Last week, we noted protests from seeming racists in Israel - notably Miri Regev, Israel’s culture minister, who once called Black Africans a cancer in our body,” - to Barenboim conducting in Iran. However, it seems she need not have worried, for her equally, seemingly, racist counterparts in Iran have also said he will not be allowed to conduct there, according to the Fars news agency, because of his Israeli citizenship.
It's difficult, for a rational person, to sometimes imagine that such immature and frankly childish psyches manage entire nations and have access to weapons that could destroy the planet. But this is sadly the reality in which we find ourselves. Of course for how long is debatable, for that old war god, among other things, Wotan lies awaiting in the wings - Valhalla far from burned to the ground. War Gods always await their opportunity to rise.
Wagner of course is often cited as a "horrendous racist" but I believe it was Wagner who once said - despite his many faults:
I will destroy the existing order of things, which parts this one mankind into hostile nations, into powerful and weak, privileged and outcast, rich and poor; for it makes unhappy men of all. I will destroy the order of things that turns millions to slaves of a few, and these few to slaves of their own might, own riches. I will destroy this order of things, that cuts enjoyment off from labour, makes labour a load (Last), enjoyment a vice (Laster), makes one man wretched through want, another through overflow. I will destroy this order of things, which wastes man's powers in service of dead matter, which keeps the half of humankind in inactivity or useless toil, binds hundreds of thousands to devote their vigorous youth-in busy idleness as soldiers, placemen, speculators and money-spinners-to the maintenance of these depraved conditions, whilst the other half must shore the whole disgraceful edifice at cost of over-taxing all their strength and sacrificing every taste of life. Down to its memory will I destroy each trace of this mad state of things, compact of violence, lies, care, hypocrisy, want, sorrow, suffering, tears, trickery and crime, with seldom a breath of even impure air to quicken it, and all but never a ray of pure joy.
Destroyed be all that weighs on you and makes you suffer, and from the ruins of this ancient world let rise a new, instinct with happiness undreamt! Nor hate, nor envy, grudge nor enmity, be henceforth found among you; as brothers shall ye all who live know one another, and free, free in willing, free in doing, free in enjoying, shall ye attest the worth of life. So up, ye peoples of the earth! Up, ye mourners, ye oppressed, ye poor! And up, ye others, ye who strive in vain to cloak the inner desolation of your hearts by idle show of might and riches! Richard Wagner. Volksblätter no 14, Dresden, Sunday 8 April, 1849
Perhaps both nations would benefit from a performance of the Ring?
