THE SPINE SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
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There was a time--stretching back several decades and ending not so long ago--when UNESCO busied itself with condemning Israel for this and condemning Israel for that. As it happens, the first piece (an unsigned editorial note) I wrote for TNR after coming to the magazine was titled "UNESCO and Israel." It appeared in the issue of December 14, 1974.
UNESCO had specifically excluded Israel from the organization's official European orbit which meant it had no orbit at all in which to integrate itself. The Arabs were certainly not going to admit the Jewish state into their sphere. The resolution mandated that UNESCO's director-general supervise all educational and cultural institutions in the territories captured in the Six Days War. And it cut off what small aid it gave to any and all Israeli cultural activities even within the pre-1967 lines.
Quoting myself: By excluding Israel from UNESCO activities, it was, "as Jean-Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron said in a remarkable joint statement, 'justifying in advance Israel's physical annihilation'." The organization has by now curbed what Danny Goldhagen calls these "eliminationist" tendencies. (What is this big word "eliminationist" about? You'll have to wait for the coming issue of TNR.) In a mark of UNESCO's new professionalism it sponsored a world-wide celebration of Bauhaus and International Style architecture and design in situ in Tel Aviv where, absent war, it has survived in its quotidian grandeur.
Then came the Egyptian government with a candidate for the next director-general of the organization. Its contender for the prize of living in Paris and other perks was Farouk Hosni, the present minister of culture in the Mubarak regime. If he is a cultured man I am a cardiologist. "To prove his anti-Zionist credentials at home," wrote Raymond Stock in Foreign Policy, "Hosni told the Egyptian parliament that he would 'burn right in front of you' any Israeli books found in the country's libraries." This outrage was scarcely the sum total of his barbaric views. He was supposed to be the favored aspirant for the job, and he held the lead in several stages of the vote. But a book burner was not the preferred symbol of leadership for an institution with a cultural mandate. Many true Arab intellectuals were mortified by Hosni's views.
Hosni's lead began to fade in favor of Irina Bukova, the Bulgarian candidate. Or as Lee Smith put in the Weekly Standard, "if the Culture Minister's anti-Israel bias had crossed even UN redlines, then something is definitely wrong with Egypt." In the end Bukova won the contest.
Tatbi' is a word in Arabic meaning normal or normalcy. That is President Obama's aspiration for the Middle East. If Egypt's nominee for director-general of UNESCO sees the burning of Hebrew books as his metier after 30 years of formal peace with Israel how do you think Obama's designs will fare?
8 comments
You are right about everything of course but that which you are wrong about. But you have long since passed the point where that bares even the slightest resemblance to caring about the difference. You are in the wizened world of lincoln log words. You stack them up into the prefabricated architecture of the past. You could be dropping them into the sky from an airplane or dripping them onto a canvas like paint. How you dispense them is beside the point. Even that you dispense them. After all, everyone already knows well in advance what the words will say. I have always believed the worst path a writer can take is one where he reaches the point he no longer owns the words he alleges to love; instead, the words own him. Enery new day he has to twist every new experience, every new relationship, every new newspaper headline into the rigid framework that is The Whole Truth. The words become slaves to an ordered reality that has, in turn, long since forgotten it is the words themselves that have largely created it. Everything written becomes embalmed by the writer who is embalmed by the words being written. Intellectually, he is dead, sure; but a dead world never changes, does it? And that's the whole point: to keep it that way. The language of the neverending story. Once that used to be death....oblivion....itself. But now in this increasingly fragmented and dangerous world many chose that it be life as well. But Sartre won't help you there, will he? Not unless you are prepared to sink down further into the intellectual quagmire that is Bad Faith. The inauthentic life of someone who turns his life...his narrative...into stone. Which means, as well, turning mine into stone too. george walton d/a
- iambiguous
October 1, 2009 at 2:08am
Here we go again, another inauthentic and pretentious lecture by the crazy and pseudo savant George Walton. His delusions aren't even entertaining they are just pathetic: Here is what he said about Sartre: "But Sartre won't help you there, will he? Not unless you are prepared to sink down further into the intellectual quagmire that is Bad Faith." This is his silly response to Marty's quote: ""as Jean-Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron said in a remarkable joint statement, 'justifying in advance Israel's physical annihilation'." So Sartre too, must have been in "been faith" when he said it? (Though that still lives Raymond Aron about whom Walton knows nothing.) In any case, "Bad Faith btw is a specific concept which doesn't apply here to either Marty or Sartre, but it does to George Walton. Being in bad faith means playing a role and pretending that you are nothing but that role This fits George perfectly. He plays the role of "philosophical critic' as if he were a real philosophical critic instead of and old bumpkin with nothing to do but writes pretentious posts all day. Turn to stone indeed: George is and old monkey who has turned himself into a "typing machine” and like the proverbial monkey is hoping to type out the works of Plato if he types long enough.
- jacksondyer
October 1, 2009 at 10:02am
Here we go again, another inauthentic and pretentious lecture by the crazy and pseudo savant George Walton. His delusions aren't even entertaining they are just pathetic: Here is what he said about Sartre: "But Sartre won't help you there, will he? Not unless you are prepared to sink down further into the intellectual quagmire that is Bad Faith." This is his silly response to Marty's quote: ""as Jean-Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron said in a remarkable joint statement, 'justifying in advance Israel's physical annihilation'." So Sartre too, must have been in "been faith" when he said it? (Though that still lives Raymond Aron about whom Walton knows nothing.) In any case, "Bad Faith btw is a specific concept which doesn't apply here to either Marty or Sartre, but it does to George Walton. Being in bad faith means playing a role and pretending that you are nothing but that role This fits George perfectly. He plays the role of "philosophical critic' as if he were a real philosophical critic instead of and old bumpkin with nothing to do but writes pretentious posts all day. Turn to stone indeed: George is and old monkey who has turned himself into a "typing machine” and like the proverbial monkey is hoping to type out the works of Plato if he types long enough.
- jacksondyer
October 1, 2009 at 10:02am
what the hell does this mean: george walton d/a I have seen before a dan/ann, so this means that walton has let his schizoid personality run amok, or that george, dan, and ann are 3 cheap bastards who are splitting one subscription, which is pretty damn pathetic. come on cheapskates, if you are going to bore the hell out of us, at least pay full freight. And dan and ann, if you were to get your own monikers I would not be so quick to scroll past what you write because anything that has gw attaced to it, I scroll right past.
- blackton
October 1, 2009 at 12:36pm
Jackson said, "...George is and old monkey who has turned himself into a "typing machine” and like the proverbial monkey is hoping to type out the works of Plato if he types long enough." Mr. Burns: "...This is a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters. Soon, they'll have written the greatest novel known to mankind. (reads one of the typewriters) "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"?! you stupid monkey! (monkey screeches) Oh, shut up." - Last Exit to Springfield.
- malahat
October 1, 2009 at 1:39pm
blackton: A good catch. Might it have something to do with NDmackenzie? The devious brilliance of cheating the Jew, for there is no doubt that they view TNR as a Jewish propaganda tool (stay tuned for another tedious homily from george). Among all three they cannot find $30 to fund their subscription. What do you make of a group of people who conspire to cheat TNR and its readers? Can you get any more pathetic that that?
- noga1
October 3, 2009 at 10:30am
"The devious brilliance of cheating the Jew,..." noga, I wouldn't associate brilliance with deviousness, especially if it pertains to bigotry. Unless, of course, you are being ironic.
- scrubby
October 3, 2009 at 4:25pm
Yes, unless.. I didn't intend anyone to take seriously attributing brilliance the insufferable putzinski.
- noga1
October 3, 2009 at 5:27pm