Federal Judiciary

A dating game, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

The Associated Press tells us that, ?for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Egyptian fruit sellers have named their best dates of the year after President Barack Obama in a sweet tribute to the American leader for his outreach to the Muslim world.? The article further explains that, ?in Egypt, shops have created a new tradition of naming their best and worst dates to catch attention and boost sales -- giving a little reflection of the political mood.?

We then read, ?Obama?s vault to the top of the Egyptian date-scale comes after he delivered a landmark address in Cairo in June, saying he wants to improve American ties with Muslims around the world. Those ties were deeply strained under his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was widely resented in the Arab world -- and whose name was given to the worst quality dates in Egypt in past Ramadans.? (For the full article, go here.)

Yes, yes, of course. In Cairo, Obama told Egyptians and others a great deal of what they wanted to hear. He confirmed them in their suspicions and grievances -- suspicions and grievances that have long held the Arab world back. For example, he said, or implied, that the West permitted Israel to come into being out of guilt over the Holocaust. (Arabs then ask, ?Why should Arabs have to pay the price??)

President Bush, on the contrary, was given to telling people what they did not necessarily want to hear, but what was right and important to hear: about women?s rights, human rights more broadly, terrorism, economic freedom, and so on. He did this in Egypt last year, at Sharm El Sheikh: and got a fantastically frosty, even hostile, reception. I wrote about that event for National Review, here.

I would much rather stand with Bush and the bad dates than with Obama and the best ones -- and the truth is, many Arabs and Muslims would to. I know a number of them, and they are invaluable. Many Middle Easterners appreciate Bush and his kind for the truth-telling they do (not to mention their knocking off of dictators). Some of the most touching compliments David Pryce-Jones has ever received have come from Arabs who tell him, ?Why do you care so much about us that you should write so honestly?? Bernard Lewis has received similar compliments.

The likes of these men are the ones who, in the end, will be honored and thanked.

So, Desmond Tutu has been in the Middle East, and what does he say? He says that Palestinians are ?paying penance? for the Holocaust -- and it?s not right, of course, that they should pay penance: as the Holocaust was a European crime. Funny, that?s just what Arab radicals say! Thanks a lot, bishop, or archbishop, or whatever you are now. What a wonderful service to historical truth and prospective peace.

Tutu also said, ?The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls, and guns.?

Hear him: That is the lesson Jews must learn from the Holocaust. Did you know that was the lesson? Well, you haven?t been listening to his Ever-Wise Eminence. He won the Nobel Peace Prize, you know.

Speaking of peace laureates, I wrote about Mohamed ElBaradei last Thursday. And a reader sent me an interesting nugget that I had missed. ElBaradei, as you know, is the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (outgoing, thankfully), and he is reluctant to spill the beans on Iran. Why? Because the United States and Israel might take this information and act.

In 2007, he told the BBC -- a perfect outlet for him! -- ?I wake every morning and see 100 Iraqis, innocent civilians, are dying. I have no brief other than to make sure we don?t go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say, ?Let?s go and bomb Iran.?? You do not want to give additional argument. In other words, you do not want to do your job.

The IAEA is supposed to be the U.N.?s ?nuclear watchdog.? Some call it the ?nuclear watchpuppy.?

I was talking about ElBaradei to a colleague the other day -- noting that he was scared the U.S. or Israel might act on Iran. My colleague remarked, not with pleasure, ?There?s no chance the United States will act.? I suppose that?s true.

Above, we heard from Desmond Tutu, about the lesson of the Holocaust. Regular readers may know one of my favorite stories (?favorite? in kind of a gruesome way): A survivor of Auschwitz is asked what is the most important lesson he has learned in the last few years. He says, ?When someone says he wants to kill you, believe him.? That is a lesson Israel must ponder with respect to Iran.

From time to time -- too often, I?m sure -- I write about my dear hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. And I often hear from readers about Ann Arbor. Someone sent me a Michigan Tourism ad about the place -- an ad that is positively puke-making, but perfectly in line with Ann Arbor?s self-image. The ad goes,

They used to call it being stubborn: to refuse to follow the crowd. [Ann Arbor is, in large measure, about following the crowd! Hewing to the herd.] In a world that tries so hard to look and feel like everything else, there is a place that knows exactly who it is: Ann Arbor. A place that embraces the unique and the unusual [not a diversity of political views!], a place where trying tastes we?ve never heard of is always on the menu, where we can watch the rich pageantry of life from the balcony of a performance hall or from a corner table of a sidewalk café [sidewalks have corners?], where the art challenges the mind as much as it engages the eyes [oh, double-puke], where the conversation is always as passionate as the people . . .

. . . blah, blah, blah. Yup, that?s Ann Arbor, all right: in love with itself, blind to its conformity, pretensions, and narrowness. Perfect, that ad, just perfect.

A little language? I heard a phrase recently I like a lot -- it comes from John Steele Gordon, writing on Commentary?s blog, Contentions. He said, ?Barack Obama . . . gives the strong impression that his religion is strictly of the photo-op variety, assumed for political purposes, and that he worships not at an altar but at a mirror.? To worship at the mirror: That?s perfect, too. (Another favorite expression of mine -- I think I learned it from my uncle -- is, ?He?ll die in his own arms.?)

Also in last Thursday?s Impromptus, I mentioned a touching encounter I had with an immigrant -- very touching. (He was saying it thrilled him about America that we had ?In God We Trust? on our money -- a motto and placement I have heard mocked all my life.) This inspired some mail about immigrants. One reader wrote, 

Greetings, Mr. Nordlinger,

Sometime in the early ?80s, I was working in a tech department composed of native-born citizens plus one Cambodian refugee. There also happened to be unrest in the department over some issue -- none of us can remember exactly what -- and everyone except our Cambodian colleague was angry. On the contrary, he seemed to be happy. One day, we finally asked him why he wasn?t upset, and his response? ?It?s better than Communism.? Needless to say, this immediately deflated our indignation.

I occasionally connect with my colleagues from that period and every one of them still remembers that comment.

Marvelous.

In last Wednesday?s Impromptus, I happened to mention Jewish humor, and this, too, brought a fair amount of mail, as readers wanted to offer samples. There was one I hadn?t heard -- it directly hit my funny bone: A group of Jewish mothers was having lunch. The waiter came over and said, ?Is anything okay??

I also liked this: Mordy the haberdasher was struck by a car. A friend who witnessed the accident ran up and placed his rolled-up coat under Mordy?s head to ease the pain. He said, ?Mordy, Mordy, are you comfortable?? Mordy replied, ?Oh, I make a living.?

In previous Impromptus -- Impromptuses? -- I scribbled some Salzburg items. Want a couple more? There are always politics -- there is always politics? -- at the Salzburg Festival, and this year was no exception. (I hate that cliché: ?this year was no exception.? Oh, well.) I have a piece on Salzburg in the current National Review. There is just a dose of politics in it. I mention that, last year, the festival?s artistic director did a public reading with Vanessa Redgrave. Of what? Of poems written by those lovelies in Guantanamo Bay. (I?m not talking about the guards.) The year before that, Salzburg managed to turn Der Freischütz -- Weber?s (Christian) opera from 1821 -- into an ugly, nasty anti-American spectacle.

This year? Well, we had Daniel Barenboim there, and, as I say in my NR piece, he brought his general Barenboimness. He conducted the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the group he founded with his dear friend, the late Edward Said. The group is composed of Arab and Israeli players. It?s a Seeds of Peace type of thing, at least in impulse, I believe. Barenboim conducted the orchestra -- and a cast of singers, of course -- in performances of Fidelio. These performances were intended as an homage to Said. In fact, Barenboim used the ?Said Fidelio?: a version in which remarks are inserted into the opera -- remarks written by Said.

And the audience had a note tucked into its printed program. The note was a kind of manifesto, including such statements as, ?Palestinians must be granted the same freedom and independence that Israelis have had since 1948.? Yeah? They could have had the same freedom and independence in 1948, and every year thereafter. Whose fault is it that they do not?

There was also an opera, or quasi-opera, by Luigi Nono: Al gran sole carico d?amore (In the Bright Sunshine, Charged with Love). Nono was an Italian composer who lived from 1924 to 1990. He wrote Al gran sole in the mid-1970s, when he was a member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party. You remember the old ?theater of consciousness?? (If not, lucky you.) This is an example of it. The work is kind of a reflection on, and love letter to, Communism. Salzburg touted the production with a line from Che Guevara: ?Beauty is not opposed to revolution.?

Funny how that proves not to be true -- when revolution is of the Guevara kind. If there is any beauty in the Cuban gulag -- which Guevara set up -- it is not because of Guevara or Communist revolution.

And I had a thought about Nono and the boys -- Communists and fellow travelers, people such as Nono?s countrymen Maurizio Pollini (the pianist) and Claudio Abbado (the conductor). They love their cocktail Communism, and they flit down to see their pals Castro, Chávez, et al. But they choose to live and work in . . . free, democratic countries. Not Communist ones. I?m sure that Cuba, North Korea, and other such paradises would love to have them: but no.

A final word -- I say it in my NR piece. Salzburg literature called Luigi Nono ?certainly the most important Italian composer of the past century.? And I thought, ?Wichita, Kansas, time.? What did I mean? You remember: Garry Wills, in his introduction to that whopping lie of a book, Scoundrel Time, the memoir by Lillian Hellman, called the old scoundrel ?the greatest American woman playwright? -- or ?the greatest American living woman playwright.? I can?t quite remember. And WFB said (I paraphrase), ?Maybe -- but isn?t that on the order of celebrating the tallest building in Wichita, Kansas??

Italian composition hasn?t been what it once was! (In fairness, music in most other countries hasn?t exactly shone either.) Oh, hang on, I have another story to tell -- or another statement to cite. I?m going from memory -- a couple details may be wrong. (Stringent journalism, I know.)

The Metropolitan Opera was on tour in Europe. They did The Barber of Seville one night in Paris. The next day, Roberta Peters was skewered by the local critics. The Met?s GM, Rudolf Bing, told a press conference, ?Miss Peters had a bad night. The Paris Opera has had a bad century? (which was true).

One more thing? Final final? Whenever I write about Luigi Nono -- which isn?t often, granted -- I want to use the headline, or quip, ?Nono, Nanette.? But I can never quite work it out.

See you!

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on September 02, 2009 (boomark / email).