WHY THIS FILM?
Do you remember the old Smothers Brothers song about the chocolate? “I fell into a vat of chocolate.” “Oh, that’s awful, Dickie. What did you do?” “I yelled “fire” when I fell into the chocolate.” “Why did you yell fire when you fell into the chocolate?” “Because no one would come if I yelled “chocolate!”
I’m yelling “fire” because no one would come if I yelled “freedom.” My research on 7 books has led me to the inescapable conclusion that our liberty is imperiled. Through films and books, I am trying to point out the flames and causes of the fire so that it can be put out, once and for all. You will recognize what I’m talking about because you know it very well. One fundamental, underlying element is added, and that is Celtic Europe.
By writing, I am seeing history very clearly and it’s not what I’ve been taught. Parks, tapestry, language and religion - following these four threads has brought us to brick walls and deep voids, time and time again. But somehow these threads have all wound back together into remarkably clear answers.
It started with the parks. How did public parks first occur? The Lake Michigan home where I grew up is now a national park – that was my first book. Slovenia’s parks are dotted with amazing alpine lodges. Everyone uses Paris parks as their living room. In the Champagne region, parks have fairgrounds. How is that Budapest has one whole island in the Danube that is a park – with thermal baths? How does all that fit together?
Why does Cracow have the biggest collection of Flemish tapestry in the world?
Tapestry has taken us behind the scenes. We drove behind the Iron Curtain in Poland in a friend’s Opel in 1987 and ended up with a car full of broken glass from a break-in. The next morning our hosts at the tapestry workshop gave us a wonderful tour of the looms and a sumptuous lunch – and we drove away all the way back to Graz in a cleaned-out car with a new wood panel they had miraculously installed.
In Prague we were assigned to a woman lawyer who on later trips told us our every move had been watched in 1987 because no one could figure out why we were there. Only much later she described to us how she had been in Prague when the Russian tanks rolled in 1968 and how her husband had been imprisoned for 17 years as a dissident. When we were unable to book reservations for a hotel in later years, she managed it for us – on the very day Václav Havel was inaugurated into office.
Language, the third thread, enabled us to travel in these ways that would otherwise have been impossible. A conversance in French, German and Slovenian enabled us to navigate, but also showed us worlds of beauty and bright lights that had been characterized as grim, dirty and dark. By slicing through language barriers, we have seen how connected and related Europe really is.
Religion is the 4th strand, but not confronting it will keep the world crippled. I’ll pose these questions: Why are women treated as second class citizens today – it’s because of religion. It’s written into the doctrine: Eve and original sin, women as sinners and the reason for banishment from the garden, women as the gates of hell. Why are there no Christian goddesses? Why are there no women in the Christian hierarchy? Why are there no mothers, daughters and sisters in the family of Christian deities - why only father and son? Is a god who sacrifices his son worthy of worship and praise – or should he be denounced for the most egregious act of all - killing his own child. Why have Caesar’s actions not been called into question for the slaughter and enslavement of Europe’s resident population? Why is the Roman Empire referenced as a civilization when it has only taken credit for work done by others? Why has Christianity not been called to account for burning thousands upon thousands of women at the stake? Why are Roman ruins still vaunted all over Europe? Why aren’t Europe’s Celtic families recognized - the Franks, the Burgundians, the Venetians, the Etruscans, the Parisii, the Norisii, the Galls?
The pain of this subject matter has its counterbalance of knowing our ancestors were not barbarians, but an accomplished, caring family network that defended its people from the centuries of attack by those who would enslave it. Slavery is not a figment of the distance past, nor has it been limited to black-skinned brothers and sisters. The old concept needs to be flipped on its head to show a very small group who impeccably covers its tracks. They can be identified by their gender and skin color, and by their initiation rites that define greatness in terms of atrocities committed.
