Martial

Martial (pronounced mahr-shuhl)

(1) Of a state or of people, inclined or disposed to war; warlike.

(2) Of, suitable for, or associated with war or the military.

(3) Characteristic of or befitting a warrior.

(4) As Martial Law, the administration of a country by the armed forces.

(5) In astronomy, Of or relating to Mars (obsolete except in historic use)

(6) In astrology, a celestial object under the astrological influence of the planet Mars (now rare).

(7) In science fiction (SF or SciFi), a synonym of Martian (inhabitant of the planet Mars) (archaic).

(8) In law, a trial conducted by a military court (usually administering military law but in special circumstances jurisdiction to civil law can be extended) (hyphenated in US use whereas in most of the English-speaking world a hyphen is used to differentiate between the noun (court martial) and verb (court-martial); the noun plural is courts martial.

(9) In chemistry & medicine, containing, or relating to iron (which alchemists symbolically associated with the planet Mars); chalybeate, ferric, ferrous (obsolete).

(10) In ornithology, as martial eagle, a large bird of prey of species Polemaetus bellicosus, native to sub-Saharan Africa.

(11) As a proper noun, a male given name from Latin, narrowly applied to certain historic persons (but some foreign cognates are modern given names); an Anglicized cognomen (given name) of the Spanish-born Roman poet and epigrammatist Marcus Valerius Martialis (circa 40-104).

1325–1375: From the Middle English martial (war-like, of or pertaining to war) from the Medieval Latin Mārtiālis (of Mars or war) from martiālis (belonging or dedicated to the Mārs, the Roman god of war, or to war), the construct being Mārti- (stem of Mārs) + -ālis (the Latin suffix used to form adjectives of relationship from nouns or numerals).  The sense of "connected with military organizations" (as opposed to civil) dates from the late fifteenth century and survives most obviously in the court-martial from the military system of justice.  The use (usually with a capital M-) in the sense of "pertaining to or resembling the planet Mars" emerged in English in the 1620s and the phrase Martial law (military rule over civilians) was first used in the 1530s.  Martial arts from 1909 cam to be the collective name for the fighting sports of Japan and the surrounding region (the Japanese bujutsu). 

Martial Law

Martial law describes the suspension of civilian government and the imposition of military control.  This is done typically as a temporary response to extraordinary circumstances such as natural disasters, invasions, revolutions or pandemics but is commonly used in occupied territories.  Except for areas of occupation in which government may wholly be staffed by the military, most systems of martial law adopt a hybrid model, using at least some of any extant civilian administration.  The experience varies, martial rule becoming sometimes essentially permanent; Egypt has been under martial law almost continuously since 1967, the most recent declaration in 1981.  It can be a brutal and bloody business (Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan et al, many of the usual suspects in Africa often not bothering with formal declarations) or benign to the point hardly anyone notices (Fiji).  The post-war prosecution of the surviving Nazi leadership, generally known as the Nuremberg trials, was technically a series of International Military Tribunals (IMTs), conducted in occupied Germany under martial law.  In Australia, Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur (1784–1854; Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) 1823-1836) imposed martial law between 1828-1830 during a violent conflict between colonists and indigenous peoples in Tasmania.  It remains the longest period of martial law in Australian history.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (b 1945) (left) with General Than Shwe (b 1933; chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) 1992-2011) (centre) and General Khin Nyunt (b 1939; prime-minister of Myanmar 2003-2004) (right), Yangon, Myanmar, September 1994.

Martial law in Myanmar (Burma) was associated with the creation of a new word: slorc (pronounced slork).  Not best pleased with election results in 1988, the military seized power, announcing the formation of the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC), dictionaries soon noting slorc had morphed from acronym to word, one suggesting it may endure as a synonym for junta (a military dictatorship, a borrowing from the used to describe the grand council of state in Spain and dating from the 1620s, from the Spanish junta (feminine of junto), from the Latin iunctus (perfect passive participle of iungō (join)).  Use however faded after 1997 when the SLORC (pronounced slork) was re-named SPDC (State Peace & Development Council) which, not rolling so well of the tongue, never caught on.

The SLORC's other contribution to language was changing the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar.  Both Burma and Myanmar are derived from the name of the majority Burman (Bamar) ethnic group, versions of both existing in Burmese and long used in different circumstances.  The regional variations had confused the British who, after decades of hegemony, since beginning occupation in 1854, annexed the country in 1886 (reputedly sustaining eight casualties in the battle), appending the territory as a province of British India under the Raj.  Prior to that, on maps and in documents, the spellings used had included Bermah, Burme, Birmah, Brama, Burmah, Burma & Burmah.  Even the usually decisive SLORC dithered, gazetting Union of Burma and then Union of Myanmar before settling on Republic of the Union of Myanmar.

Lindsay Lohan in martial mood.

Internationally, adoption has been mixed.  The United Nations (UN), on the basis that, as a general principle, when a recognized government advises the secretary-general a certain name and spelling should be used, that is followed, adopted Myanmar, a process hardly rare and one followed also by its predecessor (the League of Nations (1920-1946), Iran becoming Persia in 1935, the Upper Volta becoming Burkina Faso in 1954 etc.  Many countries and institutions follow the same protocol although the European Commission (the EC, the administrative component of the executive of the European Union (EU)), never happy except when sitting on the fence, uses "Burma/Myanmar".  On the Burma page of their World Factbook, the US Central Intelligence Agency CIA notes dryly “the US Government has not officially adopted the name.”

Halloween

Halloween (pronounced hal-uh-ween or hal-oh-een)

The evening of 31 October, historically was celebrated mostly in the UK, Canada, the US and Ireland but it spread to Scandinavia and Australia and can now be found in many countries, some participants presumably unaware of its history.

Circa 1745: From the festivals All Hallows Even (also as Hallow-e'en & Hallow e'en), celebrated as a popular holiday on the last night of October (the eve of All Saints Day).  All Hallows’ Eve was the evening before All Saints’ Day, from the Old English ealra halgena mæssedæg (All Hallows' Mass-day) and the literal meaning is "hallowed evening" or "holy evening", derived from the Scottish term Allhallowe'en although throughout the British Isles it had long been noted in the calendar as "the evening before All-Hallows".  In Scots, the word eve is even, and this became contracted to e'en or een, eventually to become Hallowe'en.  Hallow was from the otherwise-obsolete Middle English noun halwe (holy person, saint), from the Old English halga, which is from the source of the verb hallow.

A traditional Jack O'Lantern, hung throughout Scotland and Ireland to ward off evil spirits.  Pumpkins came later which were bigger and easier to carve but aesthetically, a turnip makes sense because the shape tends to more closely resemble that of a human skull.

The idea of "All Hallows'" existed in Old English but "All Hallows' Eve" didn’t appear until 1556.  All-Hallows is from the Middle English al-halwe, from the late Old English ealra halgan (all saints, the saints in heaven collectively) and this was both the name of the feast day and of individual churches.  In the regions of the British Isles the fests were celebrated on various days (influenced as in pagan times by the rhythm of the seasons and the demands placed on the allocation and location of labor) but in the Church records the date 31 October was being described as alle halwe eue by the early twelfth century.  The term “Hallow-day” for "All-Saints Day" is from 1590s, replacing the late thirteenth century halwemesse day.  The consequential Hallowtide (the first week of November) emerged in the mid-fifteenth century.

In pagan times it was the last night of the year in the old Celtic calendar, where it was Old Year's Night (a night for witches) and Halloween is thus another of the pagan festivals essentially taken over and re-branded by Christianity.  Because of the association with witches the day was always associated with magic and sorcery and it was this tradition which inspired Robert Burns’ (1759-1796) poem Halloween, penned in 1785 and first published in 1786 in the Kilmarnock Volume (1786).  Of twenty-eight stanzas (epic length by Burns’ standards) and written in a mix of Scots and English, it shows the clear influence of the twelve stanza on Hallow-E'en (1780) by John Mayne (1759–1836) and the spirit of the evening is captured in Burns’ words which suggest Halloween is "thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands".

Off to the party.  Lindsay Lohan entering the Cuckoo Club Halloween Party, 31 October 2018.

Although most associated with children going door-to-door in costume demanding candy with the (usually implied) menace of some minor prank if denied (hence trick-or-treat), this aspect is of US origin and dates only from the 1930s.  In these modern, litigious times, children are encouraged to be pragmatic, cut their losses and seek more treats from the more generous rather than visit tricks upon the parsimonious.

Like a number of the festivals in the Christian calendar, it’s a borrowing from pagan rituals, this one the last night of the year in the old Celtic calendar, where it was Old Year's Night, treated as a night for witches, hence the tradition of the costumes in this theme with pumpkins carved in demonic form (although the original Jack O'Lanterns in Scotland were turnips rather than pumpkins).  The Christian feast of 31 October begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide which, in the western liturgical calendar, is dedicated to the remembrance of the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the departed faithful.  The view that Halloween is a lineal descendant of old pagan festivals, especially the Gaelic Samhain, is generally accepted as being one of many Christianized by the early Church which found it more profitable to accommodate rather than suppress popular, unthreatening traditions.  However, there’s always been a purist sect within the Church which has denied the pagan link and insists Halloween’s origins are wholly Christian.  Modern capitalism is neutral on this, the day just another secular event during which much stuff can be sold and one unusual in that in United States, it’s the only event on the calendar free from some sort of moral or spiritual baggage.  Many abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition which endures in the vegetarian dishes of this vigil day such as potato pancakes, toffee-apples and soul cakes.

Pumpkin carving can reflect many influences including pumpkin ∏ (pi) (left), Leggo (centre) and Kim Kardashian (right).

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,

Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.
Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu' blithe that night.

Opening stanzas of Halloween by Robert Burns.

Samhainophobia trigger: posters for the 1978 movie Halloween.

One general principle (certainly in the West) which may be gleaned from the work of phenomenologists is that where a cultural practice exists, there may be an associated phobia.  The morbid fear of Halloween is known as samhainophobia, the construct being the Celtic samhuin (the construct being sam (summer) + fuin (end)) + phobia.  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).  The name of the festival Samhuin was from the earlier Samfuin, from the Old Irish.  Samhainophobia can be triggered by many things including the general fear of ghosts, witches, skeletons, spiders, black cats, bats, vampires and any of the other spooky stuff associated with Halloween; the representations in popular culture (axe murderers and such) presumably reinforce these fears.  Although the research seems sparse, it seems likely the symptoms of the condition would be not dissimilar to those suffered by patients afflicted by victims of related phobias including phasmophobia (fear of ghosts), wiccaphobia (fear of witches and witchcraft), sanguivoriphobia (fear of vampires), chiroptophobia (fear of bats), nyctophobia (fear of darkness), arachnophobia (fear of spiders), skelephobia (fear of skeletons), placophobia (fear of tombstones), and michaelmyersphobia (fear of Michael Myers).

Paean

Paean (pronounced pee-uhn)

(1) A hymn of invocation or thanksgiving, sun in Ancient Greece to Apollo or some other deity.

(2) By extension, a song of praise, joy or triumph, especially if sung loudly and joyously).

(3) By extension, an expression of reverential or enthusiastic praise.

1535–1545: From the Latin paean, (religious or festive hymn; hymn of deliverance, hymn to a help-giving god), from the Ancient Greek (παιάν (also παιήων or παιών)) (paiān) (hymn to Apollo), from his title Paiā́n (or Paiōn) (denoting the physician to the gods), from the phrase Ἰὼ Παιᾱ́ν (Iṑ Paiā́n) (“O Paean!, Thanks to Paean!).  As well as the name (from Homer) by which the divine physician was known, paiān was later an epithet of Apollo and thus of interest is the literal translation "one who touches" (in the sense of “curing by a touch of the hand”), perhaps from a word in the hymn like paio (to touch, strike).  English picked it up as paean (as did Middle French) which was adopted in many languages but variations include the French péan (although the Middle French paean peacefully co-exists), the Italian peana and the Portuguese peã & péan.

The Greek παιάν was from παιάϝων (paiáwōn) (one who heals illnesses with magic) but the origin is contested.  Some etymologists link it with παῖϝα & παϝία (blow), related to παίω (beat), from the primitive Indo-European pēu-, pyu- & pū- (to hit; to cut)- or παύω (paúō) (withhold; to bring to an end; to abate, to stop), from the primitive Indo-European pehw- (few, little; smallness).  Paiān remains however mysterious and may be from the Archaic Greek or indeed be pre-Greek.  Paean (present participle paeaning & past participle paeaned) & paeanism are nouns, paeanic is an adjective, paeanically seems to have been used as an adverb and paeanize is a verb (apparently first used by philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) in the early seventeenth century).  The noun plural is paeans and the alternative spelling (in occasional US use) is pean (pæan the traditional form).  A paean may variously be referred to variously as a hymn, acclamation, anthem, ode, praise, psalm, song, laud or laudation and, outside the technical use in texts from Antiquity, the choice is probably dictated by context and desired literary effect.

A fresco of Apollo playing the kithara, from a building in the Forum of Rome (Augustan period), Museum of the Forum Romanum, Rome.

As the lyrical phrase “O Paean!” hints, in Antiquity, a Paean was a song of joyful triumph.  Most surviving texts suggest the paean was written usually in the ancient Greek Dorian mode and was accompanied by the kithara, the instrument of Apollo, god of music.  The military, when paeans were sung on the battlefield, augmented the kithara by the aulos and kithara.

Confusion still sometimes surrounds the understanding of the Greek Dorian Mode because it was long confused with the modern use of “Dorian” mode.  Like many of the tangled constructions and interpretations from Greek & Latin which endure to this day, the fault lies mostly with medieval ecclesiastical scholars.  Some of the names of musical modes in use today, (Mixolydian, Dorian et al), are direct borrowings in spelling but not meaning, the scribes of the Church misunderstanding the mechanics of Greek texts.  In Athens and beyond, intervals were counted from top to bottom whereas the practice during the Middle Ages was (sometimes) to work from bottom to top, hence the jumble.  The error was recognized by the seventeenth century but such had been the proliferation of the new conventions of use that the misinterpretations were allowed to remain, labelled “Church Modes” to distinguish them from the ancients.

The problems began with the translation of a treatise on music (De institutione musica (The Structure of Music (circa 507)) by Boethius (Saint Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius; circa 478-524, a Roman and historian and philosopher) which was neglected until unearthed by scholars during the ninth century who found it so compelling it was soon the most widely translated and disseminated medieval work on the subject.  The influence of Boethius was immense, his De consolatione philosophiae (On the Consolation of Philosophy (523)) one of the classic works through which the classical age was understood during the centuries which followed although modern historians do caution the medieval (and later) reverence of antiquity did lead to some idealized and romantic visions of the lost world taking hold.

Both Plato & Aristotle fancied themselves as musicologists and thought the ancient Greek Dorian the most "manly" of all the musical modes, suggesting it could move soldiers to heroic acts in battle.  The famous Battle of Thermopylae, a paean composed for a solo lyre, was inspired by the tale of two-thousand-odd Spartans, Thespians & Thebans, a rear-guard which for two days defied a whole Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.  Professional musicians today note that to convey the martial spirit which should be summoned in performance, it’s vital to understand the ancient Greek Dorian mode so it’s played with the vigor Plato & Aristotle described when writing of the technique.

The USS Pueblo, moored on the Taedong River in Pyongyang, part of the DPRK’s Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.

The USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a lightly-armed, US Navy scientific research vessel which in January 1968 was attacked and captured by the DPRK (North Korean) military which alleged she was engaged in espionage activities while in their territorial waters.  One US sailor was killed during the attack, the surviving 82 seized and not released for almost a year, a period described variously as the Pueblo “affair”, “incident" or “crisis".  The Pueblo is still held in the DPRK as a war-prize (although the legal status of that is dubious) and the US Navy has never struck the vessel from the active list, Washington’s position that it was seized illegally and should be returned.

Bowing North Koreans make their grateful paeans before the statue of Kim Il-sung (1912-1994, Great Leader of the DPRK 1948-1994).

The word paean came in handy as a diplomatic device.  As part of the deal securing the sailors’ release, the captain issued a statement "confess(ing) to his and the crew's transgression."  Before he recorded the brief speech, the text was checked by the DPRK government and they were presumably pleased at the capitalist lackeys saying: "We paean the DPRK.  We paean the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung.  We paean the DPRK flag" but missed an essential nuance, the captain pronouncing "paean" as "pee on".  Nor did seizing the hardly imposing Pueblo achieve the Great Leader’s strategic objective, the US increasing its diplomatic and military support for the ROC (South Korea).

Football

Football (pronounced foot-bawl)

(1) As Association Football (soccer), a game in which two opposing teams of 11 players each defend goal-nets at opposite ends of a field, points being scored by placing the ball in an opponent’s net.

(2) As American football, a game in which two opposing teams of 11 players each defend goals at opposite ends of a field having goal posts at each end, with points being scored either by carrying the ball across the opponent's goal line or kicking it over the crossbar between the opponent's goal posts.

(3) By association (sometimes officially and sometimes as an alternative or informal name), any of various games played with spherical or ellipsoid balls, based usually on two teams competing (variously) to kick, head, carry, or otherwise propel the ball in the direction of each other's territory, the mechanisms of scoring varying according to the rules of the code (Rugby Union, Rugby League, Canadian Football, Australian Rules Football, Gaelic Football et al).

(4) The inflated ball (of various sizes and either spherical or ellipsoid in shape and historically made of leather but now often synthetic) used in football, the Rugby codes etc.

(5) Any person, thing or abstraction treated roughly, tossed about or a problem or (in the phrase “political football”) an issue repeatedly passed from one group or person to another and treated as a pretext for argument (often to gain political advantage) instead of being resolved.

(6) In slang (originally in the US military but now widely used), a briefcase containing the codes and options the US president would use to launch a nuclear attack, carried by a military aide and kept available to the president at all times (also as nuclear football, atomic football, black box or black bag) (by convention with an initial capital).

(7) As a modifier, football club, football ground, football fanatic, football pitch, football hooligan, football fan, football match etc.

(8) In commercial use, something sold at a reduced or special price.

1350-1400: From the Middle English fut ball, fotbal & footbal, the construct being foot + ball, the name derived from the games which involved kicking the ball.  Foot was from the Middle English fut, fot, fote & foot, from the Old English fōt, from the Proto-West Germanic fōt, from the Proto-Germanic fōts, from the primitive Indo-European pṓds.  Ball was from the Middle English bal, ball & balle, from the (unattested) Old English beall & bealla (round object, ball) or the Old Norse bǫllr (a ball), both from the Proto-Germanic balluz & ballô (ball), from the primitive Indo-European boln- (bubble), from the primitive Indo-European bel- (to blow, inflate, swell).  It was cognate with the Old Saxon ball, the Dutch bal, the Old High German bal & ballo (from which Modern German gained Ball (ball) & Ballen (bale)).  The related forms in Romance languages are borrowings from the Germanic.

Lindsay Lohan in “gridiron” gear, Life Size (2000).

Apparently in international use now less common than once (“NFL” now preferred), the term "gridiron" remains frequently used in the US describe American football including the NFL (National Football League).  The word refers to the marking originally painted on the field: two intersecting series of parallel lines running the length & breadth of the field which produced a cross-hatched effect recalling the gridirons used on stoves.  After the 1919-1920 season, the grid was replaced with yard lines still in use today but the name has stuck.  In the thirteenth century it was an instrument of torture on which victims chained before being burned by fire and in the same vein (though less gruesomely), in the 1500s it described a similar wrought grate on which meat and fish were broiled over hot coals.  In modern use, it's used of lattice-like structures (though not necessarily of iron) including in ship repair where grid irons are used as an open frame which supports vessels for examination, cleaning and repairs when out of the water and in the slang of live theatre, it's a raised framework from which lighting is suspended.  An interesting (though no longer permitted) use emerged in twentieth century land law in New Zealand where "to grid iron" was to purchase land with the boundaries drawn so remaining adjacent parcels were smaller than the minimum which could be registered in fee simple (freehold), thus preserving the buyers view and excluding the threat of undesirable neighbors.

In Australia & New Zealand, “footy” is the common slang used in all of the four major codes.  Slang terms for footballs include moleskin, pill, peanut, pigskin, pillow & pineapple.  The names are an allusion to the shape and that so many start with the letter “p” is thought mere coincidence.  The figurative sense of “something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes” which is the ancestor of the “political football” was in use as early as the 1530s while the US military slang referencing the portable device with which a US president emerged in the 1960s.  Football (in the sense of soccer) is called “the world game”: and like the game, forms of the word have spread to many languages including the Arabic كرة القدم‎ (calque), the Czech fotbal, the Dutch: voetbal (calque), the German Fußball (Fussball) (calque), the Hebrew כדורגל‎ (calque), the Japanese フットボール (futtobōru), the Korean 풋볼 (putbol), the Maltese futbol, the Portuguese futebol, the Romanian fotbal, the Russian футбо́л (futból), the Spanish fútbol, the Thai ฟุตบอล (fút-bɔn) and the Turkish futbol.  Football is a noun & verb, footballer & footballization are nouns, footballing is a verb & adjective and footballed is a verb; the noun plural is footballs.

The Nuclear Football

US Navy Commander walking across the White House lawn, carrying the “Football” onto Marine One (the presidential helicopter).

The “Football” (also as nuclear football, atomic football, black box or black bag) is a briefcase (reputedly made of a reinforced material with a black leather skin) which a military aide to the US president carries so at all times when the commander-in-chief is remote from designated command centres (such as the White House Situation Room), orders to the military can be issued including the command to authorize the launch of nuclear weapons.  The Football contains lists of the codes needed to transmit the launch order and the essential technical documentation required to determine the form a nuclear attack should assume.  Apparently, there’s also a check-list of the domestic measures immediately to be executed in the event of an attack including the imposition of martial law and the closing of US airspace to civilian aviation.  This was an outgrowth of the “SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan) Execution Handbook which codified in one publication all essential information needed in the circumstances, something developed during the administration of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) but in the way of things familiar to those acquainted with bureaucratic inertia, the physical size (and thus the weight) of the contents grew and there are reports the package now weights in excess of 20 kg (45 lb).  Of course, everything could be contained on a single USB pen-drive (and the Football presumably includes a number of these) but because it’s something of a doomsday device, everything needs to be accessible in a WCS (worst case scenario) in which electronic devices are for whatever reason unable to be used.

Set of the War Room in Dr Strangelove (1964).  It’s presumably apocryphal but it’s said Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, US president 1981-1989) remarked his only disappointment upon becoming president was that the White House Situation Room was more like something in which an insurance company might conduct seminars than the film’s dramatic War Room set.

The first known use of something recognizable as a “Football” was during the second administration (1957-1961) of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) although in those days it contained purely the vital information and none of the independent communications connectivity which apparently was added as early as 1977.  Quite when first it was called the Football isn’t known but the term was in use during the Kennedy years and all agree it was based on the idea of the football “being passed” as happens in the game, the link being that it’s carried 24/7/365 by an on-duty military officer.  There’s also the story that “Football” was a refinement (possibly a euphemistic one) of the earlier (and also unattributed) nickname “dropkick”.  In the game of football the dropkick can be used to transfer the ball to another player and it was used as a codename in the film Dr Strangelove, a dark comedy of nuclear destruction.  However whether art imitated life or it was the other way around isn’t known and Football anyway prevailed.

The arrival of the Football in Hiroshima in May 2023 with Joe Biden (b 1942; US president since 2021) who was in town for the Group of Seven (G7) meeting was noted on Japanese Social Media although it wasn’t the first time the Football had been in the city which was the target of the first nuclear attack, Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) visiting in 2016.  By the time President Obama stepped off the Air Force One, the Football enabled him to unleash within 30 minutes the equivalent of over 22,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs which, while rather less than in 1969 when the when the size of the US nuclear arsenal peaked, was still quite an increase on the two deliverable weapons available in August 1945.  The thermo-nuclear (fusion) devices in use since the 1950s were also a thousand-fold (and beyond) more powerful than the fission bombs deployed against Hiroshima and Nagasaki although interestingly, while for decades the Hiroshima bomb was a genuine one-off (using uranium rather than plutonium), analysts believe in recent years uranium has again become fashionable with recent adopters such as Pakistan and the DPRK (North Korea) building them because of the relative simplicity of construction.

Fasces

Fasces (pronounced fas-eez)

(1) In ancient Rome, one or more bundles of rods (historically wooden sticks) containing an axe with its blade protruding, borne before Roman magistrates as an emblem of official power.

(2) In modern Italy, a bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting, used as the symbol of Fascism (sometimes used imitatively in other places).

1590–1600: From the Latin fasces (bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting), the plural of fascis (bundle or pack of wood), from the Proto-Italic faski- (bundle) possibly from the primitive Indo-European bhasko- (band, bundle), (the source also of the Middle Irish basc (neckband), the Welsh baich (load, burden) and possibly the Old English bæst (inner bark of the linden tree)).  In Ancient Rome, the bundle (the “fascio littorio”) was carried by a functionary before a lictor (a senior Roman magistrate) as a symbol of the judiciary’s power over life and limb (the sticks symbolized the use of corporal punishment (by whipping or thrashing with sticks) while the axe-head represented capital jurisdiction (execution by beheading)).  From this specific symbolism, in Latin the word came to be used figuratively of “high office, supreme power”.  Fasces is a noun (usually used with a singular verb); the noun plural is fascis but fasces is used as both a singular & plural.  For this reason, some in the field of structural linguistics suggest fascis remains Latin while (and thus a foreign word) fasces has been borrowed by English (and is thus assimilated).

The Italian term fascismo (a fascist dictatorship; fascism) was from fascio (bundle of sticks) and ultimately from the Latin fasces.  The name was picked up by the political organizations in Italy known as fasci (originally created along the lines of guilds or syndicates, the structures surviving for some time even as some evolved into “conventional” political parties).  Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) recollections of events were not wholly reliable but there are contemporary documents which support his account that he co-founded Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria (Fasces of Revolutionary Action), the organisation publishing the Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista (the Revolutionary Internationalist Action League) in October 1914.  As far as is known, the future Duce’s embryonic movement was the first use of the terminology the world would come to know as “fascism”, the organizational structure of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party) first discussed in 1919 and codified in 1919 when the party was registered.

Surviving art from Ancient Rome confirms the fascio littorio was represented both  with the head of the axe protruding from the centre of the bundled rods of the fasces and through a gape in the sides (left) but in Fascist Italy (1922-1943), the official images issued by the state used almost exclusively the latter arrangement (right).   

The Fascists choose the ancient Roman fascio littorio (a bundle of rods tied around an axe) because (1) the literal suggestion of strength through unity; while a single rod (an individual) is easily broken, a bundle (the collective) is more resilient and resistant to force and (2) the symbolic value which dated from Antiquity of the strong state with the power of life & death over its inhabitants.  The evocation of the memories of the glories of Rome was important to Mussolini who wished to re-fashion Italian national consciousness along the lines of his own self-image: virile, martial and superior.  When he first formed his political movement, Italy had been a unified nation less little more than fifty years and Mussolini, his envious eye long cast at Empire builders like the British and Prussians, despaired that Italians seemed more impressed by the culture of the decadent French for whom “dress-making and cooking have been elevated to the level of art”.  The use by the Nazis of the swastika symbol was a similar attempt at linkage although less convincing; at least the history of the fasces was well documented.  The Nazis claimed the swastika as a symbol of the “Aryan People” which they quite erroneously claimed was a definable racial identity rather than a technical term used by linguistic anthropologists studying the evolution of European languages.  Although there was much overlap in style, racist ideology, fascist movements in different countries tended to localize their symbols and Falange in Spain was one of the few to integrate the fasces although the yoke & arrows of the Falange flags were actually an adoption of a design which had long appeared on the standards of the Spanish royal house.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945 was at least honest in private conversation when he admitted that of human beings that “scientifically, there is only one race” but the propaganda supporting his (ultimately genocidal) racist philosophy was concerned with effect, not facts.  Hitler too, had no wish to too deeply to dig into an inconvenient past.  It annoyed him that Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945) went about commissioning archaeological excavations of prehistoric sites which could only “…call the whole world’s attention to the fact we have no past?  It isn’t enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up those villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds.  All we prove by that is that we were still throwing stone hatchets and crouching around open fires when Greece and Rome had already reached the highest stage of culture”.  Perhaps with the Duce in mind, he added “The present-day Romans must be having a laugh at these revelations”.

The fascist salute has become so associated with Hitler and Nazism that in recent years some jurisdictions have banned its use, emulating the prohibition which has existed in Germany (the sanction pre-dating unification in 1990) for decades.  Because the salute is the same gesture as that used for purposes ranging from waving to one's mother to hailing a taxi, prosecutions are expected to be initiated only in cases of blatant anti-Semitism or other offensive acts.  The "salute" is so widely used that photographs exist of just about every politician in the act and they're often published; usually it's just a cheap journalistic trick but if carefully juxtaposed with something, it can be effective.     

The Duce’s reverence for the Ancient Rome of popular imagination accounts at least in part also for the Fascists' adoption of the Roman salute although Mussolini did also object to the shaking of hands on the basis it was “effete, un-Italian and un-hygienic” and as the reduced infection rates of just about everything during the “elbow-bumping” era of the COVID-19 social isolation illustrated, on that last point, he had a point.  Other fascist regimes and movements also adopted the salute, most infamously the Nazis although none were as devoted as Hitler who, quite plausibly, claimed to have spent hours a day for weeks using a spring-loaded “chest expander” he’d obtained by mail-order so he’d strengthen his shoulder muscles sufficiently to enable him to stand, sometimes for a hour or more with his right arm extended as parades of soldiers passed before him.

A much-published image of the Duce, raising his arm in the fascist salute next to the bronze statue of Nerva (Marcus Cocceius Nerva) (30–98; Roman emperor 96-98) in the Roman Forum.

However, historians maintain there’s simply no evidence anything like the fascist salute of the twentieth century was a part of the culture of Ancient Rome, either among the ruling class or any other part of the population.  Whether the adoption as a alleged emulation of Roman ways was an act of cynicism of self-delusion on the part of the Duce isn’t known although he may have been impressed by the presence of the gesture in neo-classical painting, something interesting because it wasn’t a motif in use prior to the eighteenth century.  This “manufacturing” of Antiquity wasn’t even then something new; the revival of interest in Greece and Rome during the Renaissance resulted in much of the material which in the last few hundred years has informed and defined in the popular imagination how the period looked and what life was like.  By the twentieth century, it was this art which was reflected in the props and sets used in the newly accessible medium of film and the salute, like the architecture, was part of the verisimilitude.  Mussolini enjoyed films and to be fair, there were in Italy a number of statutes from the epoch in which generals, emperors, senators and other worthies had a arm raised although historians can find no evidence which suggests the works were a representation of a cultural practice anything like a salute.  Indeed, an analysis of many statues revealed that rather than salutes, many of the raised arms were actually holding things and one of the best known was revealed to have been repaired after the spear once in the hand had been damaged.

Adolf Hitler showing the "long arm" & "short arm" variants of the fascist salute (left) and examples of the long arm & short arm penalty being awarded in rugby union (right).

In fascist use, what evolved was the “long-arm” salute used on formal occasions or for photo opportunities and a “short-arm” variation which was a gesture which referenced the formal salute which was little more than a bending of the elbow and involved the hand rising at a 45^o angle only to the level of the shoulder; in that the relationship of the short to the long can be thought symbiotic.  Amusingly and wholly unrelated to fascism, the concept was re-appropriated in the refereeing of rugby union where a “short-arm” penalty (officially a “free-kick”) is a penalty awarded for a minor infringement of the games many rules.  Whereas a “full-arm” penalty offers the team the choice of kicking for goal, kicking for touch or taking a tap to resume play, a “short-arm” penalty allows a kick at goal, a kick for touch or the option of setting a scrum instead of a lineout.  The referee signals a “short-arm” penalty by raising their arm at an angle of 45^o.

Lindsay Lohan: Sometimes, a wave is just a wave.

A most unfortunate conjunction of imagery: Adolf Hitler on Berlin's newly opened East-West Axis in his Mercedes-Benz 770 K Grosser Cabriolet F open tourer (W150; 1938-1943) in a parade marking his 50^th birthday, opposite the Technical High School, 20 April 1939 (left) and David Bowie in his Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100, 1963-1981) Pullman Landaulet, Victoria Station, London, 2 May 1976 (right).

Sometimes a wave is just an excuse.  The pop star David Bowie (1947-2016) understood he was an influential figure in music but on more than one occasion explained to interviewers: “I am not an original thinker”.  Trawling pop-culture for inspiration nevertheless served him well but he later came to regret dabbling with history slightly less recent.  Not impressed with the state of British society and its economy in the troubled mid-1970s, he was quoted variously as suggesting the country would benefit for “an ultra right-wing government” or “a fascist leader”.  Although he would later claim he was captivated more by the fashions (the long leather coats said to be a favorite) than the policies of the Third Reich, the most celebrated event of this period came in 1976 in what remains known as the "Victoria Station incident".  Mr Bowie staged a media event, arriving standing in an open Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet, recalling for many the way in which Hitler so often appeared in his 770 K.  Unfortunately, a photographer captured a shot in what the singer later claimed was “mid wave” and it certainly resembled a Nazi salute.  He later attributed all that happened during this stage of his career to too many hard drugs which had caused his interest in the aesthetics of inter-war Berlin to turn into an obsession with politics of the period.  All was however quickly forgiven and his audience awaited the next album which is an interesting contrast to the cancel culture created by the shark-feeding dynamic of the social media era.

Now, were a pop star to tell interviewers: “Britain could benefit from a fascist leader” and “I believe very strongly in fascism … Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars”, their future career prospects might be "nasty, solitary, brutish and short".  Despite that orthodoxy however, the multi-media personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) has expressed what seem to be pro-Hitler sentiments and been photographed wearing a "swastika T-shirt", even (briefly) offering them for sale on the (now apparently in abeyance) Yeezy website.  Rather than having him cancelled, Mr Ye's comments and products seem to have had at least a financial upside because in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) he stated: "...AND I MADE 40 MILLION THE NEXT DAY BETWEEN MY DIFFERENT BUSINESS. THERE'S I LOT OF JEWISH PEOPLE I KNOW AND LOVE AND STILL WORK WITH. THE POINT I MADE AND SHOWED IS THAT I AM NOT UNDER JEWISH CONTROL ANYMORE IN WAR YOU TAKE A COUPLE LOSES..."  That would seem to suggest that in the right circumstances, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) were right: "It doesn't matter what people are saying about you as long as they're saying something."