Dear M,

it is, indeed, Persian. It sounds like:

Bandeh-ye guush be-farmaan-e-to, sarvar.

The slave's ear is on your order, overlord.

--MSK

where all us suburban Americans first learned about the Middle East

Speak for yourself, dear - my parents limited our non-PBS TV time. (And you're dating yourself!)

"Speak for yourself, dear - my parents limited our non-PBS TV time. (And you're dating yourself!)"

So you learned all your stuff about Britain from Monty Python!

I'm not dating myself -- I watched it on much later reruns (true).

Well, actually I did "date myself", starting about age 12, but let's not go there.

The slave's ear is on your order?

Dear Klaus,

how would you translate it?

That sentence is a literal translation (of what it sounds like). And, obviously, it means something like:

The slave's ear is (open for, awaiting, ready to receive, hearing nothing but) your order, master.

There's no verb in the sentence. Quite a lot of languages can do that ... and both Persian and Arabic are among them.

--MSK

Sounds like a clear idiomatic turn of phrase.

Sadly no one has You-Tubed the next scene where he and she try to communicate, she in Farsi/Persian, he in English until he wishes her to speak English.

He never got her a visa, and I always wondered how he maintained Air Force security clearance with a wife from Baghdad.

thanks for explaining. I remember a bit of Engrish in a Hong Kong movie: He has to beat his leg. I hope it made sense in Cantonese.

So you learned all your stuff about Britain from Monty Python!

Umm, yeah, so what's your point?

(SPeaking of which, I should really go back and watch The Life of Brian as a grownup, with some hope of getting the jokes.)

Especially the ones about the infighting between the Palestinian, I mean Judean resistance groups.

Especially the ones about the infighting between the Palestinian, I mean Judean resistance groups.

I might be whoooshed here, but it was actually a play on the fragmentation of Marxist parties in Britain in particular ( but really everywhere ). Something I got immediately as a youngster, having experienced that sort of thing first hand ;).

Dear anon,

well ... while you're not totally off the mark, the names of the various Jewish liberation groups in "The life of Brian" are more reminiscent of the various Palestinian groups at the time: Judean People's Front, Popular Front, Front for the Liberation of Judea, etc.

In general, that infighting went on across the globe among leftist groups. Indeed, the worst fights I witnessed were those among people who differed on very little and, what's worse, the differences were often about issues totally removed from the immediate reality at hand, like the distribution of cabinet posts AFTER THE REVOLUTION ...

But anyone who's done some reading of the Palestinian politics in the 60s & 70s will smile when they watch the movie ...

--MSK

PS: Matthew, why haven't you updated the "I dream of Jeannie" Wiki entry yet???

Fragmentation like that occurs wherever conviction takes hold. Protestants, Jews, Orthodox Christians, Feminists, Maoists, Leninist-Trotskyists, Muslims, Buddhists, not to mention the fragmentation of the House music scene in the 90s. It's actually amazing that the Catholic Church has managed to stay the size it is.

And the joke about the shipwrecked Jew who builds two synagogues to have one he won't set his foot in.

To claim my tribal due, the ridiculous factionalization, while common to all insurgent ideologies, the Emerald Island rebels are directly ridiculed with a phrase in Life of Brian:

When the JPF or PFJ self-identify during a resolution being drafted, they add "brackets officials brackets", a clear jab at the IRA factions (provisionals and officials).

I always wondered how he maintained Air Force security clearance with a wife from Baghdad.

We were best buddies with Baghdad then, no?

Dear Matthew,

funny, I always thought it was a reference to the PFLP and PFLP (GC).

But yours makes more sense.

--MSK

"We were best buddies with Baghdad then, no?"

Not really. Jeannie and Tony were married about 1969. Iraq came through its Abdul Kareem Qassem radical period circa 1964 when it trashed the Baghdad Pact, and was in the early Baath stages. At that time, the USA had no diplomatic relations with Iraq.

nah, much as the 'where's the popular front' joke works for the factionalism of both the IRA and ANM, as a near contemporary Brit i'm sure the ref is to the Trots / Leninists/ Marxists schisms of the late 70s in the UK (google international marxists, tariq ali, galloway hitchens etal if you really must..)

(+ re Palestinian Pythonesque moments, I was once messing around with some friends impersonating the Ministry of Silly Walks scene along a (we thought) empty road on the edge of a Palestinian village .. when we heard laughter from a balcony and looked up to be greeted with : 'this parrot is deceased'.. )

Hm. The Palestinian Communist Party (PCP, now PPP) was, in turn, Stalinist and then just generally a pro-Moscow drone; the (P)DFLP I think laid claim to Maoism for a while. But were there ever any Palestinian Trotskyites? There must have been, but perhaps they splintered into nothing too fast for anyone to notice.

Actually, the only Arab countries I know of that has had significant -- well, relatively speaking -- Trotskyite movements are Algeria (Hanoun's PT) and possibly Morocco (Ilal Amam?). And that must certainly be because of the French influence.

Does anyone know, were there, are there, Israeli Trotskyites?

Well, there used to be plenty of Jewish Communists once, and I reason they were not Stalinist, naturally. If there are any today, not a clue.

Arnold Wesker's trilogy of plays I'm talking about Jerusalem is about a family of Moscow-faithful Jewish Communists before and after WWII. At the end, only the mother clings on to Moscow and Communism. Ideology disintegration as family disintegration. Horrorshow stuff.

v, sorry, diverged from Larry Hagman badly, so my final pennyworth (I'm a somewhat baffled observer rather than a vet of the battles when it comes to the splintering Mxt groups, btw)

@ Klaus/alle: google for 'Against the stream' for a contemp account of Arab nationalist/Zionist splits in the PCP in the late 40s from a Trotskyist view

+ in relation to Zionism + Trotskyism, wernercoh.com/Trotsky, on Tony Cliff (founder of Socialist Worker Party, born in Palestine, moved to Britain in 40s)

IIRC, the post 67 PCP (much more of a West Bank 'local' party cf others) was the first faction to promote a two state solution, suggesting no Trotsky influence, while DFLP + rejectionists in gen show the most infl. Mao's guerilla warfare theories v influ on PFLP and DFLP also

(+ To clarify, if needed, I was referring to UK left wing schisms, not Palestinian ones in my comment above.)

there used to be plenty of Jewish Communists once, and I reason they were not Stalinist, naturally. If there are any today, not a clue.

There are a few - the particular Jewish Totskyite of my acquaintance is living in the Bay Area these days. He is more than a bit didactic, so I can't say I've had the urge to meet his other Jewish Trotskyite friends. One Seder with him was quite enough for me, and I am generally amused by such things.

How big is the Trotskyite movement these days? No clue, but others around here are better placed to comment on that than I am.

How big is the Trotskyite movement these days?

It must be very big, considering the number of fourth internationals they have.