The mute dance of Time

Today marks the anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing on the shores of the New World.
On that day, that October 12th, the fate of millions - on both sides of the Atlantic - changed its course forever.

In less than an hour, this date itself will detach from the evergreen tree of the NOW and silently join the myriads of fallen leaves that we call history - the history that we know mostly by numbers, figures, ciphers, dried-up characters on paper.
The new day will mark another anniversary: the anniversary of my only brother's birth. It will be, once again, the anniversary of the momentous day that changed my world forever.

Even if you happen to suffer from triskaidekaphobia, this is one thirteenth-of-the-month when it should be safe to breathe easily.
Well, at least as far as astrologers are concerned.
They will tell you - making considerable fuss about it - that Jupiter is turning "direct" on October 13th.
(In case you're wondering: it wasn't "indirect" before - it was retrograde, i.e. moving "backwards". And that, of course, only apparently.)
It's supposed to be a considerable event - and a "good" one, too. In astrology, Jupiter is known as the "great benefactor", the planet that brings good luck and expansion and joy.

I hope it brings all of that - and more - to my brother, M.
May his heart and mind sing and dance to the music of the spheres, open to the light and warmth of genuine love - of everything that is good and beautiful and true.

And may he remember that he has a sister.

And may you who are now reading this remember the warmth, the innocent joy of hope, now long forgotten, that seemed unforgettable at the time.
It was more true than your - or their - forgetfulness ever will be.
It was living; oblivion is not.

An Experiment (please ignore the post)

A good friend of ours (whose posts we've borrowed on one or two occasions) was discussing certain political issues with us the other day, and she mentioned that one - just one - of the posts in her blog does not show through Google search even several YEARS after having been posted.

Is it really just a coincidence that the post contains thoughts that some overzealous watchdogs might consider "politically incorrect"?

Is it?

We'll see soon enough, I think.
Because we're reposting the post here, if only for a few weeks - long enough for Google to crawl over it.


P.S.
It worked - within minutes.
We still don't know why the original blog post is being ignored, though.

But that's not the main point of this post scriptum... A few minutes after posting this, the forget-me-not who really forgets not (like, anything!) said: "Say... isn't it May 29 today? The anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople!"

So it is.
And, believe it or not, it is a synchronicity.

Don't you just love it when that happens? ;)

"The Holy Wisdom has left the building"

In case anyone doubted it, the vocal (and in their patent irrationality almost touching) demonstrations by the Turks have now irrefutably demonstrated that their country - I mean Turkey, not any of the European countries hosting their emigrants - would indeed be an undesirable addition to the EU.

The Turks are bitter with "Europe" for expressing its concerns about Turkey as a candidate for the EU and for, shockingly, even pointing out Turkey's attitude towards its citizens of Kurdish nationality.

Furthermore, Turkey is opposed to the EU basing its frame of unity on Christianity as a value reference point. It doesn't really matter whether this is true or not. It's the underlying principle what matters.

Each and everyone of the current EU members is a secular state, with a well-defined constituional separation of Church and State. So is the EU, as a sum of its components as well as an autonomous structure.

So, what is there for the Turks to fear? If Turkey is really a secular state (not that Ata Turk's reforms were really all that beneficial for the country in the long run), why should it fear a political structure loosely - and nominally - based on values such as unconditional forgiveness and equal "charity" towards everyone?

I can only speculate what the answer could be. Islam would not have equal standing in the allegedly christocentric EU - right?

Wrong.
All religions - in fact, almost all cults (with very few notable exceptions) - have equal standing in the EU: that is, no real "standing" at all. (Which might be precisely the cause of many troubles this attitude was supposed to prevent - but more on that on some other occasion...)
If anything, non-Christian religions are more shielded than any of Europe's cultural and (especially) religious traditions.

A glance at the crowds on Istanbul's streets makes it obvious that Turkey's outrage (?!) at the Pope's announced visit to Istanbul, the ex-Constantinople, is indeed clearly based on religious grounds, denying the country's nominal secularity - and casting a sharp shadow of ridicule on its own claims against the alleged religious basis of the EU structure.

Furthermore, there's loud talk of reverting the "Aya Sofia" (a name phonetically adapted from the Greek Hagia Sophia, the 'Holy Wisdom'), which was made into a museum by Ata Turk, to its former role of mosque. Of course they fail to mention that it became a mosque only after the 1453 Turkish occupation of Constantinople; before that, since 637, when it was completed, it was a Christian church - in fact, the greatest and most revered one of all Christian churches.

They are only "making a point", of course. And that point should be taken by the EU; it should be taken very seriously.

Turkey would like to join the EU either

(a) for economic reasons only (and I am sorry to disappoint all of you, cynics, but merely economic allegiances never stand the test of time)

or

(b) with some other purpose in mind - and if so, you bet it isn't "multicultural coexistence".

I am somewhat saddened by the politically correct silence of the EU, although I wouldn't expect it to react in any other way. There is a huge elephant in the middle of the room, and nobody is speaking about it. When I was in school (not very many decades ago), we still knew and dared to mention that "elephant". I am not sure that today's school children do.

Let's mention the name of that historical monster: it's the Turkish invasions and bloody excursions into Europe.

There is enough material about them on the web - though not nearly enough to convey even half of the horror that they brought to the European population of the 15th, 16th and 17th century (and in certain parts of Europe even later).

I wish the textbook stories about the Turkish invasions were exaggerated; for a long time I thought they were.
Now I know history and so I know better: they weren't exaggerated. The impaling of babies and toddlers in front of their parents' eyes, the raping of women regardless of their age and condition (including those who had just given birth), the disappearance of thousands upon thousands of people, of entire villages, reduced to slavery or horrific death, are - much to my sadness - NOT a legend, not a lie, not even an exaggeration. They are the historical truth - a truth that my ancestors had to live with, day in and day out.

Is Europe entitled to reproach (not that it does) atrocities to Turkey, considering its own bloody past?

Yes, it is - precisely because of its own bloody past.

Europe has been chastised by its own wars and aggressions, and has learned from them. By acknowledging its own history, it has transcended it.

No such thing seems to have happened in Turkey. They have apparently not been chastised, not by themselves, not by anyone else. They have chosen to forget their subhuman war "tactics" (as well as the many defeats that the unarmed peasant and town populations had inflicted upon their great army by means of pure wit and self-preserving unity, before the Turks' final defeat in 1683).

They have chosen to forget all that; and no official voice from Europe has ever reminded them of those unpleasant facts.

I mention such "ancient" history because the Turks themselves have now, rather short-sightedly, chosen to poke into the embers of "ancient" history.


Furthermore, the Turks' apparent genocidal tendencies were horrifically confirmed by their effective genocide of Armenians as late as 1917. And they still are being confirmed to this day, by their treatment of the Kurdish people.

I can certanly understand that Europe fails to mention the Turkish invasions of the past centuries. It would be rather awkward to do so - even though the disingenuous, double-faced attitude of Turkey towards history would make it perfectly justifiable.

What we, the peoples of Europe, absolutely should not tolerate, by remaining silent, is the fact that the EU - and the USA - have failed to even properly acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915-17 and even before that. That is an unforgivable and intolerable distortion of history by omission, by silence.

As for the Kurds, God bless them, the Turks don't like to hear about them or, much less, about their treatment of them and other "minorities". That's not going to change.
Which means that "we" have to.
Or else, it means that we are going to condone genocide, past and present, and invite an unrepentant thug into our living room.

In my opinion, the EU should definitely change its official attitude towards Turkey.

I certainly changed mine.

If asked to vote for or against Turkey entering the EU, until a few weeks ago I would have abstained. In the name of honesty, impartiality and good will, I would have refrained from voting, for I really didn't know whether Turkey's joining the EU would be a good idea, either for the EU or for Turkey itself.

As from today, this EU citizen's vote in that matter would be a definite NO.

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