Horner's Corner

Public House (Bloomsbury, London.)

This photograph was taken in the 1960s-70s by John Gay (Gay was the English name taken by Hans Gohler,  a German who left his native land when Hitler rose to power  in 1933;  he was not a Jew, but was disgusted at the way the Jews were being treated. He became a naturalised British subject and took wonderful photographs of this country, usually in b&w. He died in 1999.)

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Hampshire, May 30th 2010

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In her book, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” Naomi Klein explores the myth of free market democracy, explaining how neoliberalism dominates the world with America its main exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere.

As a result, wars are waged, social services cut, public ones privatized, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or in duress to object. Disaster capitalism is triumphant everywhere from post-Soviet Russia to post-apartheid South Africa, occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Honduras before and after the US-instigated coup, post-tsunami Sri Lanka and Aceh, Indonesia, New Orleans post-Katrina, and now heading to Haiti full-throttle after its greatest ever catastrophe. The same scheme always repeats, exploiting people for profits, the prevailing neoliberal idea that “there is no alternative” so grab all you can.

More via Haiti Watch.

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I get so tired of hearing that Haiti is un pays maudit, as if God designated particular geographical regions for exceptional hardship, as if having enough money to build to earthquake code were a question of theodicy. I heard this exact phrase, that Haiti is a damned country, from my French neighbor just this morning, who served as a UN peacekeeper for two years in Port-au-Prince. I hear exactly the same thing from the many Haitians I know, or only briefly encounter in the back of their taxis, in Montreal. They are proud of the fact that Haiti was the first Black republic anywhere, and one of the first republics in the western hemisphere, but are resigned to what they take as a simple fact, that the legacy of Toussaint Louverture was doomed to failure from the outset. In fact, Pat Robertson’s senescent account of Haiti’s plight –an account that happened to go viral, but was really only meant for the ears of elderly, bedridden Americans who lack the initiative and the computing skills to check these things out for themselves– is really just a slightly more crude version of what almost everyone says about Haiti. Even Haitians say it.

Most Haitians are probably better able to get their facts straight, though. In his brief summary of the circumstances of the purported deal with the devil, Robertson notes that at the time of the revolution, the Haitians “were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon III, or whatever.” In fact, Napoleon III was not born until four years after the Haitian Revolution, in 1808. When Haiti revolted, it was against a France still very much under the reign of Napoleon I (in the course of transitioning from consul to emperor). But maybe this sort of knitpicking is irrelevant, since that ‘or whatever’ is likely meant to signal that facts are not really what is at issue here. Pat Robertson deals with a higher order of truth.

One curious implication of Robertson’s account of things is that he would seem to wish that France had maintained a greater colonial presence in the Western hemisphere: an unusual point of view for so respected a member of the American religious right. Haiti’s independence in 1804 comes less than two decades before the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine, which declared the United States the only global power with any right to interfere in the internal affairs of the many burgeoning republics of the Americas. France kept St. Pierre and Miquelon (2009 population: 7,050) and a few other inconsequential clods of earth, but from then on the US had control over everything that mattered.

While popular wisdom, which Robertson is only echoing, has it that the Haitian Revolution was doomed from the start, in fact it was a glorious revolution, and based on many of the same values that motivated the American revolution 28 years earlier. What then could have made things go so wrong, if not a pact with the devil? The short answer is that even though the American and Haitian (and French) revolutions were motivated by the same values –liberty, equality, and so on– these were values that were never meant to be extended quite so far: they were universal, but only in a local sort of way. The US, still based on a slave economy, was not ready to have a Black republic, sharing in its democratic ideals, so close by. Two centuries of meddling followed, with interventions, puppet governments, anti-communist cronyism, and so on (I’m not going to attempt to summarize the history with names and dates here; for that you have Google), with the result that Haiti is now a fully contained ghetto of the extended United States. Like any ghetto, building codes are different there, and that is why more people died in their earthquake yesterday than would have died in an earthquake of comparable magnitude in Connecticut.

My usual cynicism about the efficacy of charity still prevails, so I would like to make a different sort of plea: do not give money to the William J. Clinton Foundation to distribute as it sees fit for earthquake relief and recovery efforts. US presidents have had Haiti in their budget for quite some time, and have been expert at sustaining the country in near perfect misery since the early 19th century. Instead, text a $5 or $10 donation by cellphone at www.yele.org. Yéle is a respected humanitarian foundation with a long track record of promoting health, education, and well-being in Haiti. What’s more, they have Wyclef Jean as their spokesman, whom I always considered a bit of a buffoon and a showman, and even the Fugees’ weakest third, but whom I trust infinitely more than Bill Clinton to get your generous donations where they need to go. I’ve already texted in $10, which is more than I’ve given to any cause not motivated by rank nepotism, or by my inordinate concern for non-human animals, in quite some time.

via Haitian Earthquake Relief – Justin Erik Halldór Smith.

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City of Dreams (1926) Karl Struss

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Serpentine (Hyde Park, London) -Sunset, October 28th 2009 (CH)

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Ruskin really took against this thing when he saw it; for him it seemed an emblem of everything he disliked about a city he loved. I like it!

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South Coast, looking towards the 'Seven Sisters'

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Photos: CH

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Goethe in the Campania (Tischbein)

I’m off to Sicily soon. In common with thousands of other pink north Europeans I want sunshine and a sense of …what? a life lived for pleasure? A greater sense of physical and psychological well being that comes from sun sea and ..er..wine. Oh yeah – it’s called going on holiday. Here’s Goethe, poet, playwrite, statesman to the Weimar court who one day just chucked it in for a very long holiday in Italy – three years (see his Italian Journey – it’s a good read, or at least for dipping into when you want a taste of the warm south as experienced by a premier league culture hero ). I get just two weeks there.

Mignon

Do you know the land where the lemon-trees grow,
in darkened leaves the gold-oranges glow,
a soft wind blows from the pure blue sky,
the myrtle stands mute, and the bay-tree high?
Do you know it well?
It’s there I’d be gone,
to be there with you, O, my beloved one!

Do you know the house? It has columns and beams,
there are glittering rooms, the hallway gleams,
and figures of marble looking at me?
‘What have they done, child of misery?
Do you know it well?
It’s there I’d be gone,
to be there with you, O my true guardian!

Do you know the clouded mountain mass?
The mule picks its way through the misted pass,
and dragons in caves raise their ancient brood,
and the cliffs are polished smooth by the flood;
Do you know it well?
It’s there I would be gone!
It’s there our way leads! Father, we must go on!

Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen Blühn,
Im dunklen Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin,
Möcht ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.

Kennst du das Haus? Auf Säulen ruht sein Dach,
Es glänzt der Saal, es schimmert das Gemach,
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an:
Was hat man dir, du armes Kind getan?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht ich mit dir, o mein Beschützer, ziehn!

Kennst du den Berg und seinen Wolkensteg?
Das Maultier sucht im Nebel seinen weg:
In Höhlen wohnt der Drachen alte Brut;
Es stürzt der Fels und über ihn die Flut,
Kennst du ihn wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Geht unser weg! o Vater, laß uns ziehn!

GoetheO for a beaker full of the warm south..       (Keats)

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The Ossuary

Nothing To See Here: The Ossuary at St Leonard’s, Hythe.

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