President Dilma Rousseff and Lula

Gabriel Paquette teaches History at Johns Hopkins University. He has written about Brazilian history and contemporary politics for History Today, The Times Literary Supplement, and The National. He is completing a book on Portuguese and Brazilian history in the first half of the nineteenth century. Click here for Gabriel Paquette’s web site
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Recently a wild optimism has become almost contagious in the media about Brazil as a dynamic economy and a vibrant society. Do you share this enthusiasm?
There certainly is a great deal about which to be excited, especially with the 2014 Word Cup and 2016 Olympics on the horizon. Cultural efflorescence has been matched by steady, if unspectacular (compared with other BRICs) economic growth. If inflation remains under control (as it has been under Presidents Cardoso and Lula da Silva), I see no reason not to share the enthusiasm for Brazil one encounters in the media. Brazil escaped the Great Recession of 2008 unscathed, largely due to its active government response and the economy grew at 7.5% in 2010 (though lower rates are anticipated in future years). But impressive GDP growth and splashy international events are not the whole story: long-term structural deficits, particularly with regard to educational attainment, economic inequality tied to race, and dreadful transportation infrastructure all threaten to undermine prosperity in the long-term.

Lula has been given the majority of the credit for this upsurge in the country’s self-confidence and economic welfare. Looking back on his presidency, how do you judge it?
Lula enjoyed a popular approval rating eclipsing that of all other elected world leaders. During his tenure in office, there were unmistakable gains, most of which were shared by large segments of the population. And, you are right, many of his policies bolstered Brazil’s self-confidence, particularly his insistence on Brazil’s robust and active role in world affairs. If he has been given the credit for Brazil’s resurgence, however, that is mainly because he was able to capitalize on the gains of his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, not because of policies originating with him. It was Cardoso, after all, who introduced the policies that underpin the present prosperity, continued by Lula and now Dilma Rousseff, including monetary stability through the Plan Real, keeping runaway inflation at bay (it had reached 2,000 per cent in 1989), preserving international capital flows, fixing high interest rates, and limiting public spending. In the area of social programs, for example, the programs aiming to decrease infant mortality, increase school attendance, and transfer income to the very poor all originated with Cardoso. The model of income transfers being contingent on certain types of explicit obligations (such as prenatal exams, vaccinations, nutritional advice from local health workers) originated with Cardoso. In many respects, Lula’s Bolsa Familia consolidated and integrated these earlier initiatives.

Lula is said to have sacrificed his left-wing agenda to pacify the bankers and diplomats in Washington. Is this fair? Did he opt for a ’capitalism lite’? If so, did he even have a choice?
While I was disappointed with many aspects of Lula’s presidency, I think that the verdict that he “sold out” or “compromised” the PT’s (Partido dos Trabalhadores) left-wing platform is largely unfair and misleading. Lula ran for president several times, over two decades, before emerging victorious. From union organizer to leader of a small party with a limited national appeal to victorious candidate for the presidency, Lula’s own politics morphed and transformed over time. The types of policies he advocated while in opposition were not practicable once he was ensconced in office. The scale of the types of redistributive policies he discussed as a candidate sent a shudder through the financial markets and would have threatened the prosperity that has helped huge swathes of the populations join the middle class. By maintaining international confidence in Brazil’s economy, Lula was able to pursue a range of social programs unimaginable during leaner times, when austerity measures would have halted such initiatives. A better, fairer question might be whether Lula’s government over-capitulated to the financial markets, unnecessarily downsizing its ambitions, and in so doing failing to tackle the biggest long-term obstacles to prosperity. The much-vaunted social programs, like Bolsa Familia, are a very small percentage of GDP, at present ½ of one per cent. Yet this program benefits 45 million people (19 million families). Would the modest expansion of this program, in terms of benefits and number of people reached, really undermine Brazil’s economic growth? Surely not. This is an example of where the political will of the PT governments deserves criticism. But Lula is not alone. Throughout Latin America, the leftist pursuit of social equality, justice, and solidarity has been abandoned by the ruling parties. They have stopped challenging the basic outlines of the existing socio-economic order. Instead, they strive to replicate the Western European experience of social democracy, for which mass prosperity is a precondition.

Gabriel Paquette

Whatever one’s opinion of Lula, he is certainly the most successful and popular politician – possibly ever. People cite his ‘Bolsa Familia’ policy and his personal charisma as his secret weapons. Is there more to it?
Undoubtedly, policies like Bolsa Familia and Lula’s personal charisma were keys to his success. But what must be kept in mind is Lula’s historical importance and his background. Product of a hard-scrabble upbringing in Brazil’s northeast, he migrated, like so many nordestinos, seeking a better life in the industrial centers of Sao Paulo, with nothing more than a primary school education. In Sao Paulo, he worked in manufacturing, was seriously injured and became a union leader. At the time, Brazil was under the yoke of a military dictatorship. Political dissent had been crushed, with many dissidents imprisoned or forced to seek refuge abroad. In his role as chief organizer of the PT and as the public face of workers’ movement, which landed him in hot water with the regime, he played a major role in the transition to democracy (in 1985). But what has made Lula popular is his status as a civilian “everyman” in a political world dominated by wealthy, long-entrenched elites or military officials. Even since the transition to democracy, Brazilian politics continues to be dominated by scions of wealthy, well-placed families. Known for his unabashed fondness for cachaca (sugar cane brandy) and football, Lula’s appeal to the Brazilian population at large is unsurprising. Another element in his personal appeal, it should be added, is that he has been personally untainted by the corruption and peculation that brought down many members of his administration and which continues to be rife in Brazilian politics.

Has the economic boom created new problems or exacerbated old ones? Brazil has always suffered from a serious problem with corruption and a north-south divide. What other developments have you noticed emerging in recent history?
The economic boom has served to lift many out of extreme poverty. Poverty rates plummeted 8 per cent a year between 2003 and 2007, though 25 per cent of Brazilians are still beneath the poverty line and more than 40 per cent of Brazilian households lack consistent access to garbage collection, clean water, and sewage disposal. There are still major regional asymmetries, particularly between the wealthier southeast and poorer north and northeast (though the northeast is the fastest growing region, perhaps due to its modest starting point). And the inequality index (Gini) has changed for the better, but only slightly. As I mentioned earlier, however, tremendous structural problems have remained unaddressed during this period of rising GDP. Educational attainment and achievement is one of these problems. Though one can’t attribute causality to it, education has the largest explanatory power when determining the source of income inequality. Also, government programs, however well-designed, are not a magic bullet for deep-seated problems.  Functional illiteracy rates remain high, for example. Moreover, as Brazil develops, and as it makes good on the social rights enshrined in its 1988 Constitution, new problems threatening to derail growth emerge. Health care costs, for example, are rising rapidly and social security reform is needed. How Brazil handles these challenges will determine its long-term prosperity.

It has been suggested that Brazil’s success and the renaissance in South American politics is a result of the US no longer keeping such a firm grip on its “back yard”, a distraction that left the way open for more left-wing governments. Do you agree?
It is certainly true that the fall of the infamous “Washington Consensus” has made feasible the types of social programs put in place by left-of-center governments in Latin America in recent years. But it should be added that left-of-center governments have adopted policies to keep inflation in check, maintain deficits low, and favor foreign direct investment. That is, they have become neo-liberals without external coercion. US policy toward Latin America since the end of the Cold War has wavered between condescension and neglect, but direct intervention in political (and policy) outcomes is increasingly rare. There are many reasons for this state of affairs, including US decline, US over-stretch in western Asia, Latin American political stability and flourishing democracy, and Latin American economic prosperity. Optimistically, hemispheric cooperation among equals has never appeared more likely.

Let’s back up a little and look at Brazil’s history as a country. It has developed differently to other South American Spanish-speaking countries. What are some of the unique elements of Brazilian history and are they still affecting the country today?
The differences between the historical development of Brazil and its Spanish-speaking neighbors are legion. First, the vastness of Brazilian territory and difficulties of communication meant that each of Brazil’s regions developed separately, which partly accounts for the regional differentiation so pronounced today. Second, with the exception of the Minas Gerais region, where major mineral strikes occurred around 1700, Portuguese colonization was largely confined to the littorals, meaning that the interior was largely unpopulated. Still today, though now exacerbated by hyper-urbanization and off-set by efforts to move population into the interior (i.e. the construction of Brasilia in the 1950s), the vast majority of the country’s population is found along the coasts. Third, Brazil’s colonial economy was premised on export-oriented agriculture and extractive industries. Gold and silver gave way to sugar, tobacco, and coffee, which in turn gave way to coffee and hides. Many of these activities were dependent on slave labor, itself dependent on the slave trade with West and Southern Africa. Brazil was the last country to abolish the slave trade (1850) and the last in the Americas to abolish slavery (1888). The legacies of both export-oriented economy, and its dependence on enslaved Africans continues, obviously, to be felt today, from inequality to racial discrimination, but also in the fact that Brazil is the fourth largest exporter of food globally. Fourth, when Brazil became independent of Portugal in the early nineteenth century, it did not become a republic, like the rest of the colonies in the Americas, north and south. Instead, it retained a monarchy (it was called the “Brazilian Empire”), which survived until 1889, when it was replaced by a republican form of government. But the robust role of the executive and presidential power in present-day Brazil is a legacy of the survival of monarchy, as much as it is the result of strong executives such as Vargas, who dominated Brazilian politics from 1930 until the early 1950s.

Brazil seemed to arrive late to the modern world, as if it was being held back. A functioning democracy has only really been in place for less than twenty years, is that fair to say?
Yes, it is fair to say that Brazilian democracy has functioned only for the past 25 years. From 1964 until 1985, the country was ruled by a military dictatorship. Dictatorship was welcomed by many segments of the population, particularly the middle class. It was, after all, between 1968 and 1973 that Brazil experienced “miracle growth” of more than eleven per cent per year, along with the huge expansion of industry. However, it is important to note that there are robust republican and liberal traditions stretching back to Brazil’s independence. As early as the 1820s, there was a thriving civil society and parliamentary culture. To be sure, there were great contradictions, notably the persistence of slavery amidst the embrace of other facets of liberalism (free trade, for example). But nineteenth and twentieth century Brazilian history was punctuated by many political movements as “advanced” or “progressive” as anything one finds in North America or Europe. What is notable in the last 25 years is the removal of the military from politics and the peaceful transfer of power to an electoral democracy.

Brazil has a long chequered history of military dictatorships, are they a thing of the past? Or might a recession in Brazil open the doors to military rule. How far has Brazil come?
I think that civilian rule is here to stay. The historical conjuncture that made recourse to military rule probable (The Cold War, revolutionary political movements, economic crisis) appears to have passed. What remains to be seen is whether the persistence of inequalities (economic, racial, educational, regional) amidst continued economic prosperity leads to the erosion of the basis consensus governing Brazilian politics, and the radicalization of its political discourse.

What about Dilma Rousseff? It is still early days and she is something of an unknown but how do you see her presidency developing?
Dilma Rousseff held important positions in Lula’s two administrations and largely shares his vision of Brazil’s future. There is very little difference between them, thus far at least!

What about Brazil’s foreign policy. There is clearly an anti-US slant with its cozy relationship with Venezuela and Iran. Is this just the joy of irritating Washington to pay them back for decades of interference or is there something valuable at work here?
I’m not sure if I’d characterize it as an anti-US slant. It certainly is an independent foreign policy. Not only under Lula, but even under Cardoso, many Brazilians have long felt that their country’s economic weight, regional importance, and population size have not been adequately represented in the architecture of international institutions. Clearly, Lula’s push to have Brazil on the UN Security Council is but the most visible of a broader sense that Brazil has not enjoyed influence and decision-making power commensurate with its power (for example, Brazil is poised to become the world’s fifth largest economy by 2016). Relations with Iran and Venezuela have been pursued for complex reasons, but it is the independent, assertive nature of Brazilian foreign policy that deserves to be re-iterated here. Interestingly, Brazil under Lula (and Dilma) has pursued an active foreign policy with various African countries. Trade between Brazil and the African continent, has gone from $3 billion in 2001 to $26 billion in 2008. Another major foreign policy issue is Brazil’s relationship with China, which recently became its largest investor. While offering benefits for each country, as well as aiding Brazil’s ambitions on the global stage, it also poses challenges. In 2010, for example, almost 80 per cent of Brazil’s exports to China were basic goods and raw material (soy, iron ore, and oil), but 90 per cent of imports from China were capital or manufactured goods. Such figures suggest that a debate in Brazil about China’s impact on Brazilian industry is not far off.

What about the three major issues affecting the country, inequality, corruption and the Amazon deforestation? Is there any activity on these fronts? Are these serious issues getting left behind in the euphoria of the economic boom?
Environmental degradation and the deforestation of the Amazon are crucial issues, which will assume greater importance in the decades ahead. Brazilian energy policy, too, is a huge question mark. The discovery of huge offshore deposits of oil will have a tremendous impact, but it is difficult to predict in which way. Political corruption remains a problem, perhaps a growing problem, while poor infrastructure (i.e. absence of high-speed rail, unpaved roads, horrendous airports, poor port facilities) could undermine economic growth. The challenges, in sum, are huge. But what country, at any time in history, hasn’t had challenges to confront!

Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa and Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China

Traditionally Chinese foreign policy has been described as passive and dedicated to non-interference.  Has this changed over the last decade of economic prosperity in China?
The traditional characterisation of it as passive and dedicated to non-interference is correct. However, such a strategy was appropriate when China was still a very weak ‘big power’ and was designed to avoid the perceived mistakes made by Mao Zedong of trying to do too much too quickly. Over the past decade, China has become too great a power to pursue such a policy. Its interests are expanding, and with expanding interests come a more pro-active foreign policy. Its energy security policies in Africa and the Middle East are examples. As the world’s second largest economy, it is not possible to have a passive foreign policy any longer. But note that the rhetoric of its foreign policy is still generally that of passivity and non-interference.

What are China’s “core interests” in terms of foreign policy?
Territorially, holding on to Tibet and Xinjiang, and eventually absorbing Taiwan back into the mainland are the core interests. Many entities, including the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), have been pushing harder on the issue of Chinese claims in the South China Sea. But I would still not classify Beijing’s attitude in the South China Sea as analogous to its mindset in the aforementioned territories.

Has Chinese foreign policy changed recently given the perception that US global power is on the wane?
Chinese ultimate foreign policy objectives have not changed for two decades – that is to eventually supersede America in Asia and ease America out of Asia as China rises whilst avoiding conflict. But it is no longer possible to ‘hide its power’ given the enormity of it. My summary is that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) civilian leaders are still fairly cautious while I do detect strong elements of hubris amongst the PLA.

Will China’s massive military build up lead to policy changes?
If China can achieve its ‘core interests’ militarily, then it will be very tempted to do so. However, despite its massive military build-up and capacity to inflict serious damage on American military assets, it is still well behind the American competitor. Hence, the danger is more one of escalation arising from a crisis (eg., in the Taiwan Straits) than any planned military adventurism in the foreseeable future.

How would you describe current foreign policy and to what extent is it linked to aid and economic assistance?
Beijing’s aid and economic assistance is almost all about securing and diversifying sources of energy and mineral resources. This ‘locking up’ of supply is best understood as China’s ‘hedging’ approach against complete reliance on local and international commodity markets to secure needed resources.  Beijing is convinced that in the event of shortages in the international commodity market, America will be able to ‘control’ supply to its own advantage.

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Dr John Lee

Dr John Lee is the Michael Hintze Fellow for Energy Security and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies, Sydney University. He is also a non-resident Senior Scholar at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC. Anticipating structural and other trends in the Chinese economy and foreign policy long before they became apparent, his articles are frequently published in the world’s leading policy and academic journals, and he has contributed hundreds of opinion pieces to over forty leading newspapers and magazines in America, Europe and Asia such as the Washington Post, New York Times, Times of London, Wall Street Journal, Global Times, Time, Forbes, Der Speigel, International Herald Tribune, Business Week, and Newsweek, in addition to all major newspapers in Australia.

John Lee, Will China Fail? The Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney, 2007.

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Is there any political ideology attached to Chinese foreign policy or is it just pure realism?
It is more the latter – trying to extend its influence in any way possible and to seek windows of opportunity to do so. The only ideological component is that Beijing feels deeply uncomfortable as an authoritarian great power in a world dominated by liberal-democratic great powers. It, quite correctly, feels that America in particular will never accept China as a ‘peer’ whilst China remains an authoritarian polity. Remember that the rationale given by American presidents since Bill Clinton in engaging China includes speeding up the process of political reform in the country.

Is there such as thing as a Chinese theory of international relations?
I am sceptical that there is such a thing. Some Chinese do put forward notions of the ‘civilisation’ state as a basis for order in foreign policy. But I view this as somewhat self-serving, rather than as a genuine alternative basis for foreign relations as such.

Is the Taiwan issue absolutely key?
It is the most intractable issue in US-China relations and the issue most likely to lead to war. Having said that, even if Taiwan were peacefully integrated back into the PRC, I don’t think strategic competition would decrease between the US and China. On the contrary, it would deepen since China would now have an ‘opening’ into the Western Pacific Ocean.

I wanted to ask you particularly about Myanmar and Africa.  Myanmar is in a state of rapid political change but in terms of Chinese foreign policy, Myanmar is geographically strategic.  What is the importance of Myanmar for China? I have the Andaman Sea in mind particularly.
Myanmar is superbly positioned above the Andaman Sea and entry into the Malacca Straits. This offers several potential advantages to China. First, if infrastructure is developed, it allows China an alternative route to receive imports that does not go through the Malacca Straits and South China Sea which is patrolled by the US Seventh Fleet. Second, it potentially allows the PLA Navy an excellent intelligence gathering ‘listening’ post and also a convenient docking and refuelling option.

How would you describe Myanmar-Chinese relations at present?
China is Myanmar’s most important trading partner and foreign investor, and has been since Myanmar was increasingly ostracised in 1988 following its suppression of pro-democracy protesters. However, Myanmar does not want to become a de facto ‘Chinese province’ and is now seeking to further political reforms in order to access international aid as well as foreign investment from America and the EU. In summary, the relationship between Beijing and Rangoon was always one of convenience but not an alliance as such. China is good at forming relationships with authoritarian regimes of weak or failing states through economic largesse but expects strategic and economic returns. Its record of winning over local populations is very poor. This is very typical if China’s relations with so-called allies such as North Korea.

In Africa, Is China’s foreign policy exclusively tied to gaining access to resources?  Is the situation more complex than this? Is there any attempt by the Chinese to win hearts and minds?
It is almost all tied to ‘locking up’ resources as part of Beijing’s energy and resource security policies. There is little attempt at winning over hearts and minds because there is no immediate need to do so. The modus operandi is to form a special relationship with the authoritarian regime in that country and win elites over with enormous amounts of economic aid. Hence, there is little emphasis on a ‘bottom up’ diplomatic strategy and it shows in the deep unpopularity of Chinese companies in many African countries despite the apparently strong government-to-government relations between Beijing and these capitals. Note also that China tends to bring in its own workers in many of these countries, offering little by way of employment benefits to locals. The environmental record of SOEs (State-Owned Enterprises) in Africa is also very poor, creating significant resentment amongst local populations.

You have described Chinese aid and economic assistance to African countries as being with “no strings attached” can you explain that approach?
It can be a misleading term. There are ‘no strings attached’ when it comes to imposing governance and transparency standards (unlike conditions imposed by institutions such as the World Bank) but Beijing expects an economic and strategic return from these governments.

Is it fair to say that Chinese policy pays no heed to labour relations and environmental issues?
Chinese policy is certainly poor in this regard, compared to the policies of other great powers. In many respects, Chinese SOE behaviour in this respect simply reflects domestic behaviour of its SOEs.

Are there drawbacks to this seemingly open-ended approach? Presumably China wants a very specific payback.
Yes, there is very little grassroots support for Chinese economic activity in these countries, while Beijing has little interest in building communities or observing environmental standards etc in these countries. Events in Myanmar recently, and also periodic protests against Chinese interests in places like Sudan are testament to the fact that Beijing’s statecraft is not as effective as sometimes believed.

What about North Korea?  China rarely pronounces on this problem but basically it is much more a Chinese problem than a US one.  Is the key for China merely to avoid having a pro-US neighbour, whatever the cost?
This has very much to do with it. A unified Korea would almost certainly be under the leadership of the much more economically powerful South (similar to the West and East Germany dynamic) and this would leave an American ally right on the doorstep of China in the northeast.

Relations with India are still tense but improving, is that true?
They certainly are tense albeit stable. I wouldn’t say it is improving. On the contrary, relations with India have deteriorated noticeably over the past few years. The immediate issue of contention is the dispute over the Indian held territory of Aranuchal Pradesh. China has militarised their side of the territory and India is beginning to do so as well. There are hundreds of small, potentially explosive skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops each year. And India is now openly speaking about increasing its capacity to fight a limited war with China over this issue. More broadly, the rise of two Asian giants is always going to create tension, particularly as India has dramatically improved strategic relations with Japan, Vietnam and the US – all competitors of China’s. Asia has not seen a powerful India, China and Japan for around 400 years!

How has China reacted to President Obama’s bolstering of Australia’s security recently albeit with a symbolic number of marines.  What message were PM Gillard and President Obama giving to China?
China has been quick to condemn the announcement as provocative and potentially destabilising, although Beijing would not have been surprised. Many other states have renewed or enhanced their strategic and military relationship with Washington over the past couple of years in Asia. The message by the US and Australia is that America is not withdrawing from Asia in any way and that the perception of American influence weakening in Asia is not accurate. It is also significant that Washington is clear that defense spending cuts are quarantined when it comes to Asia. From Australia’s point of view, it is a message that Australia has already chosen its strategic direction – which is to move even closer to America – despite Australia’s booming trade relationship with China.

Is the Indian Ocean the new theatre of operations that everyone is concentrating on?
There is certainly more interest in the Indian Ocean because of the increase in seaborne trade through the Ocean. But in Asia, the South China Sea and Pacific are still more important since this is where China is primarily focusing on still.

The cliché is that China tends to behave similarly to Russia which is to find out what the US and Europe wants and then say “No”.  Does China still see itself as a bulwark against US and NATO expansion such as with the recent UN vote on Syria?
China is attempting to play the Russia role, but wants to be less conspicuous and vocal than Moscow in doing so. Bear in mind that while Russia is a declining power looking to make as much noise as possible to maintain its relevance, China is a rising power looking to assure other great powers that its rise will be peaceful.

Detail from the Ghent altarpiece - The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Jan and Hubert van Eyck

The panel in question, that of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, is part of a 24-panel polyptych in the Cathedral of Saint Bavo in Ghent, Belgium. The work (oil on wood) was begun in c.1420 by Hubert van Eyck and completed by his younger brother Jan van Eyck in 1432.

The aim of this article is to reflect on the way the theme of the Eucharist is treated in Van Eyck’s masterpiece: the Lamb on the altar is the Christ-Eucharist, the risen Lord made present in his Church by the Sacrament of the Eucharist and by the Holy Spirit (symbolised by the dove above the altar).

The choice of depicting the Lamb in the Ghent altarpiece can be ascribed to the specific character of Flemish XV century painting, which tended to favour symbols as a means of conveying complex theological concepts. In Van Eyck’s painting, the presence of the Lamb on the altar carries more significance than the image of a simple ostensorium (which was quite common in paintings of the time), because in itself the Lamb summarises the many dimensions of the Eucharist, as the pivotal mystery linking the Old and New Testaments and as the anticipation of eschatological universal salvation.

In this article I shall concentrate on four facets of the Eucharist shown in this painting: firstly the element of  sacrifice; secondly the new life; thirdly the union between heaven and earth; and finally, the presence of Christ and the participation in His mystery.

Van Eyck's Ghent altarpiece - The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb is the lower central panel

1.The Eucharist as sacrifice

In the Ghent altarpiece, it is the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharistic mystery that is emphasized. The lamb has always been the symbol of sacrifice par excellence. In the Mosaic Law, the lamb had a propitiatory value as well as an expiatory one. Christ, like the lamb sacrificed at Easter, is the perfect first-born son, without sin. And like the meek and mild lamb, he represents the gentle, the pure at heart, and the innocent who never rebel against their persecutors.

In presenting the figure of the Lamb, instead of Christ incarnate or the liturgical host, Van Eyck refers back to an ancient iconographic tradition. Christ is generally represented as a lamb from the IV and V centuries onwards, especially on sarcophagi (see John 1:29 and the Book of Revelations). Often the lamb is portrayed on top of a mount (Revelations 14:1) from which spring four rivers (Revelations 22:1 and Genesis 2:3) symbolizing the four gospels which reach the four corners of the earth. Facing the lamb, to its left and right, are other lambs representing the apostles Peter and Paul or deer representing the faithful. Framing the scene, there are often two date palms which symbolize eternal life (this iconography can therefore be interpreted as a theophany showing the victorious Risen Lord).

The sacrificial Eucharistic aspect of the panel in the Ghent altarpiece is evident not only through the choice of the image of the lamb, but also through the clear reference to blood, which flows from the lamb’s wound into a chalice. (The image of the lamb with its breast pierced – the blood gushing from its wound collected in a chalice – begins to make an appearance in religious art from the Middle Ages).

The chalice, as well as having a clear liturgical significance, refers both to sacrifice and communion. In the Old Testament, the chalice is often a symbol of sharing, joy and abundance: “My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”(Psalms 23:5-6). In the New Testament, the chalice returns with a double connotation, alluding both to suffering as well as to sharing and redemption: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you” (Luke 22:20).

In its turn, blood has always been considered a vital element in the Bible. As the essential life force of man, it belongs to God, since life is the gift of God. Consequently, it plays a crucial role in the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Mention is made of blood poured onto the altar (Exodus 24:6) and particularly of the ritual sprinkling of blood (Luke 4:6.16-17) which seals the covenant (Exodus 24:6-8). The New Testament underlines the redemptive power of Christ’s blood. Christ himself says: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (John 6:54). With these words he refers to the Eucharist, evoked more precisely in Mark 14:24 (and elsewhere): “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

In Van Eyck’s painting, the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist is also emphasized by the red colour of the drape which covers the altar, with a dedication which reads: “Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi; IHES Via Veritas Vita”. Red is the colour of purification, of sacrifice, of mercy and of the infinite love of God. In the Jewish world, the “ashes of the red heifer”, a young, untried and flawless calf, were considered a means of purification. In the Book of Numbers, we read: “the priest shall take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is being burned” (Numbers 19:6). In the New Testament, the colour red recalls the passion of Christ, and his sacrifice for the salvation of humanity. Christ wears a red tunic; Justin Martyr and Tertullian interpret this as the life that Christ gives to mankind through the spilling of his blood. Augustine makes another parallel when he writes: “His garments, which he washes in wine, that is cleansing them of sins with his blood, undoubtedly represent the Church…”.

The sacrificial aspect of the mystery of the Eucharist is also referred to through the instruments of Christ’s passion which are held by four angels behind the altar: a cross with a crown of leaves, a spear, a scourge and a sponge, a column and a rod. These instruments fit perfectly into their surroundings, as an integral part both of the verdant landscape and of the heavenly liturgy. While they constitute an eternal physical reminder of the sacrifice of Christ incarnate, they are somehow mystically transformed by the power of the Risen Lord, which pervades the whole scene.

The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb

2.The Eucharist as new life

The Lamb on the altar is not simply a sacrificial lamb. It is standing, its eyes open, gazing directly at the observer, its head surrounded by light. In the Eucharist, in fact, it is the Living Lord that we adore: “Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever” (Revelations 1:18). The very writing on the altar reminds us of that, referring to Christ not only as the lamb who takes away the sins of the world but also as “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Christ is the sacrificial lamb of Easter (see Corinthians 5:7-8), not reclining but standing, because He has risen (see Revelations 5:6).

And every man and woman, thanks to their encounter with Christ, sees his or her condition radically changed, as they receive a new life. Christ says: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live” (John 11:25). This new life is not an infinite period of time, but rather another dimension of human existence, in which the faithful are immersed through baptism (see Romans 6:4).

In the painting of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, there is a clear reference to this new life, which the believer is introduced to through baptism and which is reinvigorated through the mystery of the Eucharist. This new life is evoked by the octagonal fountain (eight is the number of the day of the resurrection, understood as a new beginning, or new creation) with its twelve spouts, just as there are twelve apostles and twelve tribes of Israel (twelve is the number of fullness). From the basin at the base of the fountain, water flows into the foreground of the painting, almost towards the observer. The fountain can be compared to the river used in biblical symbolism, and in fact it carries the inscription “fluvius” (river) and not “fons” (fountain).

There are many biblical references to the river as a source of life: from the description of Paradise in Genesis: “A river rises in Eden to water the garden; beyond there it divides and becomes four branches.” (Genesis 2:10). God himself is the source of living water, the river that gives life to the world: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” (Psalms 42). When “the Day of the Lord” will come, “living waters shall flow from Jerusalem” (Zecharia 14:8); “wherever the river flows, every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live, and there shall be abundant fish, for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.”(Ezekiel 47:9).

In the New Testament we find a correlation between living waters and the Holy Spirit: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” (John 3:5). In his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus points out the difference between ordinary water, like that from Jacob’s well, and the water He gives to the thirsty: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). Whoever believes in Jesus Christ, will become a spring of water from this life-giving fountain. Jesus says: “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him’ ” (John 7:37). Jesus’s side, pierced when he was on the cross, recalls the fountain that flows from the ancient temple described by Ezekiel, whose waters spread throughout the world: “but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out” (John 19:34). And when the fulfilment of time will come, a “river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal,” will flow “from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).

It is to this very river that Van Eyck’s painting refers in particular, as can be seen from the inscription adorning the rim of the fountain: et ostendit mihi fluvium aquae vitae procedentem de sede Dei et agni (“then he showed me the river of life-giving water flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb”, see Revelation 22:1). The throne of God and the Lamb is the true source of the river of the water of eternal life.

3.The Eucharist as the union between heaven and earth

The very setting of Van Eyck’s painting -a luxuriant garden filled with plants and flowers- evokes this new life, which corresponds to the renewal of mankind after their redemption through the blood of the Lamb. From the earliest examples of Christian art, the representation of gardens and fields, borrowed from the Classical iconography of the locus amoenus, allude to the beatific life and thus to heaven. The garden of the Lamb is the paschal garden of the Risen Lord whose sacrifice transforms the whole earth into a Garden of Eden.

Thus the city in the background of Van Eyck’s landscape can be interpreted as symbolizing the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. The buildings are therefore imaginary (even though two of them are recognizable: the tower of the Utrecht cathedral, to the left of the Lamb, and the dark tower of St. Nicholas’ church in Ghent, on the right in the group of buildings between the Lamb and the Virgins). The fact that the architecture of the city is Gothic naturally reflects the style of the period, but it also reveals a conscious choice made by the artist. We cannot know for certain whether Hubert followed the same pattern as his brother Jan, but it is interesting to note that the latter deliberately counterposed Romanesque and Gothic architecture in his paintings, with precise symbolic significance: the first as a reference to the Old Testament, the second referring to the New Testament (see for example the Friedsam Annunciation).

The heavenly Jerusalem in Gothic style : detail

It is possible that also the precious stones scattered on the ground in front of the fountain in the Adoration of the Lamb allude to the heavenly Jerusalem. There are many such references in the Bible. To the afflicted Zion, the Lord instils courage: “I lay your pavements in carnelians, and your foundations in sapphires; I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of carbuncles, and all your walls of precious stones” (Isaiah 54:11-12). In the Book of Revelation too, the heavenly Jerusalem is inlaid with multi-coloured precious stones (see Revelation 21).

The sacrifice of Christ allows the faithful to experience a new dimension of life; it allows them to enter mystically and sacramentally the heavenly Jerusalem. The Eucharist permits the faithful to move into another time, in such a way as to have a foretaste of the eschatological joy. In the words of John Chrysostom, it is Christ’s presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist that ‘transforms earth into heaven’. The Eucharist celebrated at the altar is the manifestation of heaven which has descended to earth.

If this union between heaven and earth, or between man and God, were to have a colour, it would surely be that of the iridescent angels’ wings depicted in the Ghent altarpiece. The rainbow is the symbol of God’s grace and goodwill. In the Old Testament it represents the renewal of the covenant. When Noah abbandons the ark after the forty-day deluge, he offers his sacrifice to the Lord on an altar, and is blessed by God with offspring; the rainbow appears through the clouds as a token of the covenant between the Creator and all living things (Genesis 9:12-16). The rainbow is not only the symbol of God’s goodwill towards men, but also of his glory, as it recalls an other-wordly splendour. The throne of the Lord of the universe is described as follows: “Like the bow which appears in the clouds on a rainy day was the splendor that surrounded him. Such was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord” (Ezekiel 1:28). In the New Testament, Revelation again takes up the image of the rainbow around the throne of the Lord who sits in judgement at the end of time. Thus Van Eyck’s shimmering angels’ wings are a reminder of the everlasting bond that unites all living things to their Creator, the deep communion established by the Lamb between God and man (Hebrews 9:12), and the coming to earth of the heavenly Jerusalem.

The confessors of the faith appearing in order of hierarchy : detail

The faithful who enter the heavenly Jerusalem through the Eucharist are not alone, but in the companionship of the saints – the multitude of the elect who are reborn through the blood of the Lamb:  “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). Although Revelation refers to the elect as dressed in white robes, Van Eyck uses a free hand in his depiction. He portrays them in the panel of the Adoration and in the four lateral panels as the various groups of people who are turning towards the Lamb. In the panel with the Mystic Lamb, the group in the foreground on the left have been identified as the main prophets of the Old Testament (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel) kneeling in the front row with books in their hands and the twelve minor prophets, behind whom throng the multitudes of all nations (see Revelation 7:9) including people who had not known Christ. Among these, the figure crowned with laurel leaves is thought to represent Virgil.

The Christian martyrs : detail

The corresponding group on the right includes the twelve apostles kneeling in the front row and behind them the Christian martyrs identifiable by their red robes. There are three popes, six bishops and two deacons, a few monks and several lay people. Saint Stephen can be recognized by the stones he is carrying in his surplice and Saint Livinus, one of the patron saints of the city of Ghent, has his tongue held in the grip of the tongs which were used to tear it out. The group emerging from the bush in the background on the left are the confessors of the faith, in order of hierarchy. They are carrying palms but are not dressed in red (which shows they did not die a martyr’s death): popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and maybe some lay people as well. Finally, the group in the background on the right shows the women saints (both martyred and not), carrying the palm of victory and wearing flowers in their hair, along with other anonymous women (both religious and not). Among the saints we can recognize Agnes with her lamb, Barbara with the tower, Dorothy with the basket of flowers and Ursula with the arrow.

The two side panels on the left of the polyptych portray the knights of Christ (including various sovereigns and probably leaders of the Crusades, like Louis IX, Godefroy de Bouillon and Charlemagne) and the Just Judges, i.e. administrators and politicians. The two panels on the right depict the hermits (including Mary Magdalene at the back, with her vase of unguents) and the pilgrims, led by a giant Saint Christopher, beside whom appears a man carrying the distinctive symbols of the three great pilgrimages to Compostella, Rome and Jerusalem (possibly Jodocus, patron saint of the altarpiece donor).

Thanks to the liturgy, the people of God are gathered in the presence of the Risen Lord, grouped around his altar like the one communion of the saved. The liturgy reinforces and maintains this bond uniting all the Church: the Church of the living and the Church of the dead. In the liturgy, the saints are praised for their witness and God is thanked for having provided them to intercede for the faithful. The earthly liturgy becomes a mirror of the heavenly liturgy. This union between the earthly liturgy, centred on the Eucharist, and the heavenly liturgy, centred on glorifying the Risen Lord, is emphasized in the Adoration of the Lamb panel through the presence of fourteen angels kneeling in adoration around the altar: in the foreground two of them are holding aloft an incense-burner, while four angels behind the altar are carrying (as has been previously mentioned) the instruments of the passion of Christ.

The female saints carrying the palm of victory : detail

4. The Eucharist as the presence of Christ and the participation in His mystery

The Adoration of the Lamb mirrors both the unity of creation (men and angels, the works of man and those of God, city and nature), and the presence of Christ in His Church. The Eucharist is indeed the sacrament par excellence of such presence (in Van Eyck’s painting the Lamb is the Eucharist), which fulfils the promise made by the Lord: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

The presence of Christ is made real in the intimacy of man’s soul and within the Church by the Holy Spirit. For this reason, in Van Eyck’s painting, the dove representing the Holy Spirit is depicted in the centre of the scene high above the altar with its wings spread, surrounded by a halo of light. During the celebration of the liturgy, the Spirit is invoked in the epiclesis for the blessing and transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. When the Spirit attains the heart of the believer, allowing him or her to know the Redeemer personally, then Christ’s sacrifice, which was made once and for all, is rendered eternal. The Spirit reminds the Church of all that Christ achieved (see John 14:26, 15:26, 16:12-15), and  makes the Church deserving of making the offering to the Redeemer in its turn. And it is the Holy Spirit who vivifies the Church and all creation without ceasing. To emphasize the Spirit’s vivifying powers, Van Eyck has painted a halo of light-rays radiating from the dove which spread out over the panel, touching the various groups of people.

In showing the Lamb of God as the Eucharistic mystery which gives life and unity to all the Church in an eternal present, this painting by Van Eyck encourages the faithful to contemplate and partecipate in the sacrifice of the Risen Lord. The absence of a celebrant at the altar evokes not only the fact that Christ is at once priest and victim, but also the fact that Christians themselves are invited to be a “holy priesthood” (see 1 Peter 2:4-5, Revelation 1:6, 5:10), and to take active part in the mystery of the Eucharist. The faithful are thus called upon in the Eucharist to offer themselves as a “living sacrifice”, binding themselves to the sacrifice of Christ: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:1).

Those who saw the Ghent altarpiece were expected to be more than spectators – they were expected to feel personally involved. Flemish religious art in the XV century accentuated the devotional, mystical and interior dimension of the subjects portrayed. It reached out to the onlooker, endeavouring to arouse feelings of compunction and piety. More to the point, it was meant to encourage the faithful to be deeply transformed by Christ and imitate Him in their daily lives.

Kazakh police in Zhanaozen

Perhaps the president was referring to the fact that these elections saw the ingress of two other parties, apart from his own, into the Majilis, the Kazakh parliament – meaning that his party is no longer the only party represented there. But the Majilis had previously included other parties prior to the 2007 elections, so this is really just a return to the past rather than modernization. Or perhaps Nazarbayev was trying to say that Kazakhstan is functioning so well as a country that the electoral results now coincide exactly with the hopes he expressed just prior to the elections (he said that he hoped two other parties would be included in parliament). So perhaps next time there won’t be any need to actually vote! The president will merely have to pronounce and the political institutions will be automatically renewed without having to bother citizens with details like elections.

Irony aside, the truth is that contrary to Nazarbayev’s claim, Kazakhstan’s political system appears to be in a complete state of paralysis and incapable of adjusting to an increasingly fluid situation. Massimov’s inaugural address on 18 January did not contain the slightest hint of self-criticism, not even when he referred to – he could not have avoided mentioning it – the massacre of striking oil industry workers that had taken place a month previously at the hands of the police in the city of Zhanaozen. The massacre “caused us pain”, said the prime minister, adding that the responsibility for the killings should be attributed to mysterious “external elements” who are currently being investigated. This immediately offered the powers-that-be a wonderful excuse to make life difficult for opposition politicians. In fact three days later a series of searches and confiscations took place in the homes of the leaders of an un-registered political party, Alga. Representing a group of moderates, Alga had united with some other parties of differing ideological hues under the banner of the United Front, which had not been allowed to participate in the elections. The Alga members under investigation are said to be guilty of having gone to Zhanaozen in the days following the massacre claiming that the police were the prime culprits in the killings. This was enough for them to be accused of “inciting hatred”, despite the fact that accounts of the massacre given by Zhanaozen locals all told pretty much the same story, backing up Alga’s claim.

In the western region of Mangystau, where the oil industry is the major source of employment, oil industry workers had been in ferment for many months, demanding improvements in their wages and working conditions. From June 2011 onwards, a permanent protest had been held in the city’s main square by the workers and trade unionists who had been fired for having gone on strike. It was a determined yet absolutely peaceful protest, with tents, banners and placards. Other workers and local citizens would drop by bringing material help and offering solidarity.

Even on that dramatic day of 16 December, the protesters in the square did not appear to be particularly tense. Events were triggered unexpectedly by the arrival of a group of thugs wearing jackets sporting the logo of one of the oil companies working in the region. Armed with clubs, they smashed up a nearby stage being set up for Independence Day festivities. This gave the green light to the police, who responded with savage violence, shooting to kill at the backs of the fleeing protestors. The square became the scene of a bloody massacre: eye-witness accounts and film clips taken with mobile phones all attest to bodies lying on the ground, injured by gunshot wounds, being beaten to death or being shot in the back of the neck. Hundreds of people were arrested, many of whom have not been heard from since. The city morgue, piled high with bodies, was secretly cleared and according to the authorities the number of victims was a mere 16. However, about one hundred people are still missing, most of whom are presumed dead.

The regime – in this case President Nazarbayev in person – ordered an inquiry into the events: but the only two actions undertaken by the government (that of Massimov pre-elections) were the announcement of a state of emergency and the imposition of a curfew in the entire region of Mangystau. Thousands of troops were deployed to patrol the streets and squares of the main cities and an attempt was made to transfer the protesting workers to more distant regions by offering them different jobs. But it seems that the workers in Mangystau do not intend to give in that easily. They have refused to be transferred (also because the new jobs offered lower wages) and have remained mobilized, continuing the protests in their home towns. In some cases they have taken tough action against the government’s repressive measures, like the cutting of the railway lines which are used to transport army troops. It is no coincidence that the curfew is still being imposed in the region a month-and-a-half after the “painful episode” and it does not look like the Massimov government has any new cards to play.

The problem is a very serious one, given that the oil and gas being extracted in the desolate region of Mangystau and along the marshy banks of the Caspian Sea constitute Kazakhstan’s main source of revenue. It is here that numerous national and international companies are involved in the drilling and extraction business. For many years everything had been going smoothly; the workers were used to receiving low salaries and working in very poor conditions without complaining. The companies involved earned spectacular profits, and even though a portion ended up in the treasury of the Kazakh government and in the pockets of local power brokers, they were quite happy with the arrangement and Nazarbayev’s regime was earning spectacular amounts of money. But as an increasing number of city-dwelling Kazakhs began to show off their newly-gained wealth, the oil workers began to ask for better treatment. And that is when the trouble started.

Even though the government is now making every effort to say that the region is back to normal – and even though the oil companies have confirmed that, despite all the troubles, 2011 will not register any fall in production or (heaven forbid!) any down-time – it is clear that if the workers do not cave in, the problem will begin to rear its head in the boardrooms of London, Dallas and Rome. Obviously a determined, responsible political strategy is needed, but that looks unlikely at the moment, judging by the way the elections were held and how the “new “ government and its supreme leader have begun the new legislature. The new administration looks to have adapted the famous statement made by French Foreign Minister, Horace Sebastiani, after Russian troops had crushed the Polish insurrection in 1831 – “Order reigns in Kazakhstan!”. Nor have there been any serious admonitions from the West – always ready to offer lessons in democracy – to the Central Asian petro-monarchy, which one might have expected.

Admittedly the OECD observers did go as far as to say that the electoral campaign was “unbalanced” and to label as “insufficient” the standards of correctness and transparency adopted during the voting and the subsequent vote count. Some European and US media reports have said that the situation in the country is far from calm, but on the whole foreign ministries have preferred to avert their gaze from what is happening in Kazakhstan and to accept the election results at face value.

At these elections, the president’s political party, Nur Otan (“Fatherland”) obtained an unlikely 81% of the votes, which in turn were cast by an equally unlikely 75% of possible voters. Two other parties, the People’s Communist Party and the liberal party Ak Zhol (both close to the president, so much so that they are considered the left and right wings of his Nur Otan party) both obtained exactly 7% of the vote, the absolute minimum necessary to take up their seats in the Majilis. This result was just what Nazarbayev had hoped for (or perhaps more accurately, ordered) just before the voting took place, so as to remove the unfortunate anomaly of a one-party parliament – the situation since 2007. All of the other real opposition parties, (including the other Communist Party, linked to the trade unions) were either outlawed or were not allowed to participate in the elections for a variety of dubious reasons. If they were allowed to participate, they were denied all forms of publicity. In short, they were denied the ability to obtain any votes and if by any chance they had done, those would probably have been lost on the way from the polling booth to the Central Electoral Office, given that there was no transparency even during the counting of the votes.

All this brought no reaction at all from “democratic” governments, in just the same way that the massacre at Zhanaozen had caused hardly a ripple. Despite the fact that Kazakhstan is a member of international organisations such as the OECD and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council which is a part of NATO, nobody thought to formally protest to the authorities in Astana. Even news coverage from all the big media networks was limited and superficial. There was very little news about the elections and an apparent lack of will to actually go and see what was happening in Kazakhstan. It should be noted that many Russian media outlets were far more critical of events. Clearly they were keen to highlight their freedom to make judgements not only about the Kazakh regime, but also about the Russian government which supports it, as well as looking to underline the undoubted differences between Kazakhstan’s “democracy” and the imperfect “Putin-style” democracy in their own country.

Lurking behind the apparent Western blindness, there is clearly the oil question, or rather anxiety about the oil companies operating in the region of Mangystau (primarily Chevron and Agip). These two companies, miraculously, have not thus far been too seriously affected either by the catastrophic social situation in the region or by the workers’ protests: their total production in 2011 did not experience a down-turn, and nor did their profits. If the price of this “stability” is the maintenance of the state of emergency and curfew, with the deployment of troops and roadblocks, then so be it. In any case the regime can always try and “cover” its repressive action with the pretext of a terrorist threat, something the West is always ready to accept. Last November there were two terrorist attacks in the region, claimed by an obscure Islamist group called “Soldiers of the Caliph” who apparently have connections with radical groups in the Russian Caucasus. The more serious of these attacks took place in the Fergana Valley, a well-known centre of radical Islam in Central Asia, and the other, which claimed no lives, took place in the city of Atyrau in Kazakhstan, where the oil refineries that process the oil from the neighbouring region of Mangystau are located. This was enough for the regime to establish a relationship between the protesting workers and Islamic terrorism. They thus felt themselves authorised to use the most violent of methods to restore order.

Despite the fact that there is no evidence of a possible increase in Islamic extremism in Kazakhstan, which is still the most secular of the central Asian states, those in charge in Washington and the other Western capitals must have thought it best not to take any chances and to allow Nazarbayev a free hand. Kazakhstan is already dangerously close to Moscow’s political orbit, having joined Russia’s Customs Union and signed various political-military pacts. If Western criticism were to start irritating the Kazakhs, an alternative partner would already be very close at hand.

Ben Jonson

Few have had the misfortune to be a playwright in the same era as William Shakespeare, but only one of them managed to end his days universally acclaimed as the “King of English poetry” and “Wit’s most triumphant monarch”.  Ben Jonson’s reputation has seen highs and lows over the centuries, but most recently he has been cast as a man who was part-Falstaff, part-classical scholar and part- churlish derider of Shakespeare’s talent.  Ian Donaldson’s excellent biography “Ben Jonson – A Life” paints a convincing picture of a far more complex figure, living in the dangerous and mutable  environment of Renaissance England.  Donaldson, an expert in the field, has been a  Jonson scholar for decades and is an editor of the Cambridge edition of Jonson’s Works.

Today Jonson’s fame rests on his two plays, “Volpone” and “The Alchemist”, however,  as Donaldson shows, Jonson was primarily a poet and a writer of courtly masques. Only reluctantly did he lend his talents to the “loathèd stage” with which he had a tortuous relationship, attracted by the money but despising what was for him a place where “nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man, is practiced.” He maintained this ambivalent attitude throughout his life, constrained in the theatre’s uncomfortable embrace by a seemingly endless need for funds.

 Bricklayer turned classical scholar

Jonson was a man of contradictions and volatile to boot.  As a young man he made a name for himself while fighting in the Low Countries (during the Protestant revolt against the Spanish) – by taking on a Spaniard in single combat in front of the assembled troops – and winning.  A bricklayer’s stepson turned classical scholar, he braved prison and torture on more than one occasion for having written the seditious play “Isle of Dogs” and for having killed a man in a duel.  He converted to Catholicism at a most inauspicious time and then reconverted back to the Church of England ten years later.  He flirted with the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot and walked to Scotland and back for a wager – no mean feat, as at the time he weighed 20 stone.  He was a bon viveur and a heavy drinker with a penchant for Canary wine, but above all he was a fine poet and a genius of dramatic comedy.

Ben Jonson was unusual for his times in that when he wrote he did so with an eye to posterity, ever anxious to set the record straight about the validity of his talents and the depth of his misfortunes.  He was also one of the first to publish his own works, when he saw his plays misunderstood or derided by contemporary audiences – he hoped for a better reception from a reading public or from future generations. He was one of the first English poets to become a national celebrity, which at least means that biographers have more information about his life, certainly a great deal more than the scant information that exists about Shakespeare.

"Ben Jonson: A Life" by Ian Donaldson - published by OUP

The first literary celebrity

Jonson offers the biographer an endless supply of information – constantly referring to himself in his verse – about his own life, his loves, hates and anxieties and even about what was to become his massive frame and unsightly looks: “mountain belly and rocky face”.  His name and reputation became known far and wide, well before the era of Byron and Dickens, when this sort of literary celebrity became the norm.  Even Jonson’s walk to Scotland and back saw him greeted, wined and dined by unknown fans and admirers.  However, at the end of the seventeenth century his star began to wane as Shakespearean idolatry took off.  It was not until the early twentieth century that his reputation was finally cemented through the praise heaped on him by T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and W.B: Yeats, and it has not faded since.

Jonson’s opportunity to escape from his humble beginnings came when he was accepted to study at the prestigious and, at the time, highly democratic Westminster School in London, where he became an avid reader of Ovid, Cicero and Seneca and notably the playwrights Terence and Sallust, laying the foundations for his “urban and contemporary style”.  It was here that he acquired his much vaunted classical learning, allowing him to lord it over his contemporaries including Shakespeare and Inigo Jones.

 Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones and courtly masques

His partnership with Inigo Jones, the set designer and later royal architect, lasted 20 years, not all of them peaceful by any means. Towards the end of their lives friendship and cooperation gave way to acrimony and insult, but the two of them together were a dream team, creating brilliant courtly masques that were at the time an extravagantly funded and highly respected art form, far more so than the theatre.  Jonson complained that the theatre brought him little money compared to masques, which were far more remunerative.  Masques, unlike plays, were the high point of artistic endeavour in Renaissance England, requiring a team of a poet, a designer and a choreographer all working together with a budget that often came to 1,000 pounds, a massive sum for an evening’s entertainment. However, Jonson would have been much more constrained by his subject matter in composing courtly masques, as propaganda was the order of the day in the courts of Elizabeth I and James I.

In this regard, Jonson had a side to him that was not unlike some of the two-faced characters in his plays, by day a propagandist pandering to the weaknesses of the monarch, offering flattery and hyperbole to the courts of Elizabeth I and James I and by night unleashing satire or sarcasm on his masters who were his lifeline to financial survival. He did seem to have an irresistible desire to bite the hand that fed him.  Jonson was certainly ambivalent about the stage and its low life but he was equally ambivalent about his job as court poet – he took the role of poet very seriously – but here he had a more complex vision of his role, he saw himself as a Virgil to Augustus, an advisor and counsellor to the reigning monarch.

 The Tribe of Ben

Fame meant that acolytes and dear friends began to gather around him in an impromptu club, calling themselves the “Tribe of Ben”, and meeting regularly at a pub in Fleet Street.  He had acquired fame in his own lifetime, but he was still restless.  At times Jonson’s erratic and unsettled behaviour might appear inconsistent, but living in Jacobean London was a question of survival, of ensuring one’s access to funds and above all patronage.  Johnson found himself on more than one occasion on the wrong side of royal and court favour, but never more so when he was associated with the conspirators in the Gunpowder plot.  These were unsettled times. Protestants lived in fear of Catholic social unrest and Catholics lived in fear of violent repression at the hands of the Protestants.

His supposed rivalry with Shakespeare is seen by Donaldson as so much bunk.  Jonson has for centuries been decried as merely envious of Shakespeare by many Bard scholars, but they neglect the fact that Jonson was a huge admirer of both Shakespeare the dramatist and the man.  “For I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side of idolatry, as much as any” –  here Jonson was referring to the real Shakespeare that he truly knew, well before Bardolatory (coined by GB Shaw) set in.  He could criticise Shakespeare, sometimes rightly so, before it became a crime. In reality it was Jonson himself who set the tone for all subsequent Shakespeare scholarship: “He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!”

In this debate, Dryden has had the last word, saying that he admired Jonson but loved Shakespeare, as Jonson was England’s Virgil but Shakespeare was its Homer, a distinction that looks set to become orthodoxy.

Ian Donaldson does a remarkable job, giving us a nuanced portrayal of Jonson that is both scholarly and readable.  This biography opens up new vistas on a great poet and a remarkable man who was both witty and shrewd, even if at times quite simply unfathomable.

Faradzh Karaev

What are you working on at the moment?
I have recently completed Postludio XI for piano, string quartet, and chorus behind the stage, as well as Terminus II for six cellos. The Postludio was performed on 9 December, last year at the XIII International Festival MOSCOW FORUM “Russia-Italy: the Art of Perspective.” A performance by the The Studio of New Music ensemble and the new production of Terminus II has been scheduled by the Ensemble Reconsil Vienna for 2 March 2012 in Vienna.
In addition, there are some plans that I hope will come to fruition this year. However, I won’t discuss them now (although I am not a superstitious person!), as many times I have found that the premature disclosure of plans hinders their realisation.
I will only say that one of those compositions will be based on absolutely new musical material, for an ensemble of 8-12 performers. Another composition will be an arrangement of a symphonic composition for a chamber orchestra. I always like this kind of work, the re-orchestration of my own previous works, as well as the re-orchestration of compositions written by others. It is creative and interesting work…if you treat somebody else’s composition as your own.

Could you cite an example?
For example, a composition with an ironic title schnell zu/g vergangenheit oder ist eine alte musik schon/auch k/eine musik based on the text of Ernst Jandl, with a no less ironic dedication (Helmut Lachenmanns Epigonen gewidmet) is founded on freely used musical material of the previously written Drei Bagatellen for piano and five/six instruments. Only the vocal part has been written anew (although in a rather traditional manner). However, this simplicity is explained in the author’s notes as follows:

“Ernst Jandl’s text provides vast opportunities for a composer’s imagination. Therefore, one could expect that the singer will not sing but instead she will exploit the achievements in the field of musical innovations made in last decades, and use melodeclamation, cry out, semi-whisper, wheeze or moan. However, alte musik is no more than alte musik, and if the author deprives the singer of this opportunity, she will just sing.”

By the way, that is the key to the irony of the dedication. . .
However, I felt a certain satisfaction in terms of creativity when doing the orchestration of the “foreign” Synthéses, written by Arthur Lourié, both at my desk and after the first night. It seems to me that I managed to expand it beyond the author’s text, disclose something that was withheld, solve some puzzles that were hidden deep inside the musical material and… make myself perceive the music that did not look attractive to me (it still does not attract me and never will do), as if it were my own. That’s the paradox…
Stravinsky reportedly spoke well about Arthur Lourié’s music in the friendly correspondence between the two composers.
Arthur Lourié’s manner of expression (I cannot force myself to call it a “musical language”) seems to me “superficial,” “empty,” with an unjustified claim to novelty. Once, Nikolai Korndorf, a musician and composer of great talent and erudition (unfortunately now deceased) told me in one of his letters about his attempts to understand the immortality of music written by classical composers from Vienna. To this end he listened to a lot of compositions that were created in the mid-18th – early 19th centuries by composers who are now completely forgotten, and tried to build parallels between the music which he had known from his childhood and the music that he had heard for the first time. He came to a definitive conclusion: the music written by many contemporaries of Mozart, Hayden and Beethoven disappeared over time quite deservedly.
That’s about parallels… with Lourié’s music.

Faradzh Karaev with his father Kara Karaev

When was your last recording made of your own music? Do you have any plans to record in the near future?
The list of my own dedicated CDs is not long. There are only two of them: An Introduction to Faradj Karajev that was recorded by the Belgian Megadisc in the early 1990s, and Nostalgia that was issued several years ago by Melodia in Moscow. However, the Belgian firm financed the recording while Melodia used available material for recording the double CD. In addition to these solo CDs, there are several CDs that include my compositions among others.
There is a kind of contradiction between the present and the past. In the Soviet Union one had to overcome a stubborn censorship in order to record one’s music with Melodiya, the only recording firm at the time, and issue a record. Preference was given to the classics or world-famous performers. My Sonata for two players had to wait more than two years for mass distribution – if my memory does not fail me.
It is different now. There is no censorship as such, but there is an insurmountable barrier of a different kind: the financial factor. If previously Melodiya’s mission was to publish the best examples of world classics, now the motivation of any recording company is profit. In order to make these profits, companies have to invest heavily in PR campaigns, or the trivial promotion of the CD. However, even in this case success is not guaranteed. The academic avant-garde is démodé nowadays, and charity and non-profit initiatives are pretty rare too. There is no sense in fighting against this situation, as it is a sign of the times. C’est la vie.
For that reason, I am not making any plans.

CD cover of "Nostalgia" by Faradzh Karaev - Melodiya

Are you travelling a great deal presenting your own music or working on other projects?
My sign is Sagittarius, so I live the life of a traveller (that of a person who lives outside his house) and this gives me a significant impetus for creation when I travel in Russia and abroad, participate in composers’ meetings or judge composition contests. Here is an outline of my recent travels: Russia (Kazan, Krasnoyarsk), Azerbaijan, Belarus and Vienna, London, Netherlands (Amsterdam) where I attended the performance of my composition Outsider. Reinbert de Leeuw, Asko|Schönberg and Nederlans Kamerkoor were magnificent!
It was interesting for me to participate in projects that in one way or another are related to my father such as the project entitled “Face to face with time” that was launched by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan. The idea behind it was to lay the foundations for new music in Baku. During the 2008-2009 and 2010-2011 seasons, the Azerbaijan Chamber Orchestra named after Kara Karaev performed a lot of compositions that had never been staged previously in Baku, ranging from the Neue Wiener Schule to Stockhausen and Schnittke.
Also, on 2-8 April 2011, the IV International Festival of Contemporary Music named after Kara Karaev was held (see http://www.karaev.net/t_4_qaraev_fest_r.html) at which I was honoured to become its artistic director. In addition to orchestras from Baku, ensembles and soloists from the UK, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia participated in the Festival. The halls were full which proved that our artistic and creative goals were right as we aimed to stage the first ever performance of new music in Baku. The range of compositions at the Festival was very wide, with very varied music being performed, such as that of Iannis Xenakis and Steve Reich, Bruno Maderna and Salvatore Sciarrino, Olivier Messiaen, Witold Lutoslavski, Toru Takemitsu, in addition to the French school of La musique spectrale. Of course, there was the classical music of the XX century represented by composers of the Neue Wiener Schule.

I would like to ask you about your family and musical upbringing and early training. Was your father a major influence on your musical beginnings?
My parents were musicians. So that part is self-explanatory.
… One of my first childhood memories is 1946, a small room in a shared Moscow apartment, where we all lived. There was a piano on the left and a sofa on the right, on which my parents slept. In the middle of the room there was a desk, full of sheet music (my father was working on the Second Symphony, he was a Conservatory graduate). There was a window opposite the entrance and the German Grezer radio receiver…So, this meant I could tell which march was from Aida and which from Faust.
What profession should I choose? There was no such question for me. In the house, where the piano (and later – a Bechstein grand piano) was a normal piece of furniture like a bed or a table, it was impossible to start one’s adult life without musical training.
Of course, the role of my father was decisive one.
When I realized in the seventh grade that I would not be a Richter, I decided to quit music. However, my father managed to persuade me that one can graduate from 11-grade as a musical expert, while a knowledge of music or the basics of classical harmony would not be excessive for a would-be doctor or oil engineer.
At the same time, I suddenly felt the urge to compose. When small society-oriented pieces à la Chopin and Grieg became the visiting card of the under-age scribbler, my father took a stack of notation papers from the bookcase and gave it to me, saying: “There are a lot of things in music that would be interesting for you to know.” The acquaintance with the music of Ravel, Debussy, Hindemith, Casella, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich toppled all my musical sympathies and changed the direction of my composition activities, as there were now new benchmarks for me.
Surprisingly, up to this day I feel anxious when I hear Grieg’s music. My Postludios contain the quotation from the Eg vet ei lite Gente (I Know a Little Girl), melody for piano, which is performed behind the scenes, while the theme for variations in the third part of Konzert fuer Orchester und Solo Geige was based on the Longing for Home.

How young we were! Student years at the Baku conservatory. Up R.Efeniev, standing from left to right I.Mirza-zade, FaKa, O.Felzer, down L.Veinshtein (Л.Вайнштейн).

…1961, at the Baku Conservatory, my studies of “Composition” were in the class of Professor K. A. Karaev. The professor always treated students strictly and exactingly. I was the only one to finish the first year with a “good” mark. The rest of the group received excellent marks. He strictly checked homework on “pure” polyphony. After he checked all my “compositions” on this subject, he insisted that the education department tell us to study the subject for one more year. He had reason to argue that the practical skills in doing “pure style” tasks was a step in learning the basics of dodecaphony, though he explained this to me much later.
My father never taught me composition at home. He wanted me to develop self-management and self-control. However, after the third year he “slackened the reins,” probably thinking that the period of apprenticeship was successfully over, and set me free. The result was Sonata No. 1 for piano, as well as a diploma in dodecaphony Music for Chamber Orchestra, percussion instruments and organ (excellent mark) and a diploma certificate cum laude with the proud word “Composer” on it.
However, there was eternity ahead before truly achieving this status.

Was your father’s music an example for you?
Put it this way, I think that only my Sonata No.1 corresponds to his Symphony No. 3, and maybe The Shadows of Kobystan in some way relates to In the Path of Thunder.

Coming from Azerbaijan, many presume that you will have strong eastern influences in your music, is this true?
It is a superficial opinion, which is commonly found in musical experts of the past century! The idea of the presence of “strong oriental motifs” in my compositions only raises an ironic smile with me. Such treatment of folklore is nothing but the cruel exploitation of the top layer of the fertile soil. After a couple of years it will yield no crops. It also can be compared to mining dead rock, with zero content of precious metals. It is a deadlock.
There are different components that characterize the national affiliation of an author such as temperament, internal energy, ways of thinking and many other things. The dodecaphony of a Frenchman is quite distinctive compared to a German one, take, for example, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. By the same token, the music by Luigi Nono can never be mixed up with the compositions of Edison Denisov, who is Russian. Of course, the era of “pure” dodecaphony is over, however distinctive national features can be found even in the newest music.
Nevertheless, in the art of Azerbaijani composition there are authors who want to achieve success fast, and for them the “strong oriental motifs” remain attractive still today. An extended second, an imitation of the kamança through using violoncello, dancing rhymes, i.e. all that hypnotizes undemanding music fans who are mesmerized by that “Orient” and groan in ecstasy, being convinced that they are listening to something genuinely national, original and great.
This endless exploitation of earlier lucky discoveries is used to make stellar careers that are primarily based on the favourable attitude of the authorities. As a result, a golden rain of regalia, medals, prizes and official positions pours on to them. And if the author is an oriental woman, it can ensure the lifetime glory of a “naked king.”

However, in your compositions Xütbä, mugam ve sura and Babilonturm one can easily hear some eastern motifs
The treatment of the Orient here is quite different. The composition Xütbä, mugam ve sura was ordered by the Nieuw Ensemble for a performance at the Tokkel Festival in Amsterdam. The mandatory condition was the use of an Azerbaijani instrument. I chose the tar.
This composition which consists of three parts is based on a quite different approach, with no quotations or imitations of oriental motifs. The Xütbä [the sermon] is based on the musical balance of an eight-sound row of the Azerbaijani tune shüshter: cis-d-e-f-gis-a-h-c and the row of twelve tones (that stems from the eight tone tune): cis-es-d-e-f-gis-fis-g-a-h-b-c. In Mugam, the tar is played in a solo. The tar player performs all of Mugam shüshter! The role of the ensemble is limited to brief comments to the solo.
In the Sura, the musical fabric is torn apart, a quasi- Western material is put together through reading Quranic Surah 75 (The Resurrection), that was recorded on the CD.
According to the code of the composition, a solo on the grand piano summarizes the evolution of the seven-step shüshter into a twelve-tone dodecaphony that is spread over all registers. No flirting with folklore!

From left to right – Composer J.Clark, wife M.Vysotskaya, FaKa, son Azhdar, sister Zulejha, conductor, sister's husband E.Bagirov, tarist M.Müslümov.

What about Mugam Shüshter?
… I quote, or rather “quote!” Jahangir Selimkhanov, a brilliantly educated Azerbaijani musical expert, a very smart man and erudite, wrote about this composition: “a parallel example of the new architecture, a project of Bernard Tschumi, in which a complex of buildings that were constructed in 1920’s, was not re-built but underwent restoration and covered with an ultramodern façade and a roof… ” Sic!
The Babilonturm project was launched and performed by the Atlas Ensemble from Amsterdam. If in the original Xütbä [the sermon] the tar was the only instrument that represented the “Orient,” the new score included Turkish, Iranian, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and other instruments, in addition to European ones. The Azerbaijani instruments included the tar and the kamança. Here, the orient wore a different mask, the composition was based either on a solo or a group of performers improvising on folk instruments, emphasizing on the D (re) tone. The European instrument plays the same role as in the Xütbä: they supplement the “oriental” instruments, conduct a dialogue with them or “enter into conflict”.

You mentioned ballet “The shadows of Kobustan” that you created when you were 26, and then Kaleidoscope. Can you tell me about these two projects? Is there a strong Stravinsky influence?
The strong influence of Stravinsky? No question!
Compared to Shadows of Kobystan and The Rite of Spring where some analogies that can be traced in the general construction, Kaleidoscope was created après Domenico Scarlatti, exactly like Pulcinellа was produced après Gianbattista Pergolesi.
It was a very interesting time! All of us were young, and we cooperated closely with each other: the choreographers Rafiga Akhundova and Maksud Mamedov (with unlimited imagination when it came to producing something new, unusual and special) on the one hand, and the composer on the other hand. The choreographers had their own vision of the ballet performance, but they did not impose their will, the author was not pressed into following the tradition of accommodating the music to the dance.
The first performance of The Shadows of Kobystan that was attended by Yuri Algarov, the outstanding French dancer of Russian origin, was a success. Yuri Algarov took the initiative of inviting the ballet troupe of the Baku Opera Theatre to perform in France. The first night of the ballet took place at the same Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the same stage where Nizhinsky turned off the lights to try and calm the public down during the first night of The Rite of Spring. It is one of the more interesting analogies that links The Shadows of Kobystan to the Rite of Spring.
Kaleidoscope was met by the Baku audience with greater calm, which was due to the fact that the strictly neo-classical language of the «après» ballet could by no means be compared to the distinct, I would say, visualized music of the Shadows.

Were these non-recurring works, or do you have a special affection for ballet?
It was an experience that had no continuation. Only a lucky coincidence, i.e. the meeting of the like-minded choreographers gave the impulse for the work on the music for the ballet performance.

What was the subsequent fate of these compositions?
The line of their fate was downward. Although the public was willing to go to the both performances that were money-making and toured abroad several times, they have not been staged in Baku since 1996. Fate ruled that Polad Bül Bül ogly, author and performer of questionable variety songs, was appointed the Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan. A tough and authoritarian leader of the Soviet type, he expelled talented artists from the Baku Opera House, ousting people who were brave enough to insist on their own vision that differed from his. So, the ballets were immediately removed from the repertoire.

ACM with Pierre Boulez in 1991

You spent many years as Artistic director of the BaKaRA Ensemble in Baku, can you tell me about the work you did in this period?
First, a bit of history.
From late 1970s, a crisis of sorts hit Baku. Musical life in the city was dying out, the Philharmonic hall was empty. The repertoire of the State Symphonic Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra was very scant: Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, a few Rachmaninov performances, a couple of compositions written by Azerbaijani composers of the older generation and that was about the full repertoire of the Symphonic Orchestra. And there was nothing to say about the Chamber Orchestra at all. The public had just forgotten the way to the Philharmonic hall!
My father was very upset about this collapse and decided to counter it, using energy, drive and the endless optimism of young musicians. When he came to Baku another time (he resided mostly in Moscow at that time), he invited his three friends who shared the same musical tastes. They were Rauf Abdullayev, conductor-in-chief of the Baku Opera House (by the way, he brilliantly conducted The Shadows of Kobystan in Baku, Paris and Monte-Carlo), Oleg Felzer, composer, conductor and musical expert, and myself. My father suggested that we should take the initiative and create a new team in the Conservatory with the aim of transformong it into a Chamber Theatre, and decided that we should begin with creating an orchestra. The repertoire policy of the new orchestra was supposed to cover mostly the XXth century. This was the main and key condition. He promised his all-out support for us and assumed the duties of our art director. In practice, these duties had to be performed by myself.
The first concert of the orchestra was a great success, like the subsequent performances. It could not be the other way round! In the most gloomy period, when the new music was not, to put it mildly ‘encouraged’, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Cage, Malipiero, Schnittke, Baird were performed in Baku. Lutosławski’s Preludes and a Fugue were performed for the first time in the USSR, like Gesta by the Italian composer Paolo Renosto, all conducted by Oleg Felzer.

Faradzh Karaev (right) with Rauf Abdullaev (left)

The compositions by Denisov and Gubaidullina were no exception. In his speech in November 1979, T. N. Khrennikov subjected them (along with seven other composers, the so-called Khrennikov seven) to tough criticisms which was followed, as expected, by an official boycott. Our concert tours in Moscow, Alma-Ata and Lvov were a success.
However, right after the death of my father in May 1982 the Orchestra ceased to exist. We had no art director anymore, whose authority protected us like a stone wall. We faced the bureaucracy one-to-one and were defeated.
This is the pre-history of the BaKaRa ensemble. By the way, the name of the ensemble is my invention and stands for “Baku-Karaev-Rauf Abdullaev.”
In 1984 Rauf Abdullaev was appointed the principal conductor and art director of the State Azerbaijani Symphonic Orchestra named after Uz. Gadjibekov, the leading orchestra in Baku. Following this, practically all the team of the Chamber Opera Theatre (later – the Chamber Orchestra of the Opera Studio of the Conservatory) joined the orchestra that he led. Essentially, all those instrumentalists made up the Ensemble of soloists of the State Azerbaijani Symphonic Orchestra named after Uz. Gadjibekov in the early years of Gorbachev’s Perestroika – BaKaRa ensemble.
In the ensemble I had to perform the same job as in the Orchestra of the Chamber Theatre: I worked out programs, organized tours, negotiated with foreign partners, searched for musical scores and orchestra voices – which was rather difficult at the time. All this made up the list of my duties that I volunteered to perform. In addition to concerts within the Festival of Contemporary Music (held in Baku in 1986, 1988 and 1990), we participated in the Moscow Festival “Alternativa” at which we performed Kammerkonzert by György Ligeti for the first time in the USSR. Several times we toured Germany, visiting Frankfurt-am-Main , Bonn and Moers.
One of my best memories is linked to our tour in Switzerland. Aargau, Lugano, Zurich, Basle, Bern – we performed in the best concert halls full of friendly, interested people who were clearly erudite, always playing with great success. Heinz Holliger paid us a great honour by attending the concert in Basle that was held in the Museum of the Contemporary Art. The Maître greeted us kindly and appreciated the artistic talent of Rauf Abdullaev who performed at his best that evening. Heinz Holliger said a lot of kind words about us that day. He clearly did not expect such an interesting program from the provincials who came from the East. He pointed to the high performance standards of the musicians, especially, the free and masterly play of the bass-clarinetist. The following is my conversation with him, quoted almost literally:

H.H.(enthusiastically): Great clarinetist, with brilliant technique and an exceptionally beautiful sound! How many years has he been playing the bass-clarinet?
F.K. (calmly): A couple of months.
H.H: ???
F.K. (with feigned indifference): He is the first clarinetist of the State Azerbaijani Symphonic Orchestra and he mastered the bass just before the tour, as we had no opportunity to take two clarinetists on the tour.
H.H.(even more enthusiastically): I would gladly invite him to Switzerland! With whom should I negotiate in order to put together the contract?
F.K. (horrified, as we lived in the USSR): It is impossible! He is a 2nd year student and he needs to study!

During the difficult 1990s the ensemble ceased to exist. Rauf Abdullaev had a lot of things to handle in the Symphonic Orchestra, Oleg Felzer emigrated to the US, and I lived in Moscow on a permanent basis. However, a pretty unexpected performance by the ensemble took place in 2007 in Baku at the Festival “25 Years Without Kara Karaev” conducted by the Ukrainian conductor Vladimir Runchak, who is a great interpreter of modern music. The BaKaRA name was not mentioned on the posters, as the musicians were performing as the Ensemble of Soloists of the State Azerbaijani Symphonic Orchestra named after Uz. Gajibekov. However, I had to do the whole above-mentioned job again.

Could you tell me about the Outsider (2002) which you have already mentioned?
In 1999-2004 I worked on Konzert für Orchester und Solo Geige. The work took a lot of energy and time, so in order to have an occasional rest I switched to compositions that proved to be relatively easy. In this way, Ton und Verklärung and Verklärung und Tod for orchestra and taperecorder were written, as well as Сancion de cuna for soprano and the ensemble based on Lorca’s lyrics, Stafette for the percussions ensemble, Babylonturm, Drei Bagatellen and several more compositions, including The Outsider, a small performance based on Akhmetyev’s text.
The composition was written “in one breath,” i.e. in ten days. Surprisingly, the work came very easily, with eagerness, although life at that time was far from comfortable. In the end, we had a piece in the spirit of the instrumental theatre, something like a tragic comedy, thanks to the text, which to give you a taste:
“I am sorry semi bit by bit don’t bother
There are so many of you, semi by myself I am not at all…”
plus myself semi part of the company

What happens on the stage during the performance of The Outsider?
The hero is a lyric tenor. He appears on the scene after the music has already started. He wears a long raincoat, a muffler around his neck (its hangs almost touching the floor) and a wide-brimmed hat. He does not start singing right away. He simply cannot due to the electronic noise coming from the loudspeakers and the music of the Ensemble. However, he, nobody knows why, apologizes. Although all his actions are totally ironic he behaves indecisively, with no confidence. He shrugs shoulders, makes helpless gestures, tries to sing separate phrases and always stops. Behaving like a clown, he takes off his hat and throws it into the auditorium… then he puts on a red clown’s nose, produces a bell…A melody from Schubert’s Fantasy, played by an accordionist who accompanies the Outsider to the exit from the hall, gives a surrealistic tone to the performance. The last touch: the silence of the surprised auditorium is broken by the bell sounding from a hand that appears in the doorway.
Is it a farce? No doubt! But at the same time there are torturous attempts (hidden under clownery) to conduct a dialogue with the modern world, where any attempt to conduct a dialogue is destined to fail. I want to emphasize that the departure of the Outsider is not an existential surrender but the conscientious exit from the game: departure with the aim to relieve others of his comfortless heterogeneity.
The music of the performance is based on the 12-tone harmony that consists of three diminished seventh chords that are one tone away from each other. This 12-tone harmony is maintained throughout the whole play that consists of three parts and in fact turns into continuous sonorous complex.
I cannot get rid of the idea that it is my most “Russian” piece. One may ask: “Why?” Neither the musical material, nor the quote from Schubert or the electronic accompaniment suggest this. Maybe the choir? I don’t know…

Faradzh Karaev in Baku 1999

You are now living in Moscow. Are you still dividing your time between teaching and composing – are you still teaching?
Teaching and composition are the only things that I can do, or think that I can do. The teaching in the conservatory ensures my relative financial independence. By composing I gain internal independence.
I intentionally distanced myself from teaching composition. There are several reasons for that. The teacher of composition always assumes a tremendous responsibility, i.e. the responsibility for the choice of the right profession, or the level of skills of the young composer upon his graduation. Today (with the average level of composing reaching record highs, no boundaries in the information space, with everybody capable of doing everything) this responsibility has increased exponentially. So, I have neither the moral nor physical capacity to carry this burden.
In addition, we have a situation in the Moscow Conservatory in recent decades where students-composers have more freedom in choosing the means of their musical expression than, I think, required. I am rather conservative as far as this question goes. So I am quite comfortable with teaching instrumentation to musical experts and lately to composers (I had to make this concession to myself), as it gives me the bit of satisfaction, without which the teaching makes no sense.
As for composing…
Many years ago I wrote in my note-book: «Alle Musik ist schon geschrieben» (All music has already been written) which I still believe. Nevertheless, I continue composing, though… much less than before, but I spend a lot more energy and feel more responsible towards myself. I also wrote the following in the same notebook: “Music is composed by those who are not brave enough to abandon it.”
So, should I have quit after the completion of Konzert für Orchester und Solo Geige (my best composition ever)? How should I answer this question that I ask myself? Repeating oneself is frightening when it becomes the only form of expression, likewise, it is frightening when the death of a creative person does not coincide with his physical death. Tell me, whose heroic deed is more outstanding: Rossini or Beethoven, Ives or Schoenberg?

Faradzh Karaev Moscow concert poster

Reading about your work I have seen many different descriptions of your work for example that it is rooted in the absurd but at the same time inspired by some of your favourite poets (Lorca). How would you describe your music? I have seen a variety of words used: pointillism, collages, neo-romanticism, postmodernism and jazz to name a few. Are all these words useful or meaningless?
Believe me, I don’t know! These terms like “pointillisme,” “collage,” “neoromantisme,” “postmodernism” or “absurdism,” if applied to my music, are no more than empty sounds for me. Let musical experts decide: contemplate, draw assumptions, make conclusions, as this job is both their profession and hobby.
What I do is just scribbling small black flourishes on the white lined paper, and I try to do it as neatly as possible. As Brahms defined it, composing music is about “organizing separate elements.” So, I “organize” them in the way I feel, I write in accordance with my capabilities, thus confirming my professional skills.
Lofty talk of super-prolific composers, their deep thoughts about the sources of their creativity and immortal opuses have always scared me. Some impressionist artist (maybe Degas?) said that some people talk about painting and others do it. These words determine my position: philosophizing about my own music makes no sense for me – like waiting for inspiration.

Avant-garde has political overtones for many people. Is avant-garde music always revolutionary in spirit, or is it just eliminating boundaries? How long does avant-garde music remain avant-garde before it becomes “classic”, or is avant-garde music a genre unto itself and remain forever avant-garde?
It is not for sure at all that such an evolution will take place. In fact, it is impossible. Avant-garde is not a peak to be reached through a continuous and inevitable musical development. Avant-garde is just one of many stages of musical development, one of the steps on the endless ladder that leads to the ultimate goal, which is, paradoxically, not achievable, nor knowable.

Yet I want to ask you: are you avant-garde or would you say just contemporary or just “Karaev”? Do you see yourself as a part of a large family with others like Philip Glass and Steve Reich or even Harrison Birtwistle? Or are you treading different paths?
In the framework of the academic avant-garde, the tag that has been attached to me and my like-minded colleagues from the Moscow Association of the Modern Music, I feel that I am a “modern” composer, as I live in the modern world and remain myself, i.e. Karaev.
However, I feel that this answer might not be complete, as there seems to be some incompleteness and a sense of dissatisfaction. Let me try to sort this out…
Maybe, it is worth introducing the term modernism into our discussion. Avant-garde and modernism are two sides of the same coin, the front and the opposite side of the “new,” alpha and omega of contemporary art that, nevertheless, should not be mixed. What avantgardists and modernists have in common is the search for new forms, while the main difference is that the former are pragmatists who aim more for external success, therefore, they lean towards épatage and self-advertisement. The avant-garde compositions do not always have great depth of content, however, their behaviour is always authoritarian and aggressive (the “Genius of Insincerity” is Salvador Dalí). Despite similar aesthetic aspirations modernists are more isolated in their artistic life. One can hardly imagine them hoisting a manifesto on barricades, delivering épatage to the audience – the Genius Bourgeois is René Magritte.
The same applies to the music…
So if you need to choose between the front and back side of the coin, linking my music to the alpha or omega, then you can stamp or tag me, saying: “FK is a modernist . . . that’s all.

You have spent many years teaching in Azerbaijan, what is the current state of contemporary music in the country? Are you optimistic about the new generation you are teaching?
Modern Azerbaijani music is developing both along its individual path and within general trends as part of the international process. There have been achievements and victories on this path, as well as regrettable defeats, hopefully, of a temporary nature.
I have taught musical composition in Baku for almost forty years. Today I can confidently say that the switch to the Bologna system has inflicted disastrous damage to musical education in Azerbaijan, as in many FSU countries. I am so embittered about it because I happened to teach in Baku Muscial Academy in those years, when the course length was cut from five to four years. The most frightening thing for a student composer in this situation was that he was not ready to write a diploma work, a full-scale symphonic composition, when completing his studies. It is very important after the fourth year that a young composer gains the necessary experience to write a chamber opus and can show, say, a String Quartet at the exam. A Symphony should follows after the fifth year, for which he has four years of experience. The fifth year of the full-scale study, another year of communication with the professor who guides him from the first year is of vital importance!
Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, as well as Tbilisi and Erevan, the closest neighbours of Baku, managed to resist the pressure of adopting European educational institutions that stick to a two-stage system of BA/MA. In my view, the system that is based on the possibility of changing the core specialty to an adjacent one, would not work in a musical institution. Maybe, in a technical college such a novelty would look progressive (I am no expert in these matters). However, a young man, who has studied to play the violin for 10-11 years, is unlikely to switch to the bassoon, piano or contrabass.
The Bologna system treats all educational institutions as the same, explaining that any graduate with an academic diploma can be hired for a job in Europe without additional certification. It is absurd! Young Alena Bayeva and Denis Matsuev graduated precisely from the Moscow Conservatory where the Soviet and Russian educational traditions have withstood the Bologna nonsense.
Baku has not withstood it!…

Faradzh Karaev with the fragment of Sonata for two players (1976)

What about contemporary music in general, who do you see producing good music at the moment?
The Moscow composer Vladimir Martynov, an author with a surprisingly unique musical profile, described the late nineties as “the end of the era of the composer” Although I don’t agree with this statement at all, I have to admit that it is basically viable. If so, willingly or unwillingly, I have to ask myself a question: “Aren’t all of us writing a common epitaph, or, if I may, an obituary for Music?”
The time of the Big Names in music has passed and nobody can say how long this marginal period will continue. Pierre Boulez has completely devoted his life to conducting and Witold Lutosławski and György Ligeti—the last “Edisons” of music of the XX century—are no longer with us.
Let me say something, for which I could be ostracized both by my enemies and, probably, friends: it may make sense to prohibit composing music on pain of death for a historically short period by a special global law, as well as to close musical composition departments everywhere: in “Bologna” academies, all conservatories and universities.
When the world runs out of composers, the End of Time will be over, and the vacuum will attract new Big Names with New Ideas. This will definitely happen, as those who have the heavenly blessing will topple fate and become Creators.
However, joking aside, I think it would make sense to reduce the number of institutions that teach musical composition, and toughen admission rules. All experimentation with musical expression should be prohibited during the early stages of education that, instead, should be devoted to classics, as Schoenberg taught. Non-standard chamber structures should be avoided, while the classical tradition should be favoured. Students should be taught to love notation paper, and to reject (at least in the beginning) Sibelius/Finale and Printer.
Only after students master the basics of the profession, should the teacher prompt the talented ones to experiment, cautiously controlling the explosive process which at any moment may turn into an uncontrolled thermonuclear reaction. The new things should be taught through mastering the old ones!
This would help to reduce the tremendous number of composers-ignoramuses, who have proliferated all over Europe including Russia. In this case the profession of the composer will again become an elite one, while intellect, professionalism and talent will become the ultimate measure for evaluating a composer.

What about the future, where do you see Russia and Azerbaijan going musically and socially?
The Azerbaijani composing school is an extension of the Russian school; the two make up one line: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov— Maximilian Steinberg—Dmitri Shostakovich—Kara Karaev. In Baku they not only remember this fact to this day but are still proud of it.
The links between Russia and Azerbaijan are traditionally strong both in the socio-economic and human perspective. The Russian language still holds its niche, although it has lost its “first among equal” status compared with Soviet times. A lot of Azerbaijani nationals master the Russian language. It is especially true for Baku, where the Slavic University was set up. There is a number of Russian-language newspapers and a Russian-language TV channels. Studying in Russian institutes and universities remains prestigious for Azerbaijanis. Several Azerbaijani nationals study at the Moscow conservatory. The stages of the Bolshoi, Maly and the Rakhmaninov Hall of the Conservatory are the dream of any instrumentalist.
Russia and Azerbaijan have a lot in common when it comes to the education of the younger generation of musicians. The successful implementation of this objective has been, and remains, a key life goal for me, to which I have dedicated all my energy, both in Baku previously and now in Moscow.

You have seen the Soviet Union and then Azerbaijan and Russia go through dramatic changes over the last 40 years, what are some of the most remarkable events that have stayed with you from this period?
The collapse of the country in which I was born, educated and which made me the person who I am now, where I lived a big part of my life, was a hard blow to me that I withstood with difficulty. For five long years I could not make myself approach an instrument or my desk. I could not set my mind to thinking about music or composing. Of course, this feeling is over; however, a vestige (like a scar as a result of infarction) will probably never vanish.
It does not in any way mean that I am an apologist for the Soviet system. Not at all! However, a person can only be born in one country, just as a person can have only one mother. This is a law of nature. Am I old-fashioned?

Translation by Vlad Chorazy

The Hiriko two-seater prototype

Initially designed by MIT in Boston, the Hiriko city-car is a radical new electric car which will be produced by a consortium of seven companies based in the Basque country in Spain, all producing different parts to the car. “Hiriko”, despite the Japanese sounding name is from the Basque language, meaning “urban”.

The car is completely pollution free and even reduces in size (folding in on itself) when you need to park it, requiring only 1.5 metres of parking space.

The prototype was unveiled in Brussels in January 2012 with José Manuel Durao Barroso,  the  President of the European Commission in attendance. Barroso was particularly impressed by the economic validity of the project: “Projects such as the electric car by HIRIKO play an important role in responding to the crisis, for it combines new business possibilities with the creation of employment and social innovation”.

The idea is to use a fleet of these cars in the same way that Paris and London use their city bikes.  The car is intended to be part of a city-owned fleet that people can rent out on an hourly or daily basis.  You can pick it up and leave it at a designated station just like a bike.  If the concept took off, it would revolutionise city transport infrastructure and parking networks.  Mayors and local authorities are facing a serious traffic and transport challenge.  There is some surprising data offered by the company that gives an idea of the problems drivers and city authorities are currently facing: 40% of petrol is used finding somewhere to park and 80% of urban trips involve a person travelling alone.  Hiriko would solve those problems.

For that reason, it is expected that the first clients will be institutions and municipalities, which will use them as fleets in their respective cities.  If sold to an individual, the two-seater would probably cost  around  €12,500.  This revolutionary project will allow city halls to move inhabitants about the city in a completely different way, dramatically affecting the way people live.  This is why Hiriko is not being touted as just an electric car but a whole new way of living in cities.  Commercial production of the revolutionary car is set to start in 2013.  9,000 cars per year will be produced by 2015 by the different franchises in Europe and America.

So what about the car itself?  Hiriko features innovative navigation systems, 120 km autonomy and a 4-wheel drive system with a battery in each wheel.  The car can reach a maximum speed of 90 km/h but the speed can be electronically set to stay within an individual city’s speed limit. The Hiriko is a 100% electric and electronic two-seater, capable of folding up for parking and equipped with a state-of-the-art information system so it can always be traced.. The driver and passenger enter the vehicle via the single, flip-up door in the front of the car that also doubles as the windshield.

The catch phrase for the project is “Mobility on demand” which means booking your car from your phone or computer, no more petrol price problems, no more pollution, less traffic in the inner city, no insurance and repair problems.  The car will have GPS functionality which will identify the nearest electric recharging stations for the batteries as well as official parking places where you can leave the car for the next user.  It sounds too good to be true.

Julian Assange

This week’s Supreme Court hearing in the Julian Assange case has profound meaning for the preservation of basic freedoms in Western democracies. This is Assange’s final appeal against his extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual misconduct that were originally dismissed by the chief prosecutor in Stockholm and constitute no crime in Britain.

The consequences, if he loses, lie not in Sweden, but in the shadows cast by America’s descent into totalitarianism. In Sweden, he is at risk of being “temporarily surrendered” to the US where his life has been threatened and where he is accused of “aiding the enemy” with Bradley Manning, the young soldier accused of leaking evidence of US war crimes to WikiLeaks.

The connections between Manning and Assange have been concocted by a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, which allowed no defense counsel or witnesses, and by a system of plea bargaining that ensures a 90 percent conviction. It is reminiscent of a Soviet show trial.

The determination of the Obama administration to crush Assange and the unfettered journalism represented by WikiLeaks is revealed in secret Australian government documents released under freedom of information, which describe the US pursuit of WikiLeaks as “an unprecedented investigation.” It is unprecedented because it subverts the First Amendment of the US constitution that explicitly protects truth-tellers. In 2008, Barack Obama said, “Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal.” Obama has since prosecuted twice as many whistleblowers as all previous US presidents.

With American courts demanding to see the worldwide accounts of Twitter, Google and Yahoo, the threat to Assange, an Australian, extends to any Internet user anywhere. Washington’s enemy is not “terrorism,” but the principle of free speech and voices of conscience within its militarist state and those journalists brave enough to tell their stories.

“How do you prosecute Julian Assange and not the New York Times?” a former administration official asked Reuters. The threat is well understood by The New York Times, which in 2010 published a selection of the WikiLeaks cables. The editor at the time, Bill Keller, boasted that he had sent the cables to the State Department for vetting. His obeisance extended to his denial that WikiLeaks was a “partner” – which it was – and to personal attacks on Assange. The message to all journalists was clear: do your job as it should be done and you are traitors; do your job as we say you should and you are journalists.

Much of the media’s depiction of Manning illuminates this. The world’s pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, Manning remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to a “moral choice.” But according to The New York Times, he is weird or mad, a “geek.” In an “exclusive investigation,” The Guardian UK reported him as an “unstable” gay man, who got “out of control” and “wet himself” when he was “picked on.” Psycho hearsay such as this serves to suppress the truth of the outrage Manning felt at the wanton killing in Iraq, his moral heroism and the criminal complicity of his military superiors. “I prefer a painful truth over any blissful fantasy,” he reportedly said.

The treatment handed out to Assange is well documented, though not the duplicitous and cowardly behavior of his own government. Australia remains a colony in all but name. Australian intelligence agencies are, in effect, branches of the main office in Washington. The Australian military has played a regular role as US mercenary. When Prime Minister Gough Whitlam tried to change this in 1975 and secure Australia’s partial independence, he was dismissed by a governor general using archaic “reserve powers” who was revealed to have intelligence connections.

WikiLeaks has given Australians a rare glimpse of how their country is run. In 2010, leaked US cables disclosed that key government figures in the Labor Party coup that brought Julia Gillard to power were “protected” sources of the US embassy: what the CIA calls “assets.” Kevin Rudd, the prime minister she ousted, had displeased Washington by being disobedient, even suggesting that Australian troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

In the wake of her portentous rise ascent to power, Gillard attacked WikiLeaks as “illegal” and her attorney general threatened to withdraw Assange’s passport. Yet, the Australian Federal Police reported that Assange and WikiLeaks had broken no law. Freedom of information files have since revealed that Australian diplomats have colluded with the US in its pursuit of Assange. This is not unusual. The government of John Howard ignored the rule of law and conspired with the US to keep David Hicks, an Australian citizen, in Guantanamo Bay, where he was tortured. Australia’s principal intelligence organization, ASIO, is allowed to imprison refugees indefinitely without explanation, prosecution or appeal.

Every Australian citizen in grave difficulty overseas is said to have the right to diplomatic support. The denial of this to Assange, bar the perfunctory, is an unreported scandal. Last September, Assange’s London lawyer, Gareth Peirce, wrote to the Australian government, warning that Assange’s “personal safety and security has become at risk in circumstances that have become highly politically charged.” Only when the Melbourne Age reported that she had received no response did a dissembling official letter turn up. Last November, Peirce and I briefed the Australian Consul-General in London, Ken Pascoe. One of Britain’s most experienced human rights lawyers, Peirce told him she feared a unique miscarriage of justice if Assange was extradited and his own government remained silent.

The silence remains.

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John Pilger

John Pilger, Australian-born, London-based journalist, film-maker and author. For his foreign and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam and Cambodia to the Middle East, he has twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism. For his documentary films, he won a British Academy Award and an American Emmy. In 2009, he was awarded Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize. His latest film is “The War on Democracy.”

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.  Courtesy of Truth Out

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani – Emir of Qatar

Anthony Shadidis a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. Until December 2009, he served as the Baghdad bureau chief of the Washington Post. Over a 15-year career, he has reported from most countries in the Middle East.

Shadid won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2004 for his coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the occupation that followed. He won the Pulitzer Prize again in 2010 for his coverage of Iraq as the United States began its withdrawal. In 2007, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Lebanon. He has also received the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ award for deadline writing (2004), the Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper or wire service reporting from abroad (2004) and the George Polk Award for foreign reporting (2003).

Shadid is the author of two books, Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats and the New Politics of Islam, published by Westview Press in December 2000. His second book, Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War, was published in September 2005 by Henry Holt. His third book House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East is due to be published on 27 March 2012.
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There has been a flurry of articles about Qatar’s “empire building” recently. Is this the correct way to describe what is happening in Qatar?
I wouldn’t really call it empire building, Qatar is defining where its pragmatic interests lie, and maybe there has been a bit of over-reach as well. At the heart of Qatar’s new policy there is a certain amount of ambiguity, evidenced by the fact that they are able to develop relations with parties that do not have similar interests, like Iran, the United States and Saudi Arabia to varying degrees. Qatar is clearly playing a more decisive role and is being more aggressive in promoting its interests. The difference may be that Qatar is now taking sides rather than maintaining its ambiguity in foreign relations. I think we are seeing a new stage in Qatar’s foreign policy. It is certainly a more aggressive approach but it is motivated by where Qatar’s interests will lie in the future. There is a pragmatism at the heart of this agenda.

What is Qatar’s agenda exactly?
Qatar is reacting to the fact that the traditional heavy-weights in the Middle East – namely Egypt and Saudi Arabia – are not playing their customary roles. There is a political void in the region that both Qatar and Turkey to some extent have stepped into. Qatar is trying to increase its influence by cultivating relations with the Muslim Brotherhood throughout North Africa. By doing this Qatar is hoping to guarantee its presence and influence in the region in the future. Given the recent regional unrest, Qatar is trying to get ahead of the curve.

Just looking at their foreign policy, they have interfered politically in Libya and Tunisia and to some extent Syria. They are financing the En Nahda party in Tunisia. What are Qatar’s intentions in Tunisia? Is it politics or business?
In Libya and Tunisia, Qatar has sided with the forces for change, the revolutionary forces; they very clearly took sides there. If you talk about the broader region including Morocco and Egypt, both Qatar and Turkey have tried to ally themselves with what would be termed the mainstream Islamist parties, the En Nahda party in Tunisia and the Freedom and Justice Party in Morocco.

So they are steering clear of the more hard line Salafists?
Yes, you have to keep in mind that Qatar is differentiating itself in terms of policy from Saudi Arabia, which would be more inclined to support the Salafists. This divergence is an important point. There is still a lack of clarity about who the Salafists are and what they want, but they would be more inclined to lean towards the Saudis. It has always been interesting to see how the Saudis and the Qataris have interacted with the Muslim Brotherhood. At times, the Saudis feel threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood, at times they see them as being ungrateful. Consequently they see the Salafists as a counterweight to the Brotherhood. Qatar and Turkey have been very clear though, in choosing to develop closer ties with the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region.

Map of the Middle East

What did Qatar do in Libya exactly? Did they just send money or – as some have rumoured – did they send in their special forces troops too?
That was no rumour, there were Qatari military advisors on the ground in Libya. There were also the hundreds of millions of dollars that they sent in to support the rebels. There were frequent flights from Doha to Benghazi and there was a Libyan opposition television station set up in Doha too. Clearly Al Jazeera, which has aligned itself more and more with Qatar’s foreign policy, was brought into action as well – clearly an attempt to push the Libyan situation to a conclusion. Why they chose to do this, is still open to speculation. Some people are suggesting that the Emir’s wife, Sheikha Mozah, had personal family connections in Libya which was defining the Qatari agenda but others maintain that gaining access to the resources in Libya was what prompted Qatar to step into the political void created by the unrest. Critics of Qatar often cite the Libyan and Syrian examples of the country over-reaching which could lead to serious repercussions in the future.

It sounds like a mixed agenda – on the one hand pushing the Arab Spring via Al Jazeera and then making deals with Islamist parties. Is there an Islamist agenda, or is this just realpolitik?
There are a lot of questions about this. Many people say that the Emir has a nationalist/Islamist perspective on the region and that Qatar has a desire to play an outsize role despite its very small size as a country. I may be wrong on this but I think it is realpolitik; it is pragmatism that is leading Qatar to ally itself with those forces which look like they will come out on top in the long term. In the short term it looks as if they have chosen their allies correctly, given the election results and polls coming out of North Africa.

It seems contradictory to support the uprising in Tunisia and help crack down on it in Bahrain. Is this a Sunni-Shi’a story here or just national interests?
This is an interesting point. If you look at Al Jazeera’s coverage, the way it covered Bahrain was very different from the more aggressive stance it took in Tunisia and Libya. Al Jazeera was actively promoting an uprising in Libya but in Bahrain there was a remarkable lack of coverage of events. There is a sectarian element in Bahrain, the fact that the uprising was predominantly a Shi’ite affair and then there was the possible involvement of Iran too. Qatar is playing GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) politics closer to home in Bahrain. They were not willing to provoke the Saudis over the Bahrain issue, it was not worth the risk for them. Again here is the pragmatism of Qatar’s policy, they could not see the political upside in Bahrain.

Books by Anthony Shadid

The Emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the influential prime minister, are leading the charge. Is this new agenda being pushed by the Emir or is it a collective governmental push?
The Emir is in charge. There is no question about that. The Emir is the pivotal player, the Prime Minister has a lot of experience and a lot of contacts, but the Emir makes the decisions about how far to go in terms of policy.

What is happening at Al Jazeera? How do you read the resignation of Wadah Khanfar and his replacement by a member of the ruling family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani?
I wouldn’t read too much into the resignation of Wadah Khanfar. I think it was more of a question of just getting Al Jazeera in line with Qatar’s foreign policy. The Qataris play so many games with the Americans that the Wikileaks exposure that some people say led to his departure would have been irrelevant. That said, some do say that the Qataris were courting the Saudis, Jordanians and the Kuwaitis by pushing Khanfar out.

Is Al Jazeera running the risk of losing its credibility and objectivity if it is increasingly becoming a political tool?
There is a risk of that, but Al Jazeera will continue to be an unrivalled force in the Arab world as the events in Tunisia proved. Al Jazeera was pushing for Ben Ali to be deposed but its coverage became more selective after Tunisia, with the coverage of Syria and Bahrain particularly. Al Jazeera’s coverage of events in Syria shifted in line with Qatar’s Syrian foreign policy. However, I think that the effect that these political shifts will have on what is the Middle East’s premier media institution will not be all that great.

Anthony Shadid - courtesy of www.anthonyshadid.com

Qatar hosts an American air base. Does the US have significant influence in Qatar?
US influence in Qatar is not as great as it is in, say, Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, but clearly they do have influence and the Qataris want to be a friend to the US rather than its enemy. There have been some tensions in the US-Qatari relationship in the past, but from what I understand relations are better now than they have ever been. The simmering tension that has existed over the last ten years is easing off.

There has been a historical rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Is this a friendly rivalry or is there something more ominous at work?
This is a key rivalry that goes a long way to explaining some of the choices that Qatar is making. The Qatar-Saudi rivalry should not be underestimated – it is the cornerstone – they feel more threatened by Saudi Arabia than they do their other neighbours, and I include Iran. It is always a good idea to see what moves the Saudis are making when trying to interpret Qatari policy. On a lighter note, I think they take a little bit of pleasure in irritating the Saudis. On a superficial level, however, relations are better than they have been for a long time though.

Relations in the Middle East have been dominated by a struggle for dominance between Turkey and Iran. Where does Qatar place itself in this struggle?
I wouldn’t say that Turkey and Iran are actively seeking to dominate the region but clearly the regional balance of power is shifting. The American order that we had in the Middle East for a generation is crumbling. There is a pronounced sense of an American decline in the region although some do still disagree as to whether or not this decline is actually taking place. What is clear is that the traditional players are no longer calling the shots – Egypt is a perfect example of this as it is in the throes of an unfinished revolution. Qatar and Turkey are certainly filling some of this political void and new alliances are being forged, but the key thing is that these two countries are trying to get ahead of the change proactively. The country to watch will be Egypt. I was speaking to the Turkish Foreign Minister a few months ago and he was talking in terms of a new Turkish-Egyptian axis between their two democratic Islamic countries. It is unclear how much the Egyptians will want to be a part of that, but it is interesting that the Turks are thinking along these new strategic lines. It will also be important to see how the new political parties in North Africa develop and whether or not they develop into a regional bloc. We might see a revolutionary Islamist bloc that we have not seen in the Arab world for some time.

Edmund Burke and Sarah Palin

The publication of your book has been perfectly timed with the Republican party in the throes of an identity crisis. What is happening in the Republican Party?
The Conservative movement is in decline. This is the first time in recent history that the GOP has not been able to line up behind a front runner (at least that was the case until the last few weeks; it seems like things could be sorting themselves out fairly soon). The fact that the party is cycling through different candidates in the hope of an alternative to Romney shows that nobody is really in charge over there.

When did this decline begin?
My read on the Republican Party is that it reached its apex under George W. Bush, in the same way that the modern Democratic Party reached its highest point under Lyndon B. Johnson. It is at moments like these, when political parties exercise fully authorised power and reach their peak, that they begin to sow the seeds of their own decline. This happened to the Republicans after 9/11 and to the Democrats after Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964. Political parties at their peak find themselves in a situation where they are making and extending commitments that they cannot sustain. Conservatism, under Bush, committed itself to imperial warfare and to defunding government, creating a collision course that has led us to where we are today. Conservatism is working out the contradictions generated by its own recent unchecked success and it is slowly unravelling.

Where does the Tea Party fit in to this?
I read the Tea party in a different way than most people. Rather than seeing it as a conservative success, I see it as a conservatism that’s in decline The only question in my mind is: “How long is the Tea Party’s shelf life?” I still don’t know the answer to that.

Could it be that the more serious and establishment candidates are waiting for a better opportunity in 2016?
I see it as a more long-term issue. I don’t think this is a question of the next electoral cycle. I think for the next 4 to16 years you are going to see the Republican Party in a downward spiral. It might be able to recoup temporarily, in the same way that the Democratic Party was able to recoup temporarily in 1976 with Jimmy Carter, but I think this distinction between establishment candidates and fringe candidates is just a winnowing out, because the political context that enabled presidents like Reagan and George W. Bush to massage the distinctions has been lost. The environment will be different in four years time, as there won’t be an incumbent, but it will still be the same party wrestling with the same problems. I think the party will eventually be repudiated and will have to reconstitute itself.

The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin published by OUP

You trace the roots of conservatism back to Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes. Is there an unbroken thread in conservatism that has survived through history? Is there a link between Edmund Burke and Newt Gingrich for example?
Yes there is. The thread does break periodically but it reappears. I read a lot of modern political history and I see the struggle of the subordinate classes repeatedly trying to extend the claims of freedom and equality to include themselves. You see this with the French Revolution, the Abolitionist Movement, the Labour Movement in the late 19th century, the Women’s and Civil Rights movements. It is at moments like these with the subordinate classes playing an active role and making specific claims for emancipation that conservatism reawakens as it did between the 1930s and 1950s in response to the New Deal. At these crucial moments conservatism has managed to push many of these movements back and at times defeat them, particularly in the case of the labour movement and the welfare state, but now it is unclear exactly what conservatism’s mission is. They are trying to make a mission out of Obama the “Kenyan Muslim Socialist” but it rings hollow, even to them; that’s why the party is so undisciplined and fragmented now: there’s no real Left that can force it to get its act together. It won’t be until you have another insurgent movement again making fundamental claims for reordering society that you will see the conservative movement reawaken, in the way that Burke was awakened by the French revolution.

Corey Robin

Does Conservatism actually have an ideology? What is conservative utopia? Just an absence of government?
Conservatism does have an ideology: it is a commitment to a society where higher beings preside over lower beings. Conservatives are convinced that there are some people who are better than others, more excellent, more talented and more virtuous. Conservative Utopia looks for excellence, beauty and virtue, but that vision is periodically challenged and toppled and then they have to reinvent conservatism. This story of constant reinvention is the one I am trying to tell in my book. Conservatism is dynamic. In a right wing utopia there are higher beings, but they are constantly being challenged and renewed and contested. This renewal can come through warfare, a challenge from the Left, making it a counter-revolutionary battlefield, or even the market place, which the Right eventually realised could also become a battlefield in its own right.

The conservative distrust of big government – and at times just plain government – might suggest an element of anarchism in conservative thinking. Is there a link there?
We have to be careful here. I don’t see that as the animating core of conservatism either historically or in the present. In reality conservatives are in favour of a very intrusive government – they have a commitment to warfare which has been one of the main engines of big government. There is a commitment to propping up the power of owners and employers, fathers and husbands and they use government to do that. I don’t think the issue is one of government versus no government, but what the purpose of government is. I think the anarchism moniker is wrong because conservatives are very much committed to what I call private forms of government, like the power of the employer and the power of the father. I think that is the real issue: the question is: “What is the purpose of the state and where do you want governance to lie?”.

Listening to conservative rhetoric it sounds like what they hold dear is under attack and that they are fighting a rear-guard action. They feel excluded and victimised.
There are two things to be said about that. The first is that this is perfectly true. When conservatism is in its most authentic mode of expression, it is fighting against insurgent movements which are trying to divest elites of real power, status and privilege. So when you hear the slave-owner cry about the threat to him from the Abolitionists it is not an insincere cry, it is very real to him. If slaves are emancipated, that is a real loss to the slaveholders and their culture. In its most authentic mode, conservatism is reacting to a real threat to its power and privilege,

Secondly, conservatism is a modern political praxis and theory, operating in a modern context, which is very different from the medieval world of Europe. Hierarchies no longer have the theological and cosmological support that they had, so conservatism has to figure out a way of talking about privilege that is palatable and intelligible to the masses. It has multiple ways of doing that, but one in particular is to talk about itself as a victim. This goes back to Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. One of the longest sections in the book is a description of Marie Antoinette being abducted by the mob and marched with her family from Versailles to Paris. Scholars have often asked themselves why he dedicated so much of the book to this one event. My view is that she is the pre-eminent victim, and in being a victim she becomes an object of universal identification. This is something that people of the lowest orders can identify with. It is hard for them to identify with someone who is regal and all-powerful, but if the person has been divested of that power, he or she becomes a claimant on our affections.

You have a chapter about Ayn Rand, the darling of the Right, but she comes across as a case of political and emotional arrested development.
The reason why Ayn Rand is an interesting figure and not just a joke is that she was someone who was extraordinarily influential – she was one of the most significant right-wing intellectuals in terms of attracting people to the movement. Her primary claim is that society is divided between higher and lesser beings, where higher beings should preside. This is a very Nietzschean claim but unlike Nietzsche, Ayn Rand herself as a writer and a thinker was an abject mediocrity and self-evidently so – this is the paradox. Here is someone who is talking about higher and lesser beings, but who on any measure that she would endorse does not fall into the “higher being” category. Her shamelessness is sort of fascinating.

Is the Right vs Left battle a fight between the Enlightenment and the counter-Enlightenment, or more crudely the uneducated vs the educated?
I don’t think so. For example, Edmund Burke was a man of the Enlightenment and so are many conservatives such as Robert Nozick, the libertarian who works within a Kantian tradition, so I think it is a mistake to say it is a battle between the Enlightenment and the counter-Enlightenment although there are many counter-Enlightenment thinkers on the Right. Equally it is a mistake to pit the educated versus the uneducated. To say that the Left is educated and the Right is uneducated is to really misunderstand the problem.

At what point did religion become such an integral part of conservatism? You mention for example that Ayn Rand was an atheist.
Going back to the French Revolution, part of the battle was related to religion, particularly organised state religion. The French revolutionaries dispossessed the Church of its properties because the French state represented the nesting of religion and politics, so it is an old battle, but it is not always a clear-cut one. For example in the battle over Abolition, the strongest force against slavery was Christianity, and certain of the slaveholders actually dispensed with Christianity as an argument as it did not suit their ends. In my book I explain that the most far-reaching thinkers on the right, Joseph de Maistre and Nietzsche began to suspect that there was something about religion – for de Maistre it was Protestantism and for Nietzsche it was Judeo-Christianity – that laid the groundwork for modern egalitarian claims. This reaches its high point with Nietzsche, who traces a link from Judaism to Christianity to democracy to socialism: He was convinced that if we are going to confront Socialism we have to attack it at its roots. I should add that he was critical of religion for many reasons and this was just one of them. Ayn Rand said that Christianity was the greatest kindergarten of Communism ever invented. There is a strain on the Right that recognises this Christianity/Communism link, but it is in competition with a different strain which sees religion as a prop to the social order.

On a more philosophical level you describe conservatism as a fear of moral decadence and dissipation.
Once again this takes us back to Burke who was worried that the ruling classes had grown weak, decadent and flabby, thus paving the way for the French Revolution. This was the case of the Old South as well. Many felt that the slave owners and the ruling classes had become too attached to their position of privilege. This is a long-standing strain in conservatism throughout history and fascism is in many ways a triumph of this line of thinking. More recently you can see this in the United States in neo-conservative thinking which found the answer to this decadence in embracing warfare which they feel acts as a counter to that softening. I was struck by this in many of the arguments over the war in Iraq and in the “War on Terror”; there was an embracing of imperial warfare as a way of rejuvenating the ruling class which many neo-conservatives thought had really gone soft after the end of the Cold War.

Were the Neo-Cons and the 9/11 experience a departure from real conservatism? Has there been a split in conservatism?
I don’t think so and this may be one of the more controversial arguments in the book. There is a strain of conservatives who claim that the Neo-conservatives took everything off the rails as they were not true Burkean traditionalists, but I try to show that Burke himself was not that much of a traditionalist. I try and show that the neo-conservatives are actually the fulfilment of the Burkean tradition and not a betrayal of it.