Ugliness, the greatest crime of all?

I hate ugliness. I loath and detest it. I hate ugly people. I hate ugly buildings. I hate ugly views.

A controversial statement for a Sunday morning? Let me explain. When I talk about ugly people, I don't mean people who are not beautiful. Quite the opposite, we are conditioned to think certain looks are beautiful. I totally disagree. I once saw Simon Weston, disfigured Falklands war veteran speak. He was inspirational. As I listened to what he was saying, I realised that there was a beauty about this eloquent and inspirational man. Something far deeper than shallow and transient looks. I volunteer as a helper with a group which takes people with disabilities on holiday. Many of the people who come away with us, have issues such as Downes syndrome. As a result of this, I've realised that these sort of things aren't ugly either. Our group is probably one of the most beautiful things in my life. I've taken all my children with the group at one time or another. It is amazing how their attitude to looks and image has changed as a result of actually knowing the people in the group. Most interesting was how my daughter returned from our trip this year and was shocked when I mentioned one of the girls who went with us had Downes syndrome. She said "I thought she'd come as a helper". The girl is a successful actress, having acted in films such as Hellboy and Eastenders. She lives independently and doesn't need a "helper", so in some ways my daughter was right.

When I talk about ugly people, I mean people who speak and act in a repulsive way. I was trying to think of the ugliest person alive I could and decided that to me it must be Robert Mugabe. It's not because he is physically repulsive, but I associate his views, policies and actions with his looks, therefore he's ugly. There are certain celebrities, who by some measures are gorgeous, but who have the same effect on me. This country is beset currently by a plague of plastic surgery and botox. I struggle with the whole concept. Why? because across the world there are millions of people dying for want of basic health care, whilst we spend hundreds of millions on "cosmetic" procedures which often make the people look ridiculous. For years, I had a massive crush on Lesley Ash. It started when I saw her in Quadrophenia. Why on earth did she feel the need to get "enhanced". It's a free country, I wouldn't ban cosmetic procedures, but I just can't get my head around the use of these medical resources, when there are countries where there aren't even basic nursing facilities for the general population. I featured the sculpture of pregnant Alison Lapper on the 4th plinth, as I thought this is a great example of what I'm trying to say. Is it an "ugly" statue? By my definition, ugly is something I look at and I feel a negative reaction to. Something I wish was not in my sight. I found this particular statue quite fascinating. It's not "beauty" in a conventional way, but it doesn't have a "yuk" effect on me. All great art it is challenging. I'm sure many people don't get it, and I don't know if it is just because I've worked with disabled adults, so it's less out of the ordinary, but it isn't ugly to me. I wrote this post partially in response to someone saying to me that it's great to have a proper statue of Keith Park on the 4th plinth, rather than "that disgusting Alison Lapper"

This resulted in a massive row, not because I think Kieth Park shouldn't be there, god knows if any of the military figures deserve to be on a plinth, he does. It was because I strongly objected to the description of Alison Lapper as disgusting. I then had the "who would you rather see on page 3 - Jordan or Alison Lapper argument thrown at me.

Well to be honest, I'd rather see neither of those two on page 3 of the Sun. I actually find Jordan repulsive, therefore I'd certainly not want to look at her on page 3 or anywhere else. As to Alison Lapper, why should she even want to be on page 3. She was a model for a classical sculpture and a fine one at that. So the question was rephrased. Who would you rather see on page 3, the person you fancy most in the whole world or Alison Lapper. That's rather easy. I'd rather see Alison Lapper, because I'd be furious if my wife was on page 3. When it comes down to it, I'd actually rather see a picture of a statue of Keith Park on page 3, because he's a role model and we should be reminded of his contribution and the sacrifice of thousands of his RAF colleagues in the defeat of the most ugly regime in history. 

Which brings us back to "what is ugly".Well this picture of a young British Man giving a Hitler salute is probably one of the most ugly and repulsive images I've seen recently. Doesn't this idiot know about the bravery of Keith Park? Doesn't he know about the tens of thousands of British Servicemen who died fighting Nazi's who he seeks to emulate. Does he realise that Alison Lapper would have been off to the gas chamber just for "being different" under the regime he so admires. You would think that someone who sees themselves as part of a "superior master race" would at least bother to read the history books and see what "our finest hour was".

Finally in our little discussion of ugly, I know people who have had massive complexes about their looks and who plastic surgery has given confidence to. I know people who have had restorative plastic surgery following accidents. I know people who didn't need the procedures and looked no better or worse afterwards. I'm not criticising or having a go at any of these people or the procedures they've had, don't get me wrong. I just wish we'd be more concerned with resolving the internal ugliness in our hearts, the things which really make us ugly. It's a shame there is no surgery which can fix that.

Holocaust Denial

It seems that the various Christian Denominations have been having a few issues with Holocaust deniers and other assorted Nazi and Fascist scumbags of late. As I'm a (rather bad) Roman Catholic, I thought I might give you my views on the subject.

As I've mentioned before, one of my first jobs in the 1970's was working with a Jewish stonemason, who'd been with the British Army when Belsen was liberated. He was an incredibly intelligent man who had seen things no one should ever had to see. He was also a friend of my father, who had been an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force during the war and flown 40 missions over enemy territory for bomber command.

One day over a mug or two of industrial strength tea, the question of the holocaust was being discussed. My Father had been raised in the Australian outback, amongst Aboriginal people. Over our cups of tea back in 1976, my father was telling us that somewhere near where he was born, was one of the few places where Aboriginals fought back against white settlers, who were pursuing a policy of genocide against them, in the early part of the last century. My father was explaining about aboriginal culture and that in the traditional Aboriginal way of thinking there were only three numbers one, two and lots.

Our Stonemason friend unexpectedly interjected by saying "That is a good way of looking at the holocaust". He mentioned Stalin's quote that "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic". At the time of the conversation, the holocaust denial movement was in it's infancy (too many people with fresh memories to argue with then). Looking at many website's today, I am amazed by how much of what our friend said over a cup of tea in 1976 has come to pass.

He stated that he never ever used the term "6 Million" as no one could ever know how many millions had died. He always used the term "the unknown millions". He went on "how can you assign a number to such a tragedy, once you do, people for their own purposes will start twisting and distorting the figure. They will seek to chip away every single number they can, whilst ignoring all of the evidence around them" He said that they would claim that everyone who died after the liberation "was a victim of the allies" - even though their death was made inevitable by the Nazi's. He said that they would claim everyone who had disappeared off the face of the earth, had moved, not been murdered and burnt. He said that every record the criminal Nazi regime had destroyed would be counted as another life saved.

I asked why would anyone do such a thing? His response - "Imagine the crimes of the Nazi's as a jigsaw with six million pieces. If you take one piece away, you can still see what the picture is. If you take ten away, if you take a hundred away, if you take a thousand away, even if you take ten thousand away. There will however come a time when you take so many pieces away that you can't recognise the picture anymore. At that point they will say - actually the picture looked like this. You can't see the picture, you know they saw the picture before the parts were taken away so you trust them".

If a government's actions kill one person that is a tragedy, if they kill two people it's callous, if they kill lots of people they are a tyranny. The Nazi's killed untold millions. I heard many accounts of things in Belsen from our friend. He stated that the camp guards were the most degenerate and cowardly people he'd ever met. He said that if he'd had the chance he'd have machine gunned all of them. He said that the Nazi's were a warning to the world of what happens when a psychopath and a bunch of criminals get into power. He impressed one point on me and said "Never forget this". The point "The road that starts with a lie being allowed to let pass, ends with babies being fed to guard dogs". I've never forgotten that, I hope I never do.

Which brings us to the "Six Million" - is it accurate? - well it's good enough for me as an illustration of a very big number (more than lots). If anyone ever challenges it, they are not doing it for reasons of historical accuracy, because accuracy is impossible. They are doing it because they want to hoodwink us into believing that a bunch of evil, murderous criminals lead by a psychopath were really a bunch of great blokes. If you think that the world will benefit from racist policies or eugenics you cannot consider yourself a Christian. Jesus didn't gas the disabled, he cured them. Jesus didn't hate Jews, because he was a Jew. When he was crucified and was dying he is reported to have said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". Doesn't sound too compatible with the Nazi agenda. Oh and as to his treatment of foreigners (a current rallying cry for our local brand of nutcases) - remember the story of "the Good Samaritan". Samaritans were considered to be undesirable foriegners by his audience. The story was illustrating the fact that there is good and bad in all races. He was saying that these people you despise (like the far right portray asylum seekers today) are no better or worse than you. I'm not a very religious person, certainly not a scholar. I was brought up in a house where you listened long enough to understand that the message was bleeding obvious, no more - some things are clearly right and some are clearly wrong - it's really not that hard. Nothing could be more obvious to me than the fact that if you are a Nazi Numpty you shouldn't be standing in a pulpit telling the rest of us how to live our lives.

Are the Daily Mail Still Nazi sympathisers?

Sometimes I read something so crass and repulsive that words fail me. I spotted this item in the Daily Mail

Hitler was the perfect boss: Former maid breaks her silence on the 'charming' dictator

It was well known in the 1930's that the Rothemere family, who owned the Mail were Nazi sympathisers, but I honestly thought they had seen the error of their ways. It doesn't surprise me that a naive young girl could be taken in by this monster who was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. What does surprise me is that The Daily Mail prints an article trying to humanise such a monster. The world needs to be reminded about the consequences of this man and his policies. We need to be shown what happens when people follow the path of hate. An attempt, such as this, to portray him as a "very nice man" is totally repulsive to me. As to his interpersonal skills with young women. All of the women with whom he was romantically linked committed suicide. The man was an evil monster. End of Story.

Shame on the Mail for printing this. I hope people see their true colours, especially their Jewish readers.