Saturday, September 24, 2011

Mixing Beauty and Filth: It’s Complicated and Creepy

The choice of a first name for the pathetic ‘Fjordland’ character wasn’t immediately obvious, so I asked our German translator why he thought the ‘comedy’ writers team chose that first name. Why Heine? Isn’t that German?

Oh, wait. He’s in his Nazi uniform in the screen cap.


JLH’s answer to my question actually crossed in our emails. In other words, he’d been thinking of the same thing. So he said:

I think I see the “logic” of the first name, Heine. The character is not only misogynistic, Nazi and paraplegic--he is also a closet Jew.

Heinrich Heine was the great 19th century poet who was exiled from his home by the authorities of various German states who found him to be undesirable and revolutionary. What better way to evoke contempt in their little quisling hearts than to combine a woman-hater, cripple and Jew and call them all “Nazi”?

One example of Heine’s attitude toward, for instance, censorship is this “essay”:

The German Censors
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The university in his native Düsseldorf was named for him in 1988, after a stubborn, more-or-less underground resistance which was no doubt inspired by his Jewishness--despite that fact that he had converted to Protestantism.
JLH gives us some background on Heinrich Heine, he of Lorelei fame:

One of Heine’s best-known poems which was one of several made into Lieder and sung in almost every Lieder recital, is the Lorelei, about a fabulous, magical woman who entranced boatmen along the Rhine. I am sending you a link with the music and a translation.

It was so identified with Heine that it became a haunting leitmotif in an American TV mini-series in the 1950s or 1960s about Jews in Germany just before the Holocaust--played on the family piano, I think by the young daughter. It was shown in Germany too, and had a great effect.
Here’s some historical background on Lieder:

For German speakers, the term Lied has a long history ranging from 12th century troubadour songs (Minnesang) via folk songs (Volkslieder) and church hymns (Kirchenlieder) to 20th-century workers songs (Arbeiterlieder) or protest songs (Kabarettlieder, Protestlieder).

In Germany, the great age of song came in the 19th century. German and Austrian composers had written music for voice with keyboard before this time, but it was with the flowering of German literature in the Classical and Romantic eras that composers found high inspiration in poetry that sparked the genre known as the Lied. The beginnings of this tradition are seen in the songs of Mozart and Beethoven, but it is with Schubert that a new balance is found between words and music, a new absorption into the music of the sense of the words.
A blurb on Lorelei and Heine gives this information:

“Die Lorelei” is arguably the most famous of German folk songs, certainly it is the best known in the English speaking world. The Lorelei (or Loreley) is a rock on the River Rhine, and herein it becomes a mermaid or siren, doing what these fascinating but deadly creatures do best, luring hapless sailors to their deaths.

The song about this particular Rheine Maiden was actually written as a poem by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) and published in 1827; it was set to music by Friedrich Silcher (1789-1860). Heine was a Jew, and during the Nazi era an attempt was actually made to suppress the song, but the German people wouldn’t stand for this, so the name of the author was quietly forgotten in that time, although Heine is today one of the most famous German poets.

“Die Lorelei” has been recorded by numerous artists over the years, and remains popular as both a folk and a classical work.
Here is a version of Lorelei, sung simply, as a Lied should be:


Finally, regarding this whole ugly creation, I received this email last night from a young Norwegian man:

I watched the clip from the Welfare Office about “Heine Fjordland”. I used to love that show, but that clip made me sick. We can be glad that this show is sent late at night.. wait. This show used to be broadcast at 22.30, but it has been moved to 21.30 which makes it prime time television, on one of NRK’s less-watched channels, but still. Season premiere, ridiculing Fjordman, moved to be broadcasted at prime-time, smells fishy to me.
Yes, it does to me also. Fishy and cruel and inhumane. If this is how Norwegians collectively mourn their dead, they have a long way to go when it comes to common decency.

Instead of mourning, they mount an attack. They want Fjordman demonized, disgraced, and a figure of ugly fun. That’s how to create a scapegoat: dehumanize him. These people seem to be creepily good at it.

The campers on Utoya did the same thing regarding the Jews, during their loud support of Hamas, a recognized and contemptible terrorist group that kills Palestinians. Remember Utoya’s feckless BDS demonstration?

Now, in retaliation for Fjordman’s being cited admiringly in a killer’s writings we have the deformed Heine Fjordland - a paraplegic who is mute; who is both a Jew and a Nazi. How… umm… nuanced.

How despicable.

21 comments:

ole said...

If I am onest with myself , the only way I PERSONALLY can relate to the Fjordman carricature , is as a deklaration of endless unlimited hostility , which we might as well cal a declaration of war . On the other hand Dymfna has just told me "not to dragg too much mudd onto her kithen floor" , (this becommes rather funny because I sometimes dragg a LOT of mudd onto my own kithen floor to my wifes furious protestations ) , so therefore it is important to specify that by "war" I ONLY mean psycological warfare and NOT the AK-47 type.
In short , the Fjordman wideo i a mercyles atack in the arena of psycologic warfare .
We should study it carfully and learn what it can tell us about the minds of the opposing force.

Green Infidel said...

How unfortunate for NRK then that Fjordman, when recently forced to reveal his identity, was actually shown to be quite a normal human being - with considerable experience of studying Arabic, and living in Arab countries...

I hope all who watched the NRK clip also read the article about the real Fjordman, maybe read some of his writing and think about why NRK would make such a tasteless clip, misrepresenting Fjordman while insulting handicapped people in a way they'd never dare to do in any other situation.

XPGMCMLXIII said...

People would most probably recognise Heinrich Heine for this line - "where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also."

Heine as part of the Fjordland character is not really complicated or creepy when put up against the left/right ultra-liberal totalitarianism. Heine Fjordland is a projected political hologram of ultra-liberal self-loathing.

Anonymous said...

Outstanding work. This blog is a beacon of light and knowledge from the middle of the woods.

This attack against Fjordman is really Nazi-like. I don't remember anything remotely similar to this in the Western "free" world recently.

The most chilling aspect of it is that Fjordman is a nobody. Not meaning to demean him, of course. But he's not a prominent politician, not a wealthy businessman, not a well-connected academic, not a powerful media figure.

Just the ordinary guy in the street, only more learned, more perceptive, more articulate and more resolute than the rest of us.

And that's precisely why this Norwegian government conduit has chosen to target him, in the vilest and most despicable manner.

To frighten everybody else into submission.

For this is indeed vile to an unfathomable degree. The author of this bit of "comedy" attacks his victim's masculinity.

Instead of a public TV network taking shots at some powerful figure which could retaliate in some way or another, here we have a bunch of brave people from a government body, gathering all their might to defame one Joe Smith, suggesting in effect that he is a homosexual, and wishing he would spend the rest of his life as a cripple, paralysed on a wheelchair (after some horrific attack by a Muslim fanatic, perheaps ?).

This is the equivalent of Nazi thugs painting "Jew" warnings on shopwindows.

Only worse.

Nazis did not make fun of Jews. They did not defame them personally. They just wanted them to disappear, and said so. At least, they had some honesty of sorts in their evil nature.

Leftist media gnomes on a government payroll don't have this honesty. They want to act like Nazis, and keep the benefit of the moral upper hand.

This must be one of the most glaring examples of leftist double standards. The PC thought police makes sure you suffer if you dare make fun of the handicapped, or of effeminate men who "make alternative sexual choices".

Unless, of course, someone ruffles the feathers of the doctors of received wisdom.

Then it's absolutely all right, even de rigueur and downright funny to portrait such an individual as a poof, an impotent quadriplegic and, of course, a Nazi.

Franklin said...

What these ignorant clowns forget, is that Hitler is responsible for the current European condition. Hitler displaced or eliminated all inteligensia, and killed off all the working young men who were acting as combatants. Consequently, at the end of WW2, Turks and other mid-eastern men were imported as engineers, business owners, teachers and common workers. From there, things simply proliferated. Golly, I think I'll name my new daughter Sharia!
Thanks Adolf, you pinhead!

Green Infidel said...

Franklin - Amen!

It's thanks to Hitler that Europe has got itself into the immigration mess... and thanks to Hitler that leftists can assure themselves of a victory, by calling their opponents "Nazis".

70 years on, the Führer has a lot to answer for...

Franklin said...

...while the leftists themselves have become the neu nazi's...but they cannot see it! LOL!

Franklin said...

Gosh! Nazi's made fun of the Jews on the streets! Painting Jewish shop windows with grotesque caricatures and slogans! Beating and mocking Jews right on the streets! Goerbels himself made fun of and mocked Jews in his speeches to the Bundestag! German's vandelized Jew's homes and pulled up their gardens. Sliced thier car tires, and poisoned their pets!Nazi's never made fun of Jews? Get a grip my boy! Study a little history!

Cyrus said...

More accurately you have the common French-German history of border wars for this mess, not Hitler himself. He was merely the last in a long line of volk liberators.

Professor L said...

I see another aspect to this Heine Fjordland business, and the reason he is portrayed as physically disabled - it reflects, in the minds of the "comedians", the mental "disability" required to be against cultural relativism.

I think it's been a note that's somewhat missing over the discussions here lately.

Green Infidel said...

Did the common French-German history of border wars affect Britain, Norway, Italy, Sweden or any other country with the same immigration mess as France and Germany? Indeed, did any of the previous French-German border wars result in a mass influx from Turkey and North Africa?

It was only after 1945, and after millions of able-bodied adults were killed on battlefields and in gas chambers, that there was a "need" for Jamaican bus drivers in England, or Turkish workers in Germany, and the equivalent in any other country. And it was only after 1945 that leftists could call opponents "Nazis" or "fascists", and in doing so win most arguments. Especially after 1968 - when the "baby-boomer" children of the World War II soldiers, living in a completely different reality from their parents, could find it even easier to tar anyone as being a fascist, while acting ever more like Nazis themselves - all that was required was for them to show they had no loyalty to their country or their race, and were therefore anti-Nazis!

And now those same 68'ers are in the corridors of power, deciding policy on immigration, law & order and "cultural issues" - and making their values dominant in the societies they inhabit. Be that in Germany, or any other European country - all of which were just as appalled by the acts of the Nazis.

So, yes, I would say Adolf Hitler had something to do with it... how wonderful his idea of a "racially-clean" Europe turned out to be eh?

Green Infidel said...

Yes - displaying stances against cultural relativism or mass immigration as being "unsexy", "stupid" or even "mentally-disabled", in addition to the usual "racist" or "Nazi" slurs, seems to be a common feature of leftist arguments... is this an example of Hillary Clinton's "peer pressure" concept of shaming anti-Islamists into silence being put into practice?

Fortunately, the readers of one article in Aftenposten, linked in a link in a previous GoV post, were just as against this "comedy" sketch as we are!

Peer pressure can work both ways - and if we can convincingly present our argument to the "middle 80%", it will be the leftists fleeing with their tails between their legs...

Hell_Is_Like_Newark said...

So will Fjordman still write (now under his real name)? Or will we not hear from him again?

Dymphna said...

@ Hell=Newark:

I don't know when he'll resume writing or what name he will use. Maybe both?

Makes me think of David Goldman who wrote under the name Spengler (yes, homage to Oswald S.)in the Asia Times for quite a long while. People thought he was maybe former intel, a Mossad agent, you name it. He still has a column there AFAIK. From what I remember he was an ABD (all but dissertation) at the London School of Economics and also has a master's degree in music. Worked in finance for years, esp in international banking.

I don't know if his blog is current:
Spengler First Things Bloge but he still writes for First Things.

I saw a music essay there recently, but it was still behind the subscription firewall.

And he is still at Asia Times. I think this link below is the site but since I'm limited to a dial-up connection, I can't tell for sure:
Spengler at the Asia Times

I've gone into such detail on Goldman because I think Fjordman is in a similar position. For example, Goldman just came out with his first book and at the bottom of the dust cover it mentions his identity as "Spengler".

Probably Fjordman would do it backwards: stay with his "brand" for a while and then maybe switch. Of course, some writers never did: once Samuel Clemens left his journalism days behind for book writing, he stayed "Mark Twain" for the rest of his days.

And George Eliot never wrote as Maryanne Evans. Nor did the author of "Alice in Wonderland" go by his real name...

A psuedonym is an honorable tradition. The Baron's choice of nom de blog is an inside joke for readers of Jack Vance, I guess. But the Barond did it to honor Vance. And though he has been "out" for over a year, writing at Big Peace under his real name, ppl still think they're outing him when they use it...

Someone sent us an excerpt of some Swedish piece about Fjordman and Baron Bodissey -- from EXPO, I believe. I'm sure they think they're outing him too. EXPO is a lovely little group. They did their best to demolish the Sweden Democrats but even with govt funding and support they failed. Even after the Norway massacre, SD is doing fine.

Anyhow, I think Fjordman is still pondering. My vote -- to the extent I have anything like a "vote" -- is that he stay with Fjordman. I like it. Even though I know his real name, I deliberately avoided knowing it until July 22nd, simply because the pseudonym appealed to me.

Heck, I call my husband "Baron" sometimes just for fun. He seems like one to me, but without the money, unfortunately. As he has always said, money doesn't seem to like him ;-) But he has to admit he returns the feeling: he only likes it for the things it can buy like good semi-sweet chocolate or coffee...and books, of course. Oh, and new Bach CDs.

I like it for security, but as things look now, that may be a fsding hope for us all...

Sooo...the long way 'round to say, YAY FJORDMAN! Whatever he calls himself.

If ever anyone was called to write, it is he.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the comparison of Fjordman to Heinrich Heine is a backhanded compliment from Fjordman's enemies?

From Wikipedia:

"Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic."

"Heine's later verse and prose is distinguished by its satirical wit and irony. His radical political views led to many of his works being banned by German authorities. Heine spent the last 25 years of his life as an expatriate in Paris."

"Heine became increasingly critical of despotism and reactionary chauvinism in Germany, of nobility and clerics but also of the narrow-mindedness of ordinary people and of the rising German form of nationalism, especially in contrast to the French and the revolution. Nevertheless, he made a point of stressing his love for his Fatherland:

'Plant the black, red, gold banner at the summit of the German idea, make it the standard of free mankind, and I will shed my dear heart's blood for it. Rest assured, I love the Fatherland just as much as you do.'"

"One event which really galvanised him was the 1840 Damascus Affair in which Jews in Damascus had been subject to blood libel and accused of murdering an old Catholic monk. This led to a wave of anti-Semitic persecution. The French government, aiming at imperialism in the Middle East and not wanting to offend the Catholic party, had failed to condemn the outrage. On the other hand, the Austrian consul in Damascus had assiduously exposed the blood libel as a fraud. For Heine, this was a reversal of values: reactionary Austria standing up for the Jews while revolutionary France temporised. Heine responded by dusting off and publishing his unfinished novel about the persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages, Der Rabbi von Bacherach."

Anonymous said...

More from Wikipedia:

"[Karl] Marx was an admirer of Heine and his early writings show Heine's influence. In December Heine met the Marxes and got on well with them."

"Heine and Marx maintained a sporadic correspondence but in time their admiration for one another faded.[42][43] Heine always had mixed feelings about communism. He believed its radicalism and materialism would destroy much of the European culture that he loved and admired. In the French edition of "Lutetia" Heine wrote, one year before he died: "This confession, that the future belongs to the Communists, I made with an undertone of the greatest fear and sorrow and, oh!, this undertone by no means is a mask! Indeed, with fear and terror I imagine the time, when those dark iconoclasts come to power: with their raw fists they will batter all marble images of my beloved world of art, they will ruin all those fantastic anecdotes that the poets loved so much, they will chop down my Laurel forests and plant potatoes and, oh!, the herbs chandler will use my Book of Songs to make bags for coffee and snuff for the old women of the future – oh!, I can foresee all this and I feel deeply sorry thinking of this decline threatening my poetry and the old world order - And yet, I freely confess, the same thoughts have a magical appeal upon my soul which I cannot resist …. In my chest there are two voices in their favour which cannot be silenced …. because the first one is that of logic … and as I cannot object to the premise "that all people have the right to eat", I must defer to all the conclusions….The second of the two compelling voices, of which I am talking, is even more powerful than the first, because it is the voice of hatred, the hatred I dedicate to this common enemy that constitutes the most distinctive contrast to communism and that will oppose the angry giant already at the first instance – I am talking about the party of the so-called advocates of nationality in Germany, about those false patriots whose love for the fatherland only exists in the shape of imbecile distaste of foreign countries and neighbouring peoples and who daily pour their bile especially on France"."

Anonymous said...

More from Wikipedia:

"In May 1848, Heine, who had not been well, suddenly fell paralyzed and had to be confined to bed. He would not leave what he called his "mattress-grave" (Matratzengruft) until his death eight years later. He also experienced difficulties with his eyes.[50] It had been suggested that he suffered from multiple sclerosis or syphilis, although in 1997 it was confirmed through an analysis of the poet's hair that he had suffered from chronic lead poisoning.[citation needed] He bore his sufferings stoically and he won much public sympathy for his plight."

Anonymous said...

More from Wikipedia:

"In 1834, 99 years before Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seized power in Germany, Heine wrote in his work "The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany":

'Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals.'

'Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.'"

"In Israel, the attitude to Heine has long been the subject of debate between secularists, who number him among the most prominent figures of Jewish history, and the religious who consider his conversion to Christianity to be an unforgivable act of betrayal."

Anonymous said...

I also quite believe that the name Heine also references the famous German mathematician Eduard Heine who "formulated the concept of uniform continuity."

Think of those who believe that Europeans are the same as Turks and Africans and Asians....

From Wikipedia:

"Topology (from the Greek τόπος, “place”, and λόγος, “study”) is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing."

"Intuitively two spaces are homeomorphic if one can be deformed into the other without cutting or gluing. A traditional joke is that a topologist can't distinguish a coffee mug from a doughnut, since a sufficiently pliable doughnut could be reshaped to the form of a coffee cup by creating a dimple and progressively enlarging it, while shrinking the hole into a handle. A precise definition of homeomorphic, involving a continuous function with a continuous inverse, is necessarily more technical."

Anonymous said...

Finally, heine = hiney = bottom.

Thus, the intended symbolism might be that Fjordman is a Nazi who sits on his bottom (instead of acting on his beliefs like Breivik) and/or Fjordman represents the lowest of the Fjord land.

Unknown said...

Well, yeah, uhm, err, the name Heine Fjordland is probably taken from the Norwegian musician Heine Totland. http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heine_Totland (No relation to the German word 'Tot' either).