Rearden Metal
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
a time of theft - more thoughts on the abolition of England - and a book recommendation
I found myself in a curious shop attached to a garden nursery recently, containing a mixture of Indian kitsch - joss sticks, carved wooden objects, and the like - old agricultural tools of the type that trendy people display in their houses, and some unpromising second-hand books. I ended up buying 'A Time of Gifts' by Patrick Leigh Fermor, which is the first half of a journal of his journey on foot in 1934 from Holland to Istanbul (which, being a hellenophile, he refers to as Constantinople). He writes prose of such richness, varied with spare restraint, that imitation or emulation is futile, however much you admire it, which I do a lot. His book is called 'A Time of Gifts' because of the gifts and kindness he received along the way, especially after his rucksack and money were stolen. But one passage of his made me think of the modern 'time of theft' during which England has been stolen from its inhabitants, from the 1940s onwards, but gathering pace more recently. He recalls discussions of socialism at his public school:
"Socialism sounded grey and without charm and Labour M.P.s conjured up visions of steel-rimmed spectacles, homespun cloth, cocoa and seed-cake and long killjoy faces bent on dismantling - what? Here an odd medley of targets would be bandied across fifth-form studies: What indeed? Why, the Empire, for a start! The Fleet! The Army! Established religion - 'except Methodist chapels'; Gibraltar, the Lords, judges' wigs, kilts, bearskins, public schools ('No, steady on!'), Latin and Greek, Oxford and Cambridge - 'the Boat race too, most likely; 'county cricket for a cert' - steeplechasing, shooting, fox-hunting, flat-racing, the Derby, betting, country-life, farming - ('I bet they'd plough up everything for swedes and beetroots if they got the chance')..."
So... what remains of this remarkably prescient list? They haven't yet managed to give away Gibraltar, and they won't abolish the kilt because it is worn by a privileged minority of our new apartheid state; and horse racing and betting provide useful tax revenues. But Leigh Fermor, writing in the 70s from (I presume) the perspective of an amused and slightly left-leaning aristocrat, was making fun of the suppoed naivety of 20s public-school boys.
Leigh Fermor could see in the 70s what they couldn't see in the 20s: the further depredations caused by uncontrolled immigration by people fundamentally unsympathetic to what used to be called (in WW2 literature for British soldiers) the 'British Way And Purpose'. We have also suffered the insult of the abolition of the traditional counties, which is I suppose petty in its way, but enrages me... and the much more important and more recent assault on the Union itself.
Well, enough of that. The book is much better than I expected and I paid only 50p for it. It makes me want to dig out my father's old canvas and leather rucksack, pull on a British Warm and some hobnailed boots, and march off up the Rhine and down the Danube. And to be 18 again...
You are free to be forbidden
Markus Soeder, general secretary of the German Christian Socialist Union Party: "In a Europe grounded in peace and freedom there should be no place for Nazi symbols." He also said "They should be banned throughout Europe, as they are with good reason in Germany." So... freedom means that certain symbols should be banned. How about banning the colour red? As the symbol of communism, the red flag has waved over more carnage than any other. I am tempted to start wearing a swastika to show my sympathy with Indian traditions and the work of Rudyard Kipling, old editions of whose books, published decades before the nazis adopted the sign, bear a small swastika. I can always say when challenged, "This is not a hakenkreuz but a fylfot!", using the good old English name.
As a small step forward we should ban the name Soeder, as offensive to all who love liberty.
