The Disturbers of Our Harmony ***

The message is still the same though a little stronger.

Names not needed.

In spite of the embarrassment of having Boris-on-Speed leading the U.K. Government, and with an Excessively Positive, not to say Reckless Can-Do Outlook, [untethered to reality, as I read in the New Statesman] I am nonetheless unable to resist an anti-Trump rant. Each successive tweet from, or microphone opportunity for, the Keep America White Man-in-the-White-House, is SO disturbing and increasingly frightening, that silence is near impossible.

This outburst has been triggered by my hearing part of an Anthony Scaramucci interview on

Anthony Scaramucci.

BBC Radio 4 just now. Scaramucci was appointed as Communications Director by Trump in his first year, and lasted in the job about two weeks. For the following two years or so, unemployed by Donald but vilified by him, he continued to praise and defend his President. But suddenly, now, the scales seem to have fallen from his eyes as he has acknowledged that the real working class, Trump’s main power base, is not being respected or served well by him. Scaramucci is a Harvard-educated lawyer who has built up two businesses, the typical American dream for a boy born into a poor working class family. He represents some of the best of American achievements and the possibilities it has always, hitherto, afforded its incomers, immigrants and its poor.

 Republican Congressman Elijah Cummings

Trump’s white nationalist rhetoric is distasteful: “good people on both sides”, of the Charlottesville riots; the four young women Democratic lawmakers should ‘go back to help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came” [the eternal racist shout]; the Baltimore onslaught, and attack on Republican Congressman Elijah Cummings; and now the re-tweet suggesting that Bill Clinton was involved in the murder of Jeffrey Epstein. [AND, astonishingly, the quick White House defence of Trump’s defamatory re-tweet]. His earlier rants about Obama’s birth certificate; his unfounded allegation that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hilary Clinton; his constant refrain that Mexicans were invading America and were murderers and rapists [and his consequent imprisoning of unaccompanied children at the border]; his strong assertion that Russia didn’t interfere in the 2017 Presidential election [despite ample proof that it did, obtained by U.S. Intelligence] …. all seem to be a foundation for his increasingly paranoid remarks. But paranoia is being turned into policy according to CNN!

 Trump campaign trail crowd.

 In the 2016 election, 53% of white women
voted for Trump.

What does seem amazing and unbelievable is that he has a 44% approval rating and this has not slipped at all over his presidency. His support is, in the main, from far right and right-leaning white nationalists,
evangelists, racists and the working class, or the non-college-educated, as the Americans describe them. But what I find impossible to believe is that these large groups don’t mind, are willing to tolerate, or don’t notice, his painful degradation of American public life, the gradual shift in public discourse from caring and sharing, to excluding and denigrating. Do they not notice the ridicule, distrust and dismissal routinely directed now at America from

 Bewildered, lone toddler at Mexican/U.S.
border.

and in, the rest of the world? And our amazement should also be directed at the Republican Party; at how very little criticism of Trump has been voiced by Republican Senators and Congressional representatives as they have fallen into line. The silence over his various embarrassing and destructive racist pronouncements, attempted unsuitable State appointments and abortive efforts at changes in the law designed to complicate and hurt millions of small lives, has been deafening. His pugnacious relationship now with China which is inexorably developing into a trade war, will hurt American businesses in agriculture in particular, and increase the cost of living, potentially for millions who can least afford it.

But Trump didn't cause the bitter split in America between two huge groups though he has grossly exaggerated it; the far right is similarly, though less successfully active and popular in many countries; France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Brazil, India, U.K. I read an interesting slant in The Times in July which suggested some critics saw Trump as a semi-literate halfwit totally lacking a reasonably sophisticated cognitive capability. Others had a darker view; they saw him as inarticulate, yes, but also as a manipulative and cynical demagogue, ... callously exploiting his supporters' ignorance to foster racial animus, intolerance and bigotry to further an autocratic right-wing agenda."  The title of the opinion piece [The Times. July 20 2019] is "Trump is riding a powerful wave of white resentment" but the article suggests that while white resentment has long been a vote-winner in America, outright appeals to, and encouragement of, overt racism have been relatively rare. 

The Pew Research Centre this year found support for Trump
at 69% among white evangelical Christians.

*** The Disturbers of Our Harmony.[Title]

From the original draft by Thomas Jefferson of the Declaration of Independence. The expression is contained in the section detailing the long list of King George's faults in his appalling treatment of Britain's largest colony, America, but the expression refers generally to the British. It seems now an apt but restrained epithet to describe the Trump Effect.

Signing of The Declaration of Independence 1776
Painted by John Trumbull 1819

Authored by many, over a period of months, the actual
Declaration of Independence was more of a final draft.

Making Your Mark

 There has been a plethora of “cultural summer happenings” in Brugge this yeat. There is so much

 Feest in 't Park 2019

going on with a stream of free outdoor concerts like those during Moods; the trippeldagen of concerts to mark National Day on July 21 in the Burg; Feest in ‘t Park in Minnewater; Klinkende in different pubs; Cactusfestival again in Minnewater. And now the MA Festival [Musica Antiqua] is drawing to a close after many [not free] concerts in the Concertgebouw and churches, plus a Fringe to give

 Benenwerk 2019

opportunities to young musicians, and an International Competition featuring a three year cycle of organ; vocal and baroque ensembles; and harpsichord and other historical keyboard instruments. Did I remember to mention Dancing in the Vismarkt on Saturdays and Sundays? And the series of Carillon concerts throughout the summer months on Monday and Wednesday evenings. And of course, tomorrow, August 10th, there is Benenwerk, with different styles of dancing available at no cost, at different locations in the Egg, all free I believe
when Brugge will be even more full of visitors than usual!. These musical events, catering to a range of tastes, add a carapace of light-hearted spontaneity to the atmosphere here, mingling, as they do, in harmony with the church and convent bells and the usual carillon overtures, alongside the wonderful punctuation of horses’ hooves on cobbles. All while I try to ignore the  ten year low for sterling in exchange with the euro!

 Africa/Asia Reading Room, British Library

I recently received a welcome email from an American friend briefly describing a marvellous exhibition at the British Library entitled Writing: Making Your Mark. So enthused was I that I have delved into the British Library website to discover more and found what sounds to be treasure.

Babylonian stela from Mesopotamia, Iraq
Marduk Temple, 900-800 BCE.

Michael Erdman, one of the show’s curators, explains that the Library, in the age of the Internet when people might think that writing is becoming unnecessary, wanted to introduce to people what writing can be, can involve. He defines writing as any graphical representation of speech and the exhibition begins with the origins of writing [one of mankind’s greatest achievements] in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and the Americas and then traces the evolution of writing through technology and innovation with examples from over 30 different writing systems including Greek, Chinese and Arabic. Earliest items include a Mayan limestone stela from 647 A.D. Mayan writing
consisted of logograms [signs representing whole words; for example, a jaguar’s head signifying a jaguar] and syllabograms, [signs representing syllables; ka +ka +u =cacao] A later example is intriguing; from a wealthy but illiterate landowner from Ravenna, who used a symbol similar to a star inside a large wheel to sign a nine foot long papyrus deed for property/land sale and purchase.

 Caxton and his first book printed in England,
The Canterbury Tales.
Caxton lived for many years in the Woensdagmarkt/
Spiegelrei area here in Brugge.

Highlights of the exhibition include Scott of the Antarctic’s final diary entry; an 1800 year old wax tablet containing a schoolchild’s homework as he struggles to learn his Greek letters; Caxton’s first book printed in England, The Canterbury Tales; and a 60,000 strong petition from 1905 protesting against the first partition of Bengal and signed in both Bengali and English. And there is more! Mozart’s hand-written catalogue of his complete musical works from 1784-1791 featuring musical notation also. Plus Alexander Fleming’s notebook recording his discovery of penicillin from 1928.

Last entry, Scott's diary found after his
death, 1912.

For anyone reading this and living within reach of the British Library, the advice is to seek out this exhibition before August 26th!

Meanwhile, I love the words of Adrian Edwards, lead curator of the exhibition:

From hieroglyph to emoji and clay tablet to digital, Writing: Making Your Mark will demonstrate how writing is so much more than words on the page – it is how we communicate across time and space, how we express ourselves, and how we lay down our collective memory. We hope that visitors will consider their own relationship with writing in the digital age and reflect on whether we will abandon pens and keyboards in favour of voice-activated machine writing and video messaging, or continue to carry the legacy of ancient times with us.

 Last entries in Mozart's hand-written catalogue of his complete works
showing The Magic Flute and La Clemenza di Tito.
Begun Feb 9, 1784; completed at Mozart's death in 1791.

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