Sometime between 1717 and 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote an indescribably beautiful piece of music colloquially known as Air On The G-String. In 1920 a garment was first brought to the public attention in theatre (and the like) and was given the name the G-String. Nowadays if one searches records of music played on public accessed radio stations or the backs of CDS etc one will see that Bach’s masterpiece is now known as Air given the other connotations. Whilst Mozart liked to stir up mischief with pieces of music such as Leck mich im Arsch which literally translates as Lick My Arse or figuratively as Kiss My Arse, Bach’s achingly beautiful piece of music can no longer be known by its name given associations with a garment.
The expatriate English American late-night host John Oliver recently was talking about the state of Europe. For those who do not know, for the last 10 years or so much of Europe has been held up by Germany. However, Oliver pointed out, and showed a clip of a German saying to back up his point, that given recent history no one wants Germany to lead Europe. This is ridiculous for two (and more) reasons. 1) Germany already are and 2) with the US openly becoming more ‘America First’ so much so that after the last G7 summit Mrs Merkle said that Europe must take ‘our fate’ into its own hands, Europe needs a strong leader and as Germany are currently the strongest country with the strongest leader they should naturally take an important role. Yet, even given the current economic and global climate, people, such as Oliver who is English when it suits him and American when it suits him, are bringing up the world wars which ended 73 years ago. Although 73 years is not that long a time, given the arch of time, in human terms it is a lifetime with at least three generations being born since. Yes, one can argue that Germany in control of Europe does smack of Imperialism but, to return to Oliver, Oliver is a dual citizen (I assume given his on camera comments) of England and America, two countries which have a bloody colonial past. However, the sins of England have been brushed under the carpet and sanitised to ‘do you know the story of Tea? We went to India and killed lots of people, destroyed their culture and made them our puppets, but Tea is rather nice, eh what?’
The controversy in the US about the statues of Civil War generals, which had nothing to do with the statues, are clear indicators of how the past is being cherry picked, as George Orwell said ‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past’, to only show the sanitized version of history, unless it is about the big, bad Germans!
And this is not to say that things should be how they were when one was young for obviously the world has changed since then and the ideals and practices of the past may or may not be applicable now. Yes, you can learn from them but you have to adapt to the modern world.
History should be preserved as it is in all its glory and shame and we should learn from it and move on for ‘the times they are a-changin’’ and if we do not have the faith that the kids of today and tomorrow can separate historical fact from the prejudices of their elders then no matter how much we know, history will repeat ‘that tired story of betrayal and revenge’ (Leonard Cohen) and not only the tragedy but also the beauty of the past will be lost.
‘till next time
thegreaterfool2016 