Welcom to UKIPIA - The UKIP Caliphate

I am coming to a gradual understanding of what the much discussed "caliphate" is.  It is roughly speaking a Utopian idea - the Golden Age returned to earth - when everything will be organised according to God's law and justice and peace will "return" (surely some mistake?) to the world.

This is of course, like all utopias, a marvellous idea (unless you examine some of the tenets of sharia law).  However, there have already been a number of caliphates, ruled by various caliphs, from the earliest days.  The first one lasted 30 years and ended in civil war.   Subsequent ones were the Ummayad one - which seems to have been reasonable - but also coincided with massive territorial expansion - to allow the infidel to share the delights of the caliphate!    More recently that horrendous breed of men, the Ottoman sultans, claimed the caliphate.  I doubt whether anyone could dispassionately judge Ottoman Turkey to be a society overflowing with peace and justice - the royal family itself was riven with hideous cruelty - how could they be the perfect divinely ordained rulers?

A caliph... perhaps the first one, Abu Bakr Siddique?

When ISIS proclaimed a caliphate, it was very far from the ideal.  The Koran has some harsh verses in it (as does virtually any religious text) but nothing that advocates the sort of behaviour they are indulging in.

So - perhaps a caliphate is better seen as an idealised version of a sharia state that will never come to pass. This is where UKIP comes in.   When I hear their nostalgic chat about what the UK should be like, I wonder if they too have a sort of utopian ideal of the UK, where everyone is English and happy, smiling and cheerful (this would make a change from the UKIP supporters, who tend towards the snarling, grumbling end of the spectrum - but perhaps that would all change in UKIPIA).    As well as there being no, or very few foreigners (wives and concubines of leading party members would be permitted to remain - as long as they continued to please these potentates) we would be living on English produce from our own fields, and having our own nuclear energy (instead of having to buy it from the detestable French), and we would be able to enslave people, and remove any of their human rights we chose to.  There wouldn't be much tax, but there wouldn't be any services any way - everything would have to be paid for.  Women wouldn't work, unless they were very old and unlikely to require maternity leave.   Education would be optional after 12 and useful apprenticeships in mining and the chimney sweeping sector would become widely available.  The sea would gradually become disgustingly polluted, because we would have opted out of oppressive EU water purity standards, there would be a great deal of other pollution, as smoking in public places would be encouraged again.

Homesexuals would be "discouraged" - and would find themselves spending more time indoors, if not actually in the closet, since there would be few penalties for those who harmed them. Economically UKIPIA would be a bit of a mess as we would be losing a great many of our export markets.  We would not have the income to import foreign goods - especially foodstuffs, which would gradually become more expensive.  Luxury goods have become more expensive, due to the taxes on them - which doesn't worry ordinary people at first - until the definition of "luxury" is extended to include cat litter, deodorant and lavatory paper. The sales of skin whiteners that had gone through the roof as people attempted to diminish their ethnicity, now floundering as they too are taxed at luxury rates.

It becomes more apparent that the senior party members are living a rather more luxurious lifestyle than ordinary people - and although most of them are not career politicians, but also run small businesses of their own, still there is talk of UKIP MPs cheating on expenses.   Nevertheless, election publicity shows happy smiling faces, and even fat people (most of whom have disappeared since biscuits, cakes, fish and chips and Diet Coke were declared a "luxury good" and attracted the top rate of tax.

This is just off the top of my head of course, further research in the UKIP manifesto will no doubt reveal more.   Meanwhile - remember, only 13% of the population are immigrants (it's probably only 5% in Thanet)... .  The fact is, their fantasy British caliphate, will emerge just as unjust and cruel as any other similar regime... I just hope that UKIPIA will remain a fantasy for a very long time.

The important thing to remember about the word Utopia is that it is concocted from the Greek ou topos - No Place!  

Karma

I just heard a really interesting Radio 4 programme about Karma - an episode of the "Beyond Belief" series, which will no doubt be available on BBC iplayer for a week.

One of the thousand myriads of things that annoy me about life is the sort of casual "buddhism" that people go in for - and repeated references to karma are part of this.  I know it's just shorthand - but thinking about it a little more it appears that the doctrine of karma is quite an easy-going one: when something bad happens, you can say "it's just bad karma" and write it off.  Superficially it sounds great, because if it's "karma" it isn't your fault - not your responsibility.  Of course, karma is precisely that - if bad stuff happens to you, you must have been doing bad stuff to others.  So think before you blame karma: you're actually saying "I am a bad person!"   Cheap karma does not take this into account.

Unsubtle - but sums up the argument nicely.

Unfashionable Christianity has a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility - we are (as in other religions) abjured to "do unto others as ye would be done unto" and when we don't, then it's our fault.   Judaism was pretty realistic about the cause and effect of life... although the general idea is that if you walk along righteously with God he will reward you with prosperity - there are also plenty of laments about the wicked man flourishing "like a green bay tree" - and the generally unfairness that the ungodly often get off scot-free. The idea that our virtue will be rewarded has been carried over into Christianity - but it's a really ancient principle - do ut des (I give so that you will give) that has ruled religious practice since foreever...  A more sophisticated, karma free response to what happens in one's life, is to understand that there are random elements, shit happens, and however virtuous you are maybe your life won't be totally fully of "good luck", prosperity and everything else.

So cheap karma, is rather like evolution - an idea for the non-religious, who want an easy belief that absolves them from blame... "can't help rape and war - that's just how humanity evolved".  It is a form of moral laziness - and as I write these words I fear I may be repeating myself - I've written this before somewhere.

Wiping the karmic slate clean

One rather appealing idea was that when you suffer tremendously over a long period, this is to pay off various evil deeds you may have committed in the past.  You are then enabled to start afresh.  This can be adapted on a national level: when Mongolia finally became independent from the USSR there was a lot of moaning and grumbling about their years of servitude under Russia.  The Minister of Enlightenment - in conjunction with the religious establishment - said that they had had to go through it all to expiate the bad karma of having slaughtered and overrun so much of the population of Central Asia - twice.   Perhaps Britain's travails are the result of a karmic response to the Empire! (I jest).

So of course, I could take the view that my trials and tribulations of the last few years are a working out of some terrible karma (all the people I hurt when younger?) and that now I am able to start anew.... this view would no doubt be supported by Vedic astrology - yes, chums, Rahu and Ketu are out to destroy you!

Rahu and Ketu - the nodes of the Moon - Cosmic snakes - which need not concern us unduly

However, there is one problem with all this.  I don't actually, when I examine it, believe in karma... it would be nice to think that all wicked people get their comeuppances - and indeed the last few years have been a glorious time for comeuppances - but plenty of them go to their graves swathed in honour and hypocrisy, despite having done some fearfully wicked things, e.g. Mrs Thatcher  (arguably dementia was her comeupance).   There doesn't seem any real evidence for karma - rather the reverse really.  The number of thoroughly decent good people who are still suffering from undeserved crises is legion, the number of wicked flourishing like green bay trees is countless too.   You might argue that it actually offered more evidence that the devil was alive and well and favouring his own about the world.    To believe in karma properly one also has to be convinced about reincarnation. This is obviously an attractive idea, at least the bit about future returns to life is but in all honestly, it's just another sort of wish fulfilment.. 

New Moon

This month's New Moon - in Libra!

So yesterday was a New Moon and today I have sent out submissions of my new novel, The Gospel According to Darren to agents - and so I am excited, and anxious.  I have already had a one line email from an agent thanking me and saying "It looks interesting" - which is encouraging, although I know she is a very polite sort of agent and we already have a rather tenuous relationship.

Sometimes I feel totally alien from the world of publishing etc., but today, since I also did 3 submissions to US agents of The Ash Grove, I feel rather immersed in it.

One of the US agents I submitted to had a one hour "how to succeed video" on their "Thank you for your submission page... an interview with one of their authors... who tells you all about monetising yourself.  The link to it is here http://www.foliolit.com/thankyouforquery/   There is a whole new world out there, and I'd better start building a platform to join it I guess. 

And breathe! The Scottish Referendum

I can't really say why this mattered to me so much - except that I have always felt the importance of solidarity, and that separation from Scotland would not be in our interests, or theirs, and that the plans for their economy outside the EU were uncosted, and really messy.  It was, as 1066 and All That says  "Wrong but Romantic"   and definitely not the best way to respond to globalisation.  But a lot of what I feel is emotional too - and it is best summed up in this fantastic speech by Gordon Brown!

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/09/silent-no-more-watch-gordon-browns-patriotic-and-passionate-scotland-speech

He looks great in motion - this picture doesn't do full justice to him.   Surely it's a crime crying to heaven for vengeance that he isn't Prime Minister or something....

All together now  Will ye no come back again, will ye no come back again, Better loved ye canna be, will ye no come back again?

Back to Versailles

Belatedly, the Letters from Liselotte, arrived in the post.  These are the letters written by Elisabeth Charlotte Princess of the Palatine, and wife of the loathesome Monsieur, Louis XIV's brother.  I am enjoying them, although all the "best bits" have been recylced into various biographies and histories of the period so are a bit familiar.   They are fascinating because they are about a woman who wanted to be herself in the most restrictive circumstances.   Her bloody husband - one  of the wealthiest men in France - never gave her any money - well, only a tiny allowance, and used her property to spend on his favourites.  She could be herself to a great extent because she was Louis's friend - until Mme de Maintenon came between them.  

I don't mean to suggest that she was a charming, liberal person - "one of us" - she certainly wasn't - her views on royal bastards were far from liberal... "mouse droppings in the pepper" was her description of Louis's attempts to marry his offspring (especially those of his 'double adultery' with Montespan) into the legitimate royal line (her son inter alia). These views may have widened the rift with Louis perhaps?  However, she was quite a character making a brave stab at life in difficult circs.  Her correspondence was incredibly important to her.  She had few friends at court - especially once she was out of favour.  She was always suspect because she had converted to Catholicism for the marriage - people suspected Hugenot sympathies.

She kept a lot of little dogs and parrots "parrots do not smell" (this is true) and adored hunting.  She was conventionally attractive according to her early portraits - but broadened and coarsened with age  (partly because she forebore to wear a mask to protect her complexion while hunting)- I thus feel a kinship with her...she would now have to be my fancy dress costume of choice - the likeness is uncanny.  She also had a strong lavatorial humour that for some reason one associates with the Germans.  But why?  Do they really make more jokes on the topic than the rest of us?  Much as I deplore generalisations, one has to ask where these stereotypes come from.  After all, it's not as if the English never ate Rosbif, is it?

Holiday Reading

There is something lovely about being able to read for long stretches - and I took a huge box of books with me and I have read 3-4 of them - Antonia Fraser's "Love and Louis XIV" which was not especially illuminating.... but an agreeable reminder of all the old jokes and anecdotes.  Too much is known and written about these people (the Versaille court) to make writing any kind of novel about them really illuminating.  Then I hurled myself into JK Rowling's "The Casual Vacancy" which was both better and worse than I had expected - generally fairly enjoyable... but....it's an interesting topic - the way people at the bottom of the heap are disregarded in society...and the results.  A rather depressing take on matters... Then I read a rather enjoyable Zola - "The Ladies Paradise"  (Au Bonheur des Dames) which is didactic on the topic of the development of department stores.  He is broadly sympathetic to "progress" and those who stand in its way are chewed up.  The rise of Denise the heroine is a bit mystifying really - but it's a Cinderella story basically.

Finally I read a book which I found on the bookshelf at the Hotel Atlantique in Mimizan - there were a mix of English and French novels.   I read the book with disbelief - it was a sort of Enid Blyton for grown ups.  It lacked the youthful energy and enthusiasm of a Blyton work - but had roughly similar restricted vocabulary and plot ideas.  There was one surprise in the plot - yet true to form that had been flagged up earlier on.  I described the plot to Finn and Mark at dinner at the hotel - and they agreed it was completely pathetic - "Why would anyone publish that?"  Finn asked.    Then I was able to triumphantly flourish the answer - "Because it's by Richard Madeley [a famous UK tv presenter and co-host of a "Book Club" on tv].   I was shocked because I've always found him a reasonably engaging and intelligent character - but this book was so flat and lifeless I am amazed at it.  Didn't he wonder himself whether it was "good enough"?  This man recommended books like David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" - how did he think it was worth hainding this in without adding to it: more characters more ooomph, more complexity.  Or has research revealed that there is a market for adult Enid Blyton?  Mind is boggling....Going to bed now - doubt if I'll finish the book about the Templars tonight somehow!