By Michael Burleigh Daily Mail, October 13, 2013 The Gulag Archipelago, by the Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is one of the greatest books of the 20th century. It begins by describing the notorious Kolyma prison camps in the farthermost north-eastern corner of Siberia. The camps were the Soviet gulags at their worst, where temperatures dropped below minus 50f — colder than at the North Pole. The Kolyma region had been chosen because of its gold mines, and the Communist leaders forced skeletal and ill-clad prisoners to produce 80,000 kg of refined gold. This was the mainstay of Stalin’s economy. Almost every kilogram cost a human life. The camps, which were built in the late 1940s by the inmates themselves, often in the middle of nowhere, were surrounded with barbed wire and watchtowers. Provided that prisoners were shot so that their feet faced towards the perimeter fence, guards could claim their deaths were the result of an escape attempt. These gulags (the Russian acronym for ‘Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies’) signified the whole Soviet slave labour system — a regime that reached its deadly peak under Stalin’s despotic rule and saw millions of men and women transported to Siberia and other outposts of the Red empire. These horrific camps — there were more than 2,000 in total — had a joint economic and punitive purpose, whose prevailing philosophy was: ‘We have to squeeze everything out of a prisoner in the first three months; after that, we don’t need him any more.’ By Kurt Anderson Vanity Fair, November 29, 2013 In the history of art, Johannes Vermeer is almost as mysterious and unfathomable as Shakespeare in literature, like a character in a novel. Accepted into his local Dutch painters’ guild in 1653, at age 21, with no recorded training as an apprentice, he promptly begins painting masterful, singular, uncannily realistic pictures of light-filled rooms and ethereal young women. After his death, at 43, he and his minuscule oeuvre slip into obscurity for two centuries. Then, just as photography is making highly realistic painting seem pointless, the photo-realistic Sphinx of Delft is rediscovered and his pictures are suddenly deemed valuable. By the time of the first big American show of Vermeer paintings—at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1909—their value has increased another hundred times, by the 1920s ten times that. Despite occasional speculation over the years that an optical device somehow enabled Vermeer to paint his pictures, the art-history establishment has remained adamant in its romantic conviction: maybe he was inspired somehow by lens-projected images, but his only exceptional tool for making art was his astounding eye, his otherworldly genius. Jenison’s finished painting, the product of years’ worth of work. (Click image to enlarge.) At the beginning of this century, however, two experts of high standing begged to differ. Why, for instance, did Vermeer paint things in the foreground and shiny highlights on objects slightly out of focus? Because, they say, he was looking at them through a lens. By itself, Vermeer’s Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces, by a London architecture professor named Philip Steadman, might have stirred a minor academic fuss. But a mainstream controversy was provoked—conferences, headlines, outrage, name-calling—because a second, more sweeping and provocative argument was made by one of the most famous living painters, David Hockney. Hockney argued in Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of Old Masters that not only Vermeer but many great painters from the 15th century onward must have secretly used lens-and-mirror contraptions to achieve their photo-realistic effects. Leading art historians were unpersuaded. Hockney, people said, was just jealous because he lacks the old masters’ skills. “I don’t oppose the notion that Vermeer in some way responded to the camera obscura,” said Walter Liedtke, then as now the Met’s curator of European paintings (including its five Vermeers), “but I do oppose drastic devaluations of the role of art.” Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Texas, Tim Jenison knew nothing of the brouhaha. Jenison, now 58, is the founder of NewTek, where he has made a fortune inventing hardware and software for video production and post-production. He is a nonstop tinkerer in the rest of his life as well, building giant model airplanes and battle robots, and learning to fly helicopters. Curious, careful, soft-spoken, and comfortably schlumpy, he comes across more as a neighborhood professor you might see at Home Depot than as a guy who owns his own jet. But in 2002, one of his daughters, then a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, recommended he read Secret Knowledge. “And Steadman,” Jenison says, “really got me thinking hard.” As a guy who has spent his whole career reproducing and manipulating visual images, and contemplating the deep nuts and bolts of how our eyes see differently than cameras do, Jenison had a strong hunch that Hockney and Steadman were right. Chagall: Love, War and Exile Exhibition at the Jewish Museum September 15, 2013 – February 2, 2014 By Ivan Kennealey, Open Letters Monthly It’s a testament to the breadth of an artist’s body of work that more than one school of interpretation claims it, especially when those claims seem to be issued on mutually exclusive grounds. Marc Chagall (1887-1985) has inspired impressively schizophrenic critical accounts of his artistic efforts, at once called the “quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century” and a “pioneer of modernism.” He is often characterized as both a chronicler of provincial Jewish folklore and an urbane, cosmopolitan aesthete. Treatments of Chagall’s artistic achievements typically either highlight his nostalgic depictions of rural Jewish life in his Russian hometown, Vitebsk, or the sophisticated European universalism he imbibed in Paris. The apparent polarity of Chagall’s influences often translates into a wild cacophony of images inhabiting the same canvas: Christian and Jewish, Russian and Parisian, urban and rural, sectarian and secular, ancient and modern. It has become increasingly common for his critics to find only unresolved conflict as the abiding theme in his work, the result of which are paintings over-teeming with cramped symbolism, or what the art historian James Sweeny called “curious representational juxtapositions.” This untidy melange of influences seems to issue from one perceived incongruence: Chagall’s Judaism, and the emphasis on his attachment to a particular community of people, and his modernism, or his magnetic attraction to a universal conception of mankind. The rise of the modern state dictated a split between church and state, relegating religion to a matter of conscience, a private affair conducted by individuals out of the public square. But traditional Judaism defies this compartmentalization, asserting itself primarily as a public practice, authoritative for the whole body politic. While individual Jews generally enjoyed a greater measure of freedom within this new configuration, the cost was the expression of an authentic Judaism which refuses to be numbered merely one pursuit among many, bereft of public power. The eminent Jewish historian Jacob Katz, writing about the tension between Jewish practice and modern German culture, articulated the conundrum for Jews with concision: “Jews had been emancipated, Jewishness was not.” Chagall’s youth straddled the fault line that separated the explicit oppression of Jews and their qualified invitation to assimilation. In 1887, when he was born, Jews in Russia were still forced to live in the Pale of Settlement, cloistered into religiously homogenous shtetls, denied the advantages of full citizenship. As a child, Chagall’s mother had to bribe a headmaster to gain his admission into a Russian language school usually closed to Jews. But just prior to the First World War, Jews were given the opportunity to absorb themselves into political life, albeit at the expense of a full expression of their Jewishness. The model for this political emancipation was the Prussian edict of 1812, which openly encouraged the suppression of the communal, public character of Judaism for the sake of access to citizenship. Speaking to the French assembly in 1789, Comte de Clermont-Tonnere captured the spirit of the edict, and the political predicament of modern Jews: “One must refuse everything to Jews as a nation but one must give them everything as individuals; they must become citizens.” Chagall lived during a time when Judaism was already in the throes of a self-directed transvaluation under the philosophical superintendence of Moses Mendelssohn, who attempted to reinvent it as a “religion,” a designation which, in the 18th century, meant its assimilation into the modern state. Chagall’s emphasis on individuality, his excursions into dreamy interiority, the search for moral lessons generalizable to the totality of mankind and his infatuation with refined, worldly European aesthetic forms have often been understood as a betrayal of his provincial Jewishness. According to this common narrative, Chagall fled the artistically arid soil of parochial Vitebsk for the lumière-liberté of Paris. By Katie Engelhart, Macleans, November 30, 2013 Defying predictions, nationalist parties are tightening their networks and coalescing into dangerous alliances In August 2010, dozens of far-right politicians from across Europe flew to Tokyo for a week of plotting and scheming. They were invited by Japan’s right-wing Issuikai group, famous for its denial of Japanese war crimes during the Nanjing Massacre, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were murdered, and tens of thousands raped, by Japanese soldiers. The occasion was a conference: “The Future of Nationalist Movements.” By all accounts, it was a success. A who’s who of European nationalists showed up: delegates from the British Nationalist Party (BNP), Jobbik (Hungary), Tricolour Flame (Italy), Attack (Bulgaria), Freedom (Ukraine) and Flemish Interest (Belgium). Jean-Marie Le Pen—former president of France’s Muslim-bashing, European Union-trashing Front National—gave the keynote address. The congress, said an Issuikai spokesperson, was focused on “how we can protect the national identity in our respective countries and co-operate to win the battle against globalization.” The last few years have been good to Europe’s far right. In 2010, extreme parties in the Netherlands, Hungary and Sweden gave powerful electoral showings. Soon after, Austria’s Freedom Party raked in over 25 per cent of state election votes and doubled its parliamentary seats. That momentum has not waned. “I would never have imagined that demons long believed to have been banished would return,” wrote European Parliament President Martin Schulz in 2012. “But simple-minded populism is once again gaining ground.” This year in Norway—just two years after a far-right militant named Anders Behring Breivik massacred 69 people on the island of Utøya—the Progress Party that once inspired him won almost a quarter of the national vote. But this is not, as some observers claim, the 1930s redux—for these are not the same far-right parties. Rather, much of Europe’s radical right has broken with its bellicose past. Today’s far-right parties are more polished and articulate, more welcoming of mainstream agenda points (like same-sex marriage and welfare assistance) and more committed to playing by democratic rules. In some cases, their goals have changed too; many far-right parties have sidelined the fight for electoral seats in favour of projects meant to push mainstream parties rightward. In places like Britain, conservative parties have taken the bait. Earlier this year, the U.K. Home Office dispatched government vans to drive around London, emblazoned with the message, “In the U.K. illegally? Go home or face arrest”—in what many say was a nasty concession to far-right forces. For this reason, the new far right appears all the more insidious. Experts speak of a continental “contagion from the right.” In Hungary and Switzerland, they worry about democratic collapse. FRONTLINE marks the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination with an investigative biography of the man at the center of the political crime of the 20th century. At the heart of the assassination lies the puzzle of Lee Harvey Oswald: Was he an emotionally disturbed lone gunman? Was he part of a broader conspiracy? Or was he an unwitting fall guy, the patsy, as Oswald himself claimed? Two years after what seemed like a revolution in Egypt, FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the aftermath. From military rule to the Muslim Brotherhood's President Mohammed Morsi, and back again, we examine the military's dark side, the Brotherhood's mistakes, and meet Egypt's new leader, General Sisi. By Susie Linfield Boston Review, November 13, 2013 It is no secret that the Israeli left is marginalized; the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada (2000–2005) killed not only individual Israeli civilians but the credibility of the left itself. The shredded bodies, especially those of children and old people—in supermarkets, at cafés, on buses—made it difficult if not impossible to speak of a peaceful, or perhaps any, solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nothing that has happened since, either internally or externally, has caused the left to recover. But in a series of interviews I did with various leftist Israelis—journalists, academics, historians—this June in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, I was struck not only by their despondency but also by their vibrancy, which seems to stem from the rich cultural, intellectual, and civic life that coexists with—and at the same time is separate from—a desolate political situation. I was impressed, too, by the complexity of the challenges leftist Israelis face, which are often simplified in the Western press. In addition to the occupation of the Palestinian territories, these include Israel’s rightward trend toward exclusionary ethnic nationalism; the violent turmoil in surrounding Arab countries, especially neighboring Egypt and Syria; the continuing rule of Hamas in Gaza; and the political apathy, or perhaps fatigue, of their fellow citizens. As Bar-Ilan University professor Ilan Greilsammer told me, “The big problem [among students] is depoliticization. They’re not for Zionism or against Zionism—they tend to be indifferent to any ‘ism.’” Then there are the deeply emotional, perhaps even unconscious, aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that in part explain its peculiar virulence. As journalist Gershom Gorenberg put it, “We have two pretty neurotic peoples facing off.” Also striking were the frequent surprises—the originality of thought, the departures from simplistic stereotypes—that my interlocutors presented. Someone who unapologetically spoke of the need to “break the bones of the Egyptian army” in the 1967 war is a longtime advocate of a Palestinian state and a fierce critic of discrimination against Arab Israelis; another interviewee, who wants to “de-Zionize” Israel, opposes both the return of the Palestinian refugees and a one-state “solution.” What follows is a report on what I learned. It is not a scientific survey but, rather, an impressionistic account. Nevertheless, it will, I hope, give a fuller picture of the contemporary Israeli left than the one often presented in the Western press, both mainstream and leftist. (The latter, especially in the United States and Britain, tends to publish expatriate anti-Zionist Israelis such as Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim, thereby exaggerating the import of their views, which, within Israel, is slight.) As Gorenberg, a self-described “left-wing, skeptical Orthodox Zionist Jew,” notes, “Distance erases detail. It’s easy to be extremely certain about a place far away.” George Steiner Living Literacies Conference, York University, Toronto November 2002 Hadassah Magazine, September 2013 Interview by Charley J. Levine Khaled Abu Toameh, 50, an award-winning Israeli journalist and documentary filmmaker, has reported on Arab affairs for three decades. He writes for The Jerusalem Post and the New York-based Gatestone Institute, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank, where he is a senior adviser. Since 1989, he also has been a producer and consultant for NBC News. He grew up in the Arab Israeli town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye near Haifa and studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He now lives in Jerusalem. Q. What are the challenges of working as a journalist in the West Bank and Gaza? A. Before the Oslo peace process began, Arab journalists had almost no problem traveling throughout the West Bank and Gaza, speaking freely with Palestinians. But ever since the Palestinian Authority came to the West Bank and Gaza, the situation has become much more challenging and dangerous. The P.A. expects you to serve as an official spokesperson and avoid criticism of its leaders. With Hamas in power in Gaza, it’s become even more dangerous for independent Arab journalists. Because of the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement against Israel, journalists representing the Israeli media, like myself, face not only difficulties but threats and even physical violence when we go to Ramallah. The P.A. leadership in the West Bank promotes BDS against Israel and also fights normalization with Israel. It bans meetings between Palestinians and Israelis and condemns the Israeli media as extremely hostile, which makes it impossible to work there and endangers our lives. Q. How does the Arab street respond to your reporting? A. No one tells me that what I am reporting is inaccurate or untrue. I am often criticized, however, for reporting the facts. I am only reporting what many Arab journalists want to report. If I resided in Ramallah, I would not be reporting many things. There are P.A. journalists who post critical things on Facebook and risk prison. Those who ask the wrong questions at press conferences are sometimes detained or even tortured. I live inside Israel, so my reality is sharply different. I receive more threats from pro-Palestine students and academics in the U.S. than I do from local Palestinians. Volker Ullrich, Adolf Hitler: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs, Fischer Verlage, 2013 Interview conducted by Jan Fleischhauer Der Spiegel, October 11, 2013 In an interview about his new biography, historian Volker Ullrich discusses a dictator who was an antisemite but also a man of considerable charm. SPIEGEL: Mr. Ullrich, how normal was Adolf Hitler? Ullrich: He was not as crazy as some scholars of psychohistory would have us believe, at least, with their far too simplistic lines of argumentation. He may even have been more normal than we might wish. SPIEGEL: Most people consider Hitler a psychopath. Many historians, too, believe that someone capable of committing such crimes cannot have been normal. Ullrich: Hitler was without a doubt exceptional in his criminal deeds. Yet in many respects, he was not at all out of the ordinary. We will never be able to understand the terrible things that happened between 1933 and 1945 if we deny from the outset that Hitler also had human characteristics, and if we fail to take into account not only his criminal energies, but also the appealing qualities he had. So long as we view him only as a horrifying monster, the allure he undoubtedly exerted will remain a riddle. SPIEGEL: Joachim Fest published a comprehensive biography of Hitler in 1973 and Ian Kershaw another one, in two volumes, beginning in 1998. What was your motivation for producing a third major biography? Ullrich: Fest approached Hitler from a position of abhorrence and aversion. One central chapter of his book is titled "View of an Unperson." Kershaw was primarily interested in the societal structures that made Hitler possible, while the person himself remains somewhat pallid in his treatment. I bring the man back to the forefront. This creates not a completely new picture of Hitler, but still a more complex and contradictory one than we're familiar with. SPIEGEL: "Hitler the Person" is the name of a chapter that you yourself describe as the key chapter in your book, which will be published this week. What was Hitler like as a person? Ullrich: The remarkable thing about Hitler was his talent for dissimulation. His formidable abilities as an actor are often overlooked. There are only very rarely situations where we can say he was being genuine. This is what makes it so difficult to answer the question of what he was like as a person. He could be very pleasant, even to people he detested. Yet he was also incredibly cold even to people very close to him. SPIEGEL: At one point in the book, you write of a "captivating charm." Charm is a quality not usually associated with this criminal of the century. Ullrich: A good example of his ability to ingratiate himself is his relationship to German President Paul von Hindenburg, who initially had considerable reservations about the "Bohemian corporal," as he called Hitler. Yet within a few weeks of being appointed chancellor, Hitler managed to get Hindenburg so completely wrapped around his finger than he would sign off on whatever Hitler demanded of him. Joseph Goebbels noted frequently in his diaries that the dictator not only could chat very pleasantly among his close acquaintances, but absolutely knew how to listen as well. SPIEGEL: On the other hand, there would sometimes be these switches into uncontrolled behavior. The seemingly smallest incident could trigger a fit of rage. |
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