The Resident Judge of Port Phillip

Kerning Cultures A Past Life I’m quite attracted to the idea of a past life (or lives) but I don’t really believe it. However, adherents to the Druze faith certainly do believe in reincarnation. Possibly this is because you can’t convert to the Druze faith: you need to be born into it, and rebirth keeps the numbers stable. This is the story of Heba, who lived in both America and Lebanon, who as a child called herself ‘Amad’ and spoke of ‘Amin’, her husband. People from her parents’ village back in Lebanon told her family that Amad had died, and that they had known her. As an adult, Heba went back to Lebanon to locate this family, but found herself enmeshed in a family that she did not know or remember.

History This Week Fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Saturday 25 March 1911 was the date of this appalling fire, which led to the deaths of 146 garment workers within 15 minutes – 123 women and girls and 23 men in a 10 storey building opposite Washington Square in New York. This episode features David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America who points out that the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was actually one of the most well-lit and modern of the garment factories which replaced the sweatshops in tenement buildings. The fire broke out on a Saturday afternoon as the employees were about to pick up their pay and leave for the weekend. (Even though the vast majority of workers were Jewish, they had to work on Saturdays). The shirtwaist factory occupied the 8,9 and 10th floors, and was conducted by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, former garment workers themselves. But by now they were entrepreneurs, suspicious of their workers and vehemently anti-union. When fire broke out, the fire brigade found that their ladders only reached to the 6th floor. The lift operators were in many ways the heroes here, running the lifts up and down to the burning floors for as long as they could (after making sure that all the management staff were evacuated from the top floor, that is). The water did not work and escape doors were locked to prevent theft, but both owners escaped punishment. However, the fire prompted changes to working conditions …eventually, once Tammany Hall politicians began distancing themselves from the factory owners. I was amazed that the building was still standing when we visited New York back in 2011, and it has plaques on the wall commemorating the tragedy. So strange to think of so much death occurring right opposite Washington Square Park.

History Extra George VI’s Nazi Dilemma During WWII, George VI (i.e. Elizabeth’s father) faced a dilemma on two fronts. The first was his brother, the disaffected former Edward now Duke of Windsor. The second was his advisors, including Chamberlain and his foreign secretary Halifax, who both urged appeasement – and indeed, George himself leaned towards appeasement at first. This episode features Alexander Larman, the author of The Windsors at War: The Nazi Threat to the Crown The Duke of Windsor, he says, was cunning but not clever and he worried more about communism than fascism. Although not a Nazi himself, he did have Nazi sympathies. He harboured fantasies that perhaps he might be invited back as King, and he thought that he might be able to act as a puppet leader for Hitler, whom he admired till the end. He did do intelligence work for Britain early in the war, but then gave intelligence to the Nazis e.g. the layout of Buckingham Palace so that there could be targeted bombing. There was still residual warmth for the former king, so it was decided to send him to the Bahamas as Governor rather than have him tried for treason in England (for which there would be grounds). In effect, George VI found his mettle during the war and became good friends with Churchill.

The Ancients Beast Hunts. Our image of lions in the Colosseum underplays the industrial scale of importation of animals for spectacles that were held throughout the Roman Empire. The killing was on a massive scale: 9000 beasts were killed in the 100 days festival of the opening of the Colosseum. The logistics of locating and shipping animals from the provinces required organization, and provinces could be taxed in animals rather than money. The animals were often used for meat afterwards. But so were condemned non-Roman criminals who were fed to the animals, the ultimate form of death-shaming. Emperors used displays of animals to show their power, although Pompey’s plan to ride into his triumph on elephants was brought undone when they didn’t fit through the gate!

Rear Vision (ABC) War in Ukraine: The Political Story. I learned more from this episode than I did from the earlier one (The Military Story). The central and eastern nations in NATO had been warning about Russia for some time, but were largely disregarded by the ‘older’ NATO nations of Germany and France. Finland and Sweden are now looking to join NATO, thus bringing NATO right to the Russian border (one of the reasons that Putin put forward for moving into Ukraine). Finland has always had a large army, and Sweden (which previously prided itself on its neutrality) was already building up its armed forces after allowing them to run down. The Baltic States, Finland and Sweden are now more aligned than they were. Central Asia, which has had a strong relationship with Russia in the past, are wary, and are looking more to southern Asia as an alternative. Turkey is useful to Russia because of its presence in NATO, and Iran is providing weapons. The non-Western countries e.g. South America, Africa are cynical about the West’s response, and largely keeping out of it.

Emperors of Rome. Episode LIV – There and Back Again (An Emperor’s Tale) After a short time in Rome (having taken the long way home), Hadrian sets off again on a four year tour. First he went west to Gaul, Brittania (where he left the 3-metre thick Hadrian’s Wall) and España; then he went east to Syria and Turkey, then he went to Greece which is where he really wanted to be (because he loved all things Greek) and stayed there for two years. This four-year peregrination was more about diplomacy than anything else- he did lots of building along the way as part of marking Rome’s dominance across the provinces. Wherever he went, he left troops in a peace-keeping role. It was while he was in Greece that he met his beautiful boy Antinous. Episode LV – What Hadrian Loves Best. Three things. 1. Impressive buildings. Even though it was hard to find space in Rome after all these centuries, he did, and he built the big 10-column temple to Venus and Roma. He rebuilt the Pantheon for the 3rd time. But although he liked leaving buildings with his name on them in the provinces, he was careful not to do so in Rome which would have seemed crass. 2. His wife Vibia Sibina. Well maybe he didn’t love her that much. Nonetheless, she was an Augusta and their marriage was a way of strengthening the Romano-Spanish contingent in Rome. 3. Antinous. He really did love Antinous. Lots of Roman men had boy lovers, but Hadrian seems to have been particularly besotted by him. Nonetheless, it’s debatable whether Hadrian was ‘homosexual’ in our sense of the word today. There is debate over Antinous’ death: was it an accident? suicide? even murder? What is not debatable is that Hadrian was heartbroken when he died. Episode LVI – May His Bones Rot Although he had no intention of expanding the Empire, Hadrian was intent on consolidating what he still held. There had been discontent bubbling away in Judea for some time, and the stubbornly monotheistic Jews were an intractable problem in a polytheistic culture like Rome. Hadrian had plans to rebuild Jerusalem, which was still in ruins after the first Roman-Jewish war of 66-73CE, as a distinctively Roman colony, and he outlawed circumcision. An anti-Roman insurrection broke out, led by the Messianic Simon bar Kokhba, and led to a three year guerilla war of attrition. According to Cassius Dio, Roman war operations in Judea left some 580,000 Jews dead and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed. Hadrian erased the province’s name from the Roman map, renaming it Syria Palaestina, and had Jerusalem rebuilt in the Greek style after re-naming it Aelia Capitolina.

Emperors of Rome Episode XLVIII – Trajan: Optimus Princeps is the last episode about Trajan, known as the greatest emperor since Augustus (to be honest, the others weren’t much chop). He behaved the way that the elites expected him to, he built lots of infrastructure to keep the masses happy and coming to power at the age of 42, he had neither the recklessness of youth or the sluggishness of old age. The only slight criticism of him is that he was “devoted to boys and wine” but neither of these affected his judgement so that was okay. In 113CE he embarked on war with Parthia, after an earlier foray to fix up Armenia, in order to re-establish Roman authority. At this point, the empire was stretched to its greatest expanse, and things started to unravel a bit. He died unsuspiciously after an 18 year reign. Episode XLIX – Suetonius has been referred to often during these podcasts. He was possibly born in Algeria of an equestrian family and was active during Emperor Hadrian’s time. He was mentored by Pliny and became a librarian and archivist which gave him access to the sources to write his most famous book ‘The Twelve Caesars’. He may have travelled with Hadrian, and it is thought that he may have fallen out with him at some stage. Nonetheless, he is pretty reliable as distinct from….Episode L – Historia Augusta which is a series of biographies, starting with Hadrian and going through to the late 3rd century CE with a gap in the middle. It wasn’t called The Historia Augusta at the time- that name was given to it later. It’s best to think of it as a fun text that gets more and more bizarre, with spurious supporting documents- a bit like a mockumentary. But we have to use it in the absence of other sources.

Lives Less Ordinary (BBC) I Didn’t Know I was Part of an Experiment tells the story of Helene Thiesen, who was born in Nuuk, in Greenland, in 1944. Greenland was a colony of Denmark.At the age of seven, after her father’s death, two men came to see her mother, offering an opportunity to find out “which child is the brightest”. Her mother refused twice, but in the end, she reluctantly relented. Helene was promptly sent 3500 km away to Denmark where she was placed with a foster family. She was sent back to Nuuk after a few years, but not to her mother: instead she was sent to a children’s home. When she finally reunited with her mother, she no longer spoke the same language, and her mother remarried and moved away. Helene was 50 when she found out that she was part of an experiment into changing the environment for children from Greenland and its effects on the child- a bit of a nature/nurture experiment. She still hasn’t forgiven her mother.

Take Me To Your Leader (ABC) Benjamin Netanyahu As we see the footage of huge crowds protesting on the streets after Netanyahu’s ‘reforms’ of the courts, this episode is even more relevant than on 22 February 2023 when it was released. ‘Bibi’ has served a total of 15 years as Prime Minister and his most recent stint is his third comeback, after acting as PM in 1996 (with a narrow victory over Shimon Perez) for just three years; 2009 when he came back for 12 years; and now since December 2022 in an coalition with hard-right colleagues. A ‘prophet of doom’ type politician, in the past he tended to campaign as hard right but become more centrist once he achieved power, but now he needs the cover of the hard right to avoid his own legal entanglements. He is a divisive character, and Israeli politics has splintered into for- and against- Netanyahu politicians. He fears a nuclear armed Iran as a threat, and so he has cosied up to Putin and former President Trump. Guests include Ayala Panievsky, Gates Cambridge scholar, former journalist Haaretz newspaper and research associate at ‘Molad’, The Centre for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy; Mitchell Barak, former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu (who said that he was a horrible boss) and political analyst  Dave Sharma, Australia’s former Ambassador to Israel (who is not Jewish- I assumed he was).

Rear Vision (ABC) The War in Ukraine- the military story. This is Part I of a two-part series, released as part of the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. I’d heard much of it before. Russia expected a weak response, as occurred when they invaded Crimea, but by the end of March the Russian troops were withdrawn from Kyiv. There are three elements of military strategy: Physical (i.e. troops and weapons), Intellectual and Moral. It is in effect a war of opposing political systems, and both sides are using propaganda. One difference between this war and the invasion of Crimea is the use of open source intelligence, especially aviation, and the use of autonomous systems like drones and robots.

New Books Network This came up on my New Books related to Latin America, but it’s a pretty tenuous connection. Instead, in Beyond Belief: How Pentecostalism is Taking Over the World, Australian journalist talks about her recent book of the same name, aimed at a general rather than academic readership. She defines ‘pentecostalism’ in terms of the influence of the Holy Spirit, going back to William J. Seymour in 1905, who instituted the Azusa Street Revival in about 1905. She then moves to the 1950s and Norman Vincent Peale, and then to the Jesus People of the 1960s New Age movement. A fourth wave, possibly, is now with the spread of Pentecostalism into Latin America, Korea, Brazil and Nigeria. There is no central authority, and the pentecostal churches tend to reflect the society in which they are embedded e.g. the Catholic influence in Latin America, Shamaanism in Korea. There is still an element of the prosperity gospel at play, but it’s more an emphasis on health and wealth, both of which tend to improve when people get their lives together. Pentecostals have always been good at leveraging the media. After radio in the 1950s, in the 1960s and 1970s it was cassette tapes that people could listen to in their cars. Hillsong has always used music as part of its business model. She explores the link between right-wing populism and Pentecostalism, and notes that both use entertainment and stagecraft and draw on the feeling of being ‘besieged by wokeness’.

Rough Translation This is a two-part program about smuggling pills for a medical abortion into Ukraine. Part I Under the Counter, a young German doctor, Vicki, reads of the shortage of abortion pills (mifepristone followed by misoprostol) in Ukraine. She and her boyfriend Ari find a supplier based in Africa who can source the pills from India, and then he offers a huge quantity- far more than ever anticipated. The only problem is that they have to travel through Poland, where abortion is illegal. Part II The Handoff follows this unlikely group of smugglers into Ukraine, where they learn that there are complications in both pregnancy and abortion during war time. I really enjoyed these two podcasts.

Emperors of Rome Interlude: Valerius Flaccus. I’d never heard of this Roman poet, from the Flavian period, who wrote an 8-book epic The Argonautica that retold the well known (at that time) story of Jason and the Golden Fleece. He drew fairly heavily on Apollonius of Rhodes ‘ more famous epic, but he was also strongly influenced by Virgil as well. The episode features Dr. Peter Davis. And now, back to the Emperors with Episode XLV In Trajan We Trust . Trajan was born in 53 CE in Italica in Spain. His father had been Consul, had fought in the Jewish Wars and had been governor of Syria. We don’t really know much about him before he became Emperor, because there’s a Big Black Hole of Biography. He started his military career in Syria with his father, then moved to the Rhine. He became guardian of his cousin’s children, one of whom was Hadrian- spoiler alert! He was a good choice for Emperor, because he was a successful military leader. Pliny is almost nauseating in his praise of Trajan, but he was generally regarded as virile and active. His accession to become Emperor was largely violence free (except for the murder of some potential enemies), and he promised to work well with the Senate. Episode XLVI Trajan vs Dacia sees Trajan heading off to Dacia (present day Romania), at a time when the Roman Empire was at its largest extent. Dacia was a client kingdom, headed by the Dacian king Decebalus. Trajan had a victory in the First Dacian War 101-102 CE, then headed back in 105CE when Decabalus started sabre-rattling again. Trajan built a huge bridge across the Danube as a statement of strength, and leveled the capital. The defeat of Dacia brought huge wealth into Rome, and Trajan partied with a 120-day triumph.

File on 4.(BBC) Three Friends Emily, Nadia and Christie met each other when they were admitted as 18 year olds to the Tees Esk and Wear Valley Mental Health Trust with severe mental problems. They all died within 8 months of each other, in a medical environment that did not keep them safe. Their families are left blaming themselves, and the hospital.

Lectures in History (C-Span) Gays and Lesbians in Colonial America. This lecture in a university seminar class is given by Santa Clara University professor Nancy Unger. She starts off by challenging the denial of homosexuality by many African-Americans (particularly religious African-American groups) and Africans who claim that homosexuality was “un-African”. Instead, she argues, there was an African tradition of boy-wives. She argues that in early 17th century American colonies, there was a recognition of same-sex relationships among slaves. At this early stage, there was no emphasis on reproduction as there was later, and so same-sex relationships were tolerated. As time went on, the official view was that homosexuality was unacceptable, and amongst colonists it was a capital offence. But there were only two men executed, partially because the law required two witnesses and also because there was a labour shortage at the time. She then goes on to look at case studies of gay and trans-sexual court cases. One was of Nicholas Sension in 1677, who despite his high status and marriage, had a 30 year history of homosexuality. The court case was reluctantly brought because the community was concerned that he was bringing them into disrepute. Steven Broughton was a church leader, who was voted back into his leadership position by 2/3 of the congregation when he was reported. Thomas/Thomasina Hall was declared to be both a man and a woman because of their ambiguous genitalia.

Take Me To Your Leader (ABC) Vladimir Putin I’ve heard few podcasts and seen a few documentaries since the Ukraine invasion about Vladimir Putin, but this one was particularly interesting because Hamish Macdonald talks with former (?) ABC journalist Monica Attard, who has a rather different perspective on Ukraine than we usually get. All of the guests agreed that Putin was likely to continue as President up to his death.