Is Bach enough?

Is it possible, or correct, to see Auschwitz as the end of a line in thinking that stretches from concepts such as the nation-state to 'state racism'? Was Foucault right?

The idea of a people, the birth of the nation. But who is this 'people' if not an Englishman, a Frenchman? Not: the abstract citizen or individual, but a specific man from a particular place and not Man, which might include woman, at least in theory. And not the Red Man (who is not included) and not the Black Man who is only a fraction of a human (White Man). If you lack will, reasoning abilities, if you do not have property or not at the right level of civilisation then sorry, go to the back of the line and wait your turn. In a comparable sense the poor, gays and Jews are also not really to be thought of as Man. Is it possible to think of who is human without thinking of who isn't?

Who is this black man, and what colour is he? 

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Lest we forget (or, more accurately: let's forget!)

We do not need to be reminded of The Trenches, colonialism, the Gulags, the Camps, the Bomb, and the destruction of our natural habitats. Which line of poetry shall we read today to stave off the memories?

Of course, there are those who want to say that religion is the cause of all or at least most of the hatred, violence and cruelty we see around us-and looking at the growth in fanaticism it is hard not to see their point. But, really? If we extend our horizons: Vietnam, Cambodia, the Great Famine, Rwanda, Congo, Iraq, Kashmir, Palestine..were these fundamentally about religion?

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The evos are on the march. All that hand waving and swaying in the aisles, the susceptibility to being easily moved to tears a sign of one's receptivity..one can only imagine how that's going to go down in middle England! 

Now, there's fundamentalism in Wolverhampton, South Punjab and Sao Paulo. If you had to take your pick..er...

Little r now sings 'When the saints..' I will not teach her 'Onward Christian Soldiers' but am very tempted to persuade her to learn 'we shall not be moved' or was that, 'I shall not be moved'?