The Wealth Gatherers

On the 14th June, 1905 the Afro-Omani slave trader Tippu Tip died. He was a prominent figure in the clove trade of Zanzibar, and owned numerous plantations on the island. He was the descendant of a wealthy and privileged Arab family who consolidated their power and prestige in Africa through the ruthless exploitation of slaves. Tip followed their example, as a young man he went on an expedition to Central Africa in search of slaves and ivory. Once he plundered the land, he took the goods with him back to Zanzibar.

Tip built a slave trading Empire and became the second richest Muslim slave trader in history. His wealth allowed him to set up clove plantations on Zanzibar, and he was said to have owned 10,000 slaves. The slave trade became a major part of the economy of Zanzibar until British efforts were made to outlaw the practice. In 1890 it became a British protectorate, and various treaties were signed between the reigning Sultan and the British authorities throughout the nineteenth century.

In 1897 slavery was officially abolished, although sexual slavery continued until 1909. The Arab hegemony in Zanzibar dominated throughout the 20th century, and there were joined by wealthy merchants from South Asia. Although ostensibly “free”, the African population in Zanzibar were still regarded as an inferior class of people. When the British Empire began to dissolve, resentment grew, the transition to complete independence from British rule was not easy or smooth. The protectorate was withdrawn on the 10th December 1963. One month later, African rebels seized control over the police authorities before breaching the main government’s office.

This audacious feat broke the power of the Arab/Asian ruling class and re-established Zanzibar as an African nation. This complex colonial history is not disseminated very often in Britain, but it is significant nonetheless. It is echoed in the work of the author and Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was born in Zanzibar and came to the UK as a refugee after the revolution.

Gurnah writes perceptively about contemporary events in the context of his own experience. The refugee crisis is not simple, it is multitudinous. He is first and foremost a writer, and this allows him to write in a clear and sometimes dispassionate tone about the reality of the asylum and refugee issue of today. He does not care about the left and right wing demagogues. His work is a profound exploration into identity, culture and the history that shapes us, and it resonates with us.

The Curse Against God

On the 29th May, 1874 the English essayist, author, poet and theologian G.K Chesterton was born. He has been remembered chiefly, as the creator of the Father Brown stories. These detailed the escapades of the eponymous hero, a Catholic priest turned amateur detective. Brown serves the congregation of Cobhole in Essex, an unassuming village in the Home Counties. He has an uncanny, but impressive insight into human nature which he uses to solve crimes.

He also wrote the novel “The Man Who Was Thursday”, a surreal nightmare vision of an England on the verge of anarchy and revolution. Although he was a writer associated with the Edwardian Age, the moral lessons embedded within his work are timeless. Chesterton was a major figure in the Catholic revival in England. These revivalists sought enlightenment from the original religion, and resisted any liberal or progressive changes to English society.

Traditionalists like Chesterton are often derided as reactionary, but time and time again their warnings have been proven to be correct. It is a common fallacy that human history is linear and that we as a collective species can only ascend to greater heights. Coupled with this is the misconception that even the most disparate human societies will eventually realise their commonalities rather than their differences, and the concept of separate and unique nations will no longer need to exist.

Human history, however, is circular. Every civilisation develops and prospers but ultimately declines and dwindles. A progressive and liberal society cannot survive, because it has no collective responsibility. Rampant individualism and personal liberty always comes at a cost to the community. Chesterton arrived at this conclusion very early on in his life, and he never desisted from this view.

He lived in an era when a nascent feminist movement was beginning to emerge. Many thinkers saw this as a sign that society was moving in a positive direction. However Chesterton stuck to an old fashioned perception of women’s roles in society, arguing that they are designed to be wives and mothers and are not innately self centred and ambitious like men.

He believed that unshackling traditional gender roles was effectively a reversal of nature. This was not a sign of supposed misogyny, but an acknowledgement of the unique intelligence of women. In his defence he said,

“The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant”.

Chesterton lived through the immense economic and societal changes wrought through capitalism. He understood that this was a system that brought many benefits, but ultimately it was also a system which exacerbated the sense of alienation from God’s creation.

Chesterton’s wise and prophetic words still resonate in the 21st century, as his beloved England has now been rendered a cultural wasteland, ruined by excess and the cult of money. In the haste towards modernity it has been forgotten that England used to be a jewel, a giant, an elemental force. Chesterton wrote mournfully that this grand and mythic figure was once imbued “with our native hills for his bones and our native forests for his beard…a single figure outlined against the sea and a great face staring at the sky”. Now we look at ourselves with shame and regret, and long for our past glory.

The English Enigma

The 25th May is the feast day commemorating St. Aldhelm. He is venerated as a poet, songwriter and scholar. He was born in Wessex in 639 AD and lived during the so-called “Dark Ages”, a now disputed term for that obscure period of our history when the Romans departed. However the departure of the Romans did not lead to a decline in our society. In actual fact seventh and eighth century England was a period of prodigious learning. In 668, Pope Vitalian sent two emissaries to England, the Greek scholar Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian. Theodore was appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and with Hadrian’s help established the cathedral school.

Aldhelm became an early disciple of Hadrian. His intellect flourished under Hadrian’s tutelage, his Latin was said to be “impeccable”, and his theological teachings inspired him on to greater things. In 675 Aldhelm became the new abbot at Malmesbury Abbey, where he developed scholastic centres of his own. He acquired a formidable reputation and soon became a distinguished man of letters. His Latin scholarship was unrivalled but he also embraced the vernacular tradition, composing riddles, rooted in the Anglo-Saxon past.

Riddles are sophisticated, cryptic rhymes. Aldhelm wrote a collection of 100 riddles called “Enigmata”. These are full of hidden meanings and obscure allusions. This uniquely English form of expression has resonated through the centuries and some have even suggested that Aldhelm’s work inspired the mystic quality embedded in Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”. A vast area of rural England was still wedded to the old beliefs and practices of a previous age. Celtic forms of worship came into conflict with Roman traditions.

Aldhelm found a novel way around this dilemma. He was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Celtic community in Cornwall. He stood on the bridge to greet his adversaries and sang one of his songs in the dialect as a way of keeping the peace. He played the harp and the lute and was believed to be the first clergyman to introduce the organ into church services. It was also reported that he performed juggling and other circus tricks to entice people into church. He died in 709, but his artistic legacy survives and continues to inspire.

Tales of Rurik

Last Tuesday, Vladimir Putin was officially installed as Russian President. His fifth successive term in office was marked by a lavish inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin. President Putin has carefully curated a personality cult that almost guarantees that he will remain in power for the foreseeable future. Also, he has cultivated and perpetuated a powerful nationalistic myth that had its antecedents in the creation of Russia itself, which allude to the historical legends that are familiar to every Russian.

However history is much more than the study of past events, it is a set of stories that often define the identity and psyche of a nation and a people. Sometimes the stories have little or no literal truth and also bear very little or no resemblance to objective reality. They are purposely manipulated and distorted by national leaders to maintain their popularity within the populace and to consolidate their power. They are also made to appeal to emotion, rather than reason. It is much easier to influence the population when they feel an emotional bond to the leader and everything that leader represents.

The war in Ukraine was instigated by Putin as a campaign to restore and reclaim what he believed to be the original land of a united Russian people. Putin’s version of history claims that the Viking chieftain Rurik was the father of the Russian nation, as he ruled over modern day Ukraine and united a once fractious, tribal and disassembled peoples. However many of these legendary and fantastical stories connected to Rurik have been disputed by esteemed historians.They claim that Putin’s version of Russian history is unreliable and untrustworthy, and notoriously selective.

Rurik’s descendants were believed to include the Tsars of Russia. In the years before the Revolution and the Soviet era, the Tsars were the figureheads of the nation and were revered by the population as almost divine beings. When Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, he presented his regional governors with a reading list which included writers like Berdyaev, Soloviev and Ilyin.

These three writers and philosophers emerged from the so-called “Silver Age” of Russia. This was a time characterised by tumult, and Russia was struggling to define itself, and the Russian people needed to find out what it actually meant to be Russian. These writers proposed that the Bolshevik experiment would only end in catastrophic failure and conflagration and ultimately “Holy Russia” would emerge from the embers.

Putin believes that the experiment of the progressive west has also been a catastrophic failure, and Russia is the bastion of tradition in the face of increasing degeneracy. The manoeuvres that Ukraine made to modernise, and westernise sparked Putin’s decision to invade. Putin has also sought alliances with countries opposed to the values associated with the west. However this fantasy that Holy Russia will emerge as the moral victor has cost many lives, but it is difficult to see that it will ever end because he has such a strong psychological grip over his people.

Our Fearful Symmetry

On the 8th May, 1936 the German philosopher Oswald Spengler died. He was a prophetic writer who predicted the rise of 21st century “technocracy” in the West. He understood that the genius of western man was also his downfall. He placed specific emphasis upon the intellect and behaviours of the Northern European man, as it was chiefly his influence and power that reverberated across the modern world.

He believed that the unique civilisations forged by the people originating from this part of the world were a result of both biological and cultural factors. This was a race of people who evolved from an inhospitable climate and sought to conquer the forces of nature, and to dominate over other animals, and later on in history other races of people. They separated themselves from the rest of the animal kingdom, believing that they had superior intellects, unfettered by base physical instincts.

This relentless drive for progression, however, has ultimately led to alienation and ennui. The success of Northern European civilisation was solely attributed to industrialisation. New innovations and technologies liberated people from lives of drudgery on the fields and in the farms, but it also ushered in a soul sapping existence in the mills and the factories. People also experienced a dramatic improvement in their material circumstances, but there was a spiritual void in their lives. Wealth itself had no meaning, besides its obvious function to keep the economic system going. Function, utility and productivity are characteristics that we continue to associate with the modern cultures of the UK and Germany.

This philosophy of technological progression had its roots in Northern Europe, but it was later exported across the world. The pioneers of industry emigrated to North America throughout the twentieth century. They believed that they were advancing in the “New World ”. They were committed to propagating ideas that would improve civilisation. However most of these ideas were unapologetically rational and almost entirely dedicated to the pursuits of science, technology and design. A new machine age was born.

This was a pure, selfish and cold endeavour to advance civilisation, that disrespected the environment, the lives and dignity of other animals, and the value of other human beings. Human beings lost their connection to nature, and forgot that they depended upon it for their survival. The human ego triumphed over instinct, human pride mutated into arrogance and the humility and fear that was the original driver for progression turned to arrogance and complacency. The only consequence was for this selfish, arrogant, lazy and spiritually barren civilisation to fall into decay. Now we are experiencing this in the most alarming way possible, the smartphone has made people stupid, arrogant and antagonistic. It will literally be the death of us.

This Bitter Land

Today is St. George’s Day, an occasion which was once fiercely entwined with England and English identity. These connections have loosened over the decades, but this is not mere accident, it has been by design. It has been a deliberate plan. It has been socially and culturally engineered by England’s political enemies who have become louder, more forthright and malign in their intentions.

The Left have always been inimical to the concept of nations, because their philosophy preaches a fantasy version of the world, where every citizen on this planet is the same. It reduces all human existence to its economic function and material value. The modern left do not want to admit this, but it is precisely this philosophy that inspired the dictators Mussollini and Hitler. Both began their political journeys as socialists, and were averse to any national sentiment. This led to their violent and murderous imperial ambitions.

George Orwell was one of the first to acknowledge this, in his series of powerful essays written during a period of national peril. He stated that it is only left wing intellectuals who like to boast how ashamed they are of being English. This statement, rather shockingly, was written during the Blitz.

England itself was on the verge of destruction, and the intelligentsia felt no strong urge to protect and to save it. Some even harboured sympathies for the German regime. He stated with great certainty that nationalism is essential during a time of war. International socialism is facile, and dangerous.

Nations need a strong and cohesive identity, to allow their societies to be ordered and harmonious. Some left wing intellectuals rather facetiously and obtusely stipulate that English culture does not exist, and draw comparisons with the culture of Spain. They also sneer at the notion of an English history, and claim that it is all stolen from other nations’ histories.

Orwell was painfully aware of this as well, but he encapsulated English culture and identity in a series of widely quoted lines,

“When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener…

“The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to and fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning-all these are not only fragments but characteristic fragments, of the English scene”.

These little vignettes of English life, that now only exist in small pockets of the country indicate a country of order, politeness and civility. This is the history and culture that we should admire and love. Left wing pedants enjoy mocking patriotic people in this country by declaring that St. George wasn’t English, and that he had never visited this country.

However this reveals their ignorance and literal minds. The legendary figure of St George was adopted as the Patron Saint of England by King Edward III as he had a strong association with the chivalric values that characterise England and the English people. The story of the Dragon is an allegory, representing the courage and Knightly virtues of England. It is a misfortune that these wreckers of civilisation have almost succeeded in undermining us as a people, but we must continue to oppose them and remind ourselves who we really are.

The Bard of Bathos

On April 17th, 1397 the poet and philosopher Geoffrey Chaucer delivered his magnum opus “The Canterbury Tales” at the court of King Richard II. Chaucer is now regarded as England’s first national poet. He composed his verse in the English vernacular; previously court poets were restricted to writing in Latin or French.

Other writers had works published in English, like William Langland, but it was Chaucer’s establishment connections that allowed him greater literary acclaim. Richard’s predecessor, King Edward III endowed him with a gallon of wine a day for the rest of his life, as an important honour. It was the greatest tribute to his role in court, and this was widely viewed as a precursor to the post of Poet Laureate.

“The Canterbury Tales” is a fictional account of a group of pilgrims from diverse backgrounds recounting stories on their journey to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The narrative begins as a storytelling contest between the pilgrims. It is believed to be Chaucer’s interpretation of “The Decameron” by the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio. Unlike the characters in Boccaccio’s texts, who belong solely to the privileged elites, many of the Canterbury Tales are told by some of the most under privileged members of English society.

However the similarities between the two texts are significant, Boccaccio’s original was a series of moral fables composed during a time of social upheaval, in the shadow of the Black Death. It is a serious contemplation of the flawed nature of humanity, replete with examples of wickedness and other moral failings.

Chaucer also uncovers human vice in his Tales, and egregious examples of religious hypocrisy. The only glaring contrast is that Chaucer employs levity amidst the pomp, which is a distinctly English tradition of storytelling. This element of bathos fleshes out the characters. The reader understands that these are real people on the page, not just archetypes. Some of the storytellers are earthy, or even coarse as a counterpoint to the piety of the others. Merging the sacred and profane was an innovation, it helped to expose the fake righteousness of the clergy and other elite figures.

Chaucer died in contested circumstances on the 25th October 1400, some have speculated that he was murdered on the orders of King Henry IV, as a punishment for the favour paid to him by Richard II. This has never been proven. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1556 his remains were transferred to an ornate tomb in a part of the Abbey now called “Poets’ Corner”. Chaucer was the first English writer to be interred in this area. He is now remembered as the father of English literature, and he continues to inspire today.

The Lost Kings

On April 9th, 1483 Edward V ascended to the English Crown, in absentia after the death of his father Edward IV. However the coronation of the 12 year old King never happened. He disappeared along with his 9 year old brother Richard. Their fate remained unknown, but numerous theories claim that they had been murdered, at the behest of their Uncle, Richard, the then Duke of Gloucester.

Ominously, before the coronation ceremony it was declared by Parliament that Edward V and his brother were illegitimate and the Duke of Gloucester was indeed the rightful heir. The young Princes were sequestered in the Tower of London and were rarely seen in public. Questions surrounding the marriage between Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville abounded, especially the circumstances that lead to the wedding itself.

The Woodville family were closely allied with the Lancastrians, bitter rivals of the Yorkists. This was a rancarous feud that ultimately led to the bloody and calamitous “Wars of the Roses”. These in turn, shifted the power dynamic in England and fundamentally altered the political and cultural landscape. These events still reverberate to this day and explain the dominant political tendencies, at least within England.

The final chapter of this dynastic war concluded with the death of King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His ignominious defeat marked the end of the House of York, and the reign of the Plantagenets. The House of Lancaster had been vindicated. The high ideals that had secured favour in court and led to victory in war, secured the intellectual foundations of England’s future settlement.

The Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Fortescue served under the House of Lancaster. He was regarded as an eminent political theorist. He helped to create the tenets of the English constitution in a treatise entitled “The Governance of England”. This book encompasses now established rights concerning taxation, property and the balance of power between Monarch and Parliament.

Fortescue’s beliefs undoubtedly imbued the conscience of the future Tudor Monarchs. Richard’s successor, King Henry VII sought to unite a fractious kingdom. When his first son was born, he called him Arthur to invoke a popular folk hero of the nation.

The Tudor period ushered in a new era of stability, and a flowering of intellectual enquiry and artistic innovation. It was a stark contrast to the dark, mediaeval age that had preceded it. Ultimately, Fortescue’s admonitions about supreme power influenced King Henry VIII to break from Rome, ending the supremacy of a foreign power.

This could even explain the tenacity of the Brexit campaign in modern times. It has also been suggested that the supposed villainy of King Richard III was mere Tudor propaganda, invented to secure their political hegemony. Nonetheless, the sordid events that may or may not have occurred all those centuries ago have helped to create this unique nation, and us as a unique people.

The Flames of Memory

In 2023 the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is the ultimate accolade for any writer, but it allowed Fosse greater recognition. This was well overdue. Fosse is a renowned and celebrated author in his native Norway, but little known elsewhere, at least in the English speaking world.

His plays are performed all over the world, his work rivals Ibsen as he is the second most performed Norwegian playwright. His work is prolific and influential. Some of his work has been translated into Persian, and he acquired a new audience in Iran. It is estimated that there are a thousand productions worldwide currently staging a Fosse play.

However he is not just a playwright, he is a novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer and librettist. He writes in Nynorsk, a traditional language that is distinct from modern, vernacular Norwegian. Consequently, this presents a unique challenge for translators. The dilemma is how to preserve the idioms that are specific to this language. Depriving the reader of these can erase the meaning that is integral to the narrative.

It has been particularly difficult for English translators. It was an especially onerous task translating his often oblique short stories into English. Also, certain words had different cultural connotations. Damian Searls has provided the English translation of Fosse’s most important works. Eight of his novels and one libretto have been translated into English by Searls.

Searls has brought one of Fosse’s most magnificent stories into life. It has been rendered into English as “Aliss At The Fire”. This is a ghostly meditation on life and loss. The narration is entirely in the present tense, imbuing the story with a powerful immediacy like a film.

The story opens on a cold March evening in 2002. Signe is gazing into the fire remembering the day her husband Asle left her. Signe recalls waving at him from a bench beside the harbour on a bleak November morning as he set off on a fishing trip. He never returned. Signe has spent the past 23 years in desperation and bafflement, searching for clues to explain his disappearance.

Asle appears as a mere shadow, almost a trick of the light cast by the flickering fire in the room that they once shared. It is a poignant and moving evocation of a woman in the twilight of her life where only memories sustain her. However Signe’s disappearance symbolises an absence that is much more profound. He was the link between her and her past life. Asle’s presence gave her life an emotional resonance that was homely and familiar. It is a deep feeling of connection, reminding her of that atavistic bond to her great-great grandmother Aliss.

Aliss plays a pivotal role in establishing Signe’s identity and meaning in life. Her folk tales are a source of great wisdom and provide comfort in an environment often harsh and unforgiving. In the modern world we are convinced that our presence has no significance. However we forget that our ancestors’ lives were precious, because we owe our existence to them. Every one of us is moulded and shaped by their traces. This is Fosse’s most important literary legacy.

Southern Magic

On March 25th, 1925 the American author Flannery O’Connor was born. Her work has been described as sardonic and unsparing. It is marked by a distinct lack of sentimentality and reimagines the limited and often painful lives of small town Americans living in the Deep South.

Her illuminating novellas “Wise Blood” and “The Violent Bear It Away” are stark vignettes that portray the dark superstitions of characters who are damaged and haunted. O’Connor was undeniably part of a “Southern Gothic” tradition. This is a specific style of literature that has elements of horror and menace, a legacy of the history unique to this region of America. Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote also knew and understood this world, and this magic landscape emanates from their literary work.

However most readers remain unfamiliar with the life that is endured by Southern people, it appears harsh, brutal, but most significantly of all extremely lonely. Kindness is noticeably absent, there is only a raw and defiant instinct to survive. Many of O’Connor’s characters are afflicted by physical and mental disabilities, and these vulnerabilities are shamelessly exploited by others seeking personal gain. Even the human need for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose or motivation is abused in this way. Sometimes people are cruel, malevolent and even violent in their pursuit.

The author herself had an insight into this as she inherited the immune condition lupus. Her father died from this, and this completely altered her outlook on life. She was also a Roman Catholic and her profound religious faith informed her writing. The belief that life on Earth is an eternal mystery is redolent throughout her work. She understood suffering and how lonely this struggle could be, but she was also enchanted by the world that surrounded her.

Pain and sacrifice are visceral realities in her writing. Characters literally blind themselves to see the light. Immersive baptisms are torture scenes of near drowning. No other writer has captured this nightmare place in such vivid and imaginative detail, it is a testament to her fearlessness. However she could also be mischievous, another Southern characteristic. Once she claimed in an interview that she taught one of her chickens to walk backwards. This was apparently caught on camera.

This apocryphal story is in keeping with the Gothic tales that brought her literary acclaim and made her famous. Unfortunately her fame was short-lived. In 1964 she died from lupus complications. She was just 39 years old. Her brief but brilliant writing career will never be forgotten, and it continues to resonate today.