dead. Frank’s old skills ensure he survives, but he goes to meet Sarah as he perceives she is also under threat. An initially reluctant Sarah is taken by Frank in tow as he tries to discover who wants them dead and why. Along the way, Frank’s ex-colleagues (Freeman, Malkovich, Mirren) join them and the intrigue is gradually uncovered. Along the way, the motley crew of REDs have to deal with CIA baddies Cooper (Urban) and Wilkes (Pidgeon) who are desperately trying to liquidate them.

The film is violent and there is a lot of use of weaponry of every description, meaning there are lots of bullets flying all the time, explosions, chases, bloody altercations, deaths and vaporisations. This action is quite extreme, to the extent that it resembles comic book violence although people are show to be injured and killed. Although there is presentation of a baddie as an illegal arms dealer, the use of lethal weaponry by the good guys is widespread as well. As I said this gave me a conflicting message and one has to question the film’s advocation of the use of weapons by “good guys” as a good thing. The whole USA gun-thing and the “right to bear arms” reared its ugly head, but we couldn’t be bothered to take issue with that.

The bottom line is, if the film is not taken seriously it is good entertainment value. The acting is good and the actors have fun with the excesses of the plot and the send-up of the whole action/spy/shoot-‘em-up genre. Willis has his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek as he plays a comedy part that sends up similar “serious” roles he played before, and Malkovich steals every scene he appears in, playing a mentally deranged conspiracy theorist who refuses to retire peacefully from the CIA. The direction is suitably light, but also tight and the action scenes are well staged and suspense does build up. There is a running joke with postcards from the places the REDs go to and the movie is almost like a road trip that wreaks havoc in every place they stop.

If you watch this film and expect Shakespeare, you’ll be disappointed. If you are on some high and mighty morality bandwagon you will abhor the movie, vilify the director, pour scorn on the actors and excommunicate the writers. If you are an intellectual and expect witticisms, subtle humour and delightful repartee, go watch a Shaw play. If you begin with low expectations, have an hour and a half to pass, take this film lightly and with a grain of salt, you’ll quite probably be entertained. It is a comic book tale for grown ups, requires no thinking and you’ll enjoy it as long as you suspend belief and engage in a forgiving move. Otherwise go watch an Ingmar Bergman film…

MOVIE MONDAY - THE LAST SUPPER

“Inside of many liberals is a fascist struggling to get out.” - John McCarthy

We watched a quirky little movie last weekend, Stacy Title’s 1995 movie, “The Last Supper”. It starred Cameron Diaz, Ron Eldard, Annabeth Gish, Jonathan Penner, Courtney B. Vance and Ron Perlman and the screenplay by Dan Rosen.

Jude (Diaz), Luke (Vance), Marc (Penner), Paulie (Gish) and Pete (Eldard) are liberal-minded grad students at a Iowa post-secondary institution who all share a house. Every Sunday for a year, they have hosted a dinner party, inviting a friend over to have an open-minded discussion about whatever topics are of interest to everyone. On a dark and stormy night when Pete was supposed to bring a friend to one of those dinners, he comes home with Zachary Cody (Bill Paxton), who rescued the stranded Pete when his car broke down. They invite Zach to stay to dinner instead of Pete’s missing friend.

They soon find out that Zach is among other things a racist neo-Nazi, which brings up a potentially dangerous situation for Jewish Marc and black Luke. After some physical altercations and verbal threats, Marc ends up stabbing Zach dead out of what he considers self-defence. As the friends discuss what to do about Zach, they finally come to the conclusion that in killing Zach, they have done society a service. So they ponder “why not invite other people who are society’s scum and get rid of them once and for all?” Things get our of hand…

The film is a black comedy but it does raise the important issue of political extremism – far left or far right, it doesn’t matter as the two extremes meet on common ground! The basic premise of the film, “would people be justified in murdering someone if they knew he was evil?” is illustrated by the typical time travel scenario, where the five dinner hosts ponder the question  “If you could travel back in time, would you kill Hitler before he rose to power, to prevent the extermination of millions?” The question in their mind finally becomes easy to answer as their dinner guests one by one are disposed and buried in the garden giving bumper tomato crops.

As well as being a tolerable comedy, it is on the second, more philosophical level, that the film really succeeds. The liberals become intolerant killers, revealing the dangers of political correctness and the very real possibility of a left-wing police state in which alternative views are crushed in the name liberal values… The liberals become as “evil” as the rednecks they are dispatching into the next world.

The acting is good, although some of the (now famous) actors were just starting their acting career then. It has a poppy sound track and good settings and overall it was a cerebral, subversive, intelligent, and thought-provoking comedy. Well worth watching if ti comes your way.

And by the way, if you could time travel, would you go back and kill baby Hitler?...

MOVIE MONDAY - BIR ÇOCUK SEVDIM

“Vulnerability is the essence of romance. It’s the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say, ‘This is me, and I’m interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all that I am but, more important, all that I am not.’ ” Ashton Kutcher

We have finished watching a 2011 Turkish TV series called “Bir Çocuk Sevdim” (literally “A Child I Loved”, but it could be also interpreted “A Girl I Loved” or “A Boy I Loved”). This was a well-produced and well-acted show with a host of talented stars and supporting cast. There were veteran actors like Çetin Tekindor and Bülent Inal, but also new talents like Gulcan Arslan making her TV debut in the starring role and Hakan Kurtas, the young male lead. We particularly enjoyed the performance of Sefika Tolun as the mother, Arzu Gamze Kilinç as the politically active aunt, Onuryay Evrentan as the psychologically challenged sister and the very talented youngster Ilayda Alisan. The series is set in Istanbul and there are many gorgeous external shots of this beautiful city making for some memorable scenes.

The plot is familiar enough for watchers of TV soaps, but there are several interesting subplots, which are developed well. The unfortunate thing about it is that the series finished abruptly (presumably because the plug was pulled) and the last episode finishes with a couple of cliff-hangers that are not resolved. Despite of its good quality of production and acting, the ratings must not have been high enough, or I wonder if the political subplot was one of the reasons that it was stopped…

In a nutshell, this is what it’s about: Turan (Çetin Tekindor) and Esmahan (Sefika Tolun) have three children: Emine the unmarried oldest daughter (Onuryay Evrentan), Erdal, a silly son (Ulas Torun) and Mine, the younger daughter (Gulcan Arslan) who is beautiful, clever and romantic. They seem to have a happy lower middle class family, notwithstanding some issues arising from Emine being jealous of Mine and being unable to get married. Mine is in love with Sinan (Hakan Kurtas), a young man from a rich family. Mine gets pregnant with Sinan’s baby and his parents send him away to the USA before he finds out about it, while Mine thinks he has abandoned her. Although Sinan tries to contact Mine, Emine scuttles this attempt.

Mine’s father is furious with his young daughter and conscious of the family’s reputation confines her to her room. His boss, the successful car dealer Timur (Bülent Inal) falls in love with Mine and proposes marriage, promising to look after her and the baby and telling Mine he does not expect her to share his bed. She accepts and she moves into his house having a separate locked bedroom. Timur has a teenage daughter, Merve (Ilayda Alisan) who resents Mine moving in and who proceeds to make life difficult for her.

The two important subplots centre on Mine’s aunt Sureya (Arzu Gamze Kilinç) who has lost her political insurgent husband after he was arrested for anti-government activities, and Emine the older sister who everyone takes for granted and acts like a spinster. Sureya’s search for her husband (or his grave) raises the issue of political freedom in Turkey and this may not have made the series too popular with government agencies. Emine’s transformation from a “spinster” to a predatory “vamp” is quite interesting to watch, and she plays the psychologically disturbed woman magnificently. A third thread in the plot follows the relationship of Mine’s father and mother and how they fare with the strains of having to deal with Mine’s (and Emine’s!) lapses from “socially acceptable” behaviour.

The Ibsen triangle of Mine, Timur and Sinan is interesting to observe, as is Mine’s transformation from a simple, romantic young girl into a mature, realistic and deeper thinking woman. Sinan, as the victim of a plot to foil his love and separate him from his son, is perhaps the most innocent of all the characters, but he remains relatively immature and perhaps the most devoted to the ideals of romantic first love. Timur as the worldly older man who nevertheless is not only in love, but loves Mine, will stop at nothing to ensure her happiness. He nevertheless does believe in the maxim “all’s fair in love and war”.

We enjoyed watching this series but the last (78th) episode was a little disappointing in that it prepared the ground for a second season that was never made. As I have written here previously, the Turkish TV series industry is fiercely competitive and the rating system is uncompromising as to dictating the fate of the shows that progress to multi-season hits.

POETS UNITED - SUFFRAGE

“Voting is a civic sacrament.” - TheodoreHesburgh

The theme of Poets United this week is political and social! Participants are asked to write a poem that exposes and/or challenges suffrage. A challenging theme perhaps, but I feel strongly about the right and responsibility to vote and this topic is particularly topical as we have recently had a cliffhanger of a Federal Election in which the Liberal incumbents were re-elected by a narrow margin. In Australia voting is compulsory and non-voters pay a fine. After some reflection, I wrote my poetical contribution which is given below:

My Vote

I don’t have time to vote –

Why should I anyway,

One vote won’t matter;

I’d rather pay the fine,

Than waste my time.

A drop in the ocean

Will not make a difference.

One drop more or less

Will hardly change the volume;

Yet the ocean is made up of so many drops.

One person cannot change the world –

So why should I bother?

My voice crying in the wilderness,

My words wasted…

And yet the voice of truth has many an attentive ear.

I made time to vote,

My vote was counted,

I was no donkey, no absentee.

That my candidate was not elected

Will not deter me from voting again, and again…

POETS UNITED - CITIZENSHIP

“I am neither an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” – Socrates

The theme for this week’s Poets United Midweek Motif is “Citizenship”. We live in turbulent times where the mass migration of people is in the news every day. Refugees; political or economic migrants; victims of persecution – religious or otherwise; oppressed people, homeless and desperate risk limb or life in order to find their place in the sun, a country that will accept them and where they can live their life in peace and with dignity.

Many years ago, my family had to leave Greece as the direct result of the political situation in Greece at the time. We resettled in Australia. Had we not left, my parents could have been the victims of the regime of the Colonels’ Junta that was characterised by its intolerance, cruelty, violence, injustice, fanaticism and boundless tyranny. Australia welcomed my family and provided an asylum that allowed us to prosper and contribute meaningfully and valuably to its community and society.

I consider myself a Greek-Australian and although I have never denied or betrayed my country of origin, my allegiance is to the country that accepted my family in our time of need. Sometimes people here ask me what would happen if Australia and Greece were at war. Which country would I support? The question is hypothetical but in such a case neutrality would be my only option. I would be one of the conscientious objectors who would try to convince both sides of the futility of war…

I an Australian citizen who happens to have been born in Greece and who lived the first ten years of his life there. I am neither a Greek nor an Australian, but a citizen of the world…

Citizenship

My homeland is betrayed

By a leader whose bloody reign

Has robbed my children

Of their carefree games

In playgrounds that have been blown up by bombs.

My hometown unrecognisable,

By degrees destroyed

As fractious factions

Escalate the violence

So easily destroying what was painstakingly built.

My home has been made rubble

By my neighbours

Whose loyalties changed,

And from childhood friends

They’ve become bitter enemies out to kill.

We leave it all behind us,

Risking our lives and willingly sacrifice all,

To search for a better place

Where children can smile again

And where my family may live, or maybe even prosper.

I renounce my allegiance,

Tear up my citizenship

Relinquish my nationality,

Abandon all that ties me

To that hellish place I once called proudly home.

Let my erstwhile compatriots

Wielding power call me a traitor;

Let my defection be condemned

By fanatics who take the name of my God in vain.

I am a citizen of the peaceful place that will accept me

And I am willing to work my fingers to the bone

To make there a better world, build a new home

A place where life is worth living again.

Here is a wonderful piece by Ariel Ramirez, “La Peregrinacion” from “Missa Criolla” telling of the flight of a persecuted family to try and find a haven away from the wrath of a mad king - Joseph and Mary and the Christchild escaping to Egypt…

POETS UNITED - MARRIAGE

“Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.” - Charles de Gaulle

This week, PoetsUnited has as its theme “Marriage”. My take on this motif is a little unconventional. Here is my offering:

A Marriage of Convenience

The wily politician, has ample words;

So many words that spout forth seductively:

A demagogue inciting followers effortlessly

To ill-advised and thoughtless actions.

He espouses home-grown values,

Homeland, family, religion all uppermost

In his diatribes, while hypocrite that he is,

Has secret vices that make even the broad-minded blush.

His actions wedded to his specious arguments,

Ostensibly show him to be the champion of freedom,

But really fan flames of hatred, bigotry, intolerance

And lead the masses to violent altercations.

He flaunts his trophy wife at every opportunity,

And uses her to gain political advantage,

To further his nefarious aspirations

And breed his dynasty, ensuring a line of succession.

A liar pledging his troth easily

To any cause that furthers his designs,

All his untruths are easily swallowed by the gullible,

Allowing him to quickly ascend the staircases of power.

The politician marries his public office

In a marriage of convenience,

And as we the people, officiate the travesty,

We give him free reign to do as he will with our lives…

The painting above is “The Orator”, by Magnus Zeller (Germany, 1888-1972), painted circa 1920.

MOVIE MONDAY - Z

“That government is best which governs least.” - Henry David Thoreau

One of my strongest childhood memories concerns the early morning on the 21^st of April of 1967 when we were living in Athens. We were awakened by the noise of tanks rumbling on the city streets outside our windows, punctuated by a few distant shots being fired now and then. We rushed to the window and saw the soldiers and tanks marching on the street below and as we turned the radio a blare of military marching band music was enough to realise our worse fears. A coup had been staged by a group of colonels of the Greek army and the democratic government was deposed. The king had been put under observation in the palace. Within a few weeks the country was under the fist of a military dictatorship...

I remember this very vividly today, even though I was only nine years old at the time. I am thinking of how many more such dictatorships are in place around the world. Central and South America have had a string of such juntas to contend with and each new coup brings with it arrests of dissenters, torture, murder, destruction. Tyrants and dictators never seem to be in short supply and the trail of destruction they leave behind them scars a country and its people for decades after they are deposed.

The situation in Myanmar has only just started to resolve itself following the first free elections for 25 years. These polls are the first openly-contested election held in the country since 1990, which was annulled by the military government after the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) victory. The poll was preceded by the 2010 General Election, which was marred by a widespread boycott and allegations of systematic fraud by the victorious USDP.

On 11 November 2015, chairperson of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, called for “national reconciliation” talks with incumbent president, Thein Sein, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Shwe Mann to be set for a later date. All accepted her invitation.

On 12 November 2015, incumbent President of Myanmar, Thein Sein, who has led political reforms during his tenure, congratulated Aung San Suu Kyi and her party on his Facebook, promising that his current government will “respect and obey” the election results and “transfer power peacefully”. Commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, also took to Facebook to congratulate Ms Suu Kyi, vowing that the Tatmadaw will co-operate with the new government following the transition. This was after a meeting conducted within the Tatmadaw’s top ranks.

US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Suu Kyi on her victory and praised Thein Sein for his organisation of the election. Suu Kyi also received calls from French President François Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But what has all this to do with Movie Monday, you may ask… Read on!

The novel “Z” byVasilis Vasilikos is a novel based on fact and centres on the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, a left-wing politician and dissenter during the early 1960s. Vasilikos has written a fictionalised account of the assassination, but it is thinly veiled and the work of fiction describes actual political realities and historical events that can be seen for what they are by anyone familiar with the actual events.

Although Vasilikos is not writing history, he is intent on setting the record straight. A record that was whitewashed by the right wing governments in power after the murder and also of course by the military junta that came in power in 1967. It is a powerful novel and despite it being based on actual events, it is not a simple “newspaper report-type” documentary, it is a worthy work of fiction that obeys the rule of engaging narrative fiction.

The novel was made into an equally famous movie (“Z”) by Costas Gavras in 1969 and it starred Yves Montand, Irene Pappas and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film is an excellent adaptation of the novel and is a great thriller. An added bonus is a fantastic soundtrack by Mikis Theodorakis, a Greek composer who certainly had his own personal bitter experiences as a political prisoner to draw inspiration from.

The film was nominated for a large number of awards, including an Oscar for Best Picture, (winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film). It also won the Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Language Picture, and is named best picture by the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and National Society of Film Critics Awards. The film was also nominated for a Golden Palm award at the Cannes film festival. The film was banned in Greece as was the soundtrack during the Colonels’ rule. The film ends with a list of things banned by the Junta which include the peace movement, strikes, labor unions, long hair on men, mini-skirts, the peace symbol, the Beatles, Sophocles, Tolstoy, Aeschylus, Socrates, Eugene Ionesco, Sartre, Chekhov, Mark Twain, Samuel Beckett, free press, new mathematics and the letter Z, which pronounced as “zee” means 'he lives' in Greek...