Brussels Summer Summits

Queuing with my work-lunch-sandwich at the counter of the local supermarket, I’m browsing the “Summer-Bestsellers!”- rack next to the chewing gum and mobile pre-paid cards.  A title stands out amidst the cooking and fitness books : “l’étrange suicide de l’Europe” (“the strange death of Europe”) .  Another WWI book? No, a current affairs book, apparently, about the transformation of Europe through migration.  Leafing through the book, reading some paragraphs here & there, depression and guilt descend upon me.  I read how my generation of Europeans is “squandering the only home we Europeans have”, how we are betraying the world that has been bequeathed to us by our forebears.   Here and now in the local supermarket in this European neighbourhood of Brussels, however, the world still turns : the supermarket staff of various descent is as friendly and efficient as ever, around me the lively bustle of ambitious eurocrats, busy business people , excited  tourists and giggling teenagers  (all of various descents) belies any intimations of an imminent death. 

The early summerdays in Brussels are often filled with summits – this year we had the European migration summit, the NATO summit, … Summit-time means that streets are cordoned off and black limousines speed by,  enveloped in a continuous buzz of police sirens and flickering blue lights.  One of those barricaded hotels with VIP summit guests looks out over a square with a nice little park where I like to take my lunch break walks.   The little park is quite a way off from the North Station (“BXLS Calais”) where many migrants gather, hoping to catch a clandestine ride en route for the promised land (UK).  Nevertheless, in the little park, too, a few people have now taken up semi-permanent residence.  Each occupying separate corners. One has built a temporary home with cardboard under a tree - he mostly sleeps during the day. Another has chosen a bench - orderly stowing his possessions beneath it in the morning - at noon he often sits there reading.  In a single glance, a VIP guest standing at the hotel window could take in the European parliament in the distance and, almost under his or her nose, the park with its migrant residents.

Of Ferment & Fragmentation (or: Historical Confusions)

Discovering Late Antiquity in Books

Once upon a time I would read history books with smug complacency, standing safely on the solid shore of peaceful times.   Now I anxiously look for parallels between past turmoil and current discontents, wondering what lessons, if any, we can draw. 

The history of Late Antiquity in the Mediterranean world makes for spellbinding reading - and for ponderous brooding, too.  With hindsight, it was a time of structural and irrevocable change. One can only guess what contemporaries made of it all – caught as they were in the midst of ferment  and fragmentation. 

   

In the West: mass migrations (1) followed by an utter fragmentation of the established order (2).

 “[in this] kind of no man’s land where previous structures had broken down, [the local elites] were caught between trying to maintain a remembered lifestyle (3) while coming to terms with their barbarian neighbours.”    

    

In the Eastern Mediterranean: intense religious ferment & competition. Surprisingly long lasting pagans and neo-platonic philosophers. Resilient Jews. Many new strands of Christians - ascetics in the desert, holy men on pillars, warmongering monks, fierce bishops engaged in violent theological debates.  Equally violent clashes between the (Eastern) Roman empire and Sasanian Persia.  And then, in the 7^th century, with the Islamic conquests yet another new set of rulers.

One shudders at the historical facts of perennial wars & massacres & feuds. 

But one looks enraptured at the art historical remains. Enraptured, and confused, too,  by this multi-faceted world with so many cultural overlaps  – Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Aramaic, Coptic, Arabic, ….   (4).   

(I look at an image, trying to fit it into the illustrated (western) art historical timeline in my head, and fail.  What looks like antique roman might be  6^th century, or 10^th century... it might have been found in Syria, or in Constantinople, or ….  ) 

Discovering Late Antiquity at the Brussels Cinquantenaire museum

Even on a black& white picture in a second hand book , there was no escaping from his gaze.  A marble head with worried creases, and with large eyes. His eyes were watching … what? Horror, or Eternity?  When I could at last unlock myself from his staring eyes, I read the legend in small print: Proto-Byzantine head, 5^th century, Turkey , now at the Brussels Cinquantenaire museum. 

So, sleeting rain or not, lazy Saturday morning or not – outside I hurried, catching the first tram that came along, then briskly walking to the museum which was just opening its doors. 

On my way to my proto-byzantine head, I met Greek Gods, Roman senators, a mysterious oriental god and  ….  catching my breath…. stopping in my tracks , I stared at a huge classical mosaic floor with vivacious hunting scenes. Rome? Pompei?   No, Apamea  (5) – Syria, 5^th century - by an artist who may have worked on the Great Palace mosaics in Constantinople.

On the next floor, I found my Proto-Byzantine head.  Behind him, on the wall: mosaics with dazzling geometrical patterns (from the Apamea synagogue, tells the notice).   

On the floor behind him,  mosaics with mythological scenes, dancing girls, and, lo and behold: there is Odysseus finding his Penelope (floor from the Neo Platonic school in Apamea, according to the notice).

Apamea, so I read in the guide, is one of Northern Syria’s mysterious “dead cities” with however a rich archeologic heritage which lives on – having survived wars & earthquakes & fires. 

And what does the web tell about Apamea's current fate ? Satellite photos showing hundreds of recent pit-holes pointing to intense illegal excavations & looting. 

Commentators lamenting that Apamea’s  rich late antique footprint, having survived for millennia, is now at risk of being wiped out for ever.

Discovering new Memorials in the Brussels streets 

Still under the impression of these dazzling late antique images and pondering the fate of Apamea, I decided to walk all the way back home.  Through streets with the usual, familiar Belgian history markers – there, on the corner, one of the many  1^st world war memorials with allegorical heroics and fading names – not a village,  not a city borough In Belgium without its monument to commemorate the fallen of ”1914-1918”. 

But over there, what is that?   I’m confused by a shiny black new monument, planted firmly in the middle of a small square – it’s a strange mixture of both vaguely familiar and exotic forms. I cross over to read the gilded inscriptions , and gasp at “genocide”.  

It’s a “1915” memorial, commemorating the syriac genocide by the ottoman empire. Later I look it up on the web, this particular memorial has been inaugurated in 2015, by the local mayor and by the visiting patriarch of the Syrian-Orthodox church of Antioch. The web also tells me there are about 20.000 Syriacs in Belgium.  And once you know these things - signs multiply.  On yet another walk, in another Brussels neighbourhood – I spot another “1915” memorial, this one erected by the Armenian community in Belgium (6) 

So clearly, these are diaspora communities determined not to forget, not to be wiped out for ever without leaving a trace.     

   

More confusion and melancholy in the notes

(1)    Every arrow indicates a people on the move  ... so many arrows swarming over the map of the western Roman empire  - and yet the paradox remains that these newly arrived peoples in fact admired the Roman empire and swiftly converted to Christianity.  Depending on the historian’s own affiliation, these migrations are seen in history books either as hostile invasions or as ill managed natural flows of people. In any case, amongst the range of historical tactics to deal with migrations, the startled contemporary reader recognizes present policies: defence of outside borders, diplomacy & subsidies to keep people from moving across borders, resettlement agreements.


(2)    “Massive barbarian settlements which so fragmented the western empire” […]  The question may indeed be asked why these groups, once settled, did not integrate fully and simply became absorbed. But they had by then begun to develop their own identity, and the answer may be that it was simply too late” (Averil Cameron in  “The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity”  


(3)    Ah, the exquisite melancholy of that phrase, “trying to maintain a remembered lifestyle”.


(4)    “the variety of Christian and pagan practices in Edessa, where a Middle platonic intellectual culture was mixed with a Christian scholastic culture and active pagan cults.”[…]” Syriac culture […] with a distinctive position between the Roman and Persian worlds, […] on the fringes of empire, with a unique relationship to local Judaisms and paganisms”.  Philip Wood in chapter 6 of The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity


(5)    A flash-timeline of Apamea  : Roman conquest (Pompey the Great) in 63 BC, devastating earthquake in 115 AD, rebuilt in 2nd C , seat of neo-platonic school in 4th C, capital city of Syria Secunda in the Byzantine empire, new earthquakes in 528, rebuilt by Justinius, sacked by Persians in 573 & 613, conquered by the Arabs in 638, again earthquakes in 12th C , since then mostly deserted,  western archeologic excavations in the 1930s . Following “agreements then in place” (why? On what basis? What role did Belgium ever play in the Middle East?  ) Belgian archaeologists moved some excavated mosaics to the Brussels museum, where parts were ruined by two fires in 1944 & 1946 (what kind of fires? War? Accident? )


(6)    a superficial web search yields an extract from a local Brussels council hotly debating whether or not the Armenian 1915 monument, erected in 2004 , should be destroyed . According to its opponents it commemorates  “ an imperialist invention” .   
But back to older massacres and displacements : Late Antiquity historians dilignetly ift through evidence and documentation, trying to gauge the partisanship of the sources. To what extent did Christians persecute pagans and Jews (and vice versa, of course) ? What was official policy, what was popular violence? 
 “bands of monks […] destroying synagogues and ambushing Jews […] [versus] the laws of 423 that prevented Jewish, Samaritan , and pagan places of worship from being attacked […] . “ 
 What caused the demise of the Northern Syrian cities? Epidemics or Earthquakes? The new Islamic rule? Changing trade routes?    Or droughts & c climate change?  (7)


(7)    The climate scientist Trouet has shown how droughts got the Huns moving and were thus behind  ‘barbarian invasions ’ into Roman territory, and ultimately behind the  fall of the (western) Roman empire . In a recent interview she also linked climate change with the present Syrian refugee crisis - droughts and failed harvests accelerated migration from the countryside to the Syrian cities, further increasing social tensions – and thus acting as an additional catalyst for the civil war.  

Musical Messengers in Brussels

“why is it that we are unable to say – as we must have expected to say – Poor Miss Marsalles?  It is the Dance of the Happy Shades that prevents us, it is that one communiqué from the other country where she lives.”(1)

Perhaps it is not even that outrageous, the fact that I secretly consider them as urban angels.  After all, amidst the urban stress & struggles, they do are messengers from another country, a country where harmony rules.  I’m referring to musicians here, musicians travelling about town in particular, transporting their instruments, carrying cases betraying the form of their instruments.  

You can sometimes spot them, struggling to get on the tram through narrow doors, cautiously handling a bulky black case with the sensual contours of, say,  a double bass.  Or you can see them cycling, one hand on the handle-bars, another hand used to balance their instrument.  Some musicians can move around more discreetly, clutching an elegant violin case, or one of those slender oblong cases that leave the on-looker guessing: maybe a clarinet? 

They always look happy, or perhaps it’s me, always imagining musicians to be happy, having their music.  In any case, they always console me, these messengers from another country, magically removing all cares & perplexities, like a sudden happy whiff of Mozart drifting through the air.

So what a marvellous otherworldly gift it was for urban flâneurs of all stripes, this joint initiative of three musical organisations (2),  to have musicians & ensembles popping up & playing at unexpected venues in the city : a shopping arcade, a swimming pool, a home for the elderly , a cellar, …. 

The lack of decorum gave a paradoxical, moving intimacy to the music, creating a secret understanding between musicians and listeners.  None of the classical musical rituals or dressing codes, only musicians and their haphazard audiences, grateful for the unexpected enchantment.

Leaning against the wall of a shopping arcade, I was captivated by the joyful intensity of four  young people so manifestly enjoying making music together.  Tourists & shoppers were flowing by, audiences formed and dissolved while the music worked its wonders.  Only the security guards remained impassive, dutifully scrutinising all passers-by (a by now familiar sign that not all is well in the world).

Musicians never seem daunted by ordinary language problems. The Japanese double bass  player put up quite a show with just a couple of French words and an immense talent on the contra-bass, the Japanese and European pianist duo played a vigorous quatre-mains without need for translation. 

Neither were the musicians taken aback by their irregular audience in the old-fashioned chapel of a catholic home for the elderly : lavishly adorned wooden statues of saints &martyrs, blissfully smiling painted angels, silently staring exceedingly old people in wheelchairs, still vigorous elderly people oozing loneliness (poignantly excited by the unexpected excitement), young families with kids, hipsters, ...

And then – a concert in an indoor swimming pool, on the third floor of an inner city building.  Climbing the stairs I heard vague intimations of paradise  - the deep sounds of faggot & contra faggot, the alternately mellow  & pizzicato sound of strings. But little was I prepared for the magical marriage of music with the echoes & smells of an indoor swimming pool. The melodies gracefully bouncing off the water & the walls. The melancholy vision of musicians on a raft in the pool – their graceful silhouettes against the Brussels sky. 

So yes, what a blessed gift, what an amazing grace it is, this reminder of music & harmony in an imperfect world.

(1)    Alice Munro – dance of the happy shades

(2)    United Music of Brussels  (Belgian National Orchestra, La Monnaie, Bozar)