JUNE REFLECTIONS

June is of course a dreamily nostalgic month, so proclaimed in dozens of catchy romantic songs:  

-          Fresh and alive and gay and young

June is a love-song, sweetly sung.

June is bustin’ out all over!

-          They say when you marry in June

You’re a bride all your life!

-          Honey moon, keep a-shinin’ in June

Your silvery beams will bring love’s dreams

We’ll be cuddlin’ soon

By the silvery moon!

And then, alas, you rudely wake up, to the sight of the RMT-led rail strikes, prices going through the roof, real suffering for quite a number, much anxiety everywhere, Russian troops devastating Ukraine, politicians running about like headless chickens and our whole world in disarray. That is not the natural order we so desire:

 εἴθε γενοίμην. . . would I were
In Grantchester, in Grantchester! –

Yes, the church clock stands at ten to three

And there is honey still for tea.

                                                ……………………..

Her Majesty had a splendid Platinum Jubilee holiday in June and she made her necessarily rationed appearances with great aplomb. I hope she can quietly pop up to Balmoral as usual or stay snug at Windsor Castle if she prefers. It has been her Jubilee, bless her, but I confess to a spot of Windsor-fatigue now that it is effectively over. The loyalist media have never tired of telling us how smart and dignified is William, how lovely Kate was at Ascot, how beautiful was Sophie’s polka-dot dress in Cyprus, how happy was Beatrice in her horse-drawn coach! It is of course all twaddle and balderdash and grist to the republican mill with the UK divided on this issue as on many others! Please give us  media restraint for a decent period! Charles and Camilla will have a high charm-mountain to climb as it is, let alone cope with pap and over-exposure and unhelpful noises off from Andrew, Harry and Meghan.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!

                                                     …………………………

The leaders of the West cut unimpressive figures these days. Our Boris, thrashing around to find a much-needed rabbit to pull from his hat, quite simply has no moral compass, a minimum requirement even these days. Joe Biden, it is speculated, wants to run for a second term. Surely the US deserves better than this vain, IRA-loving, decrepit old goat who hardly knows what town he is in currently and can only sink lower. Macron’s popularity in famously ungovernable France (de Gaulle: How can you govern a country with 246 different kinds of cheese?) has plummeted, his Napoleonic mindset deterring voters and disgusting erstwhile allies. Olaf Scholz, with the charisma of a Bockwurst, struggles with Merkel’s legacy of a Germany lethally dependent on Putin’s Russia.

 

There are plenty young radicals knocking at the door but somehow I do not see Angela Rayner in the UK or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US achieving high office soon, even if both are easier on the eye than the present incumbents.

  

                                        

                                                        

Angela Rayner                                                 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The glittering prizes will go to boring middle-aged men in grey flannel suits, hopefully not the kind that rub the noses of their constituents in the fact of their wealth and privilege compared to their voters’ horribly stretched budgets.

………………………

I have recently returned from 3 weeks in Charlotte, North Carolina, most generously hosted by my youngest son. It gave me a taste of life in a Southern city, far removed from New York or Southern California. Many of my esteemed readers will know the US much better than I do, so I will save on the pontification.

Suffice it to say, I was greatly struck by the size and scale of America and its growth. Charlotte is a magnet for finance and medical companies and its airport hub claims to be the 5^th busiest in the world. Houses are being built at a rapid pace, spreading the city boundaries but there are plenty more dense forests of long-leafed pine to push up against. The 47% white population has a strong Christian Evangelical flavour (a prominent arterial road is Billy Graham Parkway!) while the 35% black population is much in evidence in up-market malls and restaurants, as well as in more modest occupations. I would guess there is more racial Wokery in London (13% black) than in Charlotte, which enjoys a laid-back and relaxed life-style. Long may both prosper!

 

SMD

22.6 22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

THE WALLACE AND THE FRICK

 

One of the great pleasures of living in London or New York is the easy accessibility of two wonderful art collections, the Wallace Collection in Hertford House, Manchester Square and the Frick Collection at 1, E.70^th Street on 5^th. I am a fan of Rococo art and that first drew me to the Wallace. Rococo is regally displayed at the Frick too, so to me that makes it unmissable. But the range of joys in both Collections, beyond even Rococo, is immense; permit me to share with you, or remind you of, these manifold joys.

  

     

The heavy Wallace exterior

                                                           

                                                           The elegant Frick exterior

Both collections were founded by enormously rich men, who were not entirely respectable. The Wallace was the creation of the first 4 Marquesses of Hertford, whose family name was Seymour-Conway. The 3^rd Marquess, who died in 1840, was the most serious collector with a brilliant eye for French 18^th century art, then deeply unfashionable. This Marquess’ favourite painting was the paint adorning the faces of the harlots of London with whom he notoriously cavorted as he lived the life of a Regency rake. The 4^th Marquess who lived almost all his respectable life in Paris, owning the Bagatelle chateau in the Bois de Boulogne, diversified the Collection and was much helped by his illegitimate son, who became Sir Richard Wallace. Oddly Sir Richard was never formally recognized as his son by the 4^th Marquess but was warmly embraced and cherished by his paternal grand-mother and her daughter. Sir Richard inherited the Collection and all the unentailed property from his father in 1870, becoming an MP and baronet, dying in 1890. His French wife bequeathed the Collection to the nation in 1897 and it opened to the public in 1901.

 

                   The 3rd Marquis of Hertford 

Sir Richard Wallace

 

Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was an archetypical “robber baron”. Operating a coke business near Pittsburg, he befriended Andrew Carnegie and played a part in the creation of Carnegie Steel and later US Steel. He was a big-shot at the Pennsylvania Railway, but then sold all his interests for a vast sum to Carnegie. He earned a bad reputation for hushing up his partial responsibility, by failing to maintain the South Fork Dam, for the Johnstown Flood of 1889, a major catastrophe causing the death of 2,209. He was involved in the armed repression of the Homestead Strike of 1892 and only just survived an anarchist assassination attempt that year. Prudently deciding to move to less dangerous New York (sic!), he devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy. He had long been an avid collector of American painting but he then turned to Old Masters and European furniture and artefacts.

                                                                      Henry C Frick

As you enter Hertford House, your first sight is the elegant stair-case, which once adorned the Banque de France, with metalwork depicting money-bags and gold coin, rather blatantly even for our taste. Amid lovely Boulle furniture and walls of Dutch cabinet-pictures, we find one of the Wallace’s iconic paintings, The Swing by Fragonard, as the beauty kicks her slipper over the head of her ardent wooer, epitomising the carefree spirit of the Collection.

                                                   The Swing by Fragonard

 

Not to be outdone, the Frick has a whole Fragonard Room, a truly sumptuous confection containing The Progress of Love in 4 delectable panels.

        

                                                   The Meeting from The Progress of Love

Unable to match this richness, the Wallace counter-attacks with a surfeit of Bouchers, redolent of 18^th century eroticism.

                    The Rising of the Sun by Boucher

 

Boucher painted delicate pastorals and famous portraits and his works grace many a staircase at the Wallace. Yet the floorboards creak with the weight (or is it the pleasure?) of the wonderful furniture they carry – escritoires, chairs, armoires in splendid profusion:

                   A Chest of Drawers by Reisener

The Frick can match this with its own exquisite pieces spread throughout the Collection. In truth the Collections are both so rich we should banish all thoughts of rivalry between them. Let us review some of the iconic paintings from both: first the Wallace

             

Christ's charge to Peter; Rubens

                                                    
                                                                         

                                                         Frans Hals: The Laughing Cavalier

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

                                                              Rembrandt: Portrait of Titus

                                             

         Canaletto: Basin of San Marco, Venice

The Frick has an equally distinguished selection:

                                                 Vermeer: The Soldier and the laughing Girl

                                             Hans Holbein: Portrait of Thomas Cromwell

The modernist critic might say that the taste displayed by these Collections is conventional and unadventurous. Yet many others deplore the often-sloppy technique and crowd-pleasing sensationalism of some modern artists. Both collections are relatively sparsely visited, other galleries or exhibitions cater for or speak to the “edgier” audience. In my view the Wallace and the Frick, the first unchanging and the second still growing, move us with the profundity of their artistic respect for the historic achievement of Western Art. Visiting either is a life-enhancing experience galvanizing us with the zest of being civilised and human.

I give you below two more works from the Frick and I finish with a personal favourite from the Wallace, the gorgeous majolica plate from lovely Urbino.

Mortlake Terrace: J M W Turner

                            
 

                                                                                    

                                                                                                         Doge G.Mocengo by Bellini

 

                        

                      Maiolica Plate from Urbino

SMD

12.06.22

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2022

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER IN TURIN

 

Most people have their revered traditions and customs, not all of which sit easily in the modern world. The Africans rated FGM, the Indians the practice of suttee and the Japanese revelled in hari kiri.. Brits once practised the Ducking of Witches, no longer thought efficacious, but even at the State Opening of Parliament last week Prince Charles evoked Guy Fawkes and despatched 6 wheezy Yeomen of the Guard in full fig (usually retired warrant officers from the Forces) to inspect the cellars for gunpowder. With Putin and ISIS still at large, this may be thought merely a prudent precaution, and happily they found nothing.

The revered tradition we faithfully observe is watching the Eurovision Song Contest. My wife and I have done so annually since the 1970s. Clipboards list the countries, an ever-growing horde, and the title of their musical offering, if you can penetrate Icelandic or Breton. A bottle or two of wine are at hand to assist slumber or anaesthetise the tonsils and off we go to wonder, laugh and be scandalised by the antics of the unbuttoned Eurovision audience. It is old-fashioned family fun.

                        

                                                           The UK entrant Sam Ryder

This year the omens were not very favourable. The ferocious Russian attack on Ukraine darkened the mood, which was nervous but full of support and admiration for the Ukrainians. The UK’s recent history at the contest was dismal – low placings for 20 years and in 2021 the dreaded nul pointes. The glory days of yesteryear when Sandi Shaw or Brotherhood of Man could wow the audience were but distant memories and even Ireland, who could once boast of Johnny Logan and Dana, failed to survive the semis. Sadly gone too was the late Sir Terry Wogan, whose light good-humour brightened many a contest with his jokey commentary. Mind you Graham Norton is an amusing guide too.

Anyhow, on Tuesday we kicked off with the first semi – final, with many vacuous songs, mainly dismal ballads sending my dear wife comatose. Thursday saw the shock (to me) exits of Israel, Cyprus and Malta and the survival of a bizarre Serb effort centred on hand-washing (sic!). The Grand Final was on Saturday in Turin before a noisy, but not riotous, crowd heavy with proud gays, hideous tattoos, spaced-out weirdies, in other words typically European hipsters.. In the meanwhile the airwaves had been awash with the entries from the Big Five, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. We had come to realise that the UK entry Spaceman was rather good and the singer Sam Ryder, while in need of a haircut to my elderly mind, was an excellent representative in this peculiar milieu. There was nothing to fear from the French whose dismal Breton effort would even bore the pants off Macron. The German entry was worse. There was however one entry, that of Chanel representing Spain, which was a threat to all the others.

 

Her number SioMo, her dancing, her nubile buttocks, and a crotch to die for, would make the nuns of Zaragossa reach for their smelling salts. My loyalty to Sam Ryder wobbled as the blood in my veins bubbled, but the mad moment passed. Phew, that was close!

Chanel of Spain adds excitement

At long last, the 25 surviving songs were performed. The 40 national juries eventually pronounced their verdict and to our delight and astonishment the UK leapt into the lead, with generous 12 points from Austria, France (Yes, France!) and many others. Some deserved success went to Belgium, Greece, Moldova, Sweden and Poland. There was a final obstacle to surmount – the verdict of the voting public. This was certain to be more political than musical and sure enough the powerful sympathy vote for Ukraine gave them an overwhelming victory with the UK in a very honourable second place.

                    

                                     The Kalush Orchestra representing Ukraine

I think everyone was happy. The Ukrainians received a well-deserved boost. The UK was no longer a pariah at Eurovision – all that is needed is a good song and a good performer. We are all brothers again and I warm a little towards Europe. Thank you, Eurovision!

SMD

16.5.22 

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

BLOWING OUR OWN TRUMPET

I am sure I am not alone in being fed up of the negative historical narrative being spread assiduously by the woke and Lefty UK political bloc about the values and achievements of famous figures in Britain’s rather splendid past. I am talking about the snide media, like the BBC, Channel 4, the Guardian, New Statesman, many thousand “clever” Dicks in academia and the Arts, countless morons on social media and large swathes of those in local government and the “caring professions” who love biting the hands that feed them. They peddle all manner of distorted tosh to fortify their view of Britain as racist, reactionary and in terminal decline. That view is ignorant, insulting and wholly untrue.

We Brits, like any self-respecting nation, are proud of our history and treasure our heroes. We do not suppose our heroes were without human fault – that would be absurd – but their achievements hugely outweigh their faults. Yet, a North London Gladstone Park is reported to be renamed Diane Abbott Park after the faithful stooge of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader whose greatest pleasure was taking cycling holidays in Walter Ulbricht’s repressively foul East Germany. Dynamic W E Gladstone was Prime Minister 4 times in Victorian Britain; he revolutionised the production of national budgets, widened the franchise, introduced key reforms to the civil service, to liquor licensing, modernised the armed forces and tried to overhaul the government of Ireland and help its landless poor. His father, a Liverpool merchant, allegedly made money out of the slave trade, enough for todays Lefties to scream denunciations and cancel his very name. Compared to Gladstone, Diane Abbott has achieved zero, famed only for issuing a fetid stream of mendacious Agitprop from Hackney Council  

            Mr W E Gladstone                                Ms Diane Abbott

Our military heroes, Sir Francis Drake, Marlborough, Clive of India, General Wolfe of Quebec, Admiral Nelson, The Duke of Wellington, Douglas Haig, Dowding, Alanbrooke, to mention only the most prominent, stand comparison with warriors of any other nation. Our cultural heroes are giants of literature such as Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Austen, Dickens, George Eliot, Orwell for adults, or Tolkien, C S Lewis or JK Rowling for children. Our historians, our philosophers, our technologists and our scientists have led the world in many spheres. The point of these catalogues is to underline British excellence and remind the world that Latin America, The Middle East, Asia and Africa are at best in the second rank. Step forward and cheer the names of the world-class contributors from Brazil, Syria, Jamaica, Congo, Somalia, Vietnam or Pakistan. Yes, the silence is deafening! We hope others can improve their performances but at this moment the developed Anglophone world, (including of course the US), the French and a handful of other European nations are light-years ahead of the large, mediocre, straggling pack.

Britain is a highly civilised country and the battle for tolerance of, and the bestowal of legal rights upon, immigrants into this country has long been won. It is a given. Yet there are obligations on the incoming. They must integrate into British society and adopt British customs. Quickly they must forget about honour killings and vendettas, cease ghastly practices like female genital mutilation (FGM), drop demeaning yashmaks and burkas, ignore the agitation of some for a jihad or some other convulsion, stop corrupting local elections and creating criminal rings to abuse vulnerable girls. Such practices are “simply not done” in Britain and are widely deplored.

We rejoice at the achievements of many first- and second- generation immigrants, not least in the Conservative Party. We are thinking of Dominic Raab or Rishi Sunak (both potential prime Ministers), Priti Patel, possessor of the Ugandan Asian work ethic whose family well knows the virulence of black oppression, James Cleverly, Kwasi Kwarteng, Sajid Javid, Nadhim Zalawi, Alok Sharma, Suella Braverman, all of whom have reached senior rank. Even notoriously anti-Semitic Labour embrace Sadiq Khan, David Lammy and Anas Sarwar to add lustre to their ranks. Other talented non-whites have flourished here - Trevor Phillips, Clive Myrie and Reeta Chakrabarti come to mind, including a horde of sportsmen and women. Britain is demonstrably a tolerant and meritocratic society.

 

                                    Rishi Sunak, Tory Pin-up                Sadiq Khan, Labour Pin-up  
          

Of course, Black Lives Matter and similar activist groups complain that not enough is done for them. We are urged to be “inclusive”. Well, we are already plenty inclusive, see above, and many resent the over-representation of the non-white community in every TV advertisement or popular show. Britain is 87% white, 4% black, 7% Asian and 2% others. That is the delicate reality and distortions of that reality are patronising, intrusive and annoying. Leave us to live together in peace in our great country.

 

SMD

4.5.22

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

EASTER JOTTINGS

 

EASTER JOTTINGS

                         (With grateful acknowledgements to the old Telegraph Peter Simple Column)

 

To my doctor, village handyman, deck-chair attendant and barber-surgeon Jamie Perks, who diagnosed my ailment as Incorrigible Mortification of the Tripes. He prescribed bleeding with leeches @ 2p per leech. I was much improved. Spoke casually to my NHS doctor who rushed me by ambulance to the local Aneurin Bevan Superama Hospital and insisted I took a scan in their 2m GBP ultra-sound suite. Clearly bamboozled, there were many oohs and aaghs from the nursing staff as my results came slowly through. The consultant Dr Acula looked at my leeches with intense interest and stroked his rather scraggly beard. “We are all guilty” intoned resident psychiatrist Dr Heinz Kiosk irrelevantly.

There is not much that is funny ha-ha about Vladimir Putin, but plenty that is funny-peculiar. My sources tell me he has a secure deluxe padded-cell at the Lavrenti Beria Rest Home for Retired KGB Torturers in Omsk (or is it Tomsk?). The Home boasts an extensive lake and upon it, Putin, self-promoted to Admiral, commands a scaled down replica of the good ship Moskva. His “associates” have doctored the volatile ammunition magazines of this craft, MI5 ensures he has a generous helping of poisoned borscht awaiting his disembarkment, on a clear day lethal Turkish drones can be seen hovering in the skies, and his sweet tooth will be more than satisfied by the bombe surprise concocted by the kitchens of Mossad. Expect a big bang soon!

“Vile capitalist exploitation!” yells Tureen Trotsky, Nadirco Professor of World Literature at Kent Bottom University, as the Lesbian, one-legged, Palestinian academic calls for the “cancellation” of all the works of Dickens, Austen, Thackeray and especially Thomas Hardy, whose evocations of a green, rural England “fly in the face of slaving working people and promote racial discrimination”. Professor Trotsky substitutes historic pornography from the Olympia Press in Paris and from the Svengali Institute in Pskov. The wheels of Justice grind slowly but some will be content to learn she has at last been served with a writ by the Home Office and given a one-way ticket to Rwanda.

Is Boris a Tory? The question is asked with penetrating repetition throughout the land. How can one with, admittedly remote, Turkish antecedents possibly qualify? And he does not appear to be a member of the Carlton Club, let alone an honorary Warden of my Feudal and Reactionary League. His sexual dalliances label him a Liberal and his love of Northern grittiness echo many a scurvy Socialist. His flag-waving endears him to the stoutest Ulster Unionist. Yet in this moment of peril, we will rally to him as a shock-haired Joan of Arc, scattering his sinister enemies in the plush House of Lords and even on his own green back-benches. The Bringer of Brexit wins and deserves a dukedom and national adulation!

 

SMD

18.4.22

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

 

THE GREEK MIRACLE

I sit here in our comfortable family house in suburban Athens, situated on the foothills of Mount Hymettus, whose modest sugar-loaf bulk protects us from wind and tempest. I ponder the history of this place and the contribution Greece has made to human development. I am a proud Scot and a patriotic Briton too, but I have to concede that the Greeks are an extraordinary star-turn by most measures and I wish to pay this grateful tribute to them.

The greatness of Greece emanates first from the poetic sagas of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad is the story of the siege of Troy, when the Greeks under Agamemnon of Mycenae unite to free lovely Helen, the wife of Spartan king Menelaus, who has been kidnapped by the Trojan prince Paris, son of King Priam.  The epic poem was attributed to Homer (some say there were 3 separate poets) who flourished in about 750 BC, probably in Ionia. The events in Troy, if there is a kernel of truth in them, were dated much earlier, probably in the 12^th or 13^th century BC, according to archaeologists excavating in Mycenae and Troy. A Bronze Age Trojan war is being described by an Iron Age poet, Homer.

We are talking about pre-History here, with no written records. The Greeks had no alphabet or script in those days and these epic poems were transmitted orally and transcribed much later.    

        Homer, father of Greek poetry

Declaimed in sonorous iambic pentameters, Homer’s epic world is one of Olympian gods interfering with the actions of Greek and Trojan heroes and their women, of furious rivalries between warriors and of all the qualities and vices of mankind. His Odyssey describing the adventures of Odysseus (in Latin, Ulysses) is wholly imaginative as he wrestles with monsters and evil spirits on his way home to his wife Penelope on his Aegean-island kingdom of Ithaca. Homer inspired the great Latin epic, the Aeneid by Virgil, praising the founding of Rome by the Trojan hero Aeneas.

To sum up matters Homeric, the brilliant but careless archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a Bronze age death-mask in Mycenae and like the great show-man he was, telegrammed the King of Greece, with precious little scientific evidence: I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon! The public believed him and loved it though later experts dated the mask a century before any Agamemnon.

             Schliemann’s Famed Mask of Agamemnon

Fast forward to the 5^th century BC and the Golden Age of Athens, when that city-state enjoyed a remarkable flowering mainly under the auspices of populist statesman Pericles. That flowering was led by philosophers like Socrates, who taught Plato, whose pupil was Aristotle. The works of these great minds, in ethics and politics, are still endlessly debated today, (or certainly were in my Oxford days 60 years ago).

The Golden Age also saw the theatre flourish, a religious as well as a dramatic feast in those times. The works of the great dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides thrilled the ancient audiences and modern ones too. In 1960, as a short-term student in Paris, I read all Sophocles’ plays (no great feat, there are only 7). I have attended various classical performances, often at Herodes Atticus, the Roman theatre beneath the Acropolis in Athens. Last time I was there the blinding of a character was graphically enacted. This proved too much for a lady spectator who fell into a noisy swoon and had to be carried out amid much hubbub. An authentic touch, for sure!

The timeless buildings on the Acropolis are also Pericles’ legacy, although he ruthlessly looted the treasure belonging to the Delian League to pay for them.

            The Acropolis today

The Parthenon, the Erechtheion and other temples beautify modern Athens. The finest theatres in Greece architecturally are elsewhere. There is an evocative, but steep, theatre at the wonderful site of Delphi, which was altered to accommodate a visit, and no doubt a bardic performance, by the Emperor Nero. Most people’s favourite is the vast Theatre at Epidaurus in the Peloponnese.

                           

                                                     The acoustically perfect theatre at Epidaurus

On one of several visits years ago, I tested the vaunted acoustics by declaiming the famous speech from Marlowe’s Dr Faustus:

Is this the Face that launched a Thousand Ships

And burnt the topless Towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a Kiss…

My long-suffering wife, seated on high, heard me with bell-like clarity. I did not however achieve immortality!

A Renaissance Raphael fresco in the Vatican depicts the richness of the Academy of Athens:

A copy from the V&A of Raphael’s Academy

I am no scholar but it is possible to identify the historians Thucydides and Herodotus, the mathematicians Pythagoras and Euclid and the sculptor Praxiteles in addition to the usual suspects. Sadly, Pericles and his successors lost the Peloponnesian War against authoritarian Sparta and the spark of the glory of Athens was greatly diminished.

Classical Greece gave way to the dominance of Macedonian Alexander the Great and soon enough to the Romans. Hellenistic culture continued to flourish, Greek was also the language of the New Testament and of the Eastern Mediterranean generally. Although geographical Greece was a mere province, the Byzantine Empire, successor to the Roman, spread her culture very widely. Exquisite churches like Daphni, near Athens, or Hosias Loukas on the road to Delphi testify to that beauty.

      Christ the All-judging in mosaic from Daphni

The Byzantine Empire ended with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and Greece suffered as second-class infidels under the Muslim yoke. In 1821 the Greeks revolted and achieved liberation in 1830. I am proud that my fellow Scot and alumni in childhood at Aberdeen Grammar School, the poet Lord Byron, played a leading role in rallying European opinion on the Greek side.

I dreamed that Greece might still be free

Modern Greece has had many moments of turmoil but her unique spirit, typified by her brave Resistance to Nazi occupation in WW2, is unquenched and many will join me in proclaiming:

 – Thank you Greece for ushering in Western civilization, all strength to the Hellenic genius, long live Greece!

 

SMD

15.04.22

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2022

THE LIMITS OF POWER

It is becoming clear that a handicap afflicting the great Powers of today, the USA, Russia, China and The European Union, is an inability to recognize the limits of their strength and authority. Recent older Powers like the UK and France learnt this lesson the hard way and Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 was celebrated in Recessional with Kipling’s wry lines:

Far-called our navies melt away;
  On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
  Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The world craves equilibrium, what the 19^th century called “the balance of power”. No one Power can become dominant, while their collective need basically to cooperate with each other creates a stability helpful to all the other nations in the world. This idealised state of affairs has recently come unstuck and the different reasons for this are worth exploring.

The USA was created under her unique 1776 Constitution which conferred equality to every citizen and powerful rights to every state in the Union. An attempt to secede from the Union by a group of Southern states in 1861 precipitated a ferocious Civil War. Over the years the Federal central authority has strengthened but States Rights remains a populist rallying cry. Notions of Manifest Destiny and The American Dream are rather passé these days, and despite decisive contributions to both World Wars, the old cohesion of the (white) US population weakens in the face of unsuccessful wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, acute racial tensions and the divisive rhetoric of politicians like Donald Trump.

                                 US divisions still apparent after 157 years

We Brits mostly believe that the US is a vital power for good and are dismayed by the poor leadership shown by ga-ga Joe Biden. He has blundered on Ukraine and we can only hope his successor is fit for the job. Acting as the world’s policeman is a thankless task and a broadly supportive home electorate is an important pre-requisite. The military might of nuclear USA is unrivalled and it must not fall under the influence of diehard generals or a “woke” Leftist Congress.

America’s only rival in firepower is Russia. After many convulsions, Putin brought some stability and relative prosperity to his country bolstered by her enviable natural resources. Yet Putin has chosen a highly assertive foreign policy and he chafes at what he sees as a humiliation imposed by the West involving the break-up of the Stalinist USSR or traditional Tsarist Empire. His complaints are fanciful as the old Russian autocracies had lost the consent of the Russian and her subject peoples.

In launching her wild, unprovoked assault on Ukraine Putin has condemned Russia to global condemnation. It is so retrograde a measure that Russia’s reputation will take generations to recover. The conduct of the Russian forces and their bestial treatment of civilians puts their country beyond the Pale of civilised inter-reaction. Quite contrary to Putin’s expectations it has united Europe against him, provoked a drastic programme of sanctions and stimulated Ukrainians to an effective and heroic defence. What insane impulse has propelled Putin into this calamitous course of action?  Putin’s War is a throwback to the 17^th century, when, as Samuel Butler tells us, the leaders:

Decide all Controversies by
Infallible Artillery;

Thankfully we have come a long way since then and surely Russia’s leaders will face capital criminal charges when the dust has settled, as we see the appalling carnage and suffering they have unleashed.

                

       How Russia treats her neighbours

Putin’s attack on Ukraine simply underlines the truth of Lord Acton’s dictum:

All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Even more of an enigma to the Western mind is the position of China. By weight of population ancient China deserves to be a leading Power but failed to compete from the 19^th century onwards. Communist ideology, as propounded by Mao Zedong, held back China until the regimes dominated by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s opened up to the world with a policy of “market socialism”. Modern China is now immensely prosperous and a key manufacturer. Her huge investments in resources in Africa and elsewhere make her an indispensable partner for the West. More ominously, her investment in Western educational establishments, including Oxbridge colleges, gives her real influence.

China remains a communist dictatorship, with dissidents suppressed and persecuted. The territory of China is widely recognised but there are flashpoints. China claims Taiwan, currently independent and democratically governed but once, from 1949 to 1975, the bolt-hole of deposed Chinese autocrat Chiang Kai Shek. Before that it was part of the Japanese Empire from 1895 to 1945. Taiwan has many economic friends in East Asia and the USA. Any attempt by China to seize and occupy Taiwan would be fiercely resisted – and events in Ukraine may give China pause. A military operation would be perilous and a diplomatic solution would be the sensible way through. Similarly, China has aggressively claimed much of the South China Sea, building bases, clashing with the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia who also have interests there. No doubt some agreement could be cobbled up, but China plays a long game. China made many promises about the autonomy of Hong Kong when it was handed back by the UK in 1997, but these promises have been broken with the suppression of anti-Chinese opposition on the territory. Whether China would ever properly abide by a treaty on Taiwan or the South China Sea is a moot point.

               
   President Xi Jinping runs an unpredictable nation

China was once the junior partner in the Sino-Soviet relationship. With China’s economic strength and Russia’s rapid demographic decline, the roles are reversed. The Tsarist nightmare of a takeover by “The Yellow Horde” may be realized in years to come. And yet…..some commentators believe China is a “paper tiger”, far less dangerous and single-minded than its propaganda claims and that its military might is quite unproven. Most of us prefer not to test that theory and to let sleeping dogs lie.

The 4th power bloc is the European Union comprising 27 nations, most with a long and distinguished history. The 6 EEC founder-members who signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 pledged to move towards political integration, but that was fanciful for many years. Later however it became clear that an expanded EU needed more centralised and efficient powers and independent sovereignty became eroded. Britain, a member since 1973, did not like the direction of travel and left the EU in 2020 after a narrow referendum vote in 2016.

France, Germany, Italy and Spain are the dominant members, with a secretariat in Brussels, Belgium. Generally, the EU has been economically successful although recent crises have slowed growth. It is protectionist by instinct and its approach to problems is legalistic and “rules-based” – not much scope for dynamic originality. It is fair to say that getting 27 nations to agree on substantial matters is a huge burden and sometimes the EU sounds like a dissonant Tower of Babel. The cultural division between the original founding 6, the Scandinavians, the Baltics, the Slav Central and Eastern Europeans and the Eastern Mediterranean states is very apparent. Amazingly the 27 have managed to speak with one voice in the face of the Russian war on Ukraine, but the exposed position of dissident Poland and the luke-warm adherence of Hungary means that reform of its constitution is necessary. One size does not fit all! Movement on such matters is very laboured and the EU could easily do too little too late. The EU’s lack of its own army is a long-term problem and some say the UK missed an historic opportunity in leaving rather than leading the EU. I disagree – the gulf between the UK’s and the EU’s mentality and world-view was simply too wide.

Kenneth Clark helped us to recognize “Civilisation” when we saw it

Creating world security cannot depend on the United Nations where Russia and China have an over-arching veto. Statesmen of a new generation have to institute political change to light and cherish the torches of democracy and civilisation and protect mankind.

 

SMD

6.04.22

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2022