It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, June 15, 2023
Xi: China willing to help foster Palestinian peacemaking with Israel
China's president said he is willing to help in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to achieve "peace and reconciliation," as Israel continues with its settlement expansion and aggression.
Xi reiterated Chinese support for the Palestinian Authority becoming a full member of the United Nations [Getty]
China is willing to play a positive role to help the Palestinians achieve internal reconciliation and promote peace talks with Israel, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Palestinian counterpart in Beijing on Wednesday.
"The fundamental solution to the Palestinian issue lies in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital," Xi said, according to Chinese state media.
Palestinians seek statehood in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war - and the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but has kept it under crippling siege and continues to expand settlements in the West Bank.
Peace talks that were brokered by the United States collapsed in 2014, with no revival on the horizon.
"We have always firmly supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights," Xi told Abbas at a welcoming ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
China has had historically good ties with the Palestinians and since Abbas' last visit in 2017 has consistently talked up its capabilities in mediation, although with little to show in this regard until it brokered a surprise deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic relations in March.
Abbas is in Beijing on a three-day visit in which he hoped to demonstrate Chinese support for a Palestinian state, after failing to meet with US officials while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly last year.
Xi reiterated Chinese support for the Palestinian Authority becoming a full member of the United Nations and said Beijing would continue to stand up for the Palestinian side in multilateral forums, state media reported.
The United States opposes full Palestinian UN membership barring a peace deal with Israel, a step requiring a vote in the Security Council where the US, like China, holds a veto.
Xi also said the international community should increase development and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.
Xi and Abbas also announced the two sides had agreed to establish a strategic partnership and signed a number of bilateral cooperation documents.
Those include an economic and technological cooperation pact, a deal on mutual visa exemption for diplomatic passports, and a friendship between the Chinese city of Wuhan and Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang offered to contribute "Chinese wisdom" to the "Palestinian issue" in a separate meeting with Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.
(Reuters and The New Arab Staff)
EU probes Google for breaching competition law
Google may have abused dominant position in online advertising market, says EU Commission Agnes Szucs |14.06.2023
BRUSSELS
The European Commission on Wednesday notified Google that it might have breached the EU competition law according to their investigations.
“We are concerned that Google may have illegally distorted competition in the online advertising technology industry,” EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said at a news conference.
She explained that after launching an investigation into Google’s activities on the ad tech chain in 2021, the EU executive body sent a formal notification called “Statement of Objections” to the tech giant.
“We found that Google may have abused its dominant position by favoring its own ad tech services,” Vestager explained.
According to the investigation, Google is the most important player in the market of ad tech services offered for publishers and advertisers, as well as operating a matching function called AdX.
The EU executive body assumes that it had abused its leading position “by ensuring that both its intermediation tools on the buy-side and on the sell-side would favor AdX in the ‘matching’ auctions,” Vestager explained.
“Rather than letting the best of the ad exchanges win the race, the helping hand of the powerful Google ecosystem gave Google's own exchange a unique head start over all other rivals in the industry,” she further said.
As the next step of the investigation that may lead to another heavy fine on the tech company, Google can reply to the European Commission’s letter.
In the past years, the EU executive body imposed a penalty of €2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) and €4.3 billion ($4.7 billion) on Google for abusing its dominant position in the market of online searches and related Android operating systems.
Maintaining fair competition in the EU’s internal market is one of the few exclusive competencies of the EU, allowing the European Commission to fine companies for breaching antitrust law.
Ugandan anti-LGBTQ law deepens Anglican Church rift on gay rights
The latest split in the Anglican Church comes after recent comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury on Uganda’s new law.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby at the UN headquarters in New York City, August 29, 2018 [Andrew Kelly/Reuters]
Published On 14 Jun 2023
The chair of a conservative group of Anglican church leaders on Wednesday accused the church’s global head of perpetuating colonialism with his criticism of one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ laws, introduced by Uganda last month.
The new legislation imposes the death penalty for certain same-sex acts and a 20-year prison sentence for “promoting” homosexuality.
“It seems the history of colonisation and patronising behaviour of some provinces in the northern hemisphere towards the South, and Africa in particular, is not yet at an end,” said Bishop Laurent Mbanda, chair of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and head of Rwanda’s Anglican Church.
He was referring to Justin Welby, head of the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion’s 85 million members, who said last week that he had written to Ugandan Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba.
The letter expressed “grief and dismay” at Kaziimba’s support for the law.
Welby had said last week that he was aware of the history of British rule in Uganda and his statement was not about imposing Western values, but a reminder of the commitment “to treat every person with the care and respect they deserve as children of God”.
In response, Archbishop Kaziimba said last week that Welby “has every right to form his opinions about matters around the world that he knows little about first-hand”.
Mbanda’s statement mentioned but did not explicitly offer support for the Ugandan law.
The law has triggered widespread Western criticism including threats by United States President Joe Biden and others to cut aid to Uganda and impose other sanctions.
Issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights have sharply divided Anglicans, with the church’s GAFCON coalition of conservative adherents among the most critical.
Anglicans created GAFCON in 2008 in response to what the group says was Western churches’ abandonment of Bible-based doctrines. GAFCON claims to represent the majority of all Anglicans worldwide.
In February, another splinter group, the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, said it no longer recognised Welby’s leadership of the Anglican Communion after the Church of England announced it would allow priests to bless same-sex couples.
The Church of Uganda says 36 percent of Uganda’s population of around 45 million are Anglicans.
Iran: 500-year-old library holds knowledge from Islam's 'Golden Age'
An Iranian manuscript library containing the world's oldest Quran sits in a 500-year-old building which holds books twice that age by the greatest scholars of Islam's 'Golden Age'. The library is in Mashhad, part of eastern Persia in ancient times, and it holds texts by two scholars, Ibn Sina (980-1037) and Al Razi (864-925). Their books were later translated into Latin and taught in European universities as recently as the 18th and 19th centuries.
June 14, 2023
The Caliph and the Imam: The making of Sunnism and Shiism
Book Author(s) : Toby Matthiesen Published Date : March 2023 Publisher : Oxford University Press Hardcover : 960 pages ISBN-13 : 978-0190689469 Omar Ahmed 3umr27md June 9, 2023
The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism by Toby Matthiesen is an extraordinary and comprehensive study that traverses centuries and continents, delving into the intricate evolution of the two major sects of Islam. This scholarly work meticulously examines the historical development and transformation of the Sunni and Shia schools of thought, providing invaluable insights into their origins and influences across diverse time periods and geographical locations.
While the subject of sectarianism in Islam is not novel, Matthiesen's contribution to the field distinguishes itself through its considerable scope and extensive coverage. Unlike other works that dwell on the worn-out – though mandatory – narratives of the ancient schism over succession, the author tactfully limits this explanation to the early pages, instead diving into the intricate nuances that shaped the separate trajectories of Sunnism and Shiism. However, he notes that the formative period is nonetheless crucial, not just for tracing the roots of the theopolitical split, but because subsequent Muslim empires, states and movements "sought to legitimise themselves by referring to it."
What truly sets The Caliph and the Imam apart from others on the topic is the author's departure from the conventional exclusive focus on the Middle Eastern heartlands of Sunni-Shia sectarianism, "For it is across this temporal and geographical reach that Sunnism and Shiism constituted each other." Matthiesen expands his analysis to encompass regions beyond, including the Indian subcontinent in South Asia.
This attention to the subcontinent becomes especially significant considering that India and Pakistan together constitute the largest Sunni population, with an equally significant Shia presence rivalling that of Iran. By venturing beyond the customary boundaries, he sheds light on the dynamics of sectarianism in a region often overlooked in similar studies, providing a fresh and engaging perspective. For instance, we learn that in the case of the Mughals, "Which Sufi order they allied with had consequences for Sunni-Shia relations," and that the dynasty's founder Babur initially sought help from the Shia Safavids of Persia in his early campaigns.
Last week, during a book launch event held at London's Al-Khoei Foundation, Matthiesen shared with MEMO his motivations for writing the book, considering the abundance of existing literature. He explained: "I started working on this book in 2015. I got sort of stuck at some point, partly because I didn't want to do exactly what was already out there… I did feel that there are many people who already have strong opinions about this topic..the more popular accounts of this are really very essentialist, very misleading, and focused on conflict."
With its focus on the political history of the Sunni-Shia split, I drew several parallels with a previous publication, aptly titled Sunnis and Shi'a: A Political History, by the esteemed academic Laurence Louer. However, while that book covers similar themes of the ebbs and flows of Sunni-Shia relations marked by cooperation and conflict, it does so through specific case studies of individual countries, providing a more limited examination.
In contrast, Matthiesen's work offers a broader analysis encompassing historical periods and geopolitical shifts. It delves into major turning points and milestones, such as the age of "Confessional Ambiguity", which gave rise to two rival dynasties — the Ottomans and the Safavids —whose actions had far-reaching consequences for Sunni-Shia relations.
Matthiesen himself acknowledges the significance of Louer's scholarship and told MEMO: "Louer is a great scholar and I appreciate her work."
"Her new book came out while I was writing mine. In general, it's about the same topic. But the two books are actually quite different. [Louer's] is largely a number of case studies, focussing on a number of countries primarily in the modern period," he added.
Then there is the much more recent and relevant Arab Spring and the geopolitical conflicts that followed. One certainly gets the impression that The Caliph and the Imam is a particularly contemporaneous study with events unfolding in close to real-time the closer one gets to the end. As Matthiesen quips: "Even something as non-discriminatory as a respiratory virus had become sectarianised," given how many Shia pilgrims were treated as "super spreaders" of COVID-19 from visiting the shrine cities in the early days of the pandemic.
I found the mention of the impact of the press printing on polemics particularly intriguing, as this "led to a more scripturalist Islam, in which sectarian boundaries were more rigidly enforced," this prompted me to contemplate how this phenomenon has been exacerbated with the expansive, and frankly, toxic world of online polemics and the way in which these sectarian identities have solidified to greater extents on social media.
Matthiesen agrees, explaining to MEMO: "The internet has led to massive uploading of sectarian content which is often the one that gets spread more widely. It's also the engagement factor of social media…this has definitely hardened sectarian identities."
He also revealed that: "The importance of structural change in the media is a major sub thread in the book."
Although The Caliph and the Imam briefly touches on sectarianism in the West, specifically Salafi propagation among the Muslim diaspora and converts to Islam, it would have been more insightful if this part of the world was explored in further detail, especially with last year's controversy surrounding the Lady of Heaven film – about the life of the Prophet (peace be upon him)'s daughter – serving as a relevant talking point, further emphasising the book's international scope.
Nonetheless, despite this missed opportunity, the extensive presence of endnotes and a bibliography spanning about half of the book demonstrates its thorough research and authoritative analysis. With a keen focus on a subject intertwined with political and theological aspects that transcend regional boundaries, this contribution effectively showcases the global nature of this issue.
The American music industry's Grammy Awards announced on Tuesday that they will be awarding a gramophone to the best African music performance at their next edition, a further sign of their quest for diversity and a consecration for the genre.
The new award covers a wide range of styles, from Afrobeat and Afro-fusion to Kwassa Kwassa and Ndombolo from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana drill, Afro-House and South African hip-hop, said the Recording Academy, which brings together music industry professionals, in a press release.
The category will reward "recordings that use the unique local expressions of the African continent", the Grammys organisers added.
Long accused of not sufficiently reflecting the diversity and evolution of the music industry, the Grammy Awards have been seeking for years to broaden the range of styles and registers of awards. The category of best soundtrack for a video game was added in 2022.
Musicians from African countries, such as French-Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo (5 wins, 14 nominations) and Nigerian singer Burna Boy (one win, 6 nominations), regularly dominate the Grammy world music categories.
At the 65th edition on 5 February in Los Angeles, a trio led by South African DJ-producer Zakes Bantwini, a pillar of local house music, won thanks to a track in Zulu in the best world music performance category.
The 2024 edition will also honour two other new categories: best alternative jazz album and best dance pop recording. In 2023, 91 awards were presented in as many categories, including pop, rock, classical, hip-hop, gospel and country.
GOP Budget bill bans military abortions, transgender care, diversity work
Abortion rights protestors rally ouside the capitol building in Sacramento, Calif., on May 21, 2019. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
This is a developing story, and will be updated.
All abortion assistance for troops would be banned, all transgender medical care ended, and all diversity and extremism training blocked under the defense appropriations plan unveiled by House Republicans on Wednesday.
The move came just one day after GOP leaders advanced similar legislation to block abortion and transgender care at Veterans Affairs facilities through their veterans programs budget bill. The Defense Department restrictions drew immediate condemnation from Democratic officials, who called the provisions “extremist” and “disturbing.”
The budget bill — scheduled to be debated behind closed doors by the House Appropriations panel on Thursday and publicly later this month — calls for $826.5 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2024, at roughly the levels agreed upon by White House negotiators and House Republican leaders earlier this month.
It also includes a 5.2% pay raise for all troops next year and a pay boost of more than 30% for some junior enlisted troops, provisions that have been hailed by lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum.
But the restrictions regarding abortion services and other controversial social issues put the future of the legislation in doubt. Congress must agree upon a new spending package for the Defense Department by Oct. 1 or trigger a partial government shutdown.
Art Spiegelman on Banning 'Maus'
Spiegelman reflects on fascism as third Missouri school district debates banning his Holocaust memoir
By Lisa Tolin
PEN AMERICA
June 14,2023
Art Spiegelman was shocked last year to hear that Maus, his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, had been banned in a school district in Tennessee.
Even more surprising was the rationale — not the violent history of his parents’ journey to Auschwitz chronicled in the memoir, but a single illustration of a “nude woman.” The picture depicted his dead mother in the bathtub after she committed suicide.
Spiegelman joked, darkly, that schools wanted “a kinder, gentler, fuzzier Holocaust” to teach to children.
Since that case in McMinn County, Maus has been banned pending review in schools in Florida and Texas, and reviewed in at least two Missouri school districts this school year over concerns that its availability could run afoul of a new state law making it illegal for a person affiliated with a school to provide minors with sexually explicit material. In one district, Wentzville, Maus was removed and then eventually returned to shelves. In another, Ritenour, it was permanently removed.
Now a third, Nixa, will vote next week on whether to ban Maus, too. At a board meeting on June 20, the district is slated to consider whether Maus should be removed as potentially violating the law, alongside two other books: a graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Blankets, an illustrated novel by Craig Thompson.
There’s obvious symbolism in the banning of Maus, even more so when you consider that it was followed by a bonfire of books in Nashville. Book burning was an early maneuver for the Nazis, and Spiegelman notes the Nazis first targeted the queer and transgender community.
Spiegelman said he wrote Maus to figure out his own history – how, in his words, he was “hatched” after his parents were supposed to be murdered. But he has come to recognize the importance of sharing that story with children. He reflected on the current book banning movement in conversation with PEN America.
What did you think when you first heard Maus was banned?
You know, I thought it was similar to the moment when I got a Pulitzer Prize, and I found out about it by mail. I said, that’s not happening, that’s some weird part of my dream life. Because Maus has become so firmly entrenched in schools. It didn’t seem like this was the kind of thing anybody would get up in arms about because even in McMinn County, people were reading it for many, many years.
Specifically, the complaint was about it being sexually explicit.
That’s where it got really surreal, when they decided it was sexually explicit, because anybody who could get their jollies off of Maus is probably in need of far greater help than anything the school could offer. And the fact that that affected the school board recipient, and is now an infection that’s spreading, it’s kind of shocking.
At first I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Because of the representation (in Maus) of the Jews as mice, when they stripped off their clothes, there was barely a way to see any genitalia. And then when I found out that it was described as a nude woman, not a nude mouse, but a nude woman, I realized it was about the section of the book that’s about my mother’s suicide, where she killed herself in a bathtub. It has a shape of breasts, but every kid must have seen a mother’s breasts at some point, even if they’re formula fed. There’s nothing there that could possibly titillate. Even if you’re a sadist, you wouldn’t go to that one for the picture, to see a dead body. And so I was offended just like they were, but I was offended by describing a naked corpse as a nude woman. “I was offended just like they were, but I was offended by describing a naked corpse as a nude woman.”
I read the minutes of the school board’s discussion of Maus, and most people, it’s clear from their minutes, haven’t read the book at all. But they can still have eyeballs, they could see those images. Okay, so ‘this is a picture of nudity, so that we can prohibit, and this over here, this has a bad word.’ As far as they’re concerned, as long as they stopped short of saying we’re banning this because this history makes us uncomfortable, we don’t want our kids to be exposed to these things, they’re on safer ground.
Do you think it’s really that the history makes people uncomfortable?
Of course! It’s an uncomfortable history. It’s a painful history. In Maus’ case specifically, I think, first of all, I think it was a drive-by shooting because it wasn’t really aimed at, “We shouldn’t talk about the genocide because they’ll know we want to do it again” or something. But it’s because Maus has two aspects. One is a very detailed history of what I could glean off my parents’ past, brought into the context of my relationship with my father now, as I’m getting that story. That’s very granular, very specific. The more honest and intimate you can be, the more it becomes universal even if it’s not your experience. But the other aspect is, the fact that every character in the book is wearing an animal mask makes it kind of universal. It has an aspect of fable, fairy tales, funny animal comics like Donald Duck, and ultimately, Aesop’s fables. And so that makes it general.
And so no matter how specific the information is, it’s about what it means to dehumanize someone, to project otherness onto them, the othering of people. It could be anywhere. And the main thing that happens is, as we’ve seen in the past, with the Nazis, the very, very first people that were victimized by the Nazis weren’t even Jews, they were the “sexually deviant.” It’s about such a macho culture, the idea of “I am the master race, I am superior to you, because white lives matter” or whatever. And as a result, what was gone after was transgender people, queer people of various kinds. That’s where they focused their murderous intent as soon as they came into power.
So that was where they started. And that seems to be the hot button in America right now. We haven’t learned much from the past, but there’s some things you should be able to figure out. Book burning leads to people burning. So it’s something that needs to be fought against.
“We haven’t learned much from the past, but there’s some things you should be able to figure out. Book burning leads to people burning. So it’s something that needs to be fought against.” The Nazis obviously banned books. What does it say to you that book banning is now happening here?
I think that book banning is not the only threat. I mean, there are many threats right now, where it seems to be, memory is short, fascism is a while back, they don’t know much about it. And, you know, it’s maybe attractive. It’s so complicated to live in a plurality, a democracy of some kind, even if it’s a flawed one, and try to balance out all those needs, and make decisions for yourself. So there’s a desire to keep it simple. And maybe fascism looks simple to them. And it seems to be the direction we’re moving in, more and more in various ways. And not just in America. It’s a worldwide phenomenon. Why do you think graphic novels and comics particularly have become easy targets?
There’s something about pictures. Pictures go straight into your brain, you can’t block them, right through your eyes. You see it, you can’t unsee it. With words, we’ve actually got to struggle to understand the word before you can be puzzled or surprised or enlightened by those words. But now, we’re living in such a visual culture. The amount of visual information that comes through your screens is enormous, and there’s no way to screen out those screens.
Pictures are such a threat that my first awareness of book banning was, my medium was under threat. Just about the time I was five or six years old, there were comic book burnings all over America, supported by clergy, teachers, librarians, parents, politicians and psychiatrists. Psychiatrists in fact led the charge saying that these comics are barbaric, and they’re ruining our children, they’re sub-literature, and it led to Senate hearings about comics.
That comic book burning resulted in a self-censoring board that decided what could be shown in comics and whatnot. They make most comics, either anodyne or unintelligible by taking out the possible threats to the Comics Code. That lasted for 30, 40 years; comics were almost wiped out. So basically, it’s because pictures are so strong, it’s words and pictures combined, they’re actually stronger than either one alone. And it’s easier to take information in and study. Unlike a movie, comics stand still. So you can look at a picture that some school board that never read the book pulls out of context, and says “kids are seeing this!” They are seeing it, they may even look at it longer, they may have questions about it. Better that those questions get dealt with, and that’s the job of schools.
Why do you think it’s important for kids to know this history?
The smell of authoritarianism and even Fascism is really in the air right now. And it’s in a lot of places, even in very democratic countries like France, the right is moving way up. It’s back in Germany, in countries like the Scandinavian countries as well as in South America and God help us, in America. So it’s important to understand what happened.
You have to learn to overcome that thrill of going, I’m better than you, because I’m part of that “in” crowd, the majority, the ones that we will not let a minority replace us. All of that bullshit, actually, that’s part of this current wave of things is a way of actually domesticating that majority to make them lose track of their own actual interests. Because even from post civil war, the immediate thing was to re-disenfranchise black people, right after slavery was abolished. And therefore, leave white people feeling like, well, you know, I don’t have a pot to piss in, but I’m better off than that blankety-blank over there. And that makes you feel like you’re part of that master race, even though you’re really being controlled by big money, by forces well beyond your control. And that gives you your scapegoats and that scapegoating is a long history, a long, long history and it’s allowed for terrible things to happen throughout that history.
What would you say to the parents who are saying these types of stories are making our children feel guilty?
Parents who want to protect their children, by not making them feel guilty because great grandpa was a Klansman aren’t protecting their kids from anything. In fact, the great thing about books when they go into curriculum is they get discussed. I don’t care what they teach, if they want us to teach The Turner Diaries, Mein Kampf, it’s okay, much better that it be taught in a school context, where you can actually understand what it’s telling you, what’s manipulating you into believing, is much better than finding it on dad’s shelf and going, “Oh I see, there’s a race war we have to fight.”
It’s better to have these things in context. This is not to say schools shouldn’t have any supervision from their parents. If anything, we should have more participation from their parents in what they were studying in school. But we have to allow the schools to determine that primarily. It would be like if they went to the doctor and said, I’ll take three OxyContins and a couple of these Wellbutrins over here. It’s not the best way to keep your kids healthy. We have people trained to try to make exactly that happen, and one should allow them to do that.
What would your dad think about what’s happening now to Maus?
You know, I sometimes wonder about that, because I chose not to portray him in an idealized way. Usually most of the Holocaust narratives, I would find, are about the sanctification of the victim. They suffered, therefore, they become ennobled, and that’s what the story is. That’s such bullshit. Suffering only causes suffering. I’ve now met a spectrum of survivors in the course of my life. Some of them indeed became much more thoughtful human beings, some came through with all their prejudices intact, some came through very damaged. And I wanted to make that part of what I knew about my father and not whitewash it.
The thing is, that notion of suffering is a very Christian notion, that somehow you’re ennobled by it. And bizarrely enough, the word that has come to cover this aspect of history is called the Holocaust. And that’s a problem for me. It’s a phrase that I think Elie Wiesel introduced that replaced a perfectly serviceable word that was invented because of the Nazis, which is called genocide. And the Holocaust just means “burnt offering.” My parents didn’t volunteer to be offering.
And that’s just leaving me in this awkward position of Maus the Holocaust comic. I don’t like the word “comic” and I don’t like the word “Holocaust” and here I am, folks, while I’m talking to you, I’m no longer a cartoonist. I’m just playing one on television. What do you consider yourself instead?
Neurotic. A neurotic cartoonist.
‘666’ bus to Hel, Poland, changed after complaints from Christian groups
Some say the road to Hel is paved with good intentions — but the bus that gets you there certainly isn’t.
That’s according to some conservative Christian groups, who say the “666” bus to Hel, Poland, has devilish intentions since its route number represents Satan and it goes to a place that sounds like “hell.”
The local bus operator PKS Gdynia has responded to the complaints by announcing its decision to change the route number from 666 to 669.
“This year we are turning the last 6 upside down!” the local bus company wrote on social media Monday.
Marcin Szwaczyk of PKS Gdynia told Reuters the company made the change after receiving complaints from Christian groups for nearly 10 years.
“The Management Board buckled under the weight of letters and requests that were sent to us, maybe not in large numbers, but cyclically for many years with a request to change the line number,” Szwaczyk said.
The 666 bus shuttled between the village of Dębki and the town of Hel, a popular tourist destination, during the summertime.
The local bus operator PKS Gdynia has held firm in their decision to change the number from 666 to 669.
While the new number worked to appease some, others were thrilled to lose something that put Hel on the map.
“It was an advertisement for the whole world,” one Polish Facebook user commented under PKS Gdynia’s post.
“I am convinced that there were tourists who would probably get there faster on the train, but for fun they took bus 666.”
Another commentator chimed in, “What is Hel without 666.”
The bus has long garnered negative attention from Christian groups for its number.via REUTERS
The bus has long gained negative attention from such groups, including in 2018 when Catholic group Fronda said the bus route’s number was “spreading anti-Christian propaganda.”
“Hell is the negation of humanity. It is eternal death and suffering,” the group wrote in an article at the time. “You can only laugh at this reality if you simply don’t understand what it is.”
While the new 669 summer service begins on June 24, Szwaczyk said 666 could return if enough passengers demanded it.
“If in fact the response is large and strong enough to restore the line 666, it seems to me that we will listen to our passengers and change this number,” he said.
Jan 12, 2023 ... The goddess Hel in Norse mythology is associated with death and the underworld. ... In Norse tradition, she is responsible for receiving the ...
The Ukrainian blonde had the smell of trouble. She had perched herself, along with her mute friend, in a restaurant across from the famed South Melbourne Market. On arriving at the modish, glorious bit of real estate known as Tipsy Village, a Polish establishment famed for accented French cuisine, she shrieked: “Why do you have Ruskie dumplings on your menu?”
The Polish host, a man of butter mild manner and infinite tolerance, covered in stout glory, took it in his stride. “That is what they are called where I come from and that is what we serve,” Peter Barnatt stated with serene clarity. (Such wickedness! Such a radical disposition!) The blonde shrieking wonder continued to invest in the dumplings some satanic quality, as if each one had been a shell, soldier, a weapon massed and launched against her pristine homeland which she had, it seemed, abandoned. “We would just like coffees,” she demanded. His temper finally disturbed, the host insisted that, as the two were not intent on dining, might just as well leave.
In a luxurious huff, they exited. Such behaviour was fascinating for being irresolvable – no dining establishment worth its salt and cutlery should ever change that aspect of things. But for them, the issue had been decided, a prejudice firmed up and solid.
Names on the menu are a signature of a restaurant’s worth. Besides, dishes do not invade countries in tanks nor bomb cities. The episode was also strikingly, amusingly moronic. Food had been made out as somehow guilty, disgusting, revolting – all because of a name, an identity. The sin had moved in the dough, the mixture and the potatoes, dumplings with agency. The restaurateur was all the more guilty for hosting them.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the gastro-culture war on serving dishes with a Russian name, be it with hint, flavour, or substance, has been total. Hatred of the Kremlin has become bigotry towards the dish. In Madrid, Sergiy Skorokhvatov, himself Ukrainian and an owner of a restaurant called Rasputin serving both Russian and Ukrainian cuisine, sensed trouble. He ventured into the thorny world of online discussions to clarify the nature of what he was serving, which was considered wise given what has happening to other restaurants serving Russian fare.
This method of insurance was not full proof. “I thought that changing things would help us, but then people started posting similar stuff about us – ‘Don’t go to Russian restaurants’ – and pictures of blown-up buildings in Ukraine.”
When politics ventures into the field of gastronomy, imbecility is sovereign, its crown heavy. The French restaurant chain Maison de la Poutine, specialising in the combination of chips, cheese curds and gravy (poutine, you might say), was harassed for having a name vaguely approximating to the Russian president. This was strikingly reminiscent of the semi-literate mob that vandalised the home of Dr Yvette Cloete, a specialist paediatrician who had been confused for being a paedophile.
All of this presents itself in rather darkly hilarious fashion. In Poland, the Ruskie pierogi have been given a battering and vanishing, reincarnated with new names, emerging from kitchens reborn and de-Russified. The idea of Ukrainian pierogi is all the rage. The cheese and potato-filled wonders have again come to commandeer such interest in the food wars. Those who buck the trend end up receiving tongue lashings from the virtuous. Never mind that the idea of ruskie has little to do with the modern state machine that is Russia than the geographic mash which featured Kievan Rus.
The mighty fine diplomats of the kitchen could point to other origins in a peaceful overture. The first dumplings of this sort were a Chinese invention, and Marco Polo was good enough to bring them across to Europe. In Poland, the Polish bishop Jacek Orodwąż is said to have been key in introducing the dumpling in the 13th century. Having had a snack of them in Kyiv, the taste was sufficiently delightful to convince him to bring the recipe back to the homeland. But it took till 1682 for the first known pierogi recipe to make its way into a cookbook – Poland’s oldest, in fact – known as the Compendium Ferculorum by Stanisław Czerniecki.
As with so many food varieties now celebrated in their various forms from the cheap mundane to the scandalously extortionate, the original pierogi came to be seen as a nourishing weapon against famine and starvation. It did what it had to. All else is refined exaggeration, with a sense, where needed, of aesthetic pleasure.
Unfortunately for those in the restaurant business, the patron can be an unpredictable sort. For many who enter the premises, the ego of the person who eventually sits down to the meal becomes sprightly, and bad behaviour comes to the fore. One acts as one would not at home. Bigotry sings darkly; prejudice hollers in a jarring register. “Care for another vodka?” the tolerant host can only say to such conduct. Then comes the priestly gobbet of wisdom: “It makes the fish you eat swim.”
The other side of this fraught equation is that the restaurant with fine service and conversational owners is a place of sheer pleasure, conciliation, understanding. Over food, bread broken, dessert consumed, the labels of hatred disappear into musings and mutterings, even if only momentary. Take the vodka; let the fish swim.
ENDS
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
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