An English dictionary: The intelligent or immaterial part of “man” as distinguished from the body//the animating or vital principle in living things.

So far so good. There are other definitions of what a spirit is, but I am very much afraid that they have been taken out of religious texts. Soul is the differentiating trait in human attitudes, as differentiating are the traits in the physiognomy of them, because the rest of the body may present traits which are not standard but this is just not the normal natural aspect of persons.

What does the spirit of a person represent? And how the spirit is achieved? Yes, achieved. Is it a trait God gives to each of us?

I am not intending to mix religions in this post, it would be very daring of me and it would most probably molest many of the potential readers.

Apart from the macho definition of that dictionary I have had for many years now, I am inclined to believe  spirit is the part of the human being – woman or man – that concerns their attitude towards life and their fellow persons, or animals or plants within their surroundings, or even themselves.

What one thinks of other is a conception that is derived from one’s spirit. What one feels for another is a sentiment that is derived from the spirit. When one is angry, the spirit is working negatively, when one loves then the work is positive.

Is this the product of education? Yes, in a way. But no, in another way. Education in most times is responsible fo what one thinks  is good or is bad. But who or what has decided what is good or bad? In my opinion, nobody or nothing. Yes, good or bad may not have come out of religious doctrines, it is a spiritual sentiment that compels us to feel in a particular way towards our fellow humans, or things or animals or plants.

Religions have those two aspects of our nature in all their teachings, but this has not been because their doctors have come to that conclusion out of their intelligence. Their intelligence is shared by us, normal persons of the street. Trying to impersonate God has also always been one of these doctors’ traits who have believed themselves to be owners of truth, but truth is independent, free and cannot be anybody’s weapon.

God is intangible, God cannot be touched, or understood, anyone that dares to say the contrary is outright wrong.

Who is wrong or who is right?  Are men wrong or right? Are women wrong or right? Is sex right or wrong? Which type of sex is right or wrong? Who are we humans to dictate what our spirits decide regarding anything?

These are questions that occur to me very often. The definitive answer has not yet come to my mind – or is it spirit?

Greeks have rang the bell. People start getting unrest from what they suffer and from what they hear. Is it possible that a revolution arises from all this?

As we all know revolutions have been the consequence of situations similar to that we are experiencing these days, but I wonder whether the revolution that might come out of this one would be in the benefit of people. This time it may not be so. This time it might lead the world to a tighter control of everything. This time it might be a revolution of the top brass.

We can see how the police forces of each and every country are organised to fight any “insurgencies”, how the armies have on many occasions reacted when it has been shouted that the integrity of a country is under threat by outer or inner forces. Those forces have at all times reacted following the orders of the constituted power, but this constituted power is really very far from the so much alleged Democracy we should be enjoying.

We have been under the spell of a so-called terrorism, people fear everything from their own security to global threats both human and environmental. Fear is the word nowadays that is helping the leaders of the world’s countries to rule.

The world has not changed it continues to be the same world it was in the Middle Ages, the power of the strong and few prevailing over the weaker and many. The human condition at its best. And this time the West does not need any religions to cooperate.

I am very much afraid all this will turn out  to be a new step towards a harsher control of us all, via money, mortgages, eventually poverty.

May I be wrong!

I see the media care about the likely systems of energy proposed to replace oil and suppress contamination, and apparently everything points out to nuclear energy, deceitfully advising it to be the least contaminating.

Nuclear energy is dangerous on one side because it is subject to human control and on the other because their waste is very difficult, if not impossible,  to dispose of without contaminating. And I wonder why solar, wind and sea energies are not more researched, being as they are natural, cheap sources of energy. In my opinion there is a fundamental cause for the preference: its set-up costs place it very far from a relatively average pocket. Corporations – again this word! – must be formed to organise power plants. We, the people in general, the only part that can have in it is our investment in those corporations and which in fact helps to exploit us, ironically.

In effect, the costs of building wind mills to produce energy would little by little decrease as  demand grows, placing them at the reach of households. The same would happen with solar and marine energies.

In real fact, what makes governments  opt for nuclear energy,  in my opinion,  is that obtaining the source of energy – uranium – is not at the reach of any household, therefore practically impossible that the power (not a pun) given by the privately controllable sources: oil and uranium,  would always be held by the powers-that-be (not a pun,  either).

Energy is the real source of power for those who command. We need it and are ready to pay for it: in homes, motor-cars, aeroplanes, industry, sea craft, war machines, everything relies on energy, and…we pay for it the price which curiously enough is not inside the frame of the “free market”. At least that gives a subtle appearance of public control, but we all know that eventually it is not so.

The control keeps being held by those who control the governments.

It is so easy if we unite, but no,  every effort is done to keep us the furthest from one another.

On this the strength of power is based. (Again not a pun).

There are many definitions in the dictionary of what leaders are. I have picked up just one:” someone who acts as a guide”.

And a guide are those who we do not elect but who as heads of a list of nominees try to be our rulers in future legislatures. Persons who have been elected by others, a few, who believe their election will be the solution to the problems occurring at each time. Unfortunately what is good for a few does not happen to be good for many, and this has been proved along the centuries since Democracy (or so they would have us to believe) was installed in our lives.

To achieve leadership in olden times needed a cumulus of circumstances, among them to be a person capable to lead people in wars, a person with enough clairvoyance to make his followers risk their lives for whatever he wanted them. Unfortunately, or fortunately, this has ceased being so. A leader nowadays is a quite different person. A leader nowadays must be someone who can convince people that her/his intentions are the panacea for them to have a pleasant, easy life.

That so many believe her/him is the way for her/him to achieve what she/he seeks. And what is it that they seek? So far I for one see that they, whatever their political inclinations,  follow a political pattern that in cases favours the destitute among their co-citizens – which is today called socialism – and others follow what their predecessors in their very same political trend did, that is favouring those people powerful enough to make them do it.

But, both of those tendencies cannot but support what Capitalism has become, which is not the same thing as when it all began. As we all know.

Leadership must be won. Leadership, unlike Royalty, is something a person must achieve through conviction among those who are led that the leader is the one who can save them from all difficulties, economic or of welfare, that are encountered in the normal course of our lives.

And this leadership cannot be provided by those whose main objective is to achieve personal ambitions.

I am really fed up with everything I read and listen. And suddenly that saying came to my mind and made me think again on what is happening in the world.

I live in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, once attacked by Admiral Nelson and where he lost his arm and where he had to submit to the islanders and where he and his men( no women then) were cared by the Tenerife people as though they were their best friends. Things that happened then and that ceased to happen since. If I were to go to another Canary Island I would try to behave as those who live in that island behave, because we all have different ways to live and behave.

I wonder why Spanish and other nationalities do not have that way of thinking that was the usual thing many years ago. I remember when I went to Britain I tried to se how British acted and I tried to do what they did. I had no problems whatsoever.

Why colonialists did not act as their colonists acted is a product of human arrogance. Perhaps the people they colonised, morally, were far better than them, but was it religion that made them think otherwise? Or was it education where religion those times had a very important influence? I cannot say.

What I can say is that the powers of the world – where the US, Russia, China and India are included – see themselves as people that can invade and change the conduct of the locals by means that are deceitful – such as the implant of democracy – when what they are after is richness and control of natural resources.

On the other side of the oceans, immigrants want themselves be respected by those who they must respect in the first place. They want that their customs and rites be superimposed to those already in use in the visited country. I wonder whether they would tolerate British or Spanish or Russians or Indians or Chinese to superimpose their customs and habits if they were in the immigrants’ birth lands.

In my opinion this is the responsibility of laws and authorities of the welcoming countries and immigrant minorities cannot by any means demand that the local customs be changed to adapt to theirs.

The invasion of the coalition forces in Iraq was meant to change the customs and rites of that particular country, Democracy was paramount in that invasion, or at least that was the excuse. We all know what was really behind it.

Palestine is today the word in vogue. The State of Israel , as we all know, usurped the Palestinian lands, and it tries by all means to become the overwhelming power in the region. Instead of acting as Palestinians do Israel has wanted to impose its views and opinions and, most dangerous of it all, its concept of religion – often used with biased intentions – over the other religions of the zone, the Christian religion included although Israel has been wise enough to use Christianity for its own aims. Once and if everything is solved to Israel’s satisfaction we will then see Cristianity become another enemy of the Zionist State.

But coming back to Europe, my question is the question that every European asks themselves: why the immigrants do not respect the laws that are in force in the visited country? They were not called to be there, therefore they should take that circumstance into account.

The Law and its servers must see to it that those laws be respected, using all the means on hand, disregarding what the visitors may have in their minds as to the ways of living in the new country.

Elections, votes, parliaments, etc., are there for something. Or aren’t they?

What I can see from my sad chair is that everybody wants to deceive everybody using the methods everybody lays at their disposal to that end. If the word is racism, then racism will be the excuse. If the word is ethnic cleansing, then this will be the excuse

I am really worried about the turn  people’s opinions are taking about new situations in the world today, and they all have been as a consequence of frustrations with our own politicians that have failed us outright. We are disappointed with what we believed to be the panacea for our ills.

Democracy has become our demon, because that Democracy we thought to be our salvation less than a century ago, is showing now that it has been placed at the disposal of those it was meant to fight against.

As a result of this, we have turned our eyes towards far places : China, India, Russia; places that news that now reach us more easily than it used to be tell us are thriving in the economies of today. What old doctrines seemed to us – because it so was taught us at the time – the works of the Devil,  are now ended and the countries that held them have become the paradigm of our ideals. But people in those countries have not changed, well at least they have changed in ideals but I am sure they persist in their ambitions, as we also do.

What has happened for this to be so? What phenomenon has compelled us to forget the old ideas and made us stick to the new system that those old enemy countries have adopted – apparently of course because their leaders still have the same ambitions the old idealists had?.

We should not admire those countries, we should try to make ours the best places to live in, with the best economic, healthy conditions that we have all the time pursued in our lives.

Amen. And excuse me for having turned so nationalistic but I am starting to believe that we should first of all make our home habitable.

This is a book written by a professional-journalist-become-historian, the reading of which I strongly recommend. I have been all my life a fan of history but unfortunately my school time was full with the history written by the Spanish historians belonging to the dictatorial regime. It is funny that the best writers dealing with Spain be of British nationality, John Gill is by his own right a perfect specimen of those authors. He has taught me aspects of the History of Spain which I was not conversant with and I must credit him with something difficult to find in a historian: accuracy.

Gill has lived in Andalucia for many years during which time he studied in depth what he later converted to written history, a book which is, in my opinion, a must in all libraries because it gives us indices on the beginnings of the human life in Europe and which, if perused carefully, answers to so many outstanding questions regarding the development of the human species.

http://johngillwrites.com/index.html is his website where he may be reached.

He has recently moved to a paradise island in Greece where I am sure he will continue to be the source of more enlightenment for his readers.

Andalucia – A Cultural History is available through Signal Books Limited, 36 Minster Road. Oxford OX4 ILY, or

http://signalbooks.co.uk

I’ve decided to change this blog’s header and found that the new one is a really relaxing panorama in green and ocean blue.

Reminds me of my island.

We live in our homes as we wish to. We place our furniture as we deem will be more confortable for us to go about our home. We get up in the morning and go to bed in the evening at the times our physical needs often require us. We believe or do not believe in a God or in many gods. We eat what we have been taught to eat and use our discernment for those meals that may not be advisable to eat. And how we must educate our children.

If we ever go to our neighbour’s home we find that they are acting as we do, although they may have strong differences in their perception of what comfortability is, what their God or gods should be, at what time they must get up or to bed, what their meals should be and how they educate their children.

So far I cannot see any problem. I let my neighbour live and he lets me live. No problem.

Then, why this upsurge of racism (I don’t believe it is racism), bigotry, or is it a sense of self-defence, with regards to the new-arrivals?

When we read in or listen to the communication media that an individual of our nationality commits a crime, slays a person or does something which is contrary to our way of thinking, to our sense of ethics, we are confident that the law will take care of him/her, and forget about the case just to find a new one on next day’s newsreels. Which we of course forget again as soon as we leave the paper aside or turn off the radio/tv.

But this does not happen with foreigners, with immigrants. If these immigrants dared to behave as those who were born in the same circumstances as we were do, then we do not forget. We do not pardon, we use our sense of self-defence to demand that they be expelled from our country, from our home. And our attitude also varies depending on where these immigrants come from, if they have our sympathy or not.

Of late we have been hearing, we have been warned against the Islamic terrorism, and we have immediately categorised not the term terrorism – which we may have been suffering in our own countries for a long time b y the hand of our co-nationals – no, we categorise the term “Islamic”. Is this religious bigotry or is it self-defence against a religion which is not the one we are used  to living with? Are some interested parties trying that we consider the term “Islamic” as the fundamental part of the whole expression?

Why do we not consider the term terrorism as the essential question here?

I have many Muslim friends with whom I have no problems whatsoever. They are religious people, I am not religious, they respect me I respect them and love them as they do me. I have many Basque friends on the same friendship terms I have with my Muslim ones.

Spain has suffered for a long time now the plague of the “Basque” terrorism, as one time  the British suffered the IRA terrorism. We have not asked the expulsion of the Basques from the Spanish territory and I am sure the British did not ask for expulsion of all the Irish people from the UK. Why then this different feeling towards Muslims?

Centuries ago the Jews were expelled from some European countries, among them Spain, for reasons which were not sufficiently clarified by historians, but that researches attribute to hatred, to religious bigotry, because the Jews were a part of our communities with special abilities in the economic sector. I wonder whether what we witness today regarding the Muslims is not a similar situation. I must draw your attention here to the fact that when the Arab domination in Spain, the three religions : Islam, Judaism, Christianity; had no problems of coexistence., as we see there are no problems of coexistence with the Jewish community in Iran and elsewhere in the world, except in those countries where the presence of Israel is more felt. I must say, notwithstanding, that a growing anti-Jew feeling here is being noticed after the problems in Palestine.

In my opinion the main cause of the resentment of our populations regarding aliens is not something that can be called racism or bigotry. It is a feeling of self-defence which our authorities have not been brave enough to ease up by applying the Law with all its consequences. Those of any religion or race who live in our countries must respect the Law as we do and must get the punishment the Law metes out in all cases it contemplates.

It will, I have no doubt, comfort us and make us forget those offenders as soon as they are tried and imprisoned as they deserve under the Law.

If we see that the Law defends us, then why still sustain a feeling of self-defence?

I may be wrong, though.

Anticant has started a campaign for Peace in the World which I heartily support.

I invite all readers to join and spread the news around.