Reality check – Cricket World Cup

For the last week or so the only news in town was the Cricket World Cup. The Black Caps did better than they had ever done before and thought that they may be, just may be, the best cricket team in the world. For a team that was always among the tolerated bottom dwellers this was a huge ambition, but cock-a-hoop, they thought that beating some of the best teams, they had arrived, this was to be their time. Facing the Australians at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of 90,000 spectators reality set in. The celebrated top batsmen choked, went out for nought or a miserably few runs, the bowlers who could do damage to other sides proved largely ineffectual. It was clear that you don't go from zero to hero overnight. Their charming baby-faced coach, Mike Hesson achieve much by turning a previously dysfunctional team into a credible side, and the players had a wonderful opportunity to strut on the cricket world stage, but beating the Aussies was one bridge too far. The Phoenix were also beaten, but this came as no surprise. They played without four, and possibly seven of their most influential players. The well coordinated teamwork was just not in evidence, not in the first half when the game was lost at any rate. But Ernie Merrick, their coach warned that the journey to the finals will be a difficult one. The team is at the top of the competition ladder at present, but whereas until now they were the hunters, now they are the hunted, and to go from one of the bottom teams to the top is a huge jump and staying there in face of much better endowed opposition with better track records of winning will be difficult. It is professional sport where money counts a great deal, and though the Phoenix enjoys sound financial support, this is not comparable with the resources of some of the larger Australian clubs. You might say, why do I care? I find watching sport incredibly mind numbing and restful, a release from all the thoughts that turn around in my mind.

The boys from St Bede's

In this country there is no news, so the media drums up some news artificially to separate the columns of advertisements, and radio or television promotions. OK, World Cup cricket is world shattering news, but a couple of senior school boys misbehaving is drummed up news. Three senior boys from Christchurch's elite Catholic boys' school thought that rules that apply to everybody else did not apply to them. They were crack rowers and the world owed them the right to be beyond the law. The Rector of the school did, what I would expect all school principals would do and disqualified them from the team. They brought the school and their rowing team into disrepute. Being spoilt brats, their parents took the case to court, and the court ruled that they could go ahead and compete. The court case could well cost the parents and the school $20,000, but what the hell, the brats had to be cosseted and sheltered from the mean spirited Rector. The case reminded me of an incident that embittered my friend and colleague, Pat Whelan, and virtually ended his teaching career. Pat was the Principal of Hawera High School. The school's First Fifteen went on a football trip to play another school. Some of the boys got drunk, and Pat took a dim view of this. He had the boys suspended. But the parents of the boys took the matter up with the school Board, who thought that the Principal's ruling was too harsh and the boys were reinstated. Why would a teenage boy go on a football trip if not to get drunk, like their fathers did in their time? Pat resigned, went into real estate and I believe did well for himself, but education in Hawera was the poorer for it. I hope that the Rector of St Bede's will not give in. This would only foment the arrogance of these boys who thought that the world owes them special privileges.

Chimen Abramsky – A man fleeing his past

It is seldom that I read a book that touches me because I recognize something of myself in it. Sasha Abramsky's warm, uncritical, loving tribute to his grandfather, Chimen Abramsky, scholar, book collector, ideologue and secular Talmudist, The House of Twenty Thousand Books is such a book. I read it slowly, savouring it, delighting in the people I met on the way, people known to me by repute. Chimen, son of one of the great rabbinical authorities of his generation, Yehezkel Abramsky, embraced communism during the depression of the 1930s. With Capitalism in disarray, it was an obvious choice for many. That his father was imprisoned and tortured by the Soviets, and that his life was spared only because of his great international fame, did not shake the faith of the young communist in the communist utopia. Joining the British Communist Party once he became a British citizen in 1951 was his ticket to acceptance by Left Wing intellectuals. It took him a long time to see the terrible flaws of Communism and renounce his allegiance to the cause. Reading this I recalled my belief in Communism, Zionist Communism, as a teenager. I grew up during the war and came to adulthood in the aftermath of the Second World War. I saw in the Cold War only as unjustified warmongering. The Korean War, the Malayan rebellion, the Vietnam War were colonialist adventures. I marched to Parliament alongside Douglas Lilburn, the famed composer, protesting New Zealand's participation in the Vietnam War. Khrushchev's revelations of Stalin's crimes might have opened my eyes somewhat, but I thought that suppression of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 was justified. For me the uprising was an attempt to restore the Fascists, or at least Right Wing elements, and I saw the persecution of communists and security officers as a further manifestation of Jew hatred. It took Chimen and me a lifetime to abandon faith in a doctrine that we had believed in. Unlike Chimen, I don't claim to be a scholar of note, at best I have a curious inquiring mind. But I appreciate his search for wisdom that he believed resided in his twenty thousand books. I applaud his grandson, Sasha, for telling Chimen and Miriam Abransky's story with so much affection, and through their story painting a vivid portrait of an age that is vanishing. 

Drunk teenagers and responsibility

I am courting trouble by commenting on the Roast Busters case. For those who are not up to date with this sordid case, some youths in Auckland bragged on social media about having sex with drunk underage girls. The police were blamed for not prosecuting these boys. The Police Conduct Authority blamed the police for incompetence. Such cases clearly need to be handled with tact and care, and the police failed in their procedures. I am by far the wrong generation to comment, but I have some questions that are unanswered. How did these young girls, 13 and 14 get into a situation where they were so drunk that they consented to having sex with these older boys? There was no suggestion that sex was forced, that they were raped. What kind of moral lodestar allowed these boys to exploit these young girls? Where were the parents? Did they know or care about what their sons and daughters were up to? Why did none of the parents of the girls confront the parents of the boys? Is this a symptom of a society that lost its moral bearings? What would I have done? What would you have done? Blaming the schools, blaming the police is not the answer. 

Elections in Israel and the Zionist dream

I had a break of a few weeks from blogging, but I hold the reverse of Descartes's dictum, 'I am, therefore I think'. My blogs encourage me to record my thought, some of them anyway. The Israeli elections made me think of the nature of politics and the Zionist dream. It is hard to understand Israeli politics from New Zealand and appreciate the issues involved, but opinions are free. Netanyahu lost a third of his support, yet he claims this as a great victory. The alliance of left parties attained almost the same number of votes as Likud, Netanyahu's party, yet they see this as a defeat. Israeli politics is fragmented, but perhaps no more than the Zionist Congresses of old were. It is in the nature of Jewish politics, as of Jewish debate, that there are as many voices as people present, and they all try to outshout each other. If any other country would face the divisions that prevail in Israeli politics there would be a political breakdown, the state would stop functioning. Yet in Israel things carry on much as before. The reason for this is that despite the great divisions among parties, there is a consensus. Israel is a state for the Jewish people and it has to be defended irrespective of the political rhetoric in the background. There is also a broad agreement about protecting the vulnerable, about the tradition of Jewish charity. The country is prospering and the divide between the haves and the have nots is growing, there is poverty, but unlike in some other countries, there is a limit to the level of poverty that is politically acceptable. So we can look forward to noisy and at times bitter debates in the Knesset, but there are few political options.