Destiny and Change

An article in today’s Guardian concerning objections to a seminar to be held in Oxford to examine the “benefits and costs of Empire” certainly got me thinking. Since retiring and moving to live in Germany I have begun to realise that a considerable amount of what I was taught, have read, and which is popularly believed in the English-speaking world, is, if not actually false, certainly not the entire story. That doesn’t mean I support the removal of statues, the defacing of memorials or the excising of historical figures or aspects of history from public view or from the history books. Far from it, I would far rather see their actions, or the events, examined in context, if possible with the view from “the other side” so that those hearing it or studying it, are in a position to be able to form a balanced opinion.

Far too often I hear people claim that the British Empire brought “civilisation” and “rule of law” (specifically English Common Law) to various places and must therefore be a “good thing”. That completely ignores the fact that many of these places — such as India — already had perfectly good, functioning, civilisations and legal systems. In this version, the "British" had a "manifest destiny" to bring their brand of civilisation, their order of society, their version of Capitalism and their concepts of justice to the rest of the world, and, if necessary, impose it. Yes, in some places we found no formal “civilisation” which had built roads, railways, harbours or even cities. But did not mean they didn’t have a social structure, hierarchical society or a sense of nationhood before we trotted in, shot a few to make them realise how superior we were, and then proceeded to herd them off the land they held so we could put it to better use. Yes, that is a rather cynical summary, especially as I am the descendent of English settlers in Africa. 

I will defend my view by saying that my forebears had little real choice but to leave a Britain where they had little chance of rising out of poverty, and every chance of ending up dying of cholera, tuberculosis or something else in the slums of the British cities at a very young age. In Africa they faced an understandably hostile native population, totally unfamiliar climate and soil conditions and the exploitation of moneyed “younger sons” sent out to build their own estates and grab a share of the wealth available. A short reading of the history of the governments and those “elected” to govern in the Cape is enlightening to say the least. So is a short reading of the history of the development of the exploitation of the nations natural resources, starting with the diamonds in Kimberley and ending with the seizure of the Boer Republics so as to gain full control of the gold reserves. The mines were already in the ownership of Rhodes and his chums, but their monopoly was threatened by the political affiliations and anti-British attitude of the ruling Afrikaaner governments. 

In the minds of those in power in Britain and the brokers of power and wealth, the Boers had to go! Reading how the Daily Mail portrayed the Afrikaaners is instructive, partly because it is how, even now, the Daily Mail and its stable companions in the nationalistic Press portray any people or nation they want to whip up enmity against. Raised on the British version of the Anglo-Boer War it came as something of a shock to learn that the Boer Republics actually had a very sophisticated society. Their legal system was based on Roman-Dutch Law, the judiciary was independent, their lawyers widely read and travelled. Their Parliaments were lively, democratically elected and their Presidents and presidency modelled on the US style executive moderated by a Parliament. Their Public Buildings, and their cities would not have been out of place in Europe. Some of their leading families traced their antecedents back to titled families from France, the Netherlands and Germany as well as Britain.

Yet nothing of that is ever mentioned in the history taught to those of us of English descent. To us the “Boer” was always portrayed as a caricature. A dour Calvinist, living in an ox wagon, shooting buck, herding cattle, and occasionally planting a crop when not beating the natives or trying to take the gold and diamonds away from “Uitlanders”. Ironically, cut off from the Netherlands in 1805, the Dutch Reformed Church drew its post British Occupation ministers from the Scottish Presbyterian Church, from which it gained its Calvinism via Knox! Yet it isn’t as if the history from the Boer perspective isn’t known and available, it just is not mentioned!

Reading the Guardian article it struck me that a large part bon the problem we face at present in western civilisation stems from the Edwardian view that the British Empire was some great civilising force. That we, as the British (by which is usually meant “The English”) have a “manifest destiny” to bring the entire world under our benevolent and superior governance. Since the end of the second world war, this “manifest destiny” has been extended, if not entirely subsumed, by the US, the successor western power to the British just as Byzantium/Constantinople was to Rome. In the eyes of many in the UK and the US, it is our “right” and our “destiny” to shape and form the world. In that view, the Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-American peoples are superior in every sense to every other nation and race. In a large part, reading the news feeds (particularly the rabid commentators on some of them), this slewed version of our history is what has led us to Brexit, to the animosity toward the rest of Europe, and the refusal to be “part of the team” in some quarters. It is also what has led to Trump, to the xenophobia toward anyone “not one of us” and underpins a lot of racism everywhere.

To me that is a rather frightening and dangerous delusion. One that only a real awareness of history taught from ALL sides can overcome. Thus, I hope that the proposed symposium on the study of the history of the British Empire does not simply adopt the usual approaches of “it is all rotten” or “it was essentially good, but with awkward bits”. We have to confront the reality of the bad — like the industrialisation of slave trading, the Irish Famine made infinitely worse by laws to protect English farmers, the massacres of Aboriginals in Australia, Africa, the Americas — and acknowledge what was achieved that has benefited those lands (and there is quite a bit).

What we do have to do, is drop the complete nonsense that it was all about bringing civilisation to anyone else. That may have been a side effect in some instances, but the real purpose was the control of resources and wealth. The world is changing, and we need to change too, to embrace, perhaps, a new destiny in which we recognise that there is considerably more value in being honest about our role in shaping today, and working with everyone else, to shape tomorrow. Then we can celebrate the achievements of the little men and women on all sides who endured, suffered, rebuilt and plugged on after the, to quote Kipling, “Shouting and the tumult dies, The Captains and the Kings depart …”

Capitalism's Last Gasp?

If the latest plethora of books on the subject is anything to go by - probably not. An article in The Spectator critiques the latest offering by a C4 presenter and Left wing ideologue. Yet again, a left winger is predicting that Capitalism is doomed, and that it will be replaced by 'greater sharing of resources' - which seems to be Left wing speak for 'Sodomy non sapiens'. Essentially, this prediction has been trotted out since Marx and probably before him and they still haven't managed to come up with a workable alternative.

Capitalism is as old as humanity. I would suggest that it began when Ugg first discovered that he could trade a leg of mammoth for a months supply of fish, which could be traded for a wife, new sandals, a years supply of leather loincloths and a bag full of freshly napped arrow heads and axes. That he could trade those for the rest of the year and keep everyone else working to supply him with more trade opportunities and food probably arrived at the same moment. And, I would venture, that ever since some 'thinker' in the group has whinged that Ugg's enterprise approach to trade is 'unfair' and fails to 'distribute the proceeds evenly.

I suspect that Capitalism, love it or hate it, will always be around in some form. The reason is that, unlike the Left's ideal society and system, it is flexible. It responds to change. It adapts, and it rewards effort, enterprise and innovation - all of which are anathema to the sort of 'managed' redistributive economic systems favoured by most people on the Left of the political spectrum. Ironically efforts to 'control' economic activity, or to redistribute the rewards usually result in a widening of the gaps between 'rich' and 'poor' and ultimately in the 'means of production' actually being moved entirely abroad.

Recently I have indulged myself, reading some of Owen Jones' work and making an attempt to read several other tomes on 'non-capitalist' economic systems. I've given up. None of them seems able to see that any system such as they propose doesn't actually 'fix' anything. In fact they simply exchange to entrepreneur with some Party Hack and associated Apparatchiks who reward themselves and patronise everyone else in the name of 'fairness'. Nor do they seem able to recognise that every attempt to create the sort of systems they favour fail for the same reason every time. People do not like being told what they may and may not have. They do not like having some faceless bureaucrat serving a 'leader' enjoying the fruits of everyone else's labours, telling them they aren't entitled to some reward for their efforts because it is 'unfair' to the bone idle twerp they work alongside.

As The Spectator article says -

Oddly enough, the recent batch of left-wing doom and conspiracy books, from those of Russell Brand and Owen Jones to the more serious and informed Mason, point to a unified worldview. This sees human beings in democracies not as people with free will and unimaginable potential, but as inanimate beings to whom things are done. 

I do agree that raw unadulterated Capitalism produces some big inequalities, but teaching me to be envious of the guy who ventures his capital (earned or unearned) in some new business venture and strikes it rich, isn't addressing the problem. Most folk need only three things - a regular income, security and a 'home'. Yes there are those who live in sixty room mansions, own a yacht and four cars, but most of us never could even if we lived in some Left wing Utopia.

If there is one thing I have learned reading history and travelling in my work capacity, it is that there is a distinction between ideological theory and reality. I would love to see a more equal society in which no one goes hungry, no one is homeless or without medical care, but I also recognise that, no matter how attractive the ideological theory, it is unlikely to be achieved in any human society. Simply because humans are not all the same. We come with all manner of personal abilities, skills and ambitions. Ideology seldom takes account of that. In addition every Left wing regime I have ever encountered ran on the same principle - the belief that the 'State' owned the money in everyone's pockets and could spend it. So they floated loans, printed more money, raised taxes until it hurt, spent the money and then wondered why their economies flatlined. As Mr Micawber famously said; "Income Twenty Pounds per annum, Expenditure Nineteen Pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence - happiness. Expenditure Twenty Pounds and sixpence - disaster." A lesson there the Left simply refuse to learn. Their solution to everything - raise taxes! Tax the rich until the pips squeak as one Left wing Chancellor of the Exchequer put it. The result of his idiocy was a massive departure of 'capital' and a fall in revenue income.

Recently I was surprised to learn that in present day Russia income tax is a flat rate irrespective of income. Health care, social welfare and so on are all set at 'basic' levels. If you want better, you are free to buy it, but the 'State' doesn't provide it. That applies across a range of former communist countries, and, contrary to what writers like Owen Jones believe was the case, often this replaces a system where everyone paid for the best for the ruling elites, and got just the basic care themselves. Many other nations have similar systems. Hong Kong was one and still is, and China, Taiwan, India and several other major growing economies have the same idea - one rate of tax for everyone. In Hong Kong the super rich were encouraged to be 'philanthropic' - and they were often very generous.

I have to agree with the writer of The Spectator article. There is clearly something in the left wing mindset that refuses to acknowledge that no system is entirely 'fair'. Or that there will always be inequalities. That, after all, is the human condition.

Human Migrations

Humans have been migrating, I suspect, since the dawn of time. There have been many reasons for it I suspect, starting with the need to move when a familiar area can no longer support the tribe, clan, family and going all the way up to conflict and the need to escape. Individually the reasons can range from the desire to find a sexual/breeding partner to the desire for wealth and power. Then there are those who can see no hope of leading a life of hope or fulfilment in the place of their birth, and need to move to find employment even of the most basic once they reach adulthood. And when even that is denied them through war, discrimination, crime and corruption or lack of any viable opportunity, they are forced to take desperate measures.

This is where we see the sort of tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean at present. As the latest death toll rises, we hear all the usual politicians wringing their hands and saying all the usual things about ‘addressing the problem at its roots’ but doing nothing.

Reading all the usual twaddle from politicians, ‘aid agencies’, UN officials (many from the countries that ARE the problem) and commentators on various news shows, one is struck, very forcibly, by the lack of any workable solution being proposed by any of them. The UN and various ‘humanitarian’ groups all want Europe to throw open its borders and let the hordes in. No checks, no restrictions - just take them in and presumably house, feed and clothe them. Our political leaders want to give more ‘aid’ or send ‘advisers’ and, of course, the Aid Agencies and NGOs all want more money so they can do more to ‘lift people out of poverty’. All very laudable, but none of it actually addresses the root of the problem - incompetent and utterly corrupt governments.

In our haste to ‘de-colonise’ Africa in particular, we overlooked something rather important. Very few of the new ‘nations’ we left south of the Sahara had any ‘tradition’ of settled civilisation prior to colonisation, and even fewer were actually homogenous peoples. Most included more than one tribal group, and most of those tribes were traditional enemies who preyed on each other until forced to stop by the colonial power. The Mashona were happily enslaving all their neighbours and selling them to Arab slave traders at Mombasa and Dar Es Salaam right up until the British - at the behest of none other than Cecil John Rhodes (whose statue has just been attacked and now removed from the campus at University of Cape Town) sent in the Army to put a stop to it in 1898. That’s right, 1898! Robert Mugabe, take note.

Southern Africa is the classic example of historic migrations, since ALL the current ‘Bantu’ tribes now claiming it as their ‘homeland’ actually only arrived there after 1700 - around 40 years after the Dutch established their trading post at the Cape. They displaced the indigenous peoples, the Khoi folk, who formed three groups, a coastal people known to the Dutch as Strandlopers, the ‘Bushmen’ who inhabited the drier inland regions, and the Hottentot peoples of the western Cape. Another group who inhabited the central plateau - now the Free State and Northern Cape - have vanished entirely, their only traces being dry stone constructions of cattle pens and strange ‘beehive’ houses entered on hands and knees through an angled tunnel entrance. Like the Khoi peoples, they were driven out, driven into the deserts, and eventually killed on sight by the invading Bantu. Though to hear it now, it was the Europeans ‘wot done it’. Sadly, for the builders of the stone huts, the White explorers that found their remains were about fifty years too late.

So what is driving today’s mass migrations? 

To a very large extent it appears to be the failure of the post-colonial governments of almost all the African states to provide any sort of stable government. Plus the total lack of any prospects for employment, education, or to house, feed, and clothe oneself decently. Almost certainly one of the most powerful drivers is overpopulation. There simply aren’t the natural resources to support the populations now trying to subsist on them. Water is an obvious one, but so is arable land. I suspect that one reason sub-saharan Africa has not produced any settled cities or permanent agriculture is that the soil and the water available cannot sustain them. 

Thus, until fairly recent ‘colonial’ history, the agriculture tended to be slash and burn, farm it until the soil and the water was exhausted - then move on. Most of Africa is not covered by dense jungle or forest - by far the largest portion of it is desert or semi-desert, and most tribal systems prior to the colonial rush, were hunter gatherer and nomadic. Neither of these systems is suited to the massive expansion of the populations all over Africa, and the lack of industries, and lack of commercial traditions (in the western sense) means that most now have to find ways to make a living independently of the sort of system the developed countries enjoy. Nor is it likely that these will develop in the short term, given that corruption is rampant, nepotism, tribalism and sometimes xenophobia reach into every aspect of daily life.

Only those folk who have seen the shanty towns, the lack of infrastructures, the sewerage running in the streets and the lack of even the most basic services in these countries can begin to understand the desperation many feel. Only when our political classes, who burble on about ‘poverty’ and ‘economic development’ as if throwing money at it will change it, even begin to understand how their approach is simply enriching the most corrupt, and grinding the poorest even further into the mire will we begin to find a solution. Tanzania’s President has recently sold almost the entire Masai Mara off to the Sultan of one of the Gulf States. One point 6 MILLION square kilometres of land, as a ‘private’ safari park. Pity about the Masai who are now being driven from the land their forefathers first settled around the time the ‘Prophet’ the Sultan follows was hiding out in the mountains. 

Mozambique is selling huge tracts of land to the Chinese and to Western entrepreneurs for ‘development’ - and turning to small subsistence farmers off, forcing them into squatter camps, or into the hands of people traffickers so they end up on overloaded boats drowning in the Med or elsewhere in their efforts to find a decent life somewhere. The same thing is happening all over Africa, and while the IMF, the UN and other applaud these deals and approve the funding on the grounds it will help ‘develop’ the country, the reality is that most of it finds its way straight back into Swiss and other bank accounts held by - you guessed it - the ‘governing’ families and Parties who sold land they don’t ‘own’ in the first place.

Is it any wonder then that everywhere you look in Africa there are conflicts, armed and otherwise? Everywhere you look there is grinding poverty that can never be addressed? Is it any wonder the people resort to such desperate measures as to board unsuitable vessels and take the risk of catastrophe to reach what our prosperity projects as the land in which the streets are paved with gold, and everyone is a millionaire?

Easy for idle protesters, many on State handouts, to ‘demand’ we simply open the borders and take them in. Easy to scream, rant and shout that ‘more must be done’ to save the boat people, but what do we do with them once they are here? We have unemployment, we have people in poverty, we have people in need of assistance, and much as we’d like to, we simply can’t take in all those we’d like to. The solution lays in Africa itself, and though it may be painful, that is where it has to be addressed. Not on the open sea between Europe and North Africa, and not in Italy, Southern France, Britain, Greece or anywhere else in Europe.

I would suggest it has to start with stripping the ill-gotten gains from those in power there, and, perhaps under international supervision, the construction of proper infrastructures, proper services and the founding of proper industries, commerce, and, of course, education. That would be the sensible way to go — but since we’re dealing with politicians (with their own peccadilloes to protect) I will not be holding my breath to see it happen.

Interview

I was recently interviewed by Kura Carpenter, a cover designer based in New Zealand. Some readers will know that she has designed other covers for my books, so it was a pleasure to discuss my latest book with her. The interview can be read on her blog Kura Carpenter Design.

Discussions are underway on the design of the cover for my next book, set around 1836 and life in and around London and the Tahmes estuary. 

Milestones

Last year was one of those 'milestones' in life in a number of ways. It was the fiftieth anniversary of my finishing my 'formal' schooling. It marked the point at which I found myself launched, unprepared and without a map or a compass into the world of 'work'. I don't think I was the only one to have that feeling as we walked out of the school gates for the last time as pupils. For myself, beyond some vague ideas about becoming a priest (I'd passed the selection process, but been told I had to first work for three years), doing - perhaps - military service (it was on a ballot system) or 'going to sea' somehow, I'd not the faintest idea of what sort of 'work' I could do, let alone look for. University was not an option, my parents couldn't afford it, and even had they been able to, I managed to NOT pass the key subject, Mathematics.

As I quickly discovered, that limited my options quite considerably. I got lucky, my father's boss arranged for me to be interviewed by Barclays Bank, and much to my surprise, they hired me. So last month saw me report for my first day at work in the Main Street Branch - which was a Regional Head Office - of Barclays Bank DCO. I worked for them for three years, and I think it is true to say that was long enough to know I didn't suit banking. A spell trying to explore my vocation at Theological College ended in my taking a post as a travel agent as I simply did not have the support necessary to survive three years with no income. I tried sales (my grandfather ran his own 'agency' business, but I wasn't working for him), I tried clerical, the civil service (Customs and Excise) and I tried the fire service.

Fifty years, three marriages and three children (all from the first) later I look back on a career that now spans two continents and covers a little over 36 years between South Africa and the UK. It has taken me to the Romania, Poland, Kazahkstan, the US, the Caribbean, West Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. It also led to my eventually meeting and marrying my wife.

As I sat on the benches at the Founder's Day Ceremony at Selborne College last October I could not help but marvel at how much I've experienced, and how much I've seen and done since that day in 1964 that I walked out of the Lukin Road gate for the last time. I was saddened to learn how many of my former school mates were no longer with us, astonished at the journey many more have made, and delighted to see around thirty of them at the reunion. Here are some photos ...

The School's War Memorial, installed in 1920 to commemorate the former Old Boys who died in 1914 - 18. They fell in France, Belgium, Turkey, East Africa and in various oceans as well. The list enlarged to include 1939 - 45 and the subsequent 'Bush Wars'.

The Ceremony of the Key. Each year a representative of the incoming Matriculation Class is selected by his fellow pupils as the next 'Custodian of the Key' and the Changing of the Guard on the Memorial is marked by the handing over of the Key. The Ceremony has been performed since 1921 and the boys parading for this are now entirely volunteers.

Probably the only mark of my passage through the school. I subscribed to a campaign to raise money for the future of the school, so my name appears beneath my father's and above that of a friend I made in 1957. My 'Old Friend', as he likes to remind me ... OK, OK, so he's six months my senior ...

The New Bigotry

A guest post by a teacher based in Texas. Judi posts elsewhere under the pen name judiverse, and this article she wrote recently touched a cord with many of her regular readers.

"Jews, Kikes, Polocks, Chinks"--my father-in-law could go through a long list of derogatory terms in the course of one mealtime.  An ardent basketball fan, he loved the men's games but derided the women's teams.  He graduated from the Indiana University School of Law after serving in World War II, but his attitudes were typical of that era.

Since those Post World War II days, the nation has seen sit-in's, desegregation, affirmative action, hate crime laws, gay marriages, and numerous other societal changes.  Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. made civil rights history; Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.  Illegal immigrants may be on their way to receiving the full benefits of citizenship.  Women have come a long way, and are now welcomed as CEO's, members of Congress, and presidental candidates.  Gay marriage has become the law in several states.

All that progress sounds like reason to celebrate, and in many ways, it is.  However, we are seeing a new form of bigotry, one that persecutes people for not being one of the now-favored groups.  For instance, Caucasian students are told to check their "white privilege" at the college classroom doors.  They have professors who tell them about the evils white men have perpetrated against people of color throughout the nation's history and lay a guilt trip on them for what happened centuries ago.  They learn to hate themselves.  Burdened with sins of the past, they will  overlook the root causes of black crime and unemployment and approve more and more taxpayer expenditures to assuage their white guilt. 

Gay marriage may well be on the way to becoming the law of the land.  Most people accept that fact and harbor no ill feelings towards gays.  But if a Miss California contestant expresses her personal opinion that marriage should be between a man and a woman, her words may disqualify her.  If a company CEO says he doesn't approve of same-sex marriages,  protestors hold demonstrations and encourage others to boycott his restaurants.  It makes no difference that his establishments treat their customers and employees fairly, regardless of sexual orientation.  Political correctness demands that they must totally support gay marriages.

When the United States saw the influx of children pouring into the country from Central America, hearts went out to them and the cry arose to take them in.  To many, it is the country's duty to welcome illegal immigrants by giving them the whole package--tax credits, driver's licenses, welfare benefits.  Granting the perks of citizenship to those who entered illegally is a form of discrimination against those who worked hard, went through the proper channels, and waited for years to attain legal citizenship.  It also tips the scales against poor U.S. citizens who are looking for a job or a chance to obtain a college education.

Although we now see females as CEO's of large corporations and in the highest government positions, we have yet to elect a woman president.  When the 2016 elections come around, will voters choose a female candidate because she is the best qualified, or will they cast their ballot because it's time for a female president?  It will provide another feel-good moment, a time to celebrate yet another barrier being broken.

The new form of bigotry shows itself in attacks on the Christian faith.   Sales associates in some department stores dare not wish customers a "Merry Christmas."  Displays of crosses or the Ten Commandments are unwelcome in many communities.  At a recent prayer breakfast, President Obama attempted to put Christians in their proper place by making this comparison to the violence of Islamic extremism:  "And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."  He neglected to mention that Christians aren't the ones who've been beheading people or telling people of another faith to convert or die.  His words were designed to make people feel guilty over events of several centuries ago.

People feel persecuted and diminished under the new bigotry if they express opinions different from the politically correct, "settled" ones.  Those who raise questions about climate change will be singled out for their unenlightened views.  People who drive the wrong kind of car will be judged for polluting the environment.  Vegetarians will condemn people who enjoy a steak dinner at a restaurant.  Hunters, obese people, families with more than the accepted number of children--the list of targets for the new bigots continues to grow.

Although the United States no longer sees lynch mobs or crosses burned in yards, the new bigots have their own ways of exacting retribution.   A student who disagrees with his or her professor's ideology could receive lower grades.  Employees who make politically incorrect remarks in private e-mails have suddenly found themselves out of a job.  Companies that fall into disfavor with a particular group have been the targets of demonstrations and boycotts.  If the dissenting voices become too big a threat, the federal government sometimes attempts to stifle them with measures such as tax audits. 

Those who practice the new bigotry must lie awake nights,  consumed with their hatred.  A man who writes frequent angry letters to our local newspaper is obsessed with the Koch brothers and how much they contribute to Republican campaigns.  He never acknowledges that the other side also has its billionaire donors.  I've seen TV guests virtually turn purple when questioned about the merits of green energy.  These individuals have their minds closed to any other opinions.

The words of the poet, George Gordon, Lord Byron,  speak across the centuries to these new bigots:  "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

Je Suis Charlie

An article online in Slate, Europe's confused debate about Islam and Terrorism, flags up several matters which neither the liberal left, nor the extreme right are addressing, or, if they are, it is only to obfuscate. It is not as if the problem of extremism is unforeseen, there have been warnings of the rise in it for at least the last forty years. But the political classes have refused to address many of the issues, and even encouraged some. When they pushed 'multi-culturalism' down our throats we were told it was to combat 'intolerance' and 'religious prejudice'. In the face of evidence that the 'intolerance' was daily being promoted by certain 'radical' preachers, no action was taken, on the grounds that to do so would infringe their 'right' to express an opinion.

Anyone else expressing similarly abhorrent 'opinions' about the ideology these preachers pushed could expect to receive a visit from the Police and to be vilified in the pages of the Guardian, the Mirror and several other left or liberal newspapers, went unremarked. Now faced with the reality of having created, or helped create, the monster, the Right seek to label all Muslims as extremists, and the Left, to deny that Islam has anything to do with it.

The massive drive in the western democracies to embrace 'multi-culty' and 'secularise' the 'state', has created something of a vacuum morally, culturally and spiritually. It is NOT matched by any similar willingness to embrace anyone else's views, customs, religion or any other 'cultural' matter from any other group in any of the countries outside of the 'liberal' West. The aggressive secularising campaigners add to the problem. I regularly read aggressive statements from atheists trumpetting the belief that 'Christianity is dying' or that 'unbelievers will soon outnumber believers'. Most of them fail to even consider the impact of demographics, with Europe and North America - 100 years ago representing 20% of the world population - now only 8% of the world population, and falling to 6% by 2020, we, and the 'atheist' movers, are a very small group within the worlds major religions.

Nor do they appreciate that the present 'Islamic extremism' actually has its roots in the aggressive 'secularisation' policies of Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s, and in the Egyptian and other governments of the 1950s and 60s. Those policies effectively placed the Islamic 'Scholars' or leaders of Islam under the control, and in the pay, of the governments concerned. Once the trust of the people in the government was lost, as it was fairly rapidly, so the influence of the 'scholars' diminished.

Step forward the back street Mullah. Let him set up his 'religious school' and start brainwashing children. Let him become the administrator of Sharia Law and the 'interpreter' of the Quran and the Hadiths, and the journey into fundamentalism is well under way. Both Turkey and Egypt attempted to control or suppress these 'unofficial' schools and teachers, without success. Throw in the Cold war with both sides supporting various extremist factions - and the mess we see before us isn't going to go away anytime soon. Compound that with the much welcomed (by the liberal western intellectuals) 'Arab Spring' - and turn loose the dogs of war in every society as rival fundamentalist 'Islamic' groups fight for control of the religion and the world.

Two days ago two young Muslim men stormed into the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered twelve people. Their motive was, they said, to stop the defamation of 'The Prophet'. The problem is, they have now provoked a backlash against Muslims, the vast majority of whom, though they may not like people poking fun at their Prophet or their faith, understand that in western countries this is permitted. I would suggest that the vast majority of Christians don't like some of the smeers and obscene portrayals of Christ, but I am not aware of any Christian taking 'direct action' over such so-called 'art'.

There are, no doubt, many reasons young Muslim men, in particular, feel alienated in Europe. Not least, I would suspect, because they often don't want to 'fit in'. They are told, usually by contacts from their 'old' countries (though many are born, educated and raised in a European country, often being third generation) that things are so much better when a man can beat his wife, or exercise control over his sisters, that they genuinely believe they are being 'held back' by our liberal values. As the infamous Mullah, Choudary has told the USA Today news, Muslims 'reject' our freedom of choice.

While I suspect he is speaking for himself and his radical followers in that statement it serves very well to highlight why men and boys like him do embrace extremism. It would be well to remember that 'Islam' actually means 'Submission'. Submission means giving up choices and rights ...

Our political classes are doing us and the Muslims among us, no favours by continuing to ignore and tolerate 'hate speech' being propagated by the likes of Choudary. They do us no favours by continuing to promote division instead of integration, and they certainly do no one any favours by encouraging the promotion of Islam by the suppression of Christianity on the grounds that it 'offends' a small and obnoxious minority.

We are all Charlie. We are all threatened by this growing cancer in Islam, but it cannot be dealt with by force or violence. It is a battle that must be won by winning hearts and minds, and that means a lot less rhetoric, much more engagement, and less encouraging the fostering of alien 'cultures'. Continuing down this road will lead only to ever increasing threats, less tolerance and many, many more 'Charlies'.

Schadenfreude

I have to thank Josephus for giving me the smile of the weekend, and I'll share it with you.

As is his wont, Josephus was ruminating on many other matters while performing an essential, but generally menial task. Contemplating a "Use by Date" on, of all things, a packet of frozen prawns, it occurred to him that the prawns 'expired' at around the same time that the current crop of 'millennial' young people will start to enter the workforce, albeit that these will be those who, having been forced to stay in school while having little or no desire to do so, will be exiting those fun factories with only a small amount of the knowledge they could have had, and almost no usable skills.

What employment prospects await them? Not much.

That led him to consider the next election, five years beyond this one. At that point the next tranche of 'millenial' young folk, this time with degrees and diplomas, will be leaving places of Higher Education and seeking work, and now the fun starts. They will enter a world of commerce and industry (and perhaps politics and the Public Services) in which they will find themselves perennially 'too young/inexperienced' for promotion. A world in which all the senior posts are held by the current crop of 'pre-millenial' types - the generation that turned my, and Josephus, age group from being 'too young/inexperienced' to 'dinosaur' and shoved us out to grass. And herein is the rub, because, having told my generation that we are the problem/undeserving recipients destroying the pensions system, they have changed the rules - and now cannot, themselves, retire as they forced us to do.

Because these now ageing 'dinosaurs' cannot retire at 60, not even at 65, but will plan to go on for another twenty years, thereby making real progress for most of the talented young guns very slow.

So the 'young guns' will plot, scheme, and undermine. Remember, that we are talking about the 'connected' generation. In collective ways, they will devise the means to overthrow the 'dinosaurs', just as they did to my and Josephus' generation. And this is where the current crop of power mongers, 'leaders' and 'thinkers' will come unstuck. They've destroyed the means for following a 'career path' in almost all services and industries, indeed they have done the same in commerce. They have 'poisoned the waters' against those with age and experience on their side, and now they will have an angry, frustrated, and above all creatively able generation snapping at their heels.

They will be discarded as we were, but with a big difference. Unlike people like myself and Josephus,  they will not be able to take any pension of any sort. They have made a trap for themselves, and soon it will slam shut behind them. They will be in their late fifties or early sixties with occupational pensions worth a fraction of their predecessors, because the erosion of those benefits in kind was one of their principle weapons, and their old age pensions are still many years in the future.

Will they be employable?  Their lifelong career will have been cut short by a revolution, so probably not. Except as 'Tescbury's' shelf stackers on the zero hours contracts they thought was such a great idea for everyone else working night shift. As another friend says - Karma is a b-1-tch!

Josephus was kinder. He wrote -

I do believe that the Germans have a word for what in English can only be rendered as "Nya-nya-na-nya-nya."

He's right, the German's do have a word for it, and it has found its way into the English Dictionary as well. The word is "Schadenfreude" - to take delight in a self-inflicted misfortune.

Sadly, those most likely to be worst affected by this bout of 'Schadenfreude' are likely to be the group caught between those who pushed Josephus and my generation aside, and the 'millenials' who will shove them out of the window. Karma is indeed a ....

Economics and Ecology - Differing points of view ...

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The World’s Resources aren’t Running Out” made very interesting reading. The author, Matt Ridley, is a journalist with a background in economics, and takes a look at a number of statements made by ecologists and scientists on the “Global Warming/Human is using up the planet’s resources” side of the argument. As he points out, most people would agree that humans are having an impact, particularly where there is overpopulation, but the impact is not quite what so many claim.

Where advocacy groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth promote to the idea that we will shortly run out of coal, oil, iron ore, etc., etc., an economist will point to the fact that using something does not mean it is ‘gone’ for good. Much of what is supposedly being ‘used up’ is simply taking a new form and can be recovered, reused, and reworked again and again. Many advocacy groups fail to grasp the difference between ‘estimated reserves’ of something and the likelihood that new ‘reserves’ are being mapped out almost daily. They also fail to take into account the recycling of these resources. Plastics are a good example, most are best described as ‘solidified hydrocarbon’ and that can be recycled to recover at least some of it. Nor is this the only area where simple economics takes a more optimistic view.

Since the rise of the ‘Green’ movements began we have been bombarded by dire predictions of agricultural collapse, warnings of ‘Peak Oil’, vanishing fresh water supplies and many more ‘tipping’ points that will wipe out our populations, our technology or our societies. Economists find this extremely frustrating, since again and a again such ‘tipping points’ have come and gone with no check at all on progress - largely because of innovations such as fertilisers, improved seeds for crops, insecticides, new technology for finding oil, gas and simultaneously reducing individual consumption through more efficient engines. Ironically, the very people who campaign so vigorously to ‘save the ecology/climate/planet’ also vigorously resist these advances. 

Mr Ridley acknowledges that he once (like most of us I suspect) carried the ‘ecology’ torch, believing in the ‘finite’ model and that growth must be restricted and limited. Since then, again like most of us, he has come to recognise that with growth comes innovation. Of necessity, we learn to do more with less. Efficiency is achieved through improved technology. Using the example of coal power stations - anathema to most ‘Greens’ - if we accept that new technology means that the waste gas in the chimney can be ‘scrubbed’ to extract that evil carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide (actually the process is quite simple and clever and is in use at most such plants now) which can then be recycled and either ‘stored’ or turned into something else, the plant is, according to Greenpeace, still only 47% efficient. They arrive at that number by measuring the heat ‘lost’ up the smoke stack and through the condensing process which returns the steam to water for the boilers, but it is far from an accurate number in reality. 

In many dry countries that ‘waste heat’ is used to distill water from sea water. This is how many of the cities in the Persian Gulf provide drinking water for their citizenry. It is how water can be, and is, provided for agriculture in some drought prone countries as well - but is never taken account of by the ‘ecologist’ camp. There are other innovations for producing fresh clean drinking water as well, one such coming from the maritime industry. Called a ‘Hydropore’ system, it uses micro filters to remove the salts and other particles from sea water to produce vast amounts of fresh drinking water - most of it cleaner and purer than what we drink in most European towns and cities. Such plants can operate on land as well, producing fresh water for towns or agriculture. As an example of the output, one of the USN’s Nuclear aircraft carriers can produce enough electricity for a medium sized city, and enough fresh water through their hydropower systems to water it as well.

While on the subject of ships, another recent Greenpeace campaign charged that these were the ‘biggest polluters’ of the oceans and the atmosphere and demanded a surcharge on fuel for them. This on the grounds that a single ship pumps out ‘tons’ of CO2 and other pollutants on its travels. It ignores, of course, the fact that such ships enable us to feed the world’s population by moving food from a producer with a surplus, to a consumer with a deficit, but there, that is part of the problem here. It also ignores the fact that the ‘waste gases’ from the engine pass through an ‘exhaust gas economiser’ which transfers heat to the ship’s hot water systems and preheats water for any boilers. Yes, such ships also consumes fuel at a rate of ‘Tons per Hour’ but we must also recognise that an average container ship shifts thousands of tons of produce very efficiently, far more efficiently than could be done by camels, trains or trucks. And the fuel consumption when under way is around one third of what used to be consumed by a transatlantic liner such as the France or the old Queen Elizabeth which burned around 40 tons of oil per hour at cruising speeds. Once again, more efficient machinery, means greater economy of operation, less consumption to achieve more.

Aircraft engines are going through a similar revolution/evolution. Not only are they now much more efficient, they are becoming quieter and less fuel hungry. 

Then there is the question of ‘resources’ such as iron ore, copper, manganese, chromite and many more. Extracting these from the ground is very ecologically damaging, and as the mines get deeper, more difficult, it is obvious that more efficient and less damaging means of recovering it need to be examined. And they have been. Open cast mines in operation are pretty ugly, but it is now common practice to ‘landscape’ such sites, often using them to store landfill - the rubbish generated in cities - and even restoring them to nature. Recycling is becoming much more efficient as well. Metals thrown into to rubbish are being recycled at a far greater rate than ever before. Electronic components are recovered, and reprocessed to extract the metals they contain in order to make new components. I read recently that ‘new’ appliances contain around 40% of metals recovered from old appliances thrown away, so you new iPhone/Android/Samsung probably has metal in it that cam from a reel to reel tape recorder!

Economists tell us that innovation is driven by growth and demand. If something is in short supply, two things happen, the price rises and new sources are found, and people find ways to use less more efficiently or reuse what is already available. This is the key thing most ‘Green’ advocates seem to miss. I still have reservations about the potential for unlimited growth (unless we can find ways to start to colonise planets in outer space), but I don’t think we are yet in danger of ‘running out’ of anything vital - as long as the legions of ‘Green’ campaigners can be persuaded to stop obstructing innovation and development of technologies that can and do meet the rising demand. 

Science versus Dogma; The Teaching Methods versus Learning Dichotomy

Some days ago, my good friend Josephus, a man some may know, very well versed in the subject of 'teaching' and 'learning', sent me an article from The Spectator. Somewhat provocatively titled "Teacher Trainings War on Science", it discusses the conflict between what is taught in teacher training colleges and courses today, with what scientific studies of how children learn tells us about how best to teach. For at least the last fifty years, teachers have been taught, and curricula arranged, around the concept of 'facilitating learning' and 'encouraging' development by surrounding a child with tasks designed to expose them to information and knowledge which, so the theory goers, they will successfully 'absorb'.

My own experience at school rather inclines me toward the scientific results, which is that the best way to impart the basic knowledge is by 'rote' and 'lecture' or 'I tell; you listen and absorb' sessions. Once the key knowledge is in place, the wider skills of application, understanding, analysis and so on can be developed. Now I have to confess that I am in two minds about some, at least, of this. Again, my own experience suggests that MY learning style (and I stress it is individual) is that I learn best as part of a group. Certainly in my primary school days, a lot of this was learning by 'rote' with the whole class reciting the Multiplication Tables, or following the teacher's pointer as he or she had us read words from a blackboard, or do sums and so on. We learned to recognise certain relationships between numbers and sets of numbers or letters. Unconsciously, we were learning to apply the basic knowledge we'd acquired by 'rote'.

Josephus, in his note accompanying this wrote - 

I'd get boring if I tried this one, a result of being an BEd undergrad in the early 70s, two years of Masters research mid/late nineties into curriculum design and seven years of EdD post-grad research more recently.

The two ideas that have influenced me though are firstly, the words of a fellow student at Birmingham who, like me, focused on working professionals (Nurses) rather than children.  She told us one day that her faculty had just commissioned a series of six, new-build, tiered lecture theatres (I had told our group how the ones at the College were being used less and less as the government had told us that "lectures don't work.") for the first-year nursing undergrads.  Apparently, in the seminar and study group environment of the first of the then "new" nursing graduate courses, all the (mostly young girls) could contribute was a discussion about their mobile phones, so semester one of the course became didactic knowledge transfer in the lecture room, lecture wall to wall week after week; semester two could then have discussion groups developing understanding from the knowledge imparted in those lectures.

The second one is from my favourite educational psychologist, still not popular but more approachable in modern translations (He was a pre-Stalin era Russian.) 

"Practical experience also shows that direct teaching of concepts is impossible and fruitless.  A teacher who tries to do this usually accomplishes nothing but empty verbalism, a parrotlike repetition of words by the child, simulating a knowledge of the corresponding concepts but actually covering up a vacuum."
Vygotsky, L. (1986)  critical analysis of thought and language  MIT Press; Boston, Mass.
p.150 

The third question I often dwell upon relates to several photographs of "learning environments" that I used for some outline research in 2006,  most people I surveyed who could read, write and count, preferred the image of 1950s children sitting at attention, some with hands on their heads, to the brightly decorated, small group tables of the modern primary school room when asked to think about multiplication tables. 

Now, according to the scientific study, that acquisition of the base knowledge is not being efficiently acquired, and this impacts heavily on the performance of the students as they advance through their education. That would certainly seem to be in accordance with my experience again. Through contracting a rather nasty illness just at the start of my High School years, I missed the vital foundations as my contemporaries started to learn Algebra. I never managed to catch up, and, as anyone who has done Mathematics knows, Algebra is more or less the absolute 'key' to Trigonometry and almost all the rest of Mathematics. Ironically, Geometry I mastered - because I was able to learn a great deal of the underlying principles by 'rote', but Trigonometry remained a mystery as did Algebra. That has had a major influence on my career path, closing the door to my original ambition of 'going to sea', and even in my ultimate career as a firefighter/fire officer, I eventually had to (in my 30s) get lessons in the basic mathematics that had stumped me at school in order to pass the promotion exams, make sense of hydraulic formulae and eventually develop my knowledge in the 'engineering' required for fire safety enforcement.  

The Spectator article has the statement, from the thinking prevalent in Teacher Training - 

Schools and traditional subject boundaries are silos which stifle the natural creativity we all have within us. And this last fact especially: there is no point teaching a body of knowledge, because within a few years it will be outdated and useless. Don’t teach the what, teach the how. ‘Drill and kill’ and ‘chalk and talk’ will lead to passive and unhappy pupils.

This is where it does get rather interesting, since, as I've said above, I have found that the knowledge I did acquire in the 'old' methods of 'Drill and Kill' and 'Chalk and Talk' was what stuck most effectively, and has been absolutley vital in my later learning. Even as an adult, I needed and still need, the stimulus of listening to someone knowledgable to fire up what passes for my intellect and to give me the basic foundation on which I can build some new understanding or knowledge. Perhaps the 'educationists' do need to reconsider their position. The more we learn about how our brains work, and about how we learn, the more it appears the Educational Establishment needs to adjust their ideas. 

Something both Josephus and I have noted increasingly over our years in training and Adult education is that 'skills' and 'base knowledge' we took for granted in our generation, were simply not present in our students. Where we could stand in front of a class and do mental arithmetic on a white board, our students were frantically trying to find calculators and it came down to what we were carrying around in our heads from our days at school. As Josephus said at the tail of his letter - 

Funny how we of a "certain age" can still carry out mental arithmetic in our dotage when rote learning is so terribly ineffective...

As is said in another field - the science would seem to be 'settled' on this. The evidence is there, but I suspect there are a lot of careers now so vested in denouncing 'rote' learning and teaching, it will take an earth shattering event to get a change. And that could be on the horizon, since the 'League Tables' so beloved of Whitehall show that 'immigrant' students are outperforming their UK contemporaries. Whitehall refuses to break these down in a way that would permit anyone to identify the immigrant children's background or origins, but teachers themselves often remark on the fact that certain ethnic groups seem to have a better grasp of things that can be taught by 'rote' very efficiently, than the other children. One or two have made the connection - most of those immigrant children come from countries where 'teaching by rote' is still done, and, having learned the technique - that is how these kids study at home.

The final word from The Spectator - 

More and more teachers are realising the gap between the theory they are taught and their practical experience. More and more books are being published which explain the insights of cognitive science and the implications they have for classroom teachers. Instead of the warmed-through fads of the past century, I think the next few years will see evidence-based reforms that lead to genuine educational improvements.