New Year Bardocrat

The long and the short of it: a long (and different) way to look at our climate, followed by a short way to look at cooking trends - if you'll forgive the pun.

Climatitis

One day upon an ancient mossy rock

Old Everyman sat down and there took stock.

He sighed and thought he’d deeply think.

Though body tired,

His mind inquired:“What’s brought us to the brink?

“Across the globe all nations are at war,

Man’s flesh is cut and bleeding, red and raw,

Disease is racking him, and few

Are those that know

Which way to go,

Still fewer what to do.

“Yet if that were not bad enough, there’s worse:

So many folk believe the weather’s cursed –

Because of man’s stupidity.

Once a steward,

Now a coward

Acting with cupidity.”

To heaven, then, he cast his troubled words.

So strong they were that even rocks him heard:

“Dear Guardians of the Universe,

What’s to be done

With ape Mark One?

Can’t you his works reverse?”

To Everyman’s surprise, a voice arose;

Wherefrom it came he couldn’t then suppose:

One moment on the air it seemed;

Then from the ground;

Then all around:

Or yet a waking dream?

It seemed a voice so deep, so wise, so old,

Filled with authority, its purpose bold.

He dropped his pleas and cast about.

“Identify

 Your mystery ‘I’!”

So Everyman did shout.

“I am the Rock of Sages! That is who –

The mossy stool you sat upon.  Now, you,

Do me a favour; listen well.

I have no care

For this despair:

Man’s lot is not a hell.

“In one sense only might that be:  that time

When in a garden you did dwell; when crime

Had not been instigated there;

And what you ate

Required no plate.

That age was said to be your prime.

“But some men twist things; so you need to know:

Not disobedience was the fatal blow;

‘Twas Evolution’s wily plan.

That garden life

With fawning wife

Was just no life for man.

“Out in the world your place and purpose lies.

Where action, striving leads to enterprise –

Not inward vegetating more:

Yet this accept:

To be adept

Pain, suffering will haunt your door.

“What you see now and think is hell is just

Cause and Effect.  This, over time, like lust,

Fades when its object slips from sight.

A ripple caused

Cannot be paused.

Willed blindness is your greatest plight.

“Now, Everyman, it’s true what you did say:

Man’s lot is poor; he’s sure had better days,

When ethics, morals guided him.

But other things

Pluck at his wings,

All from a time now very dim.

“Just now you sat on me.  I sit on earth.

But long ago, beneath the sea, my worth

Was but the shell around a snail.

Eons from then,

Long before men,

The earth convulsed, Crustacea failed.

“Old Evolution’s plan was moving on;

My subterranean life would soon be gone,

Up out the water to the sky;

Raised up I was.

But why?  Because

That’s life.  Your lot’s to reason why.

“Instead, what do we see around the world?

Neurosis, fear, unreason blindly hurled

At every statement that casts doubt

On what’s agreed

By media feed

From pundits with the loudest shout.

“A leaf falls off a bush on hot atoll;

Split second later in cold northern Mall

A picture flashes from a phone.

‘See, Doomsday’s near –

Perhaps next year.

Text your MP until he groans!’

“A typhoon gathers strength far out to sea;

Straight way the wonders of technology

Are tracking it and hacking it.

‘We’re doomed!’ they cry.

Then it goes by.

‘Armageddon’s missed us – shit!’

“Deep in the earth tectonic plates collide;

Tsunamis race inland, and far and wide

Calamity! men cry. Why us?

We’re good and true;

No harm we do.

Maybe it’s all down to our lust?

“Yourselves you flatter, vainest man, if thought

You think might be the cause of all that’s wrought

Around the sphere of human things.

Outside of you

A greater view,

A greater mind pulls all the strings.

“You fret and worry over what you do –

And, yes, it’s good to have a gentle view –

But in the end the Earth has dreams:

You hate changes!

Heaven arranges:

So nothing’s ever what it seems.

“What is to you fire, flood and chaos dire

Are parts integral of the Earth’s attire,

Which change on cycles eons long.

Changing bad ways

May improve days.

But men’s lives are shorter than songs.”

The Rock of Sages paused and spoke no more

Because another voice its will implored:

A tiny squeaky, raspy voice, and frail;

From out the moss,

By sun embossed,

The voice had head and legs and tail.

It was a lizard resting on the rock;

His eyes half closed, his narrow head half cocked.

His tongue flicked out between each word;

To Everyman

He then began:

“It’s true, all you just heard.

“Man’s life is no more than a fleeting play,

Intense and meaningful, but just next day

Played somewhere else on diff’rent stage,

Principal parts

Trying new arts,

Life’s fleeting audience to engage.

“And when Rock speaks of changes great and dire,

You need but think of my old savage kin:  fire

And flood and violent death did it for them

When comet strike

Killed all their types.

Did they or I the Gods condemn?

“No! No! Those left, they changed – O bon courage!

Some shrank to dwell in nooks; some camouflaged

Themselves to blend with rocks and leaves;

Some pseudo-wings

Grew – tactic things.

But none resents their past, nor grieves.”

“So true!” a new voice trilled.  “I’ll second that.

My own long history shows this caveat:

Don’t fear what change presents to you.

Once just like him,

My ancient kin

Grew feathers, and with them they flew.

“As well they did, for when the Ice Age came,

Their lands were frozen.  But they didn’t blame

Themselves or God.  They used their wings

To migrate South

And feed their mouths.

They blessed their modified new limbs.”

Old Everyman was shocked by what he’d heard:

A speaking rock, wise lizard, now a bird –

All baring man’s disease, his daily fears:

Disaster’s grips,

Apocalypse.

“They’re natural cycles of the spheres!

“Of course!” he cried, applauding all they said.

How foolish of us, every day in dread

Of what may come and what may not.

Seems we measure

Future pleasure

By those few years we call man’s lot.

“Change things we can; indeed, some things we must.

With greater changes we must put our trust

In evolution’s deep designs.

Through every blow

We all must know

A distant compensation shines.”

Old Everyman he walked away and smiled.

He thanked them for the time they had beguiled:

The Rock, the Reptile and the Bird.

“I’ve learned so much

I’m now in touch

With the real purpose of the World.”

Crambe Repetita

The Chef, he grills with meat and fat;

His body’s built so stockily

Because, although he loves all that –

His steak and chips, his bacon bits –

He seldom eats his broccoli.

He likes his stir-fries crisp and hot;

He cooks them very wokily;

But even though he eats the lot –

His tofu chunks, his tuna hunks –

He often leaves his broccoli.

The athlete healthily he eats;

All sickly souls he mockily

Their junk-food nosh deletes:

“You burgers eat and chicken feet!”

But does he eat his broccoli?

The rich they eat up everyone;

On all they have monopoly;

They own our souls our food our fun;

They eat the earth and leave us dearth –

Yet rarely eat their broccoli.

The cabbage caterpillar’s pleased:

While all men war, he shockily

Fills out his skin at ease

In that cool dome of green, unseen,

He always eats his broccoli.

Earlier this month came the tenth anniversary of the appalling assault on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, which for years has poked fun at many institutions, including religion. My co-blogger Satyrista has kindly agreed to let me post the following piece in his name. His own contribution and commentary will follow next month.

Je Suis Charlie!

     Distance.  The Jihadis are distanced from their ancestral desert lands.  Right-wing activists have distanced themselves from the root of their compatriots’ policies of appeasement.  Left-wing policy-makers are far from a proper understanding of Jihadism.  Moderate Muslims are far from understanding the countries they inhabit.  Moderate Westerners are far from understanding Muslim thinking.

     How to get closer to understanding?  Take a different perspective. 

     Once Muslims become a substantial minority in any western society, politicians ingratiate themselves into their culture to solicit their vote; and invariably they do this without any knowledge of the Koran – rather like arguing over the technicalities of driving a car on the road when you have never read the Highway Code.  This leads eventually to changes in the country’s laws which discourage debate because native dissenters may be charged with inciting religious hatred; before long, every public figure is terrified into silence whenever faced with community dissent:  they daren’t say anything that might upset Islam.  The BBC is one of many culpable victims of this corporate response. The incumbent Labour government is a political example.  Currently, there is a dispute in UK about the failure of police to pursue a swathe of charges levelled against a band of Pakistanis (mostly Muslims) involving the grooming of teenage girls – because it was feared that this would excite charges of racism and Islamophobia.

     Now go far from Europe.  Visit any Muslim country and ask three simple interrelated questions: (1) May I practise my non-Islamic faith, or my lack of faith, here in peace?  (2) If LGBTQ will I live unmolested? (3) May I solicit the local Islamic authorities if I have a grievance?

     The answer to all these questions is a resounding Non! 

     In my old country, Britain, as in the rest of western society, Muslims are free to build mosques, worship openly, run Islamic businesses, insist on halal foods, subjugate their women, and express their grievances whenever they wish via the Muslim Council and similar institutions – all without fear of criticism or reprisal.  Much the same is true in the Philippines where I have lived for many years.  In fact, here in this pious and overwhelmingly Christian country, the Aquino government went further.  It awarded a public holiday for Ramadan. Duterte awarded another for the Eid.

      Far out!  No such complements are awarded to Christians or other non-Islamic peoples in Muslim countries, as Pope Francis hinted in his last Christmas message.  None of the 52 Muslim countries worldwide permit any non-Islamic religion to set up a Council.

     In Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim community, Christians are a small minority.  Despite assurances from government, Christian worshippers are regularly harassed and intimidated.  One community whose church had frequently been attacked took to holding their services outside the church – until local Muslims openly humiliated them, hurling insults, and even urinating into the church compound, some of it recorded on video.  They receive no holidays or other dispensations from the Indonesian government. The former mayor of Jakarta, ‘Ahok’ Purnama – ethnically Chinese, and a Christian – was jailed in 2017 for quoting (correctly) from the Koran.  He was released in 2019.  During his trial, thousands of so-called moderate Muslims thronged the streets – baying for him to be hanged. 

     Turkey’s politically corrected secular face – the one on the glitzy ‘Holiday-in-Turkiye’ promotions – claims that its minority Christian community is protected.  Why then has Erdogan converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque?  Why are churches all over Turkey being converted to mosques (including one in Izmir quite recently)?  And why then do Turkey’s own laws prohibit the repair of non-Islamic buildings without government permission?  If a wall crumbles in an ancient church, it may not be repaired without a lengthy bureaucratic process, a fiendish device which results in destruction by neglect:  the slow eradication of a religion which, like Zoroastrianism and Judaism, was in Turkey centuries before Islam.  Imagine if a tile fell off a mosque in Surrey or Melbourne, and when an artisan arrived to replace it, an official from the local authority appeared and vetoed the procedure!

     Egypt has similar laws.  All new religious buildings require the signature of the President.  In his thirty years of rule, Mubarak sanctioned many Islamic buildings, including mosques, but not a single Christian structure.  The churches and congregations of Egypt’s Coptic Christians (who pre-date Islam by more than 600 years) are frequently bombed, usually at Christmas and Easter, to maximize the casualties.

     In Pakistan Christians live in constant terror of losing their lives.  Christianity there is reviled, its followers persecuted and ridiculed.  Imams regularly collude with Moslem thugs to trick Christians into violating the country’s hideous blasphemy laws – with death by stoning as the usual result.  The appalling treatment of Asia Bibi is a case in point – and there are over 100 similar cases pending.  Those who defend Christianity are murdered, like the minister who originally defended her. Asia’s current lawyer fled to the Netherlands in fear of his life.  Secular people fare little better.  In neighboring Bangladesh, secular bloggers are hacked to death in the streets.  And the slaughter in Sri Lanka of over 250 Christians, many of them children, is too hideous to bear repetition.  Moreover, that atrocity was not perpetuated by ill-educated thugs.  The Moslem bombers were university graduates from wealthy families.

     Throughout most of the Middle East Christianity is marginalized and vanishing.  The religion has no voice.  Christians and secular types with grievances will be firmly told: ‘if you don’t agree with our Islamic society, either shut up or get out!’  Persistent ‘offenders’ will be jailed or lashed for their impertinence.

     In Saudi Arabia – the fount of much of the Jihadis’ funding – Christianity is illegal.  Christians are not allowed to worship in public, wear Christian symbols, or own more than one Bible; individuals arriving in the country with more than one Bible, will have the excess confiscated and shredded.  Christian workers reside there in quarantined barracks and must work over Christmas.  Foreigners (chiefly Filipinos and Indonesians) work in households there as cleaners; they work six days, are permitted internet access only on Saturdays (and then restricted to family content) must work Sundays, Christmas and Easter, and have to stay in their rooms when guests arrive.  And it’s not just Christians:  all other religions are banned.

     In January 2014 Afghanistan declared conversion to Christianity illegal, and subsequently arrested one hundred members of a German Christian Charity, thus mocking the sacrifice so many of our soldiers made for their democracy. And women are not allowed to be seen, heard or educated.

     And finally, Brunei has banned public Christmas celebrations – specifically because they might cause apostasy, a death sentence in Islam.  In early 2014 they averred that adultery and homosexuality would result in death by stoning.  Lesbian women are given forty strokes of the cane or jailed.  Any adult discussing the religious ideas of other religions with a person under eighteen faces a jail sentence.

     This is the root of the problem with Islam in the West – the source of that ‘distance’ which exists between them and us.  Unlike Christians in Moslem lands, they are allowed to complain about anything, and the government supports them and smothers critique.  This is why they are emboldened to criticise westerners for, inter alia:  moral laxity, eating pork, going to pubs or rock concerts, women wearing provocative clothes – and lampooning the foibles of religious bigots with cartoons.

     And the final infirmity?  Whenever Moslem radicals spring knife or bomb attacks, or depraved ramming with high-speed cars, on the non-Moslems among whom they live, western politicians criticize their countrymen for retaliating.  The usual cry is: “You will never divide us!” 

     We are already divided.  The Koran contains no trace of democracy or cuddly ‘inclusiveness’.  Islam is a theocracy ruled and administered by men, and it does not allow any Moslem to integrate with non-Muslims. This is why Muslims ghettoize themselves in non-Islamic countries – Jordan and Lebanon are classic examples; and the same process is already advanced in parts of Scandinavia, France and the English Midlands.  Moslems are not allowed to integrate with the kuffar, the infidel.

     Moslems should thank their lucky stars that they live in ordered peaceful democracies where they may worship openly and enjoy endless concessions to their faith.  This is what Moslem parents should teach their children, and what Imams should teach the faithful in their madrassas.  Sadly, the more usual topics of the mosques and Moslem cliques is: 

     How come we lost Toledo to the Crusaders?  How come we failed to smash the gates of Vienna in 1683?  How come these decadent kuffar have got so rich and successful whilst we remain poor and marginalised?

     If Moslems wish to live in peace inside western democracies, distancing themselves from Jihadi psychopaths is only part of the problem.  They must look closely at the way Islam treats the members of other faiths or none, not to mention the appalling cruelty meted out to those with sexual difference. 

     Since the calculated military-style assault on Charlie Hebdo, the Paris massacres, the San Bernadino slaughter, the London and Melbourne stabbings, the fiendish slaughter in Sri Lanka, the Xmas car rammings in Germany and America, Russia’s cinema outrage, Ingushetia’s street slaughter, and countless others, that task has surely become yet more distant.

Bravo, Charlie Hebdo!  Bon courage!   

Next month's post will include Satyrista's 'Albatross Guano' and the promised look into the Russian psyche.