Oh! We Never Learn From History.

A week when Summer really means Summer. At least here in the UK, when a heatwave pushes the temperature into the thirties Celcius, which is well into the nineties Farenheight. Young men go about topless, proudly displaying their bronze muscular torsos, most of the others wear loose tops, and a small minority go about in business suits and ties. 

Ah, a reminder of Singapore on a typical weekday in 1997. The crowded sidewalks of Orchard Street were populated with almost a monotonously-dressed crowd of young male office employees with white, open-neck shirts, yet quite a number also wore ties - in hot and humid 38-degree Celcius air. The same sort of fashion I also saw in 1993 at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on the ushering of the Sabbath - a uniformly-dressed crowd of black pants and white, open-neck shirts and each male head topped with a black yarmulka, there were some older men also wearing ties in the warm evening. Indeed, in my mind, as the tie is perceived as of very English origin, I have wondered whether the 144 years of British colonial rule over Singapore and the thirty-year British Mandate over Palestine had the same effect on the indigenous dress sense.

Meanwhile, a London-bound Eurostar train breaks down just outside Brussels, and our own train companies cancelling a third of all its services, especially here in the South where the temperature is at its peak, thanks to the threat of rail heat-expansion and buckling. Not to worry. With the threat of airline pilots and airport ground staff's looming strikes throwing cold water on the joys of those thousands anticipating their holidays overseas, indeed, Britain is heading for a golden future under the administration of our new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

Oh, the optimism! Like the human pride being the motive for the building of a city with the Tower of Babel so to reach into the heavens. Er, no. God had other plans and all was left was a stump of masonry rising as a low mound from the valley floor. A lot more recently, the floating glory of the British Empire, the Titanic, a ship which was the very zenith of Empire, and it was also said that not even God was able to sink, yet went down on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 15th April 1912. All by being struck by a huge lump of frozen water.

And how could I forget reading about the great Babylonian Empire of ancient times? What majestic power it had over the Jews during the fifth century BC! A kingdom of grand royalty, power and glory, which boasted the best military force in the world at the time, under which the Jews were a captive minor subordinate. Yet this great empire is no more, it has been extinct for the last 2,500 years, yet the Jew lives on, flourishing to this day. Therefore I had a sense of reverential respect as I watched a crowd of Orthodox Jews who were singing, dancing and praying at the Western Wall one Friday evening in 1993. How I revelled in the experience. Then a year later, in 1994, I found myself standing amid a thick crowd of Jews at Jaffa Street, out on a political protest against their Government giving consent to a Palestinian issue concerning East Jerusalem.

As I stood within the courtyard fronting the Wall, I became an object of disdain by one Jewish family who was standing nearby. I was bothered by their scowl, so I asked a passing young Jewish man to ask the family if there is a problem. There was. I was carrying my camera strapped over my shoulder on their Sabbath. To them, I was "working" even if I couldn't take any more pictures due to the post-sunset darkness. Or the time I watched a group of devout Jews throwing a few stones at a nearby TV cameraman for filming on the Sabbath. Indeed, Babylon, with its optimistic greatness, glory and power, is long gone, but among the Jews to this day, laws and judiciary customs go right back to the time of the Exodus, which long preceded the rise of Babylon.

History tells us that we learn nothing from history!

The reason for all these downfalls of pride, ambition and optimism is not difficult to understand. They are all opposed to walking in humbleness before God.

Jews crowd the Western Wall,  taken 1994.

As for me, I agree with the most devout of Brexiteers for a safe and secure place to live. I too want to continue to live out my days free from any threat of war, disease or starvation. I too, wish to see laws established to protect each citizen from being victims of crime and fraud, to see laws set up against computer hacking which could clear the victim's bank account without consent, a form of wrongdoing from which I was close to being a victim myself just recently.

But what I don't agree on is this want of an independent, sovereign State based on national pride and optimism for a "golden future" as that promised by Johnson and his supporters. In other words, for Britain to become a latter-day Babylon - an empire built on human and nationalistic greatness. The spin-off from that attitude is a nationwide snobbery shown towards foreigners. The quest for imperialism, that sense of arrogance and the smug superiority on full display towards the indigenous of the colonised land. Of course, this worldview has been thriving throughout history, including the Darwinian philosophy of the rise of the "master race" of Nazi ideology, with its resulting Holocaust slaying millions of "inferior races" such as Jews, gipsies, and other races which did not match their ideal for an advanced society.

Christians who are well acquainted with the Bible would rate the Babylonian Empire as a desperately wicked kingdom, especially when their forces killed and captured other states and nations, such as Egypt and Tyre and of course, Israel with its capital, Jerusalem, the City of David. Such a glorious city was razed to the ground in 586 BC and its inhabitants, including its king, was led away to Babylon. It was there where the Jews began to settle at their new home, a phenomenon which led to the rise of the Diaspora, still very much active during the days of Jesus Christ and the setting for the birth of various churches.

Although long extinct, the Babylonians had far greater respect for the Jews than the modern-day Nazis. The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II, actually promoted a Jew to be Prime Minister, the second greatest individual of the Empire, after the king himself. Furthermore, three more Jews were also promoted to be the PM's assistants. Indeed, the lives of these men had a big impact on the empire, just like another Jew, Joseph, who was known to weep aloud in public along with all his hugging and embracing of other men, yet single-handedly rescued the whole of ancient Egypt from a severe, seven-year famine.

Joseph, along with Abraham, Moses, King David, and others had that one special ingredient which made them truly great. Their faith in God and their humbleness in walking before him. That what made them great, rather than imperialistic power. There is a world of a difference between a man like Joseph and Adolf Hitler. Joseph knew his standing before God. Like his ancestor Abraham, he saw himself as dust and ashes compared to God's holiness, just as David perceived himself as a flea, the smallest creature seen with the naked eye, or a dead leaf blown away by the wind.

By contrast, Adolf Hitler exalted himself, as did his predecessor Haman. The latter was promoted to a Persian Prime Minister by its king in the 4th century BC but was later hanged in public shame, after exalting himself above the Jews, and his plan to initiate his version of the Holocaust. Likewise, Adolf Hitler committed suicide, and despite his racial superiority resting on Darwinian principles, he went down defeated and suffered the worst kind of humiliation imposed on any national leader.

Fortunately, Boris Johnson is not at all like Adolf Hitler! His goal is merely to take Britain out of the European Union, so the United Kindom will enjoy independent sovereignty afterwards. On principle, there is nothing wrong with that. The UK has the means to enjoy the blessing of God as a sovereign nation providing two conditions are met:

1. To humble itself before God and allowing to see how it stands before God's holiness. This includes national repentance, a repudiation of Darwinism in favour of Divine Creation, to trust in Jesus Christ for salvation and to walk humbly before God. And humbleness towards God cannot accommodate snobbery or any sense of national, racial or ethnic superiority.

2. Respect for the Jew, with Israel seen as God's representative earthly nation, and as such, God's deputy for the world. This includes the recognition that when Jesus returns, he will set up his reign on the throne of his father David in Jerusalem, and not at Buckingham Palace in London!

But I doubt whether any of this would happen. That is the reason why I'm pessimistic over Brexit. The nation if far from national repentance. Rather, it's looking to pride in its sovereignty, self-confidence, optimism and self-glorification. And with Darwin's evolutionary theory as a bedrock for all philosophies and academic knowledge, rather than to acknowledge God and his creative powers, he will be tossed aside into the bin of myth, along with any concept of Intelligent Design. As evolution continues to be pumped out to the public from the TV and radio, along with newspapers, magazines and textbooks, this theory will be so ingrained in the psyche that any idea of a Creator God will be held up for public ridicule.

I don't believe Britain will ever become like Nazi Germany of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the idea of eugenics had its origins here in England. Charles Darwin supported it. But it was his cousin Francis Galton who actively promoted it. The Germans picked up the idea and put it into practice years afterwards.

Here in England, eugenics is alive and well! It's practised every day here in Britain. I'm talking about elective abortion and the encouragement by doctors for all fetuses conceived with Down's Syndrome, spina-bifida, or any other abnormality, to be aborted. Willfully forgetting that this fetus is already a human being who will one day contribute well to society, as it's already demonstrated.

As I see the day of Brexit approaching (on Halloween - is this an omen?) I try to take the divine worldview rather than a human one. And this does not leave me with much optimism.