A Life like Melania

After a weekend of more turmoil caused by Donald Trump' administration, I wondered if I should find something else to write about today.  I actually have an idea for a different post.  But I strongly feel that in the current world political situation, numbers of voices are everything.  We must stand up and be counted or watch our nations slide back to the Thirties.  If we get bored with talking about it all, we will fall into a lethargy which will perpetuate Trump's regime and allow Europe to slide too.

So here is a voice, a thought.  Yesterday I saw a photo of a protester in New York.  Her sign said 'Without immigration, Trump would have no wives'.  Strictly speaking, he would have had Marla Maples and one child but you get the point.

Nothing has really been said about the fact that the new First Lady is an immigrant though, has it?  Not nasty stuff in the mainstream media.  (That I can find anyway. ) And this, it seems to me, is because in a civilised multi-cultural society, we don't comment on such things.  A person's background does not define them.  My children have acquaintances with parents from various countries.  Some of these children themselves were not born in the UK.  My husband and I both have immigrants in our family histories.   No Western country is 'pure bred' despite the Nazis' best efforts.

Melania Trump only became a permanent US resident in 2001.  Probably less time than a lot of the people currently fearing for their residencies simply because of their religion.  She is the first foreign-born First Lady since 1825.  But in normal circumstances, who cares?  She went to the US to make a home and a new life.  Without commenting on who she chose to make that life with (!), we can definitely say that she was entitled to do so.  But so are others, regardless of religion or colour or sex.  Those things shape us and contribute to our identities but should never be a factor in where we can go, who we can see or what we can do with our lives. 

As I said last week, we need momentum now.  Keep protesting, keeping sharing the petitions and the latest news, keep fighting back.  Our ancestors knew right from wrong and they fought the Nazis.  It is a short step from banning people and curtailing their rights to imprisonment or worse.  It has happened before and must not happen again.

Bubble Momentum

We were told, after Brexit, to get out of our bubbles.  Apparently, we were all only preaching to the converted.  Both in person and on social media.  Looking at my own posts, I definitely felt this to be true on social media.  I had shared and shared stuff in favour of Remain.  But actually I was just exchanging stuff with like-minded individuals.  Not changing anyone's mind.  

I always worry about tweeting something which accidentally attracts mass vitriol.  I don't know who I think I am going to reach, in that vast twittering ether but anyway.  I have, however, been making a point of reading more of the 'opposition' social media traffic. It is mostly, in my opinion, horrific.  The opinions being expressed are the antithesis of my own feelings.

But it is quite clear that many of these people are just as well organised as the more liberal-minded of us.  And their lack of empathy for others means they are far more likely to use the most appalling language and to express the most outrageous opinions on social media.  A mass of shock jocks, vying to cause the most offence.  Led by Trump, whose position gives permission for such behaviour by others.  People who believe in fairness and honesty are more reluctant to offend in my experience.

Some of the tweets and other pronouncements rejoicing at the end of Obama's presidency and the installation of Trump have been sickening in their ferocity.  I am not for a minute suggesting fighting fire with fire.  But the opposition does need to organise.  The same needs to happen in the UK.  It is not just about lack of effective political opposition anymore.  It is about developing a presence, a language which will appeal to those tempted by racism, sexism, etc.  Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins, for example, are despicable but their voices are being heard.

The Women's Marches this last weekend were angry enough and well organised enough to be a start.  Momentum is now the key.  In the US, Trump forms a focus for the anger.  In Europe we need to turn our focus onto the Far Right and organise before it is too late.  Trump is in power and it is going to take quite something to unseat him.  In Europe we have an opportunity to prevent his like from gaining power in the first place.  And that means coming out of our bubbles fighting.

Hold On

For the last few months - and for many reasons -  I have been doing some work on myself, for want of a better phrase.  Rest assured, I have not been dabbling in plastic surgery.  It has been more about my general well-being.  Both mental and physical.

One of the strands which I have been pursuing is the idea of being true to how we actually feel about something.  I have not been good at believing in my right to feel angry or upset.  But I am getting better at holding onto and validating my feelings.

The current news climate, though, has caused me to think that we are all going to have to get better at this. We must not allow ourselves to be convinced by politicians or certain news outlets that our initial feelings of revulsion or anger about something are wrong.  We have to hang on to what we know to be true, to be right, to be fair.

In Nazi Germany, the necessary majority of people were gradually convinced - by way of an improving economy and much militaristic posturing - that the disappearance of the Jews, of the disabled, of any effective opposition was a good thing.  That it was for the greater good.  The Nazis didn't have social media but they had stupendous propaganda.  It was the ultimate in fake news, surely?

Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes was a brilliant example of holding on to how something had really and truly made her feel.  And she used that to show the kind of behaviour we are up against.  Not just in the US either.  Brexit in the UK and the rise of politicians like Marine Le Pen in France have allowed all sorts of horrific things to be said and done which are just plain wrong.  To say nothing of our general malaise towards the continuing situations in the Middle East.

I believe in free speech and honest exchanges of opinions.  But no one, whatever their political colouring, should be allowed to use gender, race, religion or other human characteristics to attack their opponents.  If you do not have the wit and intelligence to put together a coherent, fact-based and fair argument, you should not be in public life.


[Not a family history post but one for our descendants maybe...]

January's here again

Holidays are a funny thing in family history.  All those of a certain age generally have so many photos from our childhoods which are of holidays.  Virtually no-one carried a camera 24/7 like they do now.  So the camera was particularly taken on holidays.  The photos show groups of people gathered on beaches, up mountains, round tables, in boats, etc.  Doesn't life look marvellous, we think.

Yet holidays are like little bubbles in a lifetime.  There is nothing normal about them.  That's the whole point.  You are often with people who you don't get to spend much time with ordinarily.  You are plonked down in mainly unfamiliar places.  Eating unusual food and trying new activities.  Or maybe not.  Maybe all your family photos are of gatherings in the same place every year, with the only perceptible difference being in the ages/quantities of people.

Whatever your family albums show, unless your ancestors were pretty wealthy, it is only in the last century - but more likely fifty years - that people have taken holidays as we would recognise them.  We owe a lot to the fight for workers' rights, whatever our politics!  Imagine if 2017 people only got one day off per month, like many in domestic service did only a century ago.

Now taking a holiday will always be a privilege and goodness knows, there are far more people in the world who do not have that privilege than those who do.   But making good memories, however or wherever we choose to doit, is vital to our well being in my opinion.  The booking gives you something to look forward to.  The return, after the initial shock (!), gives you memories to sustain you until the next time.  No wonder January blues start to kick in on about the 27th of December.  The build-up to Christmas and then flat spirits and fat bodies descend.  

This week, everyone seems to be talking either about diets and gyms or holidays.  Or both.  Including me, clearly....

British Values Day

Not written for a few weeks as you will have gathered.  Was really not sure what to say after Trump's victory on top of the rest of the weirdness in 2016.  However, I have been shaken from my lethargy by the appearance on our school calendar of 'British Values Day'.

We have not been told what this encompasses but it rang major alarm bells for me in the wake of Brexit.  A friend who is a school governor elsewhere says it's about tolerance and decency and so on and therefore should be embedded more into the curriculum on a daily basis.  She was surprised to see a whole day labelled this way.  As was I.

I come, as my regular reader (not sure if there is plural here!) will know, from an Anglo Indian background on my father's side.  I have done a great deal of family research and general reading about these mixed race people.  Early soldiers and male settlers were actively encouraged to integrate into India by taking native wives.  But the offspring of these partnerships gradually were prevented from marrying white settlers themselves and ended marrying within their own community.  But they were (are) Christian, Europeanised in dress and manners and not well received by the Indian population.  Mainly because the British used the Anglo Indians to prop up their rule of the sub-continent.  Railways, Post Office, telegraph systems, lower civil service levels - the nuts and bolts of the administration.  But socially the Anglo Indians were discriminated against by the British for their colour.  So 'British Values' changed over the course of the occupation of India, to accommodate whatever best suited those trying to maintain the Empire.  These chameleon tendencies are a pattern of all governments - whatever their political flavour - as they seek to control populations and advance their own agendas.

Why, for example, we are now classing basic human characteristics such as tolerance and decency as 'British Values'?  Does our government believe that enforcing a nationalistic tone in schools will drown out the news which our children are bombarded with elsewhere?  Of ministers refusing to help refugees.  Of cuts to all the services which children see around them - from doctors surgeries and hospitals to libraries or museums.  Of open racism.  

'You are British, children.  That is the best thing to be.'  Repeat until you are convinced and ignore the evidence to the contrary.

And how does our media fit into 'British Values'?  The gulf between headlines continues to grow.  The spin taken on different issues varies madly.  If you took your British Values from the Daily Mail, where would you be?  Some of their current stuff is beginning to look horribly like the pre-First World War headlines as regards antagonising Putin and Russia.

I am all for teaching our children tolerance, respect etc.  But in the current climate I am definitely not convinced that adding a 'British' aspect is helpful.

Remember, Remember

I was at a Guy Fawkes' Night bonfire on Saturday.  Number of strands to blog from this but I can't think how to tie them all together.  So here are my random thoughts:

1)  I found myself thinking 'it's like Beirut round here!' when every garden in the area was letting off fireworks.  Then realised what a child of the 70s and 80s I am.  There was always war and terrorism in Lebanon when I was a child and that was a regular Guy Fawkes comment by the adults.  I suppose it would be Aleppo or Mosul now but it seemed terribly inappropriate to say, when we know about the suffering being caused.  And there we were, all covering our ears and laughing and telling everyone not to stand too close.  We have no idea about being under fire for real.

2)  It has since occurred to me that we were supposed to be celebrating victory over a terrorist plot.  The Catholic plotters of 5 November wanted to blow up King James I and parliament.  But if our press is to be believed (!), there is nothing to value in parliament these days  Apparently there is no need for parliament to even debate the Brexit agreement because 'the people have spoken'.  Except they haven't really.  Not completely and overwhelmingly.  More like just about sneaked it because a large number couldn't be bothered to vote at all.  Unlike in 1605, our monarch does not have power over parliament.  We all sing God Save the Queen but really it should be God Save Democracy and Free Speech.  And God Save our Independent Judiciary. 

3)  To this day, no-one really knows if Guy Fawkes was fully implicated in the 1605 plot.  But he was the man caught, tortured and put to death in an attempt to forestall any further Catholic plots.  We read about his torture and execution with gritted teeth.  'How could they?' 'How awful!'  Yet torture remains as much a part of life in many places as it ever was in Stuart England.  And now the threat of it is permeating our society in new ways.  The woman who funded the court case for a parliamentary Brexit debate has been threatened with gang rape and beheading.  Rapes and serial killings - particularly against women - are continual 'entertainment' on our television channels.  Documentaries, contemporary drama and historical drama are all getting ever more explicit.  The news is full of ISIS torture and murder.  Are we therefore desensitised to a point where threatening such violence is acceptable?  How did we allow this to happen in a civilised society?

4)  By the time I blog again, we will finally know who is the new President of the USA.  Many bonfires in the UK used Trump effigies as their guys this year for the comedic value.  Let us hope that we can still find comedic value if he actually wins.  I strongly suspect that there will be nothing to laugh about if he gets into the Oval Office.

And as a family history 'by the way', be careful what you Google for.  I typed in a weird disease name from an Indian death record yesterday.  I was faced with the most horrible list of porn sites I have every seen!  I did eventually work out what the certificate should have said but be warned!!!!

Victorian 2016

Recently I have been watching BBC2's The Victorian Slum on catch-up on iPlayer.  It follows a group of people who have volunteered to live in a mock up of a slum and each episode has followed a different decade.  1860s onwards.

I highly recommend the programmes.  A number of the participants have actually traced that they had relatives who lived in such areas but all of the people have been very affected by what they have experienced.  One man, for example, volunteered to give up his prosthetic leg and to manage with a peg leg for the entirety of the experiment.  

The programmes have introduced immigrants at the relevant points (Irish escaping the famines, Jews escaping the pogroms in Russia) and have also given social history asides via a presenter.  The sick, the old, the disabled stood no chance of making enough money to survive.  The debt cycle was never-ending.

And looking at the reactions on Twitter, I think many viewers have drawn similar conclusions to me.  

Namely, just how close are we to such appalling circumstances being repeated now?  By the 1870s, there were people actually campaigning to take away such poor relief as there was, despite cities over flowing with people in need.  There was a strong belief in the idea of the deserving poor versus the feckless, undeserving poor.  Racism was endemic.  And all of the available assistance was presided over by 'boards' of white middle class men who sat in judgement over those forced to go cap in hand in order to survive.  All sounding a bit close to 2016, isn't it?

Here in York, an initiative took off last year called Xmas Presence.  It started as someone's attempt to provide a really good Christmas Day for a small number of people who would otherwise be alone and  ended up as a fantastic event, with food, drink, gifts, entertainment and many local people involved - as helpers, providers and guests.  It will hopefully be even bigger this year.

This week, someone wrote to our local paper complaining at the use of 'Xmas' instead of 'Christmas' in the title of this initiative - 'what a pity the title is another step towards losing the real meaning of Christmas'.

Ian Donaghy, the amazing founder of Xmas Presence, wrote a wonderful reply about inclusivity, ending that he wondered what Jesus would think of the work being done.

We are still battling with the idea of 'deserving poor v undeserving'.  Our media endlessly promote these ideas.  Whether it be attempts to dehumanise the refugees stranded in Calais or the 'can't pay, we'll take it away' style of reality television (such programmes are far too close to the wealthy Victorians' sightseeing trips into the slums for my liking).  Our government is constantly attacking the welfare system and underfunding the NHS and is now making a concerted effort to break equal education.  When Brexit finally takes place,  many of the laws which currently protect our remaining rights will be up for grabs.

I think Jesus would be delighted at Xmas Presence, of course.  But he would, and we should all, be appalled at what is happening in our society.  And our Victorian ancestors would be amazed that so many fundamentals haven't changed.

Beat the Uncertainty

Every day at the moment seems to bring some new hit of bad news or prediction of future problems.  It feels almost overwhelming.  India Knight wrote recently in The Sunday Times that Strictly Come Dancing was providing her with the only light relief to be had at the moment.  All sequins and sparkle and fluff but she would take her respite from the news where she could get it.  And I quite agree.

Sometimes I long for a time travelling device.  I have always wanted to go to the past before now, should I get such a machine.  But now I just want the US election over, Brexit done in whatever manner.  The uncertainty is horrendous.  I want to visit, say, 2020 and just check what has happened.  So I can mentally prepare myself and my family for whatever is going to happen over the next four drawn out years.  To say nothing of knowing what has taken place in the Middle East, Russia, etc.

Normally I say to my children that they should not be wishing time away.  And I do still stand by that mantra.  We should live in the moment and enjoy life to the best of our ability.  Enjoy the small pleasures.  The trouble at the moment is, it is increasingly hard to enjoy the small things when such huge beyond-our-control decisions loom over us.  Booking a holiday?  Oh, well it might cost you twice as much as you thought by the time it comes round but hey, that's Brexit-land for you.  

And it is not just the small pleasures.  It is the everyday life decisions which are being affected.  Education, employment, future finances, care for the elderly, the health service.  Thanks to the selfish decisions made by arrogant politicians, our country has been thrown into indecision and chaos.  And it is worsening day by day.

I have often wondered what it was like for my family in India during the time preceding Partition.  The uncertainty, that is.  Partition led to one of the biggest mass movements of people ever seen and also to horrifying violence.  Its 'design' was mainly based on decisions by ill-informed, arrogant politicians and civil servants.  Sounding familiar?

Sick of the uncertainty as I am though, I do actually believe it is vital to remain engaged in what is going on, no matter how painful.  There is little political opposition of worth in the UK at present.  It is up to all of us therefore to keep up the pressure for transparency (and common sense!).  Much as it is tempting to sink in the mire of bad news, we should be making our voices heard as loudly as we possibly can rather than admitting defeat.

The Curious Case of Kim K

In a world where thousands of people are dying everyday in unnecessary wars, where the resources of the planet are far from equally shared and where we seem to have a major leadership crisis, apparently one rich (mainly naked) woman being held up and robbed at gunpoint is worthy of major news items on all media sources this morning.

Kim Kardashian.  That juggernaut of celebrity for celebrity's sake has been robbed - but not harmed - in her hotel room in Paris.  Twitter is divided between her fans saying 'she is a mother, wife and daughter' like anyone else and many from the US pointing out how many black people are being shot on a daily basis in the States.  Interestingly for a UK person, many US tweeters are also saying how they too have experience of gunpoint robberies and feel sorry for it to happen to Ms Kardashian/Mrs Kardashian-West (or whatever she calls herself).

How have we reached this point?  The woman has been in Paris for 'fashion week', although wearing less and less clothes every day.  Her every move is followed by an enormous press pack and millions on social media.  But I just don't understand what she 'does'.  She became famous for a 'reality' TV programme and a sex tape but has accumulated vast wealth.  But she makes no attempt to use her 'power' for good.  Other than a brief self-interested dabble in Armenian politics and history (funnily enough for this blog, her family tree is Armenian connected), she does not seem to comment on anything contentious. Let alone encourage her millions of followers to help society in any way.

In the days before social media, Princess Diana made a conscious decision that if she was to be followed by a massive press pack for the rest of her days, she would at least give them some issues to think about while they were trailing after her.  Via their coverage, she was able to raise world issues such as the landmines crisis by barely uttering a word.  Of course, the irony is that she died trying to escape the press pack.  In Paris.

But that sad fact aside, I think we should now hope that this experience will cause Kim Kardashian to finally say something of use to the world.  She could now properly make a statement about the effects of gun crime.  Apparently she is traumatised - as you would be - by the experience.  Her cameras (and where were they at the time...?) should record the effects of the trauma.  And then she should begin to strongly campaign for gun controls in the US and put her influence to good use for once.  Rather than to sell stuff or show off her quite bizarre backside.

And if she wants to perform a service to the world rather than just the US, she should link her gun control campaign to a plea for people not to vote for Donald Trump.  

Imagine.  Kim Kardashian saves the world.  Now that would be a headline.

The Big Read

Not managed a proper post this week.  Not that there isn't plenty to talk about.  There is just not plenty of time in the day!  However, I did just want to recommend something.  In York this autumn, we have something called The Big Read.  The library people have organised these before - getting lots of free copies of a book and doing events based around its themes.

 

However, next week, the 2016 Big Read opens and they have chosen Renegeration by Pat Barker.  It is the first of a trilogy and is about the First World War.  It is not a new book but it is a wonderful book.  If you are a York reader of this blog, copies of the book are available from our libraries from 5 October.  The many events are already booking though - including a couple of visits from Pat Barker herself.

 

And if you are not in York, I highly recommend, in these days of 'the big society' having to run its own libraries, such an event.  Every museum and many organisations in the city are contributing and it promises to be a fantastic event.

 

With a thread true to the heart of this blog, they are also taking the opportunity to look at modern links to the themes of Regeneration, such as mental well-being.

 

http://www.exploreyork.org.uk/bigcityread/