A Girl, a Gun, and a Prayer Book

Universal conscription for Israeli citizens is a fact of life there. Which is not to say that military service is easy. However, in a country beset on all sides, each able-bodied citizen must take part in its defense.

Rachel Papo served her time in the Israeli Army. An American citizen who was raised in Israel, she later returned to the US to pursue her education in photography.

As part of her master’s thesis, she went back to Israel fifteen years later to photograph the young women currently on active duty:

Walking onto an army base after all these years was very disorienting, as memories began to surface, and blend with feelings of estrangement. The girls who I encountered during these visits were disconnected from the outside world, completely absorbed in their paradoxical reality. They spoke a language now foreign to me, using phrases like “Armored Cavalry Regiment” and “Defense Artillery.” Would it have made any difference to explain to them that in a few years the only thing they might remember is their serial number? Photographing these soldiers, I saw my reflection; I was on the other side of a pane of glass-observing a world that I had once been a part of, yet I could not go back in time or change anything. It felt like a dream.

Anthropologists would call what she did a kind of participant observation. But it was more than that, and more than simply a bittersweet sentimental journey. Ms. Papo captured a slice of life that not many young women encounter. Her book is not only aesthetically appealing, it is of historical value.

The photographs from her travels to Army bases is now available as a book, Serial No. 3817131 (Ms.Papo’s serial number. I don’t suppose anyone who has served in the military ever forgets that identity).

The pictures are sometimes haunting, sometimes surreal, often touching. These are images of vibrant young women and they make a stunning contrast to the usual cheesecake photos of girls their age. At the same time, many of these girls are just as pretty, just as desirable as any artificially arranged images of erotica. In fact, for men who are comfortable qua men these women are probably more appealing.

After the fold, I’ve listed the links to thumbnails of her photographs, her website, and the page where her book is advertised. Be sure to see the images there, also.
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Thumbnails are here.

The home page for Ms. Papo’s Israeli photos is here. The image on that page is one of the pictures I consider surreal.

It is also the cover photo on the book, available here.

This link will bring you to the publisher’s page of flowing images from the book. It is a powerful, dream-like display, almost like holding the book in your hand.

Ms Papo says of her book, her “project”:

The photographs in this project serve as a bridge between past and present-a combination of my own recollections and the experiences of the girls who I observed. Each image embodies traces of things that I recognize, illuminating fragments of my history, striking emotional chords that resonate within me. In some way, each is a self-portrait, depicting a young woman caught in transient moments of introspection and uncertainty, trying to make sense of a challenging daily routine. In striving to maintain her gentleness and femininity, the soldier seems to be questioning her own identity, embracing the fact that two years of her youth will be spent in a wistful compromise.

Youth itself is transient and uncertain. Youth trained to war and facing the prospect of boredom or death is lived on another plane entirely.

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The Angels are in the Details

Fjordman sent this “Memo From Europe,” from Bruce Bawer’s blog.

This particular memo of Bawer’s deals with the destruction of Oslo by the criminals on the street, and the criminally irresponsible people who hold power in government. The latter may smell better, but they are more to blame than the common criminal who wreaks havoc on ordinary citizens.

[In the following, the emphases are mine. I will explain them at the end of Mr. Bawer’s remarks - D]

During the nine years and two weeks that I’ve lived in Oslo, I’ve seen the city change significantly -- for the worse. I don’t remember exactly when it started reminding me of New York in the 1970s and 80s, but by now the resemblance is undeniable.

Burglary, rape, gay-bashing, mugging, graffiti, vandalism: you name it, we’ve got it in spades, and it’s still on the rise. Public stabbings and gang fights have become routine.

Forget for a moment the Muslim youth gangs that are responsible for a wildly disproportionate number of the crimes here: it’s now impossible to walk in broad daylight down Karl Johans Gate, the grand ceremonial thoroughfare that was once the kingdom’s pride, without being accosted by aggressive gypsy beggars who want your money (they’ve been bussed in from Rumania specifically for this purpose) and by equally aggressive drug addicts (some of who are asking for handouts, others of whom are dealing).

At night, this unsavory crew is replaced by an even pushier brigade of Nigerian prostitutes, some of whom will follow you for a block or more, repeatedly (and often belligerently) demanding that you avail yourself of their services. So insistent are they that it doesn’t even help to scream: “I’m gay!” Even the pre-Giuliani Times Square area was safer and more congenial.

The statistics are dire.
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Last month came news that the rate of reported crimes in Oslo is now four times that of New York; last week it emerged that Oslo’s rape figures reached an all-time high in 2007; today it was reported that over 99 percent of street robberies in the city go unsolved.

To any unblinkered individual who lives here, these statistics are no surprise. Yet civic authorities, faced with the steady erosion of law and order, exude indifference and ineffectuality.

Alas, as illustrated by the vile comments made last October to a Muslim audience in Oslo by the head of Norway’s security police -- who, as recounted by Rita Karlsen, bent over backwards to praise Muslims and decouple Islam from terrorism while maligning America and depicting ordinary Norwegians as ignorant, potentially violent anti-Muslim bigots -- Norwegian cops are hobbled by the same mindless multiculturalism that infects their counterparts elsewhere in the West.

Mr. Bawer points out the similarities between present-day Oslo and the New York City of the 1980’s. These similarities are significant, that is why I emphasized them.

In the various crimes listed in his second paragraph, he includes graffiti and vandalism. In a counter-intuitive move, that is where New York started in cleaning up the city and bringing the crime rate down. It is the small details that count, and to start the change back to public order they can be dealt with more easily and immediately than more complex problems. They are also easier to see, which begins to change perceptions.

In New York, The graffiti was cleaned up, and the broken windows were fixed.

Next, the aggressive beggars who ran over to cars stopped at traffic lights, demanding money for cleaning the drivers’ windows (often becoming irate and dangerous when refused) were ordered off the turf, not to return.

This could be done with the gypsy beggars and the Nigerian prostitutes; simply take them off the streets. Surely even Oslo has public nuisance ordinances?

Next, give the police some peacekeeping mandates and give them the discretion to arrest those who are causing trouble. Put police officers on the streets, all the time. That is what New York did, and the Chief of Police has since gone on to curb crime in other cities. New York City cops are not hobbled by multi-cultural mandates. They’ve learned to work around them.

Since the experience proved so successful in New York, people are more trusting of the police, and the latter have more autonomy. The spiral upward was an ascent out of restrictive, mindless ideas about what “causes” crime - the result of 1960’s thinking so well represented by Mayor Lindsey.

Crime happens because criminals know they can get away with it. Oslo has been mau-maued into its present condition by gangs, immigrant hooligans, and imported beggars and prostitutes.

In his book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, Michael Yon makes the point that small details are essential to a successful battle. Thus, if he is off to observe some engagement with the enemy, he will not get in a vehicle with dirty windows, or one with a slovenly crew. He knows from experience that the attention to detail and the realization that preparation is essential means the difference between success and failure.

Mr. Bawer finds himself in the unenviable position of living where the details no longer count. Is that unsafe environment worth it?

Come back to New York City, Mr. B. You and your partner will be safer and your anxiety level when you leave the refuge of your home will decrease.

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Happy Birthday to Israel from the Persians

During the following week, I will be posting on Israel’s amazing survival since it was granted statehood by the UN in 1948. In that moment, the world (except for the Middle East) celebrated what seemed a miraculous event. Out of the horrors of World War II emerged the bloody birth of a Jewish nation.

In 1948, when there were actually liberal Democrats in the US (and the term “progressive” had yet to become the cover word for socialist) there was great enthusiasm for and belief in this new state. Harry Truman was president by then, and he had come into office with none of the Arab interests that clung to his predecessor.

On May 14th, Israel was born. On May 15th, Arab armies began the first of their incursions. It has been an uphill battle ever since.

The following essay comes from the blog, Amil Imani: Freedom of Iran, whose home page is here. He has an intriguing post re Google’s name change on its maps - e.g., the Persian Gulf has been renamed: it is now the Arabian Gulf. You should examine his images also; they are detailed and interesting. I especially liked the book cover illustration for The Mullah Conspiracy by Cyrus Doost.

Note: the date on the homepage is from last year, but if you scroll down there are posts that are more current.

Now to the essay:

Israel, your people, as well as people of good will, are celebrating your sixtieth birthday. We, the children of Cyrus the Great, also would like to offer our heartfelt best wishes to you on this occasion. Yet, this, in fact, is your rebirth. Your birth occurred some 4,000 years ago.

Regrettably, your journey from your early beginning to the present has been fraught with great suffering. It is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of your people that they persisted in their valiant struggle to re-gather again in the land of their birth.

A noble and just Persian king, Cyrus the Great, rescued your people from captivity in a foreign land and empowered them to return home and build their sacred temple. By his action of freeing an entire people from captivity and restoring their rightful dignity, Cyrus the Great, the author of the first code of Human Rights, cemented a bond of friendship between the Jews and the Persians. It was the Just King’s way of setting the world on a course of freedom, equality, and justice for all people, irrespective of any and all considerations.

Yet, your people, Israel, were unable to settle down for long in their own homeland, to worship their God as they wished, and to live in peace. They were assaulted once again by the forces of destruction that sent them scurrying for the relative safety of other lands.

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Your rebirth, Israel, is in reality a culmination of thousands of years of gestation during which the Jewish people, dispersed through much of the world, endured immense degrees and varieties of suffering. The Nazi murderers and their collaborators capped the crimes committed against your people by brutally slaughtering six million innocent men, women and children.

Now, Israel, you are a sovereign state but hardly safe. You are surrounded by nations and peoples who are bent on your destruction. It is tragic that your neighbors and you have not been able to find an equitable way of living side-by-side with mutual respect and in peace.

Many of us Iranians co-suffer with this tragic state of affairs that harms you as well as your neighbors. We earnestly hope that ways can be found for a peaceful resolution of this destructive impasse.

We appreciate the fact that you, Israel, have welcomed the Iranian Jews who could no longer tolerate the rule of the oppressive venomous mullahs. These mullahs are indeed traitors to the lofty long-standing tradition and values championed by Cyrus the Great and revered by Persians throughout the ages.

We applaud you for affording millions of Israeli Arabs opportunities denied to them in many other lands.

Your fair treatment of the Baha’is, Israel, is a further testimony to your ability and willingness to live in harmony with any and all people. In Iran, the birthplace of the Baha’i faith, Baha’is are ruthlessly subjected to a form of gradual genocide by the savage mullahs. Some Baha’is are executed for their faith, Baha’i children are denied university studies, Baha’i holy places destroyed and even their cemeteries are bulldozed, just to cite a few examples. You, Israel, by contrast, have provided the Baha’is freedom to care for their holy places, which were established in the Holy Land during the 19th century, long before your rebirth.

Your perennial prayer, “Next Year in Jerusalem” has finally been answered. We also pray that you succeed in taking the steps necessary for making the New Jerusalem a place of hope and lasting safety for your people as well as people of all religions and those with no religion at all.

Happy Sixtieth Birthday, Israel.

In the recent past there have been some comments in our posts on Israel, and on the subject of Jews in general, that have bordered on the anti-Semitic. This week - and this post - is a celebration of Israel’s existence. Keep that in mind as you comment.

Thanks.

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Newspaper Reporting: Subtle as a Brick

You can’t stop reality, but that doesn’t mean those currently in power won’t try mightily to keep the racist xenophobes in their place.

This newspaper article from The Local, considering the rise of the Sweden Democrats echoes in tune with the New York Times when it comes to talking about Republicans. Everyone knows that the Right in America is racist. They're simply crypto-Nazi types just waiting for a Hitler to emerge and give a spanking to those freedom-loving Pink Code ladies. Don't believe me? Ask anyone. Hey, Hillary, got a minute? How about you, Rev. Jackson?

The Swedish population’s support for the far-right Sweden Democrats has gained the crucial mass necessary to enter parliament.

Translation: the yokels have picked up support. Be worried.

According to polls by Demoskop and Expressen newspaper, 4.2 percent of the population would vote for the Swedish Democrats if there was an election today. The Christian Democrats, a partner in the governing coalition, got only 3.8 percent of votes.

Well, maybe things will change before the elections. Maybe the Swedish Democrats will have been chased from the country by then. You can always hope.

In prior polls, only 3.1 percent of the population supported the party. The recent rise in popularity may be due to the party’s annual conference meeting in Karlstad in western Sweden a week ago.

Or it could possibly be due to the reality on the ground. Or a low-pressure system. Whatever… nothing to see here. Move along.

The Sweden Democrats’ chairman Jimmie Åkesson is convinced that the party now has a real chance of entering parliament at the next election.

“If we can keep up this support level of 3 - 4 percent until the next elections, then this is a good starting point. I am sure that we will get into Parliament at the next elections,” he told news agency TT.

Demoskop’s CEO Anders Lindholm confirmed this view. “It isn’t really a surprise. More a case of when, not if. This is a development that has been coming for quite a while,” he told TT.

Ah, no big deal. We’ve seen them coming. Nothing to worry about because, as the Local notes:

However, should the party make it into Parliament in 2010, they might find it a difficult arena in which to air their policies. Most other political parties do not want anything to do with the Sweden Democrats who are viewed as xenophobic and sexist.

Speaking to Expressen newspaper, the Left Party’s Secretary Anki Ahlsten went so far as to describe the Sweden Democrats as outright racists.

And so they are “outright racists” in Sweden. Why, they have the nerve to suggest limiting immigration and demanding more local control. Tch, tch. Barbarians, obviously. Otherwise, they would get quietly in line with the overlords, right?

The polls questioned 1,008 people during the period from April 29th to May 6th.

Support for other parties is as follows:
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The Social Democrats 44.1 percent
The Moderate Party 21.9 percent
The Green Party 6.8 percent
The Liberal Party 6.3 percent
The Centre Party 6.0 percent
The Left Party 5.9 percent
The Christian Democrats 3.8 percent

Go to the main page of The Local, here. Scroll down and notice how conveniently this article about the SD landed between one story about public masturbation and another concerning a serial rapist. This is as subtle as a brick over the head.

Obviously, they do take their cues from the Old Grey Lady’s playbook.

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Comin' Round the Mountain

Ever since I saw this video on Belmont Club last week, I’ve been pondering the voices in the background. This is a static piece of film; nothing much happens. And that is the point... though it certainly wasn't meant to be by those who shot the footage --

Pech Valley Dco 1-32 10th Mountain

Wretchard says:

A video captured from the Taliban in Afghanistan illustrates the power of electronic warfare. The enemy is using a cell phone to trigger an IED on American convoys. But the Americans have their own wizardry. Their vehicles are blanketed by an electronic jamming bubble. Watch as the Taliban try to blow up American vehicles traveling along the strategic Pech River road without success. Not even praying to Allah helps.

A road is the pathway to civilization and the battle to upgrade and secure the Pech river road is one of the more interesting but unsung stories of the war. The Pech River road is now well along in its construction. The Taliban have lost to civilization -- for now. Road-building has been a strategic counterinsurgency weapon since ancient times.

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Wretchard then uses a long quote from David Kilcullen from Small Wars Journal to explain why the control of roads are strategically important. What was of particular interest to me was Dr. Kilcullen’s experience as a trainer in counterinsurgency, using geographical points in northern Britain from which to observe, only to find that the ancients had been there long before him.

Part of Wretchard's quote from Kilcullen:

As a tactics instructor in the mid-1990s, teaching British platoon commanders at the School of Infantry, I spent many weeks on extended field exercises in the wilds of south Wales and on windswept Salisbury Plain. Both landscapes are studded with Roman military antiquities, relics of ancient counterinsurgency campaigns - mile-castles, military roads, legion encampments - as well as the Iron Age hill-forts of the Romans’ insurgent adversaries. Teaching ambushing, I often found that ambush sites I chose from a map, even on the remotest hillsides, would turn out (once I dragged my weary, rucksack-carrying ass to the actual spot) to have Roman or Celtic ruins on them, and often a Roman military road nearby: call me lacking in self-assurance, but I often found this a comforting vote of confidence in my tactical judgment from the collective wisdom of the ancestors.

Having been reading Bernard Cornwell of late, the quote gave me a frisson of connection to “the collective wisdom of the ancestors”, also.

I suggest you read Wretchard’s whole post, in order to get all his links. And click on Small Wars Journal, which has a much longer explanation of the importance of roads in Afghanistan.


I don’t know why that You Tube video haunts me, but a week later I’m still thinking about those fervent, ultimately-in-vain prayers echoing from that captured film.

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The Book Fair in Turin, Italy

Turin is holding its annual book fair through May 12th. In the face of the usual critics, Italy’s President was firm regarding the decision to honor Israel this year since it is celebrating the sixtieth year of survival as a state:

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano opened the prestigious Turin book fair Thursday [May 6th] amid opposition from Muslims and the Italian Left over the choice of Israel as the event’s guest of honor.

“No dialogue is possible if there is a refusal to recognize Israel,” Napolitano said at Israel’s stand at the fair, the European Jewish Press reported. Napolitano added that there can be no “rejection of the reasons for [Israel’s] birth or of its right to exist in peace and security.”

Like the Paris book fair in March, the Turin fair is honoring the modern state of Israel on the 60th anniversary of its creation. Israel’s stand was swamped by hundreds of people, many draped in the Israeli flag, with one group holding a banner that read: “I feel Jewish today.”

[…]

In a statement released earlier this week, Napolitano’s office said: “Criticism of the policies adopted by the Israeli government is quite legitimate, especially within Israel. What is inadmissible is any position that tends to deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel, which was established by the will of the United Nations in 1948, and its right to existence in peace and security”. [emphasis added]

[…]

Security has been tightened for this year’s event in Turin, coming two months after the Paris book fair, which was inaugurated by Israeli President Shimon Peres. A bomb threat to the Paris fair forced an hour-long evacuation of the venue.

The Turin fair, which is now in its 21st year, will be attended by some 1,400 publishers this year.

This is a huge event, attended by thousands of people. In addition to publishers and presses, there will be many authors in attendance, signing books and speaking with their readers.

One writer in particular is likely to receive much attention, though how friendly that awareness will be is open to question…
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The excerpts below are from the chapter “Il mio battesimo” [My Christening] from Magdi Cristiano Allam’s book, Grazie Gesù. La mia conversione dall’islam al cattolicesimo [Thank You Jesus. My Conversion from Islam to Christianity] (Mondadori, pp. 204, € 18).

Grazie Gesù went on sale today (May 9th) in Italian bookshops. The author, Magdi Cristiano Allam, plans to be on hand at the Turin Book Fair on Saturday afternoon, May 11th for signing books and talking to readers.

Here is the wiki concerning Allam’s biography. He is an Egyptian-born journalist who became an Italian citizen in 1986:

Allam began his journalistic career at the communist newspaper Il Manifesto. Later, he moved to the center-left leaning Italian newspaper La Repubblica, where he worked as a commentator, mostly writing about issues faced by extra-communitarian immigrants in Italy, especially those originating from North-Africa, and supporting progressive policies on the immigration issue and on the compatibility of Islam and Western values… In 2003, following a radical shift in his views, Allam joined the more conservative, Milan-based Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest newspapers, as deputy director of the newspaper (vice-director ad personam). Today he is one of Italy’s most famous and controversial journalists.

Now he is likely to become famous for writing a book about religious conversion that follows in the footsteps of Augustine and Thomas Merton:

A Lifetime to Become a Christian

It was the best day of my life. Receiving the gift of the Christian faith on the day of Christ’s Resurrection from the hand of the Holy Father is a matchless privilege and inestimable blessing. For me, at the age of almost 56, it was a unique, unforgettable historic event that signaled a radical, definitive change with respect to the past.

During the night of 22 March 2008, on the occasion of the Easter Vigil, at the solemn liturgy celebrated in the magnificence of the Basilica of St Peter’s, the cradle of Catholicism, I was reborn in Christ.

At the end of a long, protracted struggle, lived out as a Muslim by reason of the legacy inherited from my parents and with a personal history of lacerating doubts and torments, there ignited within me, by divine will and responsible choice, the light of the true Christian faith. My spiritual metamorphosis unfolded from nine o’clock over three hours that seemed as if they would never end. I passed those hours in uncontrollable excitement, outwardly betrayed by my tingling nerves, over the radical nature of the life experience that was taking place inside me and, I admit, in part because of the cold that gripped me and stayed with me from the beginning of the imposing ceremony in the atrium of the Basilica, accompanied by rain and icy temperatures.

Inside the Basilica, the lights had been extinguished. I was outside with six other adult catechumens waiting to receive the sacraments of Christian initiation, seated on the part of the parvis most exposed to the wind.

It was in that damp cold, which usually makes me a little agitated and means I have to concentrate more to listen, reflect, assess and elaborate concepts that I began to relive the film of my inner life. Half a century was reviewed frame by frame and sliced up with the now uncompromising, now compassionate scalpel of religion, calm enough for one last unconscious confirmation of a decision already taken consciously yet at the same time with sufficient urgency to recompose the overall framework of my existence into a harmonious whole, joyfully to register the image of the long-awaited, soon to be accomplished, Event, as I reinterpreted my past while redefining and revolutionising my future. (…)

From the atrium, Benedict XVI led the procession towards the altar after the deacon, chanting the Lumen Christi for the third time, had brought the splendour of light back to the Basilica.

Then began the crucial stage of my conversion to Christianity, to which evidently I was called by the grace of God that had accompanied me from my youngest days, bringing into my path a series of “coincidences” that were anything but fortuitous, concealing as they did the will of the Lord that discreetly comes to meet us without making its presence palpable.

As I slowly walked down the nave at the rear of the procession, my mind at once went back to the key event that started me on the route of interior spirituality at the age of four, and would more than half a century later culminate in my conversion to Christ.

It was September 1956. I still have clear in my mind the day on which my long travails began. I had burst into tears as my mother Safeya, aided and persuaded by the Caccias, the family of wealthy Italian textile magnates resident for generations in my native Cairo, handed me over to Sister Lavinia. She hid me under her habit so I would not see my mother entrusting me to the education and affection of the Combonian sisters and their devotion to St Joseph. Later on, from the last year of primary school to the last year of my scientific secondary school, I studied at the Salesian Don Bosco Institute.

For fourteen years, I lived in boarding schools run by Catholic religious orders (…) I was able to gain first-hand experience of the lives of women and men who had chosen to devote their lives to God in the Church by serving their neighbours, regardless of religion or nationality, and who bore witness to their Christian faith in works for the common good and the interest of the community.

There I began to read the Bible and the Gospels with interest and involvement, particularly enthralled by the human and divine figure of Jesus. I was able to attend the church of St Joseph opposite the Combonian sisters’ school and the church of Don Bosco at the Salesian Institute. Every so often, I went to holy mass and once I actually approached the altar and received communion. From the religious point of view, it was an act without significance since I hadn’t been christened but it clearly signalled my attraction for Christianity and my desire to feel myself part of the Catholic community. (…)

My conversion did not come about in a flash after some traumatic, joyful or sad event, nor was it merely a rational adherence prompted by reading sacred texts, or a purely intellectual confrontation with supporters or opponents of the Catholic faith.

Instead, conversion was the ripe fruit of a long journey through a life of study and direct familiarity with the sources of wisdom but above all, with experiences of otherness that involved me entirely, slowly laying down in my soul and mind ever-thicker layers of spiritual and rational adherence to the love and faith of Jesus. (…)

Finally came the crucial moment of Baptism. I was being reborn in Christ and was about to take my first steps as an authentic Christian. I stood up and walked to the baptismal font, accompanied by my godfather. For the first time, I stood before Benedict XVI. I knew that at that precise moment, the destiny assigned to me by divine grace fifty-six years earlier, from my birth, was being fulfilled.

I bowed with the respect and humility of a believer in the religious primacy of the Pope as Christ’s vicar on earth. I approached the font, stooped and Benedict XVI poured the blessed water over my head. “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”. (…)

The moments immediately preceding my baptism and the baptism itself I experienced as an authentic liberation.

For fifty-six years, I perceived myself as a Muslim and others around me identified me as a Muslim. At the age of fifty-six, I was born again as a Christian, cancelling out the Islamic identity that I have consciously and deliberately rejected. Inside me and outside, everything will change. Nothing will remain as it was before. For those who, like me, consider religious faith and the sphere of absolute, universal, transcendent values to be the foundation of life, thought and action, adherence to Christianity takes the form of a radical change in the whole of personality and existence.

Naturally, it will take some time for this adherence to faith in Jesus to grow increasingly full and heartfelt. I feel like a child taking his first hesitant steps in his new Christian life. But I have a great desire to walk and run as a Christian! Thank you, Jesus.

This translation into English was done by Giles Watson [with some editing done for the purposes of posting it --D.]. Mr. Watson's website is here.

This is the original website where the translation appeared.


Thanks to the numerous contributors who sent this in.

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