That's seems very interesting Ferval.

I did already research overhere in a thread, if I recall it well, "Kings and Gods" and also for Zoroasterianism and the Cathars (albigenses). And on the old Beeb for the copmparison between Christianism and Zoroastrianism...
I am looking forward for it. And yes the audio can we receive here in Belgium not the visual...

Thank you for mentioning it, while here I look only to ARTE or to the BBC if something interesting is announced.

Kind regards from Paul.

This is being shown on Saturday nights on BBC 1:



fairly odd for BBC to show a major drama production on a Saturday. By 9pm, an alcohol induced haze means the most I can cope with is the football.

Gunpowder is, apparently very gruesome - with crushings, beheadings and disembowlings being shown in all their g(l)ory - and has been criticised as being unnecessarily and gratuitously violent.

Yes, Gunpowder is brutal and sickening. Just like 17th-century Britain

Starting tonight on Channel 5;

8 days that made Rome

First episode is about the Battle of Zama.

Looks like there may be a load of dodgy reconstructions:

On BBC1 from Saturday 17th February:

Troy

A new five-part history of Britain begins tomorrow:

Cunk on Britain 10.00pm BBC2.

Cunk examines the history of these islands from earliest times to Brexit.  ("Now we've got our country back, what the hell are we going to do with it?" - a good question.) She interviews famous historians - all of whom seem a little bemused - and, as ever, asks those questions we have all pondered in our hearts, but have been too afraid to ask, even here, for fear of being thought completely stupid.

Cunk also considers "landmarks" like the Bayeux Tapestry: "just like being there, but in wool".

Triceratops wrote:

On BBC1 from Saturday 17th February:

Troy

Wasn't it utter crap? Who on earth wrote the dialogue?

“How did you two get together, then?” Paris asked Menelaus about his relationship with Helen, as if he'd just strolled into the Love Island villa - more Homer Simpson than the other one, I think.

Oh, I'll give that one a miss then Temperance.  The Rome cosplay that Trike mentions from last autumn (and which somehow bypassed me) sounds fun in a not to be taken too seriously way, though.  Mind you, I haven't seen it and can't really judge.  It may have been very hifalutin'.

I like a nice bit of hifalutin' myself - makes me a bit of a bore, I know, but there you have it. I phoned a friend last night, all excited about the BBC Easter Saturday presentation of Andrew Scott's Hamlet - which was absolutely brilliant. The bedroom scene with Gertrude was especially well done - sort of Jeremy Kyle meets Sophocles, but it worked a treat, if a bit of a harrowing treat. My friend replied no, they had not watched it, and were not intending to - Paddington Bear 2 was their evening's entertainment this Easter.

That shut me up.

It's possible the Hamlet that was shown on the Beeb over the Easter break may still be on iplayer, Temperance, so I may still be able to catch it.  I mentioned on another thread that I saw the National Theatre's (well from the Bridge at the National Theatre) Julius Caesar on 22nd March as a belated birthday present to myself.  Well, I didn't see it in real life, I saw a broadcast version beamed to my local theatre.  I enjoyed it though - they had a female Cassius, Casca and Decius Brutus (modern dress).  Michelle Fairley who played Caitlyn (sp) Stark in GoT played Cassius.  I don't watch The Walking Dead - even this old trout has to have some standards - but David Morrissey who played the Governor in that show played Mark Antony (as in ancient Roman not as in hip-hop artist).  I did become somewhat lazy - i.e. watching things for entertainment on iplayer/YouTube rather than for learning (though the two can overlap) when I was convalescing though I don't have that excuse any more.

Do try to catch up on Hamlet, LiR - it's better than Paddington Bear 2 - honest. Andrew Scott is the best Hamlet I've seen, I think - far better than Sherlock Holmes was in the same role.

I must be getting very old because Philomena Cunk's programme was not as funny as I had hoped, although it was good in places. The utter bewilderment of that lady from Oxford, Dr Laura Ashe, Associate Professor of Medieval Literature, as she tried to cope with Philomena's extremely embarrassing questions about King Arthur  ("King Arthur came a lot, didn't he?") seemed genuine; and Robert Peston (Political Editor of ITV News) did take seriously PC's question: "What's the most political thing that has ever happened in Britain then?" An interesting question - would perhaps make a good thread. I think Peston nearly a week later is probably still trying to formulate a reply.

The Telegraph gave the first programme (five in series) five stars which seems very generous.

I think it's the Tudors this coming Tuesday...

MM (on another thread) wrote:

 



Only I've never found anything that Philomena Cunk presents as remotely funny.

Wow - what a put-down! Philomena is my heroine - the thinking person's idiot. I love her and the way she takes the p*ss out of the educated BBC elite. Sort of Bolton's revenge on Jeremy Paxman and his mates.

Tuesday's episode was much better than episode one. Her summary of Elizabeth I's religious policy was not without merit, I thought: "Elizabeth I allowed her subjects to practise whatever religion they liked, as long as they pretended to be C of E when asked - a bit like middle-class people do when they want their kids to go to a posh school."

Professor Ashley Jackson (Imperial and Military History at King's College, London) actually seemed to intimidate Philomena. She wouldn't mess about too much in his class. No embarrassing questions about King Arthur's ejaculatory prowess for this historian - just a quizzing about Sir Walter and root vegetables. I'm sorry, MM - I obviously have a puerile sense of humour - but when she asked Jackson: "When Sir Walter Raleigh first saw potatoes, was he scared?"  I really did laugh.

Jackson, quite unfazed, gave her a stern look and told her: "I think that when Sir Walter Raleigh first saw potatoes - not that we have any documentary records of the moment when he first beheld a potato or a field of potatoes - I do not believe he was scared: this was a buccaneering character and I think he was able to take on - erm, erm - his emotions when engaging with potatoes at first sight."

Philomena seemed pleased with his response; she nodded and looked impressed.

I also liked her comment about the Gunpowder Plotters. It is no wonder they all got caught as the artist of the famous image shown below stupidly put all their names on the picture. Which was, when you think about it, a pretty dumb thing to do.






She's not as daft as she looks. I'll check out what Philomena told the Guardian about the advantages of being stupid. I remember I posted it ages ago on Saint Paul's thread.


EDIT: Here is what I posted:

I wrote:

One last thing - just for the record. Diane Morgan, the creator of our much-loved Philomena, said in an interview for the Guardian: “It’s like wearing a suit of armour. If you’re Cunk, nothing can hurt you."

Not a learned comment about Saint Paul, I'm afraid, but nevertheless there is wisdom in Morgan's remark. Stupidity has its uses.

It does indeed, especially when people are trying to hurt you.

Oh MM, so sorry you do not find Clunk amusing - it's embarrassing in its humour because so much of her stuff is the sort of thing that onee has heard or seen - especially as a teacher. At fountains Abbey I was asked why people had built ruins, from exam answer sheets I found out that some one thought William Wordsworth wrote Romeo and Daffodil, that Everest was first climbed by HIllary somebody and sherpa Ruyard Kipling and on and on. What ever had I been paid for? You may well ask. And it is from the questions at the end of what you though was a pretty good lesson  that make you realise it wasn't perfect by a long mark. I think the experts handle it quite well keeping face, voice and demeanor calm - I couldn't always quite do that having a very low humour threshold.

Cunk facing the experts - rather like me confronting nord on logic - makes one squirm because it really is the sort of thing that happens........ ask any National trust room sitter what is the daftest question they have been asked; this makes their day to relate.

Of Cunk, I doubt I will ever think of this Tudor event again other than the time when That Spanish woman Amanda took the  ships to attack Elizabeth One and who Drake beat when he had finished playing with his balls. 

I wondered what my more serious husband would make of it - and noted him smiling throughout the last silly episode. I do hope she does philosophy................

Misha Glenny’s ‘The Invention of ...’ series returns to BBC Radio 4 with:

The Invention of the Netherlands

If it’s anything like the previous series then it should be excellent. Those previous series have also been made available on the BBC iPlayer for anyone who missed them when they were first broadcast:

The Invention of Germany (2011)

The Invention of Spain (2012)

The Invention of Italy (2013)

The Invention of Brazil (2014)

The Invention of France (2015)

The Invention of America (2017)

(The Invention of the Netherlands starts tomorrow Monday 21 May @ 20:00pm BST.)

Vizzer wrote:

Misha Glenny’s ‘The Invention of ...’ series returns to BBC Radio 4 with:

The Invention of the Netherlands

If it’s anything like the previous series then it should be excellent. Those previous series have also been made available on the BBC iPlayer for anyone who missed them when they were first broadcast:

The Invention of Germany (2011)

The Invention of Spain (2012)

The Invention of Italy (2013)

The Invention of Brazil (2014)

The Invention of France (2015)

The Invention of America (2017)

(The Invention of the Netherlands starts tomorrow Monday 21 May @ 20:00pm BST.)

Vizzer, just lost my message...

Start again:

Vizzer,

thank you for this survey and yes BBC Radio 4 is known for its quality. I have not heard an episode yet, but are they speaking about "le roman national" (the national myth) or something others? Dare they start an episode about Belgium? ....
Coincidentally I just was in the middle of a subject about the construction of the Belgian national myth, the Flemish one and as reaction the Walloon one...
http://historum.com/european-history/135677-belgium-frankish-belgic-dutch-4.html

Kind regards from Paul.

Vizzer,

have now heard the episode about "the Netherlands"...you understand better English than I . If you want to listen to that episode.
What "Netherlands" to start with? the Low Countries? the Dutch republic? the Kingdom of The Netherlands? They speak sometimes about Belgium, but Belgium didn't exist in that time, it were the Spanish Netherlands or the Southern Netherlands...
As you hear the Dutch (I mean the nowadays inhabitants of The Netherlands) speaking in the episode it is as if the Dutch let the Southern Netherlands to the Spanish...They speak of the Union of Utrecht and then you would think that they are talking about the nowadays Netherlands, but if you think that they are talking about the Low Countries, The Netherlands, the 17 provinces, then they have also to speak about the Union of Atrecht of the Southern provinces, the later Southern Netherlands,the later Austrian Netherlands, the later Belgium.

Throughout the episode you are wondering if they speak about the Netherlands, the Low Countries or about the Dutch Republic, the later Kingdom of the Netherlands..

And that Orange Fever only emerged in the 19th century or was it in the 20th?, as something to compare with the British oddities as seen last week. And William of Orange his "orange" was of course from his possession in the French Orange (with the "g" of Georges, hmm I mean the French Georges).

No, poor history writing (speaking) in my opinion.
If they want to speak about the Netherlands, the Low Countries, they have at least then to consult Dutch and Belgian universities or at least read some serious historybooks...
If they want to speak about the invention of the kingdom of The Netherlands, they have to make it clear, undistinguishable, from the beginning in my opinion.

That's all for this evening...

If someone can write to the BBC...


Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum

I used "undistinguishable"...I wanted to say: something that not can be misunderstood...
but seen now that that is not the appropiate term...
it has to be: unambiguously

Kind regards from Paul.

Vizzer,

thinking I was to harsh to you and too harsh to the Misha Glenny I heard again the episode that I commented about the invention of the Netherlands...
but again I had a lot of trouble to understand it...first they start indeed about the Low Countries, the Netherlands, but after the 6th minute I had the impression that they spoke about the Dutch Republic with the Union of Utrecht and that in opposition (but that was not named) to the Spanish backed Union of Atrecht, which gradually grew to the size of the nowadays Belgium and was officially recognized by the international peace conference of Westfalen in 1648. I have again the impression that they from the 20th minute spoke still about the Netherlands, while they had to speak about the Dutch Republic instead. Then they spoke somewhere about 100,000 executed by the Spanish for their belief, while reading Geoffrey Parker's Dutch Revolt he came on something like six hundred, that's quite a difference...somewhere after the 20th minute they say: the people of the Netherlands fighting for their freedom, while they had to say in my opinion: the people of the Dutch Republic...

Perhaps they had better said the invention of the Dutch Republic or the invention of the Kingdom of the Netherlands? And start an episode about the invention of Belgium as I suggested ? Or is Belgium not a country for the British? But perhaps I listened too much to Nigel Farage ? Perhaps in this discussion, we Dutch speaking ones have it easier, both in Belgium and in The Netherlands, as we call The Netherlands and in French les Pays-Bas, just singular: "Nederland" . And we can start "de nationale mythe van Nederland" instead of "the national myth of The Netherlands" or "le roman national des Pays-Bas"

No offence minded to you Vizzer, as I so much appreciate all your interesting and knowledgeable contributions from you to this board.

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Perhaps in this discussion, we Dutch speaking ones have it easier, both in Belgium and in The Netherlands, as we call The Netherlands and in French les Pays-Bas, just singular: "Nederland"

They touched on this is the third program. The lack of distinction in the English language between the plural and the singular here means that defining what exactly the term ‘the Netherlands’ means (in the English language at least) is tricky. Sometimes it seems to be interchangeable with the term ‘the Low Countries’ but normally it just refers to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Geographically the Low Countries can be said to stretch from the River Somme in the west to the River Ems in the east (at least with regard to the coast). Defining the inland boundaries, however, is more problematic mainly thanks to the mighty River Rhine driving right through the middle of the whole region like a geographical coach and horses. Yet without the Rhine delta there really would be any netherlands. And even on the coast, the eastern Frisian islands off the coast of Lower Saxony are undoubtedly part of the Low Countries but are situated to the east of the mouth of the Ems. So there are no easy answers.

The series had a lot to cover. The first program was about the whole of the Low Countries and the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries. The second program looked that the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic in the 17th Century and third program was about Belgian Independence.

I learned quite a lot from them. For example (as with Misha Glenny) I had never heard of the Battle of Gibraltar 1607 in which a United Provinces fleet defeated the Spanish in their own waters which thus emboldening the Dutch to further maritime ventures. The subsequent Golden Age was so golden that more than 50% of all shipping going round the Cape of Good Hope to Asia during the 17th century was Dutch. In other words it was more than the combined total of the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French and the English etc. A quite staggering statistic.

Neither was I aware that the United Provinces (and the later United Kingdom of the Netherlands) were still so disunited that travellers still needed passports when travelling from one province to another right up until the 1820s. I also liked the fact that the program pointed out that when people talk in clichés and refer to the ‘liberal Dutch’ they actually mean the liberal Amsterdamers. The other Netherlands provinces (and even other parts of North Holland, let alone South Holland) are often actually quite conservative.

P.S. Paul - I'd never heard of the Union of Atrecht until I realised that Atrecht is the Dutch-language name for the francophone Arras which name we tend to use in English. But then I realised that i have never heard of the Union of Arras either - so thank you for that pointer.

Vizzer,

excuses again for being too late to answer to serious messages, spending all my time with frivolous stuff
Thanks for the interesting reply and will tomorrow answer in depth...
" I'd never heard of the Union of Atrecht until I realised that Atrecht is the Dutch-language name for the francophone Arras which name we tend to use in English. But then I realised that i have never heard of the Union of Arras either - so thank you for that pointer."

I can believe that...in my hurry I put "Atrecht" as we learned it at school in the Fifties...but during my research for other fora...I had the same as you...as I thought that "Atrecht" was the French "Artois" I didn't find of course nothing, until I found that "Atrecht" is in English and French "Arras" (yes the Arras of WWII)...
Due to the toponymy there are studies that indicate that the Frank language came even to the low hills of the "Pas de Calais with an Ango-Saxon pocket around Boulogne (Bonen)...I discussed it on Historum with Authun and on Passion Histoire with Almayrac. Tomorrow I will give the links on Passion Histoire as there, all the English language links are also included...I promised Almayrac to try to interest via the archaeological institute of Bruges, a professor of the university of Ghent for a study or thesis by a student...I have already the name of the professor, but by lack of time...still having some seven appartments for hire and have to refurbish now two ones for hire again...
But yes that toponomy...all names from the Germanic push in Roman territory...of course "Duinkerke" from which "Dunkerque" from which "Dunkirk"

I don't immediately find the toponymy of "Atrecht"...

See you tomorrow and kind regards from Paul.

I think my next present (as in gift) from me to me (after Tim of A's book which I haven't purchased yet) will have to be a cheap and cheerful radio (so that I can listen to radio programs without being dependent on the internet (via Ethernet)).  That or one of those plug-in Wifi gizmos since the Wifi integral to my laptop has ceased to function.  I'm sure I mentioned a long time ago (so long I can't even remember the thread) that at school we touched on one of Robert Browning's poems "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix".  I did like the poem (I was at primary school at the time) but for a long time I thought the Aix in question was Aix-en-Provence rather than Aachen.  I never did find out exactly what good news "they" conveyed from Ghent to Aachen though.  Incidentally, when I had mentioned Roubaix not too long ago when we were having the signing in (to the site) issues and upon consulting a map showing said town became aware it is really close to the border with Belgium.

I've been watching Band of Brothers again, this is about the 4th or 5th viewing of the dvd.

This action features in Episode 2, the assault on the German battery at Brecourt Manor, 6 June 1944:

Vizzer wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Perhaps in this discussion, we Dutch speaking ones have it easier, both in Belgium and in The Netherlands, as we call The Netherlands and in French les Pays-Bas, just singular: "Nederland"

They touched on this is the third program. The lack of distinction in the English language between the plural and the singular here means that defining what exactly the term ‘the Netherlands’ means (in the English language at least) is tricky. Sometimes it seems to be interchangeable with the term ‘the Low Countries’ but normally it just refers to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Geographically the Low Countries can be said to stretch from the River Somme in the west to the River Ems in the east (at least with regard to the coast). Defining the inland boundaries, however, is more problematic mainly thanks to the mighty River Rhine driving right through the middle of the whole region like a geographical coach and horses. Yet without the Rhine delta there really would be any netherlands. And even on the coast, the eastern Frisian islands off the coast of Lower Saxony are undoubtedly part of the Low Countries but are situated to the east of the mouth of the Ems. So there are no easy answers.

The series had a lot to cover. The first program was about the whole of the Low Countries and the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries. The second program looked that the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic in the 17th Century and third program was about Belgian Independence.

I learned quite a lot from them. For example (as with Misha Glenny) I had never heard of the Battle of Gibraltar 1607 in which a United Provinces fleet defeated the Spanish in their own waters which thus emboldening the Dutch to further maritime ventures. The subsequent Golden Age was so golden that more than 50% of all shipping going round the Cape of Good Hope to Asia during the 17th century was Dutch. In other words it was more than the combined total of the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French and the English etc. A quite staggering statistic.

Neither was I aware that the United Provinces (and the later United Kingdom of the Netherlands) were still so disunited that travellers still needed passports when travelling from one province to another right up until the 1820s. I also liked the fact that the program pointed out that when people talk in clichés and refer to the ‘liberal Dutch’ they actually mean the liberal Amsterdamers. The other Netherlands provinces (and even other parts of North Holland, let alone South Holland) are often actually quite conservative.

P.S. Paul - I'd never heard of the Union of Atrecht until I realised that Atrecht is the Dutch-language name for the francophone Arras which name we tend to use in English. But then I realised that i have never heard of the Union of Arras either - so thank you for that pointer.

Vizzer,

from your comments about the series I am more and more interested to see it all and comment  it to you. As the third episode about the Belgian independence...

Contrary to what I understand you said about the Low Countries, when we use "De Lage Landen" (the Low Countries) it is strictly about the former Seventeen Provinces (the Leo Belgicus) (the nowadays Benelux) But yes if you say then in French: les Pays Bas (the low countries) perhaps the difference is that they say for the nowadays Netherlands: les Pays-Bas...
And already the sixtieth anniversary of the Benelux...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mshk9Ri9Pq4

Vizzer, I will try to see the three episodes and perhaps the other countries too as for instance Spain and France...but LiR pointed me recently to another interesting series starting with "the ship of state" artefact of the HRE period (the history in hundred artifacts or something like that) and other items from Triceratops too...
Will try first to decrease my backlog...
But I will try in any case to keep this interesting forum alive as a challenge to certain members, who think perhaps that without them, the forum will die...

"The subsequent Golden Age was so golden that more than 50% of all shipping going round the Cape of Good Hope to Asia during the 17th century was Dutch. In other words it was more than the combined total of the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French and the English etc. A quite staggering statistic."

Yes you are completely right. I read it all in Jonathan Israel's Dutch Republic. It is a thick volume but nevertheless interesting to read if you want to know more about the Low Countries and the Dutch Republic...
https://www.amazon.com/Dutch-Republic-Greatness-1477-1806-History/dp/0198207344


Kind regards from Paul.

The next series of ‘The Invention of ...’ on BBC Radio 4 has begun with:

The Invention of Scandinavia

The first episode was broadcast on Monday and is available on the BBC iPlayer for anyone who missed it:

The Invention of Scandinavia: The Bridge

(The second episode will broadcast on Monday the 16th at 9pm.)

Thank you so much Vizzer for remembering me about the series. Really something interesting, at least to me, for watching during this second lockdown. I will have to take this opportunity now, while they already speak in the EU for a vaccin in the spring of next year  and the months pass quickly ...

I watched now the third episode of 2018 about Belgium
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b4zxcl
I am a bit surprized that I can follow that easely the English without subtitles...perhaps due to the excellent spoken English and the well pronounced language...
As I hear it, it fits with all what I read till now about the subject...it promises for the passed and the future episodes...
And I am glad that they mention several times Paul Arblaster and his book: A history of the Low Countries.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-history-of-the-low-countries/paul-arblaster/9780230293106
I mentioned it already on the ex BBC board to a contributor from near Waterloo, British ex-pat in Brussels.

As I wanted to edit the invalid video in my latest message about the 60th anniversary of the Benelux I found no video anymore on the mighty internet. Out of the milliard new items in the catacombs of Google on the 6,000th page?...

But I found this about the Benelux from the American Army at the start of the Cold War...and remember in that time the US government was in favour of a European Union...a bit propaganda perhaps, but nevertheless a good picture of our life in that time...
Part of our childhood of both Dirk Marinus and me...



Of course there is already changed something in these 70 years, especially the economy moved to the harbours of the Benelux...

Kind regards, Paul.

Sparked by what I said to Trike on another forum, this fictional alternative story film based on the novel "Fatherland" from the bestseller author Robert Harris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)

Perhaps an "evergreen" for most of the regular contributors I nevertheless publish it overhere.

Vizzer wrote:

The next series of ‘The Invention of ...’ on BBC Radio 4 has begun with:

The Invention of Scandinavia

The first episode was broadcast on Monday and is available on the BBC iPlayer for anyone who missed it:

The Invention of Scandinavia: The Bridge

(The second episode will broadcast on Monday the 16th at 9pm.)

Vizzer, I have now seen the first episode: The Bridge.

Quite interesting but not so much about history? Or only tangentional?
Nevertheless I learned a lot new as about the slave trade...and that they were at a certain moment the leading country of Scandinavia...and about the English bombardment of Kopenhagen that I discussed with Nielsen...I was three times in Kopenhagen once by car and twice by flight...

About the mentioned difference between Danes and Swedes in the episode, I found Kopenhagen much more "Belgian" than Stockholm where I was only once. But both have their affinities for me.
On my way by car, if I remember it well from Lübeck and after the ferry I had some stops underway to Kopenhagen and in my opinion, as perhaps mentioned also in the BBC link, there is a complete difference between the rural and urban areas. Again in my opinion, Denmark is an empty land and it let me think about the North of Holland, there in Holland perhaps even more densely populated...



But to be honest one encounters also such regions in Germany too...



I was surprized during my talks with older people in the  rural area, as I thought that everybody understood English in Denmark, that they only could speak German.
And yes seeking the way for, I have forgotten the name of the city, I drove wrong and was on the new motorway to Malmö, could just in time leave the last exit before Sweden...

And now up to the second episode tomorrow:
The Viking inheritance
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000pfft

Kind regards, Paul.

Vizzer, just heard the second episode about Sweden.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pfft

You know me, always to say something critical...

As I expected something about the Vikings, I was already a bit disappointed from the beginning, as I wanted to ask "which Vikings". I recalled some thread overhere about the Vikings (we had them overhere in Ghent) and found it back:
"The Norsemen" from Triceratops:
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t712-the-norsemen
I read the whole thread and as usual nordmann is to the point. Thank you nordmann for this enlightenment.
And confirmed in this article:
http://www.viking.no/e/netherland/
Seemingly these Vikings in the Low Countries from Danish origin?
And the "about us" seems to be from Norway?
http://www.viking.no/index.html

I once said on the ex-BBC board to a certain Swede "Hasse" that those nasty Vikings were a bit overall in Europe, even Russia and Turkey, not to forget Spain and South Italy/Sicily.
But reading all this I see now that pointing to the Swedes as the only Vikings, how wrong I was.
And yes those Nor(d)mans weren't already Vikings anymore:
https://www.wondersofsicily.com/sicily-normans.htm
And more about that:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=john%20julius&tn=kingdom%20sun%201130-1194&sortby=17&cm_sp=plpafe-_-all-_-link

But Vizzer, back to the episode. Although I am able to follow the English speaking, it is not always easy to understand for instance I suppose the joke in the first part about no battle anymore after Napoleon in 1805, but still something between Danes and Swedes? I also have to read more and to see historical maps to understand it all what is said, as I never studied something in depth about the Scandinavians.

After all what I heard now about the Corona virus in this episode, I have the impression that Swedes and Danes are a bit like Dutchmen and Belgians: The Swedes about the Danes like their Benelux equivalents: The "Hollander" and "Belgen" jokes? But is that history?

About the Swedes, a fortnight ago, one of the inner circle was in Stockholm again. He was there during two years. He warned in a meeting, perhaps because Belgium is one of the worst Corona cases in the world (only Czechia if I recall it well is worser), the participants that they had to wear a mask as is usual in Belgium...and they all did...
Perhaps as said in the episode...the Swedes doing it the right way and along the letter of the "prescription"...a bit as the Germans, but isn't that too a national "stereotyping"?
I am always reluctant to stick a label on communities...although this one mentioned of the inner circle said that it was nearly impossible to come in their inner cercle...after two years of being embedded in that Stockholm city...he means perhaps contrary to the Belgians and the French?...but isn't that everywhere a bit the same?...humans stay humans, wherever they stay...?

Kind regards, Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

I suppose the joke in the first part about no battle anymore after Napoleon in 1805, but still something between Danes and Swedes?

My understanding is that the reference was to the fact that during the Napoleonic wars, whichever side Denmark was on, Sweden would be found on the other (and vice-versa). This was until the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 which saw a defeated Denmark forced to cede Norway to Sweden. Signatures by diplomats in Kiel, however, did not necessarily correspond to facts on the ground in Norway where the terms were widely opposed. Sweden then had to invade Norway later that year in order to enforce the terms in a conflict which is little known outside of Scandinavia. Since then Sweden has been at peace for over 200 years (a record which surpasses even that of Switzerland). Yet this peaceable image contrasts markedly with its reputation during the preceding 200 years in the 17th and 18th centuries when an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy meant that the Swedes were known for their military prowess and ‘a Swede’ was a term used by mothers in Germany and Russia etc for a brute to warn children against or as a bogeyman to threaten them with.
 
In the third episode on Norway it was interesting to note how it was suggested that for someone in the 18th century to think of Norway as being separate from Denmark would have caused bemusement and have beeen akin to someone today suggesting that, say, Jutland should be separate from Denmark. It was pity that (due to the pandemic) the Denmark and Sweden episodes were seemingly cut short while the entire Norway episode had to be done remotely, as it felt as though the series was slightly rushed, but it was illuminating nonetheless.

Thank you so much Vizzer, for your enlightenment about my question about the "joke".

Perhaps is it difficult to understand for a native language Englishman, but after all these years I can nearly without hesitation read English text, but due to lack of reality praxis I have still some difficulties to understand the language, even as it in this case is spoken "comme il faut" (as it has to be). With written texts and English subtitles I have nearly no trouble and in case of misunderstanding one can always read back or put the cursor backwards again. You could say: the same with spoken language, but even there in my case, the understanding then is not obvious.

It has all to do, with the real exposure time to a spoken language. And I agree on youtube with subtitles one is perhaps lazy to read the subtitles and listening with half a hear to the spoken text. And yes then one isn't obliged to listen careful to the spoken language, which is at the end contraproductive to learn a spoken language. 

In the last years I had not that much spoken contact with Englishmen and even before, as in comparison with French and German ones it was meager. So my understanding of French and German (official!) spoken language is much better than of the English one.

All that to hide behind, Vizzer, for my difficult understanding...

PS: Vizzer, can you perhaps check if this trilogy on BBC Four is the same as the Arte trilogy that I mentioned on the language forum?
Paul wrote:
"But by the name David Sington I found that it was produced for Arte, but also available I guess on BBC Four
As "the secret history of writing". I can't verify while it is not available in Belgium.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mtmj

Kind regards, Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

About the Swedes, a fortnight ago, one of the inner circle was in Stockholm again. He was there during two years. He warned in a meeting, perhaps because Belgium is one of the worst Corona cases in the world (only Czechia if I recall it well is worser), the participants that they had to wear a mask as is usual in Belgium...and they all did...
Perhaps as said in the episode...the Swedes doing it the right way and along the letter of the "prescription"...a bit as the Germans, but isn't that too a national "stereotyping"?
I am always reluctant to stick a label on communities...although this one mentioned of the inner circle said that it was nearly impossible to come in their inner cercle...after two years of being embedded in that Stockholm city...he means perhaps contrary to the Belgians and the French?...but isn't that everywhere a bit the same?...humans stay humans, wherever they stay...?

Vizzer, I saw just this on BBC World, yesterday:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20201203-why-swedes-dont-speak-to-strangers?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld

Or is that again just stereotyping from the BBC correspondent?

Kind regards, Paul.

Sparked by a youtube of a French film of 1906 by LiR on the Moggy thread, I got entangled in old films from that period. Among others this one...



I think all these films are a treasure for people, who want to do reenactments or historical films as they have there a snapshot of how people acted and clothed in that particular time and on a real background of that time.

At the Belgian coast one has each year some days with all kind of events among others reenactors who are strolling through the streets in that particular belle epoque town of De Haan of course in belle epoque suits...

I have just finished watching one of the best films I have seen for ages - stumbled upon it on Amazon Prime. We never mention the Irish Troubles around here - too much of a huge and dangerous elephant, I suppose - but '71, a film released in 2014, brilliantly written, acted and directed (French director, Yann Demange), had me riveted, it being the most realistic and moving and unbiased drama about the Troubles I've ever seen. The film depicts a young British soldier's journey through various circles of hell during one night in Belfast in 1971. There were devils from both sides in that hell and, thank God, some human beings as well - again from both sides. Which is as it was, and always has been, I imagine. One Catholic Irish father, a former medic, struggling to save the young British lad from bleeding to death, summed it all up: "Bad c***s ordering thick c***s to kill poor c***s." A line which made me want to post this on one of the Religion or Philosophy threads - the Irishman's comment sort of putting in a nutshell mankind's essential illness from the dawn of time to 2021.

Temperance wrote:

I have just finished watching one of the best films I have seen for ages - stumbled upon it on Amazon Prime. We never mention the Irish Troubles around here - too much of a huge and dangerous elephant, I suppose - but '71, a film released in 2014, brilliantly written, acted and directed (French director, Yann Demange), had me riveted, it being the most realistic and moving and unbiased drama about the Troubles I've ever seen. The film depicts a young British soldier's journey through various circles of hell during one night in Belfast in 1971. There were devils from both sides in that hell and, thank God, some human beings as well - again from both sides. Which is as it was, and always has been, I imagine. One Catholic Irish father, a former medic, struggling to save the young British lad from bleeding to death, summed it all up: "Bad c***s ordering thick c***s to kill poor c***s." A line which made me want to post this on one of the Religion or Philosophy threads - the Irishman's comment sort of putting in a nutshell mankind's essential illness from the dawn of time to 2021.

Temperance, yes it seems to be a good film, even the Berlinale 2014...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2771_(film)
And yes, perhaps even the filmmaker Yann Demange is an example of someone from childhood on aware of what religious, nationalistic and racial hatred could cause...

I haven't that much inside information about the Irish question and Belfast. Only family from grandmother's side (father's side), who was in Belfast during the troubles. And she said that the most enerving were the continious roadblock controls. I suspected her of being an Orangist, but never had inside information about her.

But although I don't take sides, I am always struck by the absuridity of these conflicts, be it now this one or for instance the Palestinian- Israeli (or is it the other way around) conflict.
As I have seen in my childhood, what hatred the "King's Question could cause in Belgium, and that was only a "children's game" in comparison with the two conflicts mentioned before, I can understand to what level it all can escalate. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Question

But nevertheless I can't understand for instance as nowadays in the Jerusalem crisis again, how religious radicals can say that Jerusalem is their holy ground and that they as such have a kind of a birthright on that "ground" in East-Jerusalem, even if it is Palestinian property. But perhaps they "use" only their religion to fulfill their "nationalistic" aspirations? Religion can't be, I ask you, a base for racism and domination? And I was end the Seventies in Israel and spoke with many Israeli. And that was then still the good time in comparison with now.

Kind regards, Paul.

My reaction to the film was more than a consideration of how religious or nationalistic or racial hatred contributes to the outbreak of chaos - chaos in its old meaning of "abyss" or "hell". It's interesting that the English word chaos is borrowed from the Greek word that means "abyss" or "underworld" - chaos was originally thought of as the abyss or emptiness that existed before things came into being, and then the word came to be used to refer to a specific abyss: the abyss of Tartarus: the underworld.

But it's the hatred that emerges from the void that I'm trying to understand. Something definitely does come from that void - it is a breeding ground for evil, a true "underworld". But do the true instigators of violence, the leaders in these conflicts - the psychopaths (of whatever religion or race), I suppose -  feel actual hatred: are they - the minority - capable of any feeling, even hatred? Or are they devoid of all genuine emotion? Is that what makes them seem less than human - and terrifying, like the devil - or devils - of old? The other stuff - race, religion, nationalistic fervour - surely simply serves as a very useful device whereby others can be stirred - egged on - to hate, so that all hell may more effectively be made to break out. Such humans are human in name only; in '71 it's the efficiently cold and ruthless young IRA leader and his twin-soul (using the word "soul" rather warily here), that equally cold and pragmatic Brit from the undercover force: such characters actually seem to operate in this Belfast hell simply for hell's sake. Their only authentic emotion or passion would seem to be their need for control and destruction. Others -  as Demange was at pains to point out - such the Catholic woman/mother who tried to stop the riot and for a second seemed to be succeeding; that decent Irish medic who risked his own life (and his daughter's) because he "couldn't just leave" the young British soldier to die or be tortured; the bewildered young Brit himself; even his "weak" lieutenant, the "toff" who, with a genuine, if naive, hope of doing some good, foolishly forbade the wearing of intimidating riot gear - these people are the truly "human" human beings, and it is they who present as the aliens in the hellish landscape this film conjures up. Hell can erupt anywhere, of course, as we regularly see on our TV screens. The Belfast version just happened to be next door to us here, part - as the British soldiers were reminded during their training, and that we here tend to forget - of the UK, but was it a completely British-made hell - or were its origins from another source - the darkness of man's heart? 

And how quickly the young and dispossessed (the feral children are disturbingly important in this film) learn what exhilarating fun hell can be, at least for a while - the human proclivity for hate is the ultimate temptation; it breeds and mutates and spreads like a successful virus. And yet ... One rare moment in the film was when - to prevent his own killing - the young soldier inflicts a fatal knife wound on an equally young IRA recruit, but then takes hold of the latter's hand as he lays dying. In those few moments of compassion before the Irish lad's death, the two gaze at each other, both looking utterly bewildered at the absurdity of it all. You could, for a moment, imagine the pair of them playing football together somewhere. It is a moment - a flash - of rare understanding which captures the need for humans, irrespective of race, or religion or nationality to - in E.M. Forster's famous words - "only connect". It is a moment brilliantly captured by the two actors and by their director; it is surely the message of '71. It is a timely reminder.

The film has affected me a lot, as you can tell - hence my rabbiting on. Shakespeare's Lear is much in my mind -  these quotations especially:

Humanity must perforce prey on itself/Like monsters of the deep.

Is there any cause in Nature that makes these hard hearts?

I have no answer to Lear's question. Don't think Shakespeare did, either. But we keep looking for one...

Temperance, thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. It is too late this evening to make an elaborated reply that represents all the aspects of the subject that I wanted to point to. Perhaps in the light of religious , nationalistic or whatever hatred an article about Barbara Streisand and her visit to Israel  in 2013. Visit that I mentioned in the "Stained glass" thread on the "Arts" forum...
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jun/18/barbra-streisand-shimon-peres-party

Kind regards, Paul.

Perhaps this article from this morning's Guardian is more relevant to what I was trying to say. "Far-right Jewish groups and Arab Youths Claim Streets of Lod..." we read in the headline. Far-right Jewish groups - is that not the ultimate irony? How readily the abused become the abusers?

Lod or Belfast?

Temperance wrote:

How readily the abused become the abusers?

It’s a very ancient concept Temp. I’m always struck by the beauty of the Hebrew song Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim (If I forget thee, O Jerusalem). Here’s a particularly lovely interpretation taken from the 2012 Israeli film Lemale et ha'ḥalal (Fill the Void):



The lyrics come from Psalm 137:

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

Psalm 137 was also the basis of Boney M’s 1978 hit pop song Rivers of Babylon:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Understandably both Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim and Rivers of Babylon omit Psalm 137’s subsequent verses 8 and 9:

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

The film '71 received generally good reviews in Belfast when it came out - a notoriously critical audience, especially when "outsiders" start interpreting their reality for them. I believe the people of Sheffield's Park Hill Estate weren't equally as impressed, but that's another story.

The character of the gormless, or at least callow ingenue squaddie was one which they could totally accept as realistic - for civilians this particular type of soldier was in fact one who grew to be feared by those encountering them even more than obvious veterans, especially in such moments of intense conflict as the film presented (a fictional event but using a particular "battle" further up the Falls Road as inspiration for some key moments).

The biggest objections, naturally enough, came from those who actually lived in the Divis Flats in 1971, not because it was used as an effective dramatic backdrop to some of the film's most intense and gory scenes at the start of the narrative (they had survived similar themselves), nor because its denizens were portrayed in any way unsymapthetically, but because in reality a young squaddie separated from his comrades and landing on their doorstep in such circumstances - as did indeed happen too on occasion - would have been a perfect hostage with which to secure certain services from beyond the almost permanent cordon the security forces of the state had placed around them (soldiers at that point had learnt not to enter the Divis low-rise complex unless occasionally in large effective well-rehearsed groups). Divis had become a desolate island, a no-go area with its residents virtual prisoners upon it, surrounded by a lethal barrier of army barricades and sniping zones through which only limited and quite nerve-wracking passage was allowed with a lot of negotiation, risk and often perverse humiliation the price of egress. This young lad would have been good for at least a week of milk rounds, for example, while he was being patched up and then released, all coordinated by the PIRA guys to hand - the ones in the film made some very untypical PIRA decisions throughout (though totally in keeping with popular British perception of them) and would certainly have had a hard time explaining to the residents afterwards why they had lost out on their milk. So for these people the film was primarily one of missed opportunity, and no mere quibble either - as any of the many women raising small children (not all of whom were feral) in that location at that time would certainly have agreed.

Lod is indeed reminiscent of Belfast, not from '71 but from two years earlier. Which makes it even more depressing, when you think about it.

Edit: Crossed posts, Vizzer. I see you're going off on a biblical bent, what a lovely song indeed. A popular graffiti choice in Belfast for many years which would have been aimed directly at squaddies such as young Hook in the film '71 was "Lev 24:19"

I had to look up Leviticus 24, 19:

'And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him'

I'm not one who can quote the Bible chapter and verse and I note that it comes just before the verse about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I could repeat the retort apocryphally attributed to Ghandi and/or Martin Luther King about that philosophy leaving the whole world blind and toothless but that would probably only serve to perpetuate other clichés and stereotypes.

Talking or which (and with reference to Sheffield’s Park Hill Estate and popular British perception) it calls to mind another Northern Ireland set drama which was Harry’s Game from 1982. Broadcast when the Troubles were very much ongoing, that television mini-series, along with grim news bulletin items from the 1970s and 1980s had really been my only points of reference of what to expect when my work took me to Belfast years later when the troubles were drawing to a close. I remember then being struck by just how different the city appeared from what I had expected. Large parts of Belfast – North, South, East and indeed West, are incredibly leafy, well-heeled and well-appointed.

Of course there were/are drab parts of Belfast, rundown and graffiti-ridden, just as there are in almost any city in the UK. The aforementioned Harry's Game was filmed in Leeds and yet Leeds itself is generally known as being one of England’s more attractive industrial cities.

Thank you for your replies, Viz and Nord - yes, the Hebrew song is indeed beautiful and haunting; and I, too, had to check out Leviticus. Things never change, do they - those words, including the additional, infamous ones you mention, Vizzer, must have been written about three thousand years ago: we have learnt absolutely nothing, or so it would seem.

nordmann wrote:

The character of the gormless, or at least callow ingenue squaddie...

I think you added "or at least callow ingenue..." after I first read your post. I'm glad you did. Hook was not gormless - if the Irish meaning is the same as the English meaning, i.e. stupid or "thick". The young Brit was not a stupid lad, just young, uneducated and bewildered, thrust into hell and left alone - without a clue certainly, but also without a Virgil.

I've just watched the film again and I realise I have misquoted the Catholic ex-army medic - the decent guy who helped the young, injured Brit. I quoted him - and this, oddly enough, links to your use of "gormless" - as saying: "It's bad c***s ordering thick c***s to kill poor c***s." He did say "thick", but the first adjective used to qualify c***s was "posh" not "bad". This changes things rather, "posh" obviously referring to British officers. Bit unfair, as there were clearly good and bad on both sides - that was the point I thought he was making. Ironic thing was that the young, obviously terribly posh, British lieutenant was shown as decent but clueless, just like the young private, in fact. Posh, yes, but not bad - and callow, but not thick. At the end of the film this ingenue officer tried to be truthful about the scene he had witnessed when Private Hook was finally reached - the corrupt MRF agent having tried to murder his fellow countryman, Hook himself, our very own poor whatever, who had unfortunately seen too much - namely the British agent's attempt to do a deal with his counterpart in the PIRA. The commanding officer, also proper posh, had to point out to all concerned that recollections no doubt varied: it was, after all, "a confused situation". "Confused" - what a wonderfully upper-class euphemism. Young men - plebeian or patrician - presumably did not stay "callow" over there for very long.

I thought your post about the film, very moving, Temps. hatred is not a deadly sin but a cocktail of many of them. perhaps - stirred with fear. Whenever one comes across passionate hatred the cause for it often becomes considerable food for thought. A muslim lady one gave me a cookery book she had bought herself in USA. Several pages were missing and others deeply defaced - all reference to pork  had been removed with a vengence....... even the printed word brought on a case of the hatred abdabs.
For a Halloween party  dressed fully in black mit wings and plastic fangs, I transformed myself into a vampire bat, including my face - lips and eye rims too....  with only whites and the steely blue of the eyes. Even close friends did not recognise me - and I was avoided as if not there. I learned a great deal and several truths that night about people I had thought I understood - and not much to the good either........Hatred is a very big and profound topic we ought explore from many directions. Say for instance, Hitler - a temperate vegetarian not given to greed in possessions  nor other excesses albeit with a po faced sense of depravity about modern art expression yet also having as deep a hatreds as we might find example. ... enough to have at least 6,000, 000 million men women and children slaughtered. And hatred is still evident all around us. A great topic, Temps - and an alarming one.

They might have alternated Lev 24:19 with 24:20 in their graffiti - but 19 was the one you still see in the background of many images from the time. 20 would have been a simple threat - 19 was the one asking British soldiers why they were sent to kill British civilians, and less than subtly reminding them that this would come at a cost.

The characters were all reasonably credible, except - as I said - the lazy portrayal of the IRA guys as conflicted and driven to psychopathic disdain for human life etc etc. It's a hard stereotype to cling to if you read the poetry that came out of Long Kesh, or indeed actually hear many of the interviews with some of them from the time whose voices it had become illegal to broadcast "back on the mainland", so you probably just have to take my word for it. Psychopaths there certainly were within their ranks, and cold blooded murder a plenty. But portraying this through the rather more nuanced filter of romanticism, intelligence and the often even more startling "ordinariness" of many of them is still a little too close to being confused with "propaganda" by modern audiences that dramatists still shy away from it. A few depictions have had a stab at it - but none as yet that ring true which I have noticed.

Yes - I adjusted gormless with a qualification so it might be better understood by you - I realised I had used the word locals most often applied to the guys concerned. In Belfast at the time gormless got one killed, so it was said as much as a warning to them that this was how they were seen as simply to insult them. It was also useful to remind oneself as one drove slowly towards a 17 year-old and his mates lying in a ditch on a country road in their cammies with automatic weapons visibly trained on one's forehead that one should not expect intelligent, mature, reasoned calm on their part if something suddenly spooked them. "Callow" on its own just doesn't cut it in that context.

I had forgotten the ending to that film - now you mention it I can see why, it stops before the actual punchline most Irish audiences of a certain age would be expecting, myself included. Hook's debriefing after that whole episode would have made him a perfect candidate for black ops from that point onwards - whether as an actor or a dupe his answers would dictate - and the more psychologically scarred he was found to be the better. I'm not sure British audiences in particular are quite ready for that story just yet either.

Temperance wrote:

But it's the hatred that emerges from the void that I'm trying to understand. Something definitely does come from that void - it is a breeding ground for evil, a true "underworld". But do the true instigators of violence, the leaders in these conflicts - the psychopaths (of whatever religion or race), I suppose -  feel actual hatred: are they - the minority - capable of any feeling, even hatred? Or are they devoid of all genuine emotion? Is that what makes them seem less than human - and terrifying, like the devil - or devils - of old? The other stuff - race, religion, nationalistic fervour - surely simply serves as a very useful device whereby others can be stirred - egged on - to hate, so that all hell may more effectively be made to break out. Such humans are human in name only; 

Temperance, I only selected this part from your message, as I think you see it also in the general light of "hatred", as I compare the Irish question with the Israeli-Arab conflict (especially for Jerusalem)...and yes this evening with the WWII period in the later Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg) and one can name others.

If I understand you well, you speak about a minority, perhaps not capable of "any" feeling, even hatred and you say also:
"whereby others can be stirred - egged on - to hate"...
In my approach, but I am not sure of my historical or statistical evidence either, are there many humans, who have nearly a void in their thinking and perhaps because of that void are seeing it all in black and white, only two sides, for it or against it.
No compromises (as for instance the famous "compromis des Belges", although even that could be propaganda). 


I think for instance also besides the Irish Question and the already mentioned Jewish-Arab conclict, at the interwar period and the later collaboration during WWII in the Benelux of Fascist movements as in the Netherlands the NSB or in Belgium the VNV and REX...but perhaps the extremists of the Communist party, although less present in the Benelux were as bad?
I have it for Belgium more from hear saying than real confrontation as I was only born during WWII, but perhaps Dirk Marinus in his Dutch childhood...?


No Temperance, I am from my experience and reading more for the wide-spread extremists, as in my opinion for instance some Trump Republicans, who, if I understand them well, can only speak about the complete right or the complete wrong, no compromises...for me or against me...perhaps in the right circumstances...?


Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance wrote:

Perhaps this article from this morning's Guardian is more relevant to what I was trying to say. "Far-right Jewish groups and Arab Youths Claim Streets of Lod..." we read in the headline. Far-right Jewish groups - is that not the ultimate irony? How readily the abused become the abusers?

Lod or Belfast?

Temperance, with putting your sentence on the mighty google I found quite a lot of different answers, mostly about sexual abuse...
I have not that grasp of bible references and psalms. Never being close with the Bible verses and psalms as I guess the anglo-saxon world. In the Belgian Roman-Catholic education in the time not so much involved in the bible, more the doctrinary "chatechismus"...

There are perhaps many interpretations of your words: "the abused become the abusers", but when I first read your words, the first thought, which emerged in my brain, was about the Jewish communities, that much discriminated during the centuries with the sad culmination of the Nazi-time and WWII, were they were murdered because of their culture and lineage, who are now discriminating against others, especially the Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories...
Of course it is perhaps a bit one sided, but nevertheless a real study of "Human Right Watch":
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
And the omni present Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel

Kind regards, Paul.

PaulRykier wrote:

There are perhaps many interpretations of your words: "the abused become the abusers", but when I first read your words, the first thought, which emerged in my brain, was about the Jewish communities, that much discriminated during the centuries with the sad culmination of the Nazi-time and WWII, were they were murdered because of their culture and lineage, who are now discriminating against others, especially the Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories...

That was indeed what was in my mind.

All this goes back to the hatred and jealousy of two women: Sarah and Hagar (their story is in Genesis). I seem to remember there was a superb picture by Rembrandt depicting the dismissal of Hagar and her little boy. What a mess that crowded marriage led to. But I can't find the picture I'm thinking of - not appropriate for this thread anyway.

Hatred - yes, Priscilla is right - that would make an interesting thread, but not sure I can cope with such a discussion at the moment. That said, the effort sometimes has to be made - humans cannot cope with too much reality, but the temptation to avoid coping is very dangerous - see edit below.

Lot of extremely disturbing stuff in the early books of the Old Testament - racial purity, ironically, is a big theme. I'm reading Giles Fraser's new book at the moment, Chosen: Lost and Found Between Christianity and Judaism - no relief whatsoever to be found there. Religion - or rather "religion" in our corrupted sense of the word and its etymology (I actually prefer Cicero's non-poisoning version "diligence") -  poisons everything, it would seem, as I believe Chris Hitchens once said? I may retreat once more into the 16th century, but, of course, no escape to be found there either. Quite the opposite. Hatred - religion - everywhere you turn, it would seem...

EDIT: Re Priscilla's comment about how apparently ordinary people (as Hitler might have appeared) can conceal hate-full shadows (Jung - sorry), I am reminded that, reporting on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) used the phrase “the banality of evil.” It is a shocking phrase to many because it flies in the face of our idea that evil is demonic, monstrous, and villainous, something that everybody immediately recognizes as grotesque and terrible. Arendt’s phrase actually helps explain how the Holocaust or Shoah (catastrophe) could happen. Somehow evil became - and still becomes - commonplace.

I am so glad Temperance that we "sit" on the same wavelength.
As for Hannah Arendt, I think I discussed her in the thread about totalitarism, especially with nordmann about her book:
"The Origins of Totalitarianism" 

And yes "the banality of evil". I have to seek back what she just meant with that, but for me and it was that what I tried to explain in the Irish troubles and the nowadays new eruption of violence in Israel and the occupied territories and why I asked Dirk Marinus about WWII. In my opinion good and evil are present in everyone's mind, but for many (and I emphasize many) people, who think in black and white, the borderline to balance over to evil is very thin and when they see evil "continually" in everyday's life, for them it becomes perhaps a "banality" to do as the others and carry out acts that are judged as atrocities and evil deeds by others, who are more thinking about right and unright.

Kind regards, Paul.

The Origins of Totalitarianism was published in 1951, but it's interesting that others had come up with the same idea before that: before the outbreak of WW2 W.H. Auden wrote that "evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table". The Nazi next door and all that - and we perhaps all have to guard against our own "inner Nazi"...

Thinking in black and white is apparently one of the signs any competent psychiatrist will notice in someone suffering from a serious personality disorder such as narcissism.

Temperance wrote:

The Origins of Totalitarianism was published in 1951, but it's interesting that others had come up with the same idea before that: before the outbreak of WWII, WH Auden wrote that "evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table". The Nazi next door and all that - and we perhaps all have to guard against our own "inner Nazi"...

Thinking in black and white is apparently one of the signs any competent psychiatrist will notice in someone suffering from a serious personality disorder such as narcissism.

 
Temperance, thank you so much for your comments and I am always happily surprized by your wide knowledge and "belezenheid" (they seem not to have a right translation in English: "well-read"? German: "Belesenheit"...the quality of being erudite by a lot of reading...)...

I sought for W. H. Auden:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden
And as I understand it well he was social and left leaning and interested in the human nature...

I worked some thirty years in a big factory (more than 2,000 people) with "unions" and strikes and politics and all that and knew hundreds of people and indeed I fully agree with Auden:
"evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table". The Nazi next door and all that - and we perhaps all have to guard against our own "inner Nazi"...
But to be right in my opinion: one had to look also to that other "dogmatic" side: the Communists (lucky that we had not such ones in the "plant"). And don't forget some dogmatic ones from the "religions"!...

And yes those "competent psychiatrists" can be right too...

Kind regards

I do read a lot - when I'm not watching Netflix, that is. 

Triceratops wrote:

This is a link to the archive of Chronicle programmes;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p013qs57/chronicle

The BBC has recently dusted down and rebroadcast 2 other classic documentary series from its archive:

The Ascent of Man (1973)

and

Civilisation (1969)  

Although I had heard of both, I had never seen either, so was grateful of the opportunity to finally do so. Jacob Bronowski’s Ascent of Man about the history of science and technology, is simply terrific and has certainly stood the test of time. For me the stand-out episode is number 12 Generation upon Generation which looks at the history of genetics and the literally seminal work undertaken by the 19th Century Austrian monk Gregor Mendel. Bronowski has that special gift of being able to explain complex technical concepts in terms which the lay person can understand. Who would have thought that such unpromising material as the properties and propagation of garden peas could produce spellbinding television.

Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation about the history of Western art, music and architecture, probably hasn’t aged quite so well but it’s still excellent and well worth watching. In the first episode The Skin of Our Teeth and standing in front of a Viking longship, he quotes:

“’If there were a hundred tongues in each head’ said a contemporary Irish writer ‘they could not recount or narrate or enumerate or tell what all the Irish suffered of hardships and of injuring and of oppression in every house from these valiant, wrathful and purely pagan people.’ Celts haven’t changed much. ‘Purely pagan’.”

This could be one of the things which reportedly prompted the BBC to re-issue the series with an added notification that it reflected ‘standards and attitudes’ of the time. If it is, then I’m not even sure what Clark was trying to say there. Certainly the use of the term ‘Celt’ to describe Irish, Scottish and Welsh etc people has fallen out of currency over the last 20 years. That said, Kenneth Mackenzie Clark would almost certainly have included himself in that bracket, as he even mentioned in that very episode that he had spent much of his youth living not far from Iona.
 
There is a remarkable piece of camerawork from director Michael Gill to be seen at the end of episode 7 Grandeur and Obedience about the Counter-Reformation. In it, and after Clark has finished speaking, the camera glides backwards away from him down the vista of the spectacularly long Gallery of Maps in the Vatican. A truly wow moment.