From the Archive 2008 ~ Antisemitism

From the Archive (2008)

Dispatches ~ Volume 9

30 December 2019

I

IT IS A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM ~ EIN SCHOCK FÜR DAS SYSTEM to see anti-Semitic graffiti daubed across London this morning, in the same fashion that heralded the descent of the German People into the chaos and hell of the Third Reich 1933-1945 and destruction of Germany in just 12 years.

It is even more of a shock to the system when I recall that members of my own family fought and died "to rid the world of brute oppression, tyranny and fear", as Winston Churchill eloquently and very defiantly put it.

Even ten years ago in Liverpool, when I owned and edited a lifestyle magazine, this action would have been unthinkable.

My parents were alive then; they had survived the Blitz; both had been bombed and strafed as teenage civilians, even here, in Britain. My father saw Coventry on 15 November 1940 with his mother. Mrs Webb had made a train dash to the city with her 13-year-old son in tow to check up on her brother, wife and family in Coventry following the previous night air raid.

II

Notwithstanding that, my sisters and I were brought up by our parents and four grandparents not to hold any bitterness towards the German People. Those familiar with my work as a writer will know where I stand. A brief visit to both of my websites leaves no one in any doubt.

I have a very close association with Germany and with Austria. I will not have it any other way.

These two countries are entirely part of my family heritage because of two world wars. In my family, we have been drawn closer to these two countries, starting with my sister visiting Salzburg, Austria, with her school in 1968 and my visit to Innsbruck, Austria, with my school the following year, 1969. My parents knew what they were doing.

III

I have a very close association with Israel. My faith is resolute, and I'm very loosely Christian, not strait-jacketed, totally rejecting the Christian fundamentalist view that Israel should return to its biblical borders of two millennia ago: a very loose Christian, a man who flies outside the box. I understand the plight of the Palestinians. I have spent much time in Jerusalem, the Galil, and the Golan Heights over the years, similarly in Berlin and Hamburg.

I know well the arguments.

IV

In the United Kingdom, it seems that we do not teach history as it was taught when I was at school. 

Consider this: a very close friend  - a head teacher – and part of my family pointed out yesterday the quandary he faces. He is a history teacher. A young teacher approached him the other week and asked him to help her. What was the Blitz? It was something she needed to teach about.

Ten years ago, in Liverpool, a young friend (19), when I mentioned the Liverpool Blitz of May 1941, wondered aloud, "What's that? A bar of chocolate?" And he was not being sarcastic or flippant. He genuinely didn't know.

He was shocked when, a week later, I showed him the Liverpool Blitz. It was, after all, his city. His birthplace. His home of 19 years. We were looking at an image of Liverpool that filled one of the windows of the recently closed art deco Lewis's of Liverpool. He wasn't too pleased with his former history teacher, let's put it that way. His reply is unprintable. And I saw a young man grow considerably in stature just in that short visual introduction. He looked around him. It dawned on him. Most of the buildings were 'new'. He then visualised wide open spaces. His reply was again unrepeatable.

V

And so this leads me to wonder what my grandparents and parents – the greatest generation – would have thought if I was able to say to them that that which they fought to defeat and lost their sons and brothers and alien to us here in these islands, was now rearing its head amongst the British People in the heart of London.

I am glad they did not live to witness this. 

More importantly, what the hell are the universities and schools doing? More particularly, how has the teaching profession allowed two generations to grow up without knowledge of the Second World War?

I am not going to post on here the images that daub London. Absolutely not. Absolut nicht! 

VI

I do know this. Something extraordinary happened on 12 December 2019. The British People dealt with antisemitism and a shattered and rebellious parliament by the most powerful means: they used the ballot box to register their anger. They also used that ballot to sweep away the voices of strife and division, of malcontent, of malpractice.

That is how we do things here. 

Erm! In 2023, I find myself well and truly shafted, as my note at the end explains.

VII

To my Jewish and German friends, I sincerely thank you for how you take this sinister turn of events in your stride. 

Remember the maxim of dictatorship: "When the vociferous minority portray themselves as the silent majority, and the silent majority are rebuked as the meaningless minority."

When a nation turns its back on history, it turns its back on its responsibility. It lays itself wide open to all the political idiots who shout and clamour to be heard, recognised, and given power and authority. In this paragraph alone, we see the apt description of a megalomaniac, Adolf Hitler. And it angers me that young people see that man as "just another major character in history!"

VIII

Many superb teachers and lecturers exist in our schools, academies, colleges and universities. There are also many who, if weighed on the scales, would be found to be of no use. To be a teacher lacking in teaching skills is one thing, made worse by the absence of knowledge and expertise in the subject they profess qualification.

It is quite another when that same group of teachers courts anarchy and rebellion.

IX

A brooding, silent, peaceful people will look on; they will bide their time, and through the rule of law, they will give their weight to true democracy—this brooding we glimpsed, momentarily, on 12 December.

On 13 December, the world realised that the Mother of Parliaments had stepped back into the fray; she had made herself heard and felt. She had also stepped back from the brink. And the free world heaved a sigh of relief. The closed and totalitarian world cursed beneath its breath.

Populism belched.

X

As I write this, I see to my right on the desk my uncle, Ken Webb, in 1941 in Alabama, USA, training to be a pilot with the Royal Air Force. I have all his correspondence with the family. He was 19 in this photograph, and in one of his letters to his mum, he writes, "I think we're doing the right thing, Mum". He and I never met, but I am named after him.

I also have a poem that his mum had copied out in pencil at the same time – at the height of the Blitz on Britain – entitled Because He was a Jew. I have not seen this since I was a boy in the 1950s.

Referring to Christ, the poem is a two-edged sword, for it also makes it very clear where the Jewish People stood in the writer's thinking and reasoning, and most surely in my Grandma's thinking and reasoning, and also that of her three sons, Arthur, Ken and Des. And my father, Desmond Webb, always reminded me of the importance of that poem when I was growing up. And they were not in an inferior position either in that poem or in my or my family's thinking.

XI

I have spoken with some who survived the concentration camps. My nieces, both 30, have been to Auschwitz. I have written about that place in both "Shoah" and "They Came in the Night". I have visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem several times, but I confess that I cannot bring myself to visit Auschwitz. 

All of us must remember that there are people who delight in neo-fascism. Many can be found in the USA. Many, alas, can be found here.

Let the Muslim, the Jew, the Christian, the Hindu, the Sikh, the Pagan, the Atheist and everyone else put aside religious differences and strive for the higher ideal of humankind. 

XII

Thank you, all my friends, for reading this. I've written it quite simply because today was one of those days when the activities of a few misguided individuals upset my boat and almost capsized it.

When I lived and worked in Liverpool, I was in regular contact with the HCU – the Hate Crimes Unit at Police HQs. They exercised a zero-tolerance policy of ALL Hate Crime.

When, in a telephone call, I asked the head if she would define a zero-tolerance policy (sorry guys, girls, I was a lawyer and a copper, so it's sort of ingrained), I'll never forget her reply.

"Simple, Ken. We will arrest immediately. No negotiation."

Let us hope this is still the case within the definition of the Rule of Law for all the Democracies. It should be everywhere else, too, but expecting that would be taking hope a step too far.

Darkness brings with it the sinister mind, he and she, who would simply love to be the societal wrecking ball.

30 December, 2019
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL


© 2019 Kenneth Thomas Webb

"Life is Good" ~ Kenneth Ernest Webb RAF VR 1315766
Crag Field, Alabama 1941


Kenneth Thomas Webb
In RAF VR Service 1985 209246

A Gentle Reminder ~ Life Goes On

Author Note

October 2023

In 2019, I was hopeful when I penned this:

“I do know this. Something extraordinary happened on 12 December 2019. The British People dealt with antisemitism and a shattered and rebellious parliament by the most powerful means: they used the ballot box to register their anger.

They also used that ballot to sweep away the voices of strife and division, of malcontent, of malpractice.

That is how we do things here.”

— KTW

I don't know whether I simply misread, saw the world through childlike eyes, or simply put, have been completely shafted by a bunch of career politicians and career civil servants who epitomise that description of the Pigs on the Farm when George Orwell penned those infamous words in Animal Farm (1940).

All Animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

9 October 2023
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL


© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Image Courtesy of my Nieces Mrs S L Terry and Ms C J Opacic and to whom all rights are reserved

Sergeant-Pilot Kenneth .E. Webb 1315766 RAF VR 1941-1943 ‘Ken Webb Senior’ from the Family Archive and by kind permission of my sisters

Flt Lt Kenneth .T. Webb 209246 RAF VR 1974-1991 ‘Ken Webb Junior’ ~ this being taken during 1985-1989. A Gentle Reminder ~ “Life Goes On”

Images, unless expressly stated, are from my Private Family Collection and with all rights thereto reserved and to the Artist and to the Photographer