The Significance of Possessions

Brugge

Wye, Kent

 

Wye, Kent.

After reading about someone who had to sell their home to pay for long-term care in their old age, [not an uncommon occurrence] I got around to thinking of what it must be like to have to do that. Not that I shall be in that position I hope, but, in a faint echo of that, I have downsized considerably after leaving Bruges to move to live in Bury St Edmunds. All of this has been sensible and voluntary and I now live in a dear little flat with perhaps around 80-85% of my former possessions, disposed of. I do occasionally look for something or need something, which proves to be no longer mine! But, on the whole, giving away a variety of possessions has not proven too difficult for me at all. Indeed, I have sometimes felt a certain anxiety, an urgency, to dispose of more, to enable me to fit more easily and stylishly into present accommodation. The foundation of that feeling of ease in giving away furniture, for instance, which I have loved for years, must lie in the fact that I want to do what I am doing.

Bury St Edmunds

My Bruges home was in this building
on Woensdagmarkt.

Bruges, Beguinage.

Various treasured possessions which have made it
to Bury via Bruges and Wye. Indeed, some have clung
on since Waingroves. (see below)

Nonetheless, to finally sell house and home to finance the next, the last, stage, must be daunting. Our possessions are always more than just objects. They are part of our sense of being a person, just as our home is an essential part of our self. That is why we find it impossible to comprehend how some can live on the street. They have to, having lost everything, but how on earth do they shift, psychologically, to accepting it, understanding it, accommodating it? Incomprehensible to most of us. To lose our home is to lose part of, most of, ourselves. However, if a possession isn’t too important to us, then we can relinquish it quite easily. When I was moving to Bruges to live, at 80, I realised that there I could easily live there without a car. While in Kent, I had felt that my car was essential and being without it permanently would have been incredibly difficult, almost impossible to bear. But in Bruges, life without a car would be easy and had advantages; I did not need to familiarise myself with driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road; I did not need to locate and pay for a garage or parking space; I needed to buy no petrol or MoT nor to learn the nuances of Belgian highway laws. There was a local train station and buses passed my building nearby every ten minutes. In short, giving up my car was a blast and I did so without a qualm. So, in Brugge, a car ceased to be an important part of my life and could be effortlessly relinquished!

After talking to one or two elderly people here in Bury, I now understand that just moving house is difficult for some. A friend who has lived for around fifty years in the same house, where her sons were born and a happy-enough marriage was played out, simply cannot deal with the thought of selling and finding new. The house itself needs a complete renovation; it is large, draughty and expensive to run, lacking, as it does, a modern kitchen and bathroom or any real modern insulation. It has around eight steps to the front door from the street, and she is moving towards some difficulty in walking. Clearly, to her, the idea of leaving her long-term home equates to ‘tearing up her roots’ ; it is painful and almost literal in her case. Moving house is anyway considered one of Life’s most stressful events, at any age, and she cannot yet consider the awful prospect of leaving her beloved haven, and indeed, may never do so despite the fact that a small modern apartment in the centre of town, where she could live more cheaply and easily, would enhance her quality of life considerably. And importantly, she would be establishing her next home. She isn’t giving that up; this isn’t the final move, as it were.

Towards the end of life, moving house finally, selling up at last, will be, associated with thoughts of approaching death. And many elderly people can accommodate this with equanimity, but to gain that desirable equilibrium, one needs to feel that one’s life has had a sense of achievement. Many will find that in books written and published; art created and exhibited; successful career acknowledged and completed. But, additionally for some, and solely for others, the solid fact of a home, full of possessions gathered pleasurably over the years, in a house which is yours, to pass on to others, gives a strong and satisfying sense of personal continuity. It reassures us that an important part of us continues and contributes to the welfare and happiness of others after us, who remember us affectionately and with gratitude. Monetary value is not necessarily involved in that chair or that picture which we pass on to selected individuals; it is the fact that this, or that, treasured possession of ours will delight the new owner while helping others to remember us. And some part of us will continue after our death.

Waingroves Hall in Derbyshire with the lamp post
obtained by my mother when it was removed from
outside my childhood home in Notts.
I left Waingroves in 1983 but still, occasionally walk
through its rooms in my memory. This old hall
has been a part of my psyche since 1968 when, like Proust,
my dream had become my address.

,

Trump and the Evangelicals

 My utter disbelief not only continues but is amplified. Trump has just won the Iowa primary by virtually 50%, the largest ever majority vote in any primary. I have watched a number of his devoted followers proclaiming him as the ‘best president ever’ and besides wondering what is wrong with the state education in America that its citizens are so easily bamboozled and seduced into a cult-like worship of a deeply flawed and malevolent man, I have looked around for answers. And I may have stumbled on to one important factor. Religion, or rather, the evangelical wing of one religion. As a happy atheist, I have to admit that religion is always top of my list of suspects in local or global dissent, upheavals, war. But, in my quest to answer this puzzling Trump question, I have read several opinion pieces on the power and nature of the evangelicals; they are not comforting!

Apparently, in a poll published on 4^th January 2024, more Republicans said that Trump is a man of 

Joe Biden

faith than said the same of Joe Biden, a lifelong practising Catholic; or of Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon or of the apparently fervently evangelical, Mike Pence. So what IS it about Trump, an irreligious non-Church goer, that inspires this devotion? Jill Filipovic, writing in the New Statesman, [12/18 Jan 2024] suggests that it is Trump’s authoritarianism which inspires; his oft-proclaimed intention to impose his will on the country, as in the threatened retribution for vocal critics, from the White House,

Mike Pence

appeals strongly to evangelicals who tend to be drawn to chiefly authoritarian groups/families. Filipovic suggests that evangelism has become more of an identity than a mere religion and that evangelicals lean naturally to a wider authoritarian view of society as personified in Trump. He recognises, and uses, his strong support among white evangelicals [84% of white evangelicals support Trump according to the Pew Research Centre] and when in power, he obligingly returned favours to this base. He placed religious fanatics on the Supreme Court and promoted suitably fervent judicial

Mitt Romney

appointees in lower courts. The Supreme Court obligingly overturned Roe v Wade, thus ending the federal rights to abortion throughout the U.S., not a widely popular act. National anti-abortion laws are not the mark of a modern liberal society and this was not, and is not, a cause dear to Trump’s heart either, but is of real value to his white evangelical base which he carefully tends.

Trump's lasting effect on the Supreme Court.
Neil Gorsuch; Amy Coney Barrett; Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump, above all, craves adoration, approval, and power and the evangelicals heap these on him. In return, having apparently few, if any, principles, he accommodates his base. In the evangelical world, people believe they are waging a spiritual war against demonic enemies of Christianity and America. Trump embodies the us-vs-them mentality of this cosmic battle between the godly and the satanic and uses it, along with his saviour status, to his full advantage in falsely portraying the criminal prosecutions against him, as the work of an evil, corrupt political system. For a base that has heard for decades that Christians are being persecuted by secularists and that conservatives are under siege by out-of-control liberals, Trump embodies all their fears and their grievances and inspires in them the belief that he, and only he, can deal with their dark fears..

Filipovic suggests that evangelical leaders also preach ‘a prosperity gospel’; wealth comes to those who pray and having wealth is a sign of moral righteousness. This admiration of wealth seen in terms of moral goodness might seem a particularly dangerous aspect of American belief but it fits Trump’s

Fathers' Day photo of Barron Trump with Melania and Donald

purposes, and identity, like a glove. He is not religious but he has wealth, inherited and acquired somehow, so he is smart and blessed. He is clearly the Boss at home and at work, positions he maintains, as of right, by any method needed. His wife clearly has less personal power than he and is publicly subservient: compared to earlier political wives, like Barbara Bush or Hilary Clinton, she does not voice strong independent opinions, but, importantly, she is decorative, modest but happy to talk publicly about her clothes and appearance. She is, axiomatically, a ‘good mother’ to Barron, their young son. The Trump couple give every appearance of being a successful traditional American family, much admired by the base, both evangelicals and M.A.G.A. acolytes.

The Post Script below gives one contemporary example of Trump’s numerous current legal problems, usually created by his own intemperate, often criminal, behaviour, and surprisingly unimportant to his evangelical admirers.

Trump in one of many court appearances.

Donald living up to expectations in  prayer

The New York Times in October 2018, published an attack on Trump which disclosed evidence to support the accusations of ‘outright fraud’ and ‘dubious tax schemes’ against him. Eventually he responded with a $100 million lawsuit against the three reporters who wrote that article plus two subsequent ones, and against Mary Trump, his niece and the source of the family-based information. Yesterday, the judge presiding, ordered Trump to pay the legal fees of the journalists involved, of almost $400,000 to ‘send a message to those who want to misuse the judicial system to try and silence journalists'.

Mary Trump, Donald's niece.

In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any one of which could produce a prison sentence. He is also dealing with a civil suit in New York that could force drastic changes to his business empire, including closing down his operations there. Meanwhile, he is the leading Republican candidate in the Presidential race, though lawyers in several states are seeking to have him disqualified from the Presidency.

Evangelicals saluting the flag

Trump supporters: Evangelicals; MAGA fans; white
non-college educated white men.

The unqualified and passionate Trump support among evangelicals and others, does continue to baffle and frighten.

 

 

The Portico Library and Gallery

 

Lyceum  Library, Liverpool

Portico Library, Manchester

The Portico Library and Gallery opened in Manchester in 1806 as a newsroom as well as a library. It consists of a remarkable 19^th century collection of approximately 25,000 books, housed in the splendour of its original purpose-built, Grade 11* listed building, all reflecting the social and cultural interests of its early members. These included John Richard Taylor who founded the Guardian following the Battle of Peterloo, and Richard Cobden, the radical Liberal statesman and co-founder of the Anti-Corn Law League. Entrance to the Gallery and its frequent exhibitions is free. The problem may lie in finding this hidden gem. It is situated above the Bank Pub on Mosley Street, and is

Rather palatial interior of the Bank Pub in Mosley Street

described as “in a building that resembles an ancient Greek temple.”

Richard Cobden

I had not known of the Portico until I read recently that it had been awarded £453,964 from the National Lottery to develop a £7 million plan to transform the library. The ambitious prize-winning plan includes creating dining and exhibition spaces, a new ‘collections’ care lab’ and areas for events and meetings plus the introduction of a ‘Northern bookshop’.

The Portico happened originally because of the reputed jealousy of the Manchester business community of the 1802 opening of the Lyceum Library in Liverpool, designed by Thomas Harrison in the Greek Revival style. They wanted something similar in Manchester! In total, 400 Manchester businessmen became early members and it was their money which facilitated the building of the Library and its early acquisitions. This original membership included doctors, lawyers, merchants and factory owners with much of their wealth founded in the lucrative but exploitative cotton trade. Their objective was to found a centre where knowledge could be accessed and was widely available, a typically Victorian and worthy endeavour to democratise information.

Joseph Sunlight: architect

The Portico thrived until after WW1 when it faced closure because of a shortage of both members and consequently, of money. Joseph Sunlight, a local architect, came up with a survival plan which was to sell books and reduce the physical size of the Library. The lower floors were taken over by the Bank of Athens, now the Bank Pub, with the smaller library continuing to operated on the top floor, several flights of stairs up! The new plan which has attracted the National Lottery grant, is to reunite all three floors for the Portico after a century apart. Additionally, because of a lack of money, and perhaps, a wider recognition, the condition of the original collection of books has sadly deteriorated hence the urgent need for the ‘collections care lab’ in the current plan.

Thom Keep: Portico Librarian

Thom Keep, the Portico librarian, believes that the Portico has untapped potential. He says that it has been serving food and drink [as well as providing books and exhibitions] since 1806 and he has plans to develop its reputation as a chic lunch spot, the oldest in Manchester! In addition, he believes that local interest in Manchester’s 19^th century history is high and the Portico is also unique in that most of its library content is of the 19^th century providing a concentrated resource for specialist research. All this will help in raising the further £2 million still required for the transformation programme which John Carpenter, the Chair of the Portico, describes as ‘visionary’.

The Portico is home to the Portico Prize for Literature, a leading literary prize which celebrates the strong regional and literary identity of the North of England. It also hosts the Portico Prize  for Young Writers and The Portico Prize for Poetry which both aim to mirror the objectives of the Portico Prize. 

Interior of the Portico Library

Looking Back in Disbelief.

Recent pro-Palestinian protest

 

Some of the original 750,000 Palestinians during their
journey in the Nakba [catastrophe] on May 15th 1948,
vacating their homeland.

In a recent tidIn a recent tidying up/winnowing of my folders and files, I came across one in which I had collected various items of news and current affairs commentary. I was astonished to discover a newspaper cutting from the Guardian Readers’ Letters page, dated 16/08/2014, of the following letter. I quote in full:

The current annihilation of Gaza.

“As Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide, we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonisation of historic Palestine. We further condemn the United States for providing Israel with the funding to carry out the attack, and western states more generally for using their diplomatic muscle to protect Israel from condemnation. Genocide begins with the silence of the world.

We are alarmed by the racist dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli society which has reached fever pitch. Politicians and pundits in the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post have called openly for the genocide of Palestinians, and right wing Israelis are adopting neo-Nazi insignia.

Arrest for stone-throwing

Furthermore we are disgusted and outraged by Elie Wiesel’s abuse of our history in these pages
[advertisement August 11: Report August 11] to promote blatant falsehoods used to justify the unjustifiable. Nothing can justify bombing U.N. shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water,

We must raise our collective voices and use our collective power to bring about an end to all forms of racism. We call for an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza. We call for the full economic boycott of Israel. ‘Never again’ must mean ‘Never again for anyone.’

Signatories:

Hajo Meyer: Survivor of Auschwitz: The Netherlands.

Henri Wajnblum: Survivor and son of an Auschwitz victim from Lodz, Poland: Belgium.

Norbert Hirschhorn: refugee of Nazi genocide and grandson of three people who died in the Shoah: London.

Suzanne Weiss; survived in hiding in France, whose mother died in Auschwitz: Canada.

Felicia and Moshe Langer: survivors from Germany. Moshe survived five concentration camps. His

Liberation of Auschwitz, Jan. 27th 1945

family members were exterminated: Germany.

Michael Rice: child survivor; son and grandson of survivors: United States.

Plus 30 Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide and 260 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other relatives of survivors. 

See full list at ijsn.net/gaza/survivors-and-descendants-letter/

Children liberated from  Auschwitz, Jan 27, 1945

                           Comment.

This letter is re-printed without permission although its publication in a British national newspaper would suggest that such an item might well be reproduced, ten years after its original appearance, as freely-available data.

The word ‘disbelief’ in my title, indicates my horror at finding this letter from 2014 which is so entirely relevant to the present Israeli pounding of Gaza and its relentless killing of Palestinians since the horrendous Hamas attack on October 7 2023. How has anything changed? Surely, the only                                                                                                solution is to establish the long-awaited, long-                                                                                              promised independent Palestinian state?

The signatories of the 2014 letter are chiefly survivors of the horrifying Shoah or descendants of such and their eloquent protest is all the more powerful for that fact. It can be safely assumed that no one could dismiss their views as anti-Semitic.

Elie Wiesel 1928-2016
Auschwitz survivor; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Libraries in Ukraine

Ukrainian library shelves during 2023

  I have just discovered this blog, written several months ago, had not been published. I noticed it languishing when I read about the Portico Library in Manchester about which I had never heard, and about which I wanted to blog! Obviously, my eyes were sensitised to the word, ‘library’. Thus this Ukrainian library lament is now to be published followed by the yet-to-be-written one on the Portico.

Disturbed to have confirmed that a key part of Putin’s strategy vis-a-vis the invasion of Ukraine, is to eradicate the Ukrainian sense of identity. He openly questions the legitimacy of Ukraine’s contemporary borders, arguing that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians are one people, sharing a common heritage and destiny. The decisions of the Ukrainian Government now are driven by a Western plot against Russia and he labels the Ukrainian governmental personnel as Nazis in spite of its leader, Volodymyr Welensky, being Jewish.

Chernihiv State Archives
NKVD and KGB information is stored here; 
uncomfortable for Putin.

In this obsessive drive to keep Ukrainians ‘Russian’, Putin, from the Feb 24, 2022 beginning of the
invasion, has set out to destroy historic libraries and archives in Ukraine. In an Observer article of 4/12/22 by Stephen Marche, the huge efforts of Ukrainian librarians and their staff throughout the country are outlined as they have focused on protecting their books and archives at all costs. Libraries and archives are a nation’s cultural life blood, at least as important as other aspects of a nation’s identity and, indeed, are foundationally and intricately bound up with all the other elements.

Three days before Putin invaded, he publicly declared that Ukraine is a fiction, entirely created by Russia and without the stable traditions of real statehood. Ukrainian identity was an attempt by the West “to distort the mentality and historical memory of millions of people.” Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s President, countered Putin’s fiction in his powerful speech to the European Parliament last year, insisting that a strong Ukrainian identity not only existed but was now European in nature, not Russian. So the war seeks to reclaim its own territory and people, in Russian terms, while the Ukrainians’ struggle is to define their past as well as forge their way to their chosen future in Europe. Russia, under Putin, wants to continue the old Soviet system when force created an 'empire' in the Soviet bloc; Ukraine is moving on, Westwards, requesting membership of NATO.

Anatoli Khromov, Head of Ukrainian State Archives.
Described as a 'warrior librarian.'

Russians targeted libraries immediately in this existential struggle. The first was at Chernihiv where sensitive NKVD and KGB information about Soviet-era repressions and killings which Russia wanted erased, were stored. They continued to destroy archives in Bucha, and in Ivankiv, in Mariupol and Volnovakha, in Irpin and Borodianka, setting what has become a steady and destructive pattern. Meanwhile, archivists and librarians throughout the country, under the leadership of Anatoli Khromov, Head of Ukrainian State Archives, have removed, hidden or transferred archival material elsewhere, often abroad. By May 2022 an online survey by the Ukrainian National Library revealed that 19 libraries had already been destroyed; 115 partially destroyed and a further 124 permanently damaged, plus several thousand school libraries had also gone. By December 2022, over 300 state and university libraries had been destroyed.

Sheltering in the Metro.

Khromov labels this Russian destruction as cultural genocide and describes the Ukrainian resistance as “fighting for our national memory.” This has involved both the preservation of physical artefacts and the digitisation of archives that already exist. Pre-war, digitisation had been tiny in volume; the large State archives were only 0.6% digitalised so momentum here has been rapid. The record is impressive. The war began on Feb 24^th and by the end of the first week in March, an organisation, SUCHO, [Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online] had been formed with efforts from the Ukrainian military and various international organisations and individuals, to effect widespread data rescue. By March 7^th, more than 1000 volunteers, furloughed from regular jobs, were working up to 12 hours a day. And now, almost two years later, the war continues, and has developed into a massive Russian onslaught on the civilian population and a ceaseless bombardment to destroy as much Ukrainian infrastructure as possible. Putin’s plan is to effect total devastation on Ukraine throughV
cultural, physical and emotional genocide.

The strong identity of the Ukrainian people and their furious national courage as they defend their

Irpin's library offers refuge during post-Russian
bombing of civilian areas.

homeland against the Russian invaders, are undoubted and much admired. Ukrainian morale has remained strong in the face of frequent low morale shown by the Russians; tens of thousands of Russian young men have left the country rather than do their proclaimed patriotic duty! A large number of conscripts have fled. There seems to have been genuine misinterpretation by the Kremlin that the Ukrainians would not resist [and would, indeed, welcome, the Russians] and this failure to understand the current distinction between the two cultures, has resulted, in a strengthening of the Ukrainian identity which will inevitably, be anti-Russian in the future. An irony indeed.

Meanwhile, warfare continues; libraries are re-opening; personnel recruited; reading rooms are welcoming back citizens while the important distinctive cultural protection of books and archives, continues, thanks in part to Putin’s blindness to the cultural realities of two separate nations. The libraries are also demonstrating their ability to forge additional paths; libraries are now taken into hotspots when people shelter from prolonged bombing, as in Underground stations. Reading helps

Vadym Skibitsky, Deputy Head, Defence Ministry
Intelligence Directorate.
Now also General in Ukrainian army.

frightened people to cope. There is also a large upswing in requests to learn the Ukrainian language. Nearly one third of the Ukrainian population has Russian as its mother tongue and libraries are responding by sourcing Ukrainian language lessons for the rapidly increasing demand. This is a war over language and identity.

Volodymyr Zelensky