What Do You Love Most?
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
—Mark 8:36
I’m not sure of the background of the following parable. Yesterday, a friend of mine gave me a hard copy of it; his wife sent it to him in an email. Wanting an e-copy, I googled “king 4 wives”, and found this version on an “Islamic Forum”. That it might be of Arabic origin isn’t so surprising, seeing that, on the surface, it concerns a king with multiple spouses.
The King Who Had Four Wives
Once upon a time there was a rich King who had 4 wives. He loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to the finest of delicacies. He gave her nothing but the best.
He also loved the 3rd wife very much and was always showing her off to neighboring kingdoms. However, he feared that one day she would leave him for another.
He also loved his 2nd wife. She was his confidante and was always kind, considerate and patient with him. Whenever the King faced a problem, he could confide in her to help him get through the difficult times.
The King's 1st wife was a very loyal partner and had made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and kingdom. However, he did not love the first wife and although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her.
One day, the King fell ill and he knew his time was short. He thought of his luxurious life and pondered, "I now have 4 wives with me, but when I die, I'll be all alone.
Thus, he asked the 4th wife, "I have loved you the most, endowed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?"
"No way!" replied the 4th wife and she walked away without another word.
The sad King then asked the 3rd wife, "I have loved you all my life. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?"
"No!" replied the 3rd wife. "Life is too good! When you die, I'm going to remarry!" His heart sank and turned cold.
He then asked the 2nd wife, "I have always turned to you for help and you've always been there for me. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?"
"I'm sorry, I can't help you out this time!" replied the 2nd wife. "At the very most, I can only send you to your grave."
Then a voice called out "I'll leave with you and follow you no matter where you go."
The King looked up and there was his first wife. Suffering from long years of neglect and malnutrition, she was very weak and thin. Greatly grieved, the King said, "I should have taken much better care of you when I had the chance!"
Now, as with the parables in the Old Testament (i.e. of the Creation, or of Noah), and those of the Lord Jesus Christ (of the Sower, of the Foolish Virgins), ostensibly the preceding tale is curiously unsatisfying as narrative. However, the minute the deeper, spiritual meaning is revealed, there is a marvelous, intellectually satisfying flash of understanding. Here is the explanation of the "Parable of The Four Wives":
The 4th wife represents the body: No matter how much time and effort we lavish on it to make it look good, it'll leave us when we die.
The 3rd wife represents our possessions, status and wealth: When we die, it will all go to others.
The 2nd wife is our family and friends: No matter how much they have been there for us, the furthest they can stay by us is to the moment of death.
And the 1st wife is our Soul: Though often neglected in pursuit of wealth, power and pleasures of the ego, this is the only thing that will follow us into eternal life.
Sunday, July 4, 2004
A Poetic Return
The Mendicant
On grins of golden bread I feed
Just like the chary mice of greed.
Gnawing to my hungry heart's delight
While the rats of avarice take flight.
Soundly step my unshod soles
As a beggar walks on slabs of holes
Up the mountain path so steep
Passing those who town-ward creep.
Then the too-near world withdraws
Into a gray, unfocused fog.
And these aging eyes are forced to stare
At the light that crests the next day's glare.
jsk.4.7.04
The Mendicant
On grins of golden bread I feed
Just like the chary mice of greed.
Gnawing to my hungry heart's delight
While the rats of avarice take flight.
Soundly step my unshod soles
As a beggar walks on slabs of holes
Up the mountain path so steep
Passing those who town-ward creep.
Then the too-near world withdraws
Into a gray, unfocused fog.
And these aging eyes are forced to stare
At the light that crests the next day's glare.
jsk.4.7.04
Friday, April 9, 2004
An Indefinite Sabbatical
Due to a sudden, astounding and most wonderful turn of events in my life, I will be withdrawing indefinitely from the blogosphere. I want to thank any and all who have been dropping by to read my wayward scribblings.
Thanks and Take Care. The Lord Jesus Christ bless and keep you all!
Ex Animo,
J. S. Kern
Due to a sudden, astounding and most wonderful turn of events in my life, I will be withdrawing indefinitely from the blogosphere. I want to thank any and all who have been dropping by to read my wayward scribblings.
Thanks and Take Care. The Lord Jesus Christ bless and keep you all!
Ex Animo,
J. S. Kern
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
A Separation of Belief
An interesting debate is shaping up on the newly redesigned and much improved Politics Canada Forum between the editor and yours truly:
Secondly, to Rob:
KERN says – “uhm...if a politician is a "Satanist", I'd want to know about it.”
ROB says – “Indeed as others may want to know if a candidate is a Christian Scientist, an Islamic, a Jew, or a Catholic. Such knowledge while irrelevant to governing a nation is essential for discrimination.”
KERN – Are you equating Satanists with Jews and Catholics? How someone governs anything (himself, a household, a business, a country), whether ethically/morally or not, is directly related to his character. His character can be gauged by the belief system to which he subscribes. Such knowledge, because it is essential information about a candidate’s character, is highly relevant to, as you put it, “governing a nation”. Discrimination in favour of politicians of good character is a duty we owe our nation and fellow citizens.
KERN says – “As well, this secular humanist "Theophobia", so pervasive in those who object to Harper's religious identity, apparently render's a person blind to the differences, subtle and overt, between, say, an Islamofascist and a Presbyterian.”
ROB says – "Harper’s religious identity has nothing to do with politics. Objecting to revealing religious identity does not make one blind to risk of fascism for it preys upon the weak irrespective of denomination. Prejudice on the other hand, is forever busy and never blind."
KERN – See above. You have, once again, equated all people of faith regardless of doctrine (this time casting them as fascists) thus revealing your own “Theophobia” and confirming my point. Perhaps you didn’t realize that the most tyrannical, murderous regimes of the 20th Century (fascists) were constitutionally irreligious and practically anti-religious?
KERN says – “Historically, Canadian politicians, in order to promote harmony, avoided the sectarianism of the UK & Europe between the Roman Catholics and Protestants. They did not, however, avoid references to Jesus Christ as the incarnate God of both. This anti-Christian stance is a recent invention.”
ROB says - "The founding fathers desperately sought cooperation from a conquered French population. Parading religious differences was regarded as divisive then, as it remains today."
KERN – This is a tautology. You have simply restated my point as a rebuttal: Historically the differences were avoided, but the similarities (i.e., Jesus Christ as the incarnate God of both “founding nations”) were not. Today references to any religion are not seen as divisive between French Catholics and English Protestants, but are seen as an affront to the secularist sensibilities of the anti-religious establishment.
It is folly to accept and/or desire that the doctrine of separation of Church and State precludes people of faith from holding office. No one wants a Theocracy run by an established sect, but all the virtues civilized people hold dear, that are responsible for the highest degrees of national success, are Christian virtues. The undermining of this religious/philosophical basis of our own nation is a disasterous turn of events. As we have had demonstrated time and time again, a nation of increasing antipathy towards Christianity is a nation descending into a hellish chaos.
J.S. Kern
...so, go on and add your zero-point-zero-two of a dollar!
An interesting debate is shaping up on the newly redesigned and much improved Politics Canada Forum between the editor and yours truly:
Secondly, to Rob:
KERN says – “uhm...if a politician is a "Satanist", I'd want to know about it.”
ROB says – “Indeed as others may want to know if a candidate is a Christian Scientist, an Islamic, a Jew, or a Catholic. Such knowledge while irrelevant to governing a nation is essential for discrimination.”
KERN – Are you equating Satanists with Jews and Catholics? How someone governs anything (himself, a household, a business, a country), whether ethically/morally or not, is directly related to his character. His character can be gauged by the belief system to which he subscribes. Such knowledge, because it is essential information about a candidate’s character, is highly relevant to, as you put it, “governing a nation”. Discrimination in favour of politicians of good character is a duty we owe our nation and fellow citizens.
KERN says – “As well, this secular humanist "Theophobia", so pervasive in those who object to Harper's religious identity, apparently render's a person blind to the differences, subtle and overt, between, say, an Islamofascist and a Presbyterian.”
ROB says – "Harper’s religious identity has nothing to do with politics. Objecting to revealing religious identity does not make one blind to risk of fascism for it preys upon the weak irrespective of denomination. Prejudice on the other hand, is forever busy and never blind."
KERN – See above. You have, once again, equated all people of faith regardless of doctrine (this time casting them as fascists) thus revealing your own “Theophobia” and confirming my point. Perhaps you didn’t realize that the most tyrannical, murderous regimes of the 20th Century (fascists) were constitutionally irreligious and practically anti-religious?
KERN says – “Historically, Canadian politicians, in order to promote harmony, avoided the sectarianism of the UK & Europe between the Roman Catholics and Protestants. They did not, however, avoid references to Jesus Christ as the incarnate God of both. This anti-Christian stance is a recent invention.”
ROB says - "The founding fathers desperately sought cooperation from a conquered French population. Parading religious differences was regarded as divisive then, as it remains today."
KERN – This is a tautology. You have simply restated my point as a rebuttal: Historically the differences were avoided, but the similarities (i.e., Jesus Christ as the incarnate God of both “founding nations”) were not. Today references to any religion are not seen as divisive between French Catholics and English Protestants, but are seen as an affront to the secularist sensibilities of the anti-religious establishment.
It is folly to accept and/or desire that the doctrine of separation of Church and State precludes people of faith from holding office. No one wants a Theocracy run by an established sect, but all the virtues civilized people hold dear, that are responsible for the highest degrees of national success, are Christian virtues. The undermining of this religious/philosophical basis of our own nation is a disasterous turn of events. As we have had demonstrated time and time again, a nation of increasing antipathy towards Christianity is a nation descending into a hellish chaos.
J.S. Kern
...so, go on and add your zero-point-zero-two of a dollar!
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
The Better Alchemist Won
That Stephen Harper breezed casually to victory on the first ballot at the new Conservative Party of Canada’s Saturday leadership vote was neither unexpected, nor unwelcome. Of the three candidates, only Harper has the requisite experience and acumen to master the political alchemy of turning underdog lead into leadership gold. At this time, with the Liberal government floundering in the deep end of the hubris pool, the Tories need a seasoned man at the helm. As I noted in my last column:
"By next week, after dealing with the earnest but forsaken Tony Clement and the obscenely opportunistic Belinda Stronach, Stephen Harper will be the newly elected alpha male of the federal pack. With the right leader, a series of well-organized forays over the next few months could return them to the top of the political food chain. And they should all feed well this season. Their primary prey is scattered, ill and broken. There will be many necks exposed. My advice is to go for the jugular every time."
Even the fiscal Socialist Michael Coren thinks Harper is the right magician, at the right time, for not just the party, but the nation. And, as he wrote last week, even some far-left NDPers think so, too:
"I am writing this column before we know who will be the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. I can only hope, and believe, it will be Stephen Harper....
"But it is Harper who can seriously undermine the rancid Liberal machine and change the political future of this nation. Federal Liberalism stinks. Let me be specific and careful here. There are many fine men and women in the Liberal Party, who care very deeply for Canada. But the confidence of power has become an arrogant smugness, a malodorous assumption of victory.
"I've even heard some hardened New Democrats and labour leaders tell me they would rather have a Conservative government in power than more of the Liberal chokehold on the throat of this country. That, let me tell you, is quite something."
It is indeed, Michael. What’s next; editorialists at the Globe & Mail quietly whispering of a secret revulsion to buggery? CBC writers holding a Seder and selling Israel Bonds?
Right.
And Michael, his leftist friends, and I aren’t the only ones who see Harper as a viable candidate for Prime Minister. On Coren’s CFRB radio show last night, the Live Listener Poll asked the listeners whether or not they would vote for Stephen Harper. Well over 80% of a predominantly Ontario audience, one not noted for it’s Tory sympathies, said they would.
Looks like the chattering wizards of the punditry coven are wrong again: This ex-Alliance alchemist has got appeal east of the Manitoba border, after all.
Of course, this appeal will in no way stifle the invective of those in media who cannot stand the thought of anyone even liking a Conservative leader, never mind being willing to vote for one. The Warlocks of Wordiness will ceaselessly chant their tired incantations of "red-neck", "racist" and "misogynist Christian war-monger", hoping to cast a decent, sensible prince of a man into a warty toad. The uninformed Zombies of the Canadian electorate will soon be spoon-fed a witches brew of raw lies and bile in order to revivify them just long enough to vote Liberal.
But Stephen Harper is on to them. In his victory speech he nailed it:
"The tired, old, corrupt Liberal Party is, right now, cornered like an angry rat. They are going to attack us like we've never been attacked before.
"They will attempt to open old wounds. They will do this because this is the only way they can survive. We cannot allow this to happen. We must unite as a team."
It is a testament to the skill and dignity of the man that he stopped short of including the members of the mainstream Canadian media when he spoke of cornered rats, and the openers of old wounds. And, it is a measure of the wisdom and morality of the man when, to the certain disgust of those unnamed enemies he ended his speech with “God Bless Canada.”
All I can think to say now is, "Hurry up Stephen. Let’s get the lead out!"
That Stephen Harper breezed casually to victory on the first ballot at the new Conservative Party of Canada’s Saturday leadership vote was neither unexpected, nor unwelcome. Of the three candidates, only Harper has the requisite experience and acumen to master the political alchemy of turning underdog lead into leadership gold. At this time, with the Liberal government floundering in the deep end of the hubris pool, the Tories need a seasoned man at the helm. As I noted in my last column:
"By next week, after dealing with the earnest but forsaken Tony Clement and the obscenely opportunistic Belinda Stronach, Stephen Harper will be the newly elected alpha male of the federal pack. With the right leader, a series of well-organized forays over the next few months could return them to the top of the political food chain. And they should all feed well this season. Their primary prey is scattered, ill and broken. There will be many necks exposed. My advice is to go for the jugular every time."
Even the fiscal Socialist Michael Coren thinks Harper is the right magician, at the right time, for not just the party, but the nation. And, as he wrote last week, even some far-left NDPers think so, too:
"I am writing this column before we know who will be the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. I can only hope, and believe, it will be Stephen Harper....
"But it is Harper who can seriously undermine the rancid Liberal machine and change the political future of this nation. Federal Liberalism stinks. Let me be specific and careful here. There are many fine men and women in the Liberal Party, who care very deeply for Canada. But the confidence of power has become an arrogant smugness, a malodorous assumption of victory.
"I've even heard some hardened New Democrats and labour leaders tell me they would rather have a Conservative government in power than more of the Liberal chokehold on the throat of this country. That, let me tell you, is quite something."
It is indeed, Michael. What’s next; editorialists at the Globe & Mail quietly whispering of a secret revulsion to buggery? CBC writers holding a Seder and selling Israel Bonds?
Right.
And Michael, his leftist friends, and I aren’t the only ones who see Harper as a viable candidate for Prime Minister. On Coren’s CFRB radio show last night, the Live Listener Poll asked the listeners whether or not they would vote for Stephen Harper. Well over 80% of a predominantly Ontario audience, one not noted for it’s Tory sympathies, said they would.
Looks like the chattering wizards of the punditry coven are wrong again: This ex-Alliance alchemist has got appeal east of the Manitoba border, after all.
Of course, this appeal will in no way stifle the invective of those in media who cannot stand the thought of anyone even liking a Conservative leader, never mind being willing to vote for one. The Warlocks of Wordiness will ceaselessly chant their tired incantations of "red-neck", "racist" and "misogynist Christian war-monger", hoping to cast a decent, sensible prince of a man into a warty toad. The uninformed Zombies of the Canadian electorate will soon be spoon-fed a witches brew of raw lies and bile in order to revivify them just long enough to vote Liberal.
But Stephen Harper is on to them. In his victory speech he nailed it:
"The tired, old, corrupt Liberal Party is, right now, cornered like an angry rat. They are going to attack us like we've never been attacked before.
"They will attempt to open old wounds. They will do this because this is the only way they can survive. We cannot allow this to happen. We must unite as a team."
It is a testament to the skill and dignity of the man that he stopped short of including the members of the mainstream Canadian media when he spoke of cornered rats, and the openers of old wounds. And, it is a measure of the wisdom and morality of the man when, to the certain disgust of those unnamed enemies he ended his speech with “God Bless Canada.”
All I can think to say now is, "Hurry up Stephen. Let’s get the lead out!"
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Snow-Mexicans & the Scabs of Scandal
The new edition of The Right Page has been posted on Rob McGowan’s Politics Canada website:
In Ottawa the tumbrels are working over-time as St. Paul the Unknowing continues to feed the Ad-scam Apostles of that malignant Messiah, Mean Jean Chretien, to the cleansing teeth of the guillotine. The PM promised he would cure the sickness, and the cranial amputations of our corrupted crown corporations show he's written an effective prescription. One at a time these Liberal pustules are being found, exposed, and then lanced. A good beginning has begun.
Yet, I was not entirely convinced that the PM was going to maintain the course of treatment he'd plotted. For a moment there, in his first appearances in Parliament after his cross-country Mad Martin Tour, I thought we were about to be treated to the same old Liberal bedside spin. I detected a few feeble attempts at stifling criticism of those involved in the sponsorship scandal by playing the "race card". All the ministers and malefactors surrounding these misappropriations were citizens of the often distinctly uncivil Distinct Society®, and any mention of this glaring fact was being cited as evidence of anti-Quebec bigotry, rather than as a genuine call to examine how relevant this unanimous cultural character of the perpetrators might be. To Martin’s mind, I guess, as with Toronto Cops and Immigration Inspectors, racial profiling should be the third-rail of public policy.
So, once again, the embarrassing boil of Canadian politics, Quebec Separation, popped up overnight on the face of our nation’s newspapers. Any insulting attempts by the opposition to characterize this made-in-Quebec scandal as a made-in-Quebec scandal, we were warned, would be used by the Bloc as an excuse to re-animate the stinking corpse of succession. Ignoring the fact that they had already convinced the CBC and their six viewers that the almighty Chretien had cremated that particular stiff with a bolt of lightening from his right eye, Liberal propagandists cautioned that care was to be taken, lest the thin skin of the Sovereignists be pierced and they flee the federation in a huff. After those two ugly and humiliating episodes over plastic masks and rubber dogs, what the London Free Press would call “firestorms”, the humourless Province was in no mood to be further abused.
More...
The new edition of The Right Page has been posted on Rob McGowan’s Politics Canada website:
In Ottawa the tumbrels are working over-time as St. Paul the Unknowing continues to feed the Ad-scam Apostles of that malignant Messiah, Mean Jean Chretien, to the cleansing teeth of the guillotine. The PM promised he would cure the sickness, and the cranial amputations of our corrupted crown corporations show he's written an effective prescription. One at a time these Liberal pustules are being found, exposed, and then lanced. A good beginning has begun.
Yet, I was not entirely convinced that the PM was going to maintain the course of treatment he'd plotted. For a moment there, in his first appearances in Parliament after his cross-country Mad Martin Tour, I thought we were about to be treated to the same old Liberal bedside spin. I detected a few feeble attempts at stifling criticism of those involved in the sponsorship scandal by playing the "race card". All the ministers and malefactors surrounding these misappropriations were citizens of the often distinctly uncivil Distinct Society®, and any mention of this glaring fact was being cited as evidence of anti-Quebec bigotry, rather than as a genuine call to examine how relevant this unanimous cultural character of the perpetrators might be. To Martin’s mind, I guess, as with Toronto Cops and Immigration Inspectors, racial profiling should be the third-rail of public policy.
So, once again, the embarrassing boil of Canadian politics, Quebec Separation, popped up overnight on the face of our nation’s newspapers. Any insulting attempts by the opposition to characterize this made-in-Quebec scandal as a made-in-Quebec scandal, we were warned, would be used by the Bloc as an excuse to re-animate the stinking corpse of succession. Ignoring the fact that they had already convinced the CBC and their six viewers that the almighty Chretien had cremated that particular stiff with a bolt of lightening from his right eye, Liberal propagandists cautioned that care was to be taken, lest the thin skin of the Sovereignists be pierced and they flee the federation in a huff. After those two ugly and humiliating episodes over plastic masks and rubber dogs, what the London Free Press would call “firestorms”, the humourless Province was in no mood to be further abused.
More...
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Kneeling to Feed the Crocodile
Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.
—Malayan proverb
If the measure of any work of art is the degree to which it provokes us into facing something about ourselves, then how well it presents us with both the loftier and the baser extremes of our human nature can be used to determine whether it is a masterpiece or a mediocrity. Fewer events in recent history have given us wider latitude to exercise these extremes of our nature than the Holocaust; and fewer works of art have successfully confronted us with mankind’s extremes of conduct in this event than Steven Spielberg’s extraordinary film Schindler's List. Released last week for the first time on DVD, this poignant and compelling film satisfies every requirement, in every way, for it to be rightfully hailed as a modern cinematic masterpiece.
Now, while it is true that the ultimate message one takes from Schindler’s List is uplifting (that even an immoral reprobate can be stirred by conscience into thwarting evil), for me, given the geopolitical realities of the present day, there are other, less savory, messages in it that should be examined: One is the frighteningly thin divide between civility and barbarism. The other is humanity’s seemingly limitless capacity to rationalize our inhumanity with denial.
It is a curious fact of human psychology that people will appease those who seek to do them harm, in the vain hope that the abuser will somehow be mollified by surrender. We all do it at various times in our lives, with family, spouses, bosses, friends; and many never stop. Yet, while denial in dealing with those who love us is often a handicap of character, denial in dealing with those who hate us is often fatal. This is especially true in the case of nations. Winston Churchill, the classic anti-appeaser, said it best: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
In this regard, whenever my thoughts turn to the Holocaust, I am always struck by a troubling clash of two conflicting emotions: On the one hand, I find it impossible not to be staggered by pity for those who suffered under such sadistic, inhuman brutality. On the other, I am outraged at the contemptuous capitulation of those same people. With incredulity I watch both the Nazi’s cultured and bureaucratic sadism, and their victim's mad psychological scramble to deny this sadism; and their frantic attempts to maintain this state of denial.
And, curiously enough, along with this denial and supplication before the “strong”, there is always the fierce lashing out at, and traitorous condemnation of, those who would stand up to the abusers. Even after the confiscation of their houses and property, and their relocation to the Warsaw Ghetto, the fear of the Nazi’s caused all too many Jews to be angry with those who merely spoke of resistance...never mind their reaction to those bravest souls who actively resisted.
Now, please, this is not in any way a condemnation of Jews; in any population group you will find an easy 40% who would debase themselves from fear of a seemingly unbeatable foe, while turning on those of their own kind who would not. Witness the disgraceful prostrations of the Left during the recent election in Spain. The slogan was a classic example of appeasement: Vote the Party Who Will Not Upset Our Killers.
This wanton cowardice is echoed by the Left in the U.S., Britain, and, sorriest of all, on the bloody streets of Israel herself. After the Pogroms of the past, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the carnage of the continuing Intifada, how any Jew in Israel could imagine that, to their enemies, compromise will not be seen as capitulation, that kindness will not be viewed as weakness, near beggars belief. They are simply repeating the same mistake, living in the same state of denial, as those before them who went quietly from their homes, to the ghettoes, then to the ovens.
Unable to face the truth about themselves, many today who subscribe to and promote the tactics of appeasement will always rationalize and glorify their fear by calling it “pacifism”, “anti-war”, or, laughably, “civilized”. Many will cite the passive resistance of Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King. But this is simply a misreading of the reason for the successes of their campaigns: the civilized nature of those being resisted. Christian, democratic Britain and America were populated and run by a far different type of people than were Nazi Germany and the Palestinian Authority. And neither government, for all their failings, had explicit designs of genocide.
Schindler’s List is a must see movie, a magnum opus. It is both a memorial and a monument. A constant reminder of the banal savagery that murdered 6 million innocents; and an eternal caution to the higher aspect of our humanity, that the lower aspect of this same humanity is always there, below the surface, slavering, hungry and using our fear against us, ever ready to ascend.
Nie Wieder.
Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.
—Malayan proverb
If the measure of any work of art is the degree to which it provokes us into facing something about ourselves, then how well it presents us with both the loftier and the baser extremes of our human nature can be used to determine whether it is a masterpiece or a mediocrity. Fewer events in recent history have given us wider latitude to exercise these extremes of our nature than the Holocaust; and fewer works of art have successfully confronted us with mankind’s extremes of conduct in this event than Steven Spielberg’s extraordinary film Schindler's List. Released last week for the first time on DVD, this poignant and compelling film satisfies every requirement, in every way, for it to be rightfully hailed as a modern cinematic masterpiece.
Now, while it is true that the ultimate message one takes from Schindler’s List is uplifting (that even an immoral reprobate can be stirred by conscience into thwarting evil), for me, given the geopolitical realities of the present day, there are other, less savory, messages in it that should be examined: One is the frighteningly thin divide between civility and barbarism. The other is humanity’s seemingly limitless capacity to rationalize our inhumanity with denial.
It is a curious fact of human psychology that people will appease those who seek to do them harm, in the vain hope that the abuser will somehow be mollified by surrender. We all do it at various times in our lives, with family, spouses, bosses, friends; and many never stop. Yet, while denial in dealing with those who love us is often a handicap of character, denial in dealing with those who hate us is often fatal. This is especially true in the case of nations. Winston Churchill, the classic anti-appeaser, said it best: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
In this regard, whenever my thoughts turn to the Holocaust, I am always struck by a troubling clash of two conflicting emotions: On the one hand, I find it impossible not to be staggered by pity for those who suffered under such sadistic, inhuman brutality. On the other, I am outraged at the contemptuous capitulation of those same people. With incredulity I watch both the Nazi’s cultured and bureaucratic sadism, and their victim's mad psychological scramble to deny this sadism; and their frantic attempts to maintain this state of denial.
And, curiously enough, along with this denial and supplication before the “strong”, there is always the fierce lashing out at, and traitorous condemnation of, those who would stand up to the abusers. Even after the confiscation of their houses and property, and their relocation to the Warsaw Ghetto, the fear of the Nazi’s caused all too many Jews to be angry with those who merely spoke of resistance...never mind their reaction to those bravest souls who actively resisted.
Now, please, this is not in any way a condemnation of Jews; in any population group you will find an easy 40% who would debase themselves from fear of a seemingly unbeatable foe, while turning on those of their own kind who would not. Witness the disgraceful prostrations of the Left during the recent election in Spain. The slogan was a classic example of appeasement: Vote the Party Who Will Not Upset Our Killers.
This wanton cowardice is echoed by the Left in the U.S., Britain, and, sorriest of all, on the bloody streets of Israel herself. After the Pogroms of the past, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the carnage of the continuing Intifada, how any Jew in Israel could imagine that, to their enemies, compromise will not be seen as capitulation, that kindness will not be viewed as weakness, near beggars belief. They are simply repeating the same mistake, living in the same state of denial, as those before them who went quietly from their homes, to the ghettoes, then to the ovens.
Unable to face the truth about themselves, many today who subscribe to and promote the tactics of appeasement will always rationalize and glorify their fear by calling it “pacifism”, “anti-war”, or, laughably, “civilized”. Many will cite the passive resistance of Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King. But this is simply a misreading of the reason for the successes of their campaigns: the civilized nature of those being resisted. Christian, democratic Britain and America were populated and run by a far different type of people than were Nazi Germany and the Palestinian Authority. And neither government, for all their failings, had explicit designs of genocide.
Schindler’s List is a must see movie, a magnum opus. It is both a memorial and a monument. A constant reminder of the banal savagery that murdered 6 million innocents; and an eternal caution to the higher aspect of our humanity, that the lower aspect of this same humanity is always there, below the surface, slavering, hungry and using our fear against us, ever ready to ascend.
Nie Wieder.
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