I had a Brexit dream...!

I went to bed Friday evening, post-Brexit, feeling deflated, as if I’d lost part of myself somewhere in that divisive referendum.  It was a hot night and as I tossed and turned trying to cede to sleep and failing dismally the same thoughts of doom and gloom kept going round and round in my head, riding a carousel of disaster called the Sinking British Ship, and with each tired revolution my eyes ached more and my heart sank lower.  “The young, the young! What about the young?” was the mournful cry lurching out of the sweaty darkness in a voice that grew weaker with every cry, as if the wailing vocal chords were being sliced through one at a time until they could be heard no more.

Three o’clock, then four, and still my heart sank until I felt the breeze on my face cooling me down.  I was moving, not fast at first, but it was me that was moving through the air I realised, not the air moving over me.  Perhaps I was on my bike.  It seemed plausible.  The rush of air over my face now was strong enough that I couldn’t hear anything else but the roar of wind resistance as I moved through the air at gathering speed.  I reached up and felt for my helmet but it wasn’t there!  Just to be sure I looked down at my feet expecting to see my cycling cleats locked into my machine but instead I saw nothing.

My feet were there; my legs too, as was the constant deafening rush of air filling my ears.  I was moving but I wasn’t on my bike.  I was flying and my feet were brushing clouds of nothingness as I looked around to see where I was to try and gain some perspective.  I seemed to be flying through sheer force of will.  I wanted to, so I was.  If I wanted more speed I just thought it and there it was; a sort of cerebraccelerator.  I wasn’t sure where I was but there was no sense of fear or panic.  There were trees below me now and rolling landscape over which I soared with no effort at all.

I became aware that I was asleep, finally lost in my dreams, the overbearing tiredness of earlier and the feelings of despair were no more; they had been blown away.  I had outstripped them through sheer speed.  I was flying, not like Superman by using my strength against the irresistible force of gravity, but by simply knowing that I could.  I was dreaming and I knew it and anything was possible.

I banked slightly to the right and as I slowed down I could discern what appeared to be towers with a shimmering globe rising above swirling mists.  Enjoying the free-flowing control my subconscious had given me over my movements I decided to investigate and as I came closer the mists lifted and flying buttresses abutting an imposing edifice reared up.  This was a place I knew by sight though I had never visited it in my waking hours.  

The Hagia Sofia is magnificent.  I had pawed over images of it a thousand times and knew it’s shape and contours well; now it seemed I was to know how it felt to stand under the great dome.  There was the glittering Bosphorus and to my left lay the Sea of Marmara, while directly below me sat Acropolis point, the very tip of the Golden Horn, and I spied the impressive barricade of the Theodosian wall lining the Horn like a huge, heavy necklace.  A gap in the wall indicated the Eugenius gate from where the Byzantines had strung the great chain intended to keep out the ships of the marauding Ottomans of Mehmet’s army during the great siege.  Now I knew not only where I was, but also when.  Straining my eyes I looked now to my right for the ends of Europe and the Genoese enclave of Galata but it seemed even my subconscious had limits and it was nowhere to be seen.

The Hagia Sofia, Istanbul

Without thinking about it I knew it was 1453, the year the crumbling Byzantine empire was put to the sword though as I fluttered down, flying just above the florid rooftops of indiscernible houses, I could see no signs of violence.  The sound of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer hung in the air like a mystical magnet pulling me down to earth.

I landed softly unaware whether I was invisible or just another man among the many.  I was somehow beneath the great dome now, the huge, graceful columns and porticoed galleries soared above me, giant discs of azur blue wrought with gold calligraphy detailing Koranic verses hung conspicuously from the first gallery like incongruous badges on a Janissary’s chest.  All around me men in traditional Arab garb were talking in small groups in guttural tones that were incoherent to me.  I remember wondering at the time if they were truly speaking Arabic or just some hotch-potch of my imagination.

I walked around, apparently unnoticed, peering into the dark corners of my subconscious, as if I were testing the depths of my fantasy.  I wasn’t sure what, or who I was looking for, but I looked nonetheless and then sitting cross-legged in a dank recess sat a young man whose eye caught mine.  His face was partially hidden beneath a cowl and it was dark but there remained something familiar, yet oddly distant in his look.  I think I did a double take, aware for the first time that someone was looking back at me and as our eyes met again his features suddenly became clear.  I smiled.  I think I’d been looking for Mehmet, but maybe I had no clear image in my head of what he may look like, so instead I found Percy Jackson!

He gave me a conspiratorial grin then from beneath his cloak he pulled out a magic wand and holding it aloft he began chanting what I presumed to be a spell of some sort!

Percy Jackson! How did he get in my head?

But hang on a minute!  Even in my dream state I knew something wasn’t right.  Harry Potter has a wand, not Percy Jackson, but try as I might I couldn’t remember what he had in it’s stead.  Then a bolt of light shot from the wand and I followed it up high above my head.  The domes and porticos had disappeared; so it seemed had the Hagia Sofia, because the beam of light was swallowed up by a woody canopy of giant trees that threw great fingers of timber across a night sky hundreds of feet above my head.

I looked about me wondering where all the Turks had gone and how I had missed sundown.  Percy stood up and as he did men in black uniforms flew down out of the darkness on magic carpets, bren guns slung over their shoulders.  I was having a great time and I think I began to laugh just as Percy bundled me over and the metallic ricochet of bullets sprayed all around me.  Percy raised his wand again and another bolt of light shot out as one of the men on carpets vapourised, his machine gun falling at my feet.

I picked it up fully aware that I’d never held a gun of any description before, but it all seemed quite natural and far from being scared I think I was exhilarated.  I fired, standing shoulder to shoulder with Percy Jackson as the black uniformed men, who I had assumed by now were bent with an evil intent, dropped like flies all about us.  

All of a sudden I was aloft again, but this time riding high on some sort of flying banana boat.  Percy was sitting in front of me, looking back over his shoulder and beaming like a Cheshire cat.  I wanted to ask who those men were but before I had a chance he told me, “Right wingers!” he said, “Bloody Nazi’s!”

“Shit!” I said. “And who’s that?” I asked as I pointed to some more flighty figures zooming out of the sunlight above us.  It was apparently daytime again and my dream was moving apace.  

“I’m not sure!” said Percy, “Perhaps they’re Eurosceptics?”

“Brexiteers?” I asked.

“Think so!  Have they got weapons?”

“No, no!  I think they’re waving ballot papers!”

“Shit!  I’m out!”  And with that he faded away into the backwaters of my mind, leaving me alone on my flying sausage wondering where the hell I was headed.  Paper planes made out of referendum ballot papers whizzed past my ears and around my head, sucking me down into a vortex of despair as I fell from the skies in a tempest of ‘remain’ votes that no longer flew.

Sunny boy!

A gentle humming awoke me!  My face was wet and my chest heavy.  Sunny, my lovely pusscat was sitting across my neck, a living, breathing stole, and he was purring, hungry and licking my face!

“Sunny!  You want brekky boy?”  

He purred his agreement.  I got up, yawning, still tired and knowing full well I hardly slept.  The sun was just coming up, poking its’ orange brow above the horizon and as I set the kettle to boil I pondered the meaning or significance of my dream as Sunny gulped his fishy breakfast greedily at my feet.  

Moral turpitude on the Jewish-Palestinian dilemma within the Labour Party.

In today's Guardian Jonathan Freedland discusses very eloquently whether the Labour Party under our Jezza have gone soft on antisemitism after comments from Labour Party members were allowed to pass unchecked by the party hierarchy, and he suggests that current anti-Jewish feelings are being further inflamed by recent developments in the long-standing Israel-Palestinian conflict.  He goes onto suggest that Britain (and other European) colonial powers are historically culpable for much of the current tensions in the region and in taking the moral high ground (as witnessed by the comments of Downing & Kirby) we are basically on very shaky and dangerous ground.

I couldn't agree more.  I have said time and again that in spite of the recent history of this particular conflict, which incidentally has been ongoing in one form or another since the late 19th century if not before, that Britain, France and the post-War powers are largely culpable and liable for the present chaos we see in the region as a whole and (I believe) need to hold their hands up and take greater responsibility for the ongoing mess that we see on our TV's on a daily basis.

The problem is not just one of Jews against Arabs (including the Palestinians) or vice versa, because it all goes much, much deeper than that.  Historically of course the Jewish people had always lacked a homeland, though their spiritual home had always been the regions of the Middle-Eastern Levante.  Perhaps inevitably, rampant antisemitism through the ages and the lack of a place to call home, had to lead in the end to the idea of Zionism as originally championed by Rabbi Sholomo Alkalai in his 1834 booklet Shema Yisrael, where he called for the establishment of Jewish colonies in (what was then) Palestine.  The first Aliyah* began within a generation (1882-1902), but it wasn't really till after the beginning of the second Aliyah in 1904 that Arab resistance to the Jewish settlements in Palestine really took hold.

In 1917 the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, in a letter to Lord Rothschild, gave the first official acknowledgement of the need to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  This led to an agreement at the Paris Peace Conference at the end of WW1 to grant the British a mandate in Palestine to establish a Jewish homeland based on the so-called Balfour Agreement.  However, during the 1920's Arab resistance to continued Jewish immigration into Palestine led the British High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel (himself a Jew) and Head of the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill, to attempt to establish a Palestinian Constitution which would include all secular and non-secular factions of the Arabs, Christians and Jews, who would have been a minority on the legislative Council (Jews only accounted for ~11% of the total population at the time) but who had, nevertheless, agreed to the Constitution because the Balfour Agreement was enshrined within it.  The Palestinian Arabs objected to some of the wording in the so-called 'Churchill White Paper' which they deemed to be pro-Zionist taking exception to phrases such as 'Palestine (was destined to become) as Jewish as England is English' and they rejected the Constitution under this basis and once again the establishment of the Jewish homeland came into doubt.

Jewish immigration into Palestine continued during the 20's and 30's leading to increasing tension and dissatisfaction on both sides with the Palestinian Arabs fearing that their population, culture and language would eventually become subordinate, or perhaps even disappear altogether, beneath the British-backed Jewish demands and claims.  The growing disenfranchisement of the Palestinians was increased by the lack of a unified Arab response to continued Jewish immigration into Palestine and by what they saw as complicit British involvement in the loss of their land, jobs and livelihoods.  Incidents such as the 'wailing wall' crisis in 1929 and continued civil unrest on both sides led to the establishment of a Royal Commission in 1936 under Lord Peel that, amongst other things, stated that the interests of the Jews and Palestinian Arabs were in fact 'inherently reconcilable' and included the first proposals for a partitioning of Palestine into Jewish and Arab cantons that would be run more or less autonomously, but would remain under the overall control of a Mandatory Authority.

However, even as Arab leaders rejected the proposals, countering with their own Mandate, events in Europe and elsewhere around the globe started to take precedence over the growing unrest in the region.  Despite this the British pushed ahead with their new proposals and issued a new White Paper in 1939 which stated their continued intent for the establishment of a Jewish homeland.

Throughout WW2 the Jewish cause gained momentum, whether spurred on by feelings of gross sympathy, horror or guilt, the international community rallied behind the tragic remnants of the European Jewry and calls for a Jewish homeland, whilst in contrast Arab unity and backing for the plight of the Palestinians Arabs faded until the eventual declaration of the establishment of Israel on 14th May 1948, when finally a United Arab force (of Jordanians, Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese & others) occupied the territories destined for the Palestinians under the new partition plan.  But it was too little too late for the Palestinians who have basically been on the back foot ever since.

The subsequent Colonial divisions of the region among the 'old boy' network compounded the problems and certainly led to many of the religious, cultural and social divides that plague the Middle East today.  The short-sightedness and selfish interests of Britain, France and the other powers in dividing up the region as they saw fit for their purposes, and not those of the resident populations have, in my opinion led to much, if not all, of the current troubles that plague us all today.

In my head I can't believe that such short-term political gains (for the Colonial powers) were placed above the long-term welfare and stability of the region as a whole.  Decisions made in haste after WW2 are now being repented by those of us that bear witness to the almost daily horrors and atrocities committed under the name of one God or another in the Middle East and around the globe.

I believe that every human being should be allowed the chance to live their life as they see fit; that each individual should be able to worship whatever God they choose to worship without fear of reprisal or repercussions for doing so.  I make no excuses for Israel.  Their abhorrent treatment of the Palestinians as less than human more than mirrors their own vile experiences under the Nazi's, and they should know better and they should be ashamed.  But don't make the mistake of thinking that all Israeli's feel the same because they don't.  One only has read much of the online press from Israel to see the futility of that argument.

The only way, I believe, to save the region from falling into complete chaos (which could eventually consume us all) is to give each and every ethnic group it's own economically viable homeland, be they Jewish, Palestinian, Kurdish, Shia, Sunni, Christian or otherwise.  And as part of this radical solution I would also allow those who wish to live under Muslim Sharia Law (including those of ISIS - once they have been disarmed) to do so because in my world everyone should have a chance for a full and happy life.

But we live in the real world and not the peace-loving Nirvana of my dreams.  Antisemitism has been around for a lot longer than the Labour Party and shows no sign of dissipating in the near future.  The fact that some small-minded individuals, with small-minded ideas, have wormed their way into positions of relative power is nothing new; it's sad, but not new.  Donald Trump is just such a case to point!  And as to whether Jezza does anything about these people is a matter (I would argue) for his own conscience, as are our own views on the Jewish-Palestinian question and one can only hope that each one of us is morally strong enough to stand up for whatever we believe in.  And I can only hope that your view, whatever it might be, is made with an open, and not a closed mind, and a loving heart that decries oppression in all it's forms, wherever and whenever they may occur.



* Aliyah is the term used for the waves of Zionist immigration into Palestine