Putin claims one of his intentions is to 'De-nazify' Ukraine. And the Russians have not forgotten that some Ukrainians fought against them during World War 2. However, do not forget the Holodomor of 1932 to 1933 - mass starvation which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.

This was a deliberate policy by Stalin.

Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.

When Germany invaded Ukraine in 1941 they were initially welcomed as liberators from Stalin's totalitarian regime. This attitude changed, however, when the Germans began treating the Ukrainians as 'sub-human Slavs' in accordance with the ideology of the German state at that time. Some historians argue that this was a missed opportunity for a German regime blinded by ideology.

In the occupied Western parts of the Ukraine anti-Soviet feeling led to collaboration with the occupying power (the issue of collaboration, in general, is a difficult topic, however).

There was a Ukrainian SS Division, 14th Waffen Grenadier Division(1st Galician) and many 1,000's of Ukrainians served in various German police and security forces. About 80,000 Ukrainians served in the SS Division during the war.

However, 4.5 million Ukrainians volunteered for the Red Army to fight the Germans and many hundreds of thousands joined the partisans and waged a guerrilla war against the Germans.

It is unfair to tar a whole population with the same brush. Remember, there were also SS units from:

Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bohemia and Moravia, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Soviet Union (Russia), Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and even the United Kingdom (The British Free Corps, although it was a small number - at no time did it reach more than 27 men in strength.)

Plus, of course, active collaboration in other ways. In any population, there would always be a small proportion willing to fight for the enemy ... even today. But that doesn't mean that the entire population should be regarded as willing to do so.

Who knows what one would have done if their country was occupied? And resistance movements were slow to start up. In fact, they began to grow in size only when it was becoming apparent that Germany was going to lose, from 1943. The only country that resisted violently from the first day of occupation was Greece. Notice that there are no Greek or Polish SS units.

Saint Valentine and his day.

Saint Valentine (Italian: San Valentino; Latin: Valentinus) was a 3rd-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14 and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6. From the High Middle Ages, his Saints' Day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni (a city in the southern portion of the region of Umbria in central Italy), epilepsy and beekeepers.

He was born c.226 and died c.269 (aged 42–43)

Saint Valentine was a clergyman – either a priest or a bishop – in the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians. He was martyred and his body was buried at a Christian cemetery on the Via Flaminia on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine's Day) since at least the eighth century.

The Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 to be celebrated on February 14 in honour of Saint Valentine of Rome.

The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the "lovebirds" (the mating rituals of birds) of early spring. In 18th-century England, it grew into an occasion in which couples expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. 

The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is believed to be in the Parliament of Fowls (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer:

As written in Middle English:

"For this was on seynt Valentynes day

Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make

Of every kynde that men thynke may

And that so huge a noyse gan they make

That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake

So ful was, that unethe was there space

For me to stonde, so ful was al the place."

Modern English translation:

"For this was on Saint Valentine's Day

When every bird comes there to choose his match

Of every kind that men may think of

And that so huge a noise they began to make

That earth and air and tree and every lake

Was so full, that not easily was there space

For me to stand—so full was all the place."

And Shakespeare of course:

"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more."

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

There are also an increasing number of references to the day from Chaucer onwards.

In 1797, a British publisher issued The Young Man's Valentine Writer, which contained scores of suggested sentimental verses for the young lover unable to compose his own. Printers had already begun producing a limited number of cards with verses and sketches, called "mechanical valentines." Paper Valentines became so popular in England in the early 19th century that they were assembled in factories. Fancy Valentines were made with real lace and ribbons, with paper lace introduced in the mid-19th century. In 1835, 60,000 Valentine cards were sent by post in the United Kingdom, despite postage being expensive.

In 1868, the British chocolate company Cadbury created Fancy Boxes – a decorated box of chocolates – in the shape of a heart for Valentine's Day. Boxes of filled chocolates quickly became associated with the holiday.

Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. In the UK, just under half of the population spend money on their Valentines, and around £1.9 billion was spent in 2015 on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts. The mid-19th century Valentine's Day trade was a harbinger of further commercialized holidays in the U.S. to follow.

The Valentines Day tradition developed in early modern England and spread throughout the English-speaking world in the 19th century.

In the 20th Century the 'Americanised' version spread throughout much of the rest of the world.

Microorganisms

 

I find this topic absolutely fascinating and I always have. Nothing to do with the current situation, although has stimulated my interest of course.

Viruses and Bacteria.

Hundreds of millions of viruses can be found in one square meter, the same space holds tens of millions of bacteria. They are all around us all the time except in perfectly sterile environments, which require very special conditions as in laboratories and so on and even then not totally guaranteed.

Our skin is also covered in bacteria, most of which are harmless.

Bacteria are massive compared to viruses and can be seen through a microscope. To see a virus requires a powerful electron microscope.

Bacteria are alive in that they have all the key elements of life which are:

Homeostasis: regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state.

Organization: being structurally composed of one or more cells – the basic units of life.

Metabolism: transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce other phenomena associated with life.

Reproduction: the ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism or sexually from two parent organisms.

Viruses have none of these key process and are, thus, non-living. They are like machines with only one function, to replicate themselves.

Viruses can only reproduce inside a living cell using the host cells RNA/DNA to replicate itself. The host cell can be either animal or vegetable depending on the species of virus. They are parasites.

There are viruses that only attack bacteria known as bacteriophages.

Bacteria can live anywhere, inside and outside a living organism, viruses can only 'live' inside a living cell.

About 99% of all bacteria are totally harmless to us, and many are essential to our life. About 7 to 10% of our body weight is composed of bacteria, many in the digestive system, without which we could not digest food.

ALL viruses are potentially dangerous to us.

Bacterial infection is usually organ-specific, while virus infection is usually systemic, affecting the whole organism.

Bacteria can be destroyed with antibiotics, although the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through evolution has reduced the use of antibiotics. Viruses also evolve and very swiftly.

Viruses can only be destroyed by our immune system. There is no secure way to destroy viruses other than to immunize with a weakened version of the virus, thereby triggering an immune system response so the system 'learns' how to deal with the virus, hopefully. If an individual survives a virus infection their immune system has 'learned' how to deal with it although, again, this is not an absolute guarantee.

The origin of viruses is debated. They probably appeared very early in the emergence of life on the Earth.

I find viruses fascinating. A very simple and highly efficient 'machine'.

Just some thoughts on leaving the European Union.

Before I start this piece I want to make one thing absolutely crystal clear – for at least the last 35 years I have believed that the United Kingdom would be better off out of the European Union. I try to avoid using the terms 'Leaver' or 'Remainer', except for the sake of brevity, as these are collective stereotypes that pre-judge people in an extremely oversimplified manner.

I will also state that I am an old, white, English male and, therefore, to be ignored and put up against the wall as soon as possible. My opinions mean nothing in the great scheme of things. But they are my opinions.

While I believe that 'democracy' has a lot of problems and issues I agree with Churchill:

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”

The issue of 'democracy' is for another time. However, in 2016 the Brexit referendum was specifically pitched to the electorate as a one-off 'winner takes all' vote and that the government would implement whatever the majority voted for.

They didn't, and here we are 3 1/2 years later finally getting Brexit implemented. If the vote had been implemented at the time the worst would now be over and the UK would be safely out of the EU. As many have argued I, too, believe that the result was a real shock for the elites, our so-called 'betters', and those within the 'London bubble'. They have, it seems to me, tried to change that result or minimise it, or blur it in so many ways.

And that is the real problem with the delay I think. It created a space where those who lost the vote could begin to build up a head of steam of opposition, and the failure to implement the result also created a space where those who won the vote could begin to build up a head of steam, largely as a response, admittedly, to the incaltricant losers, and this has created the deepest rift, a chasm in fact, that I have ever seen in British society in my entire life.

And it worries me.

The two sides are stereotyping and vilifying each other, and as a result, the rift widens and hardens. Almost as in a war, each side begins to dehumanise the other. I am not saying that this is a majority of people by any means, in fact in my own personal experience ordinary people just want to get it done. But enough are making enough noise, on both sides, to create two trenches facing each other and continually sniping. And this is destructive and dangerous.

I have never seen so many people, chiefly amongst those who wish to remain in the EU, apparently on the verge of major psychological breakdowns, spewing emotional diarrhoea and generally tearing their hair with a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. One would think that the apocalypse was upon us.

But it isn't.

Leaving the EU is not some overwhelming natural phenomenon approaching from a dark and gloomy future about which we can do nothing. It is an event that will have economic, political and social consequences certainly. I do not think they will be as bad as some say, but there will be an impact. I really think that both sides should try and come together, find their common ground, and prepare, together, for this uncertain future. It is an event created by human beings and can be dealt with by human beings who are prepared to work together. It is not a tsunami or an asteroid sweeping in upon us that we cannot deal with. We can deal with it. But we must really try and breakdown those walls, abandon those trenches, overcome those stereotypes and find our common humanity, and work together to build a society and an economy for after the UK has left the EU. Too much energy is being used to attack each other than to deal with the real concrete issues of a post-Brexit Britain. We have many more similarities than differences and we must, I think, work together.

This is not yet another snipe, but at the moment the most obstructive individuals seem to be those who wish to remain in, or should it be to rejoin, the EU, but not exclusively.

We can work together on this, but if this rift continues and deepens even after the UK has left then I think the future looks bleak indeed.

I may be overreacting. I hope so.

Do I really care anymore?

"The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night."

Nietzsche

I have touched on the themes I wish to write about here many times, to the point of exhaustion perhaps? I just feel the need to try and, I don't know, work through them again, in a way.

Some personal details: I am 66 years old and an English, white male. Yes, I fall into many of the 'non-person' categories in our enlightened times.

I was raised in a very small and very rural village in Lincolnshire, England, in the 1950s and 1960s. And I realise that I am looking back to those times with rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia and sentimentally. My family for many generations were rural working class, but my father was a long-distance lorry driver in the days when 'long-distance' meant, for example, Glasgow or London, not Berlin or Warsaw.

I passed the 11+ examination in 1964, only the second person in my family to do so, went to Grammar School, 1964 to 1971, and to the University of Essex, 1974 to 1979. I graduated in 1977 with an Upper-Second BA in Sociology. I don't feel the need to defend Sociology as, in those days, it was a very different field to the utter rubbish most of it has become today. To me, the word 'Sociology' has come to mean utter nonsensical 'woke' drivel. However, to be fair, that is mainly in the English speaking world. But, even in my time at University, the first tendrils of the coming post-modern storm of ordure was just visible on the horizon.

I also did post-graduate research after graduation into historical and social structures.

Marxism was present at Essex, of course, but mostly the 'soft' form that was based on the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. For a while I was a serious revolutionary Marxist myself, and then a social anarchist, and then an anarchist of sorts.

But, in my time at University, minds weren't closed, a genuine 'Market place of ideas' existed and the importance of empirical evidence, i.e., reality, was taken for granted. A reasoned argument for a point of view was also expected, not just asserted. Even my Marxist colleagues and I would argue in a rational manner using empirical data. I slowly came to realise, however, that the data was often selectively used and 'interpreted' in particular ways.

Anyway, I have a sort of fantasy home, one that I can never return to. It is a small rural village set in rolling fields of crops. Small fields too, with thick hedgerows dividing them up. It is, of course, hot and sunny with a clear blue sky. There is a long country lane, with grass growing down the middle. The verges and hedgerows are wild and overgrown. There is a smell of grass and vegetation in the air and birds singing in the hedgerows. I am cycling down this road, ecstatically happy, looking forward to my tea, baked beans on toast probably.

So many smells, sounds and sights take me back to that home. But I can never return of course. I know, the frailties of human memory and the strong tendency to remember the good times, but nevertheless, that is, if you like, the 'fantasy' home I yearn for.

After University was over I got married but had no children, and I feel great regret and sadness over that. I taught, both Sociology and Psychology for many years, and some History. For a while, I had a civilian job with the police to help boost my income. That was interesting and all of the officers I knew at that time would be appalled at what the police force has become these days. All of them I knew at that time must be retired, or even dead, by now.

I slipped into a fairly routine life of work and home. My politics also became very conventional. I supported the Labour Party but, at that time, it was a very different party to what it is today.

When Blair became the leader I began to distanced myself from the party.

As I said above, I went through an anarchist phase and that never really died in me. I am fairly well-read in history and philosophy and the lessons and arguments from those fields have always maintained in me a deep devotion to absolute liberty. My time at University, and a growing interest in science, also deepened my commitment to empirical evidence.

Logic and reason have always been important to me too. I became an atheist in my teenage years, and I still am. I know this is disliked, even hated, and misunderstood by many people I otherwise agree with, but that's the way it is, sorry.

I had, I believe, a commitment all through my adult years to liberty, reality and reason and, for most of that time, most of the left actually had a similar commitment.

I turned back to a philosopher I had always admired, J. S. Mill, and began to move towards a Classical Liberal position. Mill was quite popular with the left in my University days by the way, when they cared about free expression. Then I discovered Ayn Rand, Max Stirner and the Austrian School amongst others. These had a profound impact on my thinking.

I found myself disagreeing more and more with the left and agreeing more and more with people I would once have argued against. I think the Overton Window was moving more and more to the left after about the year 2000, but my position basically remained the same, so I found myself moving, ipso facto, more to the right.

Today, I am in despair. The values that I, basically, stood for all my life are being destroyed, derided and corrupted. We are a few steps away from a genuinely totalitarian society. The values that built the greatest civilisation in history are being chipped away, well, more like, jackhammered away. The people doing this and the networks of power that support them do not know what kind of society they are creating, and I hope that they enjoy it.

There is a sliver of hope I think. There exist many pockets of 'resistance' and the left will, eventually, eat itself. There are signs of that already. But what destruction will be caused in this process?

I think there is hope, too, outside the Islamo-'Woke' nightmare that is developing in these times. I still believe that those responsible for this are a tiny minority with very loud voices, and the squeaky wheel gets the grease of course, or as we say over here, empty vessels make the most noise. And I believe that the majority of 'ordinary' people find these developments amusing and largely irrelevant. Ordinary, decent, people have to use time and energy living their lives and to follow their dreams of homes, children, holidays, material goods and whatever else they desire. Those that dwell in the 'woke' bubble have no conception whatsoever of the day to day lives of ordinary folk and fail to see just how much their lives, those in the bubble, are dependent on the efforts of the working classes.

These trends have also been magnified by social media and the sheer speed that bad ideas and utter ignorance can be spread. I would also argue that social media has created a space that encourages quick responses that are not thought through and with a childlike focus on 'feelings'.

I will not excuse myself, either, from being too emotional at times and being too quick to post items that are not totally the truth. I feel ashamed about that and try to control my more basic reactions.

I have written elsewhere on the phenomenon, the 'monsters of the id' have been released.

I am also particularly sad about:

1. The utter ignorance and disrespect that is shown to the many 1,000's of people, both famous and unknown, who gave their time, energy, resources and sometimes their lives to creating Western Civilisation. Yes, they all had feet of clay but, who doesn't? We are all human and we all have the imperfections of human nature. The sheer childish manner in which the crudest form of black and white thinking is used here makes me truly, truly despair.
   
2. The unbelievable depth of ignorance of  'the woke'. It is fractal ignorance, no matter how far down you go there is even more ignorance. The lack of knowledge of the details and subtleties of history, philosophy, literature, art, music, literature and even science makes me very sad indeed. The education system in the West appears to be dead.

What worries me very much is how the social media giants have also become 'woke' and are aiding the movement toward totalitarianism, how much power the big IT corporations now wield.

I realise this is a sketch and a bit thin, but I could deepen many of the points I make here.

But all these developments have created in me such feelings of despair, loss, disappointment and, yes, anger. Everything I believed in and argued for over most of my adult life is being simply thrown away. I really don't care much anymore, and am pleased that I am the age I am.

As I said, I am 66 years old. I could live another 20 years or so if I am lucky. Well, I say 'lucky', but given the way the world is moving, I don't know if lucky is the right word here.

I will admit to being afraid of the future, partly because I am an old, white, gammon male with the wrong opinions and beliefs about .. so damn much.

Maybe I am too pessimistic? Maybe this period will pass? Maybe the 'woke' will begin to see the issues and problems with their viewpoint? Maybe they will grow up? Maybe the next generation will reject the 'woke' ideologies? Maybe people will simply have had enough? It is very possible that this will happen, it has happened before. But, as I said, what damage will be done before then?

Si vis pacem, para bellum

¤

Islam delenda est

The Things that I hold to be True (Revised).

I have been attempting to clarify my thoughts on a range of issues and to pin down what it is that I truly believe and would be prepared to stand up for. At my age it may well seem a little late I suppose, but I have tended to flop around a bit and I think I am at a point where I need to do this. Or, at least, try to do this.

I am an older, heterosexual, white, male – that makes me public enemy number one in these enlightened times, I know. I am English by birth and British by politics and law. Of both of these, I am very proud.

My ontological and epistemological positions can be summed up as follows:

I believe that there is a real reality out there that we can know the truth about. That reality may often not fit our wishes and ideological predilections, but it is there and we have to learn to live with it.

What I am about to list are things that I think are definitely true or more than likely to be true, or are, at least, reasonable. The positions that I take are based on sound science, sound empirical data, sound logic and sound reasoning. I am prepared to stand up and to argue for all of the claims I am about to make.

1. There are two sexes. Male and female.
2. There are cognitive and emotional differences between the two sexes.
3. There are cognitive and emotional differences between different genetic populations. In the old days, we would say races. But the modern concept of genetic populations doesn’t quite fit the old divisions.
4. Within a given population there is variation, usually a normal distribution, of cognitive and emotional development, skills, abilities and so on.
5. The individual is the only unit of analysis and legal status that matters. To reduce individuals to the average qualities of some fictitious social grouping of which they are by chance a member – nationality, race, gender, social class and so on is to commit a basic logical blunder.
6. Human beings are biological machines, a product of evolution, and carry within them a range of cognitive and emotional mechanisms shaped by that evolution
7. As much as we try to, we cannot escape our biological nature, that we will live, age and die and that we have certain behavioural predispositions because of our chthonic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic) nature.
8. Free will, as traditionally understood, is a myth. Maybe a necessary one, but a myth.
9. There are no ontological entities beyond the material. In other words, all religions and spiritual notions are just fairy stories. I am aware that some people, with whom I otherwise am very much in agreement, won’t like this. But, there it is. The only religious framework that has ever attracted me is Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism. Zen has no gods and no transcendental entities and is more of a philosophy of life than a religion. However, there is a European philosophy that is very similar to Zen, and recently I have become very interested in it, again. That philosophy is Stoicism. I think that Stoicism lost out to the myth and fascination of the ‘Mystical east’.
10. Capitalism, while far from perfect, is the best system yet devised for the production and distribution of economic goods. Due to capitalism humanity has been lifted as far above its dependence on brute nature, far above the default existence level of humanity, as is possible to go.
    Capitalism is what people do if they are left alone.
11. Democracy … Mmmmm, democracy is extremely problematic. Riddled with difficulties. However, I somewhat reluctantly accept it is better than most alternatives. I confess that I have a soft spot for a monarchy, but that is maybe a little old fashioned.
12. While climate change is happening I am not convinced that it is more than part of the normal fluctuations of climate on this planet. There have been some huge variations in the past.
13. Ecological, or organic, foodstuffs and products are, to be crude, BS*. BS in great big steaming heaps.
14. Alternative energy sources are also, largely, BS. I am a committed believer in and supporter of nuclear power. Nuclear power would solve all our energy problems.
15. Alternative anything is usually BS too. For example, if ‘alternative medicines’ work, then they are medicine are they not?
16. I am not a pacifist. There are some things that I would definitely fight for. At my age and in my physical condition, I would last about 30 seconds, if I was lucky,  in a war zone. But, for the right cause, I would be there.
17. Socialism and all its variants are the evilest political ideology ever to arise in the history of humanity. They have killed millions and ruined the lives of millions more.
18. I support a sort of minarchist libertarianism. That is to say, ideally, there should be no State, but recognising certain realities the State is necessary to provide a certain minimum framework of law, order and defence for individuals to pursue their lives. A night watchman State.
    And, once upon a time, I was a Revolutionary Marxist can you believe!
19. Apart from the minimum structure supplied by the State, all other services would be supplied by the market or voluntary associations, based on demand.

Well, that turned into a bit of a rag-tag semi-rant didn’t it? And there are some contradictions in there, and I am aware of them, I think. However, that is ‘The Things I hold to be True.’ And I am painfully aware that I am not always absolutely consistent in this, especially when my emotional reactions take over. But, nevertheless, these are the things I try to hold to.

If you read this, then thank you.

*(In case you don't know BS = Bullshit)

Kusunoki Masashige - Part One

I first saw a version of the above picture when I was in my early 20's. It was in a Pelican book called The Samurai by H. Paul Varley (1974). I no longer have that book. I haven't seen the picture from the book anywhere else, but there are many painted versions of the same event. The picture shows a Samurai warrior saying farewell to his son. The warrior knows that he will never see his son again. He is going to fight a battle that he knows that he cannot win. He knows that he will die either in battle or by seppuku (ritual suicide) because he lost the battle.

The picture 'said' something to me. It had, of course, a caption that read something like "Kusunoki says farewell to his son", so I had an idea as to what it was about.

Kusunoki Masashige (楠木 正成) was a samurai warrior. Very little is known about him except for the last few years of his life. He was born about the year 1294 and died on the 4th of July 1336 by committing seppuku after losing the battle of the Minato River (or the battle of Minatogawa). Very little is known about his family line, the Kusonoki, which suggests he was probably fairly low down on the samurai hierarchy.

As an aside in Japanese, the family name comes first and the given name last.

He was a samurai warrior which means that he had all the rights, privileges, duties and responsibilities of a samurai, equally with all the other samurai.

However, within the samurai class, there was a feudal hierarchy. The wealthiest samurai were vassals of the clan chieftain. They, too, gave some of their lands to their vassals, and so on down the hierarchy with wealth, power and land getting less and less as you go down. Masashige was, probably, in the middle or near the bottom. He is recorded as "well to do" in some documents. He probably had a fief that supported his family and household with some peasant plots under him. He would have had, maybe, a small retinue of armed warriors of his own.

In the year 1331, a coalition of warrior clans rebelled against the Emperor Go-Daigo, who had been restoring the power of the Emperor (the Kemmu Restoration) over the Shogunate.

Go-Daigo issued a call to arms asking for assistance. Few answered this call. Among those who did were the Hojo clan and Masashige. The Emperor had had a dream while sheltering under a camphor tree (a Kusunoki) and this convinced him that the warrior who would save him would have that name.

From 1331 to 1336 Masashige engaged in a campaign, often a guerilla campaign, against the rebels led by a warrior called  Ashikaga Takauji. He proved himself to be a brilliant commander and tactician, holding out against great odds.

In 1336 the Emperor, not wishing to abandon the capital Kyoto to the advancing rebels and advised by a warrior chieftain called Nitta Yoshisuke, insisted, against Masashiges advice, that the advance of Takauji must be stopped by giving battle. This led to the battle named above and to Masashiges death.

This is his death poem:

"I could not return, I presume
So I will keep my name

Among those who are dead with bows."

That is a very brief description of Kusunoki Masashiges life. After the Meiji Restoration, when the Emperor was restored to power and the Shogunate and feudal system were abolished in the late 19th Century, he became a hero of almost god-like proportions because of his loyalty to the Emperor, and he was awarded the highest honour that Japan could award. Because of his loyalty to the Emperor.

The following is a close up of a statue of Masashige that stands outside the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

But, here, I want to contemplate why he came to mean so much to me and still does.

Was it because he was a samurai? One of my passions then, and now, was history, particularly military history, and especially pre-modern history. I had a very slim knowledge of the samurai, most of it wrong, as I later discovered. Reading the book I mention at the start triggered a deeper curiosity and I read everything that I could. There isn't so much available in English (as far as I am aware), but a lot in Japanese. There is also, in Japan, a huge archive of official and private documents going back centuries. All in Japanese of course.

I can't speak Japanese, although I have tried to learn it, without success.

As I said, the samurai are shrouded in an awful lot of myth-making and sheer nonsense. Much of this is relatively recent, as an interest in the so-called 'mysterious east' has grown in modern times.

A lot of this myth-making, however, began in Japan itself after the year 1600 when the Tokugawa (Edo) Shogunate was established and the long peace began. Samurai warriors slowly lost their military role during the 280 odd years of the Tokugawa (Edo) period. Also during this period the feudal system became formalised, enforced by law and the position of social groups became fixed. The harking back to a more warrior-like age of the samurai slowly began to lead to the romanticising of them and that period.

An example of this is bushido, the so-called 'warriors code.' This was, actually, a collection of slightly different codes. It prescribed the code of morality for a samurai warrior. Now, while there certainly existed a code of sorts from the earliest days of the samurai, it was a bit fluid and flexible.

However, the samurai seemed a bit special to me, in a way, and the picture at the top seemed, in some ways, to exemplify this code. Loyal to the wishes of his Emperor Masashige was prepared to die, even though the decision to fight went against all his military experience and knowledge.

But there are other warriors and warrior codes to be found in history. The European Knight of the same period is greatly undervalued and underestimated, I believe. There were codes, just as bendable however as bushido. The European Knight was just as capable of showing undying loyalty to the bitter end. The European Knight had fighting skills just as sophisticated as those of the samurai.

So why him?

Loyalty to a belief or an individual is not uncommon. Think of loyal nazis and loyal communists.

However, many of the last named were prepared to ditch their loyalty to save their own skins.

So undying loyalty may be a factor.

But loyalty to what? That is, surely, something to take into account. Loyalty to Nazism or communism seems grotesque to me. And Masashige was loyal to an Emperor, a supreme ruler. Another totalitarian or despotic system, which doesn't appeal much to me either.

Is it his military genius, because he was undoubtedly a very capable military leader? But there are other military geniuses in history, many of whom I admire too. Maybe because he fought with great skill and success against huge odds. But that is not unique in history either.

I think that, maybe, it is a little of all these things plus he was prepared to stand up, be counted and fight for what he believed. Plus, of course, the slightly exotic image I had of the samurai at that time.

Whatever the reason he remains a significant figure in my imagination and I am still interested in and admiring of him. And he, as it were, sparked my interest in a topic that has never left me.

Here is a picture of Kusunoki Masashige. I do not think that it is contemporary with him.

As I said, I intend to write a post that sets Masashiges story in a much wider context, a bit less personal.