In an earlier post I looked at some recent opinion polls that suggested opposition amongst the British public to military intervention in Syria was grounded less in Leftist anti-imperialism and more in nationalistic isolationism tinged with xenophobia.
A Telegraph article by Tom Mludzinski of Ipsos MORI presents more details on changing public views regarding military action. He contrasts the lack of support for Syria action with levels of support for earlier interventions, from the 1991 Gulf War to Libya in 2011.
An interesting aspect is the apparent decline in influence of a UN mandate. Only 6% support action in Syria without UN backing, and even if it were to get UN backing only 34% say they would approve. Intervention in Libya, backed by a UN Security Council resolution, had 63% support.
One factor in influencing public opinion may be which way the balance of fear tips. 40% are concerned that doing nothing is worse than taking action, and 48% think that by not taking action we might be encouraging other countries to use chemical weapons, but nearly eight in ten believe that intervening in Syria will encourage attacks on Britain and the West.
How many base their opinion on the likely impact of any intervention on Syrians? Not too many:
Perhaps most telling is the way the British public view the role of our armed forces, with very few wanting Britain to be the “world’s policeman” or the “guardian of liberty”. Ten years after the beginning of the War in Iraq, three in ten (31pc) Britons now say British armed forces should intervene abroad when other people’s rights and freedom are threatened. Most are more isolationist with 44pc saying we should only intervene when British interests are directly threatened and a further 21pc believe British armed forces should only be used to defend British territory.
Thursday next week in Oxford, historian (and friend of this blog) Evan Daniel is going to be talking about the shifting politics of 19th Century Cuban emigré communities of New York and Florida, a story of anarchism, nationalism, and the craft of cigar rolling.
Having heard him talk on the subject last year (at The Coal Hole, The Strand, London) I think it promises to be a very interesting tale.
Annexation, Autonomy, or Independence? The Politics of Cuban Identity in the Émigré Communities of New York and Florida, 1840s-1890s
Thursday 18th April 2013, 2 pm – 3.30 pm
Seminar Room, Pauling Centre, 58a Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6QS
Hosted by the ESRC Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS)
More details at Poumista. Read some of Evan Daniel’s work on the subject here.
Below, from the State Archives of Florida’s Florida Memory website, Cuban volunteers in the barracks, 1898. According to the website, “Many of these were cigar makers at Tampa. The ‘Army of the Cuban Republic’ was made up from 40 Cubans from Jacksonville, 200 from New York, and 150 from Key West. They set sail on the ‘Florida’ to join the rebels on May 21st.”
See more images at Florida Memory of cigar making, the Spanish-American War, and Cuban independence.
I spent the whole morning reading the papers. Strange things are happening in Spain. I read the throne has been left vacant and that the nobility are having a great deal of trouble choosing an heir, with the result that there’s a lot of civil commotion. This strikes me as very strange. They’re saying some ‘donna’ must succeed to the throne: that’s impossible. A king must inherit the throne. And they say there’s no king anyway. But there must be a king. There can’t be a government without one. There’s a king all right, but he’s hiding in some obscure place. He must be somewhere, but is forced to stay in hiding for family reasons, or perhaps because he’s in danger from some foreign country, such as France. Or there may be another explanation.
December 8th
I was about to go to the office but various reasons and considerations held me back. I couldn’t get that Spanish business out of my head. How could a woman inherit the throne? They wouldn’t allow it. Firstly, England wouldn’t stand for it. And what’s more, it would affect the whole of European policy: the Austrian Emporor, our Tsar, . . . I must confess, these events shook me up so much I couldn’t put my mind to anything all day. Mavra pointed out that I was very absent-minded during supper. And, in fact, in a fit of distraction I threw two plates on the floor, and they broke immediately. After dinner I walked along a street that led downhill. Discovered nothing very edifying. Afterwards I lay on my bed for a long time and pondered the Spanish question.
We went to the theatre this week. Matthew Jure made a great madman at the Pleasance.
I love going to the theatre. As long as I’ve a kopeck in my pocket you can’t stop me. But these civil servants of ours are such ignorant pigs, you’d never catch those peasants going, even if you gave them a ticket for nothing.
These screen print versions of two images from my series of cake drawings will be available at the Zone 5300 Winter Sale in Rotterdam this weekend, along with lots of other offerings of art, books, comics, and the like. Details here.
The cake sequence is not over, but has been interrupted by other work. On the final two, this one and No. 10, only the magenta plate is drawn, with cyan, yellow, and black still to do.
Update 18th November: Below, first CMYK digital proof.
This one isn’t finished yet, but here is the drawing in progress for the magenta plate, pen and ink on paper.
Cartoonist Jim Woodring, a much more experienced and accomplished penman than myself, regrets the decline in use of the dip pen by artists. To promote interest in the instrument, he plans to make and master the use of an enormous working ink pen, with a 16 inch pen nib and a six foot handle. He explains the project here. A sketch of the nib is on his blog here.
Peggy’s flamenco dress. She got it in Córdoba, but identical children’s flamenco dresses were for sale in souvenir shops at nearly every place we visited.
As well as the Velasquez paintings in the Prado, we saw lots of figurines based on his portraits for sale in Madrid. One window had unpainted figurines that you could decorate yourself, which would have been perfect for Peggy, but it was Sunday and the shop was closed. She already has a small collection of princesses and fairy figures that she’s painted, as well as a plaster Jesus and a BVM that her grandparents brought back from Mexico. Jesus looks so sweet and feminine that he’s joined the princesses, and we haven’t bothered to correct her. She’s improved the paint scheme considerably; she noticed the original painter had been very clumsy with painting the fingernails, leaving big red marks on the palms of the hands.
A playground in Bilbao, near the wobbly silver building and the dog from Koons the Florist.
In the street in Córdoba, we saw an extraordinary looking man, a big man, a Black man, wearing cap, t-shirt, jeans, and a big billowing dusty flamenco dress. He was working the cars at the traffic lights, selling air fresheners I think. I saw a smartly dressed woman on a scooter give him a big smile and a greeting. But scooters don’t need air fresheners. As the bus moved on towards the railway station we saw another man doing the same routine at the next junction, also in a flamenco dress.
The night before in Córdoba we’d taken the kids to a flamenco show, past their bedtime, in a funny colourful place, first drink included in the price, a small audience of tourists already there, some of them also with children. The group on stage would do a wordless number, then a pause, come back with a singer and do a song, a pause, come back with a different singer, pause, come back with a dancer, and so on. One singer particularly gave it the whole arm, breaking heart, breaking voice, blood, sweat and tears. Then in the next pause he started working the tables. The patter about the flamenco group, no — the flamenco family. The price of the CD, the tape, the DVD. Signed by the whole group. Dedicated to the children. Of course we bought a CD. Resent it? I loved it. That's how it’s done. Tear your heart out for them and then get the money before they can look away.
Earlier in Ronda, we’d visited the bullring. The children played in the dust of the arena. The bullring museum included photos of one their most famous 20th Century bullfighters posing with various unnamed characters, recognisable amongst them Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles. Outside the bullring stood a man and horse, both in full costume, posing for photos with tourists for a fee.
From Ronda to Córdoba, from Córdoba to Madrid.
Coming out of the Madrid metro into Puerto del Sol on a sunny afternoon, we were disoriented and overwhelmed, and in the noisy crowded square a toreador, a woman dressed as Hello Kitty, and other costumed photo opportunities for sale. Also a mariachi band. Street sellers hawking sunglasses and twinkling knick-nacks. Everything here and now all pressing into the hot square between the tall, tatty, city buildings. Exhausted as we were, we fled, but it’s that part of the city I most want to revisit.
We were booked into a hostel on a street off the square, booked on the internet, in a hurry, last minute. There was a small doorway. A bell gave access to the dark narrow hallway lined with postboxes, leading to a small old lift. I can’t remember what floor reception was on. The fourth? Everything was brown. The one sign of the 21st Century was the coin-operated internet terminal. Our hearts sank. But now I can at least say there weren’t fleas in the beds, unlike the earlier hotel in Ronda which put on a much flashier front.
In our room, the noise rising from the street was as loud as if we were still down there. We could hear an incessant squeaking noise, lots of shouting and laughter. I did my best to ignore it, dizzy from lack of lunch. The children ran round the room, bouncing on beds, antic kittens, leaning over the balcony rail — a clown! It was a clown in the street, speaking in squeaks and mime. Our son got the phone to take a picture, over the railing, visions of it being dashed on the pavement several stories down. The clown was playing tricks on passers by, swapping his bag for theirs, hopping onto one for a piggyback ride, jumping into the street in front of a bus and refusing to let it pass. And finally throwing down his cap and gesturing for applause, then gesturing for money.
Though it didn’t end as simply as that — the business of harvesting payment was as big a performance as the rest. Once the crowd had put money in the hat he did a whole bit of business sitting on the pavement to count it, then looking up to count the crowd, then pursuing someone he suspected of not paying. And when the clown got a coin from this fellow he bit it of course, pulled a disgusted face and mimed shoving it up his bum. Then a woman came to give him more money. He smiled, she didn’t have to, he had so much already, but when she then walked off without giving it to him he pursued her, desperately making clear he really did want her money.
Below is a clip of Orson Welles, via Cartoon Brew, from some years after he was photographed at the bullring in Ronda, talking about performers and audiences, and why a television studio audience is not a real audience: because they haven’t payed. He maintains that the real audience is becoming extinct - an exaggeration, though it’s true that many performers now work without direct contact with their ultimate audience, and have a much less tangible relationship with them than the clown in Madrid or the Córdoba street seller. This has economic as well as cultural importance, as Mark Mayerson describes in a post from 2008, The Final Customer, on the distant relationship between most commercial animators and their audience.
