Tea at Trianon: Words Are Not Enough

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, December 12, 2016

Words Are Not Enough

From The Hill:

During the 2003 invasion, Iraqi Christians were often simultaneously viewed as Iraqis by the Americans, and as suspect “co-religionists” of the enemy by their neighbors. Such suspicion resulted in many Christian church bombings, and the kidnapping and murder of priests and lay people alike.

When the U.S. military left Iraq in 2011, the plight of Christians worsened. Al-Qaeda morphed first into the Islamic State of Iraq and then into ISIS. Persecution metastasized into genocide. The country’s Christian population has plummeted to about 200,000 from about 1.5 million in 2003. Now, as the traditional Christian homeland of the Nineveh Plain is being liberated, America may have its last opportunity to support pluralism and minority religious groups in Iraq.

Despite the liberation of their former towns, they cannot return without real security. Even then, there may be no home for them to return to since these towns suffered terrible damage in the fighting. In the best case scenario, rebuilding would take months or years, and enormous amounts of money. (Read more.)