Parallel Deaths (a word from Bapton Books)
Two men there were, born in the decade between the final year of the Great War and the year before the Great Crash. Both were born to peoples who had been and yet were persecuted and oppressed. Each devoted himself to the service of his people and of a nation in which that people was a majority.
Both, in these courses, found allies where they could: some of them embarrassing at best; a few, despicable. Each was unable - as happened to Wellington himself, at Badajoz - always to control his allies and his followers: although neither bore the sort of responsibility for those excesses that Dyer, say, bore for Amritsar.
Both, having secured security for their people and their people’s nation through measures that included resort on occasion to arms, then seized the opportunity, as political leaders, to make peace, even as many of their followers and allies erupted in fury and cried that they were betrayed. One was given the grace of time to succeed, and in some measure succeeded; the other was struck down upon the threshold of his new work.
And yet the reaction to the deaths of these two leaders has been very different. Few failed to praise Mandela in death; many revile Ariel Sharon. What can explain this? Whence comes this open hypocrisy, this naked double-standard?
Of course the answer is clear.
The same two things explain this as explain far too much of public discourse. The first is this: the Left is forgiven anything; the Right, excused nothing. (When a Leftist commits such atrocities as make it impossible to hand-wave, palliate, or bury the news of them, he is immediately recast as a Rightist. See also Hitler, Adolf.)
The second of course is the still simpler and more universal answer. Arik Sharon was a Jew, and served Israel. And The Narrative is made by the usual gang of Jew-haters.
If you do not judge - as history shall judge - Nelson Mandela and Ariel Sharon by the same standards, and pass upon each the same or a highly similar verdict, we are - as the young people say - nine hundred per cent. done with you.
Both, in these courses, found allies where they could: some of them embarrassing at best; a few, despicable. Each was unable - as happened to Wellington himself, at Badajoz - always to control his allies and his followers: although neither bore the sort of responsibility for those excesses that Dyer, say, bore for Amritsar.
Both, having secured security for their people and their people’s nation through measures that included resort on occasion to arms, then seized the opportunity, as political leaders, to make peace, even as many of their followers and allies erupted in fury and cried that they were betrayed. One was given the grace of time to succeed, and in some measure succeeded; the other was struck down upon the threshold of his new work.
And yet the reaction to the deaths of these two leaders has been very different. Few failed to praise Mandela in death; many revile Ariel Sharon. What can explain this? Whence comes this open hypocrisy, this naked double-standard?
Of course the answer is clear.
The same two things explain this as explain far too much of public discourse. The first is this: the Left is forgiven anything; the Right, excused nothing. (When a Leftist commits such atrocities as make it impossible to hand-wave, palliate, or bury the news of them, he is immediately recast as a Rightist. See also Hitler, Adolf.)
The second of course is the still simpler and more universal answer. Arik Sharon was a Jew, and served Israel. And The Narrative is made by the usual gang of Jew-haters.
If you do not judge - as history shall judge - Nelson Mandela and Ariel Sharon by the same standards, and pass upon each the same or a highly similar verdict, we are - as the young people say - nine hundred per cent. done with you.