Città del Messico. Trovate trappole con scheletri di 60 mammut.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2020-07-25.

«Archaeologists have found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built “traps” where more than a dozen mammoths were found last year»

«Both discoveries reveal how appealing the area – once a shallow lake – was for the mammoths, and how erroneous was the classic vision of groups of fur-clad hunters with spears chasing mammoths across a plain»

«For the moment, however, Mexican archaeologists are facing a surfeit of mammoths, almost too many to ever excavate»

«The institute began digging in three large but shallow areas in October, when work started to convert an old military airbase into a civilian airport»

«The shallow lake apparently produced generous quantities of grasses and reeds, which attracted mammoths who often ate 150kg (330lb) of the stuff every day. “It was like paradise for them”»

«The excavations are about six miles (10km) away from the mammoth pits found last year in the hamlet of San Antonio Xahuento, There, two human-built pits were dug about 15,000 years ago to trap mammoths, which apparently couldn’t clamber out of the 6ft (2-meter) deep traps»

«The newer excavations at the airbase have not yet turned up any of the distinct cut marks that would suggest human butchering of the animals.»

«ancient humans could possibly have used the mud pools and flats around the lake shore as a sort of natural trap»

* * * * * * *

Questi reperti sfatano una leggenda nata senza documentazione alcuna, che gli umani di quell’epoca corressero dietro ad un mammut armati di un piccolo paletto appuntito. Già 15000 anni fa gli esseri umani erano ben intelligenti, ed erano in grado di scavare trappole fatte nei luoghi opportuni ed in modo proprio.

Inoltre, l’aver trovato sull’altopiano messicano resti così consistenti, indicherebbe come a quell’epoca il clima della zona fosse ben differente da quello attuale.

*

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‘There are too many’: bones of 60 mammoths found in Mexico.

Archaeologists face surfeit of mammoths after bones found at airport under construction north of Mexico City.

Archaeologists have found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built “traps” where more than a dozen mammoths were found last year.

Both discoveries reveal how appealing the area – once a shallow lake – was for the mammoths, and how erroneous was the classic vision of groups of fur-clad hunters with spears chasing mammoths across a plain.

For the moment, however, Mexican archaeologists are facing a surfeit of mammoths, almost too many to ever excavate.

“There are too many, there are hundreds,” said archaeologist Pedro Sánchez Nava, of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

The institute began digging in three large but shallow areas in October, when work started to convert an old military airbase into a civilian airport. In about six months, the bones of 60 of the huge, extinct herbivores were found, and Sánchez Nava said that pace – about 10 mammoths a month – may continue. The airport project is scheduled for completion in 2022, at which the dig will end.

The excavations were conducted on the shores of an ancient lake, once known as Xaltocan and now disappeared. The shallow lake apparently produced generous quantities of grasses and reeds, which attracted mammoths who often ate 150kg (330lb) of the stuff every day. “It was like paradise for them,” Sánchez Nava said.

The excavations are about six miles (10km) away from the mammoth pits found last year in the hamlet of San Antonio Xahuento, There, two human-built pits were dug about 15,000 years ago to trap mammoths, which apparently couldn’t clamber out of the 6ft (2-meter) deep traps.

Those pits, found during excavations for a garbage dump, were filled with bones from at least 14 mammoths, and some of the animals appeared to have been butchered.

The institute said hunters may have chased mammoths into the traps. Remains of two other species that later disappeared in the Americas – a horse and a camel – were also found in the sediments, at layers corresponding to 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.

The newer excavations at the airbase have not yet turned up any of the distinct cut marks that would suggest human butchering of the animals.

Sánchez Nava said the most recently discovered mammoths had apparently got stuck in the mud of the ancient lake and died, or were eaten by other animals.

But, he said, ancient humans could possibly have used the mud pools and flats around the lake shore as a sort of natural trap. “It’s possible they may have chased them into the mud,” he said.

The huge number of mammoths being discovered may also change scientists’ views of how frequently mammoth turned up on the dinner menu of our ancestors. “They used to think it was very chance, sporadic,” Sánchez Nava said of a mammoth meal. “In fact, it may have been part of their daily diet.”

Mammoth bones have always been so numerous in the area that the Aztecs, who ruled the Mexico Valley between 1325 and 1521, recorded having found the enormous bones; Sánchez Nava said the Aztecs interpreted them as proof of legends that giants had once populated the valley.

Sánchez Nava said nothing had been found that would require halting work on the airport project, in which the old military base is being converted into a civilian terminal.

Dresda. 75 anni fa il bombardamento.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2020-02-13.

Il 13 febbraio 1945 i bombardieri anglo-americani distrussero la città di Dresda, generando un colossale incendio.

Quanto accadde dovrebbe darci da pensare a lungo.

Tutti anelano alla pace, ma spesso in modo distorto: vorrebbero vivere in pace incuranti se altrove la pace fosse diventata un mero termine di un vocabolario desueto.

Tra il 1975 ed il 1979 prese corpo il genocidio cambogiano, tra la indifferenza generale: nessuno fece nulla per arrestarlo, mentre molti si diedero un gran da fare per alimentarlo.

Nel 1994 avvenne il genocidio dei tutsi in Ruanda: anche in quella occasione coloro che si proclamavano pacifisti non mossero un dito.

Questi sono soltanto due tra i tanti esempi possibili.

* * *

Di questi tempi la devoluzione occidentale fa da incubatrice a molti sentimenti di odio, di rancori, di situazioni che alimentano una violenza verbale difficilmente riscontrabile nella storia, forse vissuta all’epoca delle guerre di religione europee.

Ma dalla violenza verbale a quella fisica il passo è breve, e la depressione economica che travaglia l’Europa è una miscela esplosiva che potrebbe anche deflagrare incontrollata.

Non ci si dimentichi che la guerra mondiale fu innescata dalla grande depressione.

In calce, alcune fotografie, per ripassare quella lezione che ci dette la storia.

* * *

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Dresden: The World War Two bombing 75 years on

“The firestorm is incredible… Insane fear grips me and from then on I repeat one simple sentence to myself continuously: ‘I don’t want to burn to death’. I do not know how many people I fell over. I know only one thing: that I must not burn.”

On 13 February 1945, British aircraft launched an attack on the eastern German city of Dresden. In the days that followed, they and their US allies would drop nearly 4,000 tons of bombs in the assault.

The ensuing firestorm killed 25,000 people, ravaging the city centre, sucking the oxygen from the air and suffocating people trying to escape the flames.

Dresden was not unique. Allied bombers killed tens of thousands and destroyed large areas with attacks on Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin, and the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But the bombing has become one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War Two. Some have questioned the military value of Dresden. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill expressed doubts immediately after the attack.

“It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed,” he wrote in a memo.

“The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.”

Dresden is the capital of the state of Saxony. Before the bombing it was referred to as the Florence on the Elbe or the Jewel Box, for its climate and its architecture.

By February 1945, Dresden was only about 250km (155 miles) from the Eastern Front, where Nazi Germany was defending against the advancing armies of the Soviet Union in the final months of the war.

The city was a major industrial and transportation hub. Scores of factories provided munitions, aircraft parts and other supplies for the Nazi war effort. Troops, tanks and artillery travelled through Dresden by train and by road. Hundreds of thousands of German refugees fleeing the fighting had also arrived in the city.

At the time, the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) said it was the largest German city yet to be bombed. Air chiefs decided an attack on Dresden could help their Soviet allies – by stopping Nazi troop movements but also by disrupting the German evacuations from the east.

RAF bomber raids on German cities had increased in size and power after more than five years of war.

Planes carried a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs: the explosives would blast buildings apart, while the incendiaries would set the remains on fire, causing further destruction.

Previous attacks had annihilated entire German cities. In July 1943, hundreds of RAF bombers took part in a mission against Hamburg, named Operation Gomorrah. The resulting assault and unusually dry and hot weather caused a firestorm – a blaze so great it creates its own weather system, sucking winds in to feed the flames – which destroyed almost the whole city.

The attack on Dresden began on 13 February 1945. Close to 800 RAF aircraft – led by pathfinders, who dropped flares marking out the bombing area centred on the Ostragehege sports stadium – flew to Dresden that night. In the space of just 25 minutes, British planes dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs.

As was common practice during the war, US aircraft followed up the attack with day-time raids. More than 520 USAAF bombers flew to Dresden over two days, aiming for the city’s railway marshalling yards but in reality hitting a large area across the city.

On the ground, civilians cowered under the onslaught. Many had fled to shelters after air raid sirens warned of the incoming bombers.

But the first wave of aircraft knocked out the electricity. Some came out of hiding just as the second wave arrived above the city.

People fell dead as they ran from the flames, the air sucked from their lungs by the fire storm. Eyewitness Margaret Freyer described a woman with her baby: “She runs, she falls, and the child flies in an arc into the fire… The woman remains lying on the ground, completely still”.

Kurt Vonnegut survived the bombing as a prisoner of war in Dresden.

“Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic, everything that would burn,” he wrote in his work Slaughterhouse-Five.

He described the city after the attack as “like the moon now, nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighbourhood was dead.”

In total, the British lost six bombers in the attack, three to planes accidentally hitting each other with bombs. The US lost one.

Nazi Germany immediately used the bombing to attack the Allies. The Propaganda Ministry claimed Dresden had no war industry and was only a city of culture. Though local officials said about 25,000 people had died – a figure historians agree with now – the Nazis claimed 200,000 civilians were killed.

In the UK, Dresden was known as a tourist destination, and some MPs and public figures questioned the value of the attack. A story at the time published by the Associated Press news agency said the Allies were conducting terror bombing, spreading further alarm.

US and UK military planners, however, insisted the attack was strategically justified, in the same way as attacks on other cities – by disrupting industry, destroying workers’ homes and crippling transport in Germany.

A 1953 US report on the bombing concluded that the attack destroyed or severely damaged 23% of the city’s industrial buildings, and at least 50% of its residential buildings. But Dresden was “a legitimate military target”, the report said, and the attack was no different “from established bombing policies”.

The debate about the Allied bombing campaign, and about the attack on Dresden, continues to this day. Historians question if destruction of German cities hindered the Nazi war effort, or simply caused civilian deaths – especially towards the end of the conflict. Unlike an invasion like D-Day, it is harder to quantify how much these attacks helped win the war.

Some argue it is a moral failing for the Allies, or even a war crime. But defenders say it was a necessary part of the total war to defeat Nazi Germany.

It has even become a symbol for conspiracy theorists and some far-right activists – including Holocaust deniers and extremist parties – who have quoted Nazi casualty figures as fact and have commemorated the bombing.

Seventy-five years later, the bombing of Dresden remains a controversial act.

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Equos in Lionissa Historia. Due scolia.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2018-05-08.

Bighellonando in internet ci si è imbattuti in un pregevole libretto intitolato:

«Equos in Lionissa Historia.

(I Cavalli nella Storia di Leonissa)»

*

Titolo accattivante.

Lionissa, Leonessa, ha una storia non indifferente.

«Il primo documento scritto riguardante la storia dell’altipiano di Leonessa risale al periodo della dominazione Longobarda. Si tratta di una donazione di alcuni beni, tra cui la curtis di Narnate con il suo territorio, che comprendeva quasi tutto l’altipiano leonessano, elargita da Pandone all’abate di Farfa, nel 752.

Nel 757 re Lotario II per limitare il potere del duca di Spoleto Alboino, costituì vari Galstaldati (da gastaldo = funzionario regio), tra i quali quello di Narnate da cui dipendevano alcuni territori, rocche dell’altipiano leonessano (Forcamelone, Ripa di Corno, Pianezza), ed il monastero di San Donato (ubicato tra Vallunga e Casanova). Nel 770 re Desiderio, per esaudire le preghiere della consorte Ansa e per propiziarsi il Pontefice, confermò la donazione, fatta da suo figlio Adelchi all’abbazia di Farfa, delle tre curtis di Sextuno (presso Ripa di Corno), Vallonina, Narnate, con le loro relative masse comprendenti quasi tutto l’altipiano leonessano, al fine di fondarvi un monastero benedettino dedicato a Sant’Angelo.» [Zelli M., Narnate, L’Erma, Rm, 1997.]

*

Le curiosità iniziano dal titolo, scritto in latino e fornito di traduzione italiana:

«I Cavalli nella Storia di Leonissa»

Incontriamo immediatamente due scolia, per usare un lessico di latino medievale.

*

I “cavalli” sembrerebbero essere il soggetto della frase.

Ci si aspetterebbe quindi un nominativo.

Ma Cicerone usa come nominativo “equus” [Simone e Pompeo De La Barba. La Topica di M.T. Cicerone. Rettorica. Morelli, Napoli, 1863].

Equos sarebbe allora un accusativo plurale, che non sarebbe appropriato.

Altri dizionari riportano il termine equos, equi, ma Cicerone sembrerebbe non aver mai usato questo lemma.

A nostra conoscenza fu usato solo da Livio Andronico, nella cothurnata intitolata “Equos Troianus“, ma Andronico era vissuto grosso modo dal 280 al 200 a.C. ed era inoltre di madre lingua greca. In altri termini, un latino arcaico.

Il Forcellini, mitico dizionario latino, non riporta infatti altro che il termine “equus“.

In ogni caso, anche ammettendo il termine “equos”, esso resterebbe pur sempre un nominativo singolare, e non plurale.

Quindi “Il cavallo piuttosto che i cavalli“.

*

Historia regge usualmente il genitivo: per esempio “Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum” di Beda il Venerabile.

Ci si sarebbe aspettati Lionissae al posto di Lionissa.

Forse questo lemma potrebbe essere indeclinabile, ma si ammette serenamente la propria ignoranza in materia.

«Magnificus vir Gentilis Dovarini Brunori de Lionissa Civis Urbe veianus fereral testamentum» [Giovanni Eroli, Erasmo Gattamelata da Narni. Suoi monumenti e sua famiglia. Salviucci, Roma, 1879]

* * * * * * *

Si resta sempre emozionati a rispolverare nozioni acquisite nei decenni scorsi e corrose dal logorio del tempo e della memoria.

Sono i momenti nei quali si sente fortemente il bisogno di attingere al parere di persone più esperte.

Molto spesso ciò che non ci si riesce a spiegare, altri lo possono fare con grande semplicità, dandone nella risposta anche il perché.

Quindi due domande:

– Cavallo o cavalli?

– è Lionissa termine indeclinabile o meno?

1517. Cinquecentesimo anniversario di Fra Luca Pacioli.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2017-12-16.

È molto difficile misconoscere l’enorme retaggio religioso, umano e culturale che il medioevo ha lasciato in eredità all’umanità intera.

C’è voluta tutta la pervicace volontà dei così detti ‘illuministi‘ per definire quell’epoca come ‘secoli bui‘: dovevano demonizzare il passato per poter giustificare la loro presenza. Ma le menzogne non durano nel tempo. Sarebbe sufficiente andare a visitare le cattedrali gotiche: sono lì da ottocento anni.

Sarebbe davvero lungo enumerare tutte le eredità medievali, ma in questa sede una dovrebbe essere ricordata in modo particolare: la messa a punto della logica. Basata sulla geniale intuizione di Aristotele, essa è stata oggetto di profondi ripensamenti da parte delle maggiori menti dei diversi tempi. Da Boezio ad Alcuino, fino ad Abelardo con il celeberrimo Sic et non. Per non menzionare poi Alessandro di Hales e Tommaso d’Aquino.

Senza lo strumento logico sarebbe stato impossibile porre le basi della teologia e, come sequenziale evento, di ogni tipo di scienza. La matematica lasciò la veste di strumento di calcolo per diventare il regno assoluto della dimostrazione robusta. Le scienze empiriche furono fondate sull’assioma ‘adaequatio rei et intellectus‘ ideato dalla scolastica.

*

Concetti che a noi contemporanei del ventunesimo secolo sembrerebbero essere auto evidenti non lo erano affatto.

In questo contesto culturale, che non dimentichiamolo ci ha donato l’architettura gotica e scuole artistiche culminate con Raffaello, Bramante, Leonardo e Michelangelo, Fra Luca Pacioli assume una sua ben precisa figura di spicco.

«Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli o anche Paciolo (Borgo Sansepolcro, 1445 circa – Roma, 19 giugno 1517) è stato un religioso, matematico ed economista italiano, autore della Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni e Proportionalità e della Divina Proportione. Egli è riconosciuto come il fondatore della ragioneria.

Studiò e avviò la sua formazione a Sansepolcro, città natale, completandola poi a Venezia. Entrò nell’Ordine francescano nel 1470, probabilmente nel convento di Sansepolcro. Fu insegnante di matematica a Perugia, Firenze, Venezia, Milano, Pisa, Bologna e Roma e viaggiò molto. Nel 1497 accettò l’invito di Ludovico il Moro a lavorare a Milano, dove collaborò con Leonardo da Vinci.

Nel 1499 abbandonò Milano insieme a Leonardo da Vinci. Andò prima a Mantova poi a Venezia. Per Isabella d’Este scrisse il trattato De ludo scachorum, prezioso manoscritto sul gioco degli scacchi, introvabile per 500 anni e riconosciuto dal bibliofilo Duilio Contin tra i libri della Fondazione Coronini Cronberg di Gorizia, ospitati dalla Biblioteca statale Isontina, nel dicembre del 2006. ….

Nel 1494 pubblicò a Venezia una vera e propria enciclopedia matematica, dal titolo Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni e proportionalità (stampata e pubblicata con Paganino Paganini), scritta in volgare, come egli stesso dichiara (in realtà utilizza un miscuglio di termini latini, italiani e greci), contenente un trattato generale di aritmetica e di algebra, elementi di aritmetica utilizzata dai mercanti (con riferimento alle monete, pesi e misure utilizzate nei diversi stati italiani). Uno dei capitoli della Summa è intitolato Tractatus de computis et scripturis; in esso viene presentato in modo più strutturato il concetto di partita doppia, già noto e divulgato nell’ambiente mercantile, (e quindi: “Dare” e “Avere”, bilancio, inventario) che poi si diffuse per tutta Europa col nome di “metodo veneziano”, perché usato dai mercanti di Venezia.» [Fonte]

*

Dopo l’azzeramento economico dell’alto medioevo, si iniziò il lungo cammino di una ripresa economica integrata, ove le realtà diventavano ogni giorno più complesse. Le realtà politiche ed amministrative del medioevo centrale erano davvero rudimentali, ma tutto si edifica nel tempo e facendo tesoro degli errori fatti.

Un primo e fondamentale motore furono le abbazie. Queste si dotarono ben presto di un sistema economico differenziato e coordinato, che già da solo aveva bisogno di una corretta tenuta dei conti. Ma il momento critico si determinò quando dall’abbazia madre furono fondate abbazie figlie ad essa collegate anche dal punto di vista economico. Per dare un solo esempio, Cluny raggiunse al suo apice quasi cinquantamila sedi distaccate ovvero funzionalmente dipendenti. Fare quello che oggi chiameremmo il bilancio consolidato era impresa fuori dall’allora umana possibilità.

Poi venne lo sviluppo economico e mercantile e, di conserva, le prime banche nel senso moderno del termine.

Sicuramente nelle repubbliche marinare italiane si svilupparono molteplici sistemi per cercare di tenere una contabilità ragionevolmente chiara e leggibile. Il trattato del Bongiorno, Il Bilancio di uno Stato Medievale, li tratteggia in modo vivace e dettagliato.

«The oldest record of a complete double-entry system is the Messari (Italian: Treasurer’s) accounts of the Republic of Genoa in 1340. The Messari accounts contain debits and credits journalised in a bilateral form, and include balances carried forward from the preceding year, and therefore enjoy general recognition as a double-entry system. ….

The earliest extant accounting records that follow the modern double-entry system in Europe come from Amatino Manucci, a Florentine merchant at the end of the 13th century. Manucci was employed by the Farolfi firm and the firm’s ledger of 1299-1300 evidences full double-entry bookkeeping. Giovannino Farolfi & Company, a firm of Florentine merchants headquartered in Nîmes, acted as moneylenders to the Archbishop of Arles, their most important customer suggest that Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici introduced this method for the Medici bank in the 14th century.» [Fonte]

*

Siamo però debitori a Fra Pacioli di aver compilato il primo trattato organico e consistente di quella che in futuro sarebbe stata chiamata la partita doppia, che gli amici anglosassoni denominato come double-entry bookkeeping system. Non solo: oltre a riportare la metodologia, Fra Luca Pacioli ne delineò anche il preciso inquadramento teorico.

*

Non sarebbe azzardato sostenere che il lavoro di Pacioli abbia costituito una pietra miliare nello sviluppo economico e finanziario dell’Occidente di allora, senza il quale noi oggi non saremmo ciò che siamo.

Onore quindi al merito, e perpetuo ricordo dei nostri grandi pensatori.

→ Bbc. 2017-10-22. Is this the most influential work in the history of capitalism?

In 1495 or thereabouts, Leonardo da Vinci himself, the genius’s genius, noted down a list of things to do in one of his famous notebooks.

*

These to-do lists, written in mirror-writing and interspersed with sketches, are magnificent.

“Find a master of hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill in the Lombard manner.” “Draw Milan.” “Learn multiplication from the root from Maestro Luca.”

Leonardo was a big fan of Maestro Luca, better known today as Luca Pacioli.

Pacioli was, appropriately enough, a Renaissance Man: – educated for a life in commerce, but also a conjuror, a chess master, a lover of puzzles, a Franciscan Friar, and a professor of mathematics.

Today he is celebrated as the most famous accountant who ever lived.

Pacioli is often called the father of double-entry bookkeeping, but he didn’t invent it.

The double-entry system – known in its day as “bookkeeping alla Veneziana,” or “in the Venetian style” – was being used two centuries earlier, around 1300.

The Venetians had abandoned as impractical the Roman system of writing numbers, and were instead embracing Arabic numerals.

They may have also taken the idea of double-entry book keeping from the Islamic world, or even from India, where there are tantalising hints that double-entry bookkeeping techniques date back thousands of years.

Or it may have been a local Venetian invention, repurposing the new Arabic mathematics for commercial ends.

Intricate transactions

Before the Venetian style caught on, accounts were rather basic. Early medieval merchants were little more than travelling salesmen. They had no need to keep accounts – they could simply check whether their purse was full or empty.

But as the commercial enterprises of the Italian city states grew larger, and became more dependent on financial instruments such as loans and currency trades, the need for a more careful reckoning became painfully clear.

We have a remarkable record of the business affairs of Francesco di Marco Datini, a merchant from Prato, near Florence, who kept accounts for nearly half a century, from 1366 to 1410.

They begin as little more than a financial diary, but as his business grew more complex, he needed something more sophisticated.

Late in 1394, Datini orders wool from Mallorca.

Six months later the sheep are shorn. Several months after that, 29 sacks of wool arrive in Pisa, via Barcelona. The wool is coiled into 39 bales. Of these, 21 go to a customer in Florence and 18 go to Datini’s warehouse, arriving in 1396, over a year after the initial order. They are then processed by more than 100 separate subcontractors.

Eventually, six long cloths go back to Mallorca via Venice, but don’t sell, so are hawked in Valencia and North Africa instead. The last cloth is sold in 1398, nearly four years after Datini’s original order.

Fortunately, he had been using bookkeeping alla Veneziana for more than a decade, so was able to keep track of this extraordinarily intricate web of transactions.

Enormous influence

So what, a century later, did the much lauded Luca Pacioli add to the discipline of bookkeeping? Quite simply, in 1494, he wrote the book.

“Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita” was an enormous survey of everything that was known about mathematics – 615 large and densely typeset pages.

Amidst this colossal textbook, Pacioli included 27 pages that are regarded by many as the most influential work in the history of capitalism. It was the first description of double-entry bookkeeping to be set out clearly, in detail and with plenty of examples.

Pacioli’s book was sped on its way by a new technology: half a century after Gutenberg developed the movable type printing press, Venice was a centre of the printing industry.

Symmetry and balance

His book enjoyed a long print run of 2,000 copies, and was widely translated, copied, and plagiarised across Europe.

Double-entry bookkeeping was slow to catch on, perhaps because it was technically demanding and unnecessary for simple businesses. But after Pacioli it was always regarded as the pinnacle of the art.

As the industrial revolution unfolded, the ideas that Pacioli had set out came to be seen as fundamental to business life. The system used across the world today is essentially the one that Pacioli described.

Pacioli’s system has two key elements.

First, he describes a method for taking an inventory, and then keeping on top of day-to-day transactions using two books – a rough memorandum and a tidier, more organised journal. Then he uses a third book – the ledger – as the foundation of the system, the double-entries themselves.

Every transaction was recorded twice in the ledger. If you sell cloth for a ducat, you must account for both the cloth and the ducat.

The double-entry system helps to catch errors, because every entry should be balanced by a counterpart, a divine-like symmetry which appealed to a Renaissance Man.

Practical tool

It was during the industrial revolution that double-entry bookkeeping became seen not just as an exercise for mathematical perfectionists, but as a tool to guide practical business decisions.

One of the first to see this was Josiah Wedgwood, the pottery entrepreneur. At first, Wedgwood, flush with success and fat margins, didn’t bother with detailed accounts.

But in 1772, Europe faced a severe recession and demand for Wedgwood’s ornate crockery collapsed. His warehouses began to fill with unsold stock and workers stood idle.

Wedgwood turned to double-entry bookkeeping to understand where in his business the profits were, and how to expand them.

He realised how much each piece of work was costing him – a deceptively simple-sounding question – and calculated that he should actually expand production and cut prices to boost business.

Others followed, and the discipline of “management accounting” was born – an ever-growing system of metrics and benchmarks and targets, that has led us inexorably to the modern world.

But in that modern world, accounting does have another role.

It’s about ensuring that shareholders in a business receive a fair share of corporate profits – when only the accountants can say what those profits really are.

Here the track record is not encouraging.

A string of 21st century scandals – Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, and the financial crisis of 2008 – have shown us that audited accounts do not completely protect investors.

A business may, through fraud or mismanagement, be on the verge of collapse. Yet we cannot guarantee that the accounts will warn us of this.

Complacency

Accounting fraud is not a new game. The first companies to require major capital investment were the British railways of the 1830s and 1840s, which needed vast upfront investment before they could earn anything from customers.

Investors poured in, and when railway magnates could not pay the dividends that the investors expected, they simply faked their accounts. The entire railway bubble had collapsed in ignominy by 1850.

Perhaps the railway investors should have read up on their Geoffrey Chaucer, writing around the same time as Francesco Datini, the merchant of Prato.

In Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale, a rich merchant is too tied up with his accounts to notice his wife being wooed by a clergyman.

Nor do those accounts rescue him from an audacious con.

The clergyman borrows the merchant’s money, gives it to the merchant’s wife – buying his way into her bed with her own husband’s cash – and then tells the merchant he’s repaid the debt, and to ask his wife where the money is.

Accountancy is a powerful financial technology – but it does not protect us from outright fraud, and it may well lure us into complacency. As the neglected wife tells her rich husband, his nose buried in his accounts: “the devil take all such reckonings!”

Winston Churchill di fronte alla storia.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2017-09-10.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill è personalità umana e politica che ha dominato il secolo passato, indirizzandone il corso degli eventi.

Il 24 maggio del 1901, a 27 anni, fu iniziato alla Massoneria nella Loggia londinese Studholme nº1591 della Gran Loggia unita d’Inghilterra, ed il 10 settembre dello stesso anno ottenne la prima carica in tale associazione.

*

Durante la prima guerra mondiale fu Primo Lord dell’Ammiragliato e Ministro delle Munizioni (il ministero che sovrintendeva alla produzione bellica), durante la seconda guerra mondiale è stato Primo ministro dal 1940 al 1945.

*

L’iconografia classica lo riporta come il personaggio che difese strenuamente l’Inghilterra, portandola a vincere due consecutive guerre mondiali. Ne tratteggia il ritratto dell’eroe nazionale, ben degno dei funerali di stato.

*

Ma adesso che i tempi sono maturati e l’oblio ha sepolto gli annosi rancori e timori, uno storico che cercasse di essere obbiettivo dovrebbe porsi una domanda, che prima non avrebbe potuto essere fatta.

Quando Churchill assunse la carica di Primo Lord dell’Ammiragliato l’Inghilterra aveva un Impero e rendeva conto del buon quaranta per cento del pil mondiale.

A fine della seconda guerra mondiale Churchill lasciò il Regno Unito deprivato dell’Impero faticosamente costruito dagli avi, e ridotta al ruolo di potenza locoregionale.

Le due guerre mondiali non solo non avevano rafforzato l’Impero inglese, ma lo avevano salassato di vite umane e di risorse economiche, riducendolo ad una larva di ciò che era prima.

Da questo punto di vista, Churchill è stato il becchino dell’Inghilterra. La ha spossata al punto tale da renderle impossibile sfruttare due così grandi vittorie.

Ma nella storia importa certo il vincere, ma se a questo non consegue il trarne frutto duraturo, tutto lo sforzo fatto si rivela inutile, ma spesso anche dannoso.

* * * * * * *

Si ponga grande attenzione.

I meriti o le colpe degli avi, dei padri, ricadono immancabilmente sui figli.

Se è vero che l’uomo è in gran parte artefice del proprio destino, è altrettanto vero che le circostanze oggettive ne condizionano grandemente ogni possibile aspirazione e comportamento.

Ogni generazione vive ed agisce nel contesto ereditato dai padri.

Dopo Cesare, i figli dei galli vissero come schiavi dei romani, che non usarono certo mano leggera.

La diaspora ebraica ha impiegato quasi duemila anni prima di poter ristabilire uno Stato di Israele: le colpe dei padri hanno in questo caso influenzato oltre sessanta generazioni.

* * * * * * *

Queste considerazioni non dovrebbero avere una sola pertinenza storica.

Ad oggi vi sono molti personaggi che vanno per la maggiore, osannati quasi al limite della idolatria, nominalmente rifondatori della patria, supportati da vasti consensi popolari.

Ma domani, ed il domani arriva sempre implacabile, quale sarà il giudizio su di essi?

Frau Merkel si sta avviando al quarto rinnovo nel cancellierato tedesco.

Governerà con mano rigida per altri quattro lunghi anni una nazione che vede ridursi giorno per giorno il numero dei suoi cittadini autoctoni. Una nazione sempre più vecchia.

La denatalità tedesca equivale al risultato di una terza guerra mondiale, ove i nipotini degli junker non nascono o, se sono concepiti, finiscono immediatamente sotto la mannaia dell’aborto. Ma senza materiale umano, non ha senso parlare di economia e finanza, ma nemmeno di arte e generazione del bello.

Germania. La demografia che stritola. Mancano tre milioni di lavoratori. – Vbw.

Germania. Non è povera. È misera. – Financial Times

Vi sarebbero forti dubbi che la storia esprima in futuro un giudizio lusinghiero su simile personaggio.

Gli arabi non hanno contribuito alla civilizzazione. Lo dice Al Arabiya.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2016-11-24.

 

«Arabs have not contributed anything to modern civilization»

*

Conoscendo gli arabi, non ci si dovrebbe stupire di un’affermazione così drastica.

Come tutti i popoli, anche loro avranno i loro difetti, ma sostanzialmente sono onesti.

Si faccia molta attenzione, ma molta.

Essendo coinvolti in un grande numero di azioni politiche ovvero politicamente interpretabili, sugli Arabi si sono formate correnti di pensiero totalmente scollegate dai fatti: una parte sperticatamente elogiativa e un’altra parte biecamente denigratoria.

Ma questo, se è capibile conoscendo la visceralità umana, non è né giusto né corretto. Allontana dal vero.

La posizione di Mr Ibrahim Albleahy appare decisamente molto obiettiva. Gliene diamo atto con stima e piacere.

Ed essere obiettivi è il primo passo per poter costruire assieme cose nuove e durature. Sì, durature perché adeguate alla realtà.

Se è vero che ogni popolo ha il suo passato, che giustamente non deve rinnegare, è altrettanto vero che ogni popolo è artefice del proprio presente e del proprio futuro. Ciascuno con le sue caratteristiche.

Nota.

Dobbiamo al prof Francesco Gabrieli quel pregevolissimo libro ‘Storici arabi delle Crociate‘: una raccolta dei testi degli storici arabi dell’epoca in una brillante traduzione. Gabrieli era un arabista raffinato.

I cronisti arabi, così come quelli di controparte cattolica quali Fulcherius Carnotensis, furono incredibilmente obiettivi nel riportare i fatti.

Dopo che ci sia letti gli storici arabi e quelli cattolici sorge spontanea una domanda:

‘Ma quelli che oggi parlano delle crociate, anche alcuni storici, di cosa mai stanno parlando?’

 

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→ Al Arabiya. 2016-11-21. Saudi intellectual: Arabs block civilization

Considered as one of Saudi Arabia’s most liberal writers, Ibrahim Albleahy once said that Arabs have not contributed anything to modern civilization. He said that any historical Arab thoughts or achievements were actually taken from the Greeks.

In an in-depth interview with Al Arabiya’s Fahad al-Shoqiran, Albleahy blames the failure of Arab societies to develop and innovate on their refusal to learn from other civilizations or to criticize the principles of their own society.

Aside from his role in Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council, Albleahy is involved in a variety of organizations in Saudi civil society. He has also written a book titled The Qualitative Changes in Human Civilization.

Below is an edited version of al-Shoqiran’s interview with Albleahy.

Al Arabiya: Professor Ibrahim Albleahy, what was the formation of your ideology and what were the pivotal moments which led you to explore the Arab-Muslim community’s dilemma through philosophy?

Albleahy: In my childhood, I recognized that there was a huge gap not only between us as Arabs and Muslims, but between all the nations on the one hand, and the West on the other.

The West, and no one else, is the architect of this eminent civilization that is qualitatively different from everything that humanity has known throughout history. The evolvement of the nations that tagged along was proportional to what they were inspired by from the West, hence, I yearned to explore the dynamics that facilitated the West’s advancement and kept other nations lagging behind.

I’ve always read and heard about our ancestor’s great accomplishments with which the West inspired their civilization. Eagerly, I started investigating to clear up my ambiguity about various allegations. After years of comprehensive research, I’ve concluded that we Arabs have always been advocates of faith, which is great.

Religion is fundamental to human beings and should never be looked at as stumbling block in the way of progress, development and prosperity. This was a traumatic finding – to recognize that we did not contribute toward world development, we did not enrich human civilization and to find that those intellectual achievements and scientific accomplishments that are attributed to us are made by individuals coached and influenced by Greek culture.

Some of those who took from the Greeks were Arabs who we considered as giants like Ibn Rushd, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Nafis, al-Razi, Ibn Sina, al-Farabi, Ibn Hayyan and others.

It was such a painful realization, I’m annoyed by all the deceit and fraudulence that passed on between generations, in stark contrast to the Arab reality in the past and the present.

As a result of my comprehensive research, I’ve found that European history is also an extension of Greek and Roman history. The Creek culture is characterized by impartiality, liberalism and diversity in addition to the philosophical notion. The philosophical notion, specifically critical philosophy, was the foundation of the West’s distinct nature, that is what enabled the block to develop into a knowledge manufacturer and not just a repeater of its predecessor’s findings.

Al Arabiya: You have a renowned quote: “Arabs enter history as a hindrance with no added contribution.” Can you explain this?

Albleahy: If you listen to the national and international news you will have realized that we have turned into an obstacle to humanity’s civilization. All our news is about killing, bombing, massacres, mass graves and irrational rampancy amid the absolute confidence of some that they are the exclusive believers while the rest are the devil’s followers.

Looking closer at the values that prevailed in Greece during the 5th century BC, as well as the history of the Romans during the first prosperous era, there were sharp declines reflected on the citizens their values, rights, freedoms and dignity, as well as the ruling model of the dominance of the absolute individuals. All these marginalized individuals to no value.

It was such a painful realization, I’m annoyed by all the deceit and fraudulence that passed on between generations, in stark contrast to the Arab reality in the past and the present.

Ibrahim Albleahy

As for Arab history, since the end of the caliphate era, overly authoritarian governance dominated in unprecedented patterns. Prior to that period, nations were run by governing assembles similar to parliaments, the Roman governors’ terms in office were set within a certain time frame and power, similar to democratic nations. Governors held the titles of chancellors, exactly like in Germany now. What differentiates an advanced society from a backward one is the governing model, it is the driving force of the societal locomotive.

Al Arabiya: For almost half a century, you have been concerned and distressed by the Arabs’ and the Muslims’ dilemma, some regard you as a cynical and critical of the advocates of nationalism beside being apathetic to Arab issues.

Albleahy: My writings have always been critical of all human beings and all cultures. Two decades ago, my criticism was directed toward Arabic culture and not toward the Arabs, it is my conviction that their culture is neither viable nor changeable. Then, I realized that people in all nations are still living in false states of consciousness, the variation between developed and undeveloped societies is not due to people’s awareness, but determined by the direction of the society’s movement and the type of prevailing cultural and political model. Therefore, my intellectual project is generated from an absolute humanitarian vision. I do not analyze the Arab mindset solely, but that of all human beings.

Al Arabiya: You criticized institutions and their association to culture, what role do you believe they can play in guiding cultures away from rigidity?

Albleahy: At the international level, scathing criticism should be directed toward UNESCO for its contributing role in maintaining closed cultures within the ignorance echelon. Protecting underdeveloped fortresses and confirming equality between all cultures and the continuation of cultural dissonance means fossilized cultures remain rigid.

 

Trump. Medio Oriente. I nuovi rapporti con Israele. Gerusalemme.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2016-11-12.

 

La notizia è purtroppo molto seria.

«In spite of an Israeli effort to delay a final vote, the UN cultural agency on Tuesday adopted a controversial Arab-sponsored resolution on East Jerusalem that ignores Jewish and Christian historical ties to Jerusalem holy sites.

“It was adopted,” a UNESCO spokesman said of the resolution, which led Israel last week to suspend its cooperation with the Paris-based agency.

The resolution, passed Thursday in the committee stage of the United Nations cultural body, referred to the Temple Mount and Western Wall only by their Muslim names and condemned Israel as “the occupying power” for various actions taken in both sites.

All resolutions passed at this year’s General Conference were validated by the UNESCO Executive Board in a blanket vote.

Twenty-three nations approved the motion on Tuesday, six voted against (including the US, UK and Germany) and 25 abstained. That vote was identical to Thursday’s vote in the committee stage, except that Mexico moved from a yes vote to an abstention.»

*

Qualsiasi trattato di storia riporta come Gerusalemme sia città storica e religiosa sacra agli Ebrei e quindi ai Cristiani: da quattromila anni per i primi, da duemila per i secondi.

Gli islamici hanno per città santa La Mecca, non Gerusalemme: è alla Mecca che fanno i loro pellegrinaggi.

È solo negli ultimi decenni che gli islamici asseriscono la sacralità di Gerusalemme.

Basterebbe essersi presi la cura di leggere, quanto meno, Yaḥyā al-Antākī, Cronache dell’Egitto fatimide e dell’impero bizantino (937-1033), a cura di B. Pirone, Roma, Jaca Book, 1998.

* * * * * * *

Questa dichiarazione dell’Unesco è antistorica, fortemente antireligiosa, antisemitica, intrinsecamente razzista.

Da condannarsi senza se e senza ma, senza possibilità alcuna di appello.

*

Adesso Mr Trump fa una mossa riparatrice e pregna di significato religioso, politico e militare.

Consigliere di Trump: ‘Le colonie di Israele non sono ostacolo per la pace’

Trump has ‘every intention’ of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

«l’ambasciata Usa

sarà portata a Gerusalemme»

* * * * * * *

Non si dovrebbe aggiungere altro commento.

Nota.

Se Mr Obama si fosse opposto, questa mozione non sarebbe mai passata.

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→ The Times of Israel. 2016-10-18. UNESCO’s executive board adopts Jerusalem resolution

Despite last-ditch Israeli efforts, motion ignoring Jewish and Christian historical ties to holy sites is ratified by cultural body.

*

In spite of an Israeli effort to delay a final vote, the UN cultural agency on Tuesday adopted a controversial Arab-sponsored resolution on East Jerusalem that ignores Jewish and Christian historical ties to Jerusalem holy sites.

“It was adopted,” a UNESCO spokesman said of the resolution, which led Israel last week to suspend its cooperation with the Paris-based agency.

The resolution, passed Thursday in the committee stage of the United Nations cultural body, referred to the Temple Mount and Western Wall only by their Muslim names and condemned Israel as “the occupying power” for various actions taken in both sites.

All resolutions passed at this year’s General Conference were validated by the UNESCO Executive Board in a blanket vote.

Twenty-three nations approved the motion on Tuesday, six voted against (including the US, UK and Germany) and 25 abstained. That vote was identical to Thursday’s vote in the committee stage, except that Mexico moved from a yes vote to an abstention.

In a surprise announcement Monday night, Mexico, which originally supported the resolution, announced that it had changed its position and wanted to abstain. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said earlier on Tuesday that based on its new position, Mexico was working to utilize a rare provision to allow for a revote at the committee stage, but in the event Mexico withdrew the demand for a revote and no such revote was held. The ministry also said that Brazil had expressed opposition despite initially supporting the motion.

“Our [diplomatic] efforts will continue and we expect all countries to support our position on this issue,” the ministry said in a statement after the resolution was adopted.

Mexico’s ambassador Andres Roemer, who walked out of last Thursday’s session and considered resigning in protest at his country’s initial support for the resolution, was fired from his post on Tuesday.

Despite Israeli diplomatic missions being closed Tuesday due to the observance of the Sukkot festival around the world, the Foreign Ministry allowed the UNESCO mission in Paris to work in a last-ditch effort to try to prevent the resolution from being adopted.

The head of UNESCO’s executive board, Michael Worbs, had expressed hope Friday that the resolution would not go to a formal vote on Tuesday, but would instead be deferred to give dialogue a chance.

“We need more time and dialogue between the members of the board to reach a consensus,” he said.

Israel and the United States suspended their funding to UNESCO in 2011 after the Palestinians were admitted as members. Both countries have lost their voting rights as a result.

The director-general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, also Friday signaled her dismay and opposition to the motion, saying that efforts to deny history and Jerusalem’s complex multi-faith character harm UNESCO.

“The heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities has a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city,” Bokova said in a statement.

Bokova’s statement came after Israel announced it was suspending its cooperation with UNESCO over the vote, with Education Minister Naftali Bennett saying the motion was a denial of history that “gives a boost to terrorism.”

Israelis and many Jews around the world view the move as the latest example of an ingrained anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, where Israel and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab countries and their supporters.

Israeli leadership reacted furiously to the resolution, with some accusing the UN’s cultural arm of anti-Semitism.

Lawmakers from both the right and left of the political spectrum said the decision was unbefitting of UNESCO.

 

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→ The Jerusalem Post. 2016-10-19. Czech lower parliament: UNESCO Jerusalem resolution strengthens antisemitism

The Jerusalem resolution “discredits” UNESCO’s “neutrality” and “strengthens the international anti-Semitic tendencies, the politicians stated.

*

The Czech Republic’s lower parliament voted 119-4 on Wednesday to condemn UNESCO Jerusalem resolution which it warned only strengthened anti-Semitism.

The parliamentarians called on their government not to vote for UNESCO resolutions containing text that ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

They also asked the Czech Republic to protest “against the politicization” of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization, a body originally designed to be dedicated to the preservation of the world’s heritage.

The vote in the 200-seat Chamber of Deputies was taken with 149 parliamentarians present.

It comes as Israel is gearing up to sway a majority of the 21-member World Heritage Committee not to support any text at its October 24-26 meeting in Paris that refers to the Temple Mount and it’s adjoining Western Wall solely by their Muslim names of Al-Haram Al-Sharif and the Buraq Wall.

Israel’s Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama- Hacohen welcomed the vote and said the Czech Chamber of Deputies was the first European Parliament to take such a vote but that it would likely not be the last.

“I want to thank the Czech Republic for its vote, which sends a sane and human message of moral truth from the parliament in Prague to UNESCO in Paris that is losing itself in a politicization of lies,” Shama- Hacohen said.

Any similar statement that is taken before next week’s vote, Shama-Hacohen said, could help show the Arab states and the Palestinians are acting dangerously with a religious subject that should be removed as far as possible from any regional conflict.

The Jerusalem resolution is part of a drive by the Palestinians to change UNESCO’s terms of reference for the Temple Mount that began in 2015.

Shama-Hacohen said that the lack of historical reference goes beyond the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and is now much more about the Jewish and Christian heritage in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Israel has not yet seen the final draft of the resolution that is due to come before the World Heritage Committee but it presumes that it is similar to the one that was approved Tuesday by UNESCO’s Executive Board which used solely Muslim terms for the Temple Mount.

The Czech parliamentarians in their statement said that such resolutions “carries the spirit of hateful anti-Israel” sentiment, adding that it also ignored Christian ties to the holy sites in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem resolution “discredits” UNESCO’s “neutrality” and “strengthens the international anti-Semitic tendencies,” the Czech politicians stated.

 

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→ Ansa. 2016-11-11. Consigliere di Trump: ‘Le colonie di Israele non sono ostacolo per la pace’

Uno dei più stretti consiglieri di Donald Trump, Jason Greenblatt ha detto alla Radio militare israeliana che il presidente eletto ” non vede negli insediamenti un ostacolo alla pace”. “Non appartiene certamente alla visione di Trump – ha spiegato – la condanna dell’attività di insediamenti” da parte israeliana. Greenblatt – in predicato secondo alcuni di essere nominato inviato di Trump per il Medio Oriente – ha poi confermato che l’ambasciata Usa sarà portata a Gerusalemme, come annunciato dal presidente in campagna elettorale.

 

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→ The Guardian. 2016-11-11. Trump has ‘every intention’ of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders hail election of Donald Trump, whose campaign promises would overturn decades of US foreign policy.

*

Israeli government ministers and political figures are pushing the US president-elect, Donald Trump, to quickly fulfill his campaign promise to overturn decades of US foreign policy and recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv.

Their calls came as one of Trump’s advisers on Israel and the Middle East, David Friedman, told the Jerusalem Post that Trump would follow through on his promise.

‘It was a campaign promise and there is every intention to keep it,” Friedman said. ‘We are going to see a very different relationship between America and Israel in a positive way.”

Other political figures – including Israel’s controversial far-right education minister, Naftali Bennett – went further, suggesting that Trump’s election should signal the end of the two-state solution and aspirations for a Palestinian state.

The US election campaign has been closely watched in Israel, not least Trump’s promise to scrap the Iran nuclear deal drawn up by Barack Obama and fiercely opposed by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Indeed, during his campaign Trump slammed the Iran deal, describing it as “the stupidest deal of all time” vowing to tear it up.

During the campaign Trump also promised to be Israel’s “closest friend”, and has indicated that he would take a different approach to Israel’s settlement-building in the occupied territories – long condemned by successive US governments.

But although many on the right welcomed Trump’s election, other commentators in Israel have also been deeply uncomfortable over the perception that Trump – or at least members of his campaign team – were responsible for antisemitic “dog whistles” in his messaging.

Trump’s election was quickly welcomed by Netanyahu, but the Israeli prime minister steered clear of controversial issues, only congratulating Trump and calling him a “true friend” of Israel while pledging to work with him on security and peace in the region. Netanyahu later released a video on YouTube welcoming Trump’s appointment.

“President-elect Trump is a true friend of the state of Israel,” said Netanyahu in a statement. “We will work together to advance the security, stability and peace in our region. The strong connection between the United States and Israel is based on shared values, shared interests and a shared destiny.

“I’m certain that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between Israel and the United States, and bring it to new heights,” he added.

After a phone conversation between Netanyahu and Trump later, it emerged that Trump had invited the Israeli prime minister to the US. “President-elect Trump invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to a meeting in the United States at the first opportunity,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

Netanyahu’s remarks came as it was suggested that Netanyahu and his team had privately expected Hillary Clinton to be elected.

In a more coded message of congratulations, Israel’s opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, referred to the rise of a new global populist politics, saying: “The US elections are a continuation of a global trend of rejecting the old ruling elites and a wish for a clear and emphatic change.

“Trump’s election is the continuation of a social, economic and political tsunami that we’ve seen in many countries, which will also bring about change in Israel.”

But other members of Netanyahu’s government – considered the most rightwing in Israeli history – showed less restraint.

The education minister, Naftali Bennett, who heads the hardline Jewish Home party and is seen as seeking to be prime minister one day, said the idea of a Palestinian state was now over.

“Trump’s victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the centre of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause,” Bennett said. “This is the position of the president-elect … The era of a Palestinian state is over.”

The justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, also of Jewish Home; deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely, from Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party; and Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat also called for the embassy to be transferred.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians see Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while the Israelis call the entire city their eternal indivisible capital.

A Trump administration will be far more favourable to the Jewish state, another of the president-elect’s advisers on Israel has said.

Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, said a Trump administration is likely to be “much more understanding if Israel has to use force in order to tamp down Palestinian violence”.

He also said he felt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be “much less of a priority, and when it’s not a priority, this means that Israel in some ways gets off the hook”.

The Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas, congratulated Trump and said he hoped peace could be achieved during his term based on the two-state solution.

“We are ready to deal with the elected president on the basis of a two-state solution and to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,” spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP, referring to the year when Israel seized the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

 

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→ The Jewish Press. 2016-11-11. Shaked to victorious Trump: let’s move that embassy to Jerusalem!

Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) on Wednesday morning issued a statement calling on President Elect Donald Trump to make good on his campaign promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“I congratulate US President Elect Donald Trump, a true friend of Israel,” Shaked said. “I’m certain Trump will know how to courageously navigate the free world to successful destinations in the war against world terrorism. This is an opportunity for the American Administration to move the United States’ embassy to Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital city.”

Shaked noted that “such a move would symbolize the tight connection and deep friendship between our two countries.”

Back in October, Ivanka Trump told assembled members of The Shul of Bal Harbour in Surfside, Florida, that her father would “100 percent” move the US embassy to Jerusalem should he be elected president.

A year ago, in an appearance before the Republican Jewish Coalition, Trump would not go on record as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but last January he said the city was “the eternal capital” of Israel and that he was “100 percent for” moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed by Congress on October 23, 1995, calling for initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999. Congress even attempted to withhold 50% of the State Department budget for Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad until the United States Embassy in Jerusalem had officially opened. The same act also called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel.

Since its passage, the law has never been implemented by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, who saw it as an infringement on their constitutional authority to conduct foreign policy. To add insult to injury, all three, Clinton, Bush and Obama, had pledged on their campaign trails to move the embassy to the “eternal city.”

 

Lutero. Oggi è l’anniversario. Ma avete mai letto cosa scrisse?

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2016-10-31.

 

Oggi ricorre il 499° anniversario di quando Martin Luther affisse le sue 95 tesi alla porta della Chiesa di Ognissanti a Wittenberg.

Di lì prese origine la riforma luterana e, quindi, quella protestante.

Luther è di quei personaggi che hanno impresso svolte epocali nel divenire umano.

Se non spetta certo a noi un giudizio morale, ma quello storico deve convenire che il 31 ottobre 1517 segnò l’inizio di un modo differente di concepire religione, persona umana, società in cui vive.

Lasciamo il problema religioso ai teologi: storicamente, Luther dette la stura ai principi tedeschi di iniziare un processo di autonomizzazione nei confronti dell’Impero. Processo sicuramente politico, ma altrettanto di affrancamento dalle imposte.

I principi tedeschi infatti, come peraltro tutti a quell’epoca, erano alle prese con l’enorme problema di come costituire ed organizzare i propri principati, specialmente dal punto di vista economico. Per loro la riforma luterana fu manna dal Cielo: era una bellissima motivazione per riaffermare la propria indipendenza ed incamerare tutti i beni ecclesiastici che si erano accumulati nei secoli.

Quelle che comunemente sono denominate guerre di religione, di religioso avevano poco o nulla: erano guerre di bottega, per chiamarle con il loro nome politicamente scorretto. Ma le guerre costano, ed anche molto. E di soldi non ce ne sono mai a sufficienza.

*

Né si potrebbe dimenticare ciò che successe pochi anni dopo.

Nel 1526 il Sultano Solimano I, detto il Magnifico, sconfisse nella battaglia di Mohács, gli ungheresi ed occupò una gran parte dei territori magiari. Tre anni dopo arrivò a mettere sotto assedio Vienna, subito dopo un orrendo massacro a Buda.

L’Imperatore Carlo V era tutto impegnato con la guerra contro la Francia, e dovette basarsi soltanto sulle proprie forze.

I protestanti non dettero il minimo aiuto, cosa che invece fecero massicciamente in occasione del secondo assedio di Vienna del 1683.

Per poco, la riforma protestante non aveva esitato nella conquista turca del cuore dell’Europa. La storia mondiale sarebbe cambiata radicalmente.

* * * * * * *

In questo contesto Martin Luther pubblicò nel 1543 il suo famoso libro “Degli ebrei e delle loro menzogne“.

Per chi non lo avesse razionalizzato, all’epoca in Germania gli Ebrei erano generalmente ricchi, gestivano buona parte del commercio internazionale e dei relativi servizi bancari.

La storia insegna che la ricchezza è un crimine agli occhi dei governanti.

Come capita per molti grandi uomini, il dramma di Luther è che quasi nessuno si è peritato di leggere cosa avesse scritto. È impressionante sentir parlare di lui e domandarsi di chi mai si stia parlando. Negli ultimi decenni questo libro è stato soggetto ad una massiccio tentativo di ridimensionamento a livello di birbonata fanciullesca, mentre invece è la base dell’antisemitismo dell’enclave protestante.

Proponiamo quindi al Lettore un piccolo estratto di alcuni passi di codesto pregevole libro: giudicherà quindi lui stesso cosa deve pensarne, anche se la lettura dell’intero libro sarebbe molto suggeribile.

 

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da Martin Lutero, Degli Ebrei e delle loro menzogne, Einaudi, 2008, pag. 188-189, 190, 191, 192, 195, 201, 203, 213, 217-218, 221-222

 

[Gli Ebrei] ci tengono prigionieri nel nostro paese. Ci fanno lavorare, col sudore della fronte, a guadagnare denaro e proprietà per loro, e loro stanno accanto alla stufa, indolenti, flatulenti, ad arrostire pere, a mangiare, a bere, a far la vita bella e comoda con le nostre ricchezze. Ci sbeffeggiano, ci sputano addosso, perché lavoriamo, e li accettiamo come inetti signori e padroni nostri e del nostro regno. Che cosa dobbiamo avere ancora a che fare, noi cristiani, con questo popolo dannato e infame degli ebrei?

 

[Le misure da adottare] Io voglio dare il mio sincero consiglio.

 

In primo luogo bisogna dare fuoco alle loro sinagoghe o scuole; e ciò che non vuole bruciare deve essere ricoperto di terra e sepolto, in modo che nessuno possa mai più vederne un sasso o un resto. E questo lo si deve fare in onore di nostro Signore e della Cristianità, in modo che Dio veda che noi siamo cristiani e che non abbiamo tollerato né permesso – consapevolmente – queste palesi menzogne, maledizioni e ingiurie verso Suo figlio e i Suoi cristiani. Perché ciò che noi fino a ora abbiamo tollerato per ignoranza (io stesso non ne ero a conoscenza) ci verrà perdonato da Dio. Ma se noi, ora che sappiamo, dovessimo proteggere e difendere per gli ebrei una casa siffatta, nella quale essi – proprio sotto il nostro naso – mentono, ingiuriano, maledicono, coprono di sputi e di disprezzo Cristo e noi (come sopra abbiamo sentito), ebbene, sarebbe come se lo facessimo noi stessi, e molto peggio, come ben sappiamo.

 

Mosè scrive al XIII capitolo del Deuteronomio, che se una città pratica l’idolatria, bisogna distruggerla completamente col fuoco e non conservarne nulla. E se egli ora fosse in vita, sarebbe il primo a incendiare le sinagoghe e le case degli ebrei. Perché ordinò molto severamente ai capitoli IV e XII del Deuteronomio di non togliere né aggiungere niente alla sua legge. E Samuele dice al XV capitolo del I libro che non obbedire a Dio è idolatria. Ora, la dottrina degli ebrei non è altro che glosse di rabbini e idolatria della disobbedienza, cosicché Mosè è diventato del tutto sconosciuto presso di loro (come si è detto), proprio come per noi sotto il papato la Bibbia è diventata sconosciuta. E dunque anche in nome di Mosè le loro sinagoghe non possono essere tollerate, perché diffamano loro tanto quanto noi, e non è necessario che essi abbiano per una simile idolatria le loro proprie, libere chiese.

 

Secondo: bisogna allo stesso modo distruggere e smantellare anche le loro case, perché essi vi praticano le stesse cose che fanno nelle loro sinagoghe. Perciò li si metta sotto una tettoia o una stalla, come gli zingari, perché sappiano che non sono signori nel nostro Paese, come invece si vantano di essere, ma sono in esilio e prigionieri, come essi dicono incessantemente davanti a Dio strillando e lamentandosi di noi.

 

Terzo: bisogna portare via a loro tutti i libri di preghiere e i testi talmudici, nei quali vengono insegnate siffatte idolatrie, menzogne, maledizioni e bestemmie.

 

Quarto: bisogna proibire ai loro rabbini – pena la morte – di continuare a insegnare, perché essi hanno perduto il diritto di esercitare questo ufficio, in quanto tengono prigionieri i poveri ebrei per mezzo del passo di Mosè, al XVII capitolo del Deuteronomio, nel quale egli ordina a quelli di obbedire ai loro maestri, pena la perdita del corpo e dell’anima; mentre invece Mosè aggiunge con chiarezza: in «ciò che ti insegnano secondo la legge del Signore». […]

 

Quinto: bisogna abolire completamente per gli ebrei il salvacondotto per le strade, perché essi non hanno niente da fare in campagna, visto che non sono né signori, né funzionari, né mercanti, o simili. Essi devono rimanere a casa. […]

 

Sesto: bisogna proibire loro l’usura, confiscare tutto ciò che possiedono in contante e in gioielli d’argento e d’oro, e tenerlo da parte in custodia. E il motivo è questo: tutto quello che hanno (come sopra si è detto), lo hanno rubato e rapinato a noi attraverso l’usura, perché, diversamente, non hanno altri mezzi di sostentamento. […]

 

Settimo: a ebrei ed ebree giovani e forti, si diano in mano trebbia, ascia, zappa, vanga, canocchia, fuso, in modo che si guadagnino il loro pane col sudore della fronte, come fu imposto ai figli di Adamo, al III capitolo della Genesi. Perché non è giusto che essi vogliano far lavorare noi, maledetti goijm, nel sudore della nostra fronte, e che essi, la santa gente, vogliano consumare pigre giornate dietro la stufa, a ingrassare e scorreggiare, vantandosi per questo in modo blasfemo di essere signori dei cristiani, grazie al nostro sudore. A loro bisognerebbe invece scacciare l’osso marcio da furfanti dalla schiena! […]

 

Se però i signori non vogliono costringerli e non vogliono porre rimedio a questa loro diabolica ribellione, allora vengano espulsi dal Paese, come si è detto, e si dica loro di tornare alla loro terra e ai loro beni, a Gerusalemme, dove possono mentire, maledire, bestemmiare, deridere, uccidere, rubare, rapinare, praticare l’usura, dileggiare e compiere tutti questi empi abominî come fanno qui da noi […]

Prosegue e si allarga la rivolta all’impèrio mondiale. Gambia.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2016-10-28.

 

Premessa. Da leggersi con cura.

Per cercare di comprendere cosa stia succedendo sarebbe opportuno considerare come l’Occidente, specificatamente gli Stati Uniti, abbiano esercitato il potere mondiale negli scorsi decenni. Il discorso qualitativo vale anche per l’Unione Europea che ne è elemento speculare.

Alcuni mezzi sono semplicemente ovvi: pressioni economiche e militari, finanziamenti a partiti politici amici e comprensivi, ampia tolleranza di governi iniqui ma alleati. Altri mezzi sono altrettanto intuitivi, quali le guerre: il Vietnam, l’Iraq e così via.

Ma per quanto potenti, questi mezzi sono solo sussidiari a quello vero, il quale per questa sua caratteristica è ben poco percepito dalla gente comune, che ne subisce però in ultima istanza le devastanti portate.

È lo strumento delle Corti di Giustizia.

Negli ultimi decenni abbiamo assistito al proliferare di queste Corti, spesso con denominazione di “internazionali“.

Il termine è subdolo.

Nell’immaginario collettivo esso conferirebbe un’alea di comune aggradamento: tutte le nazione sembrerebbero riconoscerne l’autorità. Il termine “giustizia“, poi, conferirebbe persino una’aurea di sacralità.

Ma così non è.

Per poter esibire la dicitura “internazionale” sarebbe sufficiente che la Corte fosse riconosciuta da almeno un paio di nazioni. Ed infatti le Corti Internazionali sono riconosciute da ben poche nazioni.

L’attributivo di “giustizia” è altrettanto ingannevole, perché le Corti, i Tribunali, gestiscono il legale: devono, o dovrebbero, applicare leggi esistenti. Ma molto raramente una legge è anche giusta e viceversa. Il potere esistente invece impone come “giuste” le “leggi” che impone. Sono giuste le sue leggi.

Segnaliamo infine un fenomeno vecchio come il mondo ma che negli ultimi decenni ha assunto proporzioni ubiquitarie.

Oramai è di norma che le Corti non “applichino” bensì “interpretino” le leggi.

Sia molto ben chiaro: una cosa è la ricerca di quanto sarebbe asserito dallo spirito della legge, ed una diametralmente opposta è la soggettivizzazione di tutto l’impianto legislativo. La Corte “interpreta” la legge a parer suo. Ossia, in ossequio ai voleri dei potenti. Nella Russia sovietica le varianti all’art. 58 del codice penale deprivavano il sospetto di personaltà umana, negandogli quindi sequenzialmente il diritto di difesa. Nella Germania di Hitler, gli Ebrei erano stati designati in via amministrativa come “ominidi“: quindi, l’uccisione di un ominide non poteva costituire reato. Nei tempi correnti, uccidere un feto non è reato perché esso è definito essere un “grumo di sangue“. Similmente si agisce per i reati di opinione: chi pensasse in modo difforme al potere sarebbe un incitatore di odio e, quindi, condannabile per definizione.

In questa maniera le Corti di Giustizia hanno surrogato gli organi politici diventando il primario braccio esecutivo del potere. Sono diventate più temibili dei servizi segreti e possono dispensare la morte civile.

Ma, come già abbiamo detto, questo nesso sembrerebbe sfuggire alla gente comune.

Da ultimo, ma non certo per ultimo, mentre gli Stati Uniti ritengono che tutti debbano obbedire ai verdetti, per esempio, della Corte Internazionale di Giustizia, nel contempo essi la disconoscono sulla base del capo XIV della Carta delle Nazioni Unite.

Insomma, due pesi e due misure.

* * * * * * *

Abbiamo assistito giorni fa al rifiuto del Sud Africa di riconoscere ulteriormente l’International Criminal Court:

–  International Criminal Court. Anche il Sud Africa la disconosce. 2016-10-24.

Di oggi la notizia che anche il Gambia disconosce il valore legale della Corte.

Essa infatti è ingiusta e parziale.

«an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans»

*

«There are many Western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC, and not a single Western war criminal has been indicted»

*

«Thousands of young Africans in search of greener pastures have been dying on European coasts on weekly basis …. For what crime – because they are black?»

*

«We depend on almighty Allah and Allah-willing all the racist, genocidal criminals responsible for the continuing mass slaughter of Africans will face justice»

*

La strada è lunga, ma si intravedere chiaramente in fondo una Norimberga II.

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→ Deutsche Welle. 2016-10-26. Gambia pulls out of International Criminal Court, citing hypocrisy

The government of Gambia has declared it is leaving the International Criminal Court, accusing it of “persecution and humiliation” of Africans. Officials also decried the “genocide” of migrants on Europe’s shores.

*

Gambia’s pledge to leave the Hague-based court on Tuesday comes just days after the troubled nation of Burundi and the regional powerhouse South Africa made similar announcements. Kenya is also considering withdrawal.

The decision, according to Gambia’s Information Minister Sheriff Bojang, is due to the International Criminal Court (ICC) ignoring war crimes committed by Western countries.

In a pointed play on the court’s name, Bojang called it “an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans.”

Anger over Blair

The court showed its “true colors” by refusing to prosecute former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for war crimes in Iraq, Bojang said in a televised statement.

“There are many Western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC, and not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,” he added.

Since the establishment of the ICC in 2002, the court conducted ten investigations. Nine of them were over crimes on African soil and the remaining case was tied to offenses in Georgia.

The ICC’s current chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is Gambian and a former justice minister in the small African state. She also served as an advisor to President Yahya Jammeh.

Gambia decries ‘racist’ genocide

During the Tuesday statement, the information minister said that the country had tried to get the ICC to react to “genocide” over migrants trying to reach Europe. A disproportionately large number of them are citizens of Gambia, fleeing the troubled country with a population under two million.

“Thousands of young Africans in search of greener pastures have been dying on European coasts on weekly basis,” Bojang said. “For what crime – because they are black?”

“We depend on almighty Allah and Allah-willing all the racist, genocidal criminals responsible for the continuing mass slaughter of Africans will face justice,” he added.

Gambia’s strongman President Yahya Jammeh plans to seek his fifth term in office in the December election, with right’s groups accusing him of cracking down on dissent.

Oggi è San Crispino. Brexit, Enrico V e gli inglesi. Gente tosta.

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2016-10-25.

 

Di questi tempi si fa un gran parlare di Regno Unito, Unione Europea, Brexit, e così via.

Ma chi sono gli inglesi? Di che tempra son fatti?

Ci siamo forse dimenticati Francis Drake oppure il Wellington?

Ma li avete visitati i resti delle trincee della Somme, dove sono morti a centinaia di migliaia combattendo con l’orgoglio più che con le armi, in un fetente acquitrino dove nemmeno i topi ed i ratti potevano sopravvivere?

Ma ci siamo forse dimenticati quel magnifico discorso di Churchill?

«I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.»

Sentite la sua viva voce.

*

«Vorrei dire alla Camera come ho detto a coloro che hanno aderito a questo governo: non ho nulla da offrire se non sangue, fatica, lacrime e sudore. Abbiamo davanti a noi un calvario del tipo più grave. Abbiamo davanti a noi molti, molti lunghi mesi di lotta e di sofferenza»

* * * * * * *

Oggi è San Crispino.

Oggi è l’anniversario della battaglia di Azincourt, 25 ottobre 1415, ove Re Enrico V sconfisse i francesi, pur combattendo uno contro cinque.

Questo è un Re inglese, ed il Sommo Shakespeare lo ha immortalato.

«Lasciami parlare con orgoglio»

Discorso di Enrico V: “Noi pochi, noi felici pochi”

Henry V – St.Crispin’s Day Speech 1,578,890 visualizzazioni

St. Crispin’s Day Speech – Henry V [Laurence Olivier] 550,914 visualizzazioni

Ed alla fine della battaglia cosa fa Re Enrico?

Henry V – End Battle Chant (Non nobis, Domine)

Henry V: Non Nobis and Te Deum 286,710 visualizzazioni

*

Bene.

Questo discorso è stato visto da oltre due milioni di persone.

Due milioni di persone che si sono riconosciute nel loro retaggio religioso, storico, culturale, sociale, politico, militare.

Già: gli inglesi sono un popolo pacifico ma anche guerriero.

Non sono per nulla gli smidollati che ci si vuol far credere.

Brexit? Quello se lo fanno a colazione!