The Ballad of Reading Gaol

One poem I read a long time ago and liked is the Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde. It is a ballad, and therefore very long. But I remember the parts that I especially liked and I will copy them here. For those who don't like to do things by halves, the entire poem is here. The poem is based on real events. It is about the hanging of a man in the jail that Oscar Wilde was himself serving time in for homosexuality. [Homosexuality was a culpable offence in England at the time.]

The man in the poem was convicted of murder and hanged.

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
'THAT FELLOW'S GOT TO SWING.'

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

The poem then describes vividly the harsh days in prison and the frightening nights.

I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
Ever should look upon!

And never a human voice comes near
To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
With soul and body marred.

I especially liked the description of the nights haunted by the apparitions of long-dead prisoners with their tortured souls.

They glided past, they glided fast,
Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
For they sang to wake the dead.

That above contains some of the most lyrical and internally rythmic verses I have read: They mocked the moon in a rigadoon; And the damned grotesques made arabesques; With the pirouettes of marionettes; With formal pace and loathsome grace.

Loathsome grace--that phrase has a surprising antithetical beauty to it, don't you think? I wish I could think that clever.

The poem describes the condemned man's emotions as the day of his execution draws near.

And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

The poem paints a piteous picture as it ends.

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

 

Let the Doves Fly

Whenever a Mumbai train gets blown up and two hundred Indians die, or when sixty Indians have to be scraped off a Delhi pavement on Diwali, we hear the Pakis express the hope that this will not derail the "peace process".

To be perfectly honest, I don't understand this peace process business. Are we at war with these fuckers? What's the deal here? As far as I can tell, there is no war.

How can you have peace without a war?

And if not war, then what are we seeking peace from?

Since the Pakis themselves talk about peace, maybe the Pakis are seeking peace from us. Which leads me to infer that we are actively antagonizing them in some way. Are we antagonizing them in some way? I hope not. And if we are, then we must stop. That is only civilized.

And if we are not antagonizing them in some way and there is no war, then the only conclusion is that they are needling us in some way for all this talk of peace to get thrown around. Are they fucking with us?

Is this true? Is this even possible? Surely not the gentlemanly Pakis?

I'm all out of sarcasm now.

Ze Count of Monte Cristo

I was watching The Count of Monte Cristo on cable yesterday. In my defense, I had nothing to do.

Alexandre Dumas wrote the book, which is essentially a revenge drama, in the 1800s. Hollywood, never comfortable with the idea of leaving well enough alone, made the movie. The movie, of course, looks nothing like the book.

Here's the plot. Of the book; not the movie.

What? What do you mean, "Stop"? What do you mean you want to watch the movie first? You don't want me to give away the ending?

You know, it's not like I'm slinging you a spoiler here. The book has been out for more than a frickin' century. If you don't know what the ending is by now, well...it's probably time.

So briefly and sketchily, here's the story. 

Edmond Dantes, a sailor in nineteenth-century France and overall good guy, is getting married to his fiancee, the Catalan beauty Mercedes. But not so fast, because he has not been terribly selective about his friends. His jealous friend Fernand Mondego, with the help of a few others, frames Edmond for treason and sends his goody-goody ass to jail. Fernand then lies to Mercedes about Edmond's death and marries the weak-headed woman himself. They shortly have a son. Fernand then builds up a fortune through various environmentally-friendly business ventures like piracy, smuggling, and assorted general shittiness. Poor Edmond spends a gruelling eighteen years in jail, before being befriended by a fellow inmate who tells him of a great fortune buried on the island of Monte Cristo before dying. Probably from a bad plot.

Edmond escapes by substituting his skinny self in the body bag meant for his saviour. Hey, the saviour-fella was dead, OK? It's not like he cared. Edmond then goes to Monte cristo, digs up the fortune, styles himself the Count of Monte Cristo, and grows a beard so no one from his past will even suspect him of being Edmond Dantes. Real sneaky move, that beard. As the Guiness ad on TV says, "Brilliant!"

And then he plots his revenge on those that gone done him wrong.

Through various clever devices which would never work in the real world, Edmond succeeds in ruining his by now rich and powerful framers. Last, he bankrupts the head conspirator, the backstabbing Fernand.

All well and good, but then...remember that son that Fernand and Mercedes had? Good. 

Well, this son does not take kindly to the fact that a stranger has just robbed him of his fat allowance and forced his father to sell the Ferrari. He also has no idea that his father is a bad, bad man. He just assumes that his father is a honest dockworker who mysteriously adds a couple of million bucks to their bank account every month by putting in some serious overtime. Which sorta proves that when you cross a villain with a weak-minded woman, you won't exactly come up with Einstein. 

So he gets his silk britches in a twist and goes up and challenges the Count of MC to a duel with swords. In the name of family honour and all that.

The place and time for the duel are fixed in due course. The bookies place heavy odds on the Count, who is only the finest swordsman that France has ever seen. Don't ask me how he got so good. Maybe it was while he was in prison, where Swordplay was a required part of the prisoner work-rehabilitation program. Use your imagination, OK?

Just before the night of the duel, Mercedes, who still loves the Count, but at the same time doesn't want her idiot son to end up as sheesh-kebab, secretly goes to the Count's house and begs him to spare her son's life. The Count, who has also always loved her but is honour-bound to duel, replies that he will not call off the duel but will throw away the match after it has started. And everybody knows what else gets thrown away when you throw away a match that involves swords, right? Er...your life, that's what.

Before things go horribly wrong but, the son has an epiphany. Mainly because his mother sits down with him and says, "Look you idiot, here's what the deal is ...", and realizes that his father is basically a rat-turd, but with less integrity, and calls off the duel himself.

Things end on a sort of happy note when justice is done with Fernand committing suicide and leaving the world a little brighter as a result.

And that is the story as the book would have it. Justice served and fires extinguished.

And books are fantasy of course. That is why they sell.

You know how the book would have gone if it mimicked real life? 

Probabilistically speaking, nine times out of ten, this is how it would have happened in real life. Edmond The Good would have rotted away in prison for eighteen years before dying of internal injuries after some especially tender and intimate attention, if you get my drift, from a large tattooed man called Big Willy. The bad guy would have gone on to head a medium-sized corporation and got a half-page passing mention in Fortune at the age of fifty-five. And the girl would have bought herself a consolation BMW, maxed out her Tiffany's store card, grown a fat ass, and passed away peacefully in her bed at a ripe age from overeating and boredom.

That is how the world behaves ninety percent of the time.

There are exceptions of course. There are those lucky few among us for whom the word "justice" has had meaning. There are those few for whom "love" has not simply been a word fragment that is immediately followed by the word fragment "making". But that is the exception. One out of ten.

For most of the people in this world, nice words like justice, love, etc. are fantasies. And those people for whom this is so, they are the ones who buy these books. The one in ten don't. They have no need. The nine out of ten do.

And that is why these novels sell. Because nine out of ten want to believe the escapist fantasy that this is how the world works.

In conclusion, all humour (black, or otherwise) aside, The Count of Monte Cristo is a pretty good read. At least it seemed that way when I read it many, many moons ago. Go read it.

Avoid the movie.

An Offer

I have never understood religion. I suddenly lament this because I realize that this is a serious shortcoming, mainly because it puts me in the minority and as a result, sometimes on the defensive. I am tired of being in the minority and defending myself, often against close friends and family. 

So I would like to make an offer on this blog, to the five readers of this blog.

As so many people never tire of telling me, some things require belief, not rationality [**]. 

Okay, I'm down with that. 

I understand the belief versus rationality thing. But there is a certain thing that I find puzzling about the willingness to believe. Here's the offer. If this paradox, which I mention below, is explained away by someone willing to make the effort, I will immediately come around, fall to my knees, and drink the Kool-Aid.

Here's the paradox. I have noticed that there is an inverse relationship between claims and belief. The taller the claim, the shorter the duration of critical thinking assigned to it by human beings. 

Here is an example. If a human being is told that a particular brand of toothpaste is good for his teeth or a particular investment will double his money, he says, "Oh yeah? Show me." If that same human being is told that subscribing to a fuzzy, other-worldly, non-demonstrable, non-repeatable philosophy will save his soul, he says, "Where do I sign up?"

I need someone to explain this to me.


[**] Note that I choose my words carefully and contrast "belief" with "rationality", not "belief" with "thought". Just as it requires thought to rationalize, it requires thought to believe. We are constantly being asked to accept on faith various sorts of claims: marketing claims, spiritual claims, and emotional claims. Sometimes the claims are competing claims. So how--without some thought--does one choose *what* to believe? Even belief, it would appear, requires some sort of deliberation. In fact, if you really want to nitpick, rational people are also believers, only that they demand a much higher statistical significance before they will believe. Put another way, they demand a lower p-value. Even the most hardcore rationalists accept, say, 1% of a claim on faith. The difference between a believer and a rational empiricist is one of degree, not category.

Israel Again

Human conflict is a biological problem. It is the nature of the species. Humans are territorial and defend their turf with aggression. We also think that more turf is better so we take by might what we are not born into. So one might say that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a biological problem. But that sounds odd. So let's look at some history.

Israel seems to be the perennial bad boy to a lot of people. I don't really know why this is the case. I am guessing at least part of the reason is that a lot of people tend to favour the underdog in a fight. Everybody wants to see the little guy win. Nobody likes a bully. The Arabs are seen as the underdogs in this fight and Israel as the bully. Let's examine this historically. I have been studying this stuff after a recent conversation and now know enough to be dangerous.

I will focus on the early history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, because that is where the genesis of the problem is. Since those early days, neither side can claim moral high ground because both sides have been guilty of assassinations, massacres, war, and terrorism.

Here's how it all started. (History majors can fuck off. I am not saying anything that isn't in any decent textbook. The rest of you gather around.)

Before 1947, Palestine was a mandated territory. A mandated territory is land that is taken from the losing side in a war and placed under the administration of the victor. Since Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Empire disintegrated after the defeat of Turkey in the First World War, Palestine was placed under British Administration. In the 1920s, Palestine had the following population profile: 80% Muslim, 11% Jews, 9% Christian and others.

This profile changed--mainly because of the influx of Jews fleeing persecution in post World War I Europe--and by 1947, Palestine was 67% Muslim and 33% Jewish. I want to note here that these numbers are similar to the percentages of Hindus and Muslims in British India, before the partition of India in 1947. Also, just like the Muslims of British India wanted an Islamic homeland, so too some Jews raised a call for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This movement became known as Zionism. In contrast to the Muslim demand for a separate homeland in India though, not all Zionists necessarily wanted a separate Jewish state. Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement envisioned Jews, Christians and Muslims living together in harmony. I quote from Wikipedia, that fountainhead of all wisdom.

"...but are to be brought about simply by grouping all the best efforts and ideals of every race and nation; and each such effort is quoted and referred to in such a manner as to show that Altneuland ("Old-New land"), though blossoming through the skill of the Jew, will in reality be the product of the benevolent efforts of all the members of the human family.

Herzl envisioned a Jewish state that was devoid of most aspects of Jewish culture. He did not envision the Jewish inhabitants of the state being religious, or even speaking Hebrew. Proponents of a Jewish cultural rebirth, such as Ahad Ha'am were critical of Altneuland."

And this:

"Other Zionists believed in Labor Zionism, and had strong socialist leanings. They organized the labor movement in Palestine, and joined with the Palestinian masses in campaigns for improved wages and working conditions."

Note that this is not to say that Zionism was a picture of sugary benevolence. Revisionist Zionism was extreme and said that Jews could not live together with Arabs.

It seems to me that the other difference between Zionism and the Two-Nation Theory with Indian Muslims was that Zionism was born in response to a real persecution of Jews in Europe, whereas the Two-Nation movement was born simply because Muslims imagined that they would be discriminated against in Hindu-majority India. Thedor Herzl was exposed to anti-Semitism first-hand as a journalist while covering the the Dreyfuss Affair in France and was personal witness to French mobs marching and shouting "Death to the Jews!" on the streets of Paris. That may have set off some alarms. Just sayin'.

In any case, I am not defending Zionism. I suppose that every movement that is based on ethnicity is to a degree abhorrent and brings the world just that much closer to ruin. So I would simply like to say that up to this point, the situation in Arab-Jewish Palestine and that in Hindu-Muslim India was very similar. The parallels are there.

Then the fun started. Arabs started attacking Jews in Palestine.

The similarity breaks down there because as far as I know, no Hindus attacked Muslims in British India in response to Muslim separatism. The majority Arabs in Palestine, on the other hand, took to violence. The local Arabs repeatedly attacked the growing Jewish population during the years of the 1920s. In a riot in 1929 for instance, 67 Jews were massacred in Hebron. In the summer of 1935, Arabs destroyed thousands of Jewish farms and orchards and attacked and killed Jews. Entire Jewish communities such as those at Beisan were uprooted.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent his time fruitfully and well, collaborating with the Nazis during the Second World War and making radio broadcasts asking Muslims to ally with Germany in annihilating Jews. In one broadcast, he said: "Arabs, arise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you." Such a nice man. I bet he has nice grandkids too.

Now Jews are just like Hindus but with two important differences--they have a backbone and a pair between their legs. So they decided that passively getting killed and then migrating en masse--both of which Hindus have fine tuned to a precision art form--just wouldn't cut it for them. They also noticed that the British had no desire of protecting them from the Arabs. So they organized.

They created an organization called The Haganah (Hebrew: The Defense) to protect their communities. The Haganah eventually became the Israeli Army. The period from 1936-45 was therefore a little different for the Arabs. The armed Arab uprising of 1936 against the British and the Jews was brutally countered by the Haganah and the British. 5000 Palestinians died. The Haganah was no campfire organization. They were brutal and countered brutality with even more brutality.

The Arab uprising of 1936 sent the message that Jews and Arabs could not get along and that some sort of partition plan was required. So the UN came up with one in 1947. The plan, called Resolution 181, proposed that Palestine be divided up into an Arab state and a Jewish state, approximately evenly in terms of land area. The Arabs would keep the all the fertile highlands and one-third of the coastline. The Jews would get 50% of the land but a large portion of this land would include the Negev Desert. The resolution was passed in the General Assembly, with 33 countries voting for the plan and 13 countries voting against. India, ever the international nerdy good boy with the round glasses, voted against the plan. Ten Islamic nations including Pakistan also voted against the plan.

As an aside, I don't find it surprising that Pakistan voted against the plan, but I do find it ironic. An irony no doubt lost on the Pakis themselves. Because I would think that the Pakis, of all people, would be totally okay with this sort of partitioning of stuff and dividing of people. 

But not when the Partition involves taking land away from Muslims, eh, you fucking Paki piece of shit hypocrite cunts?

Uh, okay. Moving right along...

The Jews acquiesced to the plan; the Arabs did not. No surprises there. 

Great Britain refused to implement the plan because it was not acceptable to both parties. So the plan was never officially implemented and Great Britain withdrew from the mandated territory of Palestine in 1948.

Six Arab states--Transjordan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia--along with the Palestinian Arabs and volunteers from other Arab nations (notably Yemen), immediately attacked the Palestinian Jews.

The war ended in the defeat of the Arab forces. The newly created state of Israel essentially drew its own borders and grabbed 70% of Palestine. It is ironic that Israel did so well in the 1948 war. Ironic because the Haganah played a large part in the war, and if one remembers, the Haganah was created and strengthened by the Arab attacks on the Jews in the 1920s and 30s. Life sometimes comes full circle, wot?

History is full of what ifs. What if the Arabs had decided to get along with the Jews after the British? Would we have a single country called Palestine with an Arab majority and large Jewish minority co-existing? Or would some Jewish group have tried to forcefully execute the UN plan? Would there even be an Israel today had the Arabs not attacked? What would have happened if the Arabs had won the war? Would the Jews be massacred and the survivors living in refugee camps now instead of the Palestinians? In other words, would we have a mirror image of the problem that we have now? Would that somehow be more acceptable? What do you think?

In any case, instead of the 50% of high fertile land (at a minimum, if the UN Plan had been followed) or 100% of the land (had Palestine decided to remain one country) that the Palestinians would have had if they had decided to live with the Jews in peace, they found that Israel, victors of the war, drew its own borders and took 70% of Mandatory Palestine. 

Now could Israel have won the war and then returned the land as an unilateral gesture of magnanimity? Yes, they could have. But one thing got in the way--they were not Hindus and therefore not stupid. Which moron would return land to its attackers just so that the land could be used as a base to attack them again? Indians, you should know the answer to this one. Does anyone remember the 13,000 sq km of Pakistani territory and 90,000 Paki POWs during 1971? Can you say 1971, people? Give me a Hallelujah! Can you smack your foreheads and go Aaaahh, people? 

[Short prayer: If by chance Hindus are right and there is reincarnation and shit, I do not want to be reborn a Hindu. Please god, anything but a limpdick Hindu.]

I would like to reiterate at this point that since 1948, neither side has covered itself in glory. Israeli warplanes have bombed Palestinian refugee camps, Israeli soldiers have stood by while the Phalangists--Lebanese Christian militia--have massacred Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila. The PLO has launched attacks against Israeli civilians using Southern Lebanon as its base. The PLO has played a part in the Lebanese Civil War and massacred Lebanese Maronite Christians--who were Israeli allies--in Damour.

So who do we blame, given the events in 1948 and prior that started this all? I don't know about you, but does anyone seriously expect me personally to have any respect or sympathy for the political decisions that the Palestinians (or Lebanon and the other Arab states) took in 1948 that brings us to this sorry state of affairs?

And of course, as noted above, Israel is no angel either. Here's my take. They managed to carve out a homeland for themselves the hard way. They had no opportunity to plead and bargain for their freedom over a table, like some countries that we shall not name. As a result, they quite likely have a very fixed idea of what it will take to hold on to that freedom. They react, and react violently, to any threat they perceive to that freedom. Sometimes with overwhelming, brute force. Is this warranted? An average Indian, not having any first-hand clue to this mindset since generations, will likely respond in the negative.

Darn Israel and its wars

I recently had a chat with a grey-haired professor about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The prof seemed to have a very one-sided sympathy for Lebanon that I found puzzling. 

He started by asking me if I knew a whole lot about the history of the conflict. I confessed I did not (I truly don't). 

He asked me about the civilian casualties caused by Israel. (Aside: Since when has any warring party, Israel or otherwise, ever been overly worried about civilian casualties?)

I answered that I am greatly pained by the civilian casualties and wished that it would stop, but what I thought or felt probably didn't matter. I added that my only hope was that at least some good will come of this whole sorry mess if Hezbollah disintegrates and as a result, the world sees a little less Islamic fundamentalism. The alternative--looking at it in a zero-sum way--was to wish for a dissolution of Israel. Since the dissolution of a country is bound to be more painful in human terms than the dissolution of a non-state actor like Hezbollah (Extinction of Hezbollah is not the same thing as the extinction of Lebanon), I said that I would, on balance, prefer to see the dissolution of Hezbollah. I said that I thought this was the most positive way of looking at a very negative situation.

I also think that there is probably no positive-sum way of looking at the situation given the unfortunate reality that the parties to the conflict themselves subscribe to a zero-sum view. Hezbollah publicly calls for the destruction of Israel and Israel in turn wants to wipe out Hezbollah.

The prof didn't like what I said. He went a little red in the face and suggested that everybody, including I, should roundly condemn Israel. I replied that if I did any condemning of any kind, I would condemn both sides equally. And since equal condemnation of both sides would have the net result of canceling each other out and be politically and philosophically indistinguishable from condemning no one at all, I would rather save my breath than engage in a philosophically meaningless exercise.

Then we had dinner and went home.