A city that may be wiped out
Inconsequential news about politics, royal babies and film stars in the nude so dominate our news media, that the threat that Maiduguri, a city in Northern Nigeria. is about to be completely destroyed by Boko Haram Islamist fighters rates only a passing mention. Maidiguri is a city of over a million people, mostly Moslem, but with a substantial Christian minority. It was established by the British as a military outpost in 1907, but the region was the centre of the mighty Kanem-Bornu Empire that flourished from the 14th to the 17th centuries. So should we care if the city disappears, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved? Should the atrocities of Boko Haram not be front page news? There is probably nothing we can do about the slaughter and destruction, but we should be aware of the great loss, remember a now largely forgotten part of history. Empires come and go, civilizations flourish and decline. Perhaps thinking of the fate of the Kanem-Bornu empire gives us a glimpse of the possible future of Western civilization. The fanaticism, the religious schisms, atrocities justified by causes people believed in are real threats to Europe as well as to the Middle East and Africa. Ignoring these threats will not make them go away.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Conversations with my barber
Once in a while I get my hair cut. I go to a well appointed barber's shop, manned usually by two Iraqi young men, possibly brothers, but I am not sure about that. They speak Arabic among themselves. I knew that they were from Iraq because I asked them some time ago. The television program screen is Al Jazeera, because it is free, a good reason I could appreciate. Today I engaged the young man cutting my hair in conversation. I asked him about the war in Iraq. He comes from Baghdad, which is not touched by the conflict. But he had some unexpected opinions about ISIS and the war. Isis get their weapons from Syria, from Russia, and their support from Turkey and, to my surprise, Israel. Wounded ISIS fighters get taken to large hospitals in Turkey and Israel. I just listened, didn't argue. He obviously gets his news from different sources from mine. I had no answer to some of the other things he said, the question about why the Americans bombed the north of the area occupied by ISIS, but not the south. Could it be that the oil fields and the dam are in the north? The Americans are behind the war by supporting Saudi Arabia, who support Al Qaeda, who support ISIS. There is probably some truth in this. American soldiers train ISIS fighter in Jordan. Perhaps you can't tell whose side the fighters are on. ISIS are hard to fight, they come at night and disappear during the day. It was all very interesting, an other spin on world events that we have no comprehension of in New Zealand. But the thing that stood out for me was that no matter who fought whom, what the causes were, who was right and who was wrong, you blame the Israelis and blame the Jews.
Once in a while I get my hair cut. I go to a well appointed barber's shop, manned usually by two Iraqi young men, possibly brothers, but I am not sure about that. They speak Arabic among themselves. I knew that they were from Iraq because I asked them some time ago. The television program screen is Al Jazeera, because it is free, a good reason I could appreciate. Today I engaged the young man cutting my hair in conversation. I asked him about the war in Iraq. He comes from Baghdad, which is not touched by the conflict. But he had some unexpected opinions about ISIS and the war. Isis get their weapons from Syria, from Russia, and their support from Turkey and, to my surprise, Israel. Wounded ISIS fighters get taken to large hospitals in Turkey and Israel. I just listened, didn't argue. He obviously gets his news from different sources from mine. I had no answer to some of the other things he said, the question about why the Americans bombed the north of the area occupied by ISIS, but not the south. Could it be that the oil fields and the dam are in the north? The Americans are behind the war by supporting Saudi Arabia, who support Al Qaeda, who support ISIS. There is probably some truth in this. American soldiers train ISIS fighter in Jordan. Perhaps you can't tell whose side the fighters are on. ISIS are hard to fight, they come at night and disappear during the day. It was all very interesting, an other spin on world events that we have no comprehension of in New Zealand. But the thing that stood out for me was that no matter who fought whom, what the causes were, who was right and who was wrong, you blame the Israelis and blame the Jews.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
What to tell students about Judaism
Students come to the Holocaust Centre to learn about Human Rights, Citizenship, sometimes background to a book of a film they study, Elie Wiesel's Night, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, or Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, and they also want to visit the synagogue. I am very comfortable using our display in the Holocaust Centre talking about the Holocaust, but I am always somewhat uncomfortable taking the synagogue tour. What can you tell students, who may only have a very hazy idea of their own religion and many had perhaps never been inside a church. Telling them that the synagogue is not a church and ask them to note differences often just evokes bewildered silence. If they note anything it may be insignificant things, like 'Who sits in the big chairs' the chairs of dignitaries or rabbis, what are the numbers on the seats and boxes, and that sort of thing. I have started talking about Judaism being a religion of learning, learning replacing sacrifices as a religious link. I talk about Bar Mitzvah as the only rite of passage that involves learning, not some physical or martial feat. And I talk about the consequences of this tradition of learning, universal literacy, analytical reasoning. Jews are smarter because of their tradition of learning. Assimilationist would say that Jews are like everybody else, they just worship under different roofs. I don't hold with that. Jews are different, and were always perceived as different. The Christian and Islamic world feared Jews because of the power of their knowledge. Jews were always the 'other' the outsider who can be blamed for the wrongs of the world. And Christians attributed the qualities of Judaism to every idea they disapproved of, be it the rigid rule of law, the law of contract, as in the Merchant of Venice, the questioning of received dogma, innovations in art and music, the 'extreme Jewish intellectualism' that Joseph Goebbels took exception to. These are at least the things I would like to talk about, although the reality is that within the constraints of time I can barely touch on some of these topics. I talk about customs and rituals, the food we eat, and how every aspect of our lives form the time we wake up to the time we fall asleep is governed by rituals and living a Jewish life, observing the mitzvot, the commandments is more important than blind faith. I don't know how much of what I say rubs of on students, but without exception, they listen politely, ask questions, so perhaps just being inside a synagogue for the only time in their lives somehow enriches their understanding.
Students come to the Holocaust Centre to learn about Human Rights, Citizenship, sometimes background to a book of a film they study, Elie Wiesel's Night, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, or Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, and they also want to visit the synagogue. I am very comfortable using our display in the Holocaust Centre talking about the Holocaust, but I am always somewhat uncomfortable taking the synagogue tour. What can you tell students, who may only have a very hazy idea of their own religion and many had perhaps never been inside a church. Telling them that the synagogue is not a church and ask them to note differences often just evokes bewildered silence. If they note anything it may be insignificant things, like 'Who sits in the big chairs' the chairs of dignitaries or rabbis, what are the numbers on the seats and boxes, and that sort of thing. I have started talking about Judaism being a religion of learning, learning replacing sacrifices as a religious link. I talk about Bar Mitzvah as the only rite of passage that involves learning, not some physical or martial feat. And I talk about the consequences of this tradition of learning, universal literacy, analytical reasoning. Jews are smarter because of their tradition of learning. Assimilationist would say that Jews are like everybody else, they just worship under different roofs. I don't hold with that. Jews are different, and were always perceived as different. The Christian and Islamic world feared Jews because of the power of their knowledge. Jews were always the 'other' the outsider who can be blamed for the wrongs of the world. And Christians attributed the qualities of Judaism to every idea they disapproved of, be it the rigid rule of law, the law of contract, as in the Merchant of Venice, the questioning of received dogma, innovations in art and music, the 'extreme Jewish intellectualism' that Joseph Goebbels took exception to. These are at least the things I would like to talk about, although the reality is that within the constraints of time I can barely touch on some of these topics. I talk about customs and rituals, the food we eat, and how every aspect of our lives form the time we wake up to the time we fall asleep is governed by rituals and living a Jewish life, observing the mitzvot, the commandments is more important than blind faith. I don't know how much of what I say rubs of on students, but without exception, they listen politely, ask questions, so perhaps just being inside a synagogue for the only time in their lives somehow enriches their understanding.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Capitalism as fiction
A review of John Lanchester's new book, Why Everyone owes everyone and no one can pay in the New Yorker aroused my interest in his novel, Capital. And what a good book that proved to be. It is long, 570 pages long, and I seldom tackle anything that daunting, but this is one of the best novels I have read this year. The others were Elizabeth Gilbert's The signature of all things, Zachary Lazar's Sway and Nadine Gordimer's No time like the present. Capital is a many layered book. On the face of it it is a novel about contemporary London with its mixture of people of different ethnicity, class and background. It was likened to Dickens, but it is about a very different London. As a writer Lanchester must have given thought to how he can capture the vastness of London within the compass of a novel. He concentrated the London experience in one street, Pepy's Street, and within that street, a banker from a comfortable middle class background, an old woman who was born and lived in that street all her life, her grandson, a painter whose key to success was the mystery about him, his anonymity, like Banksy, a Pakistani family who lived above their store, one of whose sons, a smart but aimless young man got caught up in an anti-terrorist investigation, a young woman, a stateless refugee from Zimbabwe who worked under a false name as a traffic warden, a Polish builder and handyman, who worked on the houses in the street, whose ambition was to make money, take it back to Poland and start a business with his father. All these people are vividly drawn and you long to learn more about them and turn the pages. The underlying theme is the rising property values in the street, which makes everyone living there feel rich. And the message that each of them receives that says 'We want what have'. And here the novel becomes a critique of Capitalism. The wealth of these people just keeps increasing simply because the increasing value of their house. Some spend money they don't have in the hope of the unrealistically high bonus payment. You might say that this book is a long parable about present day capitalism. There are winners, there are losers. The winners included the Polish builder who made his money, and got his girl, the losers included the banker's assistant, a financial and mathematical wizz kid, who used the bank to trade on his own account and was caught, the banker, who failed to get his expected large bonus and was dismissed because of his assistant's misdemeanour, the refugee from Zimbabwe, who ended up in a detention camp, and could neither stay in Britain, nor could she be deported. 'We want what you have', the message that keeps recurring in ever more persistent and in the end odious form, is the capitalism of greed and envy.
A review of John Lanchester's new book, Why Everyone owes everyone and no one can pay in the New Yorker aroused my interest in his novel, Capital. And what a good book that proved to be. It is long, 570 pages long, and I seldom tackle anything that daunting, but this is one of the best novels I have read this year. The others were Elizabeth Gilbert's The signature of all things, Zachary Lazar's Sway and Nadine Gordimer's No time like the present. Capital is a many layered book. On the face of it it is a novel about contemporary London with its mixture of people of different ethnicity, class and background. It was likened to Dickens, but it is about a very different London. As a writer Lanchester must have given thought to how he can capture the vastness of London within the compass of a novel. He concentrated the London experience in one street, Pepy's Street, and within that street, a banker from a comfortable middle class background, an old woman who was born and lived in that street all her life, her grandson, a painter whose key to success was the mystery about him, his anonymity, like Banksy, a Pakistani family who lived above their store, one of whose sons, a smart but aimless young man got caught up in an anti-terrorist investigation, a young woman, a stateless refugee from Zimbabwe who worked under a false name as a traffic warden, a Polish builder and handyman, who worked on the houses in the street, whose ambition was to make money, take it back to Poland and start a business with his father. All these people are vividly drawn and you long to learn more about them and turn the pages. The underlying theme is the rising property values in the street, which makes everyone living there feel rich. And the message that each of them receives that says 'We want what have'. And here the novel becomes a critique of Capitalism. The wealth of these people just keeps increasing simply because the increasing value of their house. Some spend money they don't have in the hope of the unrealistically high bonus payment. You might say that this book is a long parable about present day capitalism. There are winners, there are losers. The winners included the Polish builder who made his money, and got his girl, the losers included the banker's assistant, a financial and mathematical wizz kid, who used the bank to trade on his own account and was caught, the banker, who failed to get his expected large bonus and was dismissed because of his assistant's misdemeanour, the refugee from Zimbabwe, who ended up in a detention camp, and could neither stay in Britain, nor could she be deported. 'We want what you have', the message that keeps recurring in ever more persistent and in the end odious form, is the capitalism of greed and envy.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Election fever
The New Zealand elections are less than two weeks away. Every day one of the parties announces a new policy to give the news media something to write or talk about. Some of these policies are simply bribes. None of them will make a huge difference to resolving the issues facing New Zealand. The issues include a wage structure that does not enable a person earning anything less than an average income to live without subsidy in some form of government benefit. We import poverty from countries with low wage economies, so the state has to top up wages and subsidise employers because the country has no tolerance of extreme poverty. We also accept a measure of unemployment that would have been quite unacceptable in the past, because it is a way of the global economy to keep wages down and keep workers subdued. We subsidise property speculators and landlords by giving people housing supplements so that they could pay rents disproportionate to incomes. We accept a degree of poverty, and in particular, child poverty because this is the inevitable result of the global economy. But none of the parties advocate tackling these issues in a meaningful way. To tackle them they would have to commit to a centralised economy that puts the welfare of the people first not profits . That is quite out of favour. It smacks of Stalinist state planning. No one talks of the successful state planning of the first Labour government. So all these new policy announcements will not make a blind bit of difference to the outcome of the election. What makes the difference is traditional loyalties, which over the years had been undermined, with Labour enacting free marker policies, and National adopting welfare programs that smack of socialism. What matters even more is knowing which politicians you like as people. With Labour candidate Steven Gibson describing the Prime Minister as Shylock, with Green candidate Catherine Delahunty leading a protest about Gaza, ignoring the much greater atrocities in Syria, or the atrocities committed by Hamas, with Judith Collins and her minions undermining her own staff, with Trevor Mallard wanting to bring back dinosaurs, not to mention the absolutely weird ideas of Colin Craig and Jamie Whyte election boils down to voting for people you think you can trust.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
The privilege to dream
Keisha Castle-Hughes, star, at the age of 13, in Whale Rider, one of the most successful New Zealand films ever, said that she dreamed of being an actress and living within the sight of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles since she was nine years old. She was very lucky to have the chance to dream. I wonder what children who live in enclosed communities like my grandchildren, like children in the closed world of fundamental religious sects, be they Muslim or Brethren, can dream about. Girls who can sing only in front of an audience of women, or have to be invisible to men, being covered up from head to foot cannot even imagine the bright lights of Hollywood. Can they imagine having successful careers, being powerful heads of large corporations, being top professionals? Or are they brought up to be slaves in their kitchens, be good, compliant wives, cook, clean, bring up children, and keep their heads down? And of course, girls who can dream about being happy, competent wives and mothers are lucky to be able to have such dreams. I can't help thinking about the millions of girls in war torn regions whose dream is to survive for another day, to avoid being raped, to keep out of harms way. For them even having a home, having a family that can live in peace might seem like an unattainable dream. Girls like Keisha Castle-Hughes and other girls living in a place like New Zealand are incredible lucky. I just hope that they appreciate their good fortune.
Keisha Castle-Hughes, star, at the age of 13, in Whale Rider, one of the most successful New Zealand films ever, said that she dreamed of being an actress and living within the sight of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles since she was nine years old. She was very lucky to have the chance to dream. I wonder what children who live in enclosed communities like my grandchildren, like children in the closed world of fundamental religious sects, be they Muslim or Brethren, can dream about. Girls who can sing only in front of an audience of women, or have to be invisible to men, being covered up from head to foot cannot even imagine the bright lights of Hollywood. Can they imagine having successful careers, being powerful heads of large corporations, being top professionals? Or are they brought up to be slaves in their kitchens, be good, compliant wives, cook, clean, bring up children, and keep their heads down? And of course, girls who can dream about being happy, competent wives and mothers are lucky to be able to have such dreams. I can't help thinking about the millions of girls in war torn regions whose dream is to survive for another day, to avoid being raped, to keep out of harms way. For them even having a home, having a family that can live in peace might seem like an unattainable dream. Girls like Keisha Castle-Hughes and other girls living in a place like New Zealand are incredible lucky. I just hope that they appreciate their good fortune.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
The language of exile
Six old people, three men and three women I think, sat in a comfortable middle class living room in Jerusalem in the video clip that Monica Tempian showed us during her talk about German-Jewish speaking poets. They read their poems to each other in a German oasis in a Hebrew speaking country. Their language was no longer the language in common use in the German world that they had left behind. The Munich, the Czernowitz, the Europe in their memories was no more. There was something nostalgic, something sad about the scene. But these poets were better off than those who stayed and were murdered. They were also better off than Karl Wolfskehl, the German poet, who was stranded in the remote, colonial town of Auckland in 1939, not the place where he wanted to be, but the only place he could get to. His towering frame, his broad-brimmed hat, his flowing cloak, was the romantic image of the poet. But he had no other German speaking poet to share his poetry with. He mingled with the educated German refugee set. He also mixed with New Zealand writers. Frank Sargeson however, the doyen of New Zealand short story writers, the pathfinder trying to find a New Zealand voice in his writing, said that
Six old people, three men and three women I think, sat in a comfortable middle class living room in Jerusalem in the video clip that Monica Tempian showed us during her talk about German-Jewish speaking poets. They read their poems to each other in a German oasis in a Hebrew speaking country. Their language was no longer the language in common use in the German world that they had left behind. The Munich, the Czernowitz, the Europe in their memories was no more. There was something nostalgic, something sad about the scene. But these poets were better off than those who stayed and were murdered. They were also better off than Karl Wolfskehl, the German poet, who was stranded in the remote, colonial town of Auckland in 1939, not the place where he wanted to be, but the only place he could get to. His towering frame, his broad-brimmed hat, his flowing cloak, was the romantic image of the poet. But he had no other German speaking poet to share his poetry with. He mingled with the educated German refugee set. He also mixed with New Zealand writers. Frank Sargeson however, the doyen of New Zealand short story writers, the pathfinder trying to find a New Zealand voice in his writing, said that
'There were times with Karl Wolfskehl when I could feel myself overpowered, weighted down by so much civilisation, a feeling which I had often and keenly experienced during my time in England…and now here I was once again being overpowered by Europe, and this time in my own country.'No one would have said this in Jerusalem. Yet these poets had roots that we are familiar with and can imagine. Although I have never been to Munich or Czernowitz, I have a mental picture of what these places are like, but I think of my friend, Apolonia, who comes from South Sudan, an Acholi from Pajok, a member of a tribe that is a small minority among the tribes of Sudan, I think of the Chin family, refugees from the north of Myamar, whom I helped to settle in Lower Hutt. Who could these people share their poetry with in a place where people can't even imagine the world they came from. For me, the inkling of this world came from the garden my Chin friend established on his small section around his state house. Vegetables were planted in straight regimental lines, the soil worked to a fine rich porous dust. This was an attempt to replicate the field that he had left behind in North Myamar. This was his form of poetry that he could only read to himself. His language was incomprehensible to the people among whom he lived.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Two state solution and other delusions
All of us, who have reasonable, enlightened, liberal gentile and even some Jewish friends are confronted by the question: why can't Israelis and Palestinians get together, sort out their differences and live in peace side by side. End the occupation, give the Palestinians their state, and all will be well. To understand why neither Palestinians nor Israelis find the two state solution acceptable, read Efraim Karsch's thought provoking article in the Middle East Quarterly
http://www.meforum.org/3831/palestinians-reject-statehood
Karsch argues that the Arab world, living under Ottoman rule, had never had an idea of statehood. They saw the world in Islamic terms, which demanded the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate.which included not only the Arab lands, but also Spain, perhaps even France. Palestine would be only a small sliver of this empire and the empire stretching right across Syria and Iraq, would not tolerate infidel minorities, certainly not as equal citizens with Muslims. The conflict, going back to the beginning of the British Mandate, is not about Jews and Arabs, but about a minority that is not Muslim setting up camp in the midst of this Islamic world. The current conflict in Syria and Iraq illustrates the Islamic idea of the tolerance of the Caliphate with beheadings, mass murder and annihilation of communities that don't conform. We have to reshape our dialogue in New Zealand, not accept buzz words such as 'occupation' 'two state solution' 'settlements' 'colonialism' but engage in the conversation on our terms, not on the terms of our enemies.
All of us, who have reasonable, enlightened, liberal gentile and even some Jewish friends are confronted by the question: why can't Israelis and Palestinians get together, sort out their differences and live in peace side by side. End the occupation, give the Palestinians their state, and all will be well. To understand why neither Palestinians nor Israelis find the two state solution acceptable, read Efraim Karsch's thought provoking article in the Middle East Quarterly
http://www.meforum.org/3831/palestinians-reject-statehood
Karsch argues that the Arab world, living under Ottoman rule, had never had an idea of statehood. They saw the world in Islamic terms, which demanded the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate.which included not only the Arab lands, but also Spain, perhaps even France. Palestine would be only a small sliver of this empire and the empire stretching right across Syria and Iraq, would not tolerate infidel minorities, certainly not as equal citizens with Muslims. The conflict, going back to the beginning of the British Mandate, is not about Jews and Arabs, but about a minority that is not Muslim setting up camp in the midst of this Islamic world. The current conflict in Syria and Iraq illustrates the Islamic idea of the tolerance of the Caliphate with beheadings, mass murder and annihilation of communities that don't conform. We have to reshape our dialogue in New Zealand, not accept buzz words such as 'occupation' 'two state solution' 'settlements' 'colonialism' but engage in the conversation on our terms, not on the terms of our enemies.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
War again in the bloodlands
Timothy Snyder described the territory between Hitler and Stalin, today's Poland Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states as Bloodlands. This vast stretch of lands is steeped in blood, in murder by starvation, by shooting, by gas, by slaughter of every kind. After sixty years of peace war returned to Ukraine. Reading the newspapers it is hard to work out what is going on. The story is that some ruffian rebels in Eastern Ukraine are waging war against the legitimate, and pro-Western, pro-EU and Nato peace loving Ukraine. They are backed by the evil spirit of Vladimir Putin. But this simple narrative is hardly the full story. Since the Orange Revolution ten years ago one corrupt Ukrainian government and head of state followed another. And because of inefficiency and kleptocracy Ukraine is broke. At least Russia under Putin has a stable if autocratic government, and is relatively prosperous. The ethnic divide in Ukraine goes back to the death by starvation of over three million Ukrainians under Stalin and the transfer of Ukrainians, some described as kulaks, to the east, to Siberia, while Russians were settled in their place to ensure that the land remained cultivated. Large industrial complexes were created, largely staffed by Russians. The recently established Ukrainian state grappled, unsatisfactorily, at integrating its Russian population. Perhaps this narrative is not the full story either. There is no doubt that underlying the tension, which has evolved now into a civil war, there is the economic conflict between the two economic power blocks, the EU and Russia, and perhaps beyond that, the opportunities for kleptocratic oligarchs to fleece the system. I wish my daily newspaper and weekly magazines would do more to inform me and enlighten me.
Timothy Snyder described the territory between Hitler and Stalin, today's Poland Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states as Bloodlands. This vast stretch of lands is steeped in blood, in murder by starvation, by shooting, by gas, by slaughter of every kind. After sixty years of peace war returned to Ukraine. Reading the newspapers it is hard to work out what is going on. The story is that some ruffian rebels in Eastern Ukraine are waging war against the legitimate, and pro-Western, pro-EU and Nato peace loving Ukraine. They are backed by the evil spirit of Vladimir Putin. But this simple narrative is hardly the full story. Since the Orange Revolution ten years ago one corrupt Ukrainian government and head of state followed another. And because of inefficiency and kleptocracy Ukraine is broke. At least Russia under Putin has a stable if autocratic government, and is relatively prosperous. The ethnic divide in Ukraine goes back to the death by starvation of over three million Ukrainians under Stalin and the transfer of Ukrainians, some described as kulaks, to the east, to Siberia, while Russians were settled in their place to ensure that the land remained cultivated. Large industrial complexes were created, largely staffed by Russians. The recently established Ukrainian state grappled, unsatisfactorily, at integrating its Russian population. Perhaps this narrative is not the full story either. There is no doubt that underlying the tension, which has evolved now into a civil war, there is the economic conflict between the two economic power blocks, the EU and Russia, and perhaps beyond that, the opportunities for kleptocratic oligarchs to fleece the system. I wish my daily newspaper and weekly magazines would do more to inform me and enlighten me.
Monday, September 1, 2014
To think that this happened in Ashburton
It was a story that could have come from Stephen King's fertile imagination, a man walks into an office, starts shooting, kills two people and wounds another. It was one of those macabre crimes that could not have been foreseen or prevented. Ashburton is a quiet prosperous country town, a by and large happy place. Russell John Tully was a misfit. Everybody tried to help him. He was on a benefit, a friend put him up for three months, Work and Income found him a place to stay at, he lasted for four days, they offered him accommodation in Timaru, not a very long way from Ashburton, but he insisted on staying in Ashburton, slept rough, and in the end picked up his gun a shot three of the staff in the Winz office. Tully was obsessed with a novel published more than twenty years ago The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, which was influenced by the book of Eric Berne, Games People Play, published fifty years ago. The Celestine Prophecy features nine insights, with a tenth yet to be revealed. Coincidences are not accidental, they are about the real purpose of life on this planet. How this cocktail of weird prophecies, disability and homelessness unhinged the mind Tully we will never know, but somehow he must have thought that he could resolve problems in his life with his gun. There must have been people in the community who knew that Tully had serious mental problems, Ashburton is a small closely knit community. It is almost certainly a caring community, yet there are situations when people are helpless. If you have an obvious injury, accident, or medical condition people know what to do, where to turn for help, but if there are weird things going on in your head it is hard to know what to do about it. This was a tragedy for the victims and a tragedy for the perpetrator, and a tragedy for the community that could do nothing to prevent a man obsessed with his delusions form committing murder.
It was a story that could have come from Stephen King's fertile imagination, a man walks into an office, starts shooting, kills two people and wounds another. It was one of those macabre crimes that could not have been foreseen or prevented. Ashburton is a quiet prosperous country town, a by and large happy place. Russell John Tully was a misfit. Everybody tried to help him. He was on a benefit, a friend put him up for three months, Work and Income found him a place to stay at, he lasted for four days, they offered him accommodation in Timaru, not a very long way from Ashburton, but he insisted on staying in Ashburton, slept rough, and in the end picked up his gun a shot three of the staff in the Winz office. Tully was obsessed with a novel published more than twenty years ago The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, which was influenced by the book of Eric Berne, Games People Play, published fifty years ago. The Celestine Prophecy features nine insights, with a tenth yet to be revealed. Coincidences are not accidental, they are about the real purpose of life on this planet. How this cocktail of weird prophecies, disability and homelessness unhinged the mind Tully we will never know, but somehow he must have thought that he could resolve problems in his life with his gun. There must have been people in the community who knew that Tully had serious mental problems, Ashburton is a small closely knit community. It is almost certainly a caring community, yet there are situations when people are helpless. If you have an obvious injury, accident, or medical condition people know what to do, where to turn for help, but if there are weird things going on in your head it is hard to know what to do about it. This was a tragedy for the victims and a tragedy for the perpetrator, and a tragedy for the community that could do nothing to prevent a man obsessed with his delusions form committing murder.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)