Haven't done haiku
got a lot done though woo-hoo
Council tomorrow?
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Simone Veil est morte : Written 2017; posted 18 November 2018
Simone Veil has died: I'm so sorry I didn't realise she was still alive.
She is one of my clearest memories of French studies with the amazing Danie Jamieson (may she live forever). (I so hope she's still alive). From a lifetime of working tirelessly and intelligently for liberty and justice, holding high office in French politics, after surviving Auschwitz as a 17-year-old, Simone Veil is most famous for her law legalising abortion in France. And my clearest memory of her from my French studies? As she left the Assemblée Nationale (Parliament) after her law was voted in (9 women in an Assembly of 490 in 1975), someone congratulated her on her win, saying how happy she must be. She replied "No-one is ever happy about any abortion."
You can tell from my wording that I misremember the quote - one of my clearest memories, clearly not verbatim. I had never heard of her, and didn't realise how recent it was, as a young thing in the early 80s. I've just watched part of her speech to the Assemblée Nationale, made available on the excellent news site for children "1jour1actu" (literally "1 day 1 news item" - daily video & article, available on the web or as an app). She is everything I would like to be: serious, intelligent, full of humanity, making good use of her language skills, persuading others by her cogent prose, well presented.
What I remember from the article we no doubt discussed and translated an extract of, is that she replied to this colleague or journalist congratulating her on her win in the House, that an abortion is always a tragedy to the woman involved, and that no-one ever chooses it lightly. And I forget her words for what came next, but the impact of them is forever carved in me: something to the effect that any one single abortion is a tragedy, but that women must have access to abortion when necessary. No doubt worded well and forcibly, with great warmth and empathy.
This blog is not about abortion: more about the strength of character and effectiveness of this wonderful woman, and the effect she has had on the world for the good. And when I say woman, I mean person. I admire that she worked hard and intelligently to make happen what she believed needed to happen. Even when it was morally complex.
This blog is also not about the Shoah: although a big driver in her life was "le devoir de mémoire" - the duty of memory. Veil bore witness to what she had lived through in a concentration camp and did not want people to forget what had happened during the Second World War. She also worked for peace between different nationalities, different peoples.
There are not so many left who actually lived through these horrors - my beloved Peter Dane died last year - the duty of memory falls to younger generations. And that duty includes not only the facts of that period - I think most people by now have got that Hitler did evil, and trying to eliminate the Jews in order to purify his civilisation was a wrong thing - but to transfer this understanding to current events, and to all sides of any multi-national or multi-religious or multi-group question. Anywhere there's a potential Them-and-Us.
I hope that in her death, in the widespread reporting of her death, her voice will reach some who had not heard it during her life (google her!), and a seed of reflection will be planted that might just be the tipping point in a crucial decision - one person decides to treat someone Other as human, their whole family decides to treat some Other as human, that Other therefore decides that they are human and not as Other as he/she might otherwise have thought, and so votes in their group for clemency rather than violence, in whichever direction it might potentially be aimed. So a church, a mosque and an atheist discussion group meet for lunch instead of slinging insults at each other, neighbours invite each other over and feed each other's pets instead of haggling over fences, one group decides for peace rather than bombs, one taped-up bomber decides to bail, two countries decide they can keep their national identities while trading and without aiming missiles at each other.
There will always be a new Other; there will always be a new excuse to be prejudiced, there will always be a choice between accepting the Other as different but still human, or different and thus dangerous. Oedipus attracted his bad fate by trying to avoid it, by separation from the people who were to cause his downfall, where if he had only got to know them in the normal natural way he could never have walked into the trap. Then, with Oedipus as King, the people of Thebes tried to rid themselves of plague after plague by eliminating strangers, potential contaminants, when all the while the disease was within them.
We don't have to become the other, and we should be wary of people trying to persuade or force us against our better judgement or against our will to become like them, but nor do we have to avoid the Other, or try to make them be like us. I will delight in the music and colour of Diwali, but I neither want to become a Hindi, nor make them drop their multi-faceted, multi-path culture to be like me, or failing that, leave "my" country and go be Hindi somewhere else.
I suspect the "Them-and-Us" problems now might be even more complicated than in the 1930s and 40s - but then they probably were then, too. And I bet the world now is a little better than it would have been if that strong young woman hadn't stood up, got the necessary education, and spent her life force working for liberty and justice. "Grande conscience française du XXe siècle" (Great French conscience of the 20th Century) according to Le Monde on-line this week. Good on her for possessing the strength to make her gifted life also a long life, and not succumbing to the self-elimination of the other Simone Weil - with a W - also French, Jewish, and young during World War II, also blessed with high intelligence and sensitivity (beat Simone de Beauvoir to first place in an important competitive exam). She (Weil with a W) poured her overflowing life-force into mysticism (leaving a body of highly poetic mystic philosophy), but, ultimately, embraced suffering as a form of virtue, embracing an absent God's love, and starved herself to death. Essentially did Hitler's job for him. Was she more sensitive that Simone Veil (with a V)? I doubt it. Just took a different turning at a crucial point in her development and decided that self-abnegation was virtuous.
Both fascinating women, both worthy of study, both (well, let's bring in the third contemporary Simone, de Beauvoir this time) - all marked their time, all added their unique individual thread to the tapestry of our time, all did harm and good, all burned bright, all have had enormous influence, have changed many lives through their efforts.
Vale Simone Veil, thanks for your inspirational life well-lived.
She is one of my clearest memories of French studies with the amazing Danie Jamieson (may she live forever). (I so hope she's still alive). From a lifetime of working tirelessly and intelligently for liberty and justice, holding high office in French politics, after surviving Auschwitz as a 17-year-old, Simone Veil is most famous for her law legalising abortion in France. And my clearest memory of her from my French studies? As she left the Assemblée Nationale (Parliament) after her law was voted in (9 women in an Assembly of 490 in 1975), someone congratulated her on her win, saying how happy she must be. She replied "No-one is ever happy about any abortion."
You can tell from my wording that I misremember the quote - one of my clearest memories, clearly not verbatim. I had never heard of her, and didn't realise how recent it was, as a young thing in the early 80s. I've just watched part of her speech to the Assemblée Nationale, made available on the excellent news site for children "1jour1actu" (literally "1 day 1 news item" - daily video & article, available on the web or as an app). She is everything I would like to be: serious, intelligent, full of humanity, making good use of her language skills, persuading others by her cogent prose, well presented.
What I remember from the article we no doubt discussed and translated an extract of, is that she replied to this colleague or journalist congratulating her on her win in the House, that an abortion is always a tragedy to the woman involved, and that no-one ever chooses it lightly. And I forget her words for what came next, but the impact of them is forever carved in me: something to the effect that any one single abortion is a tragedy, but that women must have access to abortion when necessary. No doubt worded well and forcibly, with great warmth and empathy.
This blog is not about abortion: more about the strength of character and effectiveness of this wonderful woman, and the effect she has had on the world for the good. And when I say woman, I mean person. I admire that she worked hard and intelligently to make happen what she believed needed to happen. Even when it was morally complex.
This blog is also not about the Shoah: although a big driver in her life was "le devoir de mémoire" - the duty of memory. Veil bore witness to what she had lived through in a concentration camp and did not want people to forget what had happened during the Second World War. She also worked for peace between different nationalities, different peoples.
There are not so many left who actually lived through these horrors - my beloved Peter Dane died last year - the duty of memory falls to younger generations. And that duty includes not only the facts of that period - I think most people by now have got that Hitler did evil, and trying to eliminate the Jews in order to purify his civilisation was a wrong thing - but to transfer this understanding to current events, and to all sides of any multi-national or multi-religious or multi-group question. Anywhere there's a potential Them-and-Us.
I hope that in her death, in the widespread reporting of her death, her voice will reach some who had not heard it during her life (google her!), and a seed of reflection will be planted that might just be the tipping point in a crucial decision - one person decides to treat someone Other as human, their whole family decides to treat some Other as human, that Other therefore decides that they are human and not as Other as he/she might otherwise have thought, and so votes in their group for clemency rather than violence, in whichever direction it might potentially be aimed. So a church, a mosque and an atheist discussion group meet for lunch instead of slinging insults at each other, neighbours invite each other over and feed each other's pets instead of haggling over fences, one group decides for peace rather than bombs, one taped-up bomber decides to bail, two countries decide they can keep their national identities while trading and without aiming missiles at each other.
There will always be a new Other; there will always be a new excuse to be prejudiced, there will always be a choice between accepting the Other as different but still human, or different and thus dangerous. Oedipus attracted his bad fate by trying to avoid it, by separation from the people who were to cause his downfall, where if he had only got to know them in the normal natural way he could never have walked into the trap. Then, with Oedipus as King, the people of Thebes tried to rid themselves of plague after plague by eliminating strangers, potential contaminants, when all the while the disease was within them.
We don't have to become the other, and we should be wary of people trying to persuade or force us against our better judgement or against our will to become like them, but nor do we have to avoid the Other, or try to make them be like us. I will delight in the music and colour of Diwali, but I neither want to become a Hindi, nor make them drop their multi-faceted, multi-path culture to be like me, or failing that, leave "my" country and go be Hindi somewhere else.
I suspect the "Them-and-Us" problems now might be even more complicated than in the 1930s and 40s - but then they probably were then, too. And I bet the world now is a little better than it would have been if that strong young woman hadn't stood up, got the necessary education, and spent her life force working for liberty and justice. "Grande conscience française du XXe siècle" (Great French conscience of the 20th Century) according to Le Monde on-line this week. Good on her for possessing the strength to make her gifted life also a long life, and not succumbing to the self-elimination of the other Simone Weil - with a W - also French, Jewish, and young during World War II, also blessed with high intelligence and sensitivity (beat Simone de Beauvoir to first place in an important competitive exam). She (Weil with a W) poured her overflowing life-force into mysticism (leaving a body of highly poetic mystic philosophy), but, ultimately, embraced suffering as a form of virtue, embracing an absent God's love, and starved herself to death. Essentially did Hitler's job for him. Was she more sensitive that Simone Veil (with a V)? I doubt it. Just took a different turning at a crucial point in her development and decided that self-abnegation was virtuous.
Both fascinating women, both worthy of study, both (well, let's bring in the third contemporary Simone, de Beauvoir this time) - all marked their time, all added their unique individual thread to the tapestry of our time, all did harm and good, all burned bright, all have had enormous influence, have changed many lives through their efforts.
Vale Simone Veil, thanks for your inspirational life well-lived.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
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