Final day of Spanish Lessons.

Finally, I've finished the Spanish tuition I started over two weeks ago. I don't feel like I can converse though I do recognise about 50% of what I hear. It's really been an ordeal being sat and taught in quite a traditional method though apparently my accent is quite good. Not really any compensation when your vocabulary is about ten words. Tomorrow, off to Quetzaltenango or something like that at least.

Something crossed my mind when I was about to leave India when I was reading Madness and Civilisation by Foucault and it crossed my mind earlier today again. It related to the fact that there was a 'cure' for leprosy in the 1960s-80s that appeared to have finally assisted with the irradication of the disease. This appeared to happen shortly after the publishing of Madness and Civilisation and for me personally it did spawn a conspiracy theory. Personally, I think certain families are subject to more covert regime action than others, most of which would not be of a criminal nature, and thus not be investigated, and to a degree I think that the concepts of mental illness are in place largely to discredit the sufferer from stating what may or may not have happened to them. I think the issues of citizenship are dealt with using bolder lip-service than most and there are significant improvements to be made in the developed world. The reason I state that in relation to leprosy is that Foucault states that the asylum was to a degree born from the forms of segregation that were used for lepers and even the same buildings then were used to house the mentally ill. What struck me as a possibility was that there could have just been a programme of genetic cleansing in Europe, a realisation that disease was a good form of regime management, so why not continue to use the asylum.

I didn't do any research of any note into the possibilities that I was considering and while I would state that facilitated leprosy or mental illness for the purposes of regime management could be a possibility, apparently leprosy only affects about 5% of the population which makes the chance of there having been one of Europe's first genocides - could this have taken place? If the 5% statistic from the unreliable wikipedia are correct then perhaps this could be a real possibility. May be if I was Israeli I would have learnt pretty much everything there is to know about genocide, I can't say. It is pretty much a twentieth century term for extermination of a religious or ethnic group although the longer history of mass extermination may reveal more telling aspects of humanity.

For some time this struck me as being rather unusual in relation to Foucault and I don't imagine that the paranoid thought of leprosy being used for regime management purposes is ever going to gain any credibility - it's most likely the 5% with the susceptible genes sunk towards the bottom of the caste system and in some respects may have remained there. May be the Christian action in South India to release those who still experience the problems related to caste is under-rated in terms of it's importance - could there be more? Perhaps there could be greater appreciation of Indian culture for not irradicating leprosy as it was in Europe - through extermination?

I guess this genocide may have permeated the culture having been seen as a 'popular move' and led to other programmes of genetic cleansing across Europe which let me sadly say, may have had quite a significant level of support. Perhaps this should be one of the issues that is raised within Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust museum of what may have been the most unjust interpretation of evidence that has taken place in the history of humanity - that genetic cleansing was a positive process. It is perhaps a failing of contemporary journalism that programmes of genetic cleansing may be in place, however, we tend not to state that this may also have taken place in the UK and been a significant part of our history. If monuments to the dead are so important in our culture should we have some monuments to those who were possibly killed for the health of present populations? I guess this is some form of conspiracy that will not gain any support and while I think there could be some form of nominal process and perhaps I should only dedicate the two oak trees near the centre of Sarehole Mill Recreation ground in Hall Green Birmingham - because to be quite honest journalists don't seem to give a f**k about informing the public adequately and politicians seem content to leave us disconnected from our history and culture. I can't imagine anyone would care.....

On the subject of leprosy-like activity being used to manage regimes, I've found some classic 80s fashion on youtube - Did Daryl Hall and John Oates look good to you at the time? Oh, you wish not to be a leper too, eh?