As Citizens Of A Free

The Second World War Had A Precipitating Effect In That It Discredited The Empires, As Well As Bankrupting Them. Not Only Could You No Longer, If You Were A Colonial Subject Of France In Africa, Look To France As A Model Of Power And Influence And Civility After What Had Happened In The War. Nor Could The French Any Longer Afford To Run Their Empire. And Nor Could The British, Although They Were Not Discredited In The Way That The French Were.

We Need To Learn... How War Brutalises And Degrades Winners And Losers Alike And What Happens To Us When, Having Heedlessly Waged War For No Good Reason, We Are Encouraged To Inflate And Demonise Our Enemies In Order To Justify That War's Indefinite Continuance.

Judaism For Me Is A Sensibility Of Collective Self-questioning And Uncomfortable Truth-telling. I Feel A Debt Of Responsibility To This Past. It Is Why I Am Jewish.

The Rottenness Of Politics In Yugoslavia Didn't Come As A Surprise. The Main Lesson Is That This Is A War Which Could Have Easily Been Stopped By Europe. What Was Lacking Was Any Will To Do So. It's An Irony Of The Achievement Of Europe That It Had Lived For 40 Years Under The Assumption Of The Unimaginability Of Internal Wars, So It Didn't Know What To Do With It When It Was Confronted With One Close Up.

I Can Still Boss People Around. I Can Still Write. I Can Still Read. I Can Still Eat, And I Can Still Have Very Strong Views.