Managing chaos: antisemitism and anti-Islamism

We currently find ourselves at the crest of yet another wave rippling across that historic sea of accusations of antisemitism and anti-Islamism that Europeans have been hurling at each other, or fending off, for centuries with extreme virulence and indignation. So, who's right?

As usual, I suggest we not rely on broad categories, as arbitrary as they are poorly matched to reality. Let's leave binary readings like good-evil, good guys-bad guys, right-wrong to the cartoons. And if you resort to childish reasoning of that kind, go ahead and go back to watching cartoons: there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you, like good kids, don't play with serious things, because then all hell breaks loose. Socio-political questions — especially delicate ones like the one at hand — are made for people who can accept and handle chaos, complexity and randomness. For everyone else there are sporting events, our traditional recipes, or reality and talent shows.
So, let's stick to a serious approach and judge case by case. Here's the guideline I suggest applying to every single instance.

Accusing Israel, Israeli civilians or soldiers, or any individuals of the Jewish faith, of having unequivocally committed specific criminal or even ethically despicable acts — like striking innocent children or occupying other people's property — is, in my opinion, NOT antisemitism. Just as accusing Muslims of heinous acts of terrorism, or of not respecting and perhaps insulting the customs and values of the countries that host them, can NOT be considered anti-Islamism.

That's for the "no" part. Now let's get to the more sensitive part: the "yes" one.
Attributing responsibility for any geopolitical event to alleged Jewish cabals, Jewish lobbies, international Zionist networks or Mossad operations, off the cuff, without proof — because come on, they're surely behind it all, always — this, besides being slander, is YES, as far as I'm concerned, antisemitism. Of the same kind used a few decades ago to unleash pogroms or justify exterminations.

In the same way, leveling vague, sweeping accusations of barbarism, bigotry and backwardness at the Islamic world — because come on, it's obvious, just look at them — is YES, in my opinion, anti-Islamism. Of the same kind used in the past to proclaim crusades or launch witch hunts.

Personally, I stick to the first scenarios. And there are plenty of unequivocally criminal or ethically despicable acts for which to condemn one side or the other.
The second type of scenario, on the other hand, strikes me as not only sordid but also quite irresponsible.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Evolution vs creationism: complexity

Many creationists argue that the complexity of advanced organisms is proof that a creator exists, because only a deity could have created something so complicated.
In reality, that's not true. If anything, complexity is rather a sign of the absence of a plan, not of its presence. Evolution proceeds without a plan, without even a goal, through tiny, incremental steps of adaptation over extremely long stretches of time, adding one piece at a time at random, with no direction.

That's exactly why evolution so often ends up producing solutions that are absurdly complex.
If there were a creator devoted to efficiency, you'd expect the same functions to be carried out by structures simpler than the ones we find in nature — which are outsized, redundant, almost ridiculous in their complexity.

So the complexity typical of certain structures in nature can't be used as conclusive proof of the creationist hypothesis. 

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

The scam

A lot of people are convinced that, for a few centuries now, a fresh wave of arrogant science, crass materialism, and cold atheism has been trying to sweep away the noble edifice of a philosophical-religious tradition that has always existed, one that is, in a sense, innate to European culture. Maybe even to human nature. I'm obviously talking about all the schools of thought inspired by idealism, whether secular or religious.

Life, our own nature and the nature around us, the urge to fulfill ourselves in the world we discover all around us: this is the real starting point, the fixed foundation on which to build any cultural structure. And the drive to understand all of it is the kind of curiosity that has guided human activity for tens upon tens of thousands of years, since long before anyone talked about science, materialism, or atheism. That, for me, is the tradition that matters.

It was only a little over two thousand years ago that the ravings (beautiful and interesting ones too, mind you) of idealists and their various mystical-metaphysical spin-offs started catching on in Europe. It wasn't a single party but a family of ideas that blended together over the centuries and ended up telling us more or less the same thing. They told us that everything we see and hear isn't real; worse, it's filthy matter to steer clear of. The senses deceive us, and the universe has to be interpreted through storytelling, or even through science fiction. Higher ideas are all that counts. The idealized horse, which you will never see, matters more than the ones you've happened to see in real life: gorgeous, sure, but insignificant. And then the body is garbage, while the soul is sublime. The life we lead is contemptible, so it has to be lived in self-contempt, in guilt, repentance, and atonement, preferably somewhere near a cave, sneering at the assholes enjoying the shadow show on the back wall, while waiting for the sublime, true life that will come after death, which is therefore not the end but the beginning of real existence.

Older spiritual and anthropological outlooks (animistic, Dionysian, polytheistic) at least celebrated nature and life, with all their limits and all their fears. In Europe they were pushed aside, or bent into shape, by abstract ideas, demiurges, Manichaean entities. It's all cheap junk, and my mind (and not just mine) has its legitimate doubts about it. Those are doubts the bad teachers have never managed to dispel with honest arguments. They've always been forced to retreat into underhanded, absurd, and above all unfalsifiable answers, which makes them, for anyone who measures ideas that way, intellectually petty by definition: higher knowledge, holy spirits, faith, miracles, revelations, the kingdom of heaven, the Last Judgment.

Blaming science, atheism, and the rest is like looking at the finger instead of the moon it's pointing at. We've always seen the truth with our own eyes, heard it with our ears, touched it with our fingers, and breathed it in through our noses, long before that family of ideas tracing back to Plato and his heirs gained strength in Europe. And it's a gorgeous reality, not something to be wary of.
Anyone who rejects idealisms and their offshoots, religious or philosophical, is only trying to understand this reality. Questioning idealistic systems is a perfectly normal result of this noble, ancient, human activity.
Idealism wasn't the victim of a cowardly stab in the back. It was idealism that attacked human nature. And finally, with the arrival of the modern era, some people have started avenging it again.

The deception had already been dented by Galileo and other poor devils who were shunned, thrown in the slammer, or even burned at the stake. That wasn't because they were fighting "idealism" from an armchair, but because they dared to look and say what they saw. Later, Darwin with natural selection and Nietzsche with the transvaluation of values shook the edifice to its foundations. Popper, for his part, in a world more and more dominated by science, showed that what can't be falsified isn't science. None of them closed the file. They just made it harder to pretend that junk is still untouchable.
It's incredible how many people still slip on the sludge that's left of it.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

The real conspiracy

I've never understood why people who can't resist the lure of conspiracy theories, instead of dealing with cases that can't be verified (the moon landing, 9/11, the pluto-Judaic cabal, and so on), don't focus on the conspiracies that are right there in plain sight, and have been for centuries, if not millennia.

I'm talking about the petty, cowardly, underhanded, criminal brainwashing of little kids and teenagers, carried out for religious, patriotic, military, or political ends.
Who the fuck, as an adult, would ever believe in kingdoms of heaven and last judgments, in supremacy over peoples who live on land beyond arbitrarily drawn borders, in supreme causes worth getting yourself killed for, in flawed systems of government, if those beliefs hadn't been planted in people's heads while their minds were still forming, still vulnerable and unable to judge what's best for their own well-being?

I think it's the most squalid, heinous collective crime ever committed, and one that's still being committed on a global scale. A piece of filth that all of us, having been through it ourselves, should rise up against. And above all, we should keep our kids safe from it.
Ironically, it's often the parents themselves who offer up their children as a sacrifice on the altar of social convenience. The same parents who might get outraged if their kids bring home a failing grade in math. The shame of a bad grade, no; taking advantage of the vulnerable and mental manipulation, yes. Insane. An abomination for which I can find few acceptable justifications, but plenty of ugly motives.

The time has come to wake up: conspiracy theorists of the world, unite! Drop your pointless speculation about things that can't be verified and point your finger at this glaringly obvious outrage. Finally fight for a better world. Save our young people from organized, legalized indoctrination, whether mystical or secular.

Future generations will thank you for it. If you care about being remembered for choosing the right side of history, this is your moment.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Amen - part three: superstition

Those who don't accuse me of blasphemy or stupidity over what I've said about heaven and hell might still, if only out of superstition, call me reckless: if the afterlife existed, and hell weren't the revelry inn you're so keen on, don't you think they could make you burn there for exactly what you wrote?

The answer is simple, even if it's not intuitive. I've actually read the New Testament, the letters of Paul of Tarsus to the early Christian communities in particular. When Big Paul the persecutor converted and got appointed head of the apostolic delegation for the Gentile territory, he changed sides, but not his stickler habit: the requirements he set for getting into heaven are as bizarre as they are strict. I take great care not to meet them, so if that parallel reality really existed, I'd end up roasting straight away at "Churrascaria chez Satan."

That would be the fate of someone with my lifestyle, my values, and my convictions. It would still be, even if from here to my last day I took to writing hypocritical ass-kisses to the whole ecclesiastical establishment.
Precisely for that reason, since hell would be waiting for me anyway, it would pay to make friends with the owners of the joint. Maybe they'd reserve me a less scorching corner, where I'd keep singing the praises of the host.

Who knows? I might even become the official court propagandist. Not bad for someone who, to avoid the heavenly drag, is ready to risk ending up skewered on a rotisserie spit for all eternity. Right?

You can read the whole "Amen" saga by following this link.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Amen - part two: the closing argument

Some of you may have thought my reflections on heaven and hell (you can find them by following this link) were blasphemous, or maybe just nonsense: completely baseless foolishness.
Objection, Your Honor. To clear up any misunderstanding, I call to the stand none other than the Bible itself, in paper and ink.

The Book of Genesis opens, like all great literature, "in medias res", with God, all alone for who knows how long, suffocating from boredom and falling prey to a compulsive creationism, which kicks off the history of the world. 
But even the world, so lifeless, doesn't save him from the tedium. So, using recycled materials, the way every clever kid does to get around that annoying state of mind, he builds himself a little toy: man. Then he plants the Garden of Eden and plops him right in the middle of it.
Man, though, is a lot like me: he wanted to be born in hell, where he surely would have had a blast. Instead he finds himself in this gorgeous place that looks a bit like Switzerland or Singapore. He stands around dazed for a few moments, admiring the splendor, but once the "wow" effect wears off, he starts getting bored shitless.

God, who has few rivals when it comes to empathy, partly because he's the only one around, notices: as you'll remember, he'd been through the same thing himself not long before. So he makes him animals, but the trick turns out to be a washout: man plays with them for a little while and then gets sick of them.
So God tries again and creates woman. In its own way, this gimmick also has to do with a hole, but it's definitely no washout. And this time man is into it. Woman piques his curiosity and tempts him into breaking the rule against eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The two little scamps, using the advice of an alleged talking snake as an excuse, eat the symbolic apple, setting off down the fantastic epistemological path we've never left since. 

Mr. Touchy finds out, though, flies into a rage, and kicks them down to hell.

So, to sum up: in heaven everybody tends to be bored out of their fucking minds, the host included. The moment they try to entertain themselves a little — fucking, snooping around, raising doubts, asking uncomfortable questions — they get told to head on down to hell, evidently a better fit for that kind of activity.

Now, taking into account a source above any suspicion whatsoever, you tell me, Esteemed Members of this Illustrious Jury: when I said hell would be a more interesting place than heaven, where exactly was I wrong?

You can read the whole "Amen" saga by following this link.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Amen

Not that I count on it much, but if the afterlife really existed, between heaven and hell I would choose the latter.
It must be a place full of souls who party hard, chat, yell, drink, smoke, get high, fuck, fall in love, dance, sing, read irreverent literature, listen to tempting music, think, doubt, cry tears of emotion, laugh with delight.
Fire doesn't scare me, it's just a symbol: it represents warmth, joy, dance, love.
Heaven, though? What a gigantic pain in the ass. Those ashen faces, the snooty smiles, the pale straw-yellow skirts. The doorman's sad, persecuted-political look, good old Peter, would be enough to sink me into the most oppressive form of depression.
Honestly, I prefer the carnival style, the brazenness and the mocking grin of Satan.
P.S. I almost forgot: Amen!

You can read the whole "Amen" saga by following this link.

The advice - EXPLICIT CONTENT!

Once — I was a kid and still went to the beach with my parents — I was sitting in the little courtyard of a pensione in Romagna, where all the guests gathered with the owners, before and after meals.
The situation was always fluid: all of a sudden everyone could vanish, and you'd find yourself sitting next to some guy you didn't know.

That evening one of those guys looked me up and down and said solemnly: "Don't listen to them, they'll try to feed you a bunch of bullshit. Don't pay them any mind. In life, every time you get the chance, fu-ck, fu-CK, FU-CK!"
All in crescendo. Then silent again, a shadow, forever. It was as if an oracle had possessed him, just long enough to hand me that directive, and then left him to his faded little life as a Lombard accountant on vacation in Romagna.
I was stunned. I was an outgoing kid, but pretty awkward and confused in that department. I was just then starting to shake off the yoke of church indoctrination.

Maybe he was simply a horn-dog obsessed with sex, which is to say, deep down, an ordinary person. Over time, though, I've come to see what he did as the brave gesture of a man who had realized too late the deception he himself had fallen victim to, and who was trying to warn a young guy about coordinated attacks on his natural urges. He was talking about sex — that great marketing lever, but he meant inhibitions, guilt, insecurities, social conditioning in general.

If that's the case, nobody since then has given me better advice.
It took me quite a while to understand it.
And I still haven't fully understood it!

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Good guys and bad guys

On the international chessboard there are no "good guys and bad guys." There are only power relations which, combined with real or perceived threats, more or less legitimate ambitions, and latent or sudden opportunities, determine alliances or hostilities.
At any moment, this dynamic and unstable system can make one player look "bad" and another "good." At the next reshuffling of the deck, though, the situation can flip or be turned completely upside down.
Keep your certainties in check: they're fortresses made of playing cards, with foundations of butter. All it takes is the flicker of a candle or a ray of spring sunshine to bring them down.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.

Recipes against unhappiness, chapter 2 - Children

This chapter is about what NOT to do, rather than what to do, to make people less unhappy in life.
One of the most despicable things that humans can do is brainwashing their own children. This is done when they are growing up and learning, when they are most vulnerable and need the support of the adults that surround them, those same adults they trust with their own safety and security. That’s exactly when they get betrayed and permanently damaged. The aim of this subjugation procedure is to install in the youth’s mind functional narratives such as religion, nationalism, patriotism, ethnicity, culture, even preposterous tribal totems such as sport fanaticism and traditional cuisine. It has always been done, and it’s still done nowadays, even where a great emphasis is placed on children’s rights.

O Jerusalem - Dominique Lapierre & Larry Collins, From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas, L. Friedman

A good thing about the current pandemic is that I’ve had plenty of time to read. I'm currently updating a list of the best books I’ve come across so far. Please see my home page for the previous entries.

16th item on the list.

The Arab-Israeli conflict, besides defining the personal histories of the millions of people directly involved in it, has had a strong impact on many aspects of the life of pretty much anyone living anywhere for the past 70 years.

The art of happiness - The Dalai Lama

A good thing about the current pandemic is that I’ve had plenty of time to read. I'm currently updating a list of the best books I’ve come across so far. Please see my home page for the previous entries.

#14. Few people will deny that Tenzin Gyatso, also known as the Dalai Lama, is one of the most charismatic and amazing people alive. He’s the political leader of Tibet, the most popular Buddhist spiritual guide and an inspiration to people from all walks al life.

The pope's lesson in style (in politics)

I've never really been what you may call a devoted believer. Come to think about it, I might not have a religious side at all, in the most orthodox sense of the expression. Unfortunately the only aspect of my character that invades the sphere of mysticism is my bent for blasphemous outbursts, something that would make my mother, a rather sober-minded woman, quite sad.
However, there is a thought of a theological kind that has been gnawing at my attention in the last few days. It's about the recent pope's resignation and the relevant jokes I've heard and read about it. I honestly can't understand how come the thousands of Facebook and Twitter users who post daily indignant comments about greedy, corrupted and immoral politicians unwilling to give up their posts, inviting them to "go home", didn't celebrate in unison the news of the pontiff's resignation, opting for a pointless kind of pub-like humor instead.

When a crucifix becomes trendy - Bangkok, Thailand

While the debate over religious symbols keeps raging in Europe - ladies veils, where and how? Crucifixes in school classrooms, yes or no? - in Thailand the latter are often used as slightly bizarre fashion accessories, like colored contact lenses and fake dental braces.

In Bangkok you often come across a girl who wears a crucifix hanging from a nice silver chain or a hippier leather string over her sexy shirt.

"How come, aren't you a Buddhist?" I once asked one of them.

"Sure! My crucifix is here..." she said as she was touching her pendant with a fingertip. Then, after shifting her finger a few centimeters away, hinting at her heart, she added: "but Buddha is right here..." 
Do you have a mystic debate to solve? Go to Thailand...

Photo by nathangibbs (CC)

Christmas poem, which actually is not just about Christmas

So you're going shopping to kill some time,

the most stupid hobby, yet the smartest scam, 

which yields its best when Christmas comes.

In this day the son of the Lord was born,

and to celebrate together this holy event

we go buy a bag, a dress and a phone.

Those jingling bells are busting my balls,

but you dream of a white Christmas,

to play with some snow.

If you're at the tropics 

where it's not so white,

they spray some foam
to make it right.

Here come the Magi,

with their precious gifts,

all branded CK, LV and D&G.

Lying around the manger

are no oxen nor asses 

just some devices 

from the Apple store.

Jesus was born today 

and to pay our respects,

as St.Francis taught us

we spend all we have.

Have a great and very expensive Christmas!

Photo by Funky64 (CC)

Mystic confusion - Siem Reap, Cambodia

No temples today: I've rented a motorbike with a driver who is showing me around the countryside. He's explaining me about the crops, the Khmer Rouge, the river, the villagers. He says that most of them are Buddhist but there are also quite a few Buddhist Muslims. I smile and say nothing. He will repeat that funny expression various times. When he tells me that many Buddhist Muslims live in the village we're driving through I decide to give it a try.
"So you're saying that the Muslim community here is quite large..."
"Yes, very big, many Buddhist Muslims here!"
OK, he didn't take the bait. 
A few minutes later I try with another test.
"In the bigger cities though, like Phnom Penh, there must be many Christians as well..."
Let's see what he's got to say now.
"Yes, a lot, many Buddhist Christians in Phnom Penh."
Buddhist Christians as well...alright my friend, I give up. I'll have to convert to Buddhist laicism then.

Siem Reap, Cambodia, August 2004

One more merit - Chiang Mai, Thailand

The cold that is scratching the air of Chiang Mai is the one of those regions that are not equipped to face it. A language school in Lamphun is organizing a party in order to hire new foreign teachers. Two dozens farang in the back of a songtaew are noisily heading to the quiet town. When the school is closing the driver honks, we greet everybody and get back on the truck. It takes me the whole journey back to Chiang Mai to realize that I forgot to pick up my bag. It contains a big share of my daily life: my passport, bank cards and driving license. I get back to the songthaew, I explain and dramatize. The driver winces, then he's moved and gives up. When we arrive to the school there's no time to pay him, the tires are screeching and he's already heading home. Only my conscience can hear the thanks! that I shout. 

I find the bag, I check it, it's alright, then a group of young people invite me for a drink. My sigh of relief isn't over yet, it definitely calls for a toast to good luck. When the bar is closing they offer me a couch, I thank them but I'd like to go home instead, I set off and point my thumb to the clear sky that looks like a slab covered with splinters of ice. When I'm about to lose heart a motorbike stops. It's my friends from the bar who didn't leave me alone, they make some space for me on the saddle and we speed along the dark and empty road. I hide behind the tiny body of the girl and she uses the guy's shoulders to fend off the wind. He can only rely on the screening properties of the fluttering nylon of his windbreaker. 

When we get to Tha Phae Gate they let me get off. While I look at them smiling all of a sudden I'm moved. I don't know what words I can use to thank them: I mumble, I hesitate, I perform a sequence of silly smiles, worthy of a cabaret with half empty stands, then I slowly start to walk back to my hotel. I think of those young guys that are fending again the cold wind that has just made my thighs numb. I try to picture them close to each other, with half-closed eyes and a smile on their face, for being good Buddhists they've just made a merit. One more step toward their purification, that to me looks more like a soft hibernation. 

Chiang Mai, Thailand, December 2001

Photo: statues in a temple at Chiang Mai, by Fabio

Praying to robots - Bangkok, Thailand

Walking along the sidewalk, out of the corner of my eye I absentmindedly detect the life at the edge of the road. Hairdresser, 7/11, street stall, beauty salon. The Thai warm evening is flowing around me, with its odors, activities, confusion and people. It's the background noise, the setting at the margins, it brushes against me, tickling my senses, it stirs my pleasure yet goes unnoticed.

A woman is praying behind a window, still and relaxed in a devoted wai. She joins her palms and shuts her eyes, while some kind of mantra is revolving in her mind. I scan the place, in search of a sacred site, expecting to spot a bunch of flowers, a golden-red temple, some Buddha statues. The sequence of my movements is unfolding in the background, there's not an active thought controlling it: it's an instinct, a reflex, a set of images, impressed in my memory, to be confirmed. Every object, perfume, color, sound is finding its place in a dimensional harmony. If everything matches my trance goes on, with steady pace and wandering eye.

Suddenly I get active hold of all of my senses, it's something that I've seen, that I was not expecting. I can't be wrong, there's no mistake, the woman is facing a corner of the shop, in front of her there's only a table and on the table the thing that froze me on the spot: arranged in ranks, by columns and rows, some robot-toys of colorful plastic. A platoon of Gundams or monsters of Vega, standing at attention, facing the woman who prays.

When you think that you've finally got used to it, that you're in sync with the world that is surrounding you, convinced that at least you can make sense of it, even if you don't truly get its essence, you find yourself standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at a woman with her palms joined in prayer, facing an army of your childhood heroes. 

And you get a vague feeling that you're back to where you started.

Photo by Fabio Pulito

My guardian spirit - Bangkok, Thailand

A girl who I used to date,  when we woke up one morning, told me that my room was inhabited by a ghost. He appeared in her dreams, wearing his shroud. He was not the scary type though: an Asian version of Casper, the smiling ectoplasmic boy of the animation-movies.

He slowly approached her, kind of hovering over the bed, and politely asked her who she was. When she said she was a friend he said it was OK, invited her to come back again and then disappeared. 

Thai people believe in ghosts and spirits, they like to talk about them, make movies about them, it's a mix of dread and fascination. Thailand has real and elaborate ghost culture. 

When you go to a Thai restaurant, a house or a hospital you're likely to spot a small colorful shrine, like a little house on top of a pedestal. On the porch of the house there will be bottles of soft drink, fruits, rice, flowers and incense sticks. The Thais believe that some guardian spirits live and linger about the area. These spirits need to be taken care of, as a token of respect or for fear of their rage. 

I told the girl that I had talked to my ghost and confirmed that she was indeed a friend of mine. Surprisingly enough I wasn't kidding: in  the way of one who comes from a distant place, with a Christian background mixed with rational skepticism, socialism, materialism, liberalism, capitalistic shallowness et cetera et cetera, without a clue of how approach a ghost, with guilty secrecy and embarrassed haste, I had really tried to talk to the ghost! She thanked me for that without irony or mockery.

Not that I really believe in ghosts but since I've been told there's one in my apartment, and I could be wrong and ghosts might exist, I might put some water somewhere in my room.

Image "Hamlet and his father's ghost" by J.H. Fussli, 1780-1785, from Wikipedia.org