Image, above—baptism by hot tub: the Mandaens, members of one of the oldest monotheistic religions, believe themselves to be the descendants of those baptised by John the Baptist—and baptism is their most sacred ritual. For centuries they have lived, mainly, in south Iraq. Since the US invasion, over half the population have fled abroad, with Sweden the most popular destination. Because of the cold weather in Sweden, and the distances to the nearest river, most Mandaens perform the first part of their prayer in the bath.
British Jews confused
It is a confusing time for British Jews. On the one hand there is cause for celebration: with remarkably little comment, a Jew—James Harding—has for the first time been appointed to one of the grandest positions in British public life: the editorship of the Times. On the other hand, there has been much gnashing of teeth about the David Abrahams Labour funding affair, and in particular the claim that Abrahams wanted to remain anonymous because of his Jewishness. This rather dubious, not to say paranoid, claim—combined with Abrahams's "unveiling"—has helped reinforce exactly the impression that Abrahams was seeking to avoid. But there is no mystery about the apparent over-representation of Jews among Labour funders. In recent years, Labour has been phasing down its union funding. Following the example of the US Democrats, Labour has replaced union money with big donations from "progressive finance," which is disproportionately non-Wasp. So why the big fuss?
If the funding affair shows that Britain is getting touchy about Jewish influence, as some allege, how to explain the lack of comment about the first Jewish editor of the Times? Harding is not just a secular, "cultural" Jew; he takes the faith seriously enough to have got "permission" from the chief rabbi for his recent divorce. It may be that many people don't know he is Jewish. If so, they have not been reading their Prospects. James wrote a piece for us back in December 1995 on his horror, as a Jew, at encountering Jewish fundamentalism in Israel.
Putin's surprise
Vladimir Putin surely still has a few surprises under his shapka, even after naming Dmitry Medvedev as his anointed successor to become Russian president next year. (Medvedev promptly suggested that Putin should become "his" prime minister.)
But pity Alexander Rahr, a distinguished Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations and author of a well-timed biography of Putin early in the first presidential term. Rahr was already advanced on researching a biography of the new president. His identity? The man who seemed the odds-on favourite only a few months ago: Sergei Ivanov. Time for a quick rewrite, or a tome destined to generate only moderate readership. Unless he still knows something we don't.
Brian Eno on Stockhausen's gift
Avant-garde music in the late 1960s was suspended between two powerful magnets, writes Brian Eno: John Cage's urge towards cosmic surrender and Karlheinz Stockhausen's equally powerful urge towards cosmic control (see also Martin Kettle, in this isssue). Many of us in the experimental music scene saw Stockhausen as the logical continuation of the obscure alley into which classical composition had argued itself. While Cage stood for freedom, grace and indeterminacy, Stockhausen was about constraint, control and overdetermination—the things we'd come to distrust about the European tradition.
What I didn't know was that Stockhausen taught at a school at Darmstadt, Germany, which proved very influential—though possibly not in a way he'd have liked. With his dislike of musical repetition, I imagine he was baffled by the fact that members of Kraftwerk and Can, as well as Jon Hassell—all masters of repetition—passed through his hands and were grateful for the experience. For he encouraged rigour, discipline and restraint—rare qualities then in popular music, where people tended to be minimalist only because they couldn't yet afford to be maximalist. His approach valued austerity and thoughtfulness, and the seeds he planted continue to bear fruit.
If you value people for what they make happen, not just what they do, Stockhausen must count as one of the 20th century's most important composers. It's sad that the end of his life was blighted by a piece of sloppy journalism which had him appear to praise 9/11 (he was actually horrified), but with luck this shadow will recede and we can be grateful for those still fruitful seeds.
Sir Tom's apologia
The usually hushed rooms of the London Library have been reverberating recently with murmurs of dissatisfaction, following a hike in the annual subscription from £210 to £375, voted for by the trustees at November's AGM. Many of the library's members are outraged both by the scale of the increase and by what they consider to be the high-handed way in which it has been imposed. All members recently received a four-page letter justifying the rise—from none other than the library's president, Tom Stoppard. Fans of the playwright are likely to be disappointed by the letter. It is a somewhat turgid apologia, with only flashes of his trademark wordplay ("So we devolve our trust to the trustees"; "We were bulging at the seams and looking threadbare"). As one member commented: "It's probably the longest piece of continuous prose he has written for decades, and it's all about bloody subscription rates."
CAR Hills gagged
Disappointing news for fans of our prison correspondent CAR Hills. His latest column about life in HMP Belmarsh has been intercepted by the prison authorities, and Hills has been informed that all future writings sent to Prospect will be blocked. The reasons for this decision aren't clear, but it seems a strange one. Prisoners are usually allowed to write, as long as they don't get paid for it. Hills's mental state is precarious, as readers of his columns will know, and writing about his experiences has helped him to keep going.
Prospect calls on all relevant bodies, including English Pen (whose newsletter Hills used to edit), to protest against this act of state-sponsored censorship.
Lewis vs the high priests of art
Higgie accused Lewis of insulting a "generation of writers." Frieze the art fair is staged by the publishers of Frieze the magazine, but Higgie emphasised that Frieze has always maintained the "strictest separation between advertising and editorial." Nonetheless, she managed to "sell" the fair quite effectively, writing: "The general public… for the price of a cinema ticket, get to see works of art from more than 150 of the best art galleries from around the world"—a robust endorsement of what is, of course, an entirely "separate" affair.
Online sacrifice
This December, instead of shopping for turkeys, Muslims across Europe were going online to order the slaughter of various animals, writes Samia Rahman. In early December, Muslims celebrate the festival of Eid ul-Adha, which recalls the prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his own son, Ismail, to God—an act averted at the last minute by the divine provision of a sheep. In Ibrahim's honour, every adult Muslim is supposed to sacrifice an animal and distribute its meat to the needy. Now many in the diaspora have started to honour this obligation online, paying organisations which specialise in arranging sacrifices in countries like Somalia and Iraq. This combination of tradition and technology certainly gets results: the charity Islamic Relief fed 2.4m people across 24 countries this way in 2006. Modernity and piety, it seems, are not always exclusive.
New era at Granta
It's been all change at Granta, following the departure of Ian Jack as editor and the appointment of Jason Cowley in his place. The magazine, owned by Sigrid Rausing, has moved into swanky new premises in Holland Park, west London, which it shares with publisher Portobello Books. A new deputy, Alex Clark, has just arrived, and the magazine plans to revitalise its website. Meanwhile, its hundredth issue, guest edited by William Boyd, soon hits the shelves—and it shows why a shake-up is needed. It is almost a parody of the old, self-satisfied Granta, featuring as it does an abandoned Martin Amis story, an unfinished opera libretto by Ian McEwan and a long, footnoted essay on buying a clavichord by James Fenton. Can't wait.
Literacy not as bad as wot it looks
The recent release of two negative reports on educational standards in Britain—the PIRLS report on literacy standards among ten year olds and the PISA report on reading, maths and science standards among 15 year olds—have added to the sense of malaise surrounding the Brown government, writes Harvey Cole. Between 2001 and 2006, England's ten year olds fell from third to 19th place in the world literacy rankings, while between 2000 and 2006 Britain's 15 year olds fell from seventh to 17th at reading, eighth to 24th at maths and fourth to 14th at science.
But things may not be quite as bad as they seem. In the case of the 15 year olds, the government is finally reaping the rewards of the misleadingly flattering 2000 survey. Not only did the survey assess only a small number of schools, it was also biased; according to the DfES's own research, "low achievers were under-represented." It should also be noted that both studies have expanded their data sets in the last six years. The newly included countries tend to be high scorers, with six of the newcomers to the literacy study ranked higher than England (including four Canadian provinces, each treated as a separate entity).
The results may also contain a useful lesson about the appropriate age to start the teaching of reading. Every country that ranks ahead of England in the literacy study starts formal reading instruction at the age of six or seven. Formal teaching in England, on the other hand, begins at five. Could it be that we are encouraging our kids to learn to read too early?
